Read Online (1961) The Chapman Report by Irving Wallace - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Irving Wallace
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guaranteed purchase of five thousand copies in advance (to be distributed among customers and Air Force personnel), Metzgar made the book a reality. Then he cast about for the proper writer. He wanted no word juggler who would intrude his own personality into this testament to greatness. He wanted merely a human conveyor belt to take the product, package it, and pass it on to the public. Screening writers that he had bought and used, he recalled
James Scoville. He remembered that Scoville had produced several competent articles about Radcone, and since he remembered Scoville’s work and not his face or personality, he knew that he was the man. He brought Scoville in from his beach home in Venice (once, delivering some old letters, Kathleen had visited the flimsy little house and found it pitifully underfurnished and inadequate, and had been uncomfortable in the presence of the writer’s wife, a gaunt, witchlike girl in gypsy clothes), and then Metzgar offered Scoville the assignment. He was to have three thousand dollars from the publisher, and three thousand more from Metzgar.
Dazzled by the largest sum he had ever known, Scoville listened to Metzgar’s briefing and was prepared to write as Metzgar pleased. There was left only the formality of Kathleen’s co-operation. Everything in her resisted it, but in the end, she knew that Metzgar -and the million like him-must have their monument. Two weeks of evenings before a tape recorder, along with letters and clippings, gave the writer all that he needed from Kathleen. Now he was writing like the furies, and if all went well, he would soon be able to remove wife and self to a more commodious tract bungalow in San Fernando Valley. Kathleen liked Scoville. Perhaps because he was hardly a man.
“Maybe next time we can work longer,” she said regretfully. “It’s just that our club-our women here-are going to be interviewed by Dr. George G. Chapman, and I’m on the committee to let them know.”
Scoville lifted his head, his eyes blinking. His face betrayed minor horror. “Dr. Chapman? You mean he’s going to interview you?”
“Why, yes, of course-all of us,” said Kathleen, somewhat taken aback. “But you can’t!” he blurted. Kathleen was completely at a loss. “Why not?” “It’s not right. You’re not just anybody. You’re-well, you were married to Boynton Ballard. It’s not-it wouldn’t be proper to tell some stranger your private life with him!’ He mouthed him as he might Yahveh.
Kathleen stared at Scoville and understood at once. He, too, like Metzgar, like the faceless public, had a hungry need to believe in Someone. Authentic heroes were few, because they usually lived too long. A German, Goethe probably, had once said, “Every hero becomes a bore at last,” and it was true. But to be a hero and be snuffed out at the peak of burning, this promised immortality. And, somehow, because she had been hero’s chattel, Kathleen must be preserved by the cult, buried in the tomb with him, sanctified. Willing or not, his purity and virtue, and the quality that was more than merely mortal, must continue to reside in her. And so she perceived Scoville’s pain. If she disclosed to a stranger the animal habits of the hero, the mean details of fornication, she profaned a sacred memory by showing that he had been like ordinary men, with base needs and weaknesses of the flesh.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Scoville, head pulled in and bent, busily examining his blank yellow paper. She wondered what he would think if he even faintly conceived what was really in her head. For she was thinking of that slate-gray, late afternoon, sixteen months ago, when man had died and hero had been born.
She had wept, of course, and fleetingly felt leaden sorrow. But if there were a scale upon which to weigh emotion, the sorrow was no heavier than she felt at the death of a distant Hungarian in an embattled street, a Peruvian in a faraway train wreck, a child found
James Scoville. He remembered that Scoville had produced several competent articles about Radcone, and since he remembered Scoville’s work and not his face or personality, he knew that he was the man. He brought Scoville in from his beach home in Venice (once, delivering some old letters, Kathleen had visited the flimsy little house and found it pitifully underfurnished and inadequate, and had been uncomfortable in the presence of the writer’s wife, a gaunt, witchlike girl in gypsy clothes), and then Metzgar offered Scoville the assignment. He was to have three thousand dollars from the publisher, and three thousand more from Metzgar.
Dazzled by the largest sum he had ever known, Scoville listened to Metzgar’s briefing and was prepared to write as Metzgar pleased. There was left only the formality of Kathleen’s co-operation. Everything in her resisted it, but in the end, she knew that Metzgar -and the million like him-must have their monument. Two weeks of evenings before a tape recorder, along with letters and clippings, gave the writer all that he needed from Kathleen. Now he was writing like the furies, and if all went well, he would soon be able to remove wife and self to a more commodious tract bungalow in San Fernando Valley. Kathleen liked Scoville. Perhaps because he was hardly a man.
“Maybe next time we can work longer,” she said regretfully. “It’s just that our club-our women here-are going to be interviewed by Dr. George G. Chapman, and I’m on the committee to let them know.”
Scoville lifted his head, his eyes blinking. His face betrayed minor horror. “Dr. Chapman? You mean he’s going to interview you?”
“Why, yes, of course-all of us,” said Kathleen, somewhat taken aback. “But you can’t!” he blurted. Kathleen was completely at a loss. “Why not?” “It’s not right. You’re not just anybody. You’re-well, you were married to Boynton Ballard. It’s not-it wouldn’t be proper to tell some stranger your private life with him!’ He mouthed him as he might Yahveh.
Kathleen stared at Scoville and understood at once. He, too, like Metzgar, like the faceless public, had a hungry need to believe in Someone. Authentic heroes were few, because they usually lived too long. A German, Goethe probably, had once said, “Every hero becomes a bore at last,” and it was true. But to be a hero and be snuffed out at the peak of burning, this promised immortality. And, somehow, because she had been hero’s chattel, Kathleen must be preserved by the cult, buried in the tomb with him, sanctified. Willing or not, his purity and virtue, and the quality that was more than merely mortal, must continue to reside in her. And so she perceived Scoville’s pain. If she disclosed to a stranger the animal habits of the hero, the mean details of fornication, she profaned a sacred memory by showing that he had been like ordinary men, with base needs and weaknesses of the flesh.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Scoville, head pulled in and bent, busily examining his blank yellow paper. She wondered what he would think if he even faintly conceived what was really in her head. For she was thinking of that slate-gray, late afternoon, sixteen months ago, when man had died and hero had been born.
She had wept, of course, and fleetingly felt leaden sorrow. But if there were a scale upon which to weigh emotion, the sorrow was no heavier than she felt at the death of a distant Hungarian in an embattled street, a Peruvian in a faraway train wreck, a child found
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