Читать книгу Аэропорт / Аirport онлайн | страница 16
“We have broken the sound barrier,” Mel declared, “but not the ground barrier.”
The speech was accorded a standing ovation and was widely reported.
The day after the speech, Mel was invited to the White House. J.F.K., Mel found, shared many of his own ideas.
Subsequently, there were other sessions. After several such occasions, Mel was at home in the White House. As time went on, he drifted into one of those easygoing relationships which J.F.K. encouraged among those with expertise to offer him.
Soon Mel was “in”—a dues-paid member of the inner circle. His prestige, high before, went higher still. The Airport Operators Council re-elected him president, barely in his late thirties.
Six months later, John F. Kennedy made his fateful Texas journey.
Like others, Mel was first stunned, then later wept. Only later still, did it dawn on him that the assassin’s bullets had ricocheted onto the lives of others, his own among them. He discovered he was no longer “in” in Washington.
Mel’s trips to Washington ceased. His public appearances became limited to local ones. Even though there was plenty to think about, including troubles at home, there was a sense that time and opportunity had passed him by.
Mel eased his car into the terminal basement parking area.
Near his parking stall was a locked box with an airport telephone. He dialed the Snow Desk and asked about the jet, but there was no news.
Mel hesitated. There was no reason, he supposed, why he need remain at the airport any longer tonight. Yet again, unaccountably, he had the same premonition.
Mel dialed another number and asked for Cindy. After a brief wait, he heard her voice say sharply, “Mel, why aren’t you here?”
“I’m sorry. It’s a pretty big storm…”
“Get down here fast!”
From the fact that his wife’s voice was low, Mel deduced there were others within hearing. Just the same, she managed to convey a surprising amount of venom.
Mel sometimes tried to associate the voice of Cindy nowadays with the Cindy he remembered before their marriage fifteen years ago, when they first met in San Francisco, he on leave from the Navy and Korea. She had been a gentler person then, it seemed to him. She had been an actress at the time, though she had had a succession of diminishingly small parts in summer stock and television, and afterward, in a moment of frankness, admitted that marriage had been a welcome release from the whole thing. Years later that story changed a little, and it became a favorite gambit of Cindy’s to declare that she had sacrificed her career and probable stardom because of Mel.