BEg2 backtracking more Maxine machinations

[Michael Bailey]

Looking back into chapter 16 -

So, right when I want Maxine to go all witty & charming on Ice and get him
to relinquish his pound of Lester Traipse’s flesh, as she boldly promised
Traipse she would do, she gets wound up with VIP Epperdew instead.

Is this a parable about how watching videos is distracting? But no, it’s
from Marvin, and he’s too cool to be giving her bad nudges.

The diversion from confronting Ice w/r/t Traipse may actually be saving her
life as we are to learn soon when Traipse turns up deceased in Chapter 18!
She could easily have been another line on that hitman invoice.

Anyway, she thinks (w/r/t Shawn’s surfer zen homework supposedly helping
her decide how to proceed w/r/t wanting to help these poor saps she keeps
meeting)

“Yet another one of these shadowy calls. She should get on to Axel and tell
him Vip’s a frequent visitor to the South Fork, then pass on the
card-number fragments she was able to copy down off the videotape”

Who the fuck is Axel?

Oh yeah - Axel Quigley down at John Street, in the NYC Finance Dept,
shepherd of whistleblowers, the duly constituted authority whose
investigation of VIP Epperdew paid her way to Toronto to meet Felix
Boingeaux in the first place.

But rather than tell Axel, she pumps Felix for Epperdew’s contact info,
puts the Tomcat in her bag, and heads out to Montauk.

Her priorities?
Same as when she was watching the Deseret as a teen - looking for trouble?
Going on instinct?
Sympathy for the shlubb?
Tired of sitting behind her desk looking at numbers?
Secretly turned on by the porn?

Who’s she working for anyway? - on spec, she told Igor. Come to think of
it, she just got a passel of money from him, cash at that.

Between the lingering disorientation from the karaoke night and the sudden
influx of what sounds like a life-altering amount of money, it’s likely
that she feels more free to dance to her own drummer than is usual even for
her.


Anyway, interesting in several ways. Imho.