Bleeding Edge - Pynchon Thomas (список книг .TXT) 📗

March’s building, known as The St. Arnold, is a medium-size prewar intrusion on a block of brownstones, with a consciously seedy look Maxine has learned to associate with frequent changes of ownership. Today there’s an off-brand moving van outside, painters and plasterers at work in the lobby, Out of Order sign on one of the elevators. Maxine gets more than the usual number of suspicious O-Os, before being allowed to go in the elevator that’s working. Security this tight of course could also result if enough tenants here were into shady activities and paying off the staff.

March is wearing novelty slippers each shaped like a shark, with sound chips in the heels so when she walks around, they play the opening of the Jaws (1975) theme. “Where can I find these, price is no object, I can write it off.”

“I’ll ask my grandson, he bought them with his allowance—Ice’s money, but I figure if it went through the kid, then maybe it’s laundered enough.”

They go into the kitchen, old Provencal tiles on the floor and an unpainted pine table that the two of them can sit at and still leave room for March’s computer and a pile of books and a coffeemaker. “My office here. Whatcha got?”

“Not sure. If it’s what it looks like, it should carry a radiation warning.”

They start up the disc, and March, getting the situation from frame one, mutters holy shit, sits fidgeting and frowning till the guy with the rifle shows up, then leans forward intently, slopping a little coffee onto that morning’s overpriced copy of the Guardian. “I don’t fucking believe it.” When the scene is done, “Well.” She pours coffee. “Who shot this?”

“Reg Despard, documentary guy I know who was doing a project on hashslingrz—”

“Oh, I remember Reg, we met during the blizzard of ’96, down at the World Trade Center, there was a janitors’ strike, all kinds of weird shit going on, secrets, payoffs. By the end of it, we felt like old veterans. We had a standing deal, anything interesting, I’d get to post it first on my Weblog. Bandwidth allowing. We lost touch, but what goes around comes around. Does this look to you what it looks like to me?”

“Somebody nearly shoots down an airplane, changes their mind at the last minute.”

“Or maybe it’s a dry run. Somebody planning to shoot down an airplane. Say, somebody in the private sector, working for the current U.S. regime.”

“Why would they—”

Irish people are not known for silently davening, but March sits for a short while appearing to. “OK, first of all maybe this is a fake, or a setup. Pretend I’m the Washington Post, OK?”

“Sure.” Maxine reaches toward March’s face and begins to make page-turning motions.

“No. No, I meant like in that Watergate movie? Responsible journalism and so forth. First of all, this disc is a copy, right? So Reg’s original could’ve been messed with in any number of ways. That date-and-time stamp in the corner could be fake.”

“Who would fake this, do you think?”

March shrugs. “Somebody who wants to nail Bush’s ass, assuming ‘Bush’ and ‘ass’ is a distinction you make? Or maybe it’s one of Bush’s people playing the victim card, trying to nail somebody who wants to nail Bush—”

“OK but suppose it is some kind of a dress rehearsal. Who’s the sharpshooter over on the other roof?”

“Insurance to see that they go through with it?”

“And on the other end of the phone that guy’s yelling into?”

“Excuse me, you already know what I think. Those Stinger guys were talking English, my guess is civilian contractors, because that’s GOP ideology, whenever possible privatize—and when the spook sound labs have the dialogue all cleaned up and transcribed, those mercs are gonna be in some deep shit for not doing enough of a sweep of the roof. How did Reg get this to you, if I may ask?”

“Over the transom.”

“How do you know Reg sent it? Maybe it’s CIA.”

“OK March it’s all a fake, I just came over here to waste your time. What do you advise, do nothing?”

“No, we find out where this roof is, for starters.” They scan through the footage again. “OK, so that’s the river . . . that’s Jersey.”

“Not Hoboken. No bridge, so it’s south of Fort Lee—”

“Wait, freeze it. That’s the Port Imperial Marina. Sid goes in and out of there sometimes.”

“March, I hate to even mention this, I’ve never been up there, but I have a creepy feeling about this roof, that . . .”

“Don’t say it.”

“. . . it’s the fuckin . . .”

“Maxi?”

“Deseret.”

March squints at the screen. “Hard to tell, none of these angles are that clear. Could be any of a dozen buildings in that stretch of Broadway.”

“Reg was stalking the place. Trust me, that’s where this was shot. Just something I know.”

Carefully, as to a nutcase, “Maybe you only want it to be The Deseret?”

“Because . . . ?”

“It’s where they found Lester Traipse. Maybe you want to believe there’s a connection.”

“Maybe there is, March, all my life the place has given me bad dreams, and them I’ve learned to trust.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to check out if it’s the same rooftop.”

“I’m a regular on the freight elevator there, I’ll get you a guest pass for the pool, then we can figure a way on up to the roof.”

•   •   •

AFTER THREADING A MAZE of unfrequented hallways and fire stairs, they emerge into the open, high up near a catwalk between two sections of the building, suitable for teen adventurers, clandestine lovers, well-heeled wrongdoers on the run, and take this vertiginous crossover to a set of iron steps that bring them finally around up onto the roof, into the wind above the city.

“Look sharp,” March ducking behind a vent. “Some gents with metal accessories.”

Maxine crouches down next to her. “Yeah I’ve got their album, I think.”

“Is it that missile crew again? What’s all that that they’re carrying?”

“Doesn’t look like Stingers. Wouldn’t it be easier to just go over and ask them?”

“Am I your husband, is this a gas station? Go on ahead, it makes you happy.”

They have no sooner got to their feet when here comes yet another group stepping off the elevator.

“Wait,” March angling her shades, “I know her, that’s Beverly, from the Tenants’ Association.”

“March!” A wave too vigorous not to be prescription-drug-assisted. “Glad you’re here.”

“Bev, what’s up?”

“Scumbag co-op board again. Went behind everybody’s back, leased some space up here to a cellular-phone outfit. These guys,” indicating the work crew, “are trying to put in microwave antennas to irradiate the neighborhood. Somebody doesn’t stop em we’re all gonna end up with glow-in-the-dark brains.”

“Count me in, Bev.”

“March, um . . .”

“Come on, Maxi, in or out, it’s your neighborhood too.”

“OK, for a while, but that’s another guilt trip you owe me.”

“For a while” of course turns out to be the rest of the day Maxine’s stuck on the roof. Every time she starts to leave, there’s a new mini-crisis, installers, supervisors, building management to argue with, then Eyewitness News shows up, shoots some footage, then more lawyers, late-rising picketers, flaneurs and sensation seekers drifting in and out of the picture, everybody with an opinion.

In that slack corner of the afternoon when it’s too discouraging even to look at a clock, March, as if remembering she came up here to check for clues, stoops and picks up a screw cap of some kind, weathered gray, two-, two-and-a-half-inch diameter, dings here and there, some faded writing in marker pen. Maxine squints at it. “What’s this, Arabic?”

“Has a sort of military look, doesn’t it?”

“You think . . .”

“Listen . . . do you mind if we show this to Igor? Just a hunch.”

“Igor could be some kind of criminal mastermind, you’re OK with that?”

“Remember Kriechman, the slumlord?”

“Sure. First time we met, you were picketing him.”