Free Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy by Jeremiah Healy Page B

me, though I had to eat those MREs anytime the
supply sergeant couldn't come up with better through his 'General
Store.' Scrounging and trading, you know?"
    "I don't think that part ever changes."
    A nod, then another toward the Jim Beam. "No
booze, though. Jesus, they were strict about that. A Moslem country,
we couldn't disrespect our hosts by drinking liquor before we went
off to die for them."
    "That where you got hit?"
    "Hit? I didn't. Least, not by something you
could see."
    Elmendorf unzipped the sweatshirt and spread it open
with each hand. The rosy blotch grew darker and uglier as it swept
toward his waist. "I was exposed. Lots of us were."
    "Exposed to what?"
    "The Army doesn't know, or at least it isn't
saying. Guys started getting sick over there, but because most of us
weren't there long, the thing didn't hit us till we got back.
Headaches, nerves, rashes like this here. Plus aches in the joints so
bad you'd think they were engines running without oil, just seizing
up on you. How come I have to use the braces most of the time. And
how come I can't go back to photography. Man, there are days when I
can't even hold a newspaper much less adjust the settings on a
camera."
    "What about the VA?"
    "The Department of Veterans Affairs? They're a
joke. They had all of us register, we had any symptoms. But the
Defense Department's saying there isn't any 'syndrome,' and without a
'syndrome' they can't treat us and won't pay us. Thousands of
soldiers now, but they say they aren't responsible because we didn't
really get infected, or whatever, over there."
    I thought about Agent Orange, and how long it took
those vets to receive any—and meager—satisfaction through the
courts. Good Luck, Norman. I said, "So you can't work at all?"
    "Not with the aches, man. They just dominate the
day, you know?"
    I didn't like the feeling I was getting about
Elmendorf, that big-talk, no-action sense you develop about some
troopers in bars. I took out two of the interview forms and handed
one to him.
    "What's this?"
    "As I told your daughter, I'm looking into
whether another condo complex should switch to the Hendrix company
for its management, and I've been asking your neighbors a few
questions to assess your satisfaction with how Hendrix is managing
Plymouth Willows."
    "Okay by me. I don't exactly have anything else
to do."
    "NAME?"
    "Elmendorf, Norman, NMI."
    "For 'No Middle Initial.' "
    "Right. Guess that didn't change, either."
    "Change'?"
    "From your war, I mean."
    I nodded. "HOMETOWN?"
    "Lowell, like I said."
    "EDUCATION?"
    "Lowell Tech. They call it 'University of
Massachusetts-Lowell' now, but it was just Lowell Tech when I went
there."
    "Your wife?"
    "We're divorced. She took off when I got back
from the Saud. Basically abandoned Kira, the cunt."
    I decided to skip the rest of the SPOUSE questions.
    "How long ago did you move here?"
    "About six years. Pioneers, like. First
purchasers from the guy who developed Plymouth Willows."
    As with Lana Stepanian, I wanted to ease slowly
toward the Andrew Dees questions, hiding them among the others. "One
of your neighbors told me about the problems he had."
    "Which neighbor was that?"
    I couldn't see it did any harm, but . . . "I'm
telling everybody I talk to that their answers will stay
confidential?
    "Doesn't matter. Lana's the only one here long
enough to really fill you in. She's a nice girl, only kind of uptight
about life. You know, a place for everything and everything in its
place? I don't see how you can live that way, myself."
    Explained his living room. "I understand the
Hendrix company was brought in by the C.W. Realty Trust."
    "If that's the name of the people who bailed out
Quentin's estate, yeah."
    "Quentin?"
    "Yale Quentin, the guy who built Plymouth
Willows."
    "And he's dead now?"
    "Four, five years. There was some kind of stink
about fraud, him supposedly making up dummy buyers to fool the banks
he borrowed off. I even remember him coming to the paper I worked
for, checking