"Turns out my mother knows him," Merrion said. "His wife I guess isn't a very good cook. He gets all their pies and cookies from Slade's Bakery. You know the one I mean. Used to also be a cafeteria, back when we still had the trains coming through. Ma says he's a regular bear for the cookies, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip. Goes through couple dozen a week, half a dozen or so at a time. Monday nights, Wednesday nights, then a dozen he comes in on Friday. Plus a loaf of the brown bread, for Saturday night I guess him and the wife have baked beans. He's never in a very big hurry, Ma says, always got plenty of time to chat. He calls her "Polly," like all her friends do, and she calls him "Mister Lane." Now."
"What'd she used to call him?" Hilliard said. '"Franklin Delano Roosevelt"?"
"She called him "Judge," Merrion said. "But then someone told her it was Chris; he was still living at home then, after I'd moved out that he's just the clerk. "He's not the judge. He doesn't decide anything."
"Her reaction was: "Well, what did I know, he was only the clerk?
Someone told me he worked at the courthouse. Who works at the courthouse, huh? Judges. How'm I supposed to know he wasn't one? I was never inside it, thank God none of my family was ever arrested. We always behaved ourselves. He certainly looked like a judge ought to look, always very well-dressed and so forth. Although come to think of it, kind of flashy, for a judge. But always a jacket and tie, winter, summer or fall; shoes always shined; a clean shirt and a hat, always a hat. A felt hat in the winter, straw hat in the summer. Nice camel-hair overcoat in the cold weather. Mister Lane is a very sharp dresser." '"Well," Chris tells her, "how he dresses doesn't count. It's what he does that counts. And all he does is file papers no one ever looks at, and collect the money for tickets. It's not like he can send you to jail. He don't amount to a piss hole inna snow."
"To your mother he said that?" Hilliard said. "Did your father rise up out of the grave and belt him one? Pat might've said piss hole out in back at Valley Ford, but never in front of her."
"Well, the general idea was all I meant," Merrion said. "I don't know what Chris actually said. He was just givin' the general idea. Which's what I'm trying to give to you here. I asked my mother about him. I think I can work for this guy. I think it'd work out all right. Not someone I would call, I was lookin' for a guy go out'n have a few with, no, but otherwise, I see no problem.
"And let's not get carried away with ourselves here, either, when we're discussing this thing. This job that Lane's got with nobody in it, it isn't that big a thing. "I get by on it": was what Dad used to call his job, and that's all this job is, too. I can get by on it. A steady check is what I want. I never had any ambition.
"My own mother'll tell you that, if I'm not careful. God knows she's told me enough she's always giving me that. "Second prize, the small change, the leftovers. You poor kid, you've simply got no ambition at all."
Merrion had listened many times while she low-rated him to others. "It just isn't in Ambrose's nature to put himself forward, you know? He's tall enough and strong enough and fat enough, too, God knows he should be, see the way he eats all the time. His father used to say he wasn't a bad athlete. Not that he was ever a real good athlete either that might've meant he'd stand out.
"Pat never seemed to mind, though. I think now it was because he never aimed too high himself. Pat was always careful not to make himself conspicuous. Get his name in the papers, so someone heard about him. I think he approved of that attitude Amby had. He said if Amby didn't watch out, wasn't careful, he'd get too good at something in school, and pretty soon he'd wind up going far away to some fine university or something. I used to think he didn't mean it; that was his way of pushing Amby, getting him to do something. But now I'm not so sure.
"He'd say Amby didn't want people to think he wanted something really good to happen: "Mustn't let 'em catch you aiming too high for anything in this world. You might get it. Then God only knows what could happen. People might not like you anymore. Say you went high-hat on them, something bad like that might happen. It's just not worth takin' the risk, you know?" After a while Pat had us all convinced, Chris and me and Amby both. "Chris's the one who's got his eye on the moon. What Ambrose wants is for people to like him, to be the hero's best friend, covers his backside for him. Never the hero himself."
