BEg2 ch24 quick rundown of the action

[Michael Bailey]

Maxine cabs it to Windust’s digs in Hell’s Kitchen - 34th to 59th, 8th Ave
to the River - rapidly gentrifying

Cabbie thinks heavy police presence slowing them down may be a training
exercise, starts fantasizing about a terrorist attack on the Auto Show at
Javits Center. At least this driver is friendly.

Uncaring Windust doesn’t - can’t - buzz her in:

“Buzzer doesn’t work, never has.”

         “Thanks for sharing that.”

         “Wanted to see how long you’d wait.”

(What a creep!)

Wild dogs in the basement, info he shares with her - is that supposed to be
exciting?

A casual sex scene the likes of which is rarely seen outside of parental
warning lectures…

Afterglow in the kitchen consists of Windust being cavalier and chowing on
seaweed

(“brown rice, seaweed, and a dirty hot dog” - Dylan)

And Maxine gingerly, oh so casual, broaching the subject of Traipse to
little response.

And yet, she’s “this close” to telling the cabbie (this time a
Limbaugh-head) on her way home to turn around and take her back for more!


At home, after stalling with some inconsequential tasks - sorting sponges,
running VCR head cleaner (remember those?) and winnowing the takeout menus
(remember those?) - she *finally* reads the folder.

It’s underwhelming. The author or authors seemed to really care that Ice is
Jewish. The accounting is laughably slapdash.

She lapses into a dream of the actor Paul Henreid’s character in “Now,
Voyager” refusing to relinquish the 2nd cigarette of the 2 he’s lit to the
Bette Davis character as usual, instead puffing both himself - quite
ungallantly - and wakes with a scream thinking something is in bed with her.


A couple days later, working on a cigar counterfeiting case involving
cigars sold as authentic ones Groucho Marx supposedly chewed in movies,
etc.

Which - although I didn’t bother to fact check the more fanciful embroidery
- does have a basis in fact in that time frame:

https://cigarfan.net/tag/jorge-padron/
(Got to scroll a bit)
In June 1999, the first fake Padron Anniversary cigars surfaced in
Nicaragua. In January 2000, police seized more than 3,000 counterfeit
Anniversary cigars and 5,000 fake bands from a Los Angeles warehouse. Two
months later, a seizure in Miami forced the Padrons to send a letter to
retailers warning about the surge in counterfeiting. Undercover agents
seized more than $60,000 of fake cigars in a September 2000 raid that took
place in New York City.



Her work is interrupted by a call from Windust.
Her brother in law Avi has given her a voice analyzer but all it does is
tell her Windust is apparently serious.

Maxine’s lack of concern about Ice’s Jewishness bothers “Dust in the Wind”
(thanks Mark!)

But he forges on to ask her to do the forensic accounting for the figures
in his file - the figures she knows are ridiculously disorganized and are
probably a setup. With all his resources, why her - she asks him.

Instead of responding, he tells her that Oleg’s nephews Misha and Grisha
are graduates of the Civil Hackers School in Moscow.

“These days the Russian mob and the government share many interests. I’m
only advising you to be more reflective about the company you keep.”

  “Worse than high school, I swear, one date they think they own you.”

         An exasperated click and the line goes dead.


— but she hasn’t been hanging with Misha and Grisha since that one time!
Windust’s failure to lure her into accepting the task - is it showing him
losing his grip? And changing the subject instead of turning on whatever
passes with him for charm?

So now she’s turned down Ice, Oleg, (if Mark is correct - and she doesn’t
seem to be doing anything vis a vis Oleg/Slagiatt that I can perceive) and
Windust. Has a mind and a will of her own!