to what would happen at the airport, any more than he had arrived tonight with a fixed idea about how to take over this meeting. Elliott Freemantle disliked fixed ideas. He preferred to improvise, to get situations rolling, then direct them this way or that, to his own advantage. His freewheeling methods had worked once already this evening; he saw no reason why they should not do so again.
The main thing was to keep these Meadowood homeowners convinced that they had a dynamic leader who would eventually produce results. Furthermore, they must remain convinced until the four quarterly payments, which the legal retainer agreements called for, were made. After that, when Elliott Freemantle had his money in the bank, the opinions were less important.
So he had to keep this situation lively, he reasoned, for ten or eleven months---and he would do it. He would give these people all the dynamism they could want. There would be need for some more meetings and demonstrations like tonight's because those made news. Too often, court proceedings didn't. Despite what he had said a few minutes ago about legal proceedings being a base, any sessions in court were likely to be unspectacular and possibly unprofitable. Of course, he would do his best to introduce some histrionics, though quite a few judges nowadays were wise to Lawyer Freemantle's attention-creating tactics, and curtailed them sternly.
But there were no real problems, providing he remembered---as he always did in these affairs---that the most important factor was the care and feeding of Elliott Freemantle.
He could see one of the reporters, Tomlinson of the Tribune, using a pay phone just outside the hall; another reporter was nearby. Good! It meant that downtown city desks were being alerted, and would cover whatever happened at the airport. There would also, if earlier arrangements Freemantle had made worked out, be some TV coverage, too.
The crowd was thinning. Time to go!
PART TWO Chapter Ten
NEAR THE AIRPORT'S floodlighted main entrance, the flashing red beacon of the state police patrol car died. The patrol car, which had preceded Joe Patroni from the site of the wrecked tractor-trailer, slowed, and the state trooper at the wheel pulled over to the curb, waving the TWA maintenance chief past. Patroni accelerated. As his Buick Wildcat swept by, Patroni waved his cigar in salutation and honked his horn twice.
Although the last stage of Joe Patroni's journey had been accomplished with speed, over-all it had taken more than three hours to cover a distance---from his home to the airport---which normally took forty minutes. Now, he hoped, he could make good some of the lost time.
Fighting the snow and slippery road surface, he cut swiftly through the stream of terminal-bound traffic and swung onto a side road to the airport's hangar area. At a sign, "TWA Maintenance," he wheeled the Buick sharply right. A few hundred yards farther on, the airline's maintenance hangar loomed towering and massive. The main doors were open; he drove directly in.
Inside the hangar a radio-equipped pickup truck, with driver, was waiting; it would take Patroni onto the airfield---to the mired Aereo-Mexican jet, still obstructing runway three zero. Stepping from his car, the maintenance chief paused only long enough to relight his cigar---ignoring "no smoking" regulations---then hoisted his stocky figure into the truck cab. He instructed the driver, "Okay, son, push that needle round the dial."
The truck raced away, Patroni obtaining radio clearance from the tower as they went. Once away from the lighted hangar area, the driver stayed close to taxi lights, the only guide---in the white-tinted gloom---to where paved surfaces began and ended. On instructions from the tower they halted briefly near a runway while a DC-9 of Delta Air Lines landed in a flurry of snow and rolled by with a thunder of reversed jet thrust. The ground controller cleared them across the runway, then added, "Is that Joe Patroni?"
"Yep."
There was an interval while the controller dealt with other traffic, then: "Ground control to Patroni. We have a message from the airport manager's office. Do you read?"
"This's Patroni. Go ahead."
"Message begins: Joe, I'll bet you a box of cigars against a pair of ball tickets that you can't get that stuck airplane clear of three zero tonight, and I'd like you to win. Signed, Mel Bakersfeld. End of message."
Joe Patroni chuckled as he depressed the transmit button. "Patroni to ground control. Tell him he's on."
Replacing the radio mike, he urged the truck driver, "Keep her moving, son. Now I got me an incentive."