BEg2 ch 21 the name of the bar // where’s the Xerox?

[Michael Bailey]

Vodkascript - and all the techies are sitting around listening to
Driscoll’s disconsolate song.
Catering to the decadent and enervating trends of the West? Just like back
during the Cold War.

It’d be comparatively easy to puff out a theory of BE as cognizant of a
Russianizing trend among the phenomena of “début de siècle” NYC, wouldn’t
it?





Anent Conkling’s pic of Hitler bearing 4711 cologne:

a complex, multiple flashback - about which fellow anoraks are probably as
excited as I am!!!!

“ After the set, Driscoll waves and comes over.

         “Driscoll, Heidi, and this is Conkling.”

         “Oh, sure, the guy with the Hitler,” quick look at Maxine, “uh,
thing. How’d that work out?”


         “Hitler,” Heidi violently with the eyelashes, scattering pieces of
mascara, as if it’s a pop star she and Conkling might have in common.


         Fuck here we go, Maxine half-subvocalizes, having *only herself
recently learned* of
            Conkling’s longtime obsession with, not so much Hitler in
general as the even more
            focused question of, what did Hitler smell like? Exactly? “I
mean obviously like a
            vegetarian, like a nonsmoker, but . . . what was Hitler’s
cologne, for example?”


< Maxine already knew >

         “I always figured it was 4711,” Heidi taking her beat a little
faster than a normal
            person might.


         Conkling is instantly mesmerized….”

We’re obviously in Vodkascript, witnessing the first flush of Conkling
crushing on Heidi.

(this occurs on page 235 of 470 (Nook edition) halfway through the book -
that is just a sidebar, afaik)


Pg 236, after Conkling rattles on and reaches a fine pitch of madness,
claiming the 4711 connection was part of a Hitler - Dönitz special bond -

“Conkling,” Maxine gently *and not for the first time*, “that doesn’t make
Hitler a big U-boat lover, by that point there was nobody else he trusted,
and somehow, the logic here?”


< “And not for the first time” pries us out of the present into a
compression of a series of conversations: >

         At first, assuming Conkling was only developing a thesis out loud,
Maxine was willing to cut him some slack. But soon she began to grow
vaguely alarmed, recognizing, behind a pose of wholesome curiosity, the
narrow stare of the zealot. *At some point *he showed Maxine a “period
press photo”

< - at some point - Whereupon she took the Xerox, in her office, where
they’ve been meeting

< And sometime later, handed it to Driscoll, who found a similar photo
without the 4711, and explained to Maxine how easy that would be to fake.
We know this is a different time and place because Maxine asks Driscoll, >

“Think there’s any point in telling Conkling any of this?”

         “Depends where he got the picture from and how much he spent.”

< and then, at a 3rd unspecified place and time, “not shy,” she did reveal
to Conkling the likely fakery, and did ask him where he got the picture >

“Swap meets . . . New Jersey . . . you know how there’s always Nazi
memorabilia . . . Look, there could be an explanation—it could still be a
genuine Nazi propaganda photo, right? which they altered themselves, for a
poster or . . .”


         “You’d still need to get it expertized— Oh, Conkling, there’s
somebody on the other
            line here, I have to take this.”

 Maxine has tried since to keep their conversations professional. Conkling
does ease
            up some with the Hitler references, but it only makes Maxine
nervous. Wild talents
            like überschnozz here, she learned long ago at the New York
campus of Fraud University,
            can often be nutcases also. “

< suddenly someone appears at the turnstile, and we are back in the
Vodkascript bar with Heidi >

         Heidi of course thinks it’s cute. When Conkling slides off to the
toilet, she leans
            till their heads are touching and murmurs, “So Maxine, is there
an issue here?”


        Two conversations out of a series with Conkling, and one with
Driscoll, all flashed back to, from their table at Vodkascript.


         She may do her best detecting in bathrooms, but she does some
fancy thinking in bars as well.