“Claudia said you told her somebody should call the city about the cars,” Buddy said the next day at Lily’s Library.
“Well I didn’t issue an edict or anything but I sort of think at this point, we–or somebody, should.”
“Done,” he said. “You know what they told me? ‘We have it covered.’” End air quotes.
“What does that mean?” I asked, sensing from Buddy’s demeanor, that he planned on milking the story dry.
“The guy said they came out and spoke with one of the owners and then he says, ‘Thanks for your call,’ and was going to hang up on me. He thought he was done.”
“But you weren’t,” I chided.
“I said to the guy, some bureaucratic maroon named Phoenix or something, ‘Okay you talked to the owner and what did he say? When are all the cars going to be gone?’”
“Did he give you an answer?” Buddy was not getting to the point quickly enough.
“This Phoenix guy tells me that the owner told him he’s just having friends over to play video games.”
“To play video games . . .?”
He put his hands up to stop me. “So I say to the guy, ‘They’re playing video games In the middle of the day, every day and you believed him? What about all the cars? There are, like, 40 cars parked on our street every day. What about the fact we’ve asked people going into the house what they’re doing and they say they’re having job interviews?’ Then this Phoenix or Xanax—no that’s the drug—whoever, says, ‘We don’t know those people are there for a job interview. We don’t know they’re not there to play video games. Do you have proof?’ All they could see were kids with laptops sitting around the big room (the one I always thought would be good for a tracking shot in a porn film) and it looked like they were playing video games. So he claims there’s nothing the city can do.”
“There’s nothing they can do? Use their eyes, why don’t they?” Bureaucrats…
“That’s what I told the guy. There’s no way the owners of all these cars are here to play video games,” said Buddy. “He didn’t care.”
“So, even though it’s their job to shut down illegal activity and we pay their salaries, they’ll do nothing for us?” I asked.
“Right.”
This was crap. And the collective “we” wouldn’t stand for it.