Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge

Regrettably, Joel had somehow forgotten to include in his long recitals of real-estate injustice certain crucial details, such as his habit of committing serial co-op board membership, the beefs resulting over sums entrusted to him, typically, as co-op treasurer, plus the civil RICO indictment in Brooklyn, the wife with a real-estate agenda of her own, “It goes on. Not easy to explain,” wiggling all her fingers above her head, “Antennas. I felt comfortable enough about Joel to share a few tricks of the trade. For me, no worse than an IRS guy moonlighting as a tax preparer.”

But running her gravely afoul of the ACFE Code of Conduct, which Maxine in fact had been skating up to and all along the posted edges of for years. This time the ice, without creak or visible darkening, had given beneath her. Enough of the review committee saw conflict of interest, not only once but a pattern, where for Maxine it was, still is for that matter, a no-brainer of a choice between friendship and super-picky guideline adherence.

“Friendship?” Reg is puzzled. “You didn’t even like him.”

“A technical term.”

The stationery the decertification letter came on was pretty fancy, worth more than the message, which was basically fuck you, plus canceling all her privileges at The Eighth Circle, an exclusive CFEs’ club over on Park, with a reminder to return her member’s card and settle her bar tab, which showed a balance. There did seem to be a P.S. at the bottom, however, about filing an appeal. They included forms. This was interesting. This would not go into Accounts Shreddable, not just yet. Alarmingly, what Maxine noticed for the first time was the Association seal, which showed a torch burning violently in front of and slightly above an opened book. What’s this? any minute the pages of this book, maybe allegorically The Law, are about to be set on fire by this burning torch, possibly the Light of Truth? Is somebody trying to say something, the Law in flames here, the terrible inflexible price of Truth… That’s it! Secret anarchist code messages!

“Interesting thought, Maxine,” Reg trying to talk her down. “So you filed the appeal?”

Actually, no—as days passed, there were always reasons not to, she couldn’t afford the legal fees, the appeals process could all be just for show, and the fact remained that colleagues she respected had thrown her out on her ear, and did she really want back into that kind of vindictive surroundings. Sort of thing.

“A little oversensitive, these guys,” seems to Reg.

“Can’t blame them. They want us to be the one incorruptible still point in the whole jittery mess, the atomic clock everybody trusts.”

“You said ‘us.’”

“The certificate’s put away in storage, but still hanging on the office wall of my soul.”

“Some rogue.”

“Bad Accountant , it’s a series I’m developing, here, I got a script for the pilot, you wanna read it?”

The past, hey no shit, it’s an open invitation to wine abuse. Soon as she hears the elevator doors close behind Reg, Maxine heads for the refrigerator. Where, in this chilled chaos, is the Pinot E-Grigio? “Daytona, we’re out of wine again?”

“Ain’t me drinkin that shit up.”

“Course not, you’re more of a Night Train person.”

“Ooh. Do I really need wine-ism today?”

“Hey, you’re off it so I’m just kidding, right?”

“Therapism!”

“Beg pardon?”

“You think twelve-step people’s a lower class than you, always did, you on some spa program, lay around with the seaweed all on your face and shit, you don’t even know what it’s like—well, and I am telling you…” Pausing dramatically.

“You are not going,” Maxine prompts.

“I am telling you, it is work, girl.”

“Oh, Daytona. Whatever this is, I’m sorry.”

So it all comes plotzing forth, the usual emotional cash-flow statement, full of uncollected receivables and bad debts. Bottom line, “Do not, ever, associate with nobody from Jamaica the island, he thinks joint custody means who brought the ganja.”

“I was lucky with Horst,” Maxine reflects. “Weed never had any effect on him at all.”

“Figures, it’s that white food y’all eat, white bread and that,” paraphrasing Jimi Hendrix, “mayonnaise! All in your brain—every one of y’all, terminally honky.” The phone has been blinking patiently. Daytona gets back to work, leaving Maxine to wonder why Rasta drug preferences should have anything to do with Horst. Unless Horst is somehow on her mind, which she can’t say he has been, not that much, not for a while.

Horst. A fourth-generation product of the U.S. Midwest, emotional as a grain elevator, fatally alluring as a Harley knucklehead, indispensable (God help her) as an authentic Maid-Rite when hunger sets in, Horst Loeffler to this day has enjoyed a nearly error-free history of knowing how certain commodities around the world will behave, long enough before they themselves do to have already made a pile by the time Maxine came into the picture, and to watch it keep growing higher while struggling to remain true to some oath he apparently took at thirty, to spend it as fast as it comes in and keep partying for as long as he can hold out.

“So… the alimony’s good?” inquired Daytona, her second day on the job.

“Isn’t any.”

“What?” having a good long stare at Maxine.

“Anything I can help you with?”

“That is the craziest crazy-white-chick story I have heard yet.”

“Get out more,” Maxine shrugged.

“You got some problem with a man partying?”

“Of course not, life is a party isn’t it Daytona, yes and Horst was fine with that, but as he happened to think marriage is a party also, well, that’s where we found we had different thoughts.”

“Her name was Jennifer and shit, right?”

“Muriel. Actually.”

By which point—part of the Certified Fraud Examiner skill set being a tendency to look for hidden patterns—Maxine began to wonder… might Horst actually have a preference for women named after inexpensive cigars, was there perhaps a Philippa “Philly” Blunt stashed in London he’s playing FTSE with, some alluring Asian arbitrix named Roi-Tan in a cheongsam and one of those little haircuts… “But don’t let’s dwell, because Horst is history.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I got the apartment, of course he got the ’59 Impala in cherry condition, but there I go, whining again.”

“Oh, I thought it was this fridge.”

Daytona is an angel of understanding, of course, next to Maxine’s friend Heidi. The first time they really got to sit down and chat about it, after Maxine had gone on at a length that embarrassed even her.

“He called me up,” Heidi pretended to blurt.

Right. “What, Horst? Called…”

“He wanted a date?” eyes too wide for total innocence.

“What’d you tell him?”

A perfect beat and a half, then, “Oh, my God, Maxi… I’m so sorry?”

“You? and Horst?” It seemed odd, but not much more than that, which Maxine took as a hopeful sign.

But Heidi seemed upset. “God forgive me! All he did was talk about you.”

“Uh-huh. But?”

“He seemed distant.”

“The three-month LIBOR, no doubt.”

Though this discussion did go on, for a school night, quite late, Heidi’s escapade doesn’t rank as high as some offenses Maxine in fact still finds herself brooding about from back in high school—clothes borrowed but never returned, invitations to nonexistent parties, Heidi-arranged hookups with guys Heidi knew were clinically psychopathic. Sort of thing. By the time they adjourned for exhaustion, it may have disappointed Heidi a little that her mad fling had somehow only found its natural place among other episodes of a continuing domestic series, begun long ago in Chicago, which is where Horst and Maxine originally met.