"Yeah," Hilliard said. "Well, you sound like you got it planned out pretty good. But there may be one or two other things we oughta think about here, geography and stuff. Which one of these little dukedoms 've you got in mind? Where you come from can be important. You should really come from a town in the district you want to go into, if that wouldn't be too much trouble. Don't have to, of course, it's not in the statute, but it really helps if you do. Especially if you're a young guy, gonna tie up the slot a long time if you live, as you will who ever heard a clerk dyin' in office? What the hell's gonna kill him? Overwork? Clerks don't die; they retire. Hometown boys have an easier time of it, when they gotta go through the hoops, getting' their names approved. But you're from that backwater there." '"Backwater," nothin'," Merrion said. "Canterbury's perfectly all right by me. I never hid it, I come from Canterbury. I grew up in Canterbury. My mother and brother're still there. He's got plans to leave, but she hasn't. I moved but I didn't go far, next town over.
I'll take the district court of the Canterbury Division any day of the week. They've got a slot open there, too. That's another thing I checked; they're a three-assistant court but for some reason only two 've been appointed. Third-assistant clerk is vacant, ripe for plucking.
"Canterbury District Court, yes indeed. Pretty town, always liked it.
Nice'n quiet; sort of country. Not too many girls there, but I drive;
I got a car, not what you'd call a really nice new car, like some guys I know of, but still, I got a car, and it runs." Merrion drove a maroon 1962 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible with a white leather interior, white top and white sidewall tires, a cream-puff he'd grabbed the day it came in as a Valley Ford trade-in on a '64 Thunderbird.
"And you're sure you'll be happy there?" Hilliard said. "You wont be coming to me in a year or so, saying to me: "You got to get me out of this? I know I asked you, do this for me, but I'm losing my mind in that fucking place"?
"I think the world of you, Ambrose my friend, but I know you, and you like action. And you know me and how I hate going back to the well.
Doing things over I've already done, 'cause the guy didn't know what he wanted."
"Remember what you told me years ago, Danny boy?" Merrion said. "I first started working for you and wed won, you were an alderman. And the papers said right off that wasn't what you wanted, even though you just won it. Saying you were aiming to be mayor. And you said:
"Everyone assumes the job you go after can't be the job that you want.
Doesn't matter whether it's the one you go after first or the one that you go after next, when you've started moving up. They never think you've gotten where you want to go; some bigger job must be the one you want.
"The trick's to always keep 'em guessing, say nothing and sit tight.
Don't rule anything out. While you decide, for your self, which job you want, and why you want it. Then go into high gear, do anything you have to, to get that fucking job. And after you've got it, fake 'em right out of their shorts. Stay as smart as you always were. Keep that lovely job you wanted, and finally quit doing all the shitty stuff you had to do to get it, now you got away with it."
"Well, that's what I'm doing here now. I thought about it, and this's the job that I want. I can do something with it. I'm not lookin' for one I'll have to wait and wait to open up, and then when it does fifty other guys want it. I want to get in line now. I get this job I'll move up and retire as the chief clerk. This job's got my name on it.
"And if you can get it," Hilliard said, because he liked to tease Merrion, 'then will you have any immediate plans to make an honest woman out of Keller?"
"I'd have to get her calmed down some first," Merrion said. "That could be a tall assignment."
"You'd have fun trying though," Hilliard said. "All right, I'm in.
I'll go to work. But you've got some work to do yourself, on Larry Lane. Get to know him and get permission. Kiss his ass if you have to; hold your nose, close your eyes tight and do it. Too bad Roy and Arthur made the new district and built the new courthouse before my time. Be nice if I could just phone Chassy Spring up now, and call the debt. Technically it's his appointment, presiding judge and all, but Lane's the guy you'll work for. Chassy'll probably do it if I ask him, but not without Lane signing off on it. I hope you can work with the guy. I hear he can be a real bastard."
Hilliard's seven-year-old dark-green Mercedes Benz 300D sedan was not in the lot east of the clubhouse when Merrion parked his Eldorado coupe metallic maroon; white leather-grained-vinyl tiara roof, gold nameplates and badges, and narrow-striped whitewall tires. He was nowhere to be seen around the locker room or the putting-practice green. Running true to form: late.
