George Higgins - A change of gravity

"That looks like the approach they're going to take with our friend Hilliard," Pooler said, his expression a mixture of amusement and contempt. To Hilliard, Merrion said: "I dunno whether he was sneering at the federal fuckers or at us."

Pooler shrugged. "Not that Danny's quite as big a trophy as Al Capone was, but he had a lot of power in his day, and he made himself conspicuous with his not-so-private life, so a lot of people know him.

They still recognize his name. Get a grand jury to indict him and you're guaranteed a headline. Drop enough broad hints around before you go for the indictment, which is what they're doing now, you build up suspense; anticipation fed by rumor makes the headlines even bigger."

"Danny's always paid his taxes," Merrion said. "So've I; we both have.

Danny never took a bribe. Once when something I said made him think that I might do that, he as much as told me that if I had goin' on-the-take in mind, he wouldn't put me in a job. I eased his mind on that.

"Now, have I ever done a favor for a guy, given breaks to people who'd done things they shouldn't do? Sure, of course I have, and so has Danny: many favors. And gotten many in return. Sometimes a guy's bought me a drink after I've helped him out. Once or twice I've been out somewhere having dinner with a lady friend, and when it's come time for the check I find out I'm not getting one — someone I know but didn't see spotted us when we came in; on his way out told the maitre d', give our check to him. That's happened to Danny too, more times'n me. Not because he's crooked; because he knows more people. Friends of his picking up a check or giving him tickets to the ballgame? Sure, small stuff like that, of course we've done it.

"But never have we taken money, not once. That was always out of the question. Now are you telling me we're guilty of something? A federal offense? I don't believe it."

Pooler sighed. "Amby," he said, 'you and I've always had trouble talking. We just can't seem to communicate. You refuse to hear what I'm trying to tell you, and what you say to me's unresponsive.

"What you choose to believe is irrelevant, hear me? Put it aside; it doesn't matter. The feds've picked up on you two. My guess is what got their attention, made them think you might be worth going after, is that you and Danny, especially Danny, have lived very well on your earnings. Danny's real estate holdings for example: a state legislator, lawyer who never practiced, managed to acquire a ten-room house in Bell Woods where his ex lives; a three-bedroom cottage in West Chop; and a three-bedroom townhouse condo in Wisdom House. He drives a Mercedes. All the while living a lavish lifestyle of which the Grey Hills membership is not the only but certainly a prime example. Quite an accomplishment, considering that until about ten years ago his reported income never exceeded fifty thousand dollars a year.

"They have suspicious minds. When they see a politician who's pulled off something like that, the first thing they think is that he did it by taking kickbacks from state contractors who disguised them as campaign contributions, and converted the campaign funds to pay his personal expenses.

"They realize he and his now-ex-wife had the house in Holyoke, and he inherited his parents' property, their house in Holyoke and the camp on Lake Sunapee, all of which he sold. The feds say if you combine the proceeds of selling off those three properties, that accounts for the big house and land worth upwards of four hundred thousand by now, all of it debt-free in Bell Woods.

"Okay, but now what? That exhausts all the capital they concede he came by honestly. Where did he get the twenty-six-thousand-dollar down-payment on the house on the Vineyard? That was over twenty years ago. He was a legislator, making about forty grand a year. As far as the IRS knows, at least; that's all his tax-returns show.

"He's only bought two cars in that period. But they were both Mercedes, very costly automobiles. When he bought the first one he was still in the legislature. It cost him about a year's pay; so what did he live on?

"And that still leaves him to account for the fifteen thousand he somehow found to be put down on the townhouse, while he was going through a very costly divorce, buying the second Mercedes, and financing his scandalous high life. The feds maybe can't prove he did any singing, but they've got all the evidence of wine and women they could possibly want.

"They think the only way he could possibly have done all that was by taking payoffs from people who then got big contracts from the state, as several of his biggest contributors did. Contracts to install electrical systems in state buildings: his late generous backer Carl Kuiper's electrical company up in Deerfield did just under sixteen million bucks of that work during the last nine years that Danny was chairman of Ways and Means. During that same period: nine-point' three-million in state printing contracts to Haskell Sanderson's printing plant in Greenfield. An average of nine-hundred' and-eleven-thousand dollars a year in rent for state office space in western Massachusetts: to real estate holding companies owned or controlled by the Carnes family."

He gazed at Merrion. "There's probably more, if they look, as of course they are planning to do. But on the basis of what they've told me they already know, and what I can further surmise, I think it's going to be very difficult for Danny and me to come up with convincing evidence to rebut the inferences a jury will draw from those facts. I realize you're not a lawyer, but most jurors aren't either; wouldn't you share my concern?"

Merrion coughed. "Well," he said, "I never handled contributions. I was never involved in finances. I just managed the campaigns, day to day, night to night. Never saw any bills, any checks. Didn't want to.

At the beginning Mercy kept the books, and then after he got elected to the House the first time, Roy Carnes's accountants took over the financial end of things, handled it out of his office. That was always Roy Carnes's job."

"I'm aware of that," Pooler said, 'but you haven't answered my question. Do you think a jury'll acquit, when they see proof of what I've just said?"

"Look." Merrion shifted in the chair and crossed his legs. He folded his hands on his right thigh. "Look," he said again, 'when you said we never got along, you were right. We agree that we don't like each other; I don't think we're ever gonna. To answer your question: no, I don't think that a jury hearing what you just told me would be very likely to return a Not Guilty. But you are a lawyer, and my question for you as a lawyer is this: Why couldn't any halfway-competent attorney for Danny stop the prosecutor from proving that case to a jury? Danny's last campaign was in Nineteen-eighty-two. His campaign fund closed a year later. That's over twelve years ago. Have these federal magicians repealed the statute of limitations? Or aren't you competent counsel?"

Pooler shook his head, smiling. "You must've outsmarted yourself many times during your long career," he said. "Always thinking you're one step ahead, when you're generally out of the race.

"They don't need to repeal the statute, Amby. They've found a way around it. All they need now is you to guide them to their goal.

They're aware you wont want to; you're loyal to Danny, and so you'll refuse. But they think they have a way to make you do what they want you to do.

"I omitted an item from that history of Dan's provable spending. I'm surprised you didn't notice it. You can be very sure the feds have. A quarter-century of annual dues and fees for his membership in Grey Hills."

He gazed at Merrion. "Which by itself, as you and I both know, has come to a pile of money. The year you two got in you paid close to nine thousand dollars initiation, dues and fees for him. They say that was income to him, as the dues've been too, every year since."