Invasion of Privacy

you, am I right?”
    “Probably.”
    The half-smile. “You’re a piece of work, Cuddy. Don’t you trust nobody?”
    “I trust you, mostly.” I decided to take a chance. “My asking around about the management company was just a cover. I’m really looking into the background of a guy.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “I’d like to keep my own counsel on that for now.” Another shrug. “Hey-ey-ey, you’re the one called me, remember?”
    “I remember.” Reaching into the pocket of my suit jacket, I took out one of the Andrew Dees photos. “This is him.”
    Zuppone checked all three mirrors again before bringing up the interior lights and looking at the photo I held. Then he doused the lights and rechecked the mirrors. Ever the careful driver, and even more the perfect poker player. I couldn’t tell by his expression whether he’d recognized the man in the photo or not.
    Primo made a left. “You let me see the guy’s picture, but won’t tell me his name?”
    “I just want to know if you recognize him.”
    “Why?”
    A reasonable question. “If I got paid my visit because somebody’s interested in Hendrix Management, so be it. I’d want to know, though, if the man in this photo is the real reason the two guys came to see me.”
    “Because he’s connected himself.”
    “Right.”
    Another glance at the photo. “I gotta admit, there’s something rings a bell about him, but he’s a pretty ordinary-looking fuck, so what can I tell you? Could be he’s just somebody I passed on the street some time.”
    “Can you check around?”
    “What, I’m supposed to describe your guy to my friends, see if one of them makes a match? Come on, Cuddy, this fuck could be anybody.”
    Zuppone had a point. “How about if I give you his picture, and you show it around discreetly, ask if anybody knows him.”
    The tick-tocking head again. “I guess I can do that.” He took the photo from me. “You got any other information on this guy?”
    “Not for sharing.”
    Half a laugh. “Christ, Cuddy, you gotta have trust in something, you know?”
    “What do you trust, Primo?”
    “Me?” Zuppone got serious. “I trust the organization. Back in school the nuns treated me like a dunce, far as I went. I try to get a job in the straight world, the citizens’d treat me like a bum. I don’t talk so good, I don’t spell so good, I don’t fit in so good. With the organization, I’m in my element, you might say. A made member, blood oath and everything. They know they can trust what I do for them, and that makes me want to trust them too. Understand?”
    “I do. But that’s why you should understand the reason I can’t entirely trust you.”
    Primo turned left again, bringing me back to where he’d picked me up. “You got that right. You got brains for thinking of it and heart for saying it to me, man to man. But I like you, Cuddy, and that can make all the difference in the world.” A glance. “All the fucking difference, you know what I’m saying here?”
    The toothpick rolled one last time.

    After Zuppone dropped me off, I walked randomly for a while, just in case anybody who might have been interested in him decided to be interested in his passenger as well. I didn’t spot anybody following me, so I found a pay phone and dialed Olga Evorova’s home number on Beacon Hill .
    “Yes?”
    “Ms. Evorova, John Cuddy.”
    “Ah, you have something to report?”
    “Yes, but it would be easier in person.”
    “Well...”
    “Is Andrew Dees with you?”
    “No, no. But... how long would it take for you to come see me now?”
    “I’m five minutes away.”
    “Then come, please.”
    I hung up and started walking.
    Beacon Hill is the neighborhood around the gold-domed Statehouse that I can see from my office window. The Beacon Street side overlooks the Common on the downslope and the Public Garden on the flat. The major thoroughfare that divides the slope from the fiat is Charles, home to antique shops and trendy restaurants. Unlike Back Bay , much of the Hill remains single-family homes, though there aren’t very many single families that can pony up the nearly two million required to own one. Condominium development was slower to catch on here, the narrow floor plans of the Federalist townhouses being less amenable to internal division than the Victorian architecture elsewhere. As I climbed the red-brick sidewalks to reach Evorova’s address, however, I realized her building was plenty wide enough for