“Thought I’d try and help my mom out. Wrong as usual. Look at this fuckin zoo. Karmic crime scene. You think it won’t find its way into the food?”
“Family all gettin together this year, huh?”
“You’ll be seeing it in the Post. ‘Among those being held for observation…’”
“Hey, your friend from Montreal? That Felix guy with the antizapper? We’re givin him some bridge money, Spud Loiterman has a sixth sense, he says go.”
“So you want to hire me now, or wait till Felix is what Bobby Darin calls ‘beyond the sea’?”
“Yeah, OK, he’s working a hustle, so what, I was like that once, I can relate, and anyway who am I to second-guess the Dean Martin of Dissonance?”
35
As things turn out, Thanksgiving is not so horrible after all. Probably 11 September has something to do with it. There is an empty space set seder fashion at the table, not for the prophet Elijah but for one or any of the unknown souls whom prophecy failed that day. The sound ambience is subdued, edgeless. Ernie and the boys settle in in front of the annual Star Wars marathon, Horst and Avi talk sports, smells of cooking fill the rooms, Elaine glides in and out of dining room, pantry, and kitchen, a one-woman army of woodwork-dwelling elves, Maxine and Brooke by the end of the afternoon have reached zinger parity with no lethal weapons appearing, the food is, as so often with Elaine, a form of time travel, the turkey mercifully unjinxed despite its Crumirazzi origins, the pastries somehow escaping Brooke’s fatality for the overelaborate and even including what Otis in a rave review calls a normal pumpkin pie. Ernie spares everybody a speech and only gestures at the empty chair with a glass of apple cider. “Everybody who should’ve been celebrating today but isn’t.”
As they’re leaving, Avi draws Maxine aside. “Your office—is there some kind of a back entrance?”
“You want to drop by without anybody seeing you. Maybe… should we do breakfast someplace?”
“Um…”
“Too public, OK, here’s what you do, go around the corner, there’s a delivery gate that’s usually open, go in the courtyard, bear to the right, you’ll see a door painted with red lead, the service elevator’s right inside, I’m on three. Call first.”
AVI COMES CREEPING up to the office in disguise, jeans way too skinny for him, T-shirt reading ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US, a fuzzy white Kangol 504 at which Daytona does a triple take, pretending to adjust her glasses. “Thought it was Sam the King of Cool in here, walkin amongst us. Clients is gettin way too hip for my ass, Miz Maxine!”
“You never met my brother-in-law?” Avi takes off his hat, and there’s his yarmulke. The two shake hands warily.
“I’ll just whup up a mess of coffee, then, shall I.”
“Good timing, Avi, the danish guy was just here a minute ago.”
“Been meaning to ask, where in this neighborhood anymore? We come back to the city, now the Royale on 72nd is gone.”
“Tell me. We have to get these schlepped up from 23rd Street. Sit, please, here, coffee, thanks, Daytona.”
“Only got a minute, have to go punch in. I’m supposed to pass on a message to you.”
“From the Ice Man himself, I bet. Neither of you could just phone?”
“Well, it’s not only that. Something weird I need to ask you about, also.”
“If your boss’s message is stop looking into the audit trails at hashslingrz, consider it done, that ticket’s been dormant really since September 11th.”
“I think he has a job for you.”
“Respectfully decline.”
“Just like that?”
“Everybody’s different, Avi, maybe I’ve worked for a lowlife or two over the years, but this Ice specimen, I hope you guys haven’t become dear friends, he’s how shall I put it—”
“He speaks highly of you also.”
“So what kind of a gig could he be offering me—get run over by a truck?”
“He thinks he’s being ripped off by persons unknown, inside the company.”
“Oh, please. And needs an ex-CFE to make that story look legit? Let you in on a big secret, Avi, these persons unknown happen to be Ice himself, along with the missus possibly duked in, being you’ll recall company comptroller? Sorry to be the bearer, but Ice for months, maybe years, has been robbing his own shop blind.”
“Gabriel Ice is… embezzling?”
“Yes contemptible enough, but now he’s whining about Dishonest Employees? oldest con in the book, he wants to pin it on some poor zhlub who can’t afford a good enough lawyer. My diagnosis? Classic fraud, your employer is a fraudster. That’s ten billable seconds, I’ll send an invoice.”
“He’s under investigation? He’ll be charged?” So plaintive that Maxine finally reaches over and pats her brother-in-law on the shoulder.
“Nobody’s about to go forensic with it, maybe some curiosity at federal level, but Ice has his own friends down there, likely at some point they’ll all be dealing in secret and nothing’ll ever get as far as the courts or outside the Beltway. You and me, the taxpayer, will of course end up a tiny percent more impoverished, but who gives a shit about us. Your job is safe, don’t worry.”
“My job. Well, that’s the other thing.”
“Ooh, somebody’s not happy?” in a voice she likes to use in the street with screaming toddlers she hasn’t necessarily been introduced to.
“No, and I’m not Dopey or Doc either. If this city was a nuthouse, hashslingrz would be the paranoid ward—help, help, the enemy, look, they’re out there, they’re all around us! Like being back in Israel on a bad day.”
“And as seen from inside your workplace, this business-world analogy to being surrounded on all sides by criminally insane Arabs would be…”
An uncoordinated, slightly desperate shrug. “Whoever it is, it’s no delusion, somebody’s actively engaged, mystery stalkers, hacking into our networks, social-engineering us at bars.”
“OK, setting aside what could be a, forgive me, deliberate company policy of keeping all the employees paranoid… How about Brooke, any reports there of stalking, molestation, lapses of taste above and beyond the usual in this town?”
“There’s these two guys.”
“Uh-oh.” Hoping this time her intuition circuit board really is on the fritz, “A sort of Russian hip-hop act?”
“Funny you should mention.”
Pizdets. “Listen, if it’s who I think, they’re probably not into inflicting harm.”
“‘Probably.’”
“Can’t give you a figure, but I can make a phone call. Let me see what’s going on, meantime tell Brooke not to worry.”
“Actually, I haven’t been sharing any of this with her.”
“Such a mensch, Avi, always thinking of her stress level, lucky her.”
“Well, not exactly… the nondisclosure agreement says no wives?”
As he’s going out, Daytona flashes her nails. “Loved you in Pulp Fiction, baby. That Bible quote? Mm-hmmm!”
ABOUT 5:00 A.M. MAXINE WAKES from one of those annoying recursive subnightmares, this time something about Igor and an oversize bottle of vodka, named after a Lithuanian basketball player, which he keeps trying to introduce her to as if it’s a person. She slips out of bed and goes into the kitchen, where she finds Driscoll and Eric sharing their usual breakfast, a bottle of Mountain Dew with two straws in it. “Been meaning to mention this,” Driscoll begins, and gazing at each other like two country singers at a benefit, she and Eric start to sing the old Jeffersons sitcom theme, “Movin on out.”