Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge

AVI COMES CREEPING up to the office in disguise, jeans way too skinny for him, T-shirt reading ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US, a fuzzy white Kangol 504 at which Daytona does a triple take, pretending to adjust her glasses. “Thought it was Sam the King of Cool in here, walkin amongst us. Clients is gettin way too hip for my ass, Miz Maxine!”

“You never met my brother-in-law?” Avi takes off his hat, and there’s his yarmulke. The two shake hands warily.

“I’ll just whup up a mess of coffee, then, shall I.”

“Good timing, Avi, the danish guy was just here a minute ago.”

“Been meaning to ask, where in this neighborhood anymore? We come back to the city, now the Royale on 72nd is gone.”

“Tell me. We have to get these schlepped up from 23rd Street. Sit, please, here, coffee, thanks, Daytona.”

“Only got a minute, have to go punch in. I’m supposed to pass on a message to you.”

“From the Ice Man himself, I bet. Neither of you could just phone?”

“Well, it’s not only that. Something weird I need to ask you about, also.”

“If your boss’s message is stop looking into the audit trails at hashslingrz, consider it done, that ticket’s been dormant really since September 11th.”

“I think he has a job for you.”

“Respectfully decline.”

“Just like that?”

“Everybody’s different, Avi, maybe I’ve worked for a lowlife or two over the years, but this Ice specimen, I hope you guys haven’t become dear friends, he’s how shall I put it—”

“He speaks highly of you also.”

“So what kind of a gig could he be offering me—get run over by a truck?”

“He thinks he’s being ripped off by persons unknown, inside the company.”

“Oh, please. And needs an ex-CFE to make that story look legit? Let you in on a big secret, Avi, these persons unknown happen to be Ice himself, along with the missus possibly duked in, being you’ll recall company comptroller? Sorry to be the bearer, but Ice for months, maybe years, has been robbing his own shop blind.”

“Gabriel Ice is… embezzling?”

“Yes contemptible enough, but now he’s whining about Dishonest Employees? oldest con in the book, he wants to pin it on some poor zhlub who can’t afford a good enough lawyer. My diagnosis? Classic fraud, your employer is a fraudster. That’s ten billable seconds, I’ll send an invoice.”

“He’s under investigation? He’ll be charged?” So plaintive that Maxine finally reaches over and pats her brother-in-law on the shoulder.

“Nobody’s about to go forensic with it, maybe some curiosity at federal level, but Ice has his own friends down there, likely at some point they’ll all be dealing in secret and nothing’ll ever get as far as the courts or outside the Beltway. You and me, the taxpayer, will of course end up a tiny percent more impoverished, but who gives a shit about us. Your job is safe, don’t worry.”

“My job. Well, that’s the other thing.”

“Ooh, somebody’s not happy?” in a voice she likes to use in the street with screaming toddlers she hasn’t necessarily been introduced to.

“No, and I’m not Dopey or Doc either. If this city was a nuthouse, hashslingrz would be the paranoid ward—help, help, the enemy, look, they’re out there, they’re all around us! Like being back in Israel on a bad day.”

“And as seen from inside your workplace, this business-world analogy to being surrounded on all sides by criminally insane Arabs would be…”

An uncoordinated, slightly desperate shrug. “Whoever it is, it’s no delusion, somebody’s actively engaged, mystery stalkers, hacking into our networks, social-engineering us at bars.”

“OK, setting aside what could be a, forgive me, deliberate company policy of keeping all the employees paranoid… How about Brooke, any reports there of stalking, molestation, lapses of taste above and beyond the usual in this town?”

“There’s these two guys.”

“Uh-oh.” Hoping this time her intuition circuit board really is on the fritz, “A sort of Russian hip-hop act?”

“Funny you should mention.”

Pizdets . “Listen, if it’s who I think, they’re probably not into inflicting harm.”

“‘Probably.’”

“Can’t give you a figure, but I can make a phone call. Let me see what’s going on, meantime tell Brooke not to worry.”

“Actually, I haven’t been sharing any of this with her.”

“Such a mensch, Avi, always thinking of her stress level, lucky her.”

“Well, not exactly… the nondisclosure agreement says no wives?”

As he’s going out, Daytona flashes her nails. “Loved you in Pulp Fiction , baby. That Bible quote? Mm-hmmm!”

ABOUT 5:00 A.M. MAXINE WAKES from one of those annoying recursive subnightmares, this time something about Igor and an oversize bottle of vodka, named after a Lithuanian basketball player, which he keeps trying to introduce her to as if it’s a person. She slips out of bed and goes into the kitchen, where she finds Driscoll and Eric sharing their usual breakfast, a bottle of Mountain Dew with two straws in it. “Been meaning to mention this,” Driscoll begins, and gazing at each other like two country singers at a benefit, she and Eric start to sing the old Jeffersons sitcom theme, “Movin on out.”

“Wait. Not ‘to the East Side.’”

“Williamsburg,” Eric sez, “actually.”

“It’s all goin over to Brooklyn. Feels like we’re the last of the old-time Alley folks.”

“Hope it’s nothing we’ve done.”

“Isn’t you guys, it’s Manhattan in general,” Driscoll explains. “Not like it used to be, maybe you’ve noticed.”

“Greed situation,” Eric amplifies. “You’d think when the towers came down it would’ve been a reset button for the city, the real-estate business, Wall Street, a chance for it all to start over clean. Instead lookit them, worse than before.”

Around them, the City That Doesn’t Sleep is beginning to not sleep even more. Lights come on in windows across the street. Drunks out too long after closing time scream in discontent. Down the block a car alarm starts in with a medley of attention signals. Over in the flanking avenues, heavy machinery roars into standby mode, preparing to move into position beneath the windows of citizens incautious enough to still be in bed. Birds too clueless or stubborn to get out of town before the winter now creeping upon the city begin discussing why they’re not in avian therapy yet.

Maxine, busy with the coffee routine, observes her own migratory birds with regret. “So in Brooklyn will you guys be living together or separately?”

“True,” reply Eric and Driscoll in unison.

Maxine regards the ceiling briefly.

“Sorry. Nonexclusive ‘or.’”

“Geek thing,” Driscoll explains.

THERE HAVE ALREADY BEEN a number of panicked, not to mention abusive, calls from Windust by the time Maxine shows up at work. Daytona is strangely amused.

“Sorry you had to deal with that… he didn’t get racial, I hope.”

“Maybe not him, but…”

“Oh, Daytona.” Maxine takes the next one. Windust certainly seems perturbed. “Calm down, you’re blowing out my speakerphone here.”

“That fucking destructive irresponsibile bitch, what does she think she’s doing? Does she know how many people she’s just put at risk?”

“‘She’ being…”

“You know what I’m talking about, goddamn it, Maxine, did you have anything to do with this?”

“With…” She can’t help it, it does her spirit good to see him this way. Eventually she gets him to splutter it out. Seems March Kelleher has finally gotten around to posting Reg’s footage from The Deseret roof on the Internet. Well, thanks for the heads-up, March, though it is about time.