Invasion of Privacy

enough about the war to talk a good game, so long as the people buying him drinks didn’t require too many details.”
    “And that cost him the job?”
    “Pretty directly. Almost crashed the newspaper’s car into a school bus rushing off somewhere half-crocked. I had to fire him, Norm sitting right in that chair where you are when I told him.”
    “What brought on the physical disability?”
    “A fall. Kira contacted us about it, but his health benefits here had long since expired, and he hadn’t used COBRA.”
    “COBRA?”
    “Acronym, as in the snake. It’s a way you can extend your health coverage from your most recent employer, but it’s expensive as hell.”
    “Have you seen Elmendorf himself lately?”
    “Heard from him on and off since... since he was sitting in that chair. Always by telephone, usually more than half-crocked.” Yoder stared at me. “I’m glad to hear Norm’s on the wagon now, but it doesn’t sound like he’s aware the Desert Storm stuff wasn’t reality for him.”
    “From what I know, you’re right.”
    A final tug on the earlobe. “Mr. Cuddy, I probably haven’t sounded like much of a recommendation for Norm, but he really was great with the camera, one of the best I’ve ever seen. If you can see your way clear to make your client understand that, then I won’t feel as though I’ve wasted my breath on you.”
    “Mr. Yoder, believe me. You’ve been a big help.”

    At the forlorn mall north of Plymouth Mills, I cruised the haphazard rows of parking until I heard someone tap a car horn twice. Then I took the next available space, got out of the Prelude, and looked around me.
    It was a different vehicle all right, but another Lincoln Continental. Yellow, with Florida plates.
    I went to the passenger side and slid in, the upholstery as supple as Primo’s own model. “What’s the matter, you don’t believe in experimentation?”
    The toothpick rolled from one corner of his mouth to the other. “You told me, rent a car. I’m used to the way these here handle.”
    “It sticks out like a sore thumb.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong, Cuddy. You were right about not taking mine, though. No place to sit at that fucking condo complex except inside what you’re driving, and no place to park it except on one of those little—what did you call them?”
    “Leaf roads?”
    “Yeah, leaves.” He looked down at his suit, bits and pieces of dead foliage sticking to the pants and sleeves. “Let me tell you about leaves.”
    “Before you do, did anybody spot you?”
    “Spot me? Hell, no. That’s what I mean about this Lincoln here. After I phoned you yesterday, I saw this friend of ours, has a rent-a-car agency. I tell him, ‘I want a Continental.’ He hits his computer thing and says, ‘Only one I got has Florida plates on it.’ I think, great, anybody notices the car on the street, they’ll think it belongs to somebody’s parents, up to visit the grandkids, you know? So I tell him, ‘Fill out the paperwork.’ Then this morning, I drive it down to Plymouth whatever-the-fuck and park and watch for nobody to be around before I walk up that hill you told me about. Where I sit down in the trees for about eight hours with all kinds of animal shit around me and leaves that stick to you like fucking Velcro.”
    I looked at his sleeves and cuffs. “Nettles, probably.”
    “Nettles? Is that where that word comes from, like somebody pisses you off?”
    “I think so.”
    “Well, anyway, it’s gonna take a fucking forest fire to clean this suit, so I hope I got what you need.” Zuppone reached into an inside pocket and came out with a small pad. “You want to read this or have me read it to you?”
    “You can read it.”
    Primo squared around. “All right, I’m in the trees at seven-oh-three—no, seven-thirty.” I remembered Zuppone once telling me about his dyslexia. “I take out the binoculars, sight them in. It already feels like fucking July at seven-forty, when this colored kid comes out the third unit—third from the left, number 43—then walks the way I drove in till I can’t see him anymore.”
    Jamey Robinette. “Catching a bus for school.”
    “Where the fuck does he go to?”
    “ Tabor Academy .”
    Zuppone looked at me in disbelief. “That’s like a college-prep place, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Can’t be. This kid was done up like a gang-banger.”
    “Probably has a locker there, put on the blazer and old school tie before