We Found the Plot (One Extraordinary Time, Chapter 10) · 8:20pm Jun 21st, 2019

Less of the same. If you've been avoiding since chapter 7, it's probably okay to come back now.

Previously, on One Extraordinary Time:

Botched speeches. Stupid niches. Monica screeches.

And now:

Holy shit.

Thirteen days later: Saturday, October 6

Kaplan actually did it. He actually skipped ahead.

Life was slowly getting back to what was now being referred to as “the new normal” in New York. That meant getting used to armed guards with machine guns at certain key buildings, especially government buildings. Bomb scares, up 500 percent after 9/11, had dropped considerably in the last two weeks.
The Taliban offered to release eight western workers in exchange for the United States promising not to attack. The president repeated that his demands were not negotiable and the Taliban must hand over Osama bin Laden and all of al Qaeda’s top leadership. The eight aid workers were charged with trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. Their trial would begin the next day.
Last night, on Friday, was the first time since the September 11th attacks that China Wok was full again. There was even a short wait during prime dining hours.
New Yorkers were still tense, but they started going out again.

I actually like that last bit. Using people coming to the restaurant as a way to show life in New York starting to settle back to "normal" is a good technique. It would have been better if you hadn't led the chapter telling us that, but this is Mr. Kaplan we're talking about. Baby steps.

Freddy couldn’t believe the unbelievable press attention his checks were getting. The City Gazette started running a daily story about them, featuring one recipient family each day. The bobble heads on the major television networks began speculating on the identity of this mystery person. It was making Freddy increasingly nervous that the press would eventually find him out. Harris continued to calm him down; reminding him that there was no way anyone could find out.
Freddy did feel a bit better that night, with business picking up again at China Wok. He made almost $300 in tips. By far it was his best night since 9/11.

Next day. Freddy goes for a jog, stops by the bagel shop, and grabs a newspaper. I swear, I could probably recite this man's weekly schedule by memory at this point.

It's October 7th, which means today is the day the war in Afghanistan begins, with the US (and Britain, though that's not mentioned here) launching airstrikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in the region.

“When did the war begin?” Freddy asked.
“This afternoon, just about an hour ago. It’s nighttime there. I heard one of the first targets was Mullah Omar’s home,” Stan said with a smile.
“My dad called it. Just yesterday he said we would start hitting them in the next day or two. He is confident it won’t take ten years like some are saying on TV. We’ll take out the Taliban and al Qaeda in a month,” Freddy said.
“Your dad’s a smart man, I have more faith in him than those idiots on TV,” Stan replied.

Ah, the naiveté of the early 2000s. How I miss you.

Osama bin Laden releases his infamous tape; Harry and Freddy discuss it over the phone.

Cut to Frank.

Frank, watching the news coverage, could only marvel at the arsenal and stealth power of the U.S. military. The weapons they had now he could only have dreamed about when he was a solder in Korea.

In hindsight, Frank formerly being a lump of low-melting metal alloy explains a lot about his character.

Frank gets royally pissed that the news media is showing parts of bin Laden's tape.

“Julia, I swear, the media helps glorify criminals. This guy is a criminal guilty of mass murder. On September 11th, he murdered only civilians—women and children. He’s just like some of the scum I used to bust in the city. I can’t tell you how many times I was involved in hostage situations and how often one of the demands of the thugs was to get air time on TV. When we sometimes made the mistake of giving them the air time or airing a statement on the news that they wanted to hear, it would generally just embolden them and they would come back at us with greater demands. Those losers suddenly felt very important. In their minds, they must be since they were on TV. If we stop putting these people on the air, believe me, we would choke out a lot of their oxygen,” Frank said.

This is a complicated topic. On the one hand, he's right—nothing good has ever, ever come from glorifying murderers. It's something that's been seeing more debate recently, especially in the context of school shootings.

On the other hand, it's the media's job to report on, well, the news. And this is news. Not showing or at least discussing it is targeted ignorance—it creates a faceless enemy, and it leaves people uninformed. Nothing good has ever come from that, either.

It's not something that has an easy answer, and it's something that I think is going to get more and more play in the coming years. I'd be interested to hear your folks' takes on this; personally, I lean towards the latter opinion.

Anyway...

Julia was against war. However, she had a deep understanding and extensive knowledge of history. There had not been a period in mankind’s history where there hadn’t been multiple wars going on around the globe. She opposed the war in Vietnam. That war cost over fifty-five thousand American lives for nothing. She felt history had proven her case. Vietnam now wanted to be America’s friend, with increased trade, and was encouraging them to come as tourists.
This war she supported. Julia was horrified by the Taliban’s treatment of women. It was not even second-rate; it was total enslavement. They were clearly the most inhumane government since the Nazis took power in Germany during the thirties. She knew the extreme loss of life it took to win World War II and crush the Nazi regime.

"Direct character summary" for 500, Alex.

Next day. President Bush gives his speech about Operation Enduring Freedom. This is quickly shoved aside, however, as there are more important things for Americans to be focused on right now:

America and the news media had developed an obsession with trying to figure out who was sending those magic envelopes. There been so much gloom and doom in the news, it was a nice story that gave people a chance to focus on someone good. The City Gazette continuously ran daily stories about the families getting these envelopes. On talk Radio, callers continued to give their praise and opinions about who this mystery person might be. In Midtown Manhattan, there was a giant billboard eight stories high expressing gratitude to the firefighters, policemen, and magic envelopes.

We cut to the City Gazette newsroom, and Louie and Henry. Louie's biggest concern right now is that one of the other big newspapers is going to figure out who's sending out the envelopes first and scoop them.

“That the fucking Daily News, or worse yet, those stuck up assholes at the New York Times will scoop us. This story is huge. I read a recent poll listing the top ten most admired Americans; this person came in second and they don’t even know he is.”

“That’s the problem, we don’t know shit. Look at this list. Only President Bush is higher. He even outpolled Mayor Giuliani, who right now could be nominated for sainthood.

I wonder where Todd Beamer ended up on that list. I also wonder who the hell ran this poll.

Louie orders Henry to double down on finding out who the mysterious benefactor is, and they put a $10,000 bounty on information about him. Also, I would like to point out, we now have three major characters in this story named, respectively, Harris, Harry, and Henry. Don't do this, people. Names are important.

Next day. We start off with direct tense confusion, which is a bad sign. Have another POV character:

Sitting in his ruffled suit around his cluttered office with $300 cash in hand courtesy of the City Gazette, Bud Slope read the Gazette smiling. They felt he was a long shot. But he’d come through for them before, even if that included violating his client-attorney confidentiality. Bud Slope’s loyalty was only to cash. His calendar book was full of clients. Word got out on the streets, if you’re in an accident, he’d turn it into gold whether you were injured or not. A client told him she only had a bloody nose from her auto accident, Bud laughed and said,
“The insurance company doesn’t know that. Why, I’m going to send you to an outstanding doctor who will say the accident caused you trauma and a concussion.
Yeah, we will get them to pay up plenty.”

Bud wants that $10,000, and he wants it bad.

Bud asked his secretary, Leslie, to go through all the files from K-Z; he took A-J. After several hours, Bud had nothing. He had some criminal cases where the family had money, but nothing that would lead him to the magic envelope sender. He was ready to pack it in when Leslie came in his office and said, “You know, Bud, a week and a half ago, I handed this guy a check for ten thousand, and he said something very odd!” “What was that?” Bud asked.
“Well he looked at it and said, ‘Boy, it’s too bad this is only a fraction of the multitude of bank checks I been making out for one of our customers every day,’“ Leslie said.
Bud jumped up from his desk as his eyes lit up. “What client said that?” “This one—” she handed him the file “—Richard Wilford.”

Ooooh, look, actual drama!

Next day, and Bud heads off to Great NY Bank. He takes Richard out for lunch.

“Leslie mentioned to me that when she gave you the settlement check, you told her it only a fraction of what you make out for one of your customers every day,” Bud said inquisitively.
Richard now got a little nervous. Why would he mention that?
“I may have. I mean I don’t remember. I’m not sure, maybe!”

Real smooth, Richard. Real smooth.

He looked at Bud moving nervously in his seat. “Okay Bud, I know who it is,” Richard said.
“This is fantastic. You are going to be rich.”
“I can’t tell the press. That wouldn’t be right,” Richard said.
“Richard, they’ll probably pay a quarter of a million, maybe more,” Bud said with excitement.
“Great, then I’ll get fired once the bank finds out” Richard said.
“No they will never find out. This is how the agreement with the paper will work. We will give them proof that the person you name is the one sending these magic envelopes, but they can’t reveal your identity. You’ll be an anonymous source,” Bud said.
Richard found this amusing. He wanted him to reveal the identity of the magic envelope sender, breaking the person’s cover while at the same time promising to protect his.
“I don’t know,” Richard said, sighing.
“Listen, Richard, it will work out great for you. Look, my usual fee is 33 percent. I’ll only take 25 percent. With a little luck I might be able to get hundred grand. That’s $150,000 for you to put in your pocket,” Bud said.
Richard promised he would sleep on it as he finished the rest of the lunch.

Wait, $100,000?

Instead of sleeping on it, he was losing sleep because of it. Richard kept tossing and turning. On one hand, he knew the right thing to do was not to give up Freddy. On the other hand, $200,000 would make a big difference in his life.

$200,000? Where's all this money suddenly coming from, and why can no one keep track of it?

Richard decides he'll sell Freddy out for $200,000, and not a penny less.

Next day. Bud meets up with Louie and ~~Harry~~ Henry. He tells them he has an anonymous source who can prove the envelope sender's identity. Bud asks for a fee of $10,000 personally, and demands for his client...

...$300,000.

I give up.

They negotiate. Bud walks away with a deal for $250,000, plus a total exclusivity agreement. They draw up a contract and everything.

Henry then said, “Before you tell us who it is, let me try to guess.”
“Go for it,” Bud said.
“Oh I have always believed that it is probably Donald Trump,” Henry said.

Haaaaaaaah.

Louie also hypothesizes Michael Bloomburg (pretty plausible, actually) or Luntzstern (I have no idea who this is, and Google isn't helping... it can't possibly be Mr. Luntz, can it?).

And finally, the reveal:

“Okay gentleman, so that’s it. Henry you say Donald, and Louie, your guy is Luntzstern.” They both nodded and Bud continued, “Well I’m sorry to say you’re both wrong. The person America wants to know about is Freddy Will.” Louie nearly choked on his cigar. “Freddy Will! Who the fuck is that?”

Good fucking question.

They settle things from there. Proof is provided and accepted in the form of copies of bank cheques. They drink expensive wine.

Henry decides he's going to call Freddy and see if he'll officially confirm it.

Freddy noticed two missed calls on his cell. He saw they were both the same number, but didn’t recognize it. So he headed off to work.
Thirty minutes later, as he stood in China Wok’s kitchen, joking with Johnny and Phil, his phone rang again. It was the same number. “Excuse me, guys, I’ve got a call.” He walked to the back and answered his phone.
“Good evening, Mr. Will. This is Henry Marlow from the City Gazette. Our headline in tomorrow morning’s paper will be identifying you as the sender of those wonderful magic envelopes. Our paper and our readers consider you a hero. Mr. Will, would you like to comment?”
Freddy was stunned, and that’s putting it mildly. He couldn’t believe they had figured it out. As a kid he had watched his dad during a press conference on TV and he remembered what he would say when he didn’t want to answer a question.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Marlow. I have no comment.”
“Freddy, my readers want to know about you. I can assure you this article is going to be extremely complimentary. The families that received your generous support as well as our readers are going to be excited to hear what you have to say, Mr. Will,” Henry said.
“Call me Freddy. Mr. Marlow, I’m sure when you write your article my privacy will be gone, and I’m not happy about it. I have nothing to say.”

Freddy, you are terrible at this.

"Ha, oh I'm okay Johnny," freddy said without conviction.

Feels like dialogue straight out of The Room.

Freddy goes to Harris. They figure out pretty quickly that it was probably someone at the bank. You know, the company that employs thousands of people and keeps meticulous records as part of their main function as an organization?

Freddy gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. “Interesting. I didn’t realize I left myself so exposed. Although I have to believe it’s either Mr. Anderson or the teller I used.”

Have I mentioned how terrible at this you are?

Another few sentences, and they conclude that it had to be Richard who sold them out. Freddy resolves to, and I quote, "look right into his eyes and ask him if he's the source."

The chapter ends.

The main thing I can say about this chapter is that at least we're mostly past 9/11, with the event and its aftermath starting to take a back seat as an actual plot starts to develop.

Ten chapters in.

With four chapters to go.

Sigh.

See you tomorrow, folks.

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