'He didn't put you in here so that you'd get mad at him, and then when he needed something, get even tell him to go fuck himself. He put you in here so that some day when he absolutely has to get a favor done, you'll remember him kindly and be grateful to him for that thing he did for you, so long ago.
'So, when the scumbag, any scumbag, goes and gripes to his rep about you, your rabbi wont do a damned thing to you; that's what he'll do.
Why you think it is that the guys like Brother Hilliard put their friends in here? You ever think about that? It's because they know what we find out, just as soon's we get in here: We become bulletproof.
Bulletproof even from them. In this job, we're immortal. If you're smart you only want your friends to be immortal, and to stay your friends after they do.
'Now, with the shit birds that don't know this, you might as well teach 'em. Sooner they find out, the better. The way we do things in this place. We have to get rid of some bastard, which we have to do every day, well, that's what we do: We get rid of 'em, fast as we can.
Sometimes we make mistakes, but that's all right. We back each other up. All the way up, and then back down the line. We make it stick.
That way the thing works for us, instead of us workin' for it.'
Merrion had never uttered Lane's mantra, but he had applied the tactic, furtively at first; time and time again he had seen it work. It always worked.
He looked at his watch. It was coming up on 10:00 A.M.' forty-five minutes to his regular tee-time at Grey Hills. Janet had taken enough of his morning. Saturday was his day off. He cleared his throat.
'Right,' he said. 'Well, there I can't help you. Help you get along with the other tenants. I don't run the building. You got a complaint there, you see Mister Brody. If he can, I'm sure he'll help you out.
But that's not why I wanted you in here.
'The reason you're here is you're seeing a man name of Lowell Chappelle, and letting him stay overnight.' She opened her mouth and he held up his hand. 'Don't even bother,' he said on a rising inflection. 'I wont tell you who told me, I don't have to tell you, and I'm not going to tell you. If you try to tell me it isn't true, I'll call you a liar, which you will be. And it will upset me, Janet, if I find I have to do that. You haven't lied to me yet, that I know about and if you ask around, people will tell you: I always know, when somebody tries to lie to me as I didn't think that you would when I gave you a break. That's the reason why I've been able to try to help you out a little. Because I know you've always told me the truth. Just like I've always told you the truth. So, when I tell you that something about you's started to disturb me, as I'm telling you something is now, you know I'm telling the truth.
'What's disturbing me is that what I hear's been going on in your life is not good. It's a very bad thing in fact, what I hear, and I know very well that it's true. So, since the only thing that you can really say to me is that it's not true, and that will be a lie, which would be a very bad mistake, the best thing you can do right now is just shut up and listen to me.'
She closed her mouth and looked scared.
'Good,' he said, 'that's much better. Mister Chappelle is a convicted felon. Mister Chappelle's been convicted seven times. I've been around long enough to know what went on when he got sentenced. The first two or three times he was young and looked scared, just like you're looking right now, so the judges went easy on him. They were in hopes that he'd mend his ways. He didn't. So the judges started giving him time, in the hope that might straighten him out. His third or fourth trip on the merry-go-round, he got two years and did one. But that didn't do the trick either. Apparently he still wasn't convinced that the lawful life's the best one.
'When he came out, he stayed out for less'n two years, probably not being good, but being careful or lucky. Doing bad things but not getting caught. Probably went to his head; maybe made him a little bit cocky. Alas and alack, his good luck ran out as good luck has a way of doing. He slipped up and he got caught again, did another bad thing someone could prove.
'So this was his fifth trip, let's say. He still got off easy, considering his history. The judge gave him five in the jar. He came out after he'd done three, still having learned very little. People're starting to think: 'He's had all these chances, all this instruction; and still he doesn't behave. Maybe he's not a good kid. Less'n a year and he's back in the gravy. Gets ten-to-twelve and does most of the ten.
'So when he came out, his next-to-last trip, he'd been in the courts on six offenses fourteen years in the slammer. Even allowing for the fact that he got an early start he was seventeen, he first made himself known to the authorities after six convictions for doing bad stuff, he's no longer an innocent kid. He'd used up his slack. So when he got grabbed the seventh time, and he had a machine gun with him, people were convinced he was a bad actor, very bad boy indeed.
'So they said to him: 'Okay, Mister Chappelle, now we get the idea. You don't seem to get the idea. Here's your program: Twenty years to be served, FCI McNeil Island, 'way out there in Washington State. This time you're doing hard time.'
'This gentleman caller of yours, Miss LeClerc: Leaving aside the obvious fact that at age fifty-seven he's kind of old for you, twice your age, he is not the kind of fellow we like to see refined young ladies under our care and supervision hanging out with all the time. Much less shacked up with in respectable apartment buildings we got them into, and which we've been paying the rent on. So we want you to break it off with him. As of now, this very minute, Mister Chappell is off-limits to you.'
'But I like him,' she whined, pouting her lower lip. 'I'm a normal woman, and I need a man, and he always treats me real good.' She paused and pouted, lowering her head so that when she looked at Merrion she had to look through her eyelashes. 'I like doing things for him,' she said, 'and he likes having me do them. He says that's the only reason he's ever had any trouble with a woman, was because she wouldn't do the things he wanted her to do. But I like to do them, and so therefore we're fine.'
Merrion sighed and stood up. 'Uh uh,' he said, 'I don't care to hear it. You've got the word. I just gave it to you. Quit entertaining Chappelle at your place, and don't see him any other place, either. You do, and I'll hear about it, and when I do, I'll do something about it.
Furthermore, I will do it to you.
'You wont like it. The first thing I'll do, I'll pull your case out of the file which I can do since I'm the one who put it in there and I will tell the judge what you've been doing. Screwing Lowell Chappelle, a bad actor and known felon. Not at all the kind of person we want hanging around with defendants who've got cases on file here in this court. This to Judge Cavanaugh will mean the same thing it means to me: that the deal we made — I would place your case on file; you'd behave yourself and do as you're told that deal isn't working out.
'I know what the judge'll do, just in case you don't. What he'll do is tell me to take your case out of the file and mark it up for hearing, any old day I like, and that's exactly what I'll do. Then, come next weekend, I'll send a couple of cops and a matron over to your place and catch you flopping around in bed with Mister Chappelle, as you've been told not to do. They'll put you in the lock-up for the rest of the weekend.
'On Monday the judge'll have me call your case, and before you can so much as catch your breath and call me even one bad name, he'll make a finding of guilty on that old charge of grand larceny. To which, you'll remember, you've already admitted facts sufficient to prove guilt. And then he will send you to jail. You'll do a year down in MCI Framingham, Janet, okay? Mister Chappelle wont be on your list of approved visitors, just like he isn't out here any more, now that we've had our nice little chat, but you'll hardly notice.
'There'll be so many other things for you to dislike, you'll probably forget all about Lowell. You'll lose your nice little apartment we wont keep it vacant for you, while you're gone, and we wont get you a new one when you get out again. You wont have any privacy, or your freedom to do what you like, as little as that has been. No indeed, Janet, once you get down there, all day long you'll do just as you're told. And you'll be told plenty, my dear. Now, is that what you want me to do?'
She looked at the floor and shook her head No. 'Aloud,' Merrion said, 'answer me.'
She looked up with fear and shook her head again. 'No,' she said, 'please don't do that to me.'
'I don't want to,' he said, making statements. 'But I will, if you make me. You know that. You wont make me now, will you, Janet?'
'No, I wont,' Janet said. 'I'll be good.'
