A change of gravity

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 his right thumb toward the phone behind him. "I was just talkin' onna phone. Ginny over management. She called me up again. She's always calling me up all the time. Every morning, got some new thing on her mind, some new project for me to do. Like she wants to drive me nuts. And then, in addition, she comes over here, two, three, four times a week, see how I'm doin' on something. I don't know what it is with that woman, what she thinks I am."

"Maybe she's lonely, and hot for your body," Merrion said. "Lookin' for love. Just doesn't know how to say it to you, put it into words."

Brody grinned and reddened. He had clearly envisioned that possibility, perhaps often. "Nah," he said, 'isn't that. Can't be that. Guy my age, I'm fifty-one years old, and she's what, thirty-two?

Just a kid. Uh uh, I think what it is is that she doesn't understand how long it takes to do a thing. No idea, you know? No comprehension at all.

"You get these kids: it's not their fault, but they never did anything with their hands. Spend all their lives shufflin' papers, workin' with figures. Now the computers: hit a key and what they want to do is done. So as a result they got no idea of how long it actually takes to do something. They think when they say it, they want it done, bingo, that's all there is to it. Now it's time to go on to the next thing onna list. "Can't have you standin' around here alia time, doin' nothin', getting' paid for it, you know." And then they laugh, "ha ha," like that at you; like they didn't really mean it, they're only fooling with you.

"Well, it just isn't like that, as you and I both know, and I try to tell her that sometimes. "You know when I'm working on a thing and it's gonna take a week, all right? Because I told you it was gonna take that, before I even started. I been on it a day and of course it isn't done. So what're you doin' this now for, already; comin' around and actin' like you still don't understand a day is not a week? You got me thinkin': how can this be? After I went to all the trouble of explaining it to you, tell you what's involved in a thing, I make sure you understand; you tell me you do; and then, boom, like that, you turn around and call me up, the very next day, the day after I started, acting like you don't know the first thing about it and I must be finished now. Tell me you now've got something else for me, I got to get started on right away. I mean: How can you keep doing this to me all the time? This doesn't make any sense."

"She always tells me she'll stop," Brody said. "Promising me then she wont do it no more; she'll cut it out. She never does, though." He paused and reflected, "She's still a good kid, though; we get along all right."

The anxiety returned to his voice and his face wrinkled up. "But hey, what's it with you being up here? Something didn't go wrong here or something, I hope? Everything still okay with Mark, up there and everything with him? I didn't hear nothin'. He was doin' okay last I heard. Sounded like he was all right. I know I didn't get no call here. Got my machine on all the time here, too, I'm not in the apartment; somewhere else in the building or something. I know they got my number up there and everything 'cause I gave it to them there when he went in. I didn't get no calls. Kid's still all right up there, isn't he? Nothin' wrong there with Mark?"

"If there is, I haven't heard about it," Merrion said. "Far's I know, everything's fine."

Brody's face relaxed. He nodded and smiled. "Okay then," he said, 'that makes it easy. Then what can I do for you, here? Anything else is a cinch, long's it's not those fuckin' drugs again. Anything else I can handle, no problem."

"It's LeClerc I'm here about," Merrion said. "I'm here to see Janet LeClerc'

Brody looked puzzled. "Yeah," he said, 'sure. She lives here all right." He grinned again. "But hey, you oughta know that. You're the one put her in here. You told me to give her an apartment if I had one vacant and we did, and I did it, which I was glad to, something I could do for you. Number fourteen. Third floor. You know the building, right? Sure, you used to come here a lot. Back when Larry Lane's still here; you used to come here and see him, number eleven. Jee-zuss he hadda hard time, the poor guy. Anyway, number fourteen: one of our nicer ones. Always gets plenty of sun. Overlookin' the street at the front. All she's gotta do's look out the window, any time she wants, see everything that's going on. She's been here with us almost a year now.

"Not the best tenant we ever had, no, couldn't go that far for her. But she doesn't cause us much trouble. Rent's always paid on time, anyways; that's always the biggest thing. Course it should be, town's paying it for her; she don't have to pay it herself.

"But just the same, no matter who's payin', I wish they could all be like that. Not to have that to worry about, ever again on my mind:

"Well, did so-and-so pay their rent yet, or are we gonna have to go in and throw 'em out onna street?"

"I'm tellin' you: that is one job I really hate. I'd rather eat something that I knew was gonna make me sick and throw up and maybe break out in a rash, everything like that, 'n I would to hear I'm gonna have to go and put somebody out. And it's almost always the same reason. In some buildings I've been in sometimes have to do it on account of someone making too much noise or not being clean or something; that could happen. But in this building it's almost always been because for some reason they didn't have no money, so I have to go and do it. I don't care what the reason is. It don't make any difference to me. I got my orders and that's what I hafta do: Out in the street; they haven't paid us their rent. Cryin' an' hollerin', weepin' an' wailin', everything like that. Sometimes they wanna fight me. Like this was my idea? I'm the one who made the decision that they're getting' thrown out; this's something I like to do?

"I'm tellin' you, sir, and I am not kidding you, one little bit: it's an awful part of the job. It's the worst job in the world. At least it's not gonna be that with her."

His expression changed, becoming avid. "But why then, what is it? Why is it you want to see her7. You think she did something wrong? Like that time when she tried to steal all the old lady's money? She in some new kind ah trouble? Some kind of a problem we should be concerned about here?"

"I need to talk to her, is all," Merrion said. "There's something I need to see her about. But I've been up there. I went up to fourteen and I knocked on her door and she didn't answer. The TV was on in there. Not loud, but I could hear it. I decide maybe she didn't hear me, knocked again. Good and hard, so she would've had to've heard me.

But she didn't come to the door that time, either. So that raised another possibility: maybe she did hear me; she just doesn't want to see me. Got a guest in her apartment, like I just told her Saturday she was not to do. And so that's when I decided I'd come down here, and see if you knew where she was."

"She's usually up there, this time of day," Brody said doubtfully, looking at his watch. "This's when she's got the news on. Now it's not that I'm watching her alia time now, I wouldn't want you to think that, but this time of day is when I'm getting started, going to work on what I got to do. And so I'm around the place inna morning, upstairs or down. Or on my way down to the basement, all right? Like I was on my way today, when Ginny called up. You move around like that in the building every day, you get so you know where most of the people usually are. And this time of day she's generally in her apartment."

"Yeah, well, that's what I thought," Merrion said, "TV going and so forth. But then when I knocked again, and she still didn't come, I wasn't sure. Does she leave the TV on, if she happens to go out?

Because she told me she goes to the store in the morning to get cigarettes."

Brody nodded vigorously as Merrion talked. "Uh huh," he said, 'every day. Faithful as clockwork, you can depend on it. Winter; summer; hot or cold; raining; snowing; I don't care: by ten A.M. she's down the stairs and out the door, on her way down to Dineen's. Raining or something? Doesn't make any difference to her. She's got her little plastic hat on, one of those folding plastic hats they used to give out in banks and dry cleaners always wears one of those. Inna wintertime, her boots and coat and scarf on, so forth, all bundled up, keep her all nice and warm. Like the mailmen, you know? Whatever it takes. Janet's going out, and that's just all there is to it. She's got her routine she follows, regular rounds every day."

"But not this early," Merrion said, 'she doesn't go this early."

"Nope," Brody said firmly. This'd still be too early for her. Janet by now'd be just about up. Sittin' in her bathrobe in front ah the TV there. Drinkin' her coffee; tellin' everybody off, says something that she doesn't like on the television: "Yah that's what you say, always givin' us your stuff. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Bullshit." Talks back to it all the time. Oh, she gets all upset at them. I've been up there, working on the third floor, and I've heard her inside sayin' all that stuff. Very emotional.

"Assuming of course she got to bed last night; made it in the bedroom and then actually got into bed. Didn't go to sleep there in her chair, front of the TV; wake up still in front of it, still on, same place inna morning."

"She does that," Merrion said.

"Now and then, she does," Brody said. "She used to, at least.

Sometimes I guess she must've been sleeping so heavy she went to the bathroom in her chair, couldn't even get herself up to go in the bathroom and do that. "Cause there's stains on it. You can see them if you're in there, and she isn't sittin' in it.

"See, the reason I know this stuff is because the people under her and the ones next to her, the next apartment, they complained to me sometimes about the TV bein' too loud and goin' all night. That would mean I would have to go in there and speak to her, and find out what was goin' on. Didn't happen all that much, maybe four, five times, but it did happen. Go up there and knock on her door, and… this wasn't something I look forward to, you know? It's not like I enjoy it. But she didn't wanna believe that. She thought this was all my idea, to hassle her and make her feel bad, and it wasn't that at all. I tried to explain that to her, make sure she understood that it was nothing personal, involved.

"See, what I was assuming was that she was probably drinking, passed out in the chair with the television on. There was a lot of bottles I would see that she'd been putting out when she put her rubbish out, you know? That was mostly what her rubbish was — bottles. Newspapers, one or two magazines, cartons from frozen food dinners, which I guess she mostly lives on. Cereal boxes and that kind of stuff. But most of what she was throwing out that you would see when they emptied the barrels was liquor bottles, vodka and rum sometimes she didn't put the cover back on, and I would see what she put in. But you still would've known; you could hear them empty her barrel because the bottles made a lot of noise, bangin' and crashin' all over the place.

"But I was used to it. It wasn't like this was something new, you know? We've had other tenants here who've had that problem, and it's really not that uncommon. People living alone: they don't have much to do with themselves. Get lonely, start drinking too much. It isn't a good thing for them, but they don't stop; I guess they get accustomed to it.

"Where someone like Janet's concerned, well, Mark was a lot like that.

All you can really do when someone's doing that to themselves is say:

"Look," and then tell them what you think. And then I don't really know what you do I guess you just hope for the best. And so I told her quite frankly I don't mind telling this to you, either, because it kind of worries me, living in the same building with her too, my life's also on the line. She goes up in smoke some night, I could go up with her.

So that was also on my mind.

"I went up and I knocked on her door, and I told her that this bothered me and all, her falling asleep like that I did not say "passing out," even though that's what I really think it was because I know she smokes. I told her: "What bothers me here is actually a lot more than the noise from the TV anna neighbors complaining a result that they can't sleep. Because you can turn the TV set down, and I know that now you're aware of this problem, you will do that. And then they wont be awake and complain. But what really bothers me about this is the fact you smoke. You fall asleep here inna chair some night, you've got a cigarette going, it could be a real fire hazard here. That could be a dangerous thing."

"And then what I said to her was this: "Now we do allow tenants who smoke to smoke in this building. We don't say that they can't do it.

Even though we know that can cost us some business sometimes, people just refuse to rent apartments from us if we allow smoking. But we think ordinarily what you do up here's your business, as long's you're living here. It's your place; you should be able, do what you want in it.

'"As long's you don't disturb nobody else; that's the one major rule.

It's your health, not mine that you've got to think of, and if that's the decision you've reached, well then, it's all right by me.

'"But I still have to tell you at the same time if we find there's been some kind of an incident up here some night because you fell asleep in that chair there and set the place on fire, smoke detectors in here went off or maybe even the ones out in the hallway started to go off, and the fire department hasta come, well, God forbid that anything should happen to you wind up inna hospital, smoke inhalation, something. Because if you haven't thought about that, you should give it some thought fire inna night is a serious thing. But even if something that bad doesn't happen, I can tell you right this minute what it is going to do is make a big change in how we look at things around here. And what we decide then we can let you do in here."

"I think it got through to her. Looked like it penetrated anyway. But like I say, you never know. All I can say's we haven't had any problems with her since then for a while. Nothing I've heard about anyway, and if there is one I generally do."

"Yeah," Merrion said. "Well, what we've been hearing down the courthouse is that she'd been keeping pretty steady company up here recently with a guy we're not all that sure's a wholesome influence.

Just the opposite, in fact. You understand: we have to be concerned.

So that was what made me decide I ought to come up here today and take a look around."

"Oh, that would've been right, you heard that," Brody said. "She has been. That would be Lowell you mean. Lowell Chappelle. He's been here a few times; seen him around here several times."

"You'd know what he looks like, then," Merrion said. This's a guy you'd recognize, then, you were to see him again? Does he also have a car, truck or something? See, I couldn't tell just by lookin' around here this morning, by looking at what's parked around in front if the guy's around. And I was, you know, you start thinkin': "Well, what am I gonna run into here, I go up this woman's apartment? Am I gonna find this guy in there, have him to deal with, I go into this woman's apartment?" He's got a reputation of being a pretty violent type of guy."

"Oh, yeah, I've seen him, good many times," Brody said. "But now you ask me, I don't think I've ever seen him driving anything. Seem like he'd almost have to, have something to get around in. Can't you check with the state police? I should think you could do that."

"I did," Merrion lied, kicking himself for not having thought of it, 'they report no listing for him."

"Well," Brody said, 'if he's got someone else's jalopy I couldn't tell you what it is or if it's here. I guess I must've never seen him in it.

"But now him, far as he's concerned: that's a whole other thing here.

I've seen him a lot. Fairly big guy, he is, stands out in your mind.

Big face." Brody cupped his hands beside his cheeks and puffed, bunching his jaw muscles as well. "Like this, okay? Only he's like this all the time. The man has a very big face. Sort of dark-skinned.

Might be one of those part-Indian people or something; you know how you see those guys in movies. Real black hair, not much grey. Probably about my age or so, at least; maybe a little older. Keeps himself in good shape. Looks like he's always doing something, doesn't want you getting in his way."

"Not a guy you'd pick to mess with," Merrion said.

"No," Brody said, 'definitely not. I believe what you said about him being a violent person. The guy definitely looks it. Of course I'm not the kind of guy that likes to go around, you know, picking fights with people. But if I was that kind of guy, I wouldn't pick one with this Lowell character. Not if I wanted to win it. He looks like he'd be mean, someone got him going."

"Yeah," Merrion said. "Well anyway, basically what I wonder if you'd do for me here is get your passkey and come back to fourteen with me and let me in, so that I can see if my friend Janet's in there decided she's not coming to the door today, got her curlers in or something."

Brody looked worried. "I dunno," he said. "I dunno if I should do that. See, you may not know this, but since you trust guys had this whole thing changed around and so forth, eight, ten years ago? Brought the new management in? Well, since they came in here and I hadda start reporting to them, Valley Better, they hadda different way of doing things. They put in different rules. So, you may not know this, but they've gotten very strict about that kind of thing. Lettin' people into the apartments I mean, except vacant ones we're showing. They don't want it done.

"Basically what they're now telling us is: "We don't want this going on, here, anymore, so stop doing it. And don't be calling up alia time and asking is it all right. Because the answer is: "It's not."

They're very clear on this. And as you know, this job and all, it means a lot to me and I don't want to lose it. Give them any reason to decide I'm too much trouble so they're getting rid of me."

Merrion took one step forward so that about eighteen inches of space at the threshold remained between him and Brody. He spoke pleasantly, in a low voice. "Steve, you work for Valley Better Residences, Inc. And Valley Better works for me, all right? So we understand each other here, I am one of the people who own Fourmen's Realty Trust. Fourmen's Realty owns this building, understand that, Steve? Valley Better just runs it for us, collects the rents, pays the taxes, and hires you to work for us.

"Most of the time we are pretty smart people," Merrion said, 'if I do say so myself. Except sometimes. Sometimes we do something fairly stupid, as even we have to admit. After we've cleaned up the mess we made because we acted stupid instead of smart.

"Steve, this morning's one of those times, for me. This morning I did something stupid and created a minor problem for myself. Now I want you to help me get out of it. That way I wont have to spend the whole rest of the day thinking how stupid I was this morning."

Brody looked extremely worried. "What did you do, Mister Merrion?" he said.

Merrion heaved a great sigh. "I parked my car across the street. Then I waited until all the other cars behind me at the light, all of them went by, and I got out and shut the door and locked it. I looked both ways, and then when I was sure the coast was clear — after maybe I'd let eight, nine cars go by, in both directions I came across the street and in through the front door. Let it close behind me. Then I climbed the stairs up to the third floor and I knocked on the door of apartment fourteen, where Janet LeClerc lives. As I've already told you, I knocked twice. She didn't answer. So then I came down and knocked on your door, but unlike Janet, you came to your door. And then everything that came after that, all the rest of it you know."

Brody's rumpled face displayed real pain. "Mister Merrion," he said,

"I don't understand. I have to tell you that."

"Understand what?" Merrion said. "Tell me what you don't: understand. Maybe I can help you out."

"What you did stupid," Brody said. "What did you do that made i the big mess you now want me to get you out of?" '{"I already told you," Merrion said. "I stood beside my car after I parked it. I don't know exactly how long I stood there but it was certainly long enough to give Janet time enough to glance out of her window and spot me. She may not recognize my car, but she's certainly seen enough of me to recognize me on sight. And I stupidly gave her the time to do it before I made it into the building.

"So she probably knows I'm here. And since she doesn't want to see me or talk to me, she didn't come to the door. Instead when I knocked she ignored me. It didn't occur to her to turn off the TV, she isn't very smart, but this morning it looks to me as though I've been a little dumber'n she has. I alerted her to the fact that the next person who banged on her door was going to be me. So that's the mess I want you to get me out of. Come upstairs with me now and use your passkey to let me into her place. So I can do what I came here to do, which is see what the hell's going on."

"You don't think I'll get in trouble?" Brody said.

"I'm sure you wont," Merrion said. "I'm an officer of the court acting in the course of official business, my official duties, the supervision of a defendant who has charges pending before the court in which I happen to be the chief magistrate. And in the second place, in addition to that, I am also a beneficial shareholder of a property interest in this building, to a part of which I am directing you as an employee of its management agency to admit me, in order that I may enter upon and inspect the premises. Thereof.

"That satisfy you, Steve? I got at least two heavy-duty rights to get into that apartment. Either one of them oughta do nicely."

"Okay, then," Brody said, stepping forward and pulling the door shut behind him, 'but it's purely on your say-so I'm doin' this. I'm still not sure about it."

"Don't worry," Merrion said. "Nothing'll happen to you. I can almost guarantee it. Something may happen to me, everything doesn't turn out to be the way I hope, up there… but that's nothing that needs to concern you. All you need to do is make sure you got your right key with you now the one that'll open her door?"

Brody nodded, patting the snap-ring at his belt. "Gotter right here," he said "With me, all times. Never can tell when you'll need to go in.

Somebody's locked themselves out, or someone else locked them out, any hour day or night, and the first they do's come lookin' for you, let them back in. Found that out myself at the very beginning, three or four times all it took. The simplest way's the only way: carry it with you, all times. Save yourself all of that grief."

Merrion let him by and then followed him up the four flights of stairs leading to the third floor. He remembered Larry Lane denouncing the increasing difficulty of climbing them as his cancer worsened and weakened him. "Takes me about twenty minutes, make it up this place.

Have to stop and rest five times, once on the landing, second floor, and halfway up each flight. And it's all my fault.

"We're building the place," he said, "Fiddle told us we should bite the bullet, invest in an elevator. Then wed get older, quieter tenants, be able, charge higher rent than we could with just the stairs. Four grand more I think he said it would've cost us. I was against it: too much money. Got the others to turn him down. "Nothing doing," I said,

"no unnecessary features. If we can get along without it, then it must be we don't need it. Whatever it'd cost would be therefore too much dough." Now here I am, livin' in the place. Wasn't banking on that when I said "no elevator." Don't like that decision at all."

Ten feet along the landing from the top of the staircase they stopped at the door with the 14 on it. They could hear an announcer promise joyfully that "Good Morning, America' would 'be right back after these few brief announcements from your local stations, so please, don't you dare go away."

Brody, unsnapping the key-ring from his belt-loop, used his left hand to knock hard on the door. "Miss LeClerc?" he spoke in a newly-authoritative voice. "You in there now, Miss LeClerc? This's me, Mister Brody. You gotta answer me now, if you are. Haven't got any choice in this now. Come to the door now, and let me in. I gotta right to go in there, you know, anytime, make an inspection, during all reasonable times. This's one of those times. Got a passkey right here in my hand."

There was no response. From the TV a different voice, a woman's, compared the degrees of headache pain relief she claimed to get from Tylenol and 'just plain aspirin, or just plain ibuprofen, either."

Brody pounded on the door four more times. "Plus which I have got Mister Ambrose Merrion from the courthouse here with me, and I know you know him, and I've got to tell you, he's very concerned about you. He told me how concerned he is now about you, and that's why he's up here today. And all the other people down there at the courthouse with him there, how concerned they also are about you and what might be going on with you in there. So we got to come in, that is, he does, take a look around. So come on now and open the door."

"Stop talking and open the thing," Merrion said.

Brody thumped the door three more times. There was no response. He looked down at the bunch of keys in his right hand and began to paw through them with his left forefinger. "Miss LeClerc, now?" he said.

"Come on, Miss LeClerc. Stop fooling around with us here. We know you're in there. We know you haven't gone out. I always see you, see you and hear you, whenever you go to the store, and I didn't today, yet, so we know that you're still in there.

"So come to the door, please now, willya? Make life a little easier on all of us here. We got to come in, take a look at your premises, and we got to do this today."

"Steve," Merrion said.

Brody selected the passkey from among the bunch and inserted it into the lock. "See, Miss LeClerc?" he said. "You can hear that, can't you? That was me out here in the hall, doing just what I told you I'd have to do, even though I don't wanna; putting the key in the lock. You see what you force me to do here? You wont open the door, when I ask you to in a nice way? You force me to open the door up myself like this, which I don't like having to do."

"Stop talking and unlock the damned door," Merrion said. "Horsing around with this broad."

Brody seemed not to hear. He raised his voice. "And why is that, I'm asking you, that I am doing this? Well, you have left me no choice.

Have you? Aren't you the one? Of course you are; and you have to know it, too, I think. Which I by the way have to say that I think is very unfair of you here."

"Openah fuckin' door," Merrion said, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

The lock snapped open. Brody turned the knob and pushed the door. It was hinged on the left and stopped against something made of wood behind it. "Bookcases," Brody said, muttered, allowing Merrion to brush by him and enter the apartment. "Dunno if you recall how it was back when you were visitin' Larry Lane, but they didn't have 'em then.

But alia units got these bookcases in 'em now. Dunno why they bothered."

To the right of the door there was an oval maple table with four straight chairs grouped around it. There was a Boston Herald tabloid folded in half at the corner of the table. The air carried a heavy cargo of stale tobacco smoke, something combining fatty meat and cheese, tomato and beans that had been cooked too long at too high a temperature, human perspiration, stale beer and something else. Piss is what it is, human fucking piss. The apartment smelled as though the toilet hadn't been flushed regularly. Fucking hopeless people, can't even handle indoor plumbing. Fucking hopeless bastards. In the center of the table there was a beige china bowl with two white envelopes face-down in it. There was a key-ring with four keys splayed out on the table.

Straight ahead there was a small square kitchen alcove lighted by two casement windows over a double stainless-steel sink. The refrigerator flanked the cabinets suspended from the ceiling on the left and the electric stove occupied the space under them on the right. There were a few dishes unevenly stacked on the counter next to the sink; the handles of tableware protruded between them. On the stove there were two matte-grey saucepans, one of them with something brownish-yellow caked on the side of it, along with a frying pan dull with a scalloped rime of greyish grease around its edge. The area was enclosed by a waist-high partition wide enough to double as a snack counter; two wooden stools stood under its overhang. There were four round anodized aluminum ashtrays on it, red, gold, green and blue; all of them had been used. There were four packs of Winston Lights on it, three of them opened, and several lottery scratch tickets scattered along it.

There was an uncapped 1.75 litre jug of Old Russia vodka at the furthest end, the one nearest the interior wall at the left of the kitchen area. There was a yellow wall telephone set mounted above the end of the counter.

Next to it there was a white wall with a door opening onto a dim interior hallway leading away toward the southwesterly corner of the front of the building. Visible beyond it was a door ajar on a blue-tiled wall and the shower-curtained end of a bathtub. The rug on the floor of the living-room area was a dark-green swirled-embossed pattern. It was soiled and had not been recently vacuumed. Against the wall there was a bulky two-cushion sofa-bed, the seat cushions high, much thicker than the back-rest. It was upholstered in a nubby maroon fabric with a decorative silver thread. At each end there was a square table made of dark wood. The one at the end of the couch furthest from the door held a lamp with a base made of a foot-tall china model of a pink-dressed and picture-hatted, apple-cheeked country girl; she wore white socks and black mary janes and displayed a white-toothed grin between parted ruby lips. There were four empty Coors beer bottles around her. The table at the end nearest the door held a lamp with a base made of a foot-tall china model of a freckle-cheeked, barefooted farm boy wearing blue bib bed overalls and a straw hat. He was carrying a bamboo fishing pole jagged where the tip had broken off and grinning between parted ruby lips. There were two Coors beer bottles standing next to him and one on its side in front of him.

There was a narrow rectangular coffee table made of chromium and glass in front of the sofa bed. There was a magazine open on it, displaying a two-page color photo of a blonde woman with dramatically black and green eye shadow that made her green eyes look enormous, and bright scarlet lipstick on her tightly puckered lips; she was naked from the waist up, cupping her grotesquely large breasts in her hands with her thumbs and forefingers urging her nipples forward toward the camera, using so much pressure that the pores of the nipples were spread. There were smears of semen on the picture. The surface of the table showed many rings left by wet glasses. There was a small bud vase with one reddish plastic flower in it; next to it there was a one-pint clear glass mug about half full of a brownish liquid. On the rug under the table there was a pair of tan work boots with lug soles, the right one upright and the left one tipped over on its side. A pair of grey socks with red stripes lay over the boots. A pair of jeans with a black belt and a pair of blue-and-white checked shit-soiled boxer shorts inside were heaped open on the floor, still shaped to the lower body of the person who'd removed them and left them there. There was a white tee-shirt bunched up at the further end of the sofa.

Over the sofa-bed there was a three-by-four-foot print of a generic mountain-lake vista shaded by overhanging maple branches on a sunny sky-blue day. Four white vees represented four white birds in flight over the lake.

Merrion remembered first seeing and then gradually growing to dread seeing again another copy of the same picture long before. It had hung over the couch in Larry Lane's apartment. "He)i, that's a very good picture," Larry Lane had said, one day when Merrion sneered at it. "I want you to cut out that talk now, making smart remarks about my lovely picture. We hadda pay a lotta money for that picture. And there's another one of 'em just like it, or almost just like it anyway, in every single unit here. Got 'em to add a little class to the operation. People come and live here, they then decide they don't like 'em? Fine, they can take 'em down. Perfectly all right with us if they got no taste. But when they first come in to see the place and size it up, that picture tells them that this is a classy joint. They can see it. We took extra trouble make these apartments nice.

"Sure, when they get in they find out you can hear your neighbor two floors down and four doors over if he farts in the bathtub. When it's windy, the walls shake, gets a little drafty, windows rattle. The plumbing ain't that great. The heat comes up it sounds to God like the whole place's gonna blow up with you in it. But they notice those things later, after they paid the deposit. Before that what they notice is that in the living room we have got this fine scenic picture, so they know that we've got taste. Spared no expense on amenities; those pictures cost us three bucks apiece."

Beyond the couch in the southeasterly corner of the room at the picture window overlooking the boulevard there was a 27-inch Sanyo television set on a TV table with a VCR and a cable-service box under it on the lower shelf. The brief announcement from the local station now concluding was a 30"Second ad describing the superior comforts available from a revolutionary new design in mattress coils.

Opposite the TV in front of the book cased wall next to the window there was a blue and green reclining chair with an end table and a black metal floor lamp next to it. There was a clear glass one-pint mug on the table; it contained about four ounces of a clear liquid.

There were two remote control keypads on the table. There was a round purple anodized aluminum ashtray with a coil around the rim to hold cigarettes in place; it was full of stubbed butts. There was a crush proof box of Winstons open next to it.

Janet LeClerc in a white cotton nightgown decorated with small blue and red flowers with little green leaves and some lace around the yoke, under a thin pink chenille robe, sat curled up in the recliner with her weight resting mainly on her right buttock, the footrest up but not in use, her feet and legs tucked up under her, snoring softly and steadily with her mouth gaping open. Her left eye socket was badly bruised, greenish-blue and swollen puffy.

When she exhaled she made the kind of rhythmic, low, rumbling, happy growling sound that came from the television, harmonizing with the large tired golden retriever, first seen playing hard with children on a sunny day, now contented lying down after a nutritious dish of choice cuts of meat and meat by-products in real gravy combined in the dog food advertised in one of the brief announcements from the ABC local-affiliate station in Springfield.

Merrion picked up the VCR remote keypad and punched it twice with no result. Then he picked up the other one and shut the television off.

"Good," he said. Janet exhaled, making a low whistling sound. Her hair was mussed around her left temple. Her face was flushed and shiny with sweat.

"You aren't gonna wake her up, are you?" Brody said in a soft voice, as though he had been caring for a sick person whose recovery depended on plenty of rest.

Merrion snorted but he kept the noise down too. "Sooner or later, I'm gonna, yeah," he said, glancing down at her as he put the remote pad down and then hitched up his pants. "Before I leave here she's gonna have to wake up and tell me some things I want to know, bet your sweet life on that. But first I wanna find out if Chappelle's in here someplace. Like I told you the guy makes me nervous. He's in here someplace with us, I want to know about it. So the first thing I am gonna do is take a look around here."

Brody remained standing at the door and Merrion crossed the room to the interior hallway. "Maybe the bedroom," he said, talking to reassure himself. "Sleeping it off inna bedroom? Got just as good and drunk as she did last night, but had the sense to go to bed." Brody did not say anything.

Merrion went through the door and paused at the second door, opening into the bathroom. He pushed it open further and looked in. To his left there was a blue plastic shower curtain drawn around the tub enclosure. Beyond that he could see the front of the flush. All the light came from a high narrow window directly ahead of him. To his right there was a long fluorescent fixture mounted above a large vanity-mirror and a sink enclosed in a countered cabinet below it.

There was a long white extension cord plugged into a socket at the bottom of the fluorescent fixture; it dropped down from the fixture to the floor beside the cabinet and led across the blue bath mat up to the edge of the tub, where it disappeared behind the shower curtain.

Merrion stepped back from the bathroom door and went down the hall into the bedroom. The door was ajar. He pushed it open slowly and silently and looked into yellowish window-shaded dimness onto an empty, unmade double bed, a pale-green top sheet and two woolen blankets, one white and one tan, mounded up on a wrinkled and stained pale-green bottom sheet; there were two pillows in pale-green slip cases jumbled together at the head of the bed. There was a small table next to the far side with a clear glass lamp and a small alarm clock on it. There was a four-drawer pine chest of drawers in the far corner of the room. There was a small yellow upholstered chair in the corner to his right; it was filled with a pile of soiled clothing. The room smelled stale and loamy.

Merrion had no desire to go in. He turned around and started back toward the living room. "Any sign of him?" Brody called softly and hesitantly from the doorway.

"Nothin'," Merrion said. "Janet isn't what you'd call a great housekeeper, though. "S pretty rank in here."

"Because see, I was just thinkin'," Brody said, clearing his throat, 'that unless you really hadda, you know, wake her up and ask her things, maybe what we could do here, we could then just go back out, and close the door behind us?"

"And then she wouldn't ever know that we were in here; you're tryin' to say that to me, Steve? Nobody else'd know that I made you invade this unit this morning?" Merrion was at the bathroom door again. He paused, smiling, and waited for Brody's reply. He could hear Janet snoring peacefully in the next room. Brody did not answer.

"Steve?" Merrion said. "You still out there? Haven't gone into a panic here, run out on me here, have you? Certainly hope not. You're my witness here, you know, everything I did was kosher, absolutely by the book, from the minute I stepped in. Can't afford to have you leave me in here now, all by myself."

"Well," Brody said, drawing it out, 'no, I didn't do that. I was just thinking here was that if there wasn't any need, you know, to wake her up, well, it does seem as though she's sleeping pretty sound. Doesn't look like she's gonna wake up by herself."

"Not unless somebody shows up here with a howitzer and shoots it off in the kitchen, no, I don't think she will," Merrion said. "But I'm still gonna wake her up, Steve, no matter what you say here, and you might as well deal with it it's gonna happen." He pushed the bathroom door all the way open, flipping the light switch outside as he went in. The light did not come on and he hesitated in mid-stride, flipping the switch again. The light did not come on. "Because this bozo she's been hangin' out with's got a pretty vivid history of being dangerous.

"And therefore what I'm doing here today," he said, using his left hand to pull the shower curtain back, 'is first seeing if I can find out… oh oh. Uh oh.

"Yeah," he said, looking down at the two brown knobby knees protruding from the grey-cloudy soapy water in the middle of the tub, and under the handles and the faucet and the drain shutoff, the white hair-dryer tethered by its own white cord to the white extension cord, half-submerged between the two feet underneath the faucet at the front of the tub. He could make out the shins and calves of the lower legs buckled up behind the ugly feet, and beyond the knees the black-haired swarthy head with brown staring eyes in the gaping face above the milky surface at the back.

"What?" Brody said from the other room. "What's going on in there?

Everything all right?"

"Yeah, oh yeah," Merrion said, making a brief dismissive brushing gesture with his right hand against his pantsleg. "Yeah, everything's fine here. Well, everything's all right for me, I mean, in here, and probably for you." He heard Brody come into the bathroom behind him.

"But I don't think it is for him. And if what I'm seein's what I think it is I'm seeing, and I'm damned sure that it is, I don't think it's gonna be all right much longer for our friend Miss Janet out there. Not for some time at least. She's probably in for some excitement, and then a nice long rest. Although maybe not; her lawyer'll be glad to see those bruises. This naked gentleman in front of us I suspect is Lowell Chappelle, and also that he's somewhat dead."

He yanked the curtain back all the way and stood looking down at the shiny-black-haired dark-skinned man in the tub, his eyes staring and mouth frozen open in the head that looked as though it had been impaled on the rigid neck sticking out of the surface of the grey water covering the shoulders and the torso of the submerged body. "Yes, now I'm sure of it," he said. "No longer any question in my mind he's completely fuckin' dead. My guess is that in this very bathtub, Steve, the late Lowell Chappelle, former well-known desperado, learned last night after a few drinks that his electrifying girlfriend didn't like it when he hit her. Just before he became truly, fuckin', dead."

He turned aside to let Brody step up to the tub beside him. "You wanna take a look here, Steve? See you recognize him? After all, you know the guy, seen him around, when he was breathin' and so forth. Before this terrible shock. I'd turn the light on for you but I think the fuse's blown."

Merrion paused expectantly but Brody did not respond. He continued to stare down into the tub. "He kind of stinks, a little," he said. "I would have to say." He stepped back and looked up at Merrion. "You think we should get someone, see if they can, you know, get him out of here maybe, and then maybe do something with him? Undertaker, something? Can't just leave him like this, I don't think, can we? It wouldn't be right to do that. At least not for me, the building and all. We should do something, I think."

Merrion took Brody's left elbow with his right hand and turned him around to face the bathroom door, propelling him toward it at the same time. "Indeed we should do something, Steve," he said. "You should do something and I should do something, and then after that we should both of us do absolutely nothing. Until the cops get here, and then it'll be all in their hands."

"The cops?" Brody said, momentarily resisting. "You really sure we need alia that stuff, get the cops up here? TV cameras and stuff, alia trouble they make?"

"Well, yeah," Merrion said, getting him going again and steering him toward the doorway onto the landing. Janet snored comfortably in the reclining chair, "Yeah, I do think we should have the cops come up and all, it's traditional, you know? Someone looks like he's been murdered, and you find the body? Well, the cops like it if you give them a call. Invite them to come up and look the place over. See there's anything they might like to take note of and so forth in case they decide, later on, they'd like to accuse someone of killing whoever it was, and maybe punish them. A little, anyway. That's the sort of thing they do. And when you help them to do that, they appreciate it.

You don't call them, they get mad. My experience's always been that if you can do something that cops appreciate, it makes life a lot easier in the long run to do it; I have always found that.

"So the first thing I think we should do is shut the door and lock it, and have you stand in front of it. We do not want Janet to wake up and figure what we're doin' here, and then decide that this'd be a perfect time to take a hike. Then right after that I am gonna pick the phone up know I saw one, we came in; oh yeah, there it is there, right there by the corner 'frigerator — call ah cops an' get 'em up here, tell 'em what we found. It'll be their baby then."

"You think she murdered him?" Brody said.

Merrion shoved him toward the hallway door. Brody lurched forward. "Go over there and shut the fuckin' door, Steve," he said. "Shut the door and lock it and then lean against it, and don't let nobody out, while I get the cops up here and tell 'em how Janet LeClerc killed her boyfriend in the bathtub by switchin' on her hair-dryer an' throwin' it inna tub with him after he fell asleep inna warm water. He'd had a hard day's work getting' his belly full of beer and beatin' his meat and givin' his girlfriend a good beatin'. Betcha when that Conair splashed it got his attention. Helluva thing to do to a man, I must say. Jesus, what a surprise. Bops the daffy girlfriend in the eye, just a little innocent fun, and what does she do but electrocute him.

I don't know how long he lived after she did it, but I will bet you one thing sure: not long enough to forget it."

"I can't," Brody said, after he had shut the door and had shaken himself to regain his composure, watching Merrion punch numbers on the phone while Janet snored efficiently by the window, "I can't believe she'd do that. She could've done that to him. I never saw a side of her that'd make me think she'd do an awful thing like that, just go and kill a man. Never in a million years."

"I know it," Merrion said, hearing the phone begin to ring at the police station. "I'm the same way too. I can never believe it either.

As many times I've seen it happen, I still can't make myself believe it. They always tell you, every time, they promise you, that they will be good boys and girls. And then something like this happens. It shakes your faith in human nature… Hello? Yeah, Amby Merrion. Got a homicide to report. No, I'm not a cop, I'm the clerk of court. Yeah that's me, I am the guy: I know everything."