George Higgins - A change of gravity

"Of course I didn't," Hilliard said. "I told my accountant about it, the first year, and he told me it was a gift. You were giving me a present, and as long as it didn't come to ten-grand in any one year or go over thirty-grand in our lifetime, tax laws that we had then, it wasn't taxable. Sam Evans said the same thing, I was going through the divorce and we're making out the statement of my income and expenses.

What you were paying for me at Grey Hills wasn't on either one. He said, "Mercy's not entitled to a share of a present you get from Merrion. She's married to you, not to Ambrose. He doesn't have to pay alimony." And now it's even more untaxable'n it was then. Now there's really no limit on gifts. As long as you're not trying to beat the estate tax, you can be as generous as you like."

"That's what I said to Pooler," Merrion said. "I said I wasn't kicking back anything to you. I was giving you a gift. You got me the job which resulted in me getting the money. You did it because you're my friend. As a result of me having the job, I came into some money.

Quite a lot of it, in fact. But neither one of us had any idea, going in, that that money even existed. Much less that I would wind up getting it.

'"It was like I hit the lottery," I said to Pooler. "You do that, you naturally want to share it with someone, family and also your friends.

All the family I had was my mother, and that fuckin' brother of mine. I paid off the mortgage on my mother's house, which's now mine, and made sure she was well-taken care of. Only reason she stayed workin' at Slade's was because she liked the job. I didn't give Chris a fuckin' thing. I don't like his attitude., Danny's the best friend any man ever had. Why wouldn't I share with him?"

"You know what he said?" Merrion said. "Pooler said to me: "Very touching. Better hope that the jury believes it."

"He thinks they probably wont. We been in this club a long time, Danny. We've belonged here almost twenny-five years. By the time they add up everything I paid Grey Hills for you, they've got you evading almost two hundred grand, taxes. They start adding interest and penalties; they're inna millions, no sweat. Pooler says for that you go to jail."

"In other words," Hilliard said, 'it's gonna be the end of me, maybe the end of your job as a clerk, but certainly the end of me."

"That's what he seems to be saying," Merrion said.

"What the hellV Hilliard said, anguish in his voice. "Do we know what it was that brought this on? Did Pooler tell you that? Playing golfs not a crime, not the last I heard, anyway, although the way we play it maybe should be. And joining a country club: that isn't, either, even when it's one that costs a lot of money. What made them decide to come after me, and therefore to come after you?

"I asked Pooler that," Merrion said. "This smells like revenge to me.

Has it got anything to do with anything we actually do in politics!

Something they can point to and say: "See? It was a fraud, right from the very beginning'? I don't remember it that way. I don't remember one occasion when Danny and I went off by ourselves and said: "Okay now, how can we make money from this? Not once in all the years." And he shrugged his shoulders and said: "I dunno. Some people think head-hunting's fun."

"But what brought it on nowV Hilliard said. "I've been out of sight for ten years."

"Pooler thinks it may go back to when you and Mercy got divorced. He said when he spoke to Sam Evans about it, Sam just shook his head and said it was the pictures inna papers, you and alia blonde babes with big tits and the skirts that just covered their breakfast. Someone, maybe someone in the IRS, maybe someone who's now in the US Attorney's office, painted a target on you, decided you should be punished. Sam told Pooler he told you not to let that juicy stuff happen, to lie low 'til the case was over, and you couldn't even do that. But at the time all he had in mind was keeping down what Mercy'd get in the settlement.

He didn't think you'd go to jail for disregarding what he said."

Hilliard seemed not to have heard him. "Pooler couldn't explain it to me the other day, either, why they're doing this to me now scalping me, ripping my hair off." He shook his head and snuffled.

"It's frightening, Amby. Makes me feel so exposed," Hilliard said "All these years, and now basically what he's saying is it could be anything, anything I might've ever done, or even said, to someone. Some casual remark that pissed someone off, and now they've found a pretext to get even, calling me what amounts to a thief. "You ran for office in order to steal." How the hell do you defend yourself?"

He shook his head again. "The short answer is that you can't," he said. Then he began to cry. He sat there at the table in the dim corner of the bar at Grey Hills and his eyes filled up with tears. He shook his head and said: "It was never that way, Amby. You know that, it wasn't. It was never that way at all."

Shortly after 8:20 on Tuesday morning Merrion raised his right hand to knock on the closed door of Apartment 1 at 1692 Eisenhower Boulevard.

He could hear Steve Brody inside, talking at normal conversational level. He remembered Larry Lane: "Cheap construction guarantees you know your neighbors, whether you want to or not."

Brody's voice expressed pain. "Well, but I already told you that, didn't I that I'd do it? I told you yesterday. The thing is, I can't get to it yet, not 'til I get finished with the pump. I got to get the pump fixed first. I got it all taken apart down there now. A big storm comes along and hits us and it could, a hurricane or something; time of year for that, you know, and we do get 'em through here — dumpa lotta water on us 'fore I get it back together, wed be in big trouble. And this's something we don't want to happen. Because, you'll remember, we didn't get to it last summer, like we should've done, and we knew it at the time. So it then came back and bit us, served us right, and we both admitted that. You were saying "No, it'll be all right. It'll go another year, make it through another season."

And then it didn't, did it.

"And then so as a result, we then had all that trouble it broke down, the end of March." Brody's voice was becoming louder and his words were coming faster. "All that snow and then the rain should've known we're gonna get that, soon's we didn't fix the pump and then we get the thaw and we had a flood in here. Basement fulla water. Would've ruined the oil burner, I didn't pull it out and lug it up here in the kitchen by the gas stove to dry out. Tenants screaming bloody murder, two whole days without no heat. I am scared to death myself, 'fraid the pipes're gonna freeze 'nd burst; plaster comin' down around our ears. You remember that, don't you? You yelled at me enough, worsen any of the tenants, like it's all my fault or something that it hadda go and rain."

Merrion tapped two fingertips twice on the door.

"So anyway, now I'm fixing that." There was a note of firm assurance audible in Brody's voice. "All going to be taken care of, so we wont have to think about that again this year, first time we get snow. I get through with that plus of course whatever else comes up along the way, something has to, never fails, that can't wait a day or so then I'll paint the third floor hall."

He hesitated. "The hallway on the second floor? No, did that one last year, 'chou 'member? That time in April we had the three vacancies up there all at once; I'm practically going out of my mind here, trying to get all of them painted? We both agreed the time it made good sense to do the hallway, get it done at the same time since it so happened I was working up there anyway."

Merrion rapped his knuckles three times on the door.