Summary

Chapter 1 – It is Spring 2001 in New York. Divorcee and private fraud-investigating agent Maxine Tarnow walks her two sons, Ziggy and Otis, to school even though they are old enough to do it themselves because she enjoys it. Out front, she sees Vyrva McElmo, who with her husband Jason, are California transplants. Maxine heads to her agency, Tail ‘Em and Nail ‘Em on Columbus Street, where agent Daytona Lorrain argues with her husband on the phone about divorce papers. Maxine studies an inventory fraud report on Dwayne Z. “Uncle Dizzy” Cubitts, a TV gizmo salesperson, until a man named Reg arrives at the agency.

Chapter 2 – Maxine has not seen Reg Despard in a few years. They first met on a cruise. Reg is a film bootlegger-turned documentary filmmaker who has been working a documentary for an computer security company called “hashslingrz” that has severely restricted...