Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Then we have once again reached an impasse, Mr. Hammond, because I do not believe such information is in any way relevant to this inquiry.”

Marshall was frowning deeply. It appeared to those looking at him that he was angry, but in fact, the dizziness was escalating rapidly. He desperately didn’t want to ask for a recess; he wanted to get this ordeal over. Hammond began hammering at him again.

“It is not only relevant to this inquiry, these matters go to the very heart of the inquiry,” Hammond was saying. “I believe answers are—”

But Marshall had ceased listening. At the base of his brain, the small artery weakened by age and stress had burst, flooding the surrounding brain tissue with blood.

Hugh Green’s first thought when he saw Marshall rise from his chair was that the senator had become so angry he was physically going after Hammond.

Woody Vredenberg had the same thought and put his hand on his client’s sleeve.

Hammond didn’t understand what was happening.

Steve Pace thought Marshall was ill and was about to run from the room.

Eleanor Justica thought her colleague was rising to make some sort of impassioned statement that would shed the controversy, and Brent Hammond, from his back.

Stephen Hay Adams thought Marshall was standing to make a grandstand play.

Harley Stinson was making notes on questions he planned to ask and wasn’t watching, but the sudden silence in the room made him look up as Marshall began to fall.

Only the young senator/paramedic from Iowa, Frank Hopper, realized immediately what was happening. “Heart attack or stroke,” Hopper whispered to himself as Marshall collapsed across the witness table and slid away. Hopper vaulted the committee bench before anyone else could react and was at Marshall’s side in five strides.

But he was too late.

The senator from Ohio was dead before he hit the floor.

Steve Pace felt a lack of closure, a sense that he’d somehow been cheated of the opportunity to see the best story of his life through to a logical conclusion.

As often as he told himself it was indecent to think of a man’s death that way, he couldn’t get past the fact that the public might never know how Harold Marshall nearly pulled off what surely would have been one of the biggest corporate cover-ups in the history of the modern world.

Pace spent the weekend in an emotional dumpster. Kathy worked at talking him out of his funk, but her heart was only half in it since she was feeling some of the same thing. Hugh Green was storming around in a smoking bad mood.

“This is the ultimate pail of bovine crap from a renowned bullshit artist,” Green said.

Marshall’s body was returned to Ohio on a private aircraft—“What ever’ sombitch could afford if he managed his portfolio wisely,” Harley Stinson is reported to have remarked nastily in the Senate cloakroom.

A family friend announced that funeral services would be private, and indeed they were. Nobody could even find out which funeral home was handling the arrangements, or exactly where Marshall would be buried. Even Republican senators who wanted to attend were assured their concerns were appreciated but their presence was not required.

Harold Marshall disappeared from the face of the earth, “which, I suppose, is what death is all about,” said Avery Schaeffer. He appeared totally unmoved by Marshall’s passing. He argued that the story was still very much alive, that Converse was still suspect, and lest the newspaper’s aviation writer forget, there still was no explanation for the ConPac accident.

Pace understood all that. But he was having a hard time maintaining enthusiasm about it because the personification of the story was gone, and his absence diminished the telling of it somehow.

Steve and Kathy were thumbing aimlessly through the Monday-morning papers when the phone rang. It was Paul Wister.

“What are you doing at the office so early?” Pace asked.

“I’m not at the office, I’m still at home,” Wister said. “I just got a call from the early wire desk. The United States attorney for the northern district of Ohio has called a press conference for one o’clock this afternoon. Reports are that one, and possibly several, Converse Corporation executives have been indicted in connection with embezzlement of company funds.”

“Federal charges? I didn’t think embezzlement was a federal crime,” Pace said.

“It isn’t normally, but it’s alleged this money crossed state lines for criminal purposes, i.e., the abetting of the disruption of a federal investigation.”

All of the self-pity and ennui drained away, and Steve Pace went to full alert. “Who’s involved? What’s the disruption? What funds?”

“Easy, boy!” Wister said. “Get on an airplane and fly your fanny to Youngstown, where you undoubtedly will find the answers to all those questions. I’ve ordered the wire copy sent to your apartment by messenger so it should be there within the half-hour. Then you’ll know everything the rest of the world knows. Avery is hot for this.”

Pace smiled. He had no problem at all believing that. If there were indictments and convictions of Converse officials based on a federal investigation prompted by Chronicle stories, Schaeffer would be making room for another Pulitzer on his Glory Room wall.

Pace clicked on CNN, figuring at that hour he was more likely to get updated reports on the all-news station than from the commercial networks. He repeated Wister’s report to Kathy. She was enormously excited.

“Keep me posted,” she said. “I’ll get you a reservation. Which credit card?”

“Take the American Express card in my wallet… and have a ball, kid.”

“You want to come back tonight?”

“Leave the return open. I could need some time out there.”

“God, you get to go to all the great places.”

She was giggling in an unseemly manner when she left the room.

Kathy got him on a 9:35 flight to Youngstown by way of Pittsburgh and reserved a rental car for him there. He tried to read the wire-service stories as he shaved and only succeeded in nicking himself under the chin. He tore the corner off a tissue and stuck it over the tiny puncture, hoping he remembered to remove it before he got to the press conference. How would it look if a nationally acclaimed reporter showed up with a bloody scrap of toilet paper sticking to his neck?

Kathy threw clean shirts, underwear, and socks into a small flight bag while he dressed. “You want extra ties? An extra pair of pants?” she asked.

“Yes and yes,” he said. “I hope I’ll be back tonight, but don’t count on it.”

“How about an extra blazer?”

“Shouldn’t need it. I’m wearing the blue blazer and the gray slacks, and I got the medium-blue slacks back from the cleaners. Throw those in, and that should hold me.”

“You sure? I can throw the chinos in, too. There’s plenty of room in the bag.”

“I won’t need ’em. I’m going to report a story, not to live there.”

“Where’s your laptop?”

“On the closet floor. Would you check and make sure there are extra batteries?”

Kathy dragged the black, hard-sided case from behind Pace’s shoes and popped the lid. “You’ve got an unopened pack of double-As.”

“Fine.”

She was shaking her head. “When’s the paper going to dump these old Tandys and get something that belongs in the late twentieth century?”

“Get rid of my Trash 200? Do you know how long I’ve had that thing? It’s family.”

“Yeah, your grandfather.”

He sucked down the rest of his coffee, grabbed the flight bag and the computer case, and leaned down to kiss Kathy, who was sitting on the edge of their bed.