Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge

“Let me just look, here.”

March—Maxine can imagine with what kind of a mischievous glint—trying to maintain a class-act approach, “Many of us need the comfort of a simple story line with Islamic villains, and co-enablers like the Newspaper of Record are delighted to help. Poor, poor America, why do these evil foreigners hate us, must be all this freedom of ours, and how twisted is that, to hate freedom? Really thinking about all those buildable lots where the demolition’s already been done. If you’re interested in counternarratives, however, click on this link to the video of a Stinger crew on a Manhattan rooftop. Check out theories and countertheories. Contribute your own.”

No invitation needed, really. The Internet has erupted into a Mardi Gras for paranoids and trolls, a pandemonium of commentary there may not be time in the projected age of the universe to read all the way through, even with deletions for violating protocol, plus home videos and audio tracks including a lilting sound bite from Deseret spokesman Seamus O’Vowtey, “Our buildin security’s the best in the city. This has to be an inside job, likely somethin to do with certain o’ these tenants.”

“Wow, bummer,” Maxine somewhat insincerely.

“That doesn’t begin to—”

“No I mean The Deseret, it took me years to get in their front gate, and here’s a whole missile crew just moseys on in and up to the roof.”

“No use telling her to take the video down, I imagine?”

“There’s already a million copies out there.”

“Shit’s hit the fan down here. I’ve come in for an episode of inconvenience myself, effectively I’m a fugitive now, need to sneak in and out of my own house, last I heard from Dotty was back in the middle of the night, reporting unmarked vans out in front, now she’s gone totally offline and who knows when I’ll see her—”

“Where are you calling from, I keep hearing Chinese in the background?”

“Chinatown.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t suppose you could meet me down here.”

“No?” Whatdafuck. “I mean, what for?”

“None of my ATM cards seem to be working anymore.”

“And, excuse me, you want to borrow money? From me?”

“I wouldn’t say borrow, because that assumes a future in which I might pay it back.”

“You’re beginning to scare me a little.”

“Good. Can you bring enough just to get me down to D.C. again?”

“Yeah I saw that movie, I think Elizabeth Taylor was playing you?”

“I knew this would come up.”

Today, she reminds herself heading downtown, all the fortune cookies are screaming, “Err on the side of no schmucks!” This man deserves no mercy, Maxine, your best course here is to just let him go fuck himself. He’s short of cash, boo hoo, given his skill sets, knocking over a convenience store shouldn’t be such a stretch for him, preferably one in New Jersey, he’d already be halfway to D.C. So of course here she is, hurrying to him with a valise full of greenbacks. The apparent cause and effect in this may be worth a look, however. March posts the footage, Windust is forced into flight and his money supply frozen. The links between are hard to resist—Windust, if not ramrodding the whole Deseret roof operation, must’ve been at least in charge of security, and he fucked up. Anybody plugged into the Internet, any bleating sheep of a civilian, can now see what it was Windust’s job to keep hidden. So, big surprise any sanctions should turn out to be serious, maybe extreme?

She sits watching on the backseat video display their snail’s progress through the streets of Manhattan, as tracked by GPS, drifting into unprofitable thoughts. Is it that American Indian curse about, if you save somebody’s life you’re responsible for what happens to them from then on? Setting aside fringe theories about Indians being lost tribes of Israel and so forth, did she save Windust’s life once long ago without knowing it and now invisible karmic bureaucracy is passing her these messages—he wants you, so go!

She finds Windust under an awning with a number of Chinese people, waiting for the bus, the Manhattan Bridge looming nearby. After watching from across the street for a minute, Maxine realizes that the people on either side of Windust aren’t talking to each other directly, but through him. Smart-assed as ever, he seems to be translating back and forth from one kind of Chinese to another. He spots her looking at him, nods, gestures, Stay where you are, threads his way across to her. Not looking that great. In fact, a man on the edge.

“Good timing. Just spent my last U.S. dollars on the bus to D.C.”

“There’s a bus terminal around here?”

“Street pickup, savings passed on to the customer, bargain of the century, you’re Jewish, I’m amazed you haven’t heard of this.”

“Your envelope.”

Instead of counting the bills like a normal person, Windust with a small practiced hand move hefts the envelope, the sort of thing that over time, for a career bagman, gets to be automatic.

“Thanks, angel. Don’t know when—”

“Reimburse when you can, something I don’t have to declare as income. Maybe from the street floor at Tiffany’s— no, wait, what’s her name, Dotty? Nah, you wouldn’t want her finding out.”

He’s examining her face. “Earrings. Simple diamond studs. With your hair up… .”

“Actually, I’m a Eurowire type gal.” She has barely time to think about adding, “How squalid is this?” when the round comes in, invisible, silent till it hits a piece of wall, whereupon it finds its voice and ricochets droning brightly off into Chinatown, by which time Windust has grabbed Maxine and pulled her down behind a skip full of construction debris.

“Holy shit. Are you—”

“Wait,” he advises, “just give it a minute, I’m not sure about the angle, it could’ve come from anyplace. Up in any of those,” gesturing with his head at the upper stories surrounding them. They watch the pavement fragment further into what will later be taken for only a few more city potholes. The people across the street don’t seem to notice. On the incoming breeze, a distant slow stammering. “Somehow I’ve been expecting three-round bursts. This sounds more like an AK. Hold steady.”

“I knew I should’ve worn the Kevlar outfit today.”

“Among your friends in the Russian mob, distance equals respect, so we should consider assassination by AK-47 an honor.”

“Gee, you must be some hot shit.”

“In fifteen seconds,” glancing at his watch, “I plan to disappear and get on with my day. You might want to wait here for a bit before resuming your own.”

“Class act, I figured you’d grab my arm and we’d run someplace, like in movies? Chinese people jumping out of the way? Or was I supposed to be blond?” Scanning upper windows meantime, reaching into her purse, bringing out the Beretta, thumbing off the safety.

“Good,” Windust nodding like it’s about time. “You can cover me.”

“That one there, the one that’s open, that look good to you?” No reply. Already, as the Eagles say, gone. She crab-steps out from behind the skip anyway and lets go a couple of double taps at the window, screaming, “Motherfuckers!”

Goodness, Maxine, where’d that come from? Nobody’s returning fire. The people waiting for the bus begin to point and pass remarks. Keeping an eye on the street traffic, she waits for a vehicle tall enough to take cover behind, which turns out to be a moving van with MITZVAH MOVERS in mock-Hebrew lettering and a cartoon of what appears to be an insane rabbi with a piano on his back, and vacates the area.

Well, as Winston Churchill always sez, there is nothing more exhilarating than getting shot at without result, though for Maxine there is also a flip side or payback, which arrives a few hours later, on the after-school stoop at Kugelblitz, in front of an assortment of Upper West Side moms whose life skills include an eye for the slightest uptick in the distress of others, not that Maxine quite collapses in tears, though her knees feel unreliable and she may be experiencing a certain lightness of head…