One night at the house on Pynchon Hill, after everyone else had gone home and Diane was in the pantry cleaning up, he had poured 'one last nightcap' of Old Smuggler for himself and a Jack Daniel's for Mernon – "Meaning this'll make the third, for each of you," Diane said, from the kitchen and said that 'of course the thing that no one ever seems to notice, when they talk about your business and how it doesn't seem to've gotten much bigger, sort of sneering at you, is at least that little business that you got is still there, still chugging along, going strong, just like it always has been.
"It may've been a little engine, when you took control of it, and that may still be all it is, but when you got your grubby little paws on it, back then, it was the little engine that could, and by Jesus it still can. A lot of others like it, owners had the big ambitious plans: well, where're they today? Not around any more where could they've all gone? Gone belly-up, is where, not in business anymore. I think survival counts for something. I'll take it any day."
When Walter died, at the age of forty-two, Diane knew there was more to his estate than the house and the insurance agency, but she wasn't sure what it was or how much it was worth. He had told her something about a twenty-percent interest in some sort of a real estate and stock investment partnership, not itemized but left to her under the residuary clause of his will, along with the house on Pynchon Hill and two-thirds of the value of the Fox Agency. She had realized her understanding was imperfect, but left it that way because she hadn't wanted to seem to be too interested in what her prospects were if her robust husband died young. It seemed so very unlikely. Therefore about all she knew about the trust was that some time ago his grandfather had somehow acquired an interest in an investment consortium that continued to yield steady income, and that Merrion was in it too.
Once or twice when she had rebuked Walter for regularly having more to drink than was good for him, whenever Merrion was among the people they'd had over for the evening, he had tried to excuse it by telling her that he and Merrion were 'more'n just ordinary business associates.
We're also pals, we get a kick outta each other. A man should have pals; a man's gotta have pals. And even though I know you don't care much for Amby, pals're what we're gonna stay."
She said she knew he needed to have friends and if he wanted to consider Amby one of them, that was fine by her. She said whether she liked Amby or not had nothing to do with what she was talking about, which was his 'habit of getting absolutely sloshed every time Amby comes here to dinner. Every single time he comes, you two wind up getting plastered. Don't you worry about him driving home when you've gotten yourselves in that condition, you say you're such friends.
Aren't you afraid something'll happen to him? That he'll get hurt or maybe arrested?"
Walter had laughed. "How many cops around here you think're gonna go and arrest the clerk of court? They know him too well. They'd never do that to him, never charge him with drunk driving. They did pull him over, they wouldn't arrest him. All they'd do's make him move over and let one of them drive him home, and the other one follow, the cruiser."
"He still could get hurt, though," she said. "Or he could hurt somebody else. He shouldn't be driving that way. If you think I don't want him around, well, I'm telling you, that's the reason. It's because of the drinking you two seem to do whenever you get together. I get so I don't want to invite him, even though you like him, he's your friend. "Cause I know what'll happen: You'll both get rip-roaring drunk."
Walter refused to concede her point. He said. "Amby and I have a good time together. That's what friends're for. Having fun with them, the short time we're all on the earth. One of the things, anyway. If anything ever happened to me, even though I'm sure he knows you don't like him all that much, if something ever happened to me, other guys we know'd forget all about you, but Amby'd take care of you."
Walter seemed very certain when he said that and it stuck in her mind.
So after Walter died, even though she believed his long uproarious evenings with Merrion had hastened his death, she went to Mernon and asked him what he knew.
