Orin, the hand-model, and the "survey"

Fortier's door-probe wears its cover so loosely it's almost contempt. Asked nothing, the wheelchaired man cycles a heap of mutually contradictory sponsors — Chamber of Commerce, veterans' group, consumer advocacy, "Government study. Ad council demographic assessment. Sweeps. Random anonymity" — a legend that changes with every sentence because it was never meant to hold. It doesn't have to: Orin's vanity supplies all the belief the cover lacks, reading the whole approach as "this shy ruse of an excuse for proximity to his leg and autograph," waiting placidly for "the ruse involving the pen that'd get him to sign something" for a fan club. Tradecraft that can afford to be careless because the mark is doing the operative's work for him.