BEg2 ch 35 brief summary

[Michael Bailey]

Thanksgiving dinner at Ernie & Elaine’s


 <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.”>




After dinner, Avi asks Maxine for a sub rosa meet at Tail ‘Em and Nail ‘Em

“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 relays a job offer from his new(ish) employer, Gabriel Ice.
Maxine declines immediately, even before any details.

Avi then explains the job involves investigating someone embezzling from
hashslingrz.

Avi’s taken aback when Maxine tells him that Ice himself is the embezzler,
looking to pin the crime 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. >




Avi confides that paranoia is the order of the day at hashslingrz, and that
2 guys may be following Brooke (Maxine’s sister, his spouse)

Maxine figures them to be Misha & Grisha & says she’ll look into it for him.

Daytona digs Avi’s headgear (Kangol)



Driscoll & Eric, true lovers sharing a bottle of Mountain Dew with 2
straws, tell Maxine they’re moving out of her apartment to Williamsburg.


Windust keeps calling Maxine at the office. He’s furious because March
Kelleher has posted the Stinger footage on her website (“Tabloid of the
Damned”)

When Maxine finally takes his call, Windust asks her to meet him in
Chinatown to “loan” him some money so he can get to DC. The publication of
the Stinger footage has apparently really messed him up with his
employer(s)?

Maxine brings money to him, suggests he buy her earrings when, & if, he’s
ever able to repay her.

Then somebody is shooting at them with a machine gun. Nobody else on the
street seems to notice.

Windust skips out, Maxine gives him covering fire with her Beretta. As some
people now start to notice, she takes cover running behind a moving van
passing in the street & makes her escape.

The adrenaline rush wears off later when she’s picking up the kids at
Kugelblitz. Finds herself talking with another of the mothers about the
latter’s bar mitzvah preparations, and suggests a reading from Tom Clancy.
Fielding some odd looks, she’s relieved when the kids come out.


Remember how Maxine had asked Thrubwell of the CIA, a rather unintelligent
Slagiatt relative, to look into Windust?

She’s not surprised when he calls & says he’s been warned off the task.

Thrubwell’s talking to someone in the background & comes back on the line
to warn her against any further contact with Windust.

 “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.