Bleeding Edge

by Pynchon, Thomas

  “Where are you calling from, I keep hearing Chinese in the background?”

  “Chinatown.”

  “Ah.”

  “I don’t suppose you could meet me down here.”

  “No?” Whatdafuck. “I mean, what for?”

  “None of my ATM cards seem to be working anymore.”

  “And, excuse me, you want to borrow money? From me?”

  “I wouldn’t say borrow, because that assumes a future in which I might pay it back.”

  “You’re beginning to scare me a little.”

  “Good. Can you bring enough just to get me down to D.C. again?”

  “Yeah I saw that movie, I think Elizabeth Taylor was playing you?”

  “I knew this would come up.”

  Today, she reminds herself heading downtown, all the fortune cookies are screaming, “Err on the side of no schmucks!” This man deserves no mercy, Maxine, your best course here is to just let him go fuck himself. He’s short of cash, boo hoo, given his skill sets, knocking over a convenience store shouldn’t be such a stretch for him, preferably one in New Jersey, he’d already be halfway to D.C. So of course here she is, hurrying to him with a valise full of greenbacks. The apparent cause and effect in this may be worth a look, however. March posts the footage, Windust is forced into flight and his money supply frozen. The links between are hard to resist—Windust, if not ramrodding the whole Deseret roof operation, must’ve been at least in charge of security, and he fucked up. Anybody plugged into the Internet, any bleating sheep of a civilian, can now see what it was Windust’s job to keep hidden. So, big surprise any sanctions should turn out to be serious, maybe extreme?

  She sits watching on the backseat video display their snail’s progress through the streets of Manhattan, as tracked by GPS, drifting into unprofitable thoughts. Is it that American Indian curse about, if you save somebody’s life you’re responsible for what happens to them from then on? Setting aside fringe theories about Indians being lost tribes of Israel and so forth, did she save Windust’s life once long ago without knowing it and now invisible karmic bureaucracy is passing her these messages—he wants you, so go!

  She finds Windust under an awning with a number of Chinese people, waiting for the bus, the Manhattan Bridge looming nearby. After watching from across the street for a minute, Maxine realizes that the people on either side of Windust aren’t talking to each other directly, but through him. Smart-assed as ever, he seems to be translating back and forth from one kind of Chinese to another. He spots her looking at him, nods, gestures, Stay where you are, threads his way across to her. Not looking that great. In fact, a man on the edge.

  “Good timing. Just spent my last U.S. dollars on the bus to D.C.”

  “There’s a bus terminal around here?”

  “Street pickup, savings passed on to the customer, bargain of the century, you’re Jewish, I’m amazed you haven’t heard of this.”

  “Your envelope.”

  Instead of counting the bills like a normal person, Windust with a small practiced hand move hefts the envelope, the sort of thing that over time, for a career bagman, gets to be automatic.

  “Thanks, angel. Don’t know when—”

  “Reimburse when you can, something I don’t have to declare as income. Maybe from the street floor at Tiffany’s— no, wait, what’s her name, Dotty? Nah, you wouldn’t want her finding out.”

  He’s examining her face. “Earrings. Simple diamond studs. With your hair up . . . .”

  “Actually, I’m a Eurowire type gal.” She has barely time to think about adding, “How squalid is this?” when the round comes in, invisible, silent till it hits a piece of wall, whereupon it finds its voice and ricochets droning brightly off into Chinatown, by which time Windust has grabbed Maxine and pulled her down behind a skip full of construction debris.

  “Holy shit. Are you—”

  “Wait,” he advises, “just give it a minute, I’m not sure about the angle, it could’ve come from anyplace. Up in any of those,” gesturing with his head at the upper stories surrounding them. They watch the pavement fragment further into what will later be taken for only a few more city potholes. The people across the street don’t seem to notice. On the incoming breeze, a distant slow stammering. “Somehow I’ve been expecting three-round bursts. This sounds more like an AK. Hold steady.”

  “I knew I should’ve worn the Kevlar outfit today.”

  “Among your friends in the Russian mob, distance equals respect, so we should consider assassination by AK-47 an honor.”

  “Gee, you must be some hot shit.”

  “In fifteen seconds,” glancing at his watch, “I plan to disappear and get on with my day. You might want to wait here for a bit before resuming your own.”

  “Class act, I figured you’d grab my arm and we’d run someplace, like in movies? Chinese people jumping out of the way? Or was I supposed to be blond?” Scanning upper windows meantime, reaching into her purse, bringing out the Beretta, thumbing off the safety.

  “Good,” Windust nodding like it’s about time. “You can cover me.”

  “That one there, the one that’s open, that look good to you?” No reply. Already, as the Eagles say, gone. She crab-steps out from behind the skip anyway and lets go a couple of double taps at the window, screaming, “Motherfuckers!”

  Goodness, Maxine, where’d that come from? Nobody’s returning fire. The people waiting for the bus begin to point and pass remarks. Keeping an eye on the street traffic, she waits for a vehicle tall enough to take cover behind, which turns out to be a moving van with MITZVAH MOVERS in mock-Hebrew lettering and a cartoon of what appears to be an insane rabbi with a piano on his back, and vacates the area.

  Well, as Winston Churchill always sez, there is nothing more exhilarating than getting shot at without result, though for Maxine there is also a flip side or payback, which arrives a few hours later, on the after-school stoop at Kugelblitz, in front of an assortment of Upper West Side moms whose life skills include an eye for the slightest uptick in the distress of others, not that Maxine quite collapses in tears, though her knees feel unreliable and she may be experiencing a certain lightness of head . . .

  “Everything all right, Maxine? you look so . . . inexplicable.”

  “One of those having-it-all moments, Robyn, and yourself?”

  “Going crazy with Scott’s bar mitzvah, you have no idea, the work, caterers, deejay, invitations. And Scott, his aliyah, he’s still struggling to memorize it, with the Hebrew running the other way we’re worried now it’s making him dyslexic?”

  “Well,” in the most rational voice available to her at the moment, “why not go off-Torah and choose a passage from, I don’t know, Tom Clancy? not really that traditional, true, not even I guess Jewish, but something with, you know, maybe Ding Chavez in it?” noticing after a short time lag that Robyn is looking at her funny and people are beginning to edge away. Providentially at this point, the kids all come charging out of the lobby and onto the stoop, and parental subroutines kick in, carrying her and Ziggy and Otis down the steps and into the street, where she notices Nigel Shapiro busy poking with a little stylus at the tiny keyboard of a wavy-shaped pocket-size green-and-purple unit. Doesn’t look like a Game Boy. “Nigel, what is that?”

  Looking up after a while, “This? it’s a Cybiko, my sister gave itta me, everybody at La Guardia has em, the big selling point is the silence. It’s wireless, see, you can send text messages back and forth in class and nobody hears you.”

  “So if Ziggy and I each had one, we could message back and forth?”

  “If you’re in range, which is only like a block and a half. But trust me, Mizzus Loeffler, it’s da wave o’ da fyootch.”

  “You’ll be wanting one, I imagine, Ziggy.”

  “Already got one, Mom.” And who knows who else. Maxine has a moment of eyebrow oscillation. Talk about private networks.

  • • •

  THE OFFICE PHONE LETS LOOSE with some robotic
theme, and Maxine picks up. It’s Lloyd Thrubwell, in some agitation. “The subject you inquired after? I’m so sorry. There’s not much further I can take this.”

  Yeah let me look in my Beltway-to-English phrasebook here . . . “You’re being ordered to back off of it, right?”

  “This person has been the topic of an internal memo, several actually. I can’t say any more than that.”

  “You probably heard already, but Windust and I got shot at yesterday.”

  “His wife,” only having a spot of fun, “or your husband?”

  “I’ll take that as WASP for ‘Thank God you’re both all right.’”

  Muffled mouthpiece passage. “Wait, I’m sorry, it’s a serious event, of course. We’re already looking into it.” A beat of silence, which on Avi’s stress analyzer is clearly registering far over in the Lying Through Ass range. “Do either of you have any theories as to the shooter’s identity?”

  “Out of all the enemies Windust has made during a long career doing his country’s shitwork, jeepers Lloyd, personally, any thoughts on that would so be a chore.”

  More muffled yakking. “No problem. If you have any contact with the subject, however indirect, we would strongly advise against continuing it.” The display on Avi’s gizmo has now turned a vivid cadmium red and begun to blink.

  “Because they don’t want me meddling in Agency business, or something else?”

  “Something else,” Lloyd whispers.

  The sound background changes as an extension is picked up, and another voice, one she has never heard, at least not in the waking world, advises, “He means your personal safety, Ms. Loeffler. The assessment here on Brother Windust is that he’s a highly educated asset, but doesn’t know everything. Lloyd, that’s all, you can get off the line now.” The connection goes dead.

  36

  Some holiday season someday, Maxine would like to find featured on the tube a revisionist Christmas Carol, where Scrooge is the good guy for a change. Victorian capitalism has hustled him over the years for his soul, turning him from an innocent entry-level kid into a mean old man who treats everybody like shit, none worse than his apparently honest bookkeeper Bob Cratchit, who in reality has been systematically skimming off of poor haunted and vulnerable Scrooge, cooking the books, and running off periodically to Paris to squander what he’s stolen on champagne, gambling, and cancan girls, leaving Tiny Tim and the family in London to starve. At the end, instead of Bob being the instrument of Scrooge’s redemption, it turns out to be by way of Scrooge that Bob is ransomed back to the side of humanity again.

  Every year when Christmas and Hanukkah roll around, this story begins to slop over into work. Maxine finds herself reversing polarities, overlooking obvious Scrooges and zooming in on secretly sinful Cratchits. The innocent are guilty, the guilty are beyond hope, everything’s on its head, it’s a Twelfth Night of late-capitalist contradiction, and not especially relaxing.

  Having listened through the window to the same heartfelt street-trumpet rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” a thousand times, each identical, note-for-note, finding this at last, what’s the phrase—fucking tiresome, Maxine, Horst, and the boys decide to take a break together and roll a couple of frames down at the Port Authority bus terminal, which houses the last unyuppified bowling alley in the city.

  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 Maxi
ne 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.”