“But since the Post wasn’t in the lead, it didn’t have as far to fall,” Wister pointed out. “You not only got beaten, Pace, you got stomped. Around here, that’s unacceptable.”
Pace was tired of the abuse, tired of the pressure, tired of Wister, even tired of the consuming good heart of Avery Schaeffer.
“Do you want my resignation?” he asked.
Schaeffer sat forward in his chair so abruptly it rocked on its pedestal.
“God, no,” he said. “We’re disappointed. I’m sure you’re disappointed. But those guys get paid, too. They weren’t going to roll over and play dead for you. I’m concerned because we lost sight of our objective. I’m not sure I know how to prevent it. You thought you had a hot lead on what would have been an incredible story. I don’t like to put too close a rein on a reporter with a good idea, but we didn’t have the right mix of priorities.”
“So what now?” Pace asked. “Where do you want me to go from here?”
“We have to catch up,” Schaeffer said with distaste. “Find out if the Times is right or wrong, although I doubt Justin Smith is wrong. We’ll have to do something for tomorrow. Call your friend at the NTSB lab. Maybe he can give you more details. Do the best you can.”
There were a few moments of awkward silence.
“Look, Steve, nobody goes through a career without getting beat now and then. It’s never pleasant, but it’s not the end of the world. The sun will still rise tomorrow, and there will be a new edition of the Chronicle. Go back to work.”
Pace nodded and rose to leave. He noticed that Wister remained seated, apparently waiting to say something to Schaeffer privately. The reporter figured he was to be the subject of the further discussion. Schaeffer might accept the defeat and live with it; Wister never would. He expected perfection from himself and from everyone else and was loath to accept less. Pace knew for a certainty his relationship with the national editor had deteriorated, perhaps beyond salvage.
When Pace returned to his desk, he found a message from McGill. It asked that the reporter call Hangar Three. It wasn’t a call Pace was in a mood to make.
“I was as surprised as anyone by the Times story this morning,” the pilot said. “I wanted you to know I wasn’t holding out on you.”
“I know. Thanks.”
“You weren’t the only one unhappily surprised, by the way. I had breakfast with Lund, and the story was news to him, too.”
“What?” Pace’s reaction was more a bellow of disbelief than a question.
“I’m not kidding. And boy, is he pissed about the leak.”
“I’m not sure I believe him. He’s not above leaking it himself and lying about it.”
“Lund’s okay. He’s a good bureaucrat.”
“That’s an oxymoron.”
“That’s your prejudice.”
“Acknowledged.”
“You’re in an even lousier mood than I expected.”
“I don’t like getting beat.”
“We still have our own mystery to solve.”
“Hell, Mike, there’s no mystery. The call was a hoax. The wreck was a coincidence.”
“That doesn’t sound like the reporter I used to know, the one who wouldn’t rest until the questions all had answers.”
“That’s my problem. I kept after those answers when I should have been asking the questions Justin Smith was asking.”
“Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Bullshit. I’m pissed, that’s all.”
“I gather you haven’t heard any more about the ID on the driver?”
“No. And I don’t know if I can get it today. Schaeffer wants me to stay on the main story, and I think I’ll do what he wants. I’m in such deep shit now, I might never shovel out.”
“You ever hear the story about the two brothers, optimist and pessimist?”
“I don’t know. Is this Aesop redux?”
“One kid is the happiest child in the world. The other, the saddest. Parents are desperate. Want little optimist to understand reality and little pessimist to lighten up. A psychiatrist suggests putting each in his own room, little pessimist with all the toys he ever wanted, and little optimist with ten tons of horse manure. Teach each of them that things are never as bad or as good as they think. Parents do it. Five hours later, they check on the kids. Little pessimist is crying. Parents ask him why. He says he’s played with all the toys and he’s bored. In the other room, little optimist is singing at the top of his lungs, digging in the manure as fast as he can. Parents ask the kid what he’s so happy about. Kid replies, ‘With all this shit, there must be a pony in here somewhere.’
“Hold the thought.”
George Thomas Greenwood hadn’t been surprised to find two messages from Harold Marshall waiting on his desk that morning. He was getting tired of nursemaiding the guy, but Marshall was taking some tough chances for Converse. Nobody could question his loyalty, so Greenwood would hold his hand as long as necessary. From the moment Cullen Ferguson called at 6:00 A.M. to tell Greenwood about The New York Times piece, the CEO had expected the next ring of his phone would be Marshall. So he’d turned the ringer off and enjoyed his breakfast.
“Harold, I can’t guess why you’re calling,” Greenwood said jovially when Marshall’s secretary put him through to the senator’s private office.
“I want to hear how your scenario stands up now,” Marshall said.
“It stands up fine. I’ve told you all along: no problem. I don’t know why you’re making so much of the Times story. So the crew tried to ram the plane into the air and the wing shattered. That’s Sexton’s problem, not ours. If their airfoil wasn’t tough enough, then the crash is in their laps and they’re welcome to it. We’re off the hook.”
“That’s a huge stretch,” Marshall said.
“We’re on very solid ground here, Harold. Don’t flare out on me.”
“I’m not flaring out,” Marshall protested. “I wanted to talk it through.”
“Okay, it’s talked through. Feel better?”
“About Converse? Yes. About Senator Harold Marshall? I think he sold his soul.”
“Perhaps,” said Greenwood. “But the price was right.”
NTA2464 flew a grueling round trip this day from New York to San Francisco and back. The flights were uneventful.
But inside the cowling of Number One engine, the twin hairline fractures in a titanium turbine disk continued to spread.
Pace struggled against the instinct to cancel his plans with Kathy. The possibility of a renewal of their relationship was a prospect too wonderful to risk by succumbing to a bad day at the office. He’d been beaten on stories before; he’d be beaten again. This one was especially painful because his editors attributed it more to his recalcitrance than to Justin Smith’s reporting skills. He wondered if they weren’t right.
His decision to go out anyway was the correct one. Kathy was a sympathetic ear.
“Did you have to try to match the Times story?” she asked.
“Yes, and that’s a humiliating thing to do,” Pace told her. “Everybody you talk to knows you got beat and you’re playing catch-up.”
“Maybe you’re attributing feelings to them they don’t really have,” she suggested.
“Some of them do. Con Phillips has been kidding me about having a crystal ball, seeing things other reporters don’t. Today he said he heard the crystal ball had been stolen. Offered to give me a tip on where I might find it. He thought it was pretty funny. Bureaucrats love to see reporters take headers in the dirt.”