A change of gravity

by George V. Higgins

  "Anyway, it's been a while we seen you in here. Nice to have you back.

  Got something goin' on, have you, getting' too good for us here? You been very busy or something?"

  "Not particularly, no," Merrion said, feeling easy and relaxed and in command. "No busier'n usual, for the summer months, at least. I hadda have a woman we've got under more or less loose supervision come and see me in the office this morning. We've been hearin' some things that we didn't like, kind of thing she might be doin'. Kind of a sad case, really. Isn't what you'd call too sharp. Doesn't have a steady job; lost the one she had. No one to watch out for her, take care of her.

  Not much you can really do. So I made her come in today. Give her another talkin'-to, see if maybe that'll do a little good, get her straightened out again. Though of course it's hard to say. You know how it is, you guys: want to help the people that you come in contact with, but whether what you do does help, you never really know."

  Whalen showed no sign of interest in the woman's problem or identity.

  That indicated either that he already knew all he felt he needed to know about Janet LeClerc, or else that he knew nothing and was relying on his good and well-informed friend Ambrose Merrion to bring him up to speed if there was anything about her that he ought to know. All right, then, nothing to be concerned about; it was always hard to know what detail in any offering would capture Whalen's magpie attention as the jewel to be seized, and often necessary to offer several choices.

  "Got in a round of golf with Danny after lunch this afternoon. Went down to West Springfield, saw my mother in the home. Geez, those nuns're awful good. They really do good work. All those poor people in there half-gaga, two-thirds of them out of their gourds, no idea which end is up, and those nuns're with them all the time. Don't get any relief. It must be an awful strain on them, hard life to hoe.

  Makes you kinda think twice, all this stuff we keep hearin' all the time, cutting' back on Medicare. Nuns look to me as though they're getting' pretty old themselves, getting' right up there. And no young ones comin' up, young girls goin' inna convents, you believe what you read inna paper. Makes you wonder a little, you know? "Well, what's gonna happen, we get old and so forth, take care of us?" Kind of makes you stop and think: "Whoa, what we doin' to ourselves here?"

  "Danny's still do in' good, is he?" Merrion wasn't sure but Whalen seemed to be showing more interest.

  "Oh yeah, Danny's always doin' great," Merrion said, dialing up his alertness a notch or two. "Doin' very well, he is. Extremely well, in fact. Kicked the shit out of me again out on the course today, for one example cost me the usual twenny bucks. So yeah, I'd say he's doin' all right. Danny's lookin' good."

  This'd be out at Grey Hills there, wouldn't it?" Whalen said, slightly disconcerting Merrion by seeming to act as though he, not Merrion, had been the fisherman feeling the soft tenative strike and Merrion, not he, was going to be the fish. "You and him, Danny Hilliard: this'd be the spot there where you two guys always play?"

  "Well, ah, yeah," Merrion said, thrilling slightly, finding himself either playing or being played in a game he didn't fully understand but which seemed as though it could be dangerous, 'that's where we belong.

  So that's where we generally play. Pay all that money, you know, to belong, get so you know the course pretty good — doesn't hardly seem to make much sense, really, you then go and play somewhere else."

  "I heard that's a pretty hard place to get into," Whalen said, musing.

  "Heard it costs a lot of money, too. Arm and your other fuckin' leg to go with it, as the fella likes to say. "Course Danny and you, you can prolly afford it. Danny really must've done awful good in that job, what I hear, when he was bein' a rep. House in Bell Woods anna one onna Cape, Martha's Vineyard, wherever it was."

  "Well," Merrion said, 'he doesn't…"

  "You know I never been on Martha's Vineyard?" Whalen said it with a note of surprise. "Never went there in my life. Always thought I'd like to some day. People say it's so nice." He paused and considered.

  "Lots of things I haven't done," he said, and frowned. Then he shook his head once, as though clearing it.

  "An' thenna divorce; he had that too, did dun he, few years ago?"

  Whalen said. Merrion nodded. "Sure, that's what I thought," Whalen said. "And they can be very expensive. Have to figure that cost him some dough. So I wouldn't know how much he's got left, probably not very much. But still, like I say, must've done awful good, for a guy that was just a state rep. You, you been single, all of your life, so prolly you could afford it." He paused again, as though expecting a comment, but Mernon's mouth had become dry and he did not know what to say. He said nothing.

  "But I never could, alia rich guys; I could never belong to no club like that. I know that without even askm'. Hell, I never even been m one. Only golf course I ever even been to was the Veterans', anyone can get in down in Springfield. I went there once with Billy, my wife's kid brother, Billy. He always used to play a lot there, back when he was still alive. He was on total disability, the full one-hundred fuckin' percent. So he always had plenty of time. Money, too. Plenty of time and plenty of money. Guess it ought be that way, though, you got hit with something means you're gonna die that young.

  He got sprayed with Agent Orange, Vietnam. So there wasn't any question it was honest; he was sick. You couldn't really begrudge him.

  He was always onna lookout for company, someone to go with him when he played. He played every chance he got, every day the weather let him.

  I was workin' mostly nights then, so he asked me once did I think I'd like to try it, maybe even take it up.

  "I said: "Shit, I dunno. How'd I know? I did dun know the first thing about it." And he said: "Well, that's how you find out. Otherwise you never know. You should come with me, some time, and find out how you like it." Well, I didn't really wanna, but his sister, who's my wife, she was always after me, be nice to Billy. "He is dyin' and we have to treat him nice." So we made a date and the next time he was going he came over and he picked me up and I went with him. To the Veterans', like I said; that was where he always played.

  "I didn't actually play, myself. What I did was, I just walked around with him. But I didn't think I'd like it. It seemed like it was awful complicated, before you even got so you were learnin' how to go about it. And you hadda have an awful lot of stuff there, that equipment, which I then had to figure… well, Billy, he said you could rent it if you didn't have it yourself and you weren't sure that you wanted to go out and buy it. Special shoes and everything, which I guess you have to wear. Not that I did, just had sneakers, but of course I wasn't playin'.

  "I figured even that it'd have to cost a lot of money, and Christina and me, we sure didn't have much of that stuff lying around loose at that time or any other time I can recall, the kid and all. I never came right out and told him that I wasn't gonna do it. We just sort of left it hanging up in the air there, the way you'll do when you don't really want to decide about something but you sort of know you have.

  "Then he died. I never did find out what happened to his clubs. They were nice. He told me that they cost four hundred dollars. I don't think I ever saw them after that, when he was dead. Maybe one his buddies must've took 'em. Had to've been that he didn't have no kids to take 'em so it wouldn't've been them. Friend of his must've come and took 'em.

  "You two, though, I guess you and Hilhard there, you've belonged up Grey Hills there a pretty long time, right? So you two must've played a lot."

  "Over twenty years," Merrion said. "Joined there back in the Seventies. "Way back, turn of the century, it was a big private estate. Belonged to a guy named Jesse Grey. Big mill-owner, Holyoke.

  Went to hell in the Depression. Then the bishop bought it, diocese of Springfield. After the war a group of wealthy people from around here got together and bought it from him, from the diocese: Warren Corey, all his pals. They thought they were aristocrats, elite. Very snobby and selective. Had to know wh
o your grandparents were and more'n that, had to've liked 'em; didn't count if they'd been the servants 'fore they'd let your ass in the front door. Not all that keen on Catholics, either, unless they're from 'way out of town hadda be New York, London or Paris. Or Nazareth, maybe; that might've done it."

  He hesitated but Whalen's face showed no sign of amusement. "Anyway, hadda be famous places like that. Very picky, back in those days, about who they'd let in. But then after a while, the snobs reached the point where they were beginning to run out of money. Gave them a whole different attitude, new outlook on the Great Unwashed. They decided they needed new blood, or at least new bank accounts. So they announced that they were expanding; that was when me and Danny joined up."

  "Pretty expensive, I suppose?" Whalen said.

  "Well, it certainly wasn't cheap," Merrion said. "Not by my standards, at least. It's been so long ago I forget what it was, but I know it sure wasn't cheap.

  "We thought long and hard about it 'fore we did it, Dan and I did,"

  Merrion said, feeling he was talking too much and too nervously, giving away more information than he wanted to, but hoping to create some harmless tangent that would divert Whalen from the topic of Dan Hilliard's finances. "We talked it over quite a bit, thought about it a hell of a lot. Our feeling then was that Yeah, it was too expensive, but this might be the only opening wed ever get. And even if it wasn't, we knew wed never see a better price. Financially, no, it wasn't the best time in the world for us, either one of us, no, but the way we looked at it, we had to move. The chance probably wouldn't come along again. They got enough other new members to get them over the hump, they'd close the membership again. So we said: "What the hell, only go around once," and went ahead and signed up."

  "How much did it cost you, don't mind me asking," Whalen said.

  "Hell no, I don't mind," Merrion said, minding a great deal indeed and silently cursing the man. "I'd tell you if I knew, but that was a long time ago. It was no small amount, I can tell you that much, but exactly, I don't remember."

  "Tell me about, then," Whalen said, 'about how much do you think it was? A thousand or two thousand bucks?"

  "Oh no," Merrion said, thinking Fuck, hoping he was still speaking calmly, "I know it was more'n that. I remember saying to Danny back then: "I must be nuts. I could trade in my car on a new one for this, get a brand new Olds for myself." So it must've been two or three grand." Whalen's eyes widened and he looked like he might be going to say something, so Merrion hurried on. "But we went through with it anyway. One way or the other we scraped up the dough. I ended up driving the same car for about nine years, I think it was, and the cars they built then didn't last as long as the ones they're building today.

  It was always breaking down on me, really a pain in the ass.

  "But now I'm glad I did it. Now I think it was worth it. You need something like that to stay sane."

  "Maybe that's why the wife's always saying that I'm nuts," Whalen said mildly, his voice carrying no hint of sarcasm. "I never had nothing like that at all. No way to stay sane. Couldn't afford one. Not if it cost as much as a new Oldsmobile. Heck, I never even had a new Studebaker or something; I never had a new car."

  "We always have a good time," Merrion said, beginning to feel some hope that if he could just keep talking, scattering shiny conversational chaff in the air between them until the prisoners started to come out, he would be safe. "Well, Danny usually has a better tim en I do, 'cause he usually beats me. I have fun, he wins the bets. Always gets me on the back nine. We come into the turn, I'm usually doin' all right, you don't know what always happens next. I usually got at least a couple, maybe three or four strokes onna guy. This time comin' outta the turn, I'm up four.

  "Okay then, boys and girls, here we go, then, into the vicious back nine. Both of us double-bogey the tenth, as usual. The booby trap. I can never play that hole, but Dan can't play it either. Over twenny years we've been playin' that damned hole, and for alia those years it's been beatin' us silly, poundin' the shit out of us. I dunno why it is. It looks so goddamned easy. Deceptive, is what it is. Looks like you could get your par you played it half-asleep.

  "Straightaway, par four, little over four hundred yards, four-oh-five's what the book says: Nothin' tricky, piece of cake. Nice wide fairway, all you gotta do's hit it straight and you'll be havin' candy.

  Theoretically you want your second shot to be up onto the green, but for most of us ordinary mortals that's gonna be your third shot you'll be tryin' to lay up there nice and soft. But be reasonable here: I'll take a bogey-five on a four-hundred-yarder any day. Eighteen bogeys and what've I done? I've shot a ninety, is what; I never did that in my life.

  "Well, a couple times, yeah, I did, but that was a long time ago. My hand-eye thing was much better then. Bound to slip some, you get older. I didn't think about things so much then; I just went ahead and I did them, and that's always the way to play golf. You get old, you get so you start thinkin' too much."

  Whalen evidently wasn't interested in discussing the ravages of age; he said nothing. "But anyway, the green's uphill, and not only that but it's tiered, and the upshot of it anyway's we both take fuckin' sevens.

  The tenth hole's beat us again.

  "But that's all right. I'm still okay, still up by the four. But not for long. We're swappin' strokes alia way to fifteen. Wolf River runs along the left there; you got a hook like I do, you got that to think about. Which I of course do, think about it, and like I said, that's not a good thing to do. So as usual Danny tucks it to me. Par four, three-fifty-nine, and what do I take? A nine, a big fat nine. Splashed one, of course, so busy tryin' not to do that that I naturally do it two strokes right there. And then got inna bunker; for good measure; dub my wedge 'fore I can get out. And then after I'm out, what do I do? Over the green and into the opposite sand trap One beach is nice, try the other.

  "And what's Danny doing, I am having all this fun? He's parring the thing, naturally, like he pretty nearly always does. He's got the Indian sign, some kind of hex thing on that fifteen hole. He owns it.

  I don't know why that should be; it just is. Always been that way, too."

  Whalen shifted his weight from his right foot to his left and moved his upper body away from the wall. Merrion hoped that indicated he was growing restless. "But then anyway, there we both are, playin' sixteen, even again like we started. We got three holes left.

  Theoretically I should be able, get a stroke or two of my lead back.

  Right. Both of us bogey the sixteenth, which I have had days, I could play that. This just didn't happen to be one of them. But then it all becomes academic, because I double-bogey the seventeenth and he comes away with a bogey. Danny's the one who picks up the stroke, and that'll be it for the day. The last one, the eighteenth we both take a seven. He ends up, he beats me by one. So it's me payin' him twenty bucks."

  Whalen stood and looked at Merrion as though he had been led to expect that Merrion had an act that would entertain him, and while he had enjoyed what he had seen up to that point, he wasn't sure whether there might still be some more to come. Not wishing to offend Merrion by seeming to presume the performance was over, he would therefore wait quietly until he got some kind of signal. He did not say anything.

  "So I would say: Yeah, Danny looked all right to me," Merrion said, moistening his lips. "Looked okay to me there, at least, he was taking my money. Of course his busy season's comin' up here pretty soon, all the kids come back and so forth. So he's got that on his mind. Gettin' ready for the fall. But he's used to that, of course. That's a normal thing for him; happens every year."

  "Because I did hear," Whalen said, now apparently satisfied Merrion had finished his presentation, "I heard things maybe might not be, you know, goin' so good for him. And I figured if that was the case, well, you know him. You would know. But you didn't hear nothin', I guess?

  You didn't hear nothin' like that?"

  "I don't, ah, follow," Merrion said, feeling sudde
n tightness cramp his chest and thinking if it was a heart attack it would just have to wait; the business at hand was not to panic. He decided it would get him time and seem appropriate to frown and look mildly concerned. "What kind of things, exactly?"

  Whalen dropped his hands, hunched his shoulders, shrugged, purged his face of expression, refolded his arms and leaned his right shoulder back against the cinderblock. "I dunno," he said. "I dunno what it was. You know how it is, you hear something. Don't always pay that good attention, when somebody's sayin' it. Then later on you see someone, maybe see somebody else, and that reminds you of it, you know?"

  Merrion cleared his throat and said "Gee," but to his enormous relief Whalen seemed to believe they had had enough conversation and to expect no answer. He turned his head slightly away from the wall and turned it back over his left shoulder, contorting his face so that when he raised his voice instead of actually yelling down the hall behind him he was hollering at the pocked surface of the opposite wall. "Hey Thompson, for Christ sake, hell's holdin' you up? Got Mister Merrion sittin' around here like he's got nothin' better to do. I got him down here 'cause you told me you got work for him. Now you got him coolin' his heels. Get the lead out, willya Christ sakes? Move things along for a change." Then he looked at Merrion and grinned.

  SIXTEEN

  Shortly after 1:30 A.M.

  Memon emerged into the parking lot behind the Canterbury Police Station, richer by $350 in bail fees but feeling no satisfaction. He was burdened in his spirit by grim inferences he drew from Whalen's ominous inquiries. The night air was pleasantly cool on his face. The mosquitoes had all gone to bed. This'd be a nice time to sit out. He had to sidle between the pair of black-and-white police-model Chevy Blazers parked too close together at the back door of the station. Ah yes, the celebrated Blazers The most expensive Blazers in the history of the world Sixty-eight-thousand bucks, and only the beginning A cop on lifetime disability, a career-ending criminal conviction, a million-dollar lawsuit; the lengths we go to in this town to support our local police chef.