A change of gravity

by George V. Higgins

  "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.

  TWO

  That he'd done the right thing and given her everything she asked for, so she wouldn't raise such a stink that he'd have to leave town maybe along with a lot of other people. Bad enough he was washed-up in politics; if he let that stuff hit the fan he would've had to forget the college job, too."

  He paused. "I think Geoff Cohen might've even had that case."

  "He did," the judge said. "Sam Evans from our shop represented Dan.

  Sam was the divorce specialist. He was extremely good at it. Up until that case, consensus was he was the very best around He couldn't make divorce fun, but if you had to go through one and you could get Sam Evans, at least you could relax a little knew you were in good hands.

  Top-notch negotiator; meticulous about details; scrupulously honest and a complete gentleman to boot.

  "After the Hilliard case was over, Sam was almost inconsolable He said with all the sexual misconduct Hilliard had against him there'd been nothing he could do; he'd never had a chance The only hope that he'd had was that Geoff d make the kind of dumb mistake young lawyers sometimes make out of inexperience, and give Sam something he could use.

  "Didn't happen. Sam said Geoff d known exactly what he had to work with; played his cards perfectly; made no mistakes at all and as a result ended up cleaning Sam's clock for him. After that in this part of the world there were two "best divorce lawyers around." In fact what Sam said about Geoff was what made me hire him. Sam'd gotten close to Ray during that racetrack deal-I thought it'd be too hard for him."

  Then she frowned. "Who's the poor guy they're trying to make sink Dancin' Dan? Anyone else I might know?"

  "I don't know," Robey said, 'you might. His name's Ambrose Merrion.

  Canterbury District Court clerk. Ever got a speeding ticket on the way north to ski on something steeper than you've got right where you live?"

  "I don't ski," she said. "People fall down doing that. Break their legs and stuff."

  "Not if they know what they're doing," Robey said. "Anyway that's how I met him. Trooper wrote me up for eighty on Route Three-ninety-one in Cumberland. The other way to meet him's being active in politics. All the real Democratic insiders around here, all the way up to the state, even national, level: all of them would know him, know him very well. I doubt any one of them's ever paid a ticket in Amby's district."

  "Did you pay yours?" the judge said.

  "Truthfully? No, I didn't," Robey said. "It went, away. But not because of my secret life as a Democratic honcho. And not because I tri
ed to fix it, either. The time when I got stopped up there for being in a big hurry, Marie and I were on our way to Montreal. Some friends from when she was at McGill; she hadn't seen most of them since she'd graduated, so naturally she was all keyed up. But I was excited too. This was going to be the best vacation wed ever had. Couldn't wait to get there's why I was driving so fast. I told the cop that in fact I hadn't realized how fast I had been going. Either he didn't believe me or that wasn't a good-enough excuse he wrote me up.

  "I probably put being stopped completely out of my mind before we even crossed the state line into Vermont. And when we got home from those two-glorious-weeks-of-packed-powder, I didn't have the ticket. It was gone. I don't know what I did with it. I may've figured I'd get a summons in the mail; when it came I'd pay the ticket. But the summons never came. And of course I didn't notice because who thinks about a bill that never came? Then about, I dunno, three or four years ago, 'fore I started working for you, I got stopped again. On the Mass Pike on the way to Worcester. Paul McCartney concert at the Centrum:

  Marie's a big fan of his. We're running late, as usual, so I was speeding, as usual. Got bagged for eighty-five. Suddenly it all comes back to me. Cop's back in the cruiser with my license, registration, punching his computer, and I'm thinking: "Oh my God, I never paid the one I got going up to Montreal. This cop's going to see there's a warrant out on me and he's going to put me in jail."

  "But it didn't happen. Except for the fact I was getting another ticket costing me about a hundred-fifty bucks, and now we're really late for Paul McCartney, everything's perfectly fine.

  "I couldn't understand it. The next day I called up the court in Canterbuaf and asked about it. Not that I like paying speeding tickets so much I go out looking for 'em when they get lost, but I was worried.

  I didn't want it hanging over me.

  "I gave my name, not what I do, and the woman asked me to wait while she got Mister Merrion. He came on and I told him the reason for my call, and he said: "Oh, yeah, of course, Judge Folkard's clerk. Forget it. It went away." '"Went away?" I said. "What do you mean?" '"I disappeared it," he said. He sounded like it was routine.

  '"But why?" I said. "You don't know me. Did someone call you or something?" "Cause Judge Folkard'd been known to do that a few times, when his daughter got caught flying low coming home from New York. He was from the Old School, back when people did those things and didn't think a thing about it. I thought I maybe mentioned it and he'd taken care of it for me, and then forgotten to tell me. He's just that kind of guy."

  "He'd better not be that kind of guy where people can see what he's doing nowadays," she said. "You can't do that stuff any more. People get angry. First thing you know, you're in disgrace."

  "I know," Robey said, 'but that wasn't it. "Oh no," says Merrion,

  "nothing like that. Professional courtesy's all. I know that stretch of road where Trooper Dacey busted you, and I know Dacey pretty well too. I don't like him. He's tucked it to me more'n once onna road. My tickets I hafta pay or he'll raise some kinda stink. But other people, he can't connect to me, their tickets're different matters. I don't think eighty's too fast where you were, when you were there, and therefore I didn't think Dacey should've grabbed you for doing it. So I dismissed it. "Substantial justice': that's our aim in this court."

  "Naturally I thank him, but I'm also a little bit uncomfortable with all of this, so I say to him: "Well, I appreciate that. But you realize of course, it doesn't mean…"

  "He cut me off. "Oh, calm down," he said, "for cryin' out loud. If I get a speeding ticket driving too fast onna federal reservation, I promise you I'll pay it. I wont call you up and say to you: "Hey, you gotta fix this for me. On account of I dumped one for you." This's between me and Dacey. It's a case of requited dislike. Every chance I get, I give him a shot. You're just an innocent bystander here. This isn't a serious matter."

  "Year or so later I ran into him at a wedding. Bride's father's a honcho in the state Democratic party. He introduced us. Amby said the name was familiar, and I reminded him the reason. "I got a Dacey ticket, and you bagged it for me," I said. Offered to buy him a drink, which he accepted; said it'd probably get him indicted for taking a bribe for fixing tickets, but what the hell, he'd risk it. Joined us at our table. Got started telling stories and stayed for the rest of the day.

  "Marie didn't like him; I did. Same with the other wives 'nd their husbands. Men liked him, women didn't. He used a lot of profanity, which I suppose was partly because we were all having lots to drink and everybody tends to cuss more when they're drinking. Marie and the other wives're dropping a few effs of their own every now and then, by the time we all called it a day, but… I don't know if you ever notice this, but women who hear every single cuss-word a man says, even if he says it under his breath, they never seem to be able to hear all the ones they use themselves."

  "Can't say as I have," the judge said.

  "Yeah," Robey said, 'well anyway, I've run into him a few times since then, conferences and so forth; had a few drinks and some meals. I enjoy his company. We're not buddies, never will be; age difference's too big. But I like him. I like his attitude toward the poor bastards who go through his court. He seems like he really does all he can to help them. No bleeding heart, I don't mean that, but he seems like a compassionate guy. Like he'd give you a break if he thought you deserved one and no one'd know it'd happened. He seems like he cares what happens to people, and if a rule has to get bent or some facts get overlooked so things turn out better for some poor bastard who made a mistake, but nobody really got hurt, well, I think he would bend the rule."

  "The name's not familiar," she said. "Eric may've run into him, but I wouldn't know about that. He doesn't tell me anymore when he gets stopped. I give him too much grief. He's convinced his Range Rover's invisible; cops can't see it when it goes by at ninety. Pays all the tickets by mail. First I hear of it's when I 'get the insurance bill on my car and it's gone up again because he's a listed driver and he's gotten some more points. He says he likes to drive fast. If that's what it costs, so be it; he'll pay it. Says he doesn't want any redneck cop getting it into his head that his wife, the federal judge, fixes tickets for him."

  "Probably a good idea," Robey said. "But anyway, that's who Amby is.

  An all-right type of guy. Not a bad fella at all. Big, under six feet but fairly wide. White curly hair. Face's kind of red; he could lose a few pounds if he wanted, without doing himself any harm. He looks like what he is: he's a pol. He's been a pol all of his life. Been pals with Dan Hilliard since I don't know when; thirty years, probably more. Danny's the guy that got him appointed. From what Bissell feels he can let me in on, apparently Merrion's been repaying Danny for the favor ever since. Not paying him kickbacks, anything like that just giving him lots of nice presents."

  "GratitudeV the judge said. "They're indicting people for gratitude now? Do they think it does some kind of damage or something? When did they make that against the law? Not that I ever saw much evidence of it actually taking place around these parts. Matter of fact, I wouldn't think there's ever been enough of it to warrant prosecution."

  Robey laughed. "Yeah," he said, 'but apparently, what Bissell says, Amby's really grateful. This's the kind of appreciation that gives gratitude a bad name. What he did was he bought Hilliard a membership in the Grey Hills Country Club. Also bought himself one."

  "The Chief belonged to that," she said. "He used to talk about it, now and then, when I first joined the firm. Pooler's father, too, I think;

  Lee Pooler was a member, unless I'm mistaken. That's the high-rent district."

  "That it is," Robey said. "And they're the type of people Grey Hills used to be for. Very exclusive. But then about, oh I don't know, twenty-five, thirty years ago, the club ran into some kind of a financial emergency. What you and I would call "strapped for cash."

  Had to open up the membership and let some new blood in to fatten up the treasury. "New money" would've been mor
e like it. Big rebuilding project or something. The very exclusive people like the Coreys and the Poolers couldn't see their way clear to footing the bill by their elegant selves, so the only alternative was to open the doors and let some of the better-heeled riffraff in.

  "Most likely joining then didn't cost Merrion anywhere near what it'd cost today, if you could even get inI don't think they're accepting new members now. But still, as you say, it wasn't small change. And on top of that, since then apparently what he's been doing is paying the dues for both of them, too. That isn't petty cash either. Bissell thinks maybe three-four grand a year. I bet it's more like eight thousand apiece. Split the difference and call it, six grand a year.

  Twenty years of that go by, it begins to mount up. Bissell thinks over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars by now, Merrion's paid in for his pal Danny. That's fairly serious money."

  "Cowa'bunga," she said. "On the salary a clerk makes? You've got to be kidding. How on earth could he possibly do that? How much are we paying district court clerks these days?"

  "It depends on where you're the clerk," Robey said. "The statute doesn't actually come right out and give any specific numbers. It's this very complicated formula that of course the legislators made just as hard to figure out as they possibly could when they wrote the salary statute. Sixty or seventy grand, I would say, by and large. Some of them probably get around eighty. And since Merrion's Hilliard's pal, and Hilliard used to have mucho clout, Merrion's probably one of those.

  Say eighty thousand a year."

  "Well, that's not too shabby," she said. "But still, I wouldn't think it was country-club country for him and a friend. Not Grey Hills level, at least."

  "Well," Robey said. "Bissell sort of seems to think that what he gets for salary isn't all he makes, result of being clerk. Seems to think he's got some other source of income. I assume it isn't bribes if it was, Bissell'd have him keeping his room tidy at Club Fed by now, down in Allentown PA. But what it could be I can't imagine. He didn't come from big money. His father was a car salesman up at Valley Ford in Holyoke. Nice guy. Everyone liked him, but he wasn't rich and he died young. His mother worked in a bakery. I don't think he's moonlighting at anything, either.