BEg2 Chapter 14 Summary

[Allen Ruch]

Note for those of you who haven’t read BE. A few things that refer to future chapters are marked with “Spoilers.”

Chapter 14

Part 1

Eric Outfield has discovered one of hashsligerz “mystery vendors” is Darklinear Solutions. This outfit scouts out unused—“dark”—fiber optics and allows clients to repurpose it for “customized private networks.” While this sounds shady, it’s actually legal—which is why Maxine is concerned that hashsligerz is hiding their “way too big” dollar amounts flowing into Darklinear Solutions, along with the undue password protection.

Maxine calls up Tallis to fish for info. During their call, Tallis indicates that she told Gabriel Ice about Maxine’s visit. Tallis claims not to know of Darklinear Solutions, but Maxine does not believe her.

Part 2

Maxine visits the Darklinear Solutions office in a cab. There she sees a disguised Tallis rendezvous with someone coming out of the building. They get into a Lincoln Navigator. Maxine has the cabbie follow them. The illicit lovebirds get out at an apartment building near East Harlem. Maxine tricks the doorman into spilling personal info on Tallis’ paramour.

[Spoiler: In Chapter 19 we learn the man is Chazz Larday. Gabriel knows of the affair, and is happy to keep Tallis in check. Later, however, it turns out Chazz isn’t actually a bad guy.]

Part 3

Rocky Slagiatt calls Maxine and invites her out to karaoke in Korea Town. Among others, the party consists of Rocky’s wife Cornelia and some of his business associates. It’s here that Maxine first meets Lester Traipse, formerly of “hwgaahwgh.com.” Turns out that Lester’s now with Felix Boïngueaux, whom Maxine had once investigated in Montréal—a cash register scam. Felix tells Maxine he’s trying to go legit. He and Lester are working on “anti-zapper” software, something that disables all phantomware in a mile radius.

After some description of karaoke—during which Pynchon unveils his hit single “Massapequa” from an Amy Fisher musical, Maxine and Cornelia bond over some WASP-meets-NYC Jewish banter, and Pynchon reveals his love for the song “Volare”—Maxine hears a commotion in the men’s room and investigates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Fisher

It seems Lester Traipse has involved himself in an argument over the age-old debate of CSS vs. Tables.

https://vanseodesign.com/css/css-divs-vs-tables/

The man arguing with Lester is a “fake nerd” who may “be in some quite different line of work.” Maxine rescues Lester, who explains the man was “One of Gabriel Ice’s badass entourage.”

Lester nervously explains his relationship to Ice. First, Lester wonders why Ice paid so much for hwgaahwgh.com. It doesn’t make sense. Lester also mentions that hashsligerz is buying up all the fiber networks they can find. [Re: Darklinear Solutions.] Anyway, after hwgaahwgh.com folded, Ice hired Lester to encode web pages in a way they’d be hidden from search engines. Which was strange, because any of the “nerds” on Ice’s payroll could have done that.

[Personal Note: Lester says: “Old-school HTML pages, in this case ‘He’s taking more Lithium,’ everything encrypted, nothin any of us knew how to read.” I confess, this has me puzzled. Why the Lithium comment? What didn’t Lester know how to read? Was that the Arabic LEET?]

With much fidgeting and bitterness, Lester hints that there’s something else, something more, a reason one of Ice’s stooges would’ve picked a fight in the restroom. Something more than the CSS debate, or any NDA Leser may have signed. Lester hesitates, then says of Ice, “Him with his high-level connections. Instead here he is insecure, anxious, angry, like some loan shark or pimp who’s just learned he can’t depend for help on the cop’s he’s paid off, or even the higher levels he has to report to….”

Maxine suggests the argument was about “somebody leaking information.” Lester says no; but right as he’s going to elucidate, Felix shows up and ends the conversation: “just short of suspicious.” It’s obvious Lester fucked up, and Felix throws Maxine a cautionary look before hustling Lester away. It’s obvious that Felix might have been appointed as Lester’s minder.

[Spoiler alert: Lester was embezzling from Ice; but there’s still something more, maybe he’s seen something…?]

The night ends and the party breaks up. But Maxine notices the “disguised heavy from the men’s toilet removes his thick plastic frames, puts on a ball cap, adjusts an invisible cloak, and vanishes halfway down the block.”

Questions I have: [SPOILERS]

What did Lester really see or do that got him killed?

What is Felix’s real role?

Who really killed Lester? Why would Windust have been involved?

Who was the “fake nerd?”