George Higgins - A change of gravity

"Well, yeah," Paradisio said, 'but like I say: I don't think he's lying to me. He doesn't have anything to gain by doing it. Why lie if it doesn't get you anything? He doesn't give enough of a shit about me or the pathetic little things that I can do to him. Put him back in jail?

It's practically his second home. I don't care, but it's still bad news for the broad. She's pissing him off. That's never a wise thing to do.

"I think you should at least tell her. He's not doing this 'cause he's in love. Because he likes her, even feels sorry for her. He's fucking her because she's got the equipment, what he prefers to get the job done. Brains're not included in that, so it's okay with him that she's not only stupid but probably not right in the head, talks ragtime or isn't all there. Dependable pussy is what he's after, and that's what she's offering this week. This week and the week after next. If her talk starts to distract, he just buys her another drink. And if one pop doesn't quite do the job, another one after it will. Sooner or later she'll pass out on him, and then he can go to sleep. Knowing he'll get back into her again two or three times in the morning.

"Lowell Chappelle is a practical man. Half-breeds're often that way, I've noticed. Used to working the fringes; they get pretty good at the game. You've got to find some way to warn her, and make her understand she's being warned."

"If you just bought a carton of cigarettes, you mean," Merrion said to Janet. "If you bought a carton, say, every five days, then you wouldn't need to go down to Dineen's every morning, the way you do now.

Then only every fifth day."

"Well, maybe every three or four days," she said. "I've always been:

"Have I got it?" Then I'll have it. The booze and the pills, and the cigarettes, too. Or if I had something to sniff." She frowned. "Which I haven't been doing for quite a long time. I wouldn't want you thinkin' that. But when I did, when I was doin' that, that was the way that I did it, all right? Just like with everything else. If I've got it, I'll use it. No matter how long it's supposed to last me, I'll use it if I got it around."

"I wasn't suggesting…" Merrion said, 'anything like that. I didn't mean anything like that. That you might be back on the stuff.

You gave me your word, you wouldn't do that you were all finished with that stuff. And that was an important part of our deal, that you'd keep that promise to me. Because otherwise, you know, all bets were off. No help from me with the judge. Or with the people over at Welfare, or with the building super, either, up at the place you live.

Well, so far as I know, you have done that, stayed clean. So I'm still trying to help you."

"Because those fuckin' neighbors of mine I've got up there," she said, 'they are real nosy people, and mean. The people who were there when I moved in there, like you said, when you got me in, those were very nice people there then. I got along with them good. But then one at a time, they all seem to've moved out. Always just one at a time. Almost so you wouldn't notice. And then if you did, well, you'd just assume, the new ones'll be just like them.

"But it didn't turn out that way. These're not nice people there now.

These're a very mean, loud, kind of people. I don't like them. I'd like to do something to them. Spray-paint their cars or something like that. Get back at them for how they act. But I don't. I don't do anna thing say nothin', to them. I just go along there, minding my business, not a care in the world. Don't give them no bullshit at all.

I'm not that kind of person. But I'm not so sure about them. I think if they wanted, get rid of a person, you know? That they might start thinkin' how to do it, that would hurt their reputation. And if they couldn't find something out, well, it's not like I'm sayin' I know they've done this, they got you all concerned here like you are today, so you thought you had to see me."

"I have to see you every month, Janet," he said wearily. "It's part of our arrangement, and by now I shouldn't have to tell you again, every month when you come in. When I have someone call you and remind you to come in, it doesn't necessarily mean I've heard something about you. Or that I haven't, either. It's just time for you to come and see me and let me see how you're doing."

"I know, but I'm just sayin'," she said, 'that if they told you something then they must've made it up. "Cause they didn't see nothin'. All I am sayin' here is that they could've, they could've done that, it's the kind of thing they might do."

She looked anxious and wrung her hands. "You see what I'm sayin' to you? They're the type of people that would, would do something like that, make up some bad things, just to get someone in trouble. These are very mean people. They would do that to me. They would do that to anyone, really. They wouldn't stop at anna thing It wouldn't matter to them. Somebody really should do, you know, something about them.

Someone really should. Before they go and hurt somebody else. They really don't care what they do, as long as they get their own way."

She paused and thought, frowning, looking at the floor. She nodded, as though satisifed she had settled something in her mind that had troubled her. "I could do it myself," she said, looking up and nodding again. "I could fix them myself if I hadda. I don't know if you know this, if this's something I told you, before, but I can take care of myself. A lot of people; all my life a lot of people've been always thinking I couldn't do that, take care of myself. And some of them thought, well, they tried to do things to me. And then they were very surprised. I gave them a big surprise. I can do things. So I could, if I hadda, do something. And I would, too. Except for this thing I got, that you got over me; maybe it'd be better this time if you did it instead. If you did something to them for me. That I shouldn't, you know, do anything? Might get me in more trouble here?"

"No, you shouldn't," he said. "You have to stay out of trouble. That's your most important job right now: you stay out of trouble for a year.

You're almost home now; only one month more to go. Then you'll have done it, the year. You can do that, you'll be free. You wont have to come in and see me anymore, which I know you don't look forward to.

Being on your own again, and we'll hafta see if we can get you not her job. So that's what you want to concentrate on. Just a little bit longer: proving that you can behave."

Janet wasn't bright but she was clever. She was playing for time.

Sooner or later he'd become tired or hungry; have to go to the bathroom; meet his next appointment; decide to go home. Then instead of it being necessary for her to plead fatigue, played-out memory, generalized confusion, or something else, anything, in order to escape, he would call it off and let her go.

Merrion had first encountered play-acting during his indoctrination as a rookie clerk working the juvenile court session under the carefully reserved supervision of Larry Lane: Brylcreemed up swept wave of hair and the heavily spiced Jade East after-shave lotion; flared trousers and the counterfeit Gucci loafers; bushy grey-black mutton-chop sideburns: Lawrence D. Lane, Clerk of the Court, acting monarch of every damned thing he surveyed. "You're only young for a while."

Larry did it with panache; he did not like training novices. "No mercy," he said, telling Merrion how to deal with beggars seeking undeserved favors or asking them on days when Merrion did not feel like granting any, even to the worthy. "For any damned reason at all, or for no reason at all. No quarter. Especially when they start in on you, giving you the old routine. They're trying to distract you. Get you to thinkin' about something else, and then actually discussin' it, talkin' about it with them, something' you weren't even thinkin' about when they came in.