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.