Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

He languished, growing more bitter and more certain that when his time came to strike back at the industry, his would be a monumental blow. This was his chance, his distaste for violence notwithstanding. There was a million dollars cash in this, and there was no act of violence, no deed of sabotage, no threat to public safety he was unable to rationalize to claim his just due.

“You did well,” he said, crossing the room to a nightstand. He pulled a hotel envelope from the drawer and handed it to Bonaro. “This is payment in full. I know where I can reach you if we need you again. Take the equipment. Leave the tape.”

Bonaro and Stock dismantled and packed their VCR. They left without a word.

Parkhall wandered over to the window, which looked out over Dulles. The noise-proofing and the distance from the terminal prevented any sound from penetrating. He whispered to the night that couldn’t hear him, “Stay out of this, McGill, or you’re dead, too.”

If Parkhall had been in New York at John F. Kennedy Airport instead of at Washington Dulles, he could have seen a big silver-and-blue Sexton 811, owned by TransAmerican Airlines, glide in for a perfect landing on Runway 13R.

As they taxied toward their gate, the captain and first officer grinned at each other.

“This is a dream ship,” the first officer gushed.

“No less,” the captain agreed. “She feels so damned solid, like she could fly forever.”

But the aircraft they had come to love carried the registration NTA2464.

And flying forever was one thing she would not be able to do.

Pace picked up the Chronicle lying in front of his apartment door and shuffled in wearily as daylight began to brighten the eastern sky. He was still a little bit drunk.

He and McGill had remained at the scene of the accident until the Virginia cops ordered them and the two who’d arrived in the beat-up blue van to leave. They’d gone back to the Dulles Marriott to have a drink and talk things over. The bar was closed, but McGill had a bottle of Black Jack in his room. So they got a bucket of ice, set the ice and the bottle between them on the round, phony-wood-grain motel-room table, and tried to make sense of the night.

They’d had little success in coming to any supportable conclusions, though they’d had great success depleting the supply of Jack Daniel’s. Pace thought he wasn’t being affected by the liquor until he got up to leave several hours later and felt the room tilt.

McGill suggested he spend what was left of the night in the unused second double bed right there, but Pace said he had to be at work early and insisted on going home. McGill let him go after extracting a promise that Pace would stay off roads like Georgetown Pike and stick to highways that were wider and straighter.

They’d walked to Pace’s car still debating whether the death they witnessed earlier had any connection to their investigation.

“I guess we’ll know when you find out who the poor sap was,” McGill said. “I keep thinking about the voice of the man who called. It sounded sincere and frightened. I’m not imagining it. I wouldn’t have called you out in the middle of the night if I hadn’t been convinced it was legit.”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve said that. It’s beginning to sound like an apology.”

“That’s not the way I mean it.”

They reached Pace’s Honda sedan. “Let’s do as we agreed and go on with our jobs and see where this leads us, if anywhere,” the reporter summed up. “You watch goings-on at the hangar, and I’ll check on the body’s ID first thing in the morning.”

“It is morning,” McGill said, checking his watch.

“Oh, fuck,” Pace responded. “I’ll do it first thing later this morning.”

He got into the car, keyed the engine, and thumbed the electric buttons that lowered the front windows on both the driver and passenger sides. He would leave them open, and perhaps the fresh air would clear his head.

“Put your seatbelt on, hotshot,” McGill ordered. “And drive carefully. I’ll call you.”

Pace made it home with a minimum of weaving, although he did draw a long look from a Virginia highway patrolman who passed him on the Beltway. Pace nodded and apparently was sufficiently convincing. By the time he turned the key in his door, he felt ready for the junk heap.

The red light on his answering machine was flashing. Pace hit the playback button.

It was Kathy. She’d called late the night before.

“Hi, Steve. It’s just before eleven, and I thought you’d be home. You sure are working hard.” Pace heard her take a deep breath. “Daddy called this afternoon. The airline released Jonny’s body to us.” Her voice cracked. God, how he wanted to be with her. “I’m flying to Boston early tomorrow for the funeral on Monday—Betsy decided Jonny should be buried in the family plot—but I’m not going to stay in Boston very long. You know Daddy. Get over the grief and get on with life. He told me he wants me to come back to Washington right after the funeral. So I’ll be home Monday night. Before I left, I wanted to say thanks for everything you’ve done, and I wanted, well, I’d like to see you when I get back. Good luck with your stories. ’Bye.”

He also had a message to call Glenn Brennan if he got home before midnight, but he was many hours late for that.

Pace fixed coffee and breakfast—if a single English muffin is breakfast—and sat down to read the Sunday Chronicle. The big headline said:

Below was a subhead:

It carried his byline. He hoped the story wasn’t as flimsy in the reading as he’d thought it in the writing the evening before. He didn’t have the stamina to find out. He left the table and went to his bedroom to shower, but he couldn’t hold his eyes open. He flopped on the bed with the thought that if he could rest for a few minutes, he’d be fine.

Thirty seconds later, still fully clothed, he was sound asleep.

Several colleagues stared as Pace eased himself down at his desk. If he looked as lousy as he felt, he could have been taken for a vagrant. Glenn Brennan wandered over.

“It was either an all-night binge or a wild and crazy sex orgy to which I was not invited,” Brennan said as he dropped into Jack Tarshis’s chair. “You didn’t have an orgy and forget about your old buddy Glenn, now did ye?”

“None of the above,” Pace replied weakly. He needed a lift, but Brennan’s needling wasn’t the ticket. It would have to be something more profound, something like Kathy keeping her promise and asking to see him when she returned to Washington.

“Ah, denial,” said Brennan, waving a forefinger in the air. “’Twould lead me to believe ’twas the orgy, then, ye no-account scoundrel. I want details, man. Details!”

“Glenn, I don’t need this today. What are you doing here anyway? It’s Sunday.”

“There’s a memorial thing on the Hill today—not that he deserves it—for the fascist congressman from California, and they called me in to cover it. But don’t be changin’ the subject. I want details of this affair.”

“There was no all-night party. No sex orgy. I was working.”

Brennan stared at him, scowling. “ ’Tis scum ye was born, and ’tis scum ye will die,” he continued. “Glory, but yer a dog-faced asshole.”

Pace raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know ‘asshole’ was an Irish word.”

“ ’Tis since the Irish met you.”