"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 a victim of one of them, turn that damned monstrosity off!"
The commissioner's angry visage left a reverse shadow burned on the visiphone screen. It remained glowing there long after the contact was broken.
Tom Blacker walked the carpeted floor of his office, chewing on his lower lip, and cursing the feeble imaginations of Ostreich and the rest of them. When his temper had cooled, he got sober thoughts of indictments, and law suits, and unemployment. With a sigh, he contacted the engineer on the roof of the Cannon Building. Then he went to the window, and watched Monica's thousand-foot face fade gradually out of sight.
At four o'clock that afternoon, a long white envelope crossed Tom's blotter. There was a check to the amount of a month's salary enclosed, and a briefly-worded message from the office of the president.
When he left the office, Ostreich's rolling phrases buzzed in his head like swarming gnats. "... a mockery of a great profession ... lowering of dignity ... incompatible with the highest ideals of ..."