Bleeding Edge

16

Waiting on her office doorstep is a case of wine, which when she sees its label causes her to observe, “Well, holy shit.” An ’85 Sassicaia? A case? Must be a mistake. There seems to be a note, however—“Turns out you saved us some money too,” unsigned, yet who else can it be but Rocky, the ol’ ethnoenologist? Good anyhow for enough guilt to get her back into the increasingly problematic hwgaahwgh/hashslingrz books.

Something today strikes her as odd. One of those nagging patterns that’s not always welcome because it means uncompensated overtime, but what else is new. She puts on some coffee, has another look at the trail between hwgaahwgh and hashslingrz’s account in the Emirates, and after a while sees what it is. A persistent shortfall, and of some size. As in somebody is tapping the pipeline. What’s curious is the amount. It seems to match another sum, a puzzling persistent surplus related to the cash component of Ice’s purchase of hwgaahwgh.com. The checks are being deposited into a business operating account at a bank on Long Island.

Since going rogue, Maxine has acquired a number of software kits, courtesy of certain less reputable clients, which have bestowed on her superpowers not exactly falling within Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, such as thou shalt not hack into anybody’s bank account, thou shalt leave that sort of thing for the FBI. She roots around in a couple of desk drawers, finds an unlabeled disc in a sickly green metallic shade, and well before lunch is into Lester Traipse’s private affairs. Sure enough, the mystery shortfall is exactly balanced by a sum being regularly transferred on into one of Lester’s personal accounts.

Expressively exhaling, “Lester, Lester, Lester.” Well. All that nondisclosure talk, just smoke to cover what he was really up to, something way more dangerous. Lester discovered the invisible underground river of cash flowing through his soon-to-be-defunct company and has been diverting a hefty chunk of Ice’s ghost payments from their fate as riyals over into some secret account of his own. Figuring he’s hit the big time.

So the other night at the karaoke joint, when he compared Gabriel Ice to a loan shark or a pimp, it was no idle figure of speech. Lester, endangered as a girl under a viaduct who’s been holding out on the man running her, desperate for any kind of help, was sending Maxine a distress signal in a code that, shame on her, she didn’t even bother to read…

And the hard part is that she knows better, knows that beneath the high-cap scumscapes created by the corporate order and celebrated in the media, there are depths where petty fraud becomes grave and often deadly sin. Certain types of personality get bent insanely out of shape, punishment is violent and—an anxious reflexive look at the clock on the wall—immediate. This guy might not know how much trouble he’s in.

She’s surprised when Lester picks up his mobile on the first ring. “You lucked out, this is the last call I was planning to take on this thing.”

“Changing your carrier service?”

“Shitcanning the instrument. I think there’s a tracking chip on it.”

“Lester, I’ve come across something kind of serious, we should meet. Leave your cell phone at home.” She can tell from his breathing that he knows what it is.

ETERNAL SEPTEMBER, dating from the high nineties, is a disused techies’ saloon tucked away between a barbershop and a necktie boutique half a block from a low-traffic station down one of the old IND lines.

“Some sentimental attachment,” Maxine looking around trying not to make a face.

“No, I’m figuring anybody who actually comes in here in the middle of the day is so without clue that we can talk safely.”

“You know you’re in trouble, right, so I don’t have to start in nagging about that.”

“I wanted to tell you that night at the karaoke, but…”

“Felix kept putting in. Was he monitoring you? Protecting you?”

“He heard about my run-in in the bathroom and figured he should’ve had my back, that’s all. I have to assume Felix is who he says he is.”

A familiar ring to this. No point arguing. He trusts Felix, it’s his lookout. “You have kids, Lester?”

“Three. One’ll be starting high school in the fall. Keep thinking my math is wrong. How about you?”

“Two boys.”

“You tell yourself you’re doing it for them,” Lester frowning. “As if it’s not bad enough to use them for an excuse—”

Right, right. “Then again, you’re not not doing it for them.”

“Look, I’ll pay it back. Sooner or later I would’ve. Is there some secure way for you to tell Ice that’s what I really want to do?”

“Even if he believes you, which he may not, it’s a lot of money… Lester. He’ll want back more than just what you stole, he’ll also want some vig, an aggravation fee, which could prove to be hefty.”

“Cost of fucking up,” quietly, no eye contact.

“I’ll take that as an OK on the exorbitant-interest clause, shall I?”

“You think you can deal this?”

“He doesn’t like me much. If it was high school I might get a little wistful, on the other hand Gabriel Ice, in high school…” shaking her head, why go there? “My brother-in-law works at hashslingrz, OK, I’ll see if I can pass a message.”

“Guess I’m the kind of greedy loser you’re always in court testifying about.”

“Not anymore, I’m decertified, Lester, out of forensics, the courts don’t know me.”

“And my fate is in your hands here? terrific.”

“Chill, please, people are staring. There was never going to be recourse for you in the straight world. The only help you’ll find now will be from some kind of outlaw, and I’m better than most.”

“So now I owe you a fee.”

“Do you see me waving invoices around here, forget it, maybe someday you’ll be in a position.”

“Don’t like freebies,” mutters Lester.

“Yeah, you’d rather steal it.”

“Ice stole it. I diverted it.”

“Exactly the kind of fine line that got me tossed out of the game and puts your own ass in danger now. You legal minds, I’m in awe.”

“Please,” this, to her surprise, not coming out really as glib as Maxine is used to, “make sure they know how sorry I am.”

“As kindly as I can put it, Lester, they don’t give a shit. ‘Sorry’ is for the local news channels. This is about crossing Gabriel Ice. He’s got to be very unhappy with that.”

She has said too much already and finds herself praying that Lester will not ask how much interest Ice is likely to charge. Because then, by her own code, post-CFE but just as unforgiving, she’ll have to say, “I hope he only wants it in U.S. dollars.” But Lester now, with enough else to worry about, only nods.

“You two do any business before he bought your company?”

“We only met the one time, but it was all over him then, like a smell. Contempt. ‘I have a degree, a couple billion, you don’t.’ He understands right away I’m not even a self-educated geek, just a guy from the mail room got lucky. Once. How can he let somebody like that get away with even $1.98?”

No. No, Lester, that’s not exactly it, is it. This is evasion she’s hearing, and not the tax kind either, more in the area of life-and-death. “There’s something you want to tell me,” gently, “but it’s worth your life if you do. Right?”

He looks like a little kid who’s about to start crying. “What else would it be? The money isn’t bad enough?”

“In your case I think not.”

“I’m sorry. We can’t go any further. It’s nothing personal.”

“I’ll see what I can do about the money.”

By which point they’re breezing for the exit, Lester ahead of her like a feather in an air current, escaped from a pillow, as if in some domestic dream of safety.

YES, WELL, then there’s still the videocassette Marvin brought. Sitting there on the kitchen table, as if plastic has suddenly figured out how to be reproachful. Maxine knows she’s been putting off watching it, with the same superstitious aversion as her parents had to telegrams back in the day. There’s a chance it could be business, and from bitter experience she can’t rule out practical jokes either. Still, if it’s too unpleasant to watch, maybe she can try to claim as business expenses the extra therapy sessions that might result.

Scream, Blacula, Scream, no, not exactly—a little more homemade. Opening with a jittery traveling shot out a car window. Late-afternoon winter light. The Long Island Expressway, eastbound. Maxine begins to grow apprehensive. Jumpcut to an exit sign—aahhh! Exit 70, this is going exactly where she was hoping it wouldn’t, yes another jump now to Route 27, and we are heading, you could say condemned, to the Hamptons. Who would dislike her enough to send her something like this, unless Marvin got the address wrong, which never happens, of course.

She’s relieved in a way to see it isn’t going to be the Hamptons of legend, at least. She has spent more time there than it was worth. This is more like Fringehampton, where the working population are often angry to the point of homicide because their livelihoods depend on servicing the richer and more famous, up to whom they must never miss a chance to suck. Time-battered houses, scrub pine, roadside businesses. No lights or decorations up, so the winter here must be in the deep and dateless vacancy after the holiday season.

The shot enters a dirt road lined with shacks and trailers, and approaches what at first seems like a roadhouse because every window is pouring light, people are wandering around in and out of the place, sounds of jollification and a music track including Motor City psychobilly Elvis Hitler, at the moment singing the Green Acres theme to the tune of “Purple Haze” and providing Maxine an unmeasured moment of nostalgia so unlikely that she begins to feel targeted personally.

The camera moves up the front steps and into the house, shouldering aside partygoers, through a couple of rooms littered with beer and vodka bottles, glassine envelopes, unmatched shoes, pizza boxes and fried chicken containers, on through the kitchen to a door and down into the basement, to a particular concept of the suburban rec room…

Mattresses on the floor, a king-size fake angora bedspread in a shade of purple peculiar to VHS tape, mirrors everyplace, in a far corner a foul dribbling refrigerator that also buzzes loudly, in a stammering rhythm, as if providing a play-by-play on the hijinks in progress.

A young man, medium-long haircut, naked except for a dirt-glazed ball cap, an erection pointed at the camera. A woman’s voice from outside camera range, “Tell them your name, baby.”

“Bruno,” almost defensive.

An ingenue in cowgirl boots and an evil grin, tattoo of a scorpion just above her ass, some time since her last shampoo, television screenlight reflecting off of a pale and zaftig body, introduces herself as Shae. “And this here is Westchester Willy, say hi to the VCR, Willy.”

Nodding hello at the edge of the frame is a middle-aged, out-of-shape party who from mug shots faxed up to her from John Street Maxine recognizes as Vip Epperdew. Fast zoom in on Vip’s face, with a look of undisguisable yearning, which he quickly tries to reset to standard party mode.

Gusts of laughter from topside. Bruno’s hand comes into the shot with a butane lighter and a crack pipe, and the threesome now become affectionate.

Jules and Jim (1962) it isn’t. Talk about double-entry bookkeeping! As erotic material, there are shortcomings, to be sure. Boy and girl quality could do with an upgrade, Shae is a jolly enough girl, maybe a little vacant around the eyes, Vip is years overdue for some gym time, and Bruno comes across as a horny little runt with a tendency to shriek and a dick, frankly, not big enough for the scenario, provoking expressions of annoyance from Shae and Vip whenever it approaches them for any purpose. Maxine is surprised to feel an unprofessional pulse of distaste for Vip, this needy, somehow groveling yup. If the other two are supposed to be worth the long schlep from Westchester, hours on the LIE, an addiction supposedly less negotiable than crack, not to their youth but to the single obvious thing their youth is good for, then why not kids who can pretend at least that they know what they’re doing?

But wait. She realizes these are yenta reflexes, like, please Vip, you can do so much better, so forth. Doesn’t even know him, already she’s criticizing his sex-partner choices?

Her attention drifts back into a shot of them getting dressed again while chatting animatedly. What? Maxine’s pretty sure she stayed awake, but it seems there was no money shot, instead, at some point, this has begun to diverge from canonical porn into, aaahh! improv! yes, they are now giving themselves lines, with deliveries of the sort that drive high-school drama teachers to drug abuse. Cut away to a close-up of Vip’s credit cards, all laid out like a fortune-teller’s tableau. Maxine pauses the tape, runs it back and forth, writing down what numbers she can, though the low resolution blurs some of them. The three get into a sub-vaudeville routine with Vip’s plastic, handing the cards back and forth, passing witty remarks about each one, all except for a black card that Vip keeps flashing at Shae and Bruno, causing them to recoil in exaggerated horror like teen vampires from a bulb of garlic. Maxine recognizes the fabled AmEx “Centurion” card, which you have to charge at least $250K a year on or they take it away from you.

“You guys allergic to titanium?” Vip playfully, “c’mon, you afraid there’s a chip in it, some lowlife detector gonna trigger a silent alarm on you guys?”

“Mall security don’t scare me,” Bruno all but whining, “been outrunning those ’suckers all my life.”

“I just show em some skin,” Shae adds, “they like that.”

Shae and Bruno head out the door, and Vip collapses back on the phony angora. Whatever he’s tired from, this ain’t an afterglow.

“On to the Tanger Outlets, fuck yeah,” cries Bruno.

“Anything we can get you, Vippy?” Shae over her shoulder with one of those Are-you-looking-at-my-ass-again? smiles.

“Off,” Vip mutters, “would be nice sometime.”

The camera stays on Vip till he turns to face it, resentful, reluctant. “Not too happy tonight, are we, Willy?” inquires a voice from behind it.

“You noticed.”

“You have the look of a man things are closing in on.”

Vip shifts his eyes away and nods, miserable. Maxine wonders why she ever quit smoking. The voice, something about the voice is familiar. Somehow she’s heard it on television, or something close to it. Not a specific person, but a type of voice, maybe a regional accent…

Where could this tape have come from? Somebody who wants Maxine to know about Vip’s household arrangements, some invisible Mrs. Grundy with a strong disapproval of threesomes? Or somebody closer, say more of a principal in the matter, maybe even a party to Vip’s skimming activities. One of those Disgruntled Employees again? What would Professor Lavoof say beyond his trademark, “There has to be a world off the books”?

Same old sad template here—by now there’s an unfriendly clock on Vip’s affairs, maybe he’s already kiting checks, wife and kids as usual totally without clue. Does it ever end well? Ain’t like it’s jewel thieves or other charming scoundrels, there’s nothing and nobody these fraudfeasors won’t betray, the margin of safety goes on dwindling, one day they’re overcome by remorse and either run away from their lives or commit terminal stupidity.

“Slow-Onset Post-CFE Syndrome, girl. Can’t you allow for at least one or two honest people here and there?”

“Sure. Someplace. Not on my daily beat, however, thanks all the same.”

“Pretty cynical.”

“How about ‘professional’? Go ahead, wallow in hippie thoughts if you want, meantime Vip is floating out to sea and nobody’s told Search and Rescue about it.”

Maxine rewinds, ejects, and, returning to realworld television programming, begins idly to channel-surf. A form of meditating. Presently she has thumbed her way into what seems to be a group-therapy session on one of the public-access channels.

“So—Typhphani, tell us your fantasy.”

“My fantasy is, I meet this guy, and we walk on the beach, and then we fuck?”

After a while, “And…”

“Maybe I see him again?”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. That’s my fantasy.”

“Yes Djennyphrr, you had your hand up? What’s your fantasy?”

“Being on top when we fuck? Like, usually he’s on top? My fantasy is, is I’m on top for a change?”

One by one, the women in this group describe their “fantasies.” Vibrators, massage oil, and PVC outfits are mentioned. It doesn’t take long. Maxine’s reaction is, is she’s appalled. This is fantasy? Feeuhnt-uh-see? Her sisters in Romance Deficiency Disorder, this is the best they can come up with for what they think they need? Schlepping through her bedtime routine, she takes a good look in the bathroom mirror. “Aaaahh!”

It is not hair or skin condition tonight so much as the Knicks second-color road jersey she’s wearing. With SPREWELL 8 on the back. Not even a gift from Horst or the boys, no, she actually went down to the Garden, stood in a line, and bought it for herself, paying retail, for a perfectly good reason, of course, having been in the habit of going to bed with nothing on, falling asleep reading Vogue or Bazaar, and waking up stuck to the magazine. There is also her mostly unavowed fascination with Latrelle Sprewell and his history of coach assault, on the principle that Homer strangling Bart we expect, but when Bart strangles Homer…

“Obviously,” she remarks now to her reflection, “you are doing much, much better than those public-access losers. So… Makseenne! what’s your fantasy?”

Um, bubble bath? Candles, champagne?

“Ah-ah? forgot that stroll by the river? all right if I just step over to the toilet here, do some vomiting?”

SHAWN NEXT MORNING is tons of help.

“There’s this… client. Well, not really. Somebody I’m worried about. He’s in twenty kinds of trouble, his situation is dangerous, and he won’t let it go.” She does a recap on Vip. “It’s depressing the way I keep running into the same scenario time and again, every chance these clowns get to choose, they always bet on their body, never on their spirit.”

“No mystery, quite common in fact…” He pauses, Maxine waits, but that seems to be it.

“Thanks, Shawn. I don’t know what my obligations are here. It used to be I didn’t care, whatever they got coming, they deserve. But lately…”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t like what’s going to happen, but I’d feel bad ratting this guy out to the cops too. Which is what led me to wonder could I just pick your brain a little. Was all.”

“I know what you do for a living, Maxine, I know it’s all ethical trip- wires, and I don’t like to put in. Do I. OK. Listen anyway.” Shawn tells her the Buddhist Parable of the Burning Coal. “Dude is holding this burning-hot coal in his hand, obviously suffering a lot of pain. Somebody comes by—‘Whoa, excuse me, isn’t that a burning-hot coal in your hand, there?’

“‘Ooh, ooh, ow, man, yes and like, like it really hurts, you know?’

“‘I can see that. But if it’s making you suffer, why do you keep holding on to it?’

“‘Well, duh-uhh? ’cause I need to, don’t I—aahhrrgghh!’

“‘You’re… into pain? you’re a nutcase? what is it? Why not just let it go?’

“‘OK, check it out—can’t you see how beautiful it is? lookit, the way it glows? like, the different colors? and aahhrrhh, shit…’

“‘But carrying it around in your hand like this, it’s giving you third-degree burns, man, couldn’t you like set it down someplace and just look at it?’

“‘Somebody might take it.’

“So forth.”

“So,” Maxine asks, “what happens? He lets go of it?”

Shawn gives her a nice long stare and with Buddhist precision, shrugs. “He lets go of it, and he doesn’t let go of it.”

“Uh, huh, I must’ve said something wrong.”

“Hey. Maybe I said something wrong. Your assignment for next time is to find out which of us, and what.”

Yet another one of these shadowy calls. She should get on to Axel and tell him Vip’s a frequent visitor to the South Fork, then pass on the card-number fragments she was able to copy down off the videotape. But not so fast here, she cautions herself, let’s just see…

She runs the tape again, especially the dialogue between Vip and whoever’s behind the camera, whose voice is maddeningly just there at the edge of her memory…

Ha! It’s a Canadian accent. Of course. On the Lifetime Movie Channel, you hear little but. In fact, it’s Québéquois. Could that mean…

She gets on to Felix Boïngueaux’s cellular. He’s still in town chasing VC money. “Heard anything from Vip Epperdew?”

“Don’t expect to.”

“You have his phone number?”

“Got a few of them. Home, beeper, they all ring forever and never pick up.”

“Mind sharing them?”

“Not at all. If you get lucky, ask him where our check is, eh?”

It’s close. It’s close enough. If it was Felix behind the camera, Felix who sent her the tape, then this is either what social workers like to call a cry for help from Vip or, more likely, seeing it’s Felix, some elaborate setup. As to how this shuffles together with Felix being down here allegedly looking for investors—back burner, it’ll keep, disingenuous li’l schmuck.

One of the phone prefixes is up in Westchester, no answer, not even a machine, but there’s also a Long Island number, which she looks up in her crisscross at the office, already queasy with a suspicion, and sure enough, it’s in the flip side of the Hamptons, all but certainly the amateur-porn set Shae and Bruno live in, where Vip has been making excuses to slide away to, to pay his dues to the other version of his life. The number brings an electronic squawk and a robot to tell Maxine sorry, this number is no longer in service. But there’s something strange in its tone, as if incompletely robotized, that conveys inside knowledge, not to mention You Poor Idiot. A paranoid halo thickens around Maxine’s head, if not a nimbus of certainty. Ordinarily there wouldn’t be money enough in circulation to get her inside bomb-throwing distance of the east end of Long Island, but she finds herself now dropping the Tomcat in her bag, adding an extra clip, sliding into working jeans and a beach-town-appropriate T-shirt, and next thing she’s down on 77th renting a beige Camry. Gets on the Henry Hudson Parkway, hassles the Cross Bronx over to the Throgs Neck Bridge, the line of city towers to her right crystalline today, sentinel, onto the LIE. Cranks down the windows and tilts the seat back to cruising format and proceeds on eastward.