George Higgins - A change of gravity

There were four drunk-and-disorder lies two of them combined with charges of making an affray, the arrests having been made in bars in Hampton Pond and Cumberland after the managers carried out threats to call the cops if noisily quarrelsome patrons refused to quiet down.

There were two cases of driving under the influence of alcohol. There were three narcotics cases, two of them the people Merrion had met in the Canterbury lock-up Saturday night.

"On the Rosenbaum matter," Merrion whispered to Cavanaugh, 'the Rosenbaum and also the Fernandez matter, Leah Rosenbaum and Felipe Fernandez, his goes with hers. She's the barmaid up at Cannonball's.

You can see her sittin' back there in the third row, over to the left beside the wall, young broad with big tits and a long blondish ponytail, see her over there?"

"Sleeveless red blouse, tight white jeans?" Cavanaugh whispered. "She the one that just stood up there?"

Merrion turned enough so that he could sneak a glance over his right shoulder. Leah Rosenbaum had inflated her chest and was tucking her shirt in, looking toward the bench; she saw him peeking. She smirked.

He felt his neck getting red. "That's her," he said, turning back.

Cavanaugh concealed a smile from everyone in the courtroom but Merrion.

Merrion tried to ignore him. "Fernandez's the movie-star dude with the black hairdo sittin' next to her there. He's her foot-soldier, gofer delivery boy.

"Cocaine charge. Fairly heavy one, about thirty-five grams, time you get through. State Police matter. We've had a call from Mister Cohen's office this morning, and they say he'll be representing Miss Rosenbaum, and maybe well, make that "probably" — Fernandez as well. But he's engaged before Judge Segal in the probate court up in Northampton this morning, will be all day, and so he asks at least that both these matters be held for second call, so they can get somebody here to enter pleas for them. But preferably just go off the calendar, put over for a week, if that would be okay with you here, until he's had a chance to have a talk with the DA. Let it go off the list 'til a week from Tuesday. See whether they can work something out, maybe avoid a trial here."

"Geoffrey Cohen's handling drug cases now?" Cavanaugh murmured, raising his right eyebrow. "My my. Music of the Renaissance and crack cocaine. "Tonight my friends, for you we have: con certi by Corelli and Scarlatti, and a gram or two." Quite a combination. Branching out a bit, is he?"

"Looks like," Merrion said. "Hard even for him, I guess, as much as he must be makin," all of those domestic cases, resist the kind of retainers dopers offer these days."

"Continuance look all right to you on it?" Cavanaugh whispered. "Look, I know if Geoffrey's on it, oughta be okay, his word's usually good.

But you hadda close look at these two birds: think there's any chance they'll flee?"

"Aww, I'd doubt it," Merrion said. "You always got that chance, of course, maybe the bastards bolt. But they had since Saddy-night to run and here they are today. I'd say "No, I don't think so." They look all right to me."

Cavanaugh nodded. "Off the list then," he said. "Give Geoff his week, which as usual with him's gonna come to about nine days. Like they say about his divorces: when he represents the wife, he thinks her half a hundred grand oughta work out to about seventy-five thousand bucks. But what the hell; like you say: anything to avoid a trial here."

Other cases were: one larceny by check; one grand larceny, motor vehicle; one petty larceny, shoplifting; one failure to heed a Stop sign, Canterbury; four attaching plates, uninsured and unregistered motor vehicle; and eleven cruelty to animals. "Guy had fourteen dogs penned up in his garage, Judge," Merrion said. "Hadda car in there with them too. Old Packard, hadn't driven it for years. Nobody knows why he had them, the dogs. They weren't pedigreed, reported stolen or anything. Seemed all right, they talked to him; perfectly-normal old guy. Told the cops all it was was he liked dogs. But he hadn't been feeding them, giving them any water, which seemed kind of strange, guy who liked dogs as much as he did. Or letting them go out, either. Dog officer said the garage was filthy, stunk like hell overpowering. That was why the neighbors finally complained. But then it took her over a week to get out there. By then three dogs were dead. Those animal officers: male or female, doesn't make any difference. They all scream and holler how they want the job, and then when they get it none of 'em give a good shit about doin' it. Don't care about the animals at all.

All they want's to get off the clock and have no one over them, no one they gotta report to. Then they can goof off the whole live-long day, and no one even misses them. They're always saying how overworked they are, and the towns don't give them enough money. But why should we?

They do such a lousy job. But so anyway, we got the old guy. Dunno what the hell you do with him. He's too old to put him in jail. Fine him? Just come out of his Social Security; that's all he's got to live on. He doesn't have any dough."

"Oh shit, I dunno," Cavanaugh said. "Put it down at the end of the list. Maybe by then I'll think of something. Or he'll do the right thing and die."

There were three breaking and entering charges, one of them Ottawa Johnson's. There were the two trespassing cases brought against the woman and the man arrested by the Rangers in the Canterbury State Forest. "That'd be the Shepard and the Bennett matters, Judge,"

Merrion whispered.

"Trespassing," Cavanaugh murmured, even though he still had his hand over the mouthpiece of the microphone. "How the hell can somebody trespass in a State Forest? Thought that was the whole idea the damned thing: Nobody owns it; we all do. Supposed to be open to the public' "Yeah, but with some limitations, your honor," Merrion whispered. "Two weeks, six bucks a night. Your time limit's up, you go home. This woman, she's the Shepard, here, and her three kids and her shit-bum boyfriend, he's the Bennett, Robert," checking papers, 'no, sorry, Ronald, Ronald Bennett: all of them, the five of them, what they've been doin's they've been been livin' there since June. Best anyone can tell. They all look like it's been at least since June, they hadda bath. Mean to tell you, these folks stink. Rangers go up there, gonna bring 'em all in? Before they could do it, take 'em out the cabin, they hadda go and get a buncha cardboard boxes, liquor cases, you know?

Down at Wheeler's package store out on Route Five there. And then go back and help her pack up all her household goods and all their clothes and stuff. Pots and pans, everything. Blankets, and these thick quilts and pillows, filthy dirty, all of them all kinds of shit. Whalen told me Rangers said they hadda put the rubber gloves on; God knows what was livin' in that shit. Campin' wasn't what you had these people doin' there; what they were up to was settling-in the place. Gettin' themselves all dug in to stay a while, ready for winter, looked like.

Like they're woodchucks diggin' a hole for themselves in your lawn.

See 'em doing that, they're not plannin' on leavin' right off- anytime soon anyway."

"Holy shit," the judge said. "It's hard to believe, you know, Amby? As long as I been here, hearing this stuff, day after day after day, I get so I think: "I heard all of it, now. I must've heard all of it now."

And then something else comes along. It gets so you just can't believe half of it, your mind just rejects it, it boggles, the things people dream up to do."

"Yeah," Merrion said, 'and I got to tell you, where this one's concerned, the camping's not all of it either. This Shepard matter, it's more complicated'n you might think. From what little I could get outta her there, other night up at the station, she may be tied up with our little friend Janet LeClerc'