Invasion of Privacy

closest friend, Claude Loiselle, is suspicious of him. I think of an indirect way to interview Dees’ neighbors at Plymouth Willows about him on Wednesday, but to make the cover story better, I first see Boyce Hendrix at the management company for the complex. I’m barely back to my office from the South Shore that afternoon when two sluggers come calling by the dumpster, advising me to stay away from both the company and the complex. At the University of Central Vermont on Thursday, I discover Evorova’s boyfriend isn’t who he claims to be, while Primo Zuppone was finding out the man’s real identity. Now it’s Friday afternoon, my client and her lover both unreachable in a way that scares Loiselle and Uncle Ivan, neither of whom has heard boo from Evorova for almost twenty hours.
    And I’ve left Primo—the guy trying to do me a favor by showing the photo of “Andrew Dees” to people who might recognize him—hanging out to dry with his Milwaukee friends. Who, having flown into Logan the night before, probably aren’t by now in the best of moods.
    It seemed to me there were two ways to play it. One was to violate Olga Evorova’s express instruction and confront Dees , as Lieutenant Murphy suggested. The other was to go innocently back to my condo or office, pretend to have just picked up Primo’s many messages, and call him on his car phone, in which case the play might be taken away from me.
    Leaving half my sandwich untouched, I came to a decision, choosing the office over the condo since I had less there to break.

    Sitting behind my desk, as ready as possible, I timed it. Five minutes and thirty-five seconds after Primo rang off on the car phone, the three of them came through my pebbled-glass door. Without knocking first.
    Zuppone was the point man, looking greatly relieved to see me actually there before he put the poker face back on and motioned the other two into the room. The balding guy walked in second, single-breasted coat unbuttoned, watching me and nodding once, his expression the one you’d wear taking the space next to a stranger on the bus. The younger man brought up the rear, looking all around my office without even glancing at me. His double-breasted suit was buttoned, which at least told me the action would come from the balding guy, if any action there’d be.
    Still not looking in my direction, the younger one said, “City’s a fucking shithole compared to Milwaukee , but cooling my fucking heels outside your apartment building, I’da thought the office here’d have a little more class.” The flat, midwestern “A” was lodged in his voice and pitched it a bit high, as though he were twenty pounds lighter. I said, “This part of the country, we tend to decorate down to the clientele.”
    Zuppone said, “Hey-ey-ey, everybody, let’s not get off on the wrong foot here, huh? How about I make some introductions?”
    The younger man just looked at him, still ignoring me, and moved to one of the two client chairs in front of my desk, rearranging the angle of it so that he’d be focusing past me toward the Statehouse dome. The balding guy positioned himself at the wall, shoulders against it, hands at his side, watching me and nothing else.
    Primo laid a palm lightly on the back of the younger man’s chair. “Rick Ianella, John Cuddy.”
    Nobody made to shake hands.
    Sitting down next to Ianella, Zuppone thumbed toward the balding guy. “ Coco Cocozzo.”
    To Cocozzo, I said, “Sorry there’s only the two chairs.”
    “I want one, I can always just take yours.”
    Same accent, but deeper voice. Primo jumped in with, “So, Cuddy, you’re back from out-of-state, and you got in touch. That’s good. These gentlemen flew in last night, and they need some information.”
    I looked from Ianella to Cocozzo and back again.
    The younger guy said, “Now, dickhead.”
    “What’s the matter, Rick, you leave your manners on the plane?”
    Zuppone winced.
    Ianella’s face grew mottled, the eyebrow with the scar through it twitching, as though maybe some nerve damage went along with the scar. Within seconds, his grip on the arm chair was so tight, you could see the man shaking and hear the wood creaking. “Now you listen, you little piece a shit, and you listen good. My father’s doing a long fucking stretch, time that’s gonna probably kill him, account of a fucking bean counter saved his own ass by selling us out to the fucking feds. DiRienzi wasn’t family, but my father