Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Pace got off the bed and headed for the bathroom, then detoured into the kitchen. He started the coffee and tried Conklin again. Still no answer. Damn it, anyway. Either the NTSB had its technicians on twenty-four-hour duty or Eddie had turned off the ringer on his telephone.

Five aspirin, a cold shower, and black coffee did help, and by the time Pace left his New Hampshire Avenue apartment, he was feeling halfway decent.

It was another gorgeous spring day, and he took his car out of the underground garage reluctantly. He walked into the newsroom shortly before 9:30 and was surprised to see Avery Schaeffer already there. A fresh copy of the Saturday Chronicle was lying on Pace’s desk. He’d scanned it at home, but he opened it again. The banner headline read:

It’s provocative, Pace thought.

He sat down to reread the story. Given the jerky way it had come together, his fondest hope was that it made sense.

He was well into it when he sensed someone sit down beside him at the desk belonging to the environmental writer, Jack Tarshis. It was Schaeffer. He leaned way back in the chair, crossed his hands in his lap, and put his feet up on Tarshis’s desk. He nodded toward Pace’s copy of the Chronicle.

“Not bad for a beginner,” he said. He was smiling broadly.

“How’d the other guys do?” Pace dared ask.

“Not bad, but not great. All of them had the bird-strike theory and those FAA reports, but you were alone with the TransAm thing in Seattle.”

“What about the engine-performance angle?”

“Justin Smith had a little of it, but I didn’t think he was as thorough as you.”

Pace felt good. “I wonder if Mike’s caught any rockets from the home office,” he said.

“He’s a big boy. He knows when he talks to a reporter, his name’s gonna get in the paper. It’s my impression McGill was talking on the record for TransAm.”

“Yeah, on the Seattle deal, but somebody in Memphis might figure, since it’s in the same story, he also had a hand in the questions about the Converse Fan. That wouldn’t go down well in TransAm’s glass tower.”

“If he has any balls at all, and I think he probably has, he can take the heat.”

“Balls he has,” Pace said, smiling. “And he loves ’em too much to risk ’em for us.”

They got coffee, passed pleasantries, and wound up back at the adjoining desks.

“Tell me about your conversation yesterday with George Ridley,” Schaeffer said.

Pace was surprised. He hadn’t been at all sure Paul Wister actually would tell Schaeffer about the encounter with the Senate aide. When he finished, Schaeffer was quiet for a minute, mulling it over. “What do you think?” the editor asked.

“It’s natural for Marshall to look after an important constituent.” Pace shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to face Schaeffer so the two sat almost knees to knees. “But the message to go easy on Converse… that stinks. And he’s taking a huge risk. He must know Ridley detests him. The story could get out, and if it does, it’ll destroy him.”

“Ridley’s been on the Hill for a long time,” Schaeffer said. “He didn’t get to be chief of staff of a major committee without playing the game by its rules. Marshall’s probably banking that Ridley won’t change. In his place, I probably would, too.”

“I don’t much give a damn what happens to Marshall,” Pace said. “But I’m concerned about the impact on the NTSB. If I could corroborate Ridley, I’d be pressing hard to write the story. Marshall’s tampering with a federal investigation. That’s a crime.” Pace paused, seeing Schaeffer regard him closely. The editor said nothing, so he finished his thought. “What if somebody at the NTSB takes him seriously? What if they think he’s a threat to their appropriations or to their jobs? What if they follow his suggestion and some serious flaw in the engine doesn’t get reported? What if this thing happens again and another three hundred people die?”

“Do you have that little faith in the NTSB?”

“No,” Pace acknowledged. “And maybe,” he added as an afterthought.

He leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs and stared at the carpet between his shoes. “I keep remembering a silly conversation I had with our family doctor when I was, oh, like in the fifth or sixth grade. His name was Angus Frankenhauser, but none of the kids could pronounce Frankenhauser, so we all called him Doctor Frank. He was talking to my mother one day about this big mess in town over the opening of an abortion clinic. Doctor Frank said he could never perform an abortion; he believed it was murder. I remember I butted in and asked him, ‘Doctor Frank, if somebody offered you a million dollars, would you change your mind?’

“Mom was really pissed, but Doctor Frank sat back in his big leather chair—he wasn’t upset at all—and he thought about it. Then he said, ‘Stevie, I honestly don’t know. What I do know is God didn’t make any of us perfect. Every man’s got his price. No matter how deep a man’s convictions run, there’s some price so high he won’t be able to stand up to the temptation. Maybe it’s money. Maybe it’s fame. Maybe it’s power. Maybe it’s something else altogether. As much as I’d like it not to be so, I suspect I’ve got a price like everybody else. All I can hope is I never find out what it is.’”

Pace looked up from the floor. “It’s one of those childhood things I’ve never forgotten. I can still hear him say it. It makes me wonder what Marshall’s price is to save a big constituent. Or an NTSB investigator’s price to protect his agency or his job.”

“I think Doctor Frank was a wise man,” Schaeffer said. “What town was that in?”

“Big city,” Pace said. “Litchfield, Indiana. It’s on all the maps.”

Schaeffer leaned forward in his own chair. “Steve, I think, based on nothing more than the wisdom of Doctor Frank, you should watch Harold Marshall. But don’t jump to the conclusion somebody’s already found his moral shutoff button. I remember right after Watergate, kids were beating down doors to get into journalism schools. Every big-city paper, especially here, got applications out the ass from wanna-be Woodwards and Bernsteins. All these kids assumed there were Pulitzer Prizes waiting in the streets for them. They had all the enthusiasm with none of the tempering experience or judgment. Public officials aren’t made to be broken. Most of them do the best jobs they can. A few work damned hard and turn out to be outstanding. You watch Marshall, but you assume his intentions are justifiable until you have absolute proof that isn’t the case.”

“The Sherlock Holmes test?”

“You got it. Report the story as far as you can, reject everything you can disprove, and what’s left, no matter how strange, must be the truth.”

Schaeffer heaved himself out of the chair and clapped Pace on the shoulder. “Don’t let this little talk inhibit you. I still want you on the investigation like sweat on a whore.”

“Sweat on a whore?” Pace asked with mock incredulity as Schaeffer walked away.

“Whatever,” Schaeffer replied, waving his hand. “Just don’t be wrong—”

“—and don’t get beat, I know.”

It was 11:00 A.M., 8:00 A.M. on the West Coast, early enough that Pace thought he might catch Whitney Warner, Sexton’s vice-president for public affairs, in her office before she got tied up in an endless series of meetings. Although the honchos rarely worked on Saturdays, surely this Saturday would be an exception. And if they were working, they would be meeting. That’s what corporate executives did on the West Coast, Pace had decided once. They stayed in meetings for eight or nine hours a day to avoid phone calls from executives on the East Coast.