The Global War on Morris by Steve Israel Page A

Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index. Morris grasped for something to say. Anything to prove to Victoria that he still had a voice. “Was he a nice guy?” he asked. Which nudged the Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index up a notch further. Because, when you mentioned his name, the look on your face, as if you just chugged the curdling milk in the creamer that’s been sitting out all day, could lead me to the conclusion that he was a nice guy .
    Victoria shrugged. “Almost too nice. You know what I mean?”
    Morris nodded, although he had no idea what Victoria meant.
    â€œYou know what my problem is, Morris? I figured it out. After eighteen years with that son of a bitch Jerry—that’s my ex, as if you couldn’t tell—I thought I was owed perfection. I really thought I would meet my knight in shining armor. But that’s just too good to be true. Don’t you think?”
    For some reason, Morris thought of Cornel Wilde in Sword of Lancelot , and how he directed and starred in the film, which was produced in 1963, and mumbled, “Sure.”
    â€œThat’s my problem,” Victoria repeated. “I have to lower my expectations. Find someone normal. Average. The happy medium.”
    That’s me! Morris thought. Morris Feldstein.
    The bill for lunch was twenty-two dollars and change. Morris paid in cash. He and Victoria didn’t exchange a single word about Celfex products, therefore, Morris didn’t feel it was proper to ask Celfex to pay the tab. And besides, he thought, twenty-two dollars—plus tip—was a small price for watching Victoria D’Amico eat a hamburger while listening to her share the intimate details of her love life.
    Others were watching Victoria as well, including Agent Fairbanks of the Department of Homeland Security’s Subagency of Intelligence and Analysis (Melville Branch), and Special Agent Anthony Leone of the Food and Drug Administration armed with a new cache of equipment, on loan from the Department of the Interior, that could detect a buck moth or tiger salamander from miles away). Also crowded into the parking lot of the Sunrise Diner were the unmarked vehicles of the Nassau County Police Department, the Nassau District Attorney’s Office, the New York State Office of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and several others who had the good fortune of receiving a tap on the shoulder from NICK about Victoria D’Amico.The parking lot at the Sunrise Diner was busier than the Sunrise Diner itself.
    Leone watched her from his car, which smelled of discarded Styrofoam cups laced with the coagulated remains of ancient coffee. He monitored Victoria’s arrival at Dr. Kirleksi’s office that morning; he watched her leave for the Sunrise Diner that afternoon when it grew even warmer. He tailed her through lunch-hour traffic. And even when he lost her, he didn’t worry. He’d pick up her trail. She lacked the skills of that master of evasion, deception, and disappearance, the Great Montoyez. And even if Leone took his eyes off her, countless other eyes wouldn’t. The New York State Police cameras watched her route to the diner. The News 12 Long Island traffic cams stared from poles towering above the highways. The county’s cameras dangled from traffic signals, taking automatic mug shots of drivers’ guilt-laced faces at the moment of one infraction or other. The various cameras of towns, villages, and other government bodies keeping their eyes on their parks, their water towers, and their maintenance depots. The security cameras at the drive-throughs at banks, convenience stores, and filling stations and, yes, at the Sunrise Diner as well. All wove together like a spider web waiting to ensnare its victims.
    All of these eyes, public and private, peering and leering, gazing and gawking.
    The old private eye had been replaced by infinite public eyes. That day, Victoria D’Amico was