George Higgins - A change of gravity

But the only way I'm gonna do it is when the six guys bring the long black car around. Then, well, I'll have to leave."

Somehow or other about a year or so into Larry's last mission Richie Hammond'd found out that Merrion had been going to visit him. "Every week, is it?" Richie'd said to him. "Every week you go up there, and stay about two hours! What the hell you do up there with him, up there in that place with that shrivelled-up old bastard he is, all that time alone with him? Guy's fuckin' dyin' isn't he? That's what I hear, every place I go. Everyone says it, all over town. "Larry Lane isn't long for this world," 's what I hear. "Larry Lane's on his way out, this time." That's what everyone's sayin'." Then he had paused and looked hopeful, waiting for confirmation.

Merrion had not said anything. He had shrugged, throwing in the eyebrow-raising. He did that whenever Richie started irritating him, which was fairly often. It wasn't insubordinate not that Richie as a practical matter could harm him in any way at all. Even if he did start keeping a log and writing it up whenever Merrion yanked his chain; as long as Danny Hilliard had access to a telephone that worked and a friend alive on Beacon Hill, it would take St. Michael the Archangel to lay a bad hand on Ambrose Merrion.

His silence pissed Richie off. That was another thing Richie didn't know how to do right, get pissed off properly. And usefully, so's to set a precedent, one that people would shudder to remember and try not to do again whatever it was that had set him off. He just got plaintive and made himself look ridiculous. "Well answer me, for Christ sake, Amby. I asked you a fuckin' question." That was why Merrion did it. "What the hell do you do up there with him, for Christ sake? The man's a dyin, fuckin', man."

Merrion had shrugged again, but this time as Riche'd begun to work up another pisspot eruption, he'd given him words to go with it. "We tell each other stories," he'd said blandly. "Well, Larry tells me the stories, how things used to be. What went on, and what it all meant.

History lessons of this place. I mostly just listen, nod now and then.

Sometimes I ask him a question. But you know, there're days, when we had something' happen. Something's gone wrong down here. And as he knows and you know and I know myself, most days something generally has. And those weeks I have something to say. Stories to tell him, put some fun in his life."

That had enraged Richie. He'd come out of his chair. He slammed both his fists knuckles-down on the top of the very desk Merrion now occupied, so hard that it had to've hurt, and then braced himself on his stiffened, locked arms. His face had gone crimson immediately, right up to the roots of his brown greying hair. His voice'd gone up along with the blood pressure. "You son of a bitch you; you son of a bitch; you son of a goddamn-damned bitch. You're tellin' Larry Lane what we're doin' in here? You getting' his input on stuff? You're getting' his clearance on stuff? He hasn't got no more power in here.

That bastard is retired, even if he isn't dyin' like everyone else knows he is and they are glad. Once you are retired from here, that is the end of your power. Then you have got no more power in here and you might as well be dead, like you are gonna be. You cut that stuff out now, right now."

According to Sam Paradisio's very best hearsay, Janet's most dangerous conduct was her smoking habit. "And this is not because I think everyone should quit today and then if they wont do it on their own, the government should make them. I'm the only person whose smoking ever bothered me, and I am in favor of letting people kill themselves any way they like. What I am not in favor of is other people killing them, for any reason whatsoever, and this lady's smoking habit, about two packs a day, could be something that will do that, make that happen. For her this is high-risk behavior.

"What makes me say this is that's what my violent hardened felon tells me. He's pretty specific. When he was in jail, they put in that No Smoking rule, and he hadda cold-turkey the habit. He said it was a real bitch.

'"Way worsen going off cocaine, or the booze or the pills. You can still get the butts, sure, but when you do you can't smoke 'em. Well, there're ways, but they're hard. How can you smoke without making smoke, which all the damned screws can then smell? If they don't actually see it. Pills and the other stuff: those you can do without anyone seeing you do it. But havin' a smoke: that's really hard. When they said you couldn't have any more of that, you really couldn't, just about, so that one's a real motherfucker."

Sammy Paradise had reported his conversation with Chappelle to Merrion over lunch on Friday of the previous week, the second in August. They had occupied their usual dark-brown oak booth in The Tavern on the northerly side of the green opposite the Strand Theater in the center of Canterbury, a block from the courthouse. Also as usual they could talk about confidential matters because they had the place pretty much to themselves; the restaurant workers paid no attention to their conversation and because they met at 1:15 when the court was in recess, there were no other customers.

Merrion was having a good sixteen-ounce strip sirloin steak broiled medium rare, a baked potato with sour cream and chives and a salad glistening with oil and vinegar dressing. He had nearly finished a pint of Lowenbrau dark beer and he planned to order another 'for dessert." Paradisio was eating a chicken salad sandwich on dark bread and as customary nursing a twelve-ounce glass of Miller Lite that he did not intend to finish.

Paradisio said Chappelle told him Janet's smoking was 'the only thing about her he's got strong feelings about. He really doesn't like it.

Because when she does it, it makes him want to smoke. And it was real hard for him to quit. He told her that and she said she can't stop.

She used to smoke even more, she told him, but then a while back she cut down. And she's got it down now to the point where she can actually ration them.

"He tells me that drives him nuts. "I could never do that. And I am a guy that they made quit completely. I know what I'm talking about.

Only smoke so many a day? Guarantee you, that'd drive me nuts."

"He acts like he's got her on surveillance. This's obviously become an obsession with the guy, keepin' track how much she smokes. "When she goes to bed at night she's got about four or five, maybe half a dozen of them left. Just enough to get her through the morning, just 'til she goes out again. Sittin' onnie edge the bed, there, 'fore the shower an' shampoo. Then: after she gets dressed and puts the coffee-maker on, dries herself off, an' brushes her hair. To dry it in the air, before she uses the hair-dryer. "Not as many split-ends," she tells me," this's him, now, tellin' me, '"when you do it this way you don't get so many split-ends." '"She says. Maybe that takes two butts. Mark down two for that, brings us up to three. Coffee's ready, ahh, then sugar, milk, have another one or two while she's drinkin' that. Now it's time to get dressed and go out the store, get ahold of a paper. Don't hafta actually go and buy it; just look up the page there where they print last night's number and see right there if you won. Scratch-ticket, large coffee. Use ten dollars' worth of food stamps, something costs about five bucks 'nd change. Leaves her enough to get change back to use for more smokes. Two more new fresh decks of butts. Something to look forward to, may turn out to be the only thing all day. Scratch the ticket. Have another one while you're doing that, or maybe on the way back. Six, I think, that makes it. Maybe seven, you lose count.

Not that it really matters."

"That's how I get it from Lowell. "Smokin's the principal thing in her life, when she's all by herself. What she does when she's doin' everything else, or not doin' a damned thing at all. She's a real junkie on those things." For him, this is an obsession.