'No, I don't imagine she does. She probably thinks you're a real lawyer.'
'I am a real lawyer. May I take my hands out of my pockets now?'
'It's your Think Room. Do what you like. No, you're not a real lawyer. You're a fungus with a wardrobe. You're running a gigantic blackmail racket, sucking blood out of people who need help. Poor, frightened, lost little people who don't know where to turn, so they come to you. And you squeeze them dry, don't you? You move them up the levels of Listening, pulping more money out of them every week. You tape everything they say and you file it for future use. You pervert little girls to turn them into ventriloquist's dummies because it's good show business. And you kill people.'
'I guide the Church in its investments,' he said stubbornly, slouching deeper into his chair. 'I provide legal advice. I serve on the board of directors. I serve on many boards of directors.'
'Come on,' I said. 'You run the money and Merryman runs the Speakers. You help out with the Speakers sometimes too, don't you?'
'No,' he said tightly.
'Caleb Ellspeth wouldn't agree with you.'
Brooks sat up suddenly at the sound of Ellspeth's name. His eyes wandered nervously over the rows of law books.
'Looking for a precedent?' I said. 'There isn't one. This is about as shitty as it gets.'
'I haven't killed anybody.'
'No. You wouldn't have the guts. That's a fine point anyway. You've profited from their deaths. I imagine you'd qualify as an accessory.'
He gripped the arms of his chair tightly and made an enormous effort to stand up. 'I have nothing to say,' he said.
I leaned over, put my fingertips on his chest, and pushed gently. He fell back into the seat. 'Fine,' I said. 'Let's call Adelaide in and we can continue our discussion.'
His mouth opened and closed several times. He looked like a fish snapping at something. 'You can't,' he said at last.
'What did you think? Did you think you could swim through the scum all day and then come home and shower it off? Did you think nothing would ever come in through the front door with you? You've been tracking it across the rug for years, Merry. You're covered in it. That's why your face shines.'
He rubbed his chin. 'It's Merryman,' he said.
'That's what everybody tells me. It's always Merryman. The really awful thing is that you might actually have gotten away with it if the two of you hadn't gotten even more greedy. Merry and Merryman, the Gold Dust Twins. Except that both of you wanted to run the whole show, didn't you? Like a couple of big blue horseflies dive-bombing each other over a pile of shit. And Sally Oldfield got caught in the middle.'
Brooks slowly closed his eyes. He kept them closed while I counted to fourteen. Then he opened them again and looked at me.
'What's your deal?' he said.
'Who says I have a deal? Maybe I'm just God's flyswatter. I liked Sally Oldfield. I never talked to her, but I liked her. She should be in the living room right now, chatting with Adelaide. Adelaide would have liked her too.'
'Keep Adelaide out of it.'
'No way in the world.' I shrugged sympathetically. 'Poor Adelaide,' I said.
'If you didn't want a deal you wouldn't be here,' he said. 'If you know all you seem to know, why not take it to the police? Why talk to me?'
'I wanted to get a chance to see you up close. People like you don't come along all that often.'
He turned his attention back to the books. He rubbed his chin in an abstracted fashion. 'Who's your client?' he finally asked.
It had taken him long enough. 'Haven't got one,' I said. 'I thought maybe you were.'
He looked a little more self-assured. He rubbed his hands over his thighs and then straightened the crease in his pants. 'What's your fee?' he said.
I cocked my head and looked at him appraisingly. He returned the gaze.
'One million dollars,' I said.
He didn't blink. 'For what?'
'For keeping you out of it. For going away. What do you think it's for?'
'For going away,' he repeated. 'For closing down completely.'
'In cash,' I said.
'Tomorrow,' he said.
'Small bills.'
'Tomorrow,' he said again. 'Nothing bigger than a twenty.'
'Fine,' I said. I put out my hand, and after a moment, he shook it.
'I'll need some insurance,' he said.
'For example.'
'I imagine you have a license.' The Brooks I'd first met was back. He got up and began to pace. 'I need to know what you've got and how you got it. Then I'll need a signed statement that makes it clear that you've violated a number of laws in obtaining your information and keeping it from the police. We may have to add a few things to it to give it weight, but you'll sign it anyway, for a million dollars. You'll have me, I'll have you. I go to jail, you go to jail.'
'Fair enough. But one thing at a time. I tell you what I know tonight. We can draft the statement tonight. But you don't get a signature until you hand me the million and I've counted it.'
He gave me a small, malicious smile. 'Counting it will take quite some time,' he said.
I returned his smile. 'I figure it'll come out to about ten thousand an hour.'
He went to the desk and took out a yellow legal pad and an automatic pencil. 'Begin,' he said peremptorily. 'I'll take notes and we can draft the statement from them.' He clicked the pencil twice and looked critically at the point. 'Wait a minute,' he said. 'Do you want that drink?'
'Sure,' I said. 'Bring it in a bucket.'
'Scotch?' He was mein host to his fingertips.
'Unblended.'
'Of course,' he said. He went to the door, opened it, and left with a whisper of woolen slacks.
I passed a few minutes looking at the spines of the law books. There it was, the law in all its indifferent, magisterial glory, referenced and cross-referenced, a legacy of protection for the individual that marched in a straight line from Athens and the Roman Codification through the Magna Carta, the Age of Enlightenment, the Revolution, and more than two hundred years of earnest attempts to right injustice. Human rights, citizens' rights, government's rights, property rights, equal rights, civil rights, women's rights, even animal rights. All of it printed and proofread, handsomely bound and numbered to fill the shelves of men and women who could defend it or destroy it. The books didn't care who used them. They were as indifferent as the law.
Brooks came back in carrying a rattan tray with two large perspiring cut-glass tumblers on it. 'Here we are,' he said, laying it carefully down on the desk to avoid scratching the surface. He picked up his drink. 'Tally-ho,' he said, clinking it against mine.
I couldn't bring myself to say tally-ho, so I just nodded and drank.
Brooks put his glass down and picked up the pencil. 'Let's start,' he said.
I moved aimlessly around the room as I talked, picking up pipes, paperweights, awards, mementos, and the other flotsam and jetsam that bobs to the surface of a man's den. Other than my voice, the only sound in the study was Brooks's pencil gouging into the pad and an occasional muted expletive when the point broke.
'Eight or nine years ago, you must have had it all pretty much your way,' I said. 'However Anna did it, whether she really was a channel, or a schizophrenic or whatever, it was easy to manage. She pretty much did it on cue, and there was only Wilburforce to contend with. And we both know that Wilburforce was no match for you. He's all pressure points. He is that rarest of creatures, a total fraud. There's not a real thing about him.
'But then Anna died, or Merryman killed her. That's one murder, if it was a murder, that I know you had nothing to do with. It put you into a real quandary, didn't it? The Church was up and running, cranking out money
