Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Someone picked up the camera and handed it back to the Reuters man. The front element of the lens was shattered, and there could have been other damage that ruined his film. Enraged at the prospect, the photographer turned on Marshall.

“Who the hell do you think you are, for chrissake?” he screamed at the senator. “You just bought yourself a lawsuit, you sonofabitch!”

That snapped Marshall’s last ligament of reason. He grabbed the battered camera from the photographer’s hand and began using it as a weapon to clear his way out of the crowd. Holding it by the shattered lens, he began swinging it back and forth in front of him, as though he were using a machete to clear a jungle path. When his eyes fell on Brennan, they filled with new anger, and he lunged at the Chronicle reporter, smashing the camera into his face. Brennan felt his nose break and warm blood flow into his mouth. The taste of iron was powerful. He reeled backward into a wall and fell over, conscious but stunned. Marshall hurled the camera at Brennan’s falling body, hitting him square in the neck and opening a deep cut. With attention turned elsewhere, Marshall hurried off, shouldering his way past four police officers running up the corridor toward the commotion. They recognized Marshall and made no effort to stop him. Not until a few seconds later did any of the journalists think to pursue him.

But by the time they reached the end of the corridor, he was nowhere in sight.

“He did what ?”

If there was anyone in the Chronicle newsroom who didn’t hear Schaeffer’s bellow, it was a wonder. It fairly shook the glass of his office wall. Paul Wister’s head snapped up, as did Alec Stenofsky’s. Only Steve Pace didn’t appear shocked. He was on the telephone with Willis Worsely, an old friend from the Chronicle newsroom, now a highly-paid reporter for WRC-TV. Worsely had witnessed Marshall’s assault on Brennan and called Pace as soon as he filed an initial report with his own station.

“I think Avery just heard,” Pace said.

Worsely laughed. “I could hear him from here.”

“So how bad is Glenn hurt?”

“I don’t think it’s as bad as all the blood made it look,” Worsely said. “I’m sure his nose is broken, but they’ll pack it and he’ll talk funny for a few days.”

“He’s talked funny most of his life,” Pace said.

“Ta-da-ch-h-h,” said Worsely, giving Pace a vocal rim shot. “There’s a cut on his neck, too, but it’s not close to anything important. I’m not sure which hospital they carted him off to, but I think he needs some emergency-room types to throw some stitches into his neck and cotton wadding into his nose and he’ll be on his way back to you.”

“You saw the whole thing, huh?”

“Sure did. I’ll be a witness for him if he wants to sue the bastard.”

“Glenn didn’t provoke it?”

“Don’t you trust him?”

“He’s got an Irish temper. Didn’t you ever hear about getting your Irish up?”

“When we say that in the ghet-to,” Worsely pronounced it as two words, “we mean a guy’s ready to get laid. Never could figure why we all called our dicks ‘Irish.’”

Pace was convulsed. Worsely, educated at prep school, Yale, and GW University, loved to pretend he’d been raised in a slum. He did great comedy with that premise.

“Hey, man,” Worsely said, “it’s not nice to be laughin’ that hard when one of your bes’ friends got his ass carted off to a hospital on account of stories you been writin’.”

Pace got himself under control. “I wasn’t laughing at Glenn. I was laughing at you.”

Now Worsely chuckled. “I did the street-dude act for my sister once and didn’t know my dad was listening. He ordered me never to do it again in his house. He made me feel like a dork for making fun of street kids. But, hey, the way I look at it, it’s a part of black culture. It’s the way it is today, like slavery is the way it was a 150 years ago.”

“It was more like a 130 years ago, Will.”

“Well, history never was my best subject.”

“What was?”

“Calculus.”

“Shithead. You are a dork. Thanks for the call.”

“No sweat. Tell Glenn I said hey.”

When Pace hung up, he found Avery Schaeffer standing by his desk. “You heard?” Schaeffer asked.

“Yeah, just now. How is he?”

“He’s at Sibley. His nose is broken, but not badly. They stitched up his neck, gave him some pain medication and antibiotics and released him. A D.C. cop is taking him home. They’re going to take his statement.”

Pace’s eyes were over Schaeffer’s shoulder. “Did you say they’re taking him home?”

“Yes, wh—Oh, no.” Schaeffer wheeled around and saw Brennan walking toward him, flanked by the police. “What are you doing here?” the editor asked. “You’re supposed to be resting, you damned fool. And while I’m on the subject of foolishness, when did it get to be SOP around here for my reporters to lead with their faces instead of their pens?”

“Aye din start it,” Brennan said, the wadding in his nose making him sound like he had a championship cold.

Pace got up and examined Brennan’s face. “I’ve think you’ve done it, Champ,” he said. “You look worse than I did.”

“Uck you” is what it sounded like Brennan said. Everyone, even the cops, broke up.

“Go home,” Schaeffer said. “We can cover for you.”

“Will not,” Brennan objected. “I’mb fine.”

“Well, I’mb the boss, and I say you’re not fine.”

That afternoon Avery Schaeffer issued a statement on behalf of the paper: “It is tragic when a reporter, lawfully and quietly engaged in the pursuit of his profession, is brutalized by a man holding one of the highest public offices in the land.”

As Schaeffer’s statement was distributed, Steve Pace worked in the Senate’s public-records office, tracking the financial dealings of the senior senator from Ohio. The results were tantalizing and frustrating at once.

Harold Marshall had precious few investments, but he had one that made up for the dearth of others—in the Converse Corporation. He owned stock in the company, and he had income from that stock. How much in either category was only a guess.

In the “Assets” category, Marshall listed the common stock. The declaration of the stock’s value was a multiple choice of ranges, each succeeding range higher than the last. Marshall indicated that the value of his stock fell into the highest category: more than $250,000. It was meaningless. The value could have been $250,001 or a thousand times that. The rules of the Senate didn’t require Marshall to be more specific.

Under “Income,” it was the same thing. Marshall declared his annual income from the Converse stock at more than $100,000, the highest choice in that category. Again, it could have been a thousand times $100,000, but Marshall didn’t have to say so.

The information wasn’t new. Ohio papers had written for years that Marshall had sizable holdings in Converse when he took office and during the period when he’d negotiated for the company’s move to Ohio. But no one knew when the stock was purchased or at what price.

There was nothing in the latest disclosures that carried the story one inch farther.

Damn! Pace thought. You aren’t going to help me, are you, you sonofabitch?

The news hit Pace like a balled fist in the stomach. It almost knocked the wind from him. “Maybe he’s gone into hiding,” he suggested.

“Where’s he going to hide?” Clay Helm asked. “And why would he leave without clothes, shaving gear, toiletries… anything?”