BEg2 chapter 17 factual summary

[Michael Bailey]

Starts on pg 190 of 470 (Nook pagination)
At the 40% mark in the book

Ends on pg 201, 43% in

People
- Maxine
- Randy, a guy in the bar
- Westchester Willie, a guy from the video
- Bethesda, a young woman in the bar, wearing painter’s overalls and
Chinese tats
- something in a child-size fatigue uniform
- Heidi

Places
- the LIE in a rental Camry
- Junior’s Ooh-La-Lounge (barroom, ladies’)
- the burned ruins of Shae, Bruno, and VIP’s old playhouse
- Montauk Point Lighthouse parking lot
- Gabriel Ice’s summer retreat (“Fuckingham Palace”)
- the house thereof, swarming with contractors
- the wine cellar for Randy to loot in an attempt to recover unpaid
invoices for his materials, let alone labor
- a spooky underground passage behind a coded-access door in the corner of
the wine cellar
- a dream landscape
- a deli around the corner from Tail ‘Em and Nail ‘Em

Action
- Maxine gets teary eyed over a country song while driving, about a couple
who forgot to ground their Airstream trailer & kept getting shocked off the
walls

- Maxine following clues from the video to get that boots on the ground
look at its setting

- stopping at Junior’s Ooh-La-Lounge when she figures she’s near her goal,
for directions from
locals

- Maxine charms Randy, a contractor to whom Gabriel Ice owes big money, he
gives her more info about Bruno and Shea (like, the playhouse burned down!
Though no bodies were found)

-Maxine and Randy agree to go together both to the scene of the video, and
to Ice’s place, pretending to be on an assignation

- There’s a friendly conversation among the tavern guests about the
tribulations of the contracting business

- Bethesda, another tavern guest, takes Maxine aside in the ladies’ room
and treats her to a Montauk makeover, with abundant hairspray, so she will
be less conspicuous on her sortie with Randy

- Bethesda and Randy both think that Gabriel Ice torched the playhouse,
likely because he was also using it for sex & was getting blackmailed.

- at the playhouse’s burnt remnants Maxine opens her purse for her digital
camera to photograph it, and Randy sees her Beretta. A little gun badinage
- he says he has a Bersa 9 millimeter & perhaps excited by the armaments
talk, advances his palm to her rear. She’s pleased to note that he removes
it when challenged.

- she leaves her car in the visitor parking at the Montauk Lighthouse so
they can discreetly drive together to Ice’s house.

- Randy grabs a bag of grout and a cup of coffee to walk them unnoticed to
the wine cellar thru the throng of workers at the house.

- he chooses with a discerning eye some wine and explains he might sell it
on eBay to recoup some of the costs that Ice hasn’t bothered to pay him for

- while Randy takes that load to his truck, Maxine opens a key-code door in
the corner of the cellar, using one of a list of Hashslingrz codes she got
from Eric Outfield via Reg Despard

- the corridor behind the door is spooky, with many doors on its sides, and
she begins to hear weird military-type call signals and such. Her notion is
that the lacquered coiffure Bethesda gave her is picking up these
transmissions. But she is daunted, no question

- she believes she is heading toward the urban-legend secret Montauk
installation

- when she comes to a stairway leading down and sees a child-size figure in
fatigues coming up, she turns tail and runs (“All right, Air Jordans, do
your stuff!”)

- back in the wine cellar, Randy also seems nervous enough to be less picky
about his second load of wine. They return to his truck; he returns Maxine
to her rental Camry, and after a friendly invitation to meet up at a
shooting range in Yonkers called “Sensibility” (‘Men always welcome’) which
Maxine tentatively accepts without actually specifying when, and after she
decides to let him keep the burgundy she had selected after all, he leaves
her to it.

- “it” being the drive back to Manhattan, accompanied on the radio by the
vocal stylings of Droolin’ Floyd Womack on the subject of his throbbin’
brain.

- Maxine’s throbbing brain that night treats her to a dream that sort of
recaps all that’s been going on, but skewed of course

- next day Heidi comes by the office & they get some salads at the corner
deli. Maxine asks for Montauk lore, which, as we know, Heidi is an SME
(subject matter expert) on, teaching a course in fact.

- However, Heidi is less informative than meta: she talks about the
relationship of urban legend to truth and to the popularization of wild
tales. Few deets!

- what Maxine already knows, however, and her “throbbin’ brain,” cause her
to lose her appetite. Heidi is glad to help her finish the meal, and Maxine
finally teases back ( when I saw no riposte for Heidi’s earlier, “Maxi,
earnest Maxi…” I was worried, but though she’s lost her appetite, she
hasn’t lost her complete quiver of quippage) - “Fress, Heidi, fress please.
I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”