*****
Quinn practically jumped out of his chair when Buzz said hello behind him. He didn’t think anyone else was in the office yet.
“Sorry to startle you,” Buzz said, although he didn’t look very apologetic. Quinn thought he looked smug. The old man enjoyed sneaking up on people. He felt it gave him an “edge.”
“Yeah, Buzz,” Quinn said, dismissively.
Quinn leaned back in his chair to look at Buzz again. The guy looked haggard and unshaven. Quinn thought it odd that he somehow always looked this way. He never had a full beard, but constantly seemed like someone who had stayed at a party too long, perhaps having a little too much to drink. Buzz’s clothes were loose fitting over his wiry frame. You could almost say he looked homeless, except Quinn thought he looked more like the proto-typical reporter—the kind of guy that shows up with a fedora hat and a pencil over his ear. Those guys never looked neat. They always looked rumpled.
Buzz had first become a reporter in Vietnam. Maybe in those days it didn’t matter what you looked like because you were just as likely to end up dead.
“You need to listen more carefully, Quinn,” Buzz said. “It could save your life.”
Jesus, I’m surrounded by psychos, Quinn thought.
“I’ll remember that,” he said.
“I’m serious, my boy,” Buzz said again. “In the jungle, you had to listen at all times.”
“We’re not in the jungle, Buzz,” he replied.
“We’re always in the jungle, Quinn. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Quinn said, and felt frustrated. He had come here for peace and quiet, not one of Buzz’s exceedingly bizarre lectures.
“No, you don’t,” Buzz said, and looked at him strangely. “But you might, real soon.”
“I don’t follow you,” Quinn said.
“The Lord is back in his manor,” Buzz said, looking around him carefully. He said it in a whisper even though there was no one to be seen in the office.
“The who is back where?” Quinn asked, hardly believing he was having this conversation.
“The Lord is back,” Buzz said.
“What are you talking about? And why are we whispering?” Quinn asked.
“Lord Halloween has returned,” Buzz said.
“Oh,” he replied, relieved. He had thought it was something serious. Instead, he fought off a chuckle. “Gotcha. Back in the manor. Right-o.”
“You don’t believe me?” Buzz asked, notching his eyebrows together in an expression of repressed anger.
“Buzz, it isn’t like this is the first time you’ve warned me,” Quinn said, only to receive a blank look. “Last year? You warned me not to cover the ‘Harvest Celebration’ protest down in Sterling. You told me he would be there.”
“Oh, I’m sure he was, my boy,” Buzz said, looking intently at Quinn. “Just like I’m sure he is around now.”
“Then why hasn’t he done anything?” Quinn asked. “I mean, I know he was a big deal back in the day, but if he was here, why not make his presence known? They caught him, Buzz. Remember?”
“Pah,” Buzz replied, and waved his hand in disgust. “Holober was a patsy.”
“Just like Oswald, right?”
“Don’t get me started on Oswald,” Buzz said.
Quinn tried to contain his laugh, but let it out anyway.
“I know, I know,” Quinn said. “It was the CIA in it with the Mob…”
“You listen to me,” Buzz said, and jabbed his finger in Quinn’s chest. “You should pay attention when I say Lord Halloween has returned. He’s here. I can feel it.”
“Then where are the dead bodies, Buzz?” Quinn replied, and pushed Buzz’s hand out of his way. “We should have seen at least one by now, right?”
“You wait,” Buzz said. “You wait.”
Quinn knew there was no use arguing with Buzz. There was no point in even trying to reason with a man so buried in his own conspiracy theories.
“Okay,” Quinn said.
It appeared to suffice.
“He’s out there,” Buzz said again, almost to himself. “In the jungle, you have a sense for these things.”
Quinn felt an urge to ask if that was where Buzz left his sanity—back in the jungle. He put his hand to his head.
“Sorry to doubt you, Buzz,” he said. “But it’s been a long morning.”
Buzz leaned back and eyed him for a minute.
“I only tell you because the rest of these guys would think I’m crazy,” he said.
Now why would they think that? Quinn thought.
“Laurence only wants an excuse to fire me,” Buzz said. “He’d say I was trying to panic the staff.”
“Laurence does not want to fire you,” Quinn said.
Buzz snorted in patent disbelief.
“You wait,” he said. “He’s just biding his time.”
“He just wants you to come to staff meetings again.”
“Right,” Buzz said. “So they can mock me to my face? So they can tell me how to do my job better? So Rebecca can start complaining again?”
“It isn’t like that,” Quinn said.
“Maybe not to you,” Buzz said, pointing again, this time thankfully away from Quinn’s personal space. “But you don’t remember. No, I won’t go to them. He can fire me for not attending staff meetings if he wants. But I won’t go.”
Quinn looked at Buzz and it was hard not to be taken in with his earnestness. There was no doubt he believed it all. Why he trusted Quinn was beyond his understanding.
“That girl is here to replace me, did you know that?” Buzz asked.
“Why do you say that?” Quinn asked, glad at least to be thinking of Kate again.
“She told me yesterday she wrote some business stories,” he said.
“She’s written a lot of things, Buzz,” Quinn replied. “Including business. I think that was her way of volunteering, that’s all.”
Buzz paused to consider this.
“Well, she doesn’t have my experience, that’s true,” he said, obviously carrying on some type of internal conversation as well.
“Relax,” Quinn said, as calmly as he could. “They are not trying to take your job.”
“You wait,” Buzz said again, but he didn’t continue. Instead, there was a significant pause. “Can you do another business profile for me?” he finally asked.
“But I’m already doing the coin-sorting place,” Quinn said. “I was just working on that.”
“I know, I know,” Buzz said. “I wouldn’t ask, my boy, but I…”
He turned up his hands in a shrug.
“I won’t ask you for one next week. I promise.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Quinn said.
“This time I mean it.”
“I’ve heard that too,” he said.
“I know, I know,” Buzz said.
“Why not ask Kate?” Quinn asked, and when Buzz gave him a blank stare added, “The new girl?”
“Laurence told me he had her working on other things,” Buzz said.
“How about Alexis?” he asked. “Or Helen?”
“They both refused,” he said. “I need it for my pages. I swear this is the last time I’ll have you do double duty. Please. They’ll fire me if I don’t get in enough stories. They are just waiting…”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Quinn said. “What’s the story?”
And that was how Quinn found himself two hours later driving out to Middleburg.