Читать книгу Аэропорт / Аirport онлайн | страница 26
The only thing that Freemantle wanted was this Meadowood homeowners group as clients—at a whopping fee.
It was remarkable what you could accomplish with audacity, particularly when people were white hot in pursuing their own interests. An ample supply of printed retainer forms was in his bag.
“There is little time. Legal action should be begun at once, before the airport, by perpetuation of noise over a period of years, could claim custom and usage.”
Near the front of the audience, a youngish man in hopsack slacks sprang to his feet. “By God!—tell us how we start.”
“You start—if you want to—by retaining me as your legal counsel.”
It had worked, as Elliott Freemantle had known it would.
He would give them value for their money—a good show, with fireworks, in court and elsewhere. Now that his own involvement was assured, he wanted to cement the relationship by staging the first act of a drama.
The actors in the drama would be the residents of Meadowood, here assembled.
The scene would be the airport.
The time: tonight.
11
At approximately the same time D. O. Guerrero was surrendering to failure.
D. O. Guerrero was a gaunt man, slightly stoop-shouldered, with a protruding, narrow jaw, deep-set eyes, pale thin lips, and a slight sandy mustache. His age was fifty; he looked several years older.
He had been married for eighteen years. By some standards, the marriage was good. But in the past year, a mental gulf had opened between the Guerreros which Inez, though she tried, was unable to bridge. It was one result of a series of business disasters which reduced them to near poverty, and eventually forced a succession of moves, including the one to this drafty, cockroach-infested, two-room apartment.
A few weeks ago, in a rage, he had struck Inez. She feared more violence and, soon after, sent their two teen-age children to stay with her married sister in Cleveland. Inez herself stayed on, taking a job as a coffee-house waitress, and the work at least provided money for food.