George Higgins - A change of gravity

Habits simplify your life. You know what to do, it's automatic. Don't have to do so much thinking.

"That's what our Nicholas did that last day; he followed his regular habits. He seemed to be in good spirits. Showers and gets dressed and eats. He goes out of his ten-room house on an acre-plus of prime land, so we're told, got to be worth at least three or four hundred thousand dollars, in the neighborhood it's in. This looks like one happy guy.

He gets into his bright-yellow Saab convertible, drives himself up to Barnes Airport in Westfield; he's signed up for a gorgeous summer Sunday of sky-diving. Several times before he's done this without any mishap whatsoever, not even a sprained ankle. But this time it's going to be different. Today he's going to kill himself.

"If you think that, then there wasn't any accident or any negligence involved here. When he stepped out of that airplane, in his mind he was doing a perfectly normal, rational thing.

"I can't believe it. Why go to all this trouble? There're plenty of places you can drive to and walk up to and jump off and kill yourself, if that's what you want to do. Don't need any training to do that. All the lessons; the classroom instruction; the tethered training jumps from that steel tower they've got up there: what is it, three or four hundred feet off the ground, and they take you up there and you jump7.

Forget it. I'm finished right there. I wouldn't dare to climb that high, never mind jump off. You want me to conclude he did it all in order to kill himself in style? All the supervised practice jumps with the instructors: everything was preliminary to the big day when Nick Hardigrew got himself killed? Nobody was negligent? No one failed to exercise due care? It wasn't anyone's fault?"

"Well, maybe," she said. "I suppose we never know what hell people could be going through behind their eyes where we can't see it. What they might do to stop the pain they're in." She shook her head. "I can tell you one thing though: The more I hear of this one, the gladder I am it didn't go jury-waived. Let those good people figure it out. I don't envy them for a minute." Then she said: "Well, 're we ready to go now? Tell them to bring down the jury."

"I dunno," Robey said. "When do you want the immunity hearing? Four today or first thing in the morning? I need to know now, so I can have someone get word to the witness's lawyer so he'll know when he has to come down here."

"Sandy," she said. "I already told you: we don't need a hearing. May need one, but don't need one yet. Tell whoever it is down there in the US Attorney's office to send up the order they want me to sign. Then if the witness still takes the Fifth, then we'll have him in and I'll put on my usual impressive performance, plant my brogan right on his neck. What's the matter with the government anyway? This isn't the first one of these things we've ever had here. They should know by now how we do them."

"The guy's lawyer's the one that wants it," Robey said. "He's got some argument why he thinks the grant's improper, unenforceable, and therefore his client shouldn't be compelled to take the Fifth and make the grand jury think he's guilty of something, before he gets in to see you."

"That's a new one," the judge said. "Who dreamed up this new way to waste time? Some jackass with his first federal case?"

"Could be, now that you mention it," Robey said, grinning at her. "I know I've never seen him in here. Heard of him though. Geoffrey Cohen's his name. People say he's not bad. Think his office's over South Hadley."

The judge regarded Robey with mixed vexation and amusement. "SHee-it," she said, 'you're not telling me that. The jackass lawyer's my lawyer?

Was, anyway. Did a good job for me, too. What the heck is he doing down here, federal criminal case? He's not a criminal lawyer;

Geoffrey's a divorce lawyer. He's always been that. Bob Pooler's the man for this kind of ugliness. People should stick to what they know."

"In the first place," Robey said, "Cohen appears to be branching out.

That drug case that you drew last Thursday there. Sanderson, I think it was? Golf pro; in the winter he tends bar in Vermont moderate amount of coke; Bissell tells me Cohen represents the broad who turned him in. State plea-bargain of her own. Apparently in this corruption matter that we're talking about now, Bob Pooler already had a client.

His client's the one they want Geoffs client to sink. Bob'd have a big conflict of interest."

"Who's Bob's client?" the judge said. "What poor devil're they after now?"

"From what Bissell told me," Robey said, 'the lucky nominee's the ever-popular Daniel J. Hilliard. Former state rep from Holyoke?

Chairman of House Ways and Means when he stopped running, Eighty-two, Eighty-four, I think it was. His pals on Beacon Hill gave him his very own college. Hampton Pond Community. Since then he's more or less faded out of sight."

Judge Foote looked glum. "Oh I hope that that isn't so," she said, after a while. '1 hope that isn't true. And I hope if it is true that they don't decide to indict him. And if they do, then I hope they lose. Now I don't want you telling anybody else what I just said, but goddamn, I wish they wouldn't do that."

"Oh God, I'm sorry," Robey said, looking chagrined. "I didn't realize you knew the guy, were close to him."

"Oh I wasn't," she said quickly, silently chastising herself for having spoken impulsively and hoping not to have to tell more lies than she'd be able to remember. "Not the way you're thinking, at least. Keep in mind, Sandy: I can almost always tell what you're thinking. Shame on you." Robey looked sheepish.

"It was nothing you could really call "personal," she said, thinking:

It was more what you'd call sexual.

"I got to know him from when I was still married to Ray. Not happily married by then, anymore, but still, you know, under contract." For another eight or nine years or so, as a matter of fact — not that I let that stand in my way. "That racetrack deal I mentioned, "Seventy-two or so, early in "Seventy-three. One of the chores the Chief had me doing involved staying in touch making sure the local reps were up to speed on the project. Dan Hilliard naturally was one of them." Getting into bed with Dan Hilliard wasn't on the Chiefs specs; that was extracurricular.

"I saw him three or four times. Once I had to drive down to Boston, I recall." And a room in the Lenox Hotel. "And then the other times I went up to Holyoke, the huge second-floor office he used to have there.

Unless it was crowded, your voice echoed in it. I thought he was a very nice man, a thoroughly, truly, nice, man. I suppose I have to say he was charming." He's buying it, she thought, with a tincture of relief and shame. What they say is true, I guess: Once you get the hang of it, you never lose the touch. Very nicely done, girl, very nicely done.

"In fact I may've been a little bit too hard on you just then. Now that you've gotten me thinking about it, I remember having it go through my mind at the time that if I hadn't been still married to Ray and so forth, I could see myself getting very interested in this Hilliard guy. Although of course he was still married then, too."

"Talk was he never let that interfere with his personal life," Robey said, smirking. "He is a charmer, no question. I remember when his wife was divorcing him; she alleged adultery. There was a lot of talk.

That was a fairly unusual thing to do: meant someone was really pissed off. There was considerable speculation about whose names might get dragged into it, how many other divorces there'd be, if theirs ever came to a trial."

"I recall that," she said, a lot more calmly than she had lived through it.

"And then when it didn't," Robey said, 'when it settled word was she cleaned him out then the word was that was the reason.