"And I'll bet you a quarter," Hilliard said, 'that if I go in what used to be the boy's room sixteen years or so ago when I was one of the poor boys Miss Jocelyn was making their lives miserable for here, I would find that the toilet nearest the door still doesn't flush all the way unless you hold the handle on the chain down and then it sprays you so you look like you pissed your pants and that it's still got the same old wooden seat it had then; never been replaced."
"Mister Hilliard," the agent said, "I really don't know, I'm just the guy who does the rentals. I don't handle repairs or do maintenance, anything like that. They give me a list of the premises vacant. I rent them as best I can. You know more about toilets than I do.
"Now I have a question: How much're you willing to pay? "Cause I know you've decided and you wont budge, and you know what Mister Cannes told me: I don't have much latitude either."
"A buck anna half," Merrion said.
"Your original two," the agent said.
"We split the difference," Hilliard said.
The agent looked sour. "Good," he said grimly, 'that was fun. Glad it's over." He looked at his watch. "I may even get lunch today."
They shook hands. "I'll have the lease ready this afternoon. Otherwise tomorrow is fine. Just give me a call. Oh, and bring in the deposit and the first month's rent, too. That'll come to a total of three-twenty-eighty-two. We'll need to have that 'fore you get the keys."
"I'll give it to you right now," Hilliard said. He reached into the right inside pocket of his jacket and brought out a folding checkbook.
He opened it and tore out the first check. Merrion positioned himself so that Hilliard could use the checkbook as a pad and Merrion's left shoulder as a desk. Hilliard made the check out to the Carnes Company for $320.82. On the back he wrote: "First month's rent and security deposit High St. dist. off."
The agent took it and gazed at him. "Can I put this in the bank on my way back to the office?" he said.
Hilliard shrugged. "Sure," he said, "Roy knows it's good."
It was a bleak, painfully resonant room with varnished matched-board oak floors and oak wainscoating. Hilliard walked over to the left along the inside wall, passing the doors opened into the toilets and grabbed the ballet-practice bar still in place there. He tried to shake it. It was firm. "Handy," he said to Merrion. His voice boomed in the emptiness. "We used to put our coats here in the winter. Fold 'em over it."
Down below the front door slammed. Hilliard went to the window in the middle of the front wall. "There… goes… Brian," he said.
"First a stop at the bank and then off to enjoy his well-earned lunch.
Brian's an unhappy man. He thinks he has a hard life." He turned and looked at Merrion, still standing in the doorway. He grinned and said:
"Our first home, dear," he said. "Are you as excited as I am?"
Merrion laughed. "I might say that to you," he said. "I don't think I'd say it to Brian."
"You think Brian's a little light in his loafers?" Hilliard said. "He did mention he has a wife."
"He was careful to mention he had a wife," Merrion said. "He might even actually have one. Who's a woman, I mean I understand some of them do. Wife is a perfect disguise."
"Ever think about getting one for yourself?" Hilliard said, putting an arm around his shoulder as they left the big room. "Not that I'm saying you need camouflage. Just a matter of: Wouldn't you like to?
Maximum of temptation with a maximum of opportunity?"
Merrion shrugged. "I brought it up a couple times with Sunny. The last time she was home, in fact. She told me she'd think about it.
Said that the time before, too. I don't think she thinks she's ready.
Maybe just not ready for me. I'm only twenny-three. Don't think I hafta worry that much yet."
Hilliard followed Merrion down the stairs, their footfalls echoing.
Three steps above the landing he paused and said: "That stuff about cars sliding down the back lot did all of that actually happen?"
Merrion stopped on the landing and turned around. "You didn't believe me?"
Hilliard paused two steps up from the landing. "No," he said, "I didn't mean that. It's just that I've lived in this town all my life, and I never heard that'd happened. I'd've thought I would've."
Merrion turned back down the stairs. "I would've too," he said.
"Well, did it?" Hilliard said, crossing the landing and starting down the second flight behind Merrion.
"I dunno," Merrion said. "It could have."
"You said it did," Hilliard said.
At the foot of the stairs Merrion stood on the black-and-white tiled floor and smiled at Hilliard. "Not exactly," he said. "You told me to go find out about this building, who built it and so forth, and why.
