A wistful head angle, “Not an issue since ’98… wait, ’99?”
“Ah. Down the hall, Yenta Expresso, check it out, coffee dates are their specialty, first latte grosso’s free if you remember to ask Edith for the coupon— OK, Reg, so if it’s nothing domestic…”
“It’s this company I’ve been shooting a documentary about? I keep running into…” One of those funny looks Maxine by now knows better than to ignore.
“Attitude.”
“Access issues. Too much I’m not being told.”
“And are we talking recent here, or will this mean going back into history, unreadable legacy software, statutes about to run?”
“Nah, this is one of the dotcoms that didn’t go under last year in the tech crash. No old software,” half a decibel too quiet, “and maybe no statute of limitations either.”
Uh-oh. “’Cause see, if all you want’s an asset search, you don’t need a forensic person really, just go on the Internet, LexisNexis, HotBot, AltaVista, if you can keep a trade secret, don’t rule out the Yellow Pages—”
“What I’m really looking for,” solemn more than impatient, “probably won’t be anyplace any search engine can get to.”
“Because… what you’re looking for…”
“Just normal company records—daybooks, ledgers, logs, tax sheets. But try to have a look, and that’s when it gets weird, everything stashed away far far beyond the reach of LexisNexis.”
“How’s that?”
“Deep Web? No way for surface crawlers to get there, not to mention the encryption and the strange redirects—”
Oh. “Maybe you need more of an IT type to look at this? ’cause I’m not really—”
“Already have one on the case. Eric Outfield, Stuyvesant genius, certified badass, popped at a tender age for computer tampering, trust him totally.”
“Who are these people, then?”
“A computer-security firm downtown called hashslingrz.”
“Heard of them around, yes doing quite well indeed, p/e ratio approaching the science-fictional, hiring all over the place.”
“Which is the angle I want to take. Survive and prosper. Upbeat, right?”
“But… wait… a movie about hashslingrz? Footage of what, nerds staring at screens?”
“Original script had a lot of car chases, explosions, but somehow the budget… I have this tiny advance the company’s kicking in, plus I’m allowed total access, or so I thought till yesterday, which is when I figured I’d better see you.”
“Something in the accounting.”
“Just like to know who I’m working for. I haven’t sold my soul yet—well, maybe a couple bars of rhythm and blues here and there, but I figured I’d better have Eric do some looking around. You know anything about their CEO, Gabriel Ice?”
“Dimly.” Cover stories in the trades. One of the boy billionaires who walked away in one piece when the dotcom fever broke. She can recall photos, off-white Armani suit, tailor-made beaver fedora, not actually bestowing papal blessings right and left but prepared to should the need arise… permission note from his parents instead of a pocket square. “I read as far as I could, I’m not, like, gripped. He makes Bill Gates look charismatic.”
“That’s only his party mask. He has deep resources.”
“You’re suggesting what, mob, covert ops?”
“According to Eric, a purpose on earth written in code none of us can read. Except maybe for 666, which tends to recur. Reminds me, you still have that concealed-carry permit?”
“Licensed to pack, ready to roll, uh-huh… why?”
A little evasive, “These people are not… what you usually find in the tech world.”
“Like…”
“Nowhere near geeky enough, for one thing.”
“That’s… it? Reg, in my vast experience, embezzlers don’t need shooting at very often. Some public humiliation usually does the trick.”
“Yeah,” almost apologetic, “but suppose this isn’t embezzlement. Or not only. Suppose there’s something else.”
“Deep. Sinister. And they’re all in on it together.”
“Too paranoid for you?”
“Not me, paranoia’s the garlic in life’s kitchen, right, you can never have too much.”
“So then there shouldn’t be any problem…”
“I hate when people say that. But sure, I’ll have a look and let you know.”
“Ah-right! Makes a man feel like Erin Brockovich!”
“Hm. Well, we do come to an awkward question. I guess you aren’t here to hire me or anything, right? Not that I mind working on spec, it’s just that there are ethical angles here, such as ambulance chasing?”
“Don’t you people have an oath? Like if you see fraud in progress—?”
“That was Fraudbusters, they had to cancel it, gave people too many ideas. Rachel Weisz wasn’t bad, though.”
“Just sayin that ’cause you’re lookalikes.” Smiling, hands and thumbs up as if framing a shot.
“Why, Reg.”
This was a point you always got to with Reg. First time they met was on a cruise, if you think of “cruise” in maybe more of a specialized way. In the wake of her separation, back in what still isn’t quite The Day, from her then husband, Horst Loeffler, after too many hours indoors with the blinds drawn listening on endless repeat to Stevie Nicks singing “Landslide” on a compilation tape she ignored the rest of, drinking horrible Crown Royal Shirley Temples and chasing them with more grenadine directly from the bottle and going through a bushel per day of Kleenex, Maxine finally allowed her friend Heidi to convince her that a Caribbean cruise would somehow upgrade her mental prognosis. One day she went sniffling down the hall from her office and into the In ’n’ Out Travel Agency, where she found undusted surfaces, beat-up furniture, a disheveled model of an ocean liner that shared a number of design elements with RMS Titanic.
“You’re in luck. We’ve just had a…” Long pause, no eye contact.
“Cancellation,” suggested Maxine.
“You could say.” The price was irresistible. To anyone in their right mind, too much so.
Her parents were more than happy to look after the boys. Maxine, still runny-nosed, found herself in a taxi with Heidi, who’d come along to see her off, headed for a terminal in Newark or possibly Elizabeth, which seemed to handle mostly freighters, in fact Maxine’s “cruise” ship turned out to be the Hungarian tramp container vessel M/V Aristide Olt, sailing under a Marshallese flag of convenience. It wasn’t till her first night out at sea that she learned she’d actually been booked into “AMBOPEDIA Frolix ’98,” a yearly gathering of the American Borderline Personality Disorder Association. Great fun, who would have dreamt of canceling? Unless… aahhh! She gazed back at Heidi on the pier, possibly having some schadenfreude, diminishing into the industrial shoreline, which by now was too far away to swim to.
At the first seating for dinner that evening, she found a crowd in the mood to party, gathered beneath a banner reading WELCOME BORDERLINES! The captain appeared nervous and kept finding excuses to spend time under the tablecloth of his table. About every minute and a half, a deejay cued up the semiofficial AMBOPEDIA anthem, Madonna’s “Borderline” (1984), with everybody joining in on the part that goes “O-verthe bor-derlinnne!!!” with a peculiar emphasis on the final n sound. Some sort of tradition, Maxine imagined.
Later in the evening, she noticed a calmly drifting presence, eyeball stuck to a viewfinder, taping lensworthy targets of opportunity with a Sony VX2000, moving from guest to guest, allowing them to talk or not talk, whatever, and this turned out to be Reg Despard.