Impact (5 page)

“He mentioned me specifically?”

She nodded.

Tollison's gaze fell on the courthouse, symbolic of turpitude and time. “What's he going to do?”

“He didn't say.”

He grasped her arm. “We have to discuss this, Laura; we need to decide what we're going to—”

She pulled away. “I have to go now, Keith. Really. We'll get together next week, I promise.” She looked up and down the street once more. “Call me if there's a problem with the ride. I'll catch an early lift home, so you and Bren can dance till the wee hours.”

“I'll be ready to leave by the time we get there.”

She shook her head. “Isn't middle age boring? I find myself asleep by nine o'clock some nights. By the time Jack wanders in, it seems like it must be time for breakfast.” With the sun at her back, her hair was aflame. “And once in a while it is. See you at eight.”

Suddenly saucy, she pursed her lips in a sly long-distance kiss, then hurried down the street and disappeared into a doorway beneath a sign that featured an elearically oscillating hand and bright white lettering that read:
THE PERMANENT WAVE
.

“Good evening, this is Carl Noland, Channel 9 News.

Less than one hour ago, a SurfAir Coastal Airways Hastings H-11 fan-Jet, bound for San Francisco from Los Angeles, crashed in a remote area near Woodside as it was descending to land at San Francisco International Airport. Details are sketchy at this time, but one onlooker has told authorities that the plane seemed to stop in midair, then sink slowly toward the ground. The pilot apparently was able to get the craft under control just before it crashed, and for that reason some observers are optimistic that there may be survivors. There are also reports that the H-11 collided in midair with a smaller aircraft, but they have yet to be confirmed.

“There is no word yet on the number of casualties. SurfAir was originally known as Valley Airlines, a commuter line serving Reno, Nevada, and the San Joaquin valley cities of Stockton, Modesto, and Merced. Four years ago, the airline changed its name and, thanks to an infusion of funds from financier Baxter Chase, expanded its operations dramatically. SurfAir now serves all major cities in California and Nevada, and recently announced plans to extend service to Boise, Idaho, and Portland, Oregon.

“For the past six months, the airline has been engaged in an aggressive fare war with its competitors for the air-commuter dollar, and sources at San Francisco International tell us that the SurfAir flights from Los Angeles, particularly those departing in the early evening, are frequently booked to capacity. There have also been periodic rumors in the financial community that SurfAir's aggressive marketing strategy has forced the company dangerously close to insolvency, but company officials have consistently denied those rumors.

“The Hastings H-11 is a new airplane, first certified in 1985. It has a capacity of one hundred twenty passengers plus a crew of eight, and was designed and built especially for heavily traveled routes such as LA–San Francisco. This is believed to be the first accident involving that model. At the time of its introduction, the H-11 created controversy in aviation circles because Hastings subcontracted with a Japanese manufacturer to design and build the tail and wing components of the plane, leading American companies to express concern that this foothold would lead to the eventual dominance by the Japanese of the commercial airframe industry, to the detriment of American manufacturers such as Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

“Access to the crash site is apparently limited to a narrow fire road, however we are told that police and fire authorities, as well as investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, are already on the scene. Also on the scene is our own Helen Macy, and we go live to her now.”

“Thank you, Carl. As you said, I am here at the site of the crash, which is approximately two miles off Highway 84, also known as La Honda Road, some six miles west of the San Francisco peninsula community of Woodside.

“It's like a war zone, Carl. As you can see, fires are blazing all around me, doubtlessly from the fuel expelled as the aircraft broke apart. The smoke makes it difficult to see, but hunks of metal and fabric appear to be scattered over the entire area. Everywhere you turn you can see bodies or portions of bodies; rescue workers are trying to determine if any of them are still alive. The personal possessions of the passengers are scattered over the site as well. Over there is a broken briefcase containing stacks of computer printouts that are blowing across the ground. Just beyond the briefcase is a doll in a pretty pink dress that miraculously seems untouched. It is impossible not to imagine what must have happened to the little girl who—”

“Helen?”

“Yes, Carl?”

“What about survivors?”

“I have nothing definite on that as yet. The front portion of the plane is so badly smashed that survival would be a miracle for passengers seated in that area, but the rear portion has broken away and seems intact. Rescue efforts seem to be concentrated in that area.

“There are several ambulances already on the scene, and more are arriving even now. The only person I have seen being treated by the medical personnel is a fireman who burned his hands as he made his way into the wreckage. A priest is giving last rites to victims who were thrown clear. As you can see, the rescue people are fashioning masks from their handkerchiefs or other scraps of clothing. This is because of the stench, which is overwhelming.

“Oh. The smoke just lifted for a moment and I could see a pair of seats, seats from the plane that have come to rest at least twenty yards from the wreckage, thrown out during the crash. There are people still strapped in them, Carl, and they are on fire. Smoke is pouring off them and … well, since they're not moving, I assume they're dead. I hope they are, at least. It … unless you've seen something like this, you can't begin to—”

“Helen, thank you. That was Helen Macy from—”

“Behind the yellow police line a crowd has started to form, perhaps fifty onlookers. Incredibly, many of them are laughing; a few are even drinking beer. They seem to be—
oh my God
. Someone just dashed out from behind the police line and picked up something off the ground and stuck it beneath his jacket and ran back. This is unbelievable. I think it was human flesh, Carl. I think it was a
foot
. I … you think you've seen everything there is to see in this business, and then—”

“Helen, thank you for your report. We—”

“I talked to a man who saw the plane pass over his farm just seconds before impact, and he said he saw nothing unusual at the time he noticed the plane—”

“Helen, we—”

“—which may mean that the passengers were aware of what was happening right up to the time they hit the ground. I can only guess what—”

“Thank you, Helen Macy, for that live report. Obviously a tragic scene.”

“
Wait
. I want to tell you—”

“I'm afraid that's all we have time for, Helen. When further information is available, we will certainly get back to you.

“In other news, police today seized a record quantity of cocaine that was hidden in a …”

TWO

He thinks the speech went well, but for confirmation Alec Hawthorne turns to the only person in his life whose judgment he trusts implicitly. He first met Martha a decade ago, after he had battled his way to a senior partnership in a law firm as big as a village and she had been hired fresh out of the good law school that was her antidote to a bad marriage. He was between wives three and four at the time, perplexed by yet another woman's metamorphosis from flirting fan to grasping harpy. Numb to the world beyond the office door, determined never again to be humiliated by female or divorce lawyer, he confronted the women who crossed his path with hostility verging on misogyny. Around the firm, Hawthorne became known as Pope Alec the First.

Wife number three had cost him half a million in cash and equivalents. Regularly and relentlessly, he would be assaulted by memories of selling the house on Russian Hill, the trimaran in Sausalito, the condo at Tahoe and, most vividly of all, of the Sunday morning he watched her lawyer drive off in his favorite performance car, one of only forty like it in the world. Still, shortly after Martha joined the firm, he picked her to assist him in wrapping up the final settlements in the Paris crash, as if to prove to himself that, thrice burned, he had finally become immune to romance. For her part, Martha became so immersed in the Civil Code and the Federal Reporter, she seemed blind to the dazzle of both his reputation and his wealth. Over the succeeding months they worked their way into an efficient professional partnership marked by exchanges of silly gifts and wry observations of the several absurdities of their profession. The decade of difference in their ages gradually became not a barrier but an increasingly comfortable tether.

Somehow, despite his wariness of romance and his growing affection for his chief assistant, wife number four came and went. To this day he cannot remember her face without a photographic nudge. After the divorce, he once again drowned recrimination in work and drink. Nevertheless, in the dim light of an alcoholic fog, he and Martha advanced from friendship through an unpremeditated coupling on his office couch sometime between 3 and 5
A
.
M
. on a New Year's Eve to a passion so ubiquitous his partners demanded that he give her up or leave the firm.

Since he was generating more business than any six of his colleagues combined, jealousy was the more precise motive for his ouster—indeed, had he not been asked to leave, he would have departed of his own volition. A month after the ultimatum, he and Martha founded their own firm, associating one other attorney with them and, within a year, half a dozen more.

Goaded by the rejection of his former wives and partners, Hawthorne had been determined to exceed even his own immoderate ambitions. After spending a borrowed fortune on office space and equipment, he began working harder than ever to build his practice. At his side, Martha dispensed narcotics of praise or emetics of criticism, playing his ego like a harp by telling him the unvarnished truth or a perfectly tailored lie, whichever she thought would get him through the next item on their increasingly dense agenda. A series of fortuitous circumstances allowed him to pay off the new building six months after the all-night party that announced the opening of his law firm's brass-hinged doors, and Hawthorne quickly found himself as counsel of record in the majority of significant crash cases on the West Coast.

Martha coughs and breaks his reverie. Hawthorne rubs his eyes and glances at his watch. It is 2
A
.
M
. Somewhere. Loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt, he leaves the Louis XIV desk, trudges to the bed, and reclines atop the heavy coverlet At his look, Martha abandons the current
Journal of Mr Law & Commerce
, pours him a drink from a bar secreted within a false armoire, then sits next to him after handing him his cognac. He takes a sip, enjoys the downward singe, and makes room for her to lie beside him. She slips a hand to her spine and unzips her gown, steps out of it with care, and drapes it over the back of a chair. When she joins him, she is dressed only in bra and panties.

Her hair is as short as a man's. Her body is long and narrow, far less lush than those of the four women he has wed. Her brassiere is more a belt than a pair of silken sacks; the thatch at her crotch strays beyond the V of silk that tries to bale it.

“So how was it?” he asks.

“Fine.”

“I thought they were a little bored.”

“They weren't bored; they were embarrassed. They haven't done half enough to improve the safety situation and you reminded them of it.”

“Ad nauseam.”

“Pilots are like kids—they only hear what they want to hear, and they only hear that after you repeat it ten times.”

The solitaire on her middle finger—the sole souvenir of her marriage more visible than cynicism—scrapes his inner thigh. When he doesn't encourage her, she takes her hand away.

“Speaking of kids, I should fit Jason into the schedule somewhere,” he says.

“There's no room till after the Grand Canyon trial.”

“When's that?”

“Late May. After that you've got the helicopter case—if it doesn't settle, which it doesn't look like it's going to—then Greece, then the Hawaii thing.”

“Jesus. Is Christmas still clear?”

“Ten days, as ordered.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

Her punch is either affectionate or cautionary, he can't be sure. Martha takes an incredible variety of orders from him, encompassing everything from his lunch menu to his tax returns, but there is a right way and a wrong way to issue them, and sometimes he transgresses. When he does, she retaliates.

“Okay,” he says. “What's next?”

“We take the eight-ten to Washington. Dinner with Senator Langston, more talk about his bill to forbid overbooking and limit carry-on luggage. He'll hit you up for a contribution to his next campaign, but you're already okay with both the senator and his party, so don't worry about it. In any event, you've given him all you can.”

“Don't tell me I'm broke again.”

Her attention shifts to her favorite subject. “Not yet. I'm trying like hell to keep it that way, but as usual I'm getting no cooperation from you or anyone else in the firm.”

He sighs. “Back to the senator. What do I think of his bill?”

“You think it would be a mistake for you to support it publicly, because you're so closely identified with the consumer side of aviation issues no one would buy your objectivity, which you don't have anyway. You think you've done all you can do, which is recommend it to certain sources you prefer to keep anonymous.”