George Higgins - A change of gravity

"You can leave me out of that speculation, if you wouldn't mind," she said.

"Sorry," Merrion said. "You idealistic grass-and-magic-mushroom people don't know about intoxication like we evil drinkers do. Forgive me for suggesting it. I'd make it home all right. You should stay where you are and sleep it off.

"This young lady's got a lot bigger problem," he said.

"Selling a gram of coke?" Diane said. "How big a problem is that?"

"Not big at all," Merrion said, 'if that was the full extent of it.

First offense, as this is, suspended for sure, with stern lecture.

Cavanaugh yells at her for five or six minutes, "serious offense; mighty big risk you're taking, young lady; ruin your life," so on and so forth, "go forth and sin no more. Don't let me see you in here again." Her problem's not just what she sold to the cop after her boyfriend gave him the sales pitch that got him to the bar; it's what the cops found, under the bar, where she got the toot that she'd sold: thirty-four more grams, give or take."

"I can never remember…" Diane said.

"A little over an ounce," Merrion said. "Twenty-eight grams to the ounce. That tips you off something's wrong here. It's unusual to find someone in her position with that much stuff within her reach. That's the second tier of the statute. Anything between twenty-eight and a hundred grams wins you a full five years as a guest of the Commonwealth. Mandatory minimum: they prove you had that much, you go.

If she's the retailer, and the boyfriend's her floor-walker, then the dealer that they're working for's been kind of careless, exposin' his loyal employees like that. Leavin' the help to twist in the wind.

"That's dangerous. When employees start to shiver, they usually decide to clear their throats and see if the cops wanna patch the thing up and be friends. Case like this, the guy they have to talk about usually turns out to be the guy that owns the bar. If he isn't, he's the night manager and the guy who owns the joint's either stupid or partners with him. If the cops can prove the owner let that stuff go on, his liquor license is history. He may beat a criminal charge, if he can convince a judge he wasn't smart enough to know what was going on and get a piece of the action, but that wont save his license. He's supposed to know if there's something like that goin' on in his place, and get rid of anyone doin' it. Not do nothing and let it go on. The only hope he's got is that his people go through for him, swear he didn't have a clue.

"Over twenty-eight grams though, what Leah Suzanne's got this morning, that hope becomes kinda slim. That much makes her look like a kingpin herself. Very tough for a prosecutor to make more than an ounce of the stuff into less 'n fourteen grams, half an ounce, a mandatory three, and then shrink it even more so a judge can put her on the street. This child is in serious trouble.

"She's gotta know this," Merrion said. "She oughta be in tears, out of her mind. She's not, she's as calm as an angel. She's fixing her hair. Combing and primping, you know? I'm talkin' to her; I'm explaining the charges. She's nodding, not really listenin'. I guess it must be a lotta work, long hair like that, steady part-time job. Got this elastic ruffled thingie that she's gonna put around to hold it that is in her teeth. She needs both her hands, work on her hair. One to hold it; one to brush it, really hard, yankin it between strokes.

So, she's got it all pulled around in front of her, over her shoulder there, all nice and brushed out. Looks at it; it's okay. All right: takes the elastic thingie outta her mouth, spreads it open with her left hand, pulls it on over the hair, all the way up the back her head, and then tosses her head alia way back, an' flips the hair back over her shoulder.

"By now I've finished with what the offense is. She's heard me say she's facing five years inna can. She gives me this big lovely smile, like I'd just told her: "You won the lottery, Cupcake." And then what she starts doin' is countin' out twenty-five more bucks from her bra, which's got a whole lot more'n just money in it. My own guess is that all that this young lady does extremely well on tips, tending bar at Cannonball's by making sure she always leans 'way over the counter when she serves the drinks. And my guess would also be that whenever she's had a major purchase in mind, like a car or a high-priced vacation, she knows a reliable way to pick up a little extra money on the side.

Prolly has to take her gum out for that, though she took some out and started chewin' the instant I said she was free.

"I tell her about her right to an attorney and she says: "Get my own."

I start to warn her what'll happen if she doesn't show up eight-thirty tomorrow, report to Probation. She says, really bored: "Yeah yeah, I know, a hundred bucks." Like it's all she can do not to say: "Get real I spill more'n that."

"I begin to think I must've gotten the wrong lady's rap sheet Accordin' to the one the sergeant gives me, this's her first arrest. "This your real name I got here?" I say to her. '"Leah Suzanne Rosenbaum?" '"Yeah," she says, very nasal voice, "that's who I am don't I look it?"

She laughs. "Have tah tell my mother that. She's always after me.

"Leah, Leah, heaven's sake, whyncha get your nose fixed. They say there's nothin' to it no more; I'd do it myself, I was your age. You really should give it some thought." '"You ever go by any other names?" I say to her.

'"You serious1" she says to me. Thompson's bringing her boyfriend out.

"I do not believe this," she says to him. "Can you believe this, Felipe, what this guy is doing? He's asking me if my name is my real name. You tell him, Felipe, all right? Tell him who I am here."

"Felipe's ambition in this life's to be a comedian. He sees this as the chance he's been waiting for, goes right into his shtick. The lockup's on network TV. "He don't believe you're who you are? Of course you're who you are. I take care of this for you. This's the guy here I tell?" And Felipe points to me.

'"Yeah, him," she says. She thinks Felipe is hilarious. "He's the one, thinks I'm not me." '"Certainly," says Felipe. He clears his throat and stands up straight. "This young lady here I know most of my life to be Candida Rivera, right? Candida Rivera. She is Geraldo's top woman assistant, all right? That's probably where you seen her. Onna TV all the time.

Candida Rivera." He looks her up and down. "Nice lookin' woman, don't you think? Very shapely, nice and plump." "Hey" she says, sticks her elbow in his ribs, "I'm not plump. What is this, plump7." Meanwhile he's looking innocent. "That what you want me to tell him, Candy?

Everything fio-kay now, little one?"

"This cracks her up completely," Merrion said, taking the ramp south of Holyoke connecting Route 91 with the Massachusetts Turnpike, in West Springfield. "This is the most fun I have ever seen two people having who've just been arrested on a serious charge and aren't so drunk I can't let them out for fear they might fall inna river. They are perfectly sober, deep in the shit, and happy as larks.

"Well, nothing off mine. I give him the speech. Like her, although he's a spic and has a record, minor stuff, he's got what we call "ties to the area." Family lives here. Owns a house in East Longmeadow, with a mortgage. Wife and kids. He's also got a little something going with the barmaid; nothing says that means the wife an' kiddies're no longer local ties. And a bank account, as well, he says. I've got no reason not to grant him bail. She makes his bail fee. And that's where we stand, they're just leaving, when the woman trespasser comes out. The woman they arrested inna woods.

"The name she gave is Linda, Linda Shepard. She's in her early thirties, thirty-two, the sheet said, but she looks a lot older; maybe forty or so. She's got her three kids with her. Cops've got 'em back in the conference room the lawyers use, they come in to talk to their clients. Giving them tonic and something to eat, and they put a TV in there, too. Still, they got no place else to go so they're taking part in this "life experience," finding out what it's like to get arrested, put in jail. Great for "show-and-tell," their next foster parents ever get them back to school. One of them's eleven, other two're nine and six; Sylvester and Bruce and Demi.