Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“The greater misjudgments were mine. I alone made the decisions about how the Converse conspiracy should be covered by this newspaper, about how much pressure should be placed on Marshall for disclosures of his financial dealings with Converse, about how far this great newspaper would go in insinuating a man’s guilt absent the presence of hard, indisputable evidence. I thought the circumstantial evidence warranted the coverage we gave to it.

“Sadly, I know now, it did not.

“How I know and what I know I will never make public. I have been asked to hold a confidence, a secret Harold Marshall died protecting. I will not violate that confidence.

“I do not apologize for the main body of reportage on the ConPac story. This newspaper’s role in exposing a vile conspiracy to hide the cause of the tragedy cannot be overstated. Were it not for Steven Pace’s dogged reporting at the risk of his own life, the worst aviation disaster in the history of this country might have passed into memory mistakenly attributed to a bird strike on a jet engine. Deliberate and heinous murders might have been attributed to accident or circumstance. The mistakes made related only to Harold Marshall’s role in the conspiracy. And those mistakes were mine alone. I can’t put my finger on exactly the moment, exactly the decision, that steered our coverage up the dark road of error. That there was an error would be easier to live with if I thought I could identify it and in doing so, render it impossible for me or for anyone else to make that error again. Try as I might, I have not been able to do that.

“And that is a burden for the ages.”

He thought about adding the words, “I’m sorry,” but that would be gilding the lily. He reread his words, spell-checked the copy, and sent it to Paul Wister’s personal file with a note explaining what it was. Satisfied, he opened a new file and wrote a memorandum of explanation to Creighton Pollock, owner of the Washington Chronicle. He told Pollock, in confidence, a great deal more than he told Chronicle readers about the Marshall situation. And he told Pollock that he was going away for a while:

“…I don’t know that my job will be waiting for me when I get back. I don’t know that you’ll want me back. If you do replace me, I hope you will give every consideration to Paul Wister. He has grown in the last few months, and he is ready. With sincere thanks for your confidence over the years, and with sorrow for errors of recent weeks, I remain,”

He ran off a hard copy, placed it in a sealed envelope, and put it in the interoffice mailbox. It would find its way to Creighton Pollock later that morning.

He went back to his office, erased the Pollock file for security reasons, and was about to turn off the computer when he had a second thought. He dashed off a memo to Steve Pace, sent it to Pace’s personal file, and then shut his system down. He glanced at the clock. It was 7:18. He picked up the phone and dialed his home. Cornelia answered on the first ring.

“Still in bed, sleepyhead?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I woke up a half-hour ago and found you already gone, or still gone. Did you ever come home last night? I was afraid something was wrong at the office. I turned on the television, but there’s no big news story breaking. Where are you?”

“At work.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

She was silent for a moment, trying to comprehend. She said she didn’t understand.

“I told you I’d explain later,” he said seriously. Then he brightened. “Hey, kid, you remember the trip around the British Isles you’ve been bugging me about for 751 years?”

He could hear her smile when she replied, “It’s only been five or six.”

“Well, it feels like 751. Wanna take it now?”

“Avery, are you serious?”

“Never more so.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Today. What’s wrong with today?”

“But… but we can’t,” she said, obviously stunned. “How could we?”

“You call a travel agent, make reservations all over the place, we go to Dulles, and we leave. That’s how.”

“Can you get away?”

This time he was the one who paused. He almost said that now, more than ever, he had to get away, but he stayed upbeat. “Sure, why not? I’m the boss.”

“We can’t leave today. That would be impossible.”

“Why?”

“What about clothes?”

“Take what you think you’ll need for the basic stuff—touring, dining elegantly, walking, and sleeping. If we need anything else, we can buy it over there. Then if we need a steamer trunk to come home, we’ll buy a steamer trunk.”

“There are still things I need, things you need.”

“Okay, so we’ll go shopping.”

“When?”

“What time do the stores open?”

“Today?”

“Absolutely.”

“Ten, I think.”

“I’m on my way.”

Schaeffer was gone when Paul Wister found the editorial. Stunned, he searched the building for Schaeffer and didn’t find him. He called Schaeffer’s home, but received no answer. He finally got around to calling Creighton Pollock. It wasn’t something he wanted to do, but he needed guidance. Pollock had already read Schaeffer’s note to him. He asked Wister to bring the editorial to his office. He read it there, twice, and when he finished, he said tersely, “Run it. Run it signed, as he asked.”

“What?” Wister asked in amazement. “We’ve never done that before.”

“Never had to before,” Pollock replied, and that was the end of the conversation.

Steve Pace found the personal note from Schaeffer a few minutes later. He read it twice. He felt his breath catch, and he got up to get a cup of coffee, turning his computer screen to black so no one else would see the message while he was gone. When he returned, he drank the full cup of hot liquid before he could bring himself to turn up the screen again.

“In the end, Steve, you can only be true to yourself. You try to set certain standards for yourself, which, in the face of all sorts of temptation, you must hold sacred. That, apparently, was my failing. I was tempted. I was too much tempted. Somewhere, somehow, I was convinced to lower my standards. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. To this moment, I can’t pinpoint exactly when I crossed that line. But this I do understand: The failing was mine, not yours. The responsibility is mine, not yours. You did as you were asked, you did the best you could, and you did well. That’s all any editor could ask of a reporter. I’m proud of you.

“Now go and have a drink to me, to the good times and the successes. Put this behind you. Get on with your life and your career. I’m going to be sitting on your shoulder all the way, whispering in your ear: Don’t be wrong, and don’t get beat.”

They sat on the Islamorada beach in the hot late-afternoon sun, watching the crashing waves driven by the incoming tide. Steve Pace thought he must be the happiest man alive. Kathy McGovern-Pace, his wife of three months, sat at his side. She was holding his hand, as mesmerized by the ocean as he, alive with wonder and expectation. In her belly a new life was growing, confirmed by her doctor only hours earlier. Their child would be born in May.

When she had given her husband the news, he had embraced her and cried. He wanted to open a bottle of champagne, but she told him she wouldn’t drink, to protect the new life within her. So he settled for a beer for himself that he carried to the beach and had long since finished.