Impact (30 page)

“That rather depends on you.”

His optimism fades. “How me?”

She looks toward the storm that stirs the bay. “For one thing, are you planning to propose to me anytime soon?”

The question surprises him into aphonia.

She swivels in her chair, which makes a squeak that mimics the mouse he has become. “I take it that panic-stricken look on your face means you aren't.”

He stammers. “I've been burned a few times, you know; I'm a little gun-shy. I guess I thought—”

Her eyes begin to broil him. “What? That I was a clever advance in robotics? Or merely an inflatable doll?”

“Come on, Martha,” he blurts into the evidence that his skill at misreading women remains immaculate. “You spring this on me out of the blue and expect me to decide in two minutes whether I'm ready for
marriage
again? That's not quite fair, is it?”

“Fair? Like in how fair it was of you to make me abandon any semblance of a personal life for the past ten years to keep both your mood and your law practice afloat?”

“You talk like I've been
using
you.”

“You don't like
using?
Try
exploiting.”

His guilt is quickly enameled with righteousness. “I think I'd be a bit more sympathetic if I hadn't been paying you a hundred thousand a year for most of that time. Maybe you've been using me as much as the other way around.”

She leaps to her feet and looms over him. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

Unable to prevent what they are doing to each other, he taunts her with the truth. “You know what I mean—you came out of law school with your eye on a place you wanted to get, and decided I was the quickest way to get there. You kept me fit and trim and full of fight and rode me to the top like I was Alysheba and you were Chris McCarron. I benefited from the arrangement, sure. But so did you.”

“That's all it was, huh? Tit for tat. Well, that's just
bullshit”
She storms across the room and back. “I'm tempted to sign on with Vic right now.”

As desperate as she, Hawthorne tries a mean diversion. “I get it—you want a raise. Okay, ten thousand a year. Make it twenty.” He opens the
Journal
with feigned indifference. “Does that take care of it?”

Martha casts the shadow of an obelisk, its point advancing on his heart. “That's not what this is about, and you know it. But I accept the money. If I stay. In the meantime, I've got another proposition for you.”

“What?”

“I want to try SurfAir myself. I've never tried a commercial crash, as you well know. All I get are the goddamn
dog
cases.”

The reference is to their suit on behalf of a woman who took her pet with her on a flight to Denver. The dog rode in a carrying case in the baggage compartment, but a heating system failed en route and it died from exposure. The baggage handler put the case on the conveyor anyway, and the lady learned of her dog's demise as Scotty's little corpse went round and round on the carousel. Hawthorne expects the jury to award at least a quarter million.

“The way I see it,” she is saying, “until you let me try a major case, I'll always be a horse holder.”

“SurfAir was only twenty miles from here,” he protests. “People will think it's weird if I don't handle it myself.”

“Tell them you're still recovering. Or breaking in the next generation. Better yet, tell them it's none of their fucking business.”

“But people retain this firm because they assume I'll—”

“The firm,” she interrupts. “They hire the
firm
—no more, no less. All they're entitled to is the services of someone in the office, which includes me. For now.”

“You can't seriously be thinking of going with Scallini. He's everything that's wrong with this business.”

“And you're everything that's wrong with me. What about retirement?”

Gladdened by the opportunity to flaunt his generosity, he answers happily. “Our profit-sharing plan is more than adequate to provide you with—”

“Not
my
retirement,” she snarls unexpectedly. “When is retirement in
your
plans?”

His shrug is slow and truthful. “I'm not sure yet. I'm thinking about it,” he adds when he sees she wants much more.

“If you did retire, who would take over the firm? Would you bring someone in from outside? Merge with another office? Sell the practice? How would you handle it?”

Flustered by her persistence, Hawthorne can only stammer. “I don't know; I haven't gotten that far. I guess I'm still not certain retirement would be healthy for me.”

Her upper lip curls into a gutter. “Right. You were so healthy eight months ago they pronounced you dead.”

A pall seems to flood the room. Hawthorne is desperate to drain it. “You don't understand as much as you think you do, because I don't understand that much of it myself.”

“I understand you better than anyone in this room.”

Belatedly, he realizes that she has insulted him. Their stares collide and threaten further warfare, but in the next moment they mutually abandon the fray. He is sorry he has hurt her, sorry that what they had seems lost. Martha seems equally chagrined, for reasons of her own. As always when he has endured some stress these days, Hawthorne listens to the signals from his heart. This time the message is incoherent.

“The Farnsworth woman is coming in an hour,” Martha reminds him finally.

“Then let me see the deposition.”

She leaves the office and returns with a volume fat with onion skin. “Read it and weep,” she says, and drops it on his desk and leaves the room.

“Go home and get some sleep,” he calls after her. When she doesn't answer, he debates saying whatever she needs to have him say in order to keep her happy, but in the end decides to let her go; her needs have flown so far beyond his ability to meet them they are no longer negotiable.

Relieved to be back to business, Hawthorne leans back in his chair and imagines the deposition setting—Vic Scallini flashing his pinky ring and black pearl cuff links, clutching his silk lapels, circling the witness like a toreador around a stricken bull, his toupee flapping as though a crow is trying to land atop his head.

Although obvious and rudimentary, the deposition isn't entirely useless. Vic establishes the drastic reduction in the number of controllers after the PATCO strike, the resulting increase in near misses and runway incursions, the pressures to push trainees through the controller academy to the extent that instructors systematically overgrade and students systematically cheat on the exams, the fact that the San Francisco facility is handling 25 percent more traffic with 25 percent fewer personnel. But as usual, Vic has done more research in
Time
than in the regulations of the FAA. Because he doesn't know the manuals and regulations, he can't document mistakes by going step by step through the procedures the night of the crash, letting the facts speak loudly for themselves. Instead, Vic relies on the Perry Mason approach, badgering the witness in the hope that he will crumble and confess. The problem is, in real life nobody confesses to anything.

Hawthorne keeps reading, until Vic is about to wrap it up:

Q
—
by Mr. Scallini: Much of the computer and radar equipment currently in use in the traffic control system is quite ancient, is it not, Mr. McCaskell?

A
—
I guess so. Some of it
.

—
Twenty years old, some of the computers, is that not correct?

—
The ASR-4's are that old, I think
.

—
They frequently break down?

—
Once in a while
.

—
Last year the Washington, D.C., control center lost all radar and computers for over twenty minutes, did it not?

—
Yes
.

—
Anything like that ever happen to you?

—
Nothing that severe
.

—
What has happened to you in the way of equipment failure?

—
A few glitches, is all. Once in a while the MSAW—Minimum Safe Altitude Warning
—
acts up
.

—
Isn't it true your system had a glitch on the night of March 23 that caused you to lose track of the general aviation plane that struck the SurfAir flight?

—
No. And I'm still not convinced another plane did strike that flight
.

—
That's exactly my point, sir. You didn't see the other aircraft because you turned off at least one channel of the decoder that evening did you not? To reduce screen clutter?

—
No
.

—
In fact you do that every evening during peak periods, don't you?

—
No. Never. I—

—
Come now, Mr. McCaskell. We're going to get to the bottom of this sooner or later. You'll be better off if you come clean
.

—
I have nothing to come clean
about.
If the tapes show pop-up traffic at the time of the crash, it doesn't mean I was responsible
.

—
Are you telling me that the radar data entering the system computer and shown on the tapes does not necessarily show up on the controller screens?

—
Yes. Absolutely
.

—
What causes this variation, sir?

—
Atmospherics, basically
.

—
So the system sometimes loses altitude data entirely?

—
Yes. That's what happened in Aeromexico. And the Wings West midair in San Luis Obispo, too. The system doesn't always
—

—
But on the evening in question
—
the evening of March 23, of this year—you took liberties with that system, did you not?

—
No. And I resent your suggestion that I did
.

—
Your resentment is not material, sir. What is material is the grievous harm suffered by the families of the loved ones who met their tragic deaths in the crash of the plane you were sworn and duty bound to guide safely to the ground
.

—
Why you phony son of a
…

It was stipulated by all parties that the remaining remarks of counsel and the witness would be off the record
.

Hawthorne laughs and closes the transcript He is estimating the chances that Martha could go to work for a rooster like Scallini when the door opens and Brenda Farnsworth enters the office. Hawthorne nods a greeting, then looks beyond her for an instant, but Martha is nowhere to be seen.

His newest client is dressed in short tan skirt and top of yellow fleece. Her boots are soft brown leather; her hair is a dark derby atop her head. Her look is simultaneously dubious and daunting. It occurs to Hawthorne that she would make a wonderful lawyer.

Clasping his hands behind his head, he dons the insouciant mask he presents to women who intrigue him. “So,” he begins, “are your students going to survive a day without their beloved teacher?”

A corner of her mouth moves leftward. “The most useful emotion to foster in students is fear, not fondness.”

“How's our friend Mr. Tollison?”

Her voice betrays nothing. “I wouldn't know; I haven't seen him since I was here the last time. Why?”

He shrugs. “I'm just wondering if I need to know the status of your relationship with him.”

“Why would you need to know that?”

Hawthorne smiles. “He and I may work together on this. At some point I may need to know how objective he is about your claim.”

She thinks it over and shrugs. “Keith and I go way back. From time to time familiarity has bred both contempt and something we treat as passion.” She pauses to gauge his interest in the subject. “The situation is currently in flux,” she concludes gruffly.

Hawthorne finds himself aroused. She is one of those women who are alluring primarily because they believe themselves impregnable.

When he says nothing further, she continues. “But I'm not the one to ask about Keith's well-being these days.”

“Who is?”

“Mrs. Donahue would be a good place to start.”

“How's her husband doing, by the way?”

“Well enough to come home.”

“Really? Since when?”

“A week ago.”

“Has he recovered?”

She shrugs again. “Apparently they're applying all kinds of therapies that are designed to bring him back to normal.
My
question is, why would anyone
want
him back to normal?”

“A difficult situation.”

“For all concerned.” The pause drips hostility. “Poor Laura. There. I've saved you the trouble.”

“I take it you and she have little in common beyond your mutual admiration of Mr. Tollison.”

“Let me put it this way,” she concludes with a burst of venom. “Only one of us admires Mr. Tollison enough to hire him as our lawyer.”

Hawthorne shakes his head. Brenda Farnsworth reminds him of his third wife. Which is fine, potentially even fascinating, as long as he remembers not to marry her. “Well. Down to business,” he intones.

As he glances at her file, she arranges herself along his couch. It occurs to him that the women most confident of their remoteness from romance often become the most blatant initiators of it. “I'm not your enemy, Ms. Farnsworth,” he begins.

“I know enough about lawyers to know that remains to be seen, Mr. Hawthorne.”

“Are you always this combative?”

“When there's money on the line, I am. You should see me dicker with the school board. Their last negotiator threw coffee in my face. Luckily, he took cream.”

They pause to let things simmer. He asks if she wants anything to drink. When she shakes her head, he becomes official. “I asked you here because, as you know, we filed a complaint on your behalf in the SurfAir matter. The defendants have noticed your deposition, which they have set for December … tenth.”