Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge

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?