Arthur Hailey - Overload

Press photographers, who had begun shooting as the limousine stopped, were continuing as if film were inexhaustible. A TV crew, which had been waiting, moved in closer to the movie star.

An interview ensued.

Interviewer (with great respect): Mr. Clarke, why are you here?

Cameron Clarke: I am here, as an ordinary humble citizen, to protest an ill-conceived, sordid and totally unneeded scheme which would desecrate the magnificent, unspoiled area of California known as Tunipah.

Interviewer Sir, those are strong words. Would you explain why you feel that way?

Cameron Clarke .: Certainly. The Tunipah plan is ill-conceived because it is anti-en-vironment. It is sordid because the objective is to make profits for Golden State Power & Light, which doesn't need them. It is unnecessary because another source of power is available; furthermore, conservation could reduce power needs by more than Tunipah would generate.

Nim and Paul Yale were within hearing. "He's reciting lines," Nim 2muttered angrily. "I wonder what uninformed idiot wrote them for him."

Interviewer: What is that other source of power, Mr. Clarke?

Cameron Clarke .: Solar energy.

Interviewer: You believe that solar could be available now?

Cameron Clarke .: Absolutely. However, there is no hurry, even for solar. The talk we hear of electrical shortage is just a scare tactic-propaganda put out by the power companies.

A spectator shouted, "Attaboy, Cameron! That's telling the bastards! Stick it to 'em!"

The actor looked up, waved an acknowledgment, and smiled.

Nim told his companion, "I think I've heard enough. If you don't mind, Mr. Yale, I'll start back north and leave you to the hearing. It looks as if it will be quite a production."

"I know who'll be the star, and it isn't me," Yale said ruefully. "All right, Nim; you go. Thanks for all your help."

As Nim elbowed his way outward through the crowd, Yale beckoned a policeman and identified himself. A moment later, unnoticed, he was escorted into the State Building.

The TV interview with Cameron Clarke was continuing.

* * *

"Actually," Oscar O'Brien said next day, "when you get Cameron Clarke by himself, you find out he's a pretty decent guy. I talked to him; I also know a couple of his friends. He has a solid marriage and three kids he's crazy about. The trouble is though, whenever he opens his mouth in public, what he says gets treated as if it came from Mount Olympus."

The general counsel, who had appeared at the Fresno hearing, was reporting-at an inquest session-to J. Eric Humphrey, Teresa Van Buren, and Nim.

"As it turned out," O'Brien said, "the main reason Clarke is opposed to Tunipah is that he owns property near there-a hideaway place he and his family use in summers. They keep horses, ride the trails, fish, sometimes camp out overnight. He's afraid our Tunipah development would spoil all that, and he's probably right."

Eric Humphrey asked, "Was the point not made that the welfare of millions of Californians outweighs the holiday privileges of one individual?"

"It was made all right," O'Brien said. "Christ knows, I tried on cross-examination. But do you think anyone cared? No! Cameron Clarke objected to Tunipah and the god of the silver screen had spoken. That was all that mattered."

The lawyer stopped, remembering, then said, "When Clarke spoke 2his piece at the hearing about despoiling nature-and, by God, I have to admit he was good, it was like Marc Antony orating over Caesar's corpse-there were people, among those crowded in, who were crying. I mean it-crying!"

"I still think someone wrote his lines," Nim said. "From all I bear, he doesn't know that much about anything."

O'Brien shrugged. "It's academic."

He added, "I'll tell you something else. When Clarke had finished testifying and was ready to leave, the presiding Commissioner sent word he would appreciate an autograph. Wanted it for his niece, he said. Damn liar! It was for himself."

"Whichever way you slice it," Teresa Van Buren pronounced, "Cameron Clarke has done our cause a lot of harm."

No one mentioned what scarcely needed saying: That TV, radio and print reviews of the movie actor's brief appearance had eclipsed all other news about Tunipah. In the Chronicle-West and California Examiner, the statement by the Governor of California in support of the project rated a brief paragraph near the end of the Clarke-dominated report. On TV it was not mentioned at all. As to Paul Sherman Yale's appearance, that was totally ignored.

Instinct told Nancy Molineaux she was onto something. Possibly a major story, though so far it was shapeless and insubstantial. There were other problems. One was that she didn't really know what she was looking for. Another was the practical need to do other, regular reporting jobs for the California Examiner, which limited the time available for her nebulous quest. Making it even more difficult was the fact that she had not confided in anyone yet, particularly the Examiner's city editor, who was always in a mad rush for results and could never understand that finesse and patience could sometimes be important tools of a good reporter. Nancy had both.

She had been using them since the Golden State Power & Light annual shareholders meeting when Nim Goldman suggested to her in anger, "Why not investigate him?"

"Him" was Davey Birdsong.

Goldman, of course, had blown his cool and did not expect her to take the suggestion seriously. But, after thinking about it, Nancy bad.

She had been curious about Birdsong before. Nancy mistrusted people who were always on the side of righteousness and the downtrodden, or would like you to think they were, as Davey Birdsong did. Nancy's experience was that those kinds of liberal-populist do-gooders were usually looking out for number one first, with all others trailing a long way behind and getting the leftover crumbs. She had seen a lot of that at first hand-in black communities as well as white.

Mr. Milo Molineaux, Nancy's father, was not a liberal do-gooder. He was a building contractor who, throughout his life, had pursued one forthright, stated objective: To transform himself from a poor boy, born of black parents in rural Louisiana, into a rich man. He had succeeded, had done it honestly, and nowadays Mr. Molineaux was very rich indeed.

Yet her father, Nancy had observed, had done more for people of his own race-by providing steady employment, fair wages and human dignity-than a thousand political activists and their kind who (as the saying went) "had never had to meet a payroll."

She despised some of the liberals, including white ones who acted as if they were trying to atone personally for three hundred years of black slavery. The way those idiots behaved was as if a black person could do nothing wrong-ever. Nancy amused herself by being rude and bitcby to them, watching them take it and smile, and letting her get away with the inexcusable just because she was black. While they did, her contempt for them grew.

She did not despise Nim Goldman. In fact-though the knowledge would have amazed Nim-she had come to like and admire him.

Goldman hated her guts, and Nancy knew it. He hated her straightforwardly, making no effort to conceal it. He hated her as a reporter and as a woman. Nancy was perfectly sure her color had nothing to do with Goldman's hatred, which would have been just as intense had she been white, yellow or a shade of purple. Where his hatred of Nancy Molineaux was concerned, Goldman was color-blind.

Which was as it should be. Ergo, Nancy respected him.

In a perverse way-which she recognized as perverse-she rather enjoyed arousing Goldman's anger. It was so goddam refreshing! just the same, enough was enough. Twice she had impaled him well and truly, but it wasn't fair to go on doing it. Besides, the son-of-a-bitch had guts and was honest, which was more than you could say for most of those sleazy pontificators at the bearing where Goldman had spoken his mind and afterward got gagged.