At the terminal, on the way upstairs, amid the swarm of travelers, hustlers, shoulder surfers, and undercover cops, Maxine notices a sprightly figure beneath a gigantic backpack, possibly bound for someplace he thinks has no extradition treaty with the U.S. “Be right with you guys.” She makes her way through the traffic and brings out the sociable smile. “Why, Felix Boïngueaux, ça va, heading back up to Montreal, are we?”
“This time of year, are you crazy? Heading for sunshine, tropical breezes, babes in bikinis.”
“Some friendly Caribbean jurisdiction, no doubt.”
“Only going as far as Florida, thanks, and I know what you’re thinking, but that’s all in the past, eh? I’m a respectable businessman now, paying for employee health insurance and everything.”
“Heard about your bridge round from Rocky, congratulations. Haven’t seen you since the Geeks’ Cotillion, recall you being into some deep discussion then with Gabriel Ice. Were you able to drum up any business?”
“Maybe a little consulting work.” No shame. Felix is now an account payable of the guy who may have whacked his former partner. Maybe has been all along.
“Tell you what, get a Ouija board and ask Lester Traipse what he thinks about that. You told me once, you strongly implied, you knew who did Lester —”
“No names,” looking nervous. “You want it to be uncomplicated, but it’s not.”
“Just one thing—total honesty, OK?” Looking for furtive eyeballs with this one? forget it. “After Lester was hit—did you ever have any reason to think there was somebody after you too?”
Trick question. Saying no, Felix admits he’s being protected, which makes the next question “Who by?” Saying yes leaves open the possibility he’ll produce documentation, however embarrassing, if the price is right. He stands there processing this, stolid as a take-out container of poutine, amid the swarm of holiday travelers, fake Santas, children on leashes, drink-sodden victims of lunchtime office partying, commuters hours late and days early, “Someday we’ll be friends,” Felix shifting his backpack, “I promise.”
“I so look forward. Bon voyage. Have a frozen mai tai in memory of Lester.”
“Who was that, Mom?”
“Him? Uh, one of Santa’s elves, down here on a business trip from Montreal, which is like a regional hub for North Pole activities, same weather conditions and so on?”
“Santa’s elves don’t exist,” proclaims Ziggy, “In fact—”
“Dummy up, kid,” mutters Maxine, about the same time Horst advises, “That’s enough.”
Seems various NYC junior know-it-alls of Otis and Ziggy’s acquaintance have been putting around the story there’s no Santa.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” sez Horst.
The boys squint at their father. “You’re what, forty, fifty years old, and you believe in Santa Claus?”
“I do indeed, and if this miserable city is too wised up to deal with it, then they can shove it up their own,” looking around dramatically, “butthole, which last time I checked was someplace over on the Upper East Side.”
While they check in at Leisure Time Lanes, get bowling shoes, examine the fried-food inventory and so forth, Horst goes on to explain that just like the Santa clones out on the street corners, parents are also Santa’s agents, acting in loco Santaclausis, “Actually, as it gets closer to Christmas Eve, just loco. See, the North Pole is not so much about fabrication anymore, elves have gradually moved out of the workshop and into fulfillment and delivery, where they’re busy outsourcing and routing toy requests. Pretty much everything these days is transacted via Santanet.”
“Via what?” Ziggy and Otis inquire.
“Hey. Nobody has any trouble believing in the Internet, right, which really is magic. So what’s the problem believing in a virtual private network for Santa’s business? It results in real toys, real presents, delivered by Christmas morning, what’s the difference?”
“The sleigh,” Otis promptly. “The reindeer.”
“Only cost-efficient in snow-covered areas. As the planet warms up, and Third World markets become more important, North Pole HQ has to start subcontracting delivery out to local companies.”
“So this Santanet,” Ziggy relentless, “there’s passwords?”
“Kids aren’t allowed,” Horst beyond ready to change the subject, “it’s like they don’t let you guys watch pirate movies either?”
“What?”
“Pirate movies? Why not?”
“’Cause they’re rated Ahrrrh. Look, somebody want to help me program this scoreboard, I get a little confused…”
They’re happy to oblige, but Maxine understands, with one of those joys-of-the-season twinges, as a reprieve it’s all too temporary.
MARCH KELLEHER MEANTIME has become even more problematic to get hold of. None of the doorstaff at the St. Arnold now has ever heard of her, none of her phones is even defaulting to an answering machine anymore, just ringing on and on into enigmatic silence. According to her Weblog, the attention from cops and cop affiliates public and private has reached alarming levels, obliging her to roll up her futon every morning, hop on a bicycle, and relocate someplace new, trying not to sleep in the same place too many nights in a row. She has a network of friends who warbike around town with compact PCs and provide her with a growing list of free Wi-Fi hotspots, which she likewise tries not to use the same one of too often. She carries an iBook clamshell in a shade known as Key Lime and logs in from wherever she can find free Internet access.
“It’s getting weird,” she admits on one of her Weblog entries. “I’m keeping a step or two ahead so far, but you never know what they’ve got, how state-of-the-art it might be, who works for them and who doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love them nerds, in another life I would’ve been a nerd groupie, but even nerds can be bought and sold, almost as if times of great idealism carry equal chances for great corruptibility.”
“After the 11 September attack,” March editorializes one morning, “amid all that chaos and confusion, a hole quietly opened up in American history, a vacuum of accountability, into which assets human and financial begin to vanish. Back in the days of hippie simplicity, people liked to blame ‘the CIA’ or ‘a secret rogue operation.’ But this is a new enemy, unnamable, locatable on no organization chart or budget line—who knows, maybe even the CIA’s scared of them.
“Maybe it’s unbeatable, maybe there are ways to fight back. What it may require is a dedicated cadre of warriors willing to sacrifice time, income, personal safety, a brother/sisterhood consecrated to an uncertain struggle that may extend over generations and, despite all, end in total defeat.”
She’s going crazy, Maxine thinks, this is Jedi talk. Or maybe that graduation speech last summer at Kugelblitz really was prophecy, and now it’s coming true. For all Maxine knows, March is sleeping in the park by now, her possessions in Zabar’s bags, hair growing out wild and gray, no hot baths anymore, depending for showers on the winter rains. How guilty is Maxine supposed to feel about passing her Reg’s video?
VYRVA COMES OVER ONE MORNING after leaving the kids off at school. It isn’t that a coolness has grown between her and Maxine, exactly. Among the underlying rules of the fraud-investigation universe is that on any given Saturday night anybody may be playing canasta with anybody, who in particular seldom being as important as what’s on the score sheet.