Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

They were married early in August, the week he quit his job at the Chronicle. She must have become pregnant soon thereafter; the doctor thought about August twentieth. They followed their dream, buying a small motel and a charter fishing business on Islamorada in the Florida Keys, and they moved there quickly. Her father had insisted that his investment counselor find the right place for them, and once found, he insisted on paying for it as a wedding gift. He wouldn’t hear of a loan. All he knew was that the opportunity had come for the arrival of more grandchildren.

When they settled in the small house next to the motel, Melissa Pace came to visit. She welcomed the reconciliation as much as they. In fact, it was Kathy who invited her, and the teenager jumped at the opportunity. The circle of Steve Pace’s life was complete.

He’d left the Chronicle without recriminations. Paul Wister assured him a job would be there for him if he ever chose to return. At the time, he thought he would never go back, but he wasn’t fool enough to close out the option.

“I forgot to tell you the other news,” Kathy said suddenly.

He looked at her expectantly.

“Avery’s come home from Europe, and he’s back as the editor of the paper,” she said.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From Hugh. He called this afternoon, before my doctor’s appointment. He said if you went back, he wanted me to come back, too. He’s under a lot of pressure from the party to make a run for the White House, and I think for the first time, he’s taking it seriously.”

“No fooling? When did Avery come home?”

“I guess about a week ago.”

“Is he okay?”

“From what Hugh said, I gather he’s in great spirits, ready to take on the world.”

Pace shook his head in wonder. “It took guts to take off like that, not knowing whether he’d have a job to come back to.”

“He’s always been a gutsy guy.”

“If Avery’s back as editor, I wonder what’s going to happen to Paul. He’s been acting editor since Avery left. Will he be satisfied going back to the national desk?”

“Hugh says he’s going to become executive editor or something like that. Maybe you should call up there and find out.”

Pace rolled the empty beer bottle around in the sand. “So Hugh offered you your old job back?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You want to go back?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you?”

“I don’t know.” He spread his arms to the sea. “This is terrific.”

“We could lease it and then take it back when we’re ready to come permanently.”

“Or we could stay.”

“We could do that, too.”

He looked at her, trying to gauge her feelings. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I think I’d like to stay at least until the baby is born. I’m not insisting on it, but I like Dr. Haviland. I’d like him to do the delivery.”

“Then we stay.”

“But that’s not the only consideration,” she said. “What do you want to do?”

He thought about it for a minute, then admitted, “I don’t know. I love being a reporter. But if I go back, there will be questions and looks, and I don’t know what job they have for me. I might not like it.”

“Then you wouldn’t have to take it.”

“But you’ve got a terrific opportunity with Hugh. I don’t want to screw that up.”

“Hugh isn’t putting pressure on me for a quick decision. We have time.”

He squeezed her hand. “Then let’s take it,” he suggested.

“I’d drink to that… if I were drinking,” she said.

They were quiet for a long time.

“If the baby’s a boy, I think we should name him Jonathan,” he said softly. “It would be a closure of sorts.”

“How about Jonathan Michael? That would make the closure complete.”

“I’d like that. He was a good friend.”

She was staring at the ocean and the setting sun. He was drawing something in the sand. By the time she noticed, he had finished. He’d modeled an airplane there, using a stone to dig the lines of a shape that looked as much like a Sexton 811 as he could create on a beach.

“That’s pretty good,” she told him. “But it’s below the tide line.”

“I know. That’s where I wanted it. Let’s go home.”

John Galipault died today.

Most of you who read this never knew John. And that is your loss.

Suffice it to say that anytime you step aboard an airplane, whether a two-seater or a giant jetliner, your trip will be safer because John once walked this earth.

He was the founder and president of the Aviation Safety Institute, an organization dedicated to precisely what its name suggests. Perhaps you saw one of John’s frequent appearances before Congress on national television, pushing for one air safety improvement or another.

He was a test pilot.

He was a flight instructor.

He was a college professor.

He was a writer.

He was a lacrosse coach.

He was a nag.

I remember a morning twenty years ago—when we were just getting to know one another—talking to John on the telephone about an aviation story, the exact nature of which I’ve long since forgotten. I recall his barely controlled frustration at having to explain to me exactly what it means to say an airplane has stalled. (Hint: It has nothing to do with the engine.)

“Heller,” he bellowed down the phone line from his office outside Columbus, Ohio, to mine in Washington, D.C., “if you’re going to write about airplanes, at least you could learn to fly so you understand what you’re writing about!”

It was a direct order, and I obeyed.

Over two decades our working relationship became a deep friendship.

When you read the following story, you will understand what I mean when I say John Galipault was my Mike McGill.

The last conversation we had, in fact, concerned this book. He had been kind enough to read the manuscript for technical accuracy, but he had a question on his mind.

“Did you pattern Mike McGill after me?” he asked, sounding at once embarrassed to probe and too curious not to.

“Yes,” I told him. “I think I did.”

“Neat,” he replied with a laugh. “I like that.”

It is only fitting, therefore, that I take this opportunity to say goodbye.

John, my friend, you are missed.

Check out ILL WIND , the fourth in Jean Heller’s prize-winning Deuce Mora Mystery Series.

Steve and Deuce team up in Chicago to solve a series of Mob murders in which there is no apparent cause of death for any of the victims. They were not shot, stabbed, beaten, poisoned, strangled, or asphyxiated. They definitely were murdered, but no one can figure out how.

Not to mention that one victim was murdered in a room that was locked from the inside after the crime. There is no obvious way the killer could have pulled off the killing and then fled.

Read this riveting mystery and the rest of the Deuce Mora series on Amazon Kindle or in print editions.

This is a work of fiction.

The characters and events found in these pages are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

MAXIMUM IMPACT

Copyright © 1993, 2020 by Jean Heller

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.