'Pooler thinks it may go back to when you and Mercy got divorced. He said when he spoke to Sam Evans about it, Sam just shook his head and said it was the pictures inna papers, you and alia blonde babes with big tits and the skirts that just covered their breakfast. Someone, maybe someone in the IRS, maybe someone who's now in the US Attorney's office, painted a target on you, decided you should be punished. Sam told Pooler he told you not to let that juicy stuff happen, to lie low 'til the case was over, and you couldn't even do that. But at the time all he had in mind was keeping down what Mercy'd get in the settlement.
He didn't think you'd go to jail for disregarding what he said.'
Hilliard seemed not to have heard him. 'Pooler couldn't explain it to me the other day, either, why they're doing this to me now scalping me, ripping my hair off.' He shook his head and snuffled.
'It's frightening, Amby. Makes me feel so exposed,' Hilliard said 'All these years, and now basically what he's saying is it could be anything, anything I might've ever done, or even said, to someone. Some casual remark that pissed someone off, and now they've found a pretext to get even, calling me what amounts to a thief. 'You ran for office in order to steal.' How the hell do you defend yourself?'
He shook his head again. 'The short answer is that you can't,' he said. Then he began to cry. He sat there at the table in the dim corner of the bar at Grey Hills and his eyes filled up with tears. He shook his head and said: 'It was never that way, Amby. You know that, it wasn't. It was never that way at all.'
TWENTY-FIVE
Shortly after 8:20 on Tuesday morning Merrion raised his right hand to knock on the closed door of Apartment 1 at 1692 Eisenhower Boulevard.
He could hear Steve Brody inside, talking at normal conversational level. He remembered Larry Lane: 'Cheap construction guarantees you know your neighbors, whether you want to or not.'
Brody's voice expressed pain. 'Well, but I already told you that, didn't I that I'd do it? I told you yesterday. The thing is, I can't get to it yet, not 'til I get finished with the pump. I got to get the pump fixed first. I got it all taken apart down there now. A big storm comes along and hits us and it could, a hurricane or something; time of year for that, you know, and we do get 'em through here — dumpa lotta water on us 'fore I get it back together, wed be in big trouble. And this's something we don't want to happen. Because, you'll remember, we didn't get to it last summer, like we should've done, and we knew it at the time. So it then came back and bit us, served us right, and we both admitted that. You were saying 'No, it'll be all right. It'll go another year, make it through another season.'
And then it didn't, did it.
'And then so as a result, we then had all that trouble it broke down, the end of March.' Brody's voice was becoming louder and his words were coming faster. 'All that snow and then the rain should've known we're gonna get that, soon's we didn't fix the pump and then we get the thaw and we had a flood in here. Basement fulla water. Would've ruined the oil burner, I didn't pull it out and lug it up here in the kitchen by the gas stove to dry out. Tenants screaming bloody murder, two whole days without no heat. I am scared to death myself, 'fraid the pipes're gonna freeze 'nd burst; plaster comin' down around our ears. You remember that, don't you? You yelled at me enough, worsen any of the tenants, like it's all my fault or something that it hadda go and rain.'
Merrion tapped two fingertips twice on the door.
'So anyway, now I'm fixing that.' There was a note of firm assurance audible in Brody's voice. 'All going to be taken care of, so we wont have to think about that again this year, first time we get snow. I get through with that plus of course whatever else comes up along the way, something has to, never fails, that can't wait a day or so then I'll paint the third floor hall.'
He hesitated. 'The hallway on the second floor? No, did that one last year, 'chou 'member? That time in April we had the three vacancies up there all at once; I'm practically going out of my mind here, trying to get all of them painted? We both agreed the time it made good sense to do the hallway, get it done at the same time since it so happened I was working up there anyway.'
Merrion rapped his knuckles three times on the door.
'And then after I get through with that, the one on the third floor, then the downstairs hall.' Brody paused again. When he resumed talking his voice was noticeably louder. 'No, doggone it. Will you just listen to me? Just once will you listen what it is I'm trynah tell you? I keep trying to tell you things all the time, and it always seems like I can't get any place, ever make you listen: you can only do one thing at a time, all right? One thing at a time.'
He paused long enough to take a breath. Merrion closed his fist and hit the door. The tone of Brody's voice changed; it took on a conciliatory note. 'Because look here now, all right? I'm not sure you actually realize this, but there's a lot of work to do around this place here all the time, a helluva lotta work. Really. Anna people who own the property, you know, that four guys trust? They all live around here. It's not like with Florentine Gardens, say, or Falls Estates, owners're from alia cross the country and never even see the places. Something starts to go those places, you got some time before you really hafta fix it. Owners never see how bad you've let it get, just as long's the checks keep comin'. The four guys on this trust're different, all local. People own this place're here. We cut too many corners, it starts to look rundown, drivin' by they'll see it. Kick us out and hire new management. You and I're outta jobs, or I at least would be. So consequently what that does, it really keeps me hoppin' all the time around here. Day and night it seems like, sometimes.
This's not a well-built building. It needs a lot of maintenance, just to keep it operating. And that's not allowing for any improvements here, either that's just trying to keep it up, trying to stay even.'
Merrion, now interested, lowered his fist and leaned his left shoulder against the door frame, crossing his arms.
The sound of conciliation in Brody's voice became pleading. 'And sometimes you know, even though I'm doing that, workin' day and night, it just seems as though it's never gonna be enough. I get so that I start in thinkin': 'No, it's no use. It's never gonna be no use. No matter what I ever do, I cannot keep up.' But even though I think that, I still keep on trying. Because I know that no matter what I do, if it's the best I can do then my conscience will be clear. And if it isn't all right, Ginny, that's just gonna be too bad, because it's all that I can do.' He paused.
Merrion looked at his watch, grew impatient and rapped twice again.
'Yeah,' Brody said, adding urgency to his tone, 'I know that. I realize all that; I hear what you're saying but just listen to me now, all right? There isn't anybody else who if you could get them to come in here on short notice, could do it any better or any faster, either.
I'm telling you: It's not just me. It's just the way it is, and that's all there is to it. So if I maybe gave you that impression, thinkin' that, something that I might've said or something, well then, I just didn't mean ah all right? Not what I meant to do. Right. Now, no, now look, all right? There's somebody at the door now and I got to answer it. No I don't know who it is. That's why I got to answer it, so I can find out. I can't talk to you no more right now. I got to get the door. Yeah, Ginny, I know: you're worried about it.'
His tone became plaintively soothing. 'I understand that, I really do, and I'll take care of it for you. No, I can't tell you when, not right now. Because I can't do that. Look, there's someone at the door. I can't talk no more. I tell you what: I'll call you back. Later on this afternoon. Yeah, this afternoon, soon's I get a chance, after lunch. Good- bye.'
Merrion heard Brody replace the handset hard on its wall hook and say 'Jesus Christ, now what?' There were two footsteps and the door opened. 'Yeah?' Brody said gruffly. Then he became dismayed and said: 'Oh. Mister Merrion. Diddun know it was you.'
'Morning, Steve,' Merrion said, 'sorry to bother you.'
'Oh that's okay, Mister Merrion,' Brody said, frowning deeply, recomposing himself, 'perfectly all right.' He was average-sized, five-ten or so, big-boned, at one-seventy or so, no more than ten or fifteen pounds heavier than he needed to be, but it looked like more; he seemed to carry all the excess flesh as folds of skin on his face and neck and rolls around his waist. He wore his brownish-grey hair long and combed it back in thick strands from the brow of its recession in the front, arranging them in several sebum-heavy strands over his scalp. He wore a clean white tee-shirt and dark-green chino work pants; heavy black shoes with thick welted petroleum-proof soles. He had a snap-ring of keys hooked to the belt-loop just behind the opening of his right-front pocket. He gestured with
