Arthur Hailey - Overload

She answered dully, "I want to believe you. But I can't. Leave me now, Nim. They're going to send me home this afternoon."

Standing, he told her, "I'll drive out soon."

She shook her head. "I'm not sure you should. But phone me."

He bent to kiss her cheek, then remembering her wishes, abandoned the attempt and went out quietly.

His mind was in turmoil. Clearly, Ardythe needed psychiatric help, but if Nim himself suggested it to Mary or anyone else, he would have to explain why-in detail. Even under the seal of medical confidence, he couldn't see himself doing that. At least, not yet.

The grief about Wally, Ardythe, and his own dilemma stayed with him through the day, refusing to be pushed away.

As if that wasn't enough, Nim was pilloried that afternoon in the California Examiner.

He had wondered if, in view of the emergency employment of a belicopter to airlift Wally out of Devil's Gate Camp, Nancy Molineaux might abandon her intention to write about the helicopter's other uses.

She hadn't.

Her story was in a box facing the editorial page.

The Captains and the Kings

. . . and GSP & L's Mr. Goldman

Ever wonder what it would be like to have a private helicopter whisk you wherever you wanted while you sat back and relaxed?

Most of us will never experience that exotic pleasure.

Those who do fall into certain categories-the President of the United States, the Shah of Iran, the late Howard Hughes, occasionally the Pope, and, oh yes, certain favored executives of your friendly public utility, Golden State Power & Light. For example-Mr. Nimrod Goldman.

Why Goldman?, you might ask.

Well, it seems that Mr. Goldman, who is a GSP & L vice president, is too important to ride on a bus, even though one -privately chartered by Golden State Power-was going his way the other day and had plenty of spare seats. Instead be chose a helicopter which . . .

There was more, along with a picture of a GSP & L helicopter and an unflattering portrait of Nim which, he suspected, Ms. Molineaux chose from the newspaper's files.

Especially damaging was a paragraph which read:

Electric and gas consumers, already beset by high utility bills, and who have been told that rates must soon go up again, may wonder about the way their money is being spent by GSP & L, a quasi-public company. Perhaps if executives like Nimrod Goldman were willing to travel-like the rest of us-less glamorously, the resultant savings, along with other economies, could help hold down those persistent rate increases.

In mid-afternoon Nim folded the newspaper and flagged the article, then gave it to J. Eric Humphrey's secretary. "Tell the chairman I figured he'd see this anyway, so he might as well get it from me."

Minutes later Humphrey strode into Nim's office and tossed the paper down. He was angrier than Nim had ever seen him and, uncharacteristically, raised his voice. "In God's name what were you thinking of to get us into this mess? Don't you know the Public Utilities Commission is considering our application for a rate increase, and will hand down a decision in the next few days? This is just the kind of thing to raise a public clamor which could make them cut our throats."

Nim released some irritability of his own. "Of course I know that." He motioned to the newspaper. "I'm as upset about this as you are. But that damn woman reporter had her scalping knife out. If she hadn't picked the helicopter, it would have been something else."

"Not necessarily; not if she hadn't found anything. By using the helicopter indiscreetly as you did, you dumped an opportunity in her lap."

On the point of snapping back, Nim decided to keep quiet. Taking blame unfairly, he supposed, could be considered part of an assistant's job. Only two weeks earlier the chairman had told his senior aides at an informal meeting, "If you can save yourself half a day's travel, and do your job faster and more efficiently, use a company helicopter because it's cheaper in the long run. I realize we need those aircraft for transmission line patrols and emergencies, but when they're not in use that way, it costs very little more to have them in the air than it does to keep them on the ground."

Something else Eric Humphrey had presumably forgotten was asking Nim to take on the two-day press briefing and to represent him at an important Chamber of Commerce meeting the morning of the first day of the press tour.

There was no way Nim could have done both without using the helicopter.

However, Humphrey was a fair man and would probably remember later. Even if he failed to, Nim reasoned, it didn't much matter.

But that three-day combination of events had left him exhausted and melancholy. Thus, when Harry London, who knew some-though not all-of the reasons behind Nim's depression, had dropped in to suggest some drinking after work, Nim accepted promptly.

Now he felt the liquor taking hold and, while he wasn't any happier, an increasing numbness was somehow comforting. In a corner of his brain still functioning with clarity, Nim. despised himself for what he was doing, and the implied weakness. Then he reminded himself it didn't happen often-he couldn't remember the last time he had had too much to drink-and maybe just letting yourself go once in a while, saying to hell with everything, could be therapeutic.

"Let me ask you something, Harry," Nim said thickly. "You a religious man? Do you believe in God?"

Once more London drank deeply, then used a handkerchief to wipe beer foam from his lips. "No to the first. About the second, put it this way: I've never made a big deal about not believing."

"How about personal guilt? You carry a lot of that around?" Nim was remembering Ardythe, who had asked: "Doesn't your religion teach you to believe in God's anger and punishment?" This afternoon he had dismissed the question. Since then, annoyingly, it had replayed itself in his mind several times.

"I guess everybody's got some guilt." London seemed inclined to end his statement there, then changed his mind and added, "I sometimes think about two guys in Korea, close buddies of mine. We were on a recce patrol near the Yalu River. Those two were further forward than the rest of us, then we were all pinned down by enemy fire. The two guys needed help to get back. I was a topkick, in charge, and should have led the rest of us right then, taking a chance to reach them. While I was still dithering, making up my mind, the gooks found them; a grenade blew them both to bits. That's a guilt I carry around; that and some others."

He drank again, then said, "You know what you're doing, pal? You're getting us both . . . what's that word?"

"Maudlin," Nim said, having trouble pronouncing it.

"You got it! . . . maudlin." Harry London nodded solemnly as the cocktail bar pianist began playing As Time Goes By.

Davey Birdsong, who had been inspecting the Sequoia Club's impressive headquarters, inquired cheekily, "Where's the chairman's private sauna?

And after that I'd like to see your solid gold toilet seat."

"We don't have either," Laura Bo Carmichael said, a trifle stiffly. She was not entirely at case with the bearded, portly, jesting Birdsong, who, though a naturalized American for many years, still exhibited some of the rough outback manners of his native Australia. Laura Bo, who had met Birdsong a few times previously at outside meetings, equated him with the

"Jolly Swagman" in Waltzing Matilda.

Which was ridiculous, of course, and she knew it. Though Davey Birdsong seemed to make a point of sounding uncultured and dressed the same way-today be wore shabby, patched jeans and running shoes with string for laces-the Sequoia Club chairman was well aware he was a scholar of stature, holding a master's degree in sociology, as well as being a part-time lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley. He had also put together a coalition of consumer, church and left-wing political groups which called itself p & lfp-or, power & light for people. (the lower case initials were, in Birdsong's words, "to emphasize we are not capitalists.")