“I’ll do this in the other room. Your movie’s back on.”
“You be careful around this one, child.”
Bearing in mind the ancient CFE distinction between being complicit and merely attending to phone calls that should probably be answered, she is presently on to Gabriel Ice.
No hello, how you doing, “Are you on a secure line?” is what the digital tycoon would like to know.
“I use it all the time for shopping, tell people my credit-card numbers and stuff, nothing bad’s happened yet.”
“I guess we could get into definitions of ‘bad,’ but—”
“We could drift seriously off topic, yes fatal to a busy, important life… So…”
“I think you know my mother-in-law, March Kelleher. Have you seen her Web site?”
“I click into it now and then.”
“You may have read some harsh comments, like every day, about my company. Any idea why she’s doing this?”
“She seems to distrust you, Mr. Ice. Deeply. She must believe that behind the dazzling saga of boy-billionaire excess we all find so entertaining, there lies a darker narrative.”
“We’re in the security business. What do you want, transparent?”
No, I prefer opaque, encrypted, sneaky-assed. “Too political for me.”
“How about financial? The shviger—how much do you think it would cost me to get her to lay off? Just a ballpark estimate.”
“Somehow, like, I get this dim feeling, March doesn’t have a price.”
“Yeah, yeah, maybe you could ask anyway? I’d be really, really grateful.”
“She’s got you that worried? Come on, it’s only a Weblog, how many people even read it?”
“One is too many, if it’s the wrong one.”
Bringing them to a standoff, ethnicity of your choice. Her comeback should be, “With all your high-powered connections, who in the wide civilian world is ever going to hold you accountable for anything?” But that would be admitting she knows more than she’s supposed to. “Tell you what, next time I see March, I’ll ask her why she isn’t speaking more highly of your company, and then when she spits in my face and calls me your bitch and a corporate sellout and so forth, I’ll be able to ignore it ’cause down deep I’ll know I’m doing a big favor for a swell guy.”
“You despise me, right?”
She pretends to think about this. “People like you have a license to despise—mine got pulled, so I have to settle for being pissed off, and it doesn’t last.”
“Good to know. It might help you in future to stay away from my wife too, by the way.”
“Wait a minute, li’l buddy,” what a nasty piece of work this guy is, “you got me all wrong, like she’s cute as a bug’s ear and all but—”
“Just try to keep some distance. Be professional. Make sure you know who it is you’re working for, OK?”
“Talk slower, I’m trying to write this down.”
Ice, as intended, hangs up in a snit.
ROCKY SLAGGIATT CHECKS IN. As usual bringing no luggage. “Hey. Maxi, I got to come up to your neighborhood and intimidate, no wait what’d I say, I mean ‘impress,’ some customers. Need to discuss somethin witchyiz, in person.”
“Important, right?”
“Maybe. You know the Omega Diner on 72nd?”
“Near Columbus, sure. Ten minutes?”
Rocky is sitting in a booth in the back, in the deep underlit recesses of the Omega, with a smooth business type in a bespoke suit, pale-rimmed glasses, medium height, yuppie demeanor.
“Sorry to pull yiz away from work and shit. Say hello to Igor Dashkov, nice guy to have on your Rolodex.”
Igor kisses Maxine’s hand and nods to Rocky. “She is not wearing wire, I hope.”
“I’m wire-intolerant,” Maxine pretends to explain, “I memorize everything instead, then later when they debrief me I can dump it all word for word on the feds. Or whoever it is you’re so afraid of.”
Igor smiles, angles his head like, charmed I’m sure.
“So far,” Rocky murmurs, “the cop has not been invented who could get these guys any more than maybe faintly annoyed.”
In the booth adjoining, Maxine notices two young torpedoes of a certain dimension, busy with handheld game consoles. “Doom,” Igor waving a thumb, “just came out for Game Boy. Post–late capitalism run amok, ‘United Aerospace Corporation,’ moons of Mars, gateways to hell, zombies and demons, including I think these two. Misha and Grisha. Say hello, padonki.”
Silence and button activity.
“How nice to make your acquaintance, Misha and Grisha.” Whatever your real names may be, hi, I’m Marie of Roumania.
“Actually,” one of them looking up, baring a lineup of stainless-steel jailhouse choppers, “we prefer Deimos and Phobos.”
“Too much time with video games. Just out of zona, distant relatives, now not so distant. Brighton Beach, it’s heaven for them. I bring them over to Manhattan so they can have look at hell. Also to meet my pal Rocco. VC business is treating you well, old amigo?”
“A little slow,” Rocky shrugging, “mi gratto la pancia, you know, just scratcha da stomach.”
“We say khuem grushi okolachivat,” beaming at Maxine, “knocking pears out of pear tree with dick.”
“Sounds complicated,” Maxine smiling back.
“But fun.”
Even if this guy looks like he still gets carded at clubs, apparently somewhere inside the smooth suburban packaging, nested matrioshka-deep, is a hulking battle-scarred ex-Spetsnaz toughguy eager to tell war stories from ten years ago. Next thing anybody knows, Igor is flashing back to a clandestine HALO jump over the northern Caucasus.
“Falling through night sky, over mountains, freezing my ass off, I begin to meditate—what is it I really want out of life? Kill more Chechens? Find true love and raise family, someplace warm, like Goa maybe? Almost forget to deploy my parachute. Down on ground again, everything is clear. Totally. Make lots of money.”
Rocky cackles. “Hey, I figured that one out, didn’t have to jump out of no airplane.”
“Maybe if you jump, you decide to give all your money away.”
“You know anybody ever did that?” sez Maxine.
“Strange things happen to men in Spetsnaz,” replies Igor. “Not to mention upper altitudes.”
“Ask her,” Rocky leaning in toward Igor’s ear. “Go ahead, she’s OK.”
“Ask me what?”
“Know anything about these people?” Igor slides a folder in front of her.
“Madoff Securities. Hmm, maybe some industry scuttlebutt. Bernie Madoff, a legend on the street. Said to do quite well, I recall.”
“One to two percent per month.”
“Nice average return, so what’s the problem?”
“Not average. Same every month.”
“Uh-oh.” She flips pages, has a look at the graph. “What the fuck. It’s a perfect straight line, slanting up forever?”
“Seem a little abnormal to you?”
“In this economy? Look at this—even last year, when the tech market went belly-up? No, it’s got to be a Ponzi scheme, and from the scale of these investments he could be front-running also. You have any money with him?”
“Friends of mine. They’ve become concerned.”
“And… these are grown-up persons who can deal with unwelcome news?”
“In their special way. But they warmly appreciate wise advice.”
“Well, that’s me, and my advice today is proceed quickly, unemotionally if possible, to the nearest exit strategy. Time is of the essence. Last month would have been good.”
“Rocky says you have gift.”
“Any idiot, nothing personal, could see this. Why isn’t the SEC taking action here? The DA, somebody.”