Invasion of Privacy

so I can show I spoke to you.”
    “Sure, sure. I’m kind of shaky, though, so you might not be able to read my signature.”
    “That’s okay.”
    Scratching along the dotted line, Elmendorf said, “Her kid goes to some private school on top of it.”
    “Jamey Robinette?”
    “Who else? He’ll have my job someday.”
    “Your job?”
    “Yeah. He’ll be a photographer or better, the degree he’ll have.” Norman Elmendorf gave me back the form and my pen. “ ‘Upwardly mobile,’ they call it.”

    Coming back down the stairs, I saw Kira catch my movement from the corner of her eye. She sat up and slid the earphones onto her neck again. “You get what you wanted?”
    “Yes,” stretching the truth some. “I wonder if I could talk to you for a while?”
    A shrug that made her hands flap a little on the wrists. “Sure. Let me, like, clear away the junk first.”
    Kira Elmendorf gathered up the magazines that covered an old easy chair. Instead of carrying them off somewhere, she just dropped them onto the floor. The carpet looked to be original equipment, but unlike the Stepanians’, this one showed dirt and stains.
    I sat as Kira took the couch again and, despite the combat boots, did a yoga crossover with her ankles.
    “So,” she said, “what do you want to know?”
    I gave her a questionnaire and waited while she read through it.
    “What’s this for?”
    “It would help me with my clients if I could ask you some of the stuff on there. I already got most of it from your dad.”
    Another shrug, the form in her hand flapping. “So, sure.”
    “How do you feel the Hendrix company does in managing the place?”
    “Oh, wow.” A hand went through the platinum hair, causing neither damage nor improvement. “They do what they’re supposed to, I guess. The heat’s on, the road’s plowed in winter, the grass is cut in spring—thanks to Paulie, anyway, he’s just so extremely cute in his little uniform—and he does the pool right in summer, no bugs or leaves or other disgusting uck in it.”
    “You never had any trouble with Mr. Hendrix, then?”
    “No. Wait.” Kira ran her hand through her hair again. “Do you mean like, did Boyce ever hit on me?”
    Boyce. “Any kind of trouble at all.”
    “No. I mean, he’s cute too, in a sort of older mode, with good buns.”
    “Buns?”
    “For sure. Whenever he’s over checking in with Lana—that’s Mrs. Stepanian?”
    Boyce and Lana. “I’ve met her.”
    “Yeah, well, she’s like one of the presidents of the condo somehow, and when he visits her, Boyce is always dressed real cazh.”
    “Hendrix dresses real casual.”
    “So you can scope the buns.”
    Scope the... “Kira, have you ever heard any complaints from the other neighbors about Mr. Hendrix?”
    “No. Just does a totally fine job, I guess.”
    “Nothing from Mr. Dees, either?”
    The shrug. “He’s kind of a quiet dude. I guess staring at a machine that makes copies kind of flattens the brain waves.”
    I sat forward. “How do you mean?”
    “Well, like, the man doesn’t ever get to do anything creative, right? All day long, it’s just put the original in, push the button, take the original out. I mean, a chimp could do that and stay ecstatic, maybe, but a real human person? Give it up.”
    Kira seemed to be my best bet so far. “You’ve talked with Mr. Dees some, then?”
    “Some. He’s kind of quiet. Nobody around here is exactly into partying hard, you understand. But he never seems to do much except get up, go to work, and come home. I figure he could use some Short Attention Span Theater, you know?”
    “Short Attention ...”
    “... Span Theater. It was on the cable, until we couldn’t afford that anymore. This coolest dude, Marc Maron, he looks kind of like a photo I saw of one of the Beatles guys. Not Paul—the guy who got assassinated, you know?”
    “John Lennon?”
    “Yeah, like this old photo I saw from somewhere in the seventies of John Lennon, with the hair and the glasses. Anyways, this show was so cool, it had these little clips, couple minutes each, of Gary Shandling—I think he is just a-dor-able —and then Saturday Night Live with a bunch of dudes I didn’t know, and then this British thing, Monty Python -something, and then this soap called Soap, but I didn’t get it because it was supposed to be funny and soaps are, like, a scream, but they’re not trying to be funny, you know?”
    I was losing ground. “And you thought Andrew Dees