3
icist would display such carnival tactics in their promotion. He growled like a taunted leopard.
"This is a cheap trick, Tom! Do you hear me? Turn that thing off at once!"
"Who, me?" Tom said innocently. "Gosh, D. O. I'm no engineer. I left instructions with the operator to keep the projector going for three hours, until sunset. Don't think I can do anything about it now."
"You'll damn well have to do something about it! You're ruining us!"
"Look at it this way, Chief. What can we lose? If anybody takes offense, we can blame it on that Hollywood gang."
"Turn that damn thing off! If that blankety face isn't out of the sky in ten minutes, you can start emptying your desk!"
Tom was a redhead. He reached over and snapped the visiphone switch before his boss could have the satisfaction. He stomped to the window, still raging at Ostreich's lack of appreciation.
But he chuckled when he saw the activity in the street. The crowds were thickening at the intersections, and a special battalion of city police were trying to keep things moving. Behind him, the visiphone was beeping frantically again.
He waited a full minute before answering, all set to snap at Ostreich once more.
But it wasn't Ostreich. It was a square-faced man with beetling brows and a chin like the biting end of a steam shovel. It took Tom a while to recognize the face of Stinson, commissioner of police.
"Mr. Blacker?"
"Yes, sir?" Tom gulped.
"Mr. Ostreich referred me to you. You responsible for that--" the commissioner's voice was choked. "--that menace?"
"Menace, sir?"
"You know what I'm talking about. We've got half a dozen CAA complaints already. That thing's a menace to public safety, a hazard to air travel--"
"Look, Mr. Stinson. It's only a harmless publicity stunt."
"Harmless? You got funny ideas, Mr. Blacker. Don't get the wrong idea about our city ordinances. We got statutes that cover this kind of thing. If you don't want to be