Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge

“They discontinued this back in ’97,” Maxine less in wonder than annoyance.

“That’s only the business page talkin, Mahxine. This is desire.”

Horst, already gobbling ice cream with spoons in both hands, nods enthusiastically.

“Oh and this too, this is for you.” Handing over a videocassette in a box.

“ Scream, Blacula, Scream ? We already have a good depth of copy in the house, including the director’s cut.”

“Dahlin, I only deliver em.”

“You have a number I can call you at in case I want to forward this on someplace else?”

“Not how it works. I come to you.”

Off he glides into the summer evening.

One early hour, all too soon, the boys and Horst are up and into a roomy black Lincoln to JFK. The plan for the summer is to fly to Chicago, take in the town, rent a car, drive to Iowa, visit with the grandparents there, then go off on a grand tour of what Maxine thinks of as the Midol West, because whenever she’s there it feels like her period. She rides along out to the airport, like not being clingy or anything, just could do with a nice breeze, through the window of the Town Car, OK?

Flight attendants walk in pairs, hands devotionally in front of them, nuns of the sky. Long lines of people in shorts and towering backpacks shuffle slowly along in check-in lines. Kids mess with the spring-loaded tapes on the queue-control stanchions. Maxine finds herself analyzing the traffic flow to see which line is moving fastest. It’s only a habit, but it makes Horst uneasy because she’s always right.

She stays till the flight is called, embracing everybody, even Horst, watches them down the Jetway, and only Otis looks back.

On the way out as she’s passing another departure gate, she hears her name called. Squealed, actually. It’s Vyrva, decked out in sandals, big floppy straw hat, microlength sundress in a number of vibrant colors banned by statute in New York. “Headed for California, are we?”

“Couple weeks there with the folks, then we’re coming back by way of Vegas.”

“Defcon,” Justin, in Hawaiian-print surfer’s board shorts, parrots and so forth, explains, which is an annual hackers’ convention, where geeks of all persuasions, on all sides of the law, not to mention cops at various levels who think they’re working undercover, converge, conspire, and carouse.

Fiona’s been off at some kind of anime camp in New Jersey—Quake movie and machinima workshops, Japanese staff who claim not to know a word of English beyond “awesome” and “sucks,” which for a vast range of human endeavor, actually, is more than enough…

“And how’s everything down in DeepArcher?” Only trying to be sociable, understand…

Justin looks uncomfortable. “One way or another, big changes on the way. Whoever’s in there better be enjoying it while they can. While it’s still relatively unhackable.”

“It isn’t going to be?”

“Not for long. Too many people after it. Vegas is gonna be like speed-pitching at the fuckin zoo.”

“Don’t look at me,” sez Vyrva, “I just roll the joints and bring out the junk food.”

A voice comes on the PA, making an announcement in English, though Maxine is suddenly unable to understand a word. The sort of resonant voice in which events are solemnly foretold, not at all a voice she would ever want to be summoned by.

“Our flight,” Justin picking up his carry-on.

“My best to Siegfried and Roy.”

Vyrva blows kisses over her shoulder all the way to the gate.

AT THE OFFICE, when Maxine checks back in, here’s Daytona with a tiny TV set she keeps in her desk drawer, glued to an afternoon movie on the Afro-American Romance Channel (ARCH) called Love’s Nickel Defense, in which Hakeem, a pro defensive linebacker, on the set of a beer commercial he’s doing, meets and falls in love with Serendypiti, a model in the same commercial, who immediately gets this Hakeem revved up to where before long he is dealing with running backs the way in-laws deal with hors d’oeuvres. Sparked by his example, the offense begins to develop its own winning ways. What has up to now been the lackluster year of a team that never wins even coin tosses is turned around. Win after win—a wildcard! the playoffs! the Super Bowl!

Halftime at the Super Bowl, the team is down by ten points. Plenty of time to turn this around. Serendypiti comes storming through several layers of security and into the locker room. “Honey, we got to talk.” Break for commercial.

“Whoo!” Daytona shaking her head. “Oh, you back? Listen, some muthafucker with white attitude called about ten minutes ago.” She fishes around on her desk and finds a note to call Gabriel Ice and what looks like a cellular number.

“I’ll do this in the other room. Your movie’s back on.”

“You be careful around this one, child.”

Bearing in mind the ancient CFE distinction between being complicit and merely attending to phone calls that should probably be answered, she is presently on to Gabriel Ice.

No hello, how you doing, “Are you on a secure line?” is what the digital tycoon would like to know.

“I use it all the time for shopping, tell people my credit-card numbers and stuff, nothing bad’s happened yet.”

“I guess we could get into definitions of ‘bad,’ but—”

“We could drift seriously off topic, yes fatal to a busy, important life… So…”

“I think you know my mother-in-law, March Kelleher. Have you seen her Web site?”

“I click into it now and then.”

“You may have read some harsh comments, like every day, about my company. Any idea why she’s doing this?”

“She seems to distrust you, Mr. Ice. Deeply. She must believe that behind the dazzling saga of boy-billionaire excess we all find so entertaining, there lies a darker narrative.”

“We’re in the security business. What do you want, transparent?”

No, I prefer opaque, encrypted, sneaky-assed. “Too political for me.”

“How about financial? The shviger —how much do you think it would cost me to get her to lay off? Just a ballpark estimate.”

“Somehow, like, I get this dim feeling, March doesn’t have a price.”

“Yeah, yeah, maybe you could ask anyway? I’d be really, really grateful.”

“She’s got you that worried? Come on, it’s only a Weblog, how many people even read it?”

“One is too many, if it’s the wrong one.”

Bringing them to a standoff, ethnicity of your choice. Her comeback should be, “With all your high-powered connections, who in the wide civilian world is ever going to hold you accountable for anything?” But that would be admitting she knows more than she’s supposed to. “Tell you what, next time I see March, I’ll ask her why she isn’t speaking more highly of your company, and then when she spits in my face and calls me your bitch and a corporate sellout and so forth, I’ll be able to ignore it ’cause down deep I’ll know I’m doing a big favor for a swell guy.”

“You despise me, right?”

She pretends to think about this. “People like you have a license to despise—mine got pulled, so I have to settle for being pissed off, and it doesn’t last.”

“Good to know. It might help you in future to stay away from my wife too, by the way.”

“Wait a minute, li’l buddy,” what a nasty piece of work this guy is, “you got me all wrong, like she’s cute as a bug’s ear and all but—”

“Just try to keep some distance. Be professional. Make sure you know who it is you’re working for, OK?”

“Talk slower, I’m trying to write this down.”

Ice, as intended, hangs up in a snit.