“You should have told Marshall you’d see Lund if he got approval from Helmutsen.”
“Helmutsen’s scared to death of Marshall. He wouldn’t have said no if Marshall wanted permission to feed me to piranhas in the Amazon River.”
A waiter arrived with two steaming bowls of pinkish bean soup, thick enough to hold up a spoon and swimming with navy beans and pieces of diced ham. He placed one in front of each man and put a ham-and-cheese-on-rye to the right of Ridley’s cutlery. He poured fresh coffee for both.
Davis looked at the meal in front of his companion and shook his head. “There’s enough cholesterol there to plug every artery in your body, George,” he said. “You ever think about diet and exercise?”
“I think about ’em,” Ridley replied.
Davis smiled. He tasted his soup, reached for the pepper shaker and asked again about the meeting with Lund.
“There’s not much to tell,” Ridley said. “I told Lund that Marshall was concerned about the findings of the investigation because Converse is an important constituent. I asked how the investigation was going. He told me what everybody already knew: The engines were the center of attention. I told him Marshall wanted to be kept informed of the progress of the investigation, and the senator was very concerned the engines be given the benefit of the doubt.” He paused. “No, I said it stronger. I told him Marshall wanted Converse protected to the maximum extent possible.”
Davis was using his spoon to fold the pepper into the soup but was paying no attention to the process. His eyes were fixed on Ridley. “So how’d he react?”
Ridley had his arms on the table, encircling his food as though to protect it from theft. He snagged half of his sandwich in his left hand, spooning soup into his mouth with his right, eating at the two alternately, barely taking time to chew and swallow. His mouth was half full when he began to speak, and Davis had to look away.
“He said no conclusion had been reached, and Senator Marshall should be satisfied that the investigation would be thorough and fair,” Ridley replied around the food. “I told him the senator wanted total access, and he said he was aware of the senator’s position and would be as cooperative as he could be.” Ridley took another spoonful of soup, pushing the remnants of the half-sandwich into his mouth after it. “I asked him if he thought it would be possible to blame the accident on something other than a failure of the engine”—the expression on Davis’s face changed suddenly from one of intense interest to one of abject horror, and Ridley shrugged—”Hey, I was only carrying the message Marshall gave me.”
“Christ, how’d he take that?”
“He asked what I meant. I told him Senator Marshall was concerned about the future of Converse, and it could be detrimental to the company to be blamed for the accident.”
“Jesus, of all the goddamned stupid things to say, George.” Davis let his spoon fall with a cushioned thud to the table. “It sounds like you were asking him to put in a fix.”
“I carried the fucking message the way I got it, Chappy. If your goddamned senator didn’t want to sound like he was askin’ special favors, he shudda rephrased the message. Besides, what did I say that wasn’t true? Marshall is concerned about Converse, and a finding against the engine could be detrimental to the company.”
“You could have been a little more diplomatic.”
“Diplomacy’s for the fuckin’ State Department,” Ridley snapped, grabbing the other half-sandwich and leaping to his feet. “I ain’t his damned goodwill ambassador. That pilgrimage to Lund wasn’t my idea, and if you don’t like the way I handled things, you and Harold Marshall can damned well go to hell!” He stomped off with the rest of his lunch in his hand, leaving Davis to wonder how he was going to set things right with Lund.
He was still chewing on the problem three hours later when he walked into Lund’s temporary headquarters at Dulles.
Pace finished writing and sent his story to Paul Wister. As a courtesy, he filled in Suzy O’Connor and Metro Editor Winston Henry. It kept turf-conscious noses from bending out of shape at the odor of a national-desk reporter farting around in somebody else’s territory. Suze winked and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Henry was solicitous. “We figured this was your story,” he said. “Let me know if there’s anything we can do to help.” It was obvious to Pace that both of them knew of his trouble with Schaeffer and were glad to see him working his way out of it.
Pace was exhausted, though he’d been up fewer than six hours. It was a combination of tension and sleep the night before that more resembled a drunken coma than useful rest. He hung around until Wister had a chance to see his copy.
The national editor scanned the story and sent it to Schaeffer. It was second-guessing time, Pace figured. But ten minutes later Schaeffer came out and nodded. He made no effort to make eye contact with Pace, but he didn’t hassle him again, either. Wister walked up to Pace’s desk.
“Every comeback starts with one step,” he said. “Your first wasn’t bad.”
Pace nodded and averted his eyes. “Thanks,” he said.
He suddenly felt so weak and disoriented he didn’t think he could stand. He put his head down on his folded arms and tried to make sense of the past week. Had it been only a week? Images dashed around behind his closed eyelids like flies around carrion. The dead Sexton jetliner. Kathy in total despair. His lunch with Mike. Kathy again, always and everywhere. George Ridley. The mess in the main Dulles terminal. The flashing red-and-blue police lights bouncing incessantly off his retinas on Georgetown Pike. The body bags. And faces. The stern cop on the Beltway. Kathy again. Avery, smiling. Paul. Avery, furious. Mike on the last night of his life. Ken Sachs. Kathy, leaning into him, holding him tightly, pulling his face down to hers. Kathy…
The hand on his shoulder was rough. He shrugged it off. It came back again.
“Hey, laddy… Steve, boy… Talk to me, Steve, boy.”
Oh, shit. That goddamned Irish brogue. Go away.
“Boyo, wake up. Yer snorin’ is not doin’ a bloomin’ thing to help concentration around here. Come on, me friend. This is yer old South Boston buddy offerin’ to buy ya a wee beer if you’ll jest lift yer head off yer arms and open yer beady little eyes.”
Pace lifted his head reluctantly and blinked against the bright fluorescent lighting. Had he fallen asleep? He looked at his watch. It was 5:40. If he had dozed, it was for just a few minutes. He stifled a yawn and smiled sheepishly at Brennan, who responded by tugging at his arm.
“Let’s go over to The Grapevine, and I’ll buy you a beer to celebrate the end of this day.” Brennan laughed. “Then I’ll pour you into your car and send you home to bed—or to sleep, whichever you prefer.”
“One beer,” Pace said. “No more. I have plans tonight.”
“It’s a promise.”
Pace called Kathy and told her he’d be home in about an hour.
The Grapevine, as always at that hour, was jammed and noisy, filled with off-duty reporters and press groupies, including some reasonably high-ranking government officials. Each had something to say about the current state of world and national affairs, and everyone tried to say it at the same time. The establishment was laid out in a shotgun design, far longer than wide. The east wall was given to a bar. Every stool under the bar’s padded wine-leather rim had at least one butt on it, and each space between the stools held at least two more. Four bartenders moved back and forth in perpetual motion, passing each other and then doubling back in a ritual dance to alcohol.
The west wall was lined with wine-leather banquettes, each stuffed with more bodies, and in the aisle between the banquettes and the bar—supposed to be kept open for safety reasons—people stood elbow-to-elbow. Waitresses trying to serve the banquettes would turn from the bar, disappear into the crowd and appear again, as if by magic, on the other side to replace stale drinks with fresh and overflowing ashtrays with clean.