Launching oneself into the void

I'm reading Cripple Creek by James Sallis at present.  He's also a poet and it shows in his writing which has a wonderful cadence and is full of atmospherics and reflexive asides.  Parts of the story you could drive a tank through, but it doesn't seem to really matter.  I was particularly taken with his description of consulting:

The business card was for a financial consultant in offices just of Monroe in Memphis.  That consultant thing had always eluded me, I could never understand it.  As society progresses, we move further and further away from those who actually do the work.  Consulting, I figured, was about as far as one could get before launching oneself into the void.

Later on the sheriff says to Turner:

"Don't know if I ever told you this before, but there's times I feel flat-out stupid around you.  We talk, and you tell me what I already know.  Which has got to be the worst kind of stupid."

Seems to me that's what consultants do - tell us what we already know.  For a fee.  The void beckons ...