Invasion of Privacy

classes.”
    “No wonder we’re losing ground to the Germans and the Japs.”
    “Primo...”
    “What?”
    “Skip it. Go on with what happened.”
    “AU right, let me see... Seven-forty-five, the door to the first unit—number 41—opens up, and this couple comes out onto the stoop there. He’s kind of tall, and she’s kind of short, both dark-haired. He kisses her, she hands him his lunch bag, Ozzie and fucking Harriet for the nineties.”
    The Stepanians. “Then what?”
    “Ozzie drives off, and I notice this short guy in a gardener’s uniform, who’s raking the lawn like he was maybe gonna have surgery performed in the grass there.”
    Paulie Fogerty. “He see you?”
    “Of course not. After the grass, it was the bushes. I swear, I thought the kid would shake some trees, make more work for himself, he seemed to like it so much. He turned my way once, I put the binoculars on his face. Hard to say for sure—he was wearing this baseball cap—but I think he’s retarded.”
    “He is.”
    Primo shook his head. “Except for Rake-boy, it’s pretty quiet till noon, when a girl comes by in a car. She goes up and knocks on the fourth unit—number 44. This other girl with hair like Madonna answers the door. From the clothes and all, both of them look like punk rockers.”
    Jude and Kira. “The girl in the car stay long?”
    “Two minutes. Harriet from 41 comes over—doesn’t cut across the grass, either. She walks all the way down the path to the sidewalk, then the sidewalk till the path to number 44. Harriet knocks, and goes in as the two girls come out and drive off.” Zuppone glanced at me. “This Madonna, she got a yard-ape out of wedlock or something?”
    “Sick father.”
    Primo looked thoughtful, then said, “The girls, they’re gone for an hour. When they come back, the one with the car drops Madonna off, then Harriet comes out and goes back to her place, path-to-sidewalk-to-path again. I got the impression she’s kind of repressed, you know what I mean?”
    “Then what?”
    “Then nothing while I’m using a dead branch to dig myself a fucking hole to take a leak in. Two-forty-five, O.J. Einstein comes walking home to number 43 from school. A colored woman leaves his place, goes out to a car’s been sitting there all morning, and drives away.”
    Tángela Robinette.
    Then Zuppone perked up a little. “Tedious shit till now, I grant you, but all of a sudden, some jungle music comes on.”
    “Jungle music.”
    Primo looked at me. “That rap shit. What do I have to do, hum a few bars?”
    “How could you tell it was rap?”
    “How could I tell? Hey-ey-ey, Cuddy, I might not give two cents for a truckload of the shit, but I know rap when I hear it.”
    “And you could hear the music all the way up the hill?”
    “Fucking A. Then a minute later, it drops off. Matter of seconds after that, Madonna comes out her front door, only she’s dressed different this time.”
    “Different how?”
    “She’s just got a T-shirt and shorts on, real pale legs, and two different-colored socks, blue on the right foot, red on the left.”
    “Where does she go?”
    Zuppone grinned. “Next door to O.J.’s house, quick as she can, across the grass.”
    I looked at him.
    Primo said, “Without knocking, his door opens, and Madonna slips inside.”
    “For how long?”
    “I made it half an hour. Then she comes out and slips back into her place. Only thing...”
    “What?”
    The grin grew broader. “Now the blue sock’s on the left foot, and the red’s on the right.”
    I thought about it. “The music’s the signal.”
    “That’s what I’m seeing too.”
    “Mom is gone—”
    “—and the coast is fucking clear.” Zuppone stopped grinning. “So, does this multicultural soap opera shit help?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Maybe? What’s with fucking ‘maybe’? I sat in nature’s toilet for going on eight hours, it better be better than ‘maybe.’ ”
    I said, “You see anything else?”
    “No. I left before Mom got back or Ozzie from 41 there came home from work.”
    “Nothing from 42?”
    “Which is where I gotta figure DiRienzi was hiding, right?”
    “Primo, you didn’t go down there, did you?”
    A hurt look. “What, you think I got rocks in my head? The feds fucking bobble the ball with the guy, they’re gonna babysit the place, hoping he comes back or somebody who knows him shows up.”
    I resisted the temptation to rub my skull behind the ear where Kourmanos or Braverman