George Higgins - A change of gravity

Which is another activity not allowed welfare recipients.

"Naturally the cops are shocked. But feeling that it's only fair to give this woman a chance to defend her good name and reputation, they take her aside and ask her if she'd care to comment on reports that she may be doin' a little light hookin'. She's understandably upset to hear that someone's been saying such things about her, and after telling them that she's a good girl and wouldn't think of doing such things, worms the name of the stoolie out of them. Then, while they are still there, the cops're still in the apartment, she flies into a fucking rage and goes berserk, grabs ahold of a rum jug, and goes after Brother Chappelle, screaming like a fuckin' banshee. Before the cops can grab her she bangs him on the head with the jug, and breaks it.

It's not empty. The booze goes all over the place, all over him an' the gas stove. He falls against it. That turns on the stove, which sets the rum on fire. So you've got flames leaping up from the stove and his clothes; cops're beating them out with dishtowels or something.

And while that's going on, she's still got the handle and the jagged neck of the jug left, so she goes after him with that and opens up his face before the cops can separate them again.

"This throws a damper on the party, so the cops decide to have some of them arrest Miss Shepard and take her down to the station. And never mind the EMTs, just have some of the other cops who after all're right there on the scene transport Chappelle to the ER and get him repaired.

The next day after the judge has heard all about this in Springfield District Court, the upshot of it is that Miss Shepard gets a stern lecture and a year's probation — because she has no money to pay a fine and nobody to stay with the kids if she goes to the cooler, and it seems like that's about the only thing anybody can do to her without going to a hell of a lot of trouble finding foster homes for the kids.

"Mister Chappelle, on the other hand, all stitched and bandaged up like he is, is ordered to stay away from her, or the first thing that he knows he'll be back in the federal lockup for violating probation by making a nuisance of himself under State law. Mister Chappelle states his opinion this is a gross miscarriage of justice, him being threatened with going back to jail. He points out that after all, she's the one who did all the damage, cut his face up with a broken bottle, so she's the one should go to jail. The judge is unmoved and tells Mister Chappelle that if he doesn't like getting his face all cut up and Miss Shepard is the one who last did it to him, all he has to do's obey the order, stay away from Miss Shepard, and he should be fine. Oh, and also inna future maybe think twice before he starts going around telling cops any hostess of his is also selling her ass.

That isn't exactly what the judge said just pretty much what he meant."

"Except that nobody in Springfield then ever gets around to telling me about this," Paradisio said.

"Or else they did call but you were out, and they got that bitch of a secretary of yours, and she had something else to do, like pick her nose, so she didn't bother telling you," Merrion said. "As we know's been known to happen."

"That could be," Paradisio said.

"As a further result of all of this brouhaha," Merrion said, 'at least according to Louella, a week or two later when Miss Shepard's landlord he lives over in Agawam; owns a number of apartments, all of which are slums finally gets wind of what went on in the one up in Winchester Square that night, he decides it's his turn to get upset.

So he orders her to quit and vacate the premises. Says he's trying to run a classy joint there and she's not helping him to do this, so therefore out she goes. This gets the social workers started digging into the whole mess, trying to resettle Miss Shepard.

"They find no sign of Chappelle. He seems to be gone from the scene probably because he's now taken up with our Janet in apartment fourteen at Sixteen-ninety-two Ike, but this fact hasn't yet reached either Sam's attention or ours. What the social workers do find is that Bennett is now keeping Miss Shepard company. Miss Shepard is informed that she can't expect to get another subsidized place for herself as long as Bennett's with her. At least under the statute, he's an able-bodied male. He's supposed to work. She takes offense at this and says what they're planning to do is get married. The case worker says weddings're nice, but that the money she's been getting isn't for supporting unemployed fiances or husbands, either, as far as that goes.

They put her and the three kids up in a motel temporarily, 'til they can find an apartment for her, but with strict orders to Bennett to stay out, and to her not to let him come in. He ignores his orders and she ignores hers and the case-worker catches them and boots the whole bunch of them out. That's the last that anyone at DSS hears of any of them until the Ranger posse rounds them up on Saturday and dumps them here in our lap."

"Okay," Cavanaugh said to Merrion, 'so, where does that leave us all now with Janet? Is the ball in your court here, this afternoon? Or can you kick it back into Sam's?"

Merrion stared at Cavanaugh. He did not say anything. "I didn't say anything," he told Hilliard that night, 'because I didn't know what to say. Sam said that Well, as far as he was concerned, he's already looking for Chappelle. Now that the guy is officially missing, or whatever you call it when his probation officer who's supposed to know at all times where he's living, and Sam doesn't, it's his job to find him. As far as I'm concerned, I thought once I'd spoken to Louella, gotten her onto the case with the woman and the three kids, that then until the dame comes into court, as she's now going to do tomorrow, the only thing I have to do is sit tight and see what the hell happens. And anyway, where's the judge fit in all this? This's the part I don't like. It seems like Lennie's saying he's got nothing to do; he's just a spectator here. Janet's now completely my responsibility, like the whole thing was my idea. So I didn't answer him.

"And then after that, Sammy's gone, I'm still there in his chambers, I dunno, picking up, something, throwing the sandwich wrappers away, and the bastard does it again. "What plans've you got to handle this damned problem with Janet? Think you can find her today?"

"I looked at him. "Len," I said when we're by ourselves, we're on a first-name basis "you're making me nervous, talking like that. Like Janet's now my foster child. I've told her what we want done. Had her in Saturday for that. If she doesn't do what I said; keeps on entertaining the guy, then the only thing I can see that we can do is call up her case and get rid of it. It wont cause any stir. It's only attempted larceny and she's been outta trouble almost a year. It'll look okay if we broom it. And there's no way we can try the fuckin' thing now, as both of us very well know. The cops haven't got any witnesses left. So the way that I look at it, that's our only choice."

"So that was when he said to me could I get on that and track her down right this afternoon after work there, mark it up for tomorrow and bring her in right after lunch, "when no one's around. Call it up, blow it out and get rid of it here. Or maybe just lose it, like Chassy and Larry used to do, when they were playing their games."

"Well, I wasn't gonna argue with him. So I just said I couldn't do that or anything else today. I said I hadda see Pooler. And that's when he said to me, outta the blue: "Bob Pooler? Why've you gotta see Pooler? Are you in that too? That federal mess I've been hearing about? I assumed he'd be Hilliard's lawyer."

Robert Pooler in a dark blue suit, medium-blue broadly striped white-collared shirt and red-and-blue geometrically patterned tie had a rural-looking goat-shouldered younger man by the right elbow when Merrion spotted him. The younger man, bald except for an inch-wide fringe of brown hair from ear to ear, wore a narrow maroon knit tie, a homespun-grey shirt, voluminous pleated grey pants, brownish suede shoes and a worried expression. They emerged from a doorway partway down the long corridor leading away from the reception area into the southeasterly corner of the eleventh floor of the office tower in the Bay State West complex on Main Street in Springfield.