Bleeding Edge (17 page)

A long, eerie wait to see if they’ve shaken the feds or whoever they are. Invisibly up yonder, moving around somewhere close, heavy machinery, much too deep into these early-morning hours. “I thought this wasn’t an active dump anymore,” Maxine sez.

“Officially the last barge came and went back around the end of the first quarter,” Sid recalls. “But they’re still busy. Grading it, capping it, sealing and covering it all up and turning it into a park, another family-friendly yup resource, Giuliani the tree hugger.”

Presently March and Sid are into one of those low-volume elliptical discussions parents have about their children, in this case Tallis mostly. Who may, like her brothers, be a grown adult but somehow demands inflexible disbursements of time and worry, as if she were still a troubled teenager snorting Sharpie pen solvents back at the Convent of the Holy Ghost.

“Strange,” Sid reflective, “to see the way Ice the kid morphed into what he is today. In college he was just this amiable geek. She brought him home, we figured, OK, horny kid, way too much screen time,
socially ept as they ever get, but March thought she saw good-provider potential there.”

“Sid having his little joke—hey, live forever, sexist pig. The idea was always for Tallis to know how to take care of herself.”

“Pretty soon we were seeing them less and less, they had all this money, enough for a nice li’l crib down in SoHo.”

“They were renting?”

“Bought it,” March a little abrupt. “Paid cash.”

“By then Ice had profiles in
Wired,
in
Red Herring,
then hashslingrz made the
Silicon Alley Reporter
’s ‘12 to Watch’ list . . .”

“You were following his career.”

“I know,” Sid shaking his head, “it’s pathetic ain’t it, but what were we supposed to do? They cut us out. It was like they actively went seeking it, this life they have now, this faraway, virtual life, leaving the rest of us stuck back here in meatspace, blinking at images on a screen.”

“Best-case scenario,” March sez, “Ice was an innocent geek corrupted by the dotcom boom. Dream on. The kid was bent from the jump, under obligation to forces which do not advertise publicly. What did they see in him? Easy. Stupidity. A stupidity of great promise.”

“And these forces—maybe alienating you guys was really part of their program, not Tallis’s idea?”

Both of them shrug. March maybe a little more bitterly. “Nice thought, Maxi. But Tallis collaborated. Whatever it was, she bought in. She didn’t have to.”

The industrial racket from back in the marshland behind the giant cliffs of ruin has grown continuous. Now and then workers, in long-standing Sanitation Department tradition, have lengthy exhilarated screaming exchanges. “Strange shift to be working,” it seems to Maxine.

“Yeah. Nice overtime for somebody. Almost like they’re up to something they don’t want anybody to know about.”

“When did anybody ever want to know?” March lapsing for a
moment into the bag-lady character in her commencement speech at Kugelblitz, the one person dedicated to salvaging everything the city wants to deny. “Either they’re playing catch-up or they’re getting it ready to open for dump business again.”

A presidential visit? Somebody’s making a movie? Who knows.

Early seagulls show up from somewhere, begin inspecting the menu. The sky takes on a brushed-aluminum underglow. A night heron with breakfast in its beak ascends from its long watch at the edge of the Island of Meadows.

Sid starts up the motor finally, heads back up Arthur Kill and into Newark Bay, at Kearny Point bears right into the forsaken and abused Passaic River. “Let you two off when I can, then I’m gonna return to my secret undisclosed base.”

Around Point No Point, under the black arching trusswork of the Pulaski Skyway. The light, inexorable as iron, growing in the sky . . . Tall brick stacks, railyards . . . Dawn over Nutley. Well, technically dawn over Secaucus. Sid pulls up to a boat dock belonging to the Nutley High rowing team, removes an imaginary yachting cap, and gestures his passengers ashore. “Welcome to Deep Jersey.”

“Captain Stubing here,” March yawns.

“Oh and you won’t forget Igor’s backpack, will you my Tomato Surprise.”

Maxine’s hair is a mess, she’s been out all night for the first time since the 1980s, her ex and their children are somewhere out in the U.S. sure to be having a nice time without her, and for maybe a minute and a half she feels free—at least at the edge of possibilities, like whatever the Europeans who first sailed up the Passaic River must have felt, before the long parable of corporate sins and corruption that overtook it, before the dioxins and the highway debris and unmourned acts of waste.

From Nutley there’s a New Jersey Transit bus to the Port of Authority by way of Newark. They grab a couple minutes of sleep. Maxine
has one of those transit dreams. Women in shawls, a sinister light. Everybody speaking Spanish. A somehow desperate flight by antiquated bus through jungles to escape a threat, a volcano possibly. At the same time, this is also a tour bus full of Upper West Side Anglos, and the tour director is Windust, lecturing in that wise-ass radio voice, something about the nature of volcanoes. The volcano behind them, which hasn’t gone away, grows more ominous. Maxine wakes up out of this someplace on the Lincoln Tunnel approach. In the terminal, March suggests, “Let’s go out the other way, avoid Disney Hell and go find some breakfast.”

They find a Latino breakfast joint on Ninth and dig in.

“Something on your mind, Maxine.”

“Been meaning to ask you this for a while, what was going on in Guatemala back in 1982?”

“Same as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Ronald Reagan and his people, Schachtmanite goons like Elliott Abrams, turning Central America into a slaughterhouse all to play out their little anti-Communist fantasies. Guatemala by then had fallen under the control of a mass murderer and particular buddy of Reagan named Ríos Montt, who as usual wiped off his bloody hands on the baby Jesus like so many of these charmers do. Government death squads funded by the U.S., army sweeps through the western highlands, officially targeting the EGP or Guerrilla Army of the Poor but in practice exterminating any native populations they came across. There was at least one death camp, on the Pacific coast, where the emphasis may’ve been political, but up in the hills it was on-site genocide, not even mass burial, just bodies left for the jungle to take care of, which certainly must have saved the government a lot on cleanup costs.”

Maxine is somehow not as hungry as she thought. “And any Americans who were there . . .”

“Either humanitarian kids, naïve and borderline idiotic, or ‘advisers’ sharing their extensive expertise at butchering nonwhites. Though by
then, most of that was being outsourced to U.S. client states with the necessary technical chops. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“Yeah. When you’re ready, tell me. I’m really Dr. Ruth Westheimer, nothing shocks me.”

W
aiting on her office doorstep is a case of wine, which when she sees its label causes her to observe, “Well, holy shit.” An ’85 Sassicaia? A case? Must be a mistake. There seems to be a note, however—“Turns out you saved us some money too,” unsigned, yet who else can it be but Rocky, the ol’ ethnoenologist? Good anyhow for enough guilt to get her back into the increasingly problematic hwgaahwgh/hashslingrz books.

Something today strikes her as odd. One of those nagging patterns that’s not always welcome because it means uncompensated overtime, but what else is new. She puts on some coffee, has another look at the trail between hwgaahwgh and hashslingrz’s account in the Emirates, and after a while sees what it is. A persistent shortfall, and of some size. As in somebody is tapping the pipeline. What’s curious is the amount. It seems to match another sum, a puzzling persistent surplus related to the cash component of Ice’s purchase of hwgaahwgh.com. The checks are being deposited into a business operating account at a bank on Long Island.

Since going rogue, Maxine has acquired a number of software kits, courtesy of certain less reputable clients, which have bestowed on her
superpowers not exactly falling within Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, such as thou shalt not hack into anybody’s bank account, thou shalt leave that sort of thing for the FBI. She roots around in a couple of desk drawers, finds an unlabeled disc in a sickly green metallic shade, and well before lunch is into Lester Traipse’s private affairs. Sure enough, the mystery shortfall is exactly balanced by a sum being regularly transferred on into one of Lester’s personal accounts.

Expressively exhaling, “Lester, Lester, Lester.” Well. All that nondisclosure talk, just smoke to cover what he was really up to, something way more dangerous. Lester discovered the invisible underground river of cash flowing through his soon-to-be-defunct company and has been diverting a hefty chunk of Ice’s ghost payments from their fate as riyals over into some secret account of his own. Figuring he’s hit the big time.

So the other night at the karaoke joint, when he compared Gabriel Ice to a loan shark or a pimp, it was no idle figure of speech. Lester, endangered as a girl under a viaduct who’s been holding out on the man running her, desperate for any kind of help, was sending Maxine a distress signal in a code that, shame on her, she didn’t even bother to read . . .

And the hard part is that she knows better, knows that beneath the high-cap scumscapes created by the corporate order and celebrated in the media, there are depths where petty fraud becomes grave and often deadly sin. Certain types of personality get bent insanely out of shape, punishment is violent and—an anxious reflexive look at the clock on the wall—immediate. This guy might not know how much trouble he’s in.

She’s surprised when Lester picks up his mobile on the first ring. “You lucked out, this is the last call I was planning to take on this thing.”

“Changing your carrier service?”

“Shitcanning the instrument. I think there’s a tracking chip on it.”

“Lester, I’ve come across something kind of serious, we should meet. Leave your cell phone at home.” She can tell from his breathing that he knows what it is.

•   •   •

ETERNAL SEPTEMBER,
dating from the high nineties, is a disused techies’ saloon tucked away between a barbershop and a necktie boutique half a block from a low-traffic station down one of the old IND lines.

“Some sentimental attachment,” Maxine looking around trying not to make a face.

“No, I’m figuring anybody who actually comes in here in the middle of the day is so without clue that we can talk safely.”

“You know you’re in trouble, right, so I don’t have to start in nagging about that.”

“I wanted to tell you that night at the karaoke, but . . .”

“Felix kept putting in. Was he monitoring you? Protecting you?”

“He heard about my run-in in the bathroom and figured he should’ve had my back, that’s all. I have to assume Felix is who he says he is.”

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?

But wait. She realizes these are yenta reflexes, like, please Vip, you can do so much better, so forth. Doesn’t even know him, already she’s criticizing his sex-partner choices?

Her attention drifts back into a shot of them getting dressed again while chatting animatedly. What? Maxine’s pretty sure she stayed awake, but it seems there was no money shot, instead, at some point, this has begun to diverge from canonical porn into, aaahh! improv! yes, they are now
giving themselves lines,
with deliveries of the sort that drive high-school drama teachers to drug abuse. Cut away to a close-up of Vip’s credit cards, all laid out like a fortune-teller’s tableau. Maxine pauses the tape, runs it back and forth, writing down what numbers she can, though the low resolution blurs some of them. The three get into a sub-vaudeville routine with Vip’s plastic, handing the cards back and
forth, passing witty remarks about each one, all except for a black card that Vip keeps flashing at Shae and Bruno, causing them to recoil in exaggerated horror like teen vampires from a bulb of garlic. Maxine recognizes the fabled AmEx “Centurion” card, which you have to charge at least $250K a year on or they take it away from you.

“You guys allergic to titanium?” Vip playfully, “c’mon, you afraid there’s a chip in it, some lowlife detector gonna trigger a silent alarm on you guys?”

“Mall security don’t scare me,” Bruno all but whining, “been outrunning those ’suckers all my life.”

“I just show em some skin,” Shae adds, “they like that.”

Shae and Bruno head out the door, and Vip collapses back on the phony angora. Whatever he’s tired from, this ain’t an afterglow.

“On to the Tanger Outlets, fuck yeah,” cries Bruno.

“Anything we can get you, Vippy?” Shae over her shoulder with one of those Are-you-looking-at-my-ass-again? smiles.