For a moment, no one spoke. Then the city editor said, ‘Why?”
“Minerva’s mad.”
“You can’t do it!” Grieg, a reporter, a man of forty with graying red hair, made the assertion flatly. “The whole town’s proud—except for the usual naysayers. It’s the best CD blowout ever staged in the middle west. About the least popular thing you could do would be crap on it.”
“Civil Defense,” Coley answered, with nothing but intonation to indicate his scorn, “is Communist-inspired.”
“ What!”
“So Mrs. Sloan claims.”
“I always predicted,” Grieg moodily murmured, “they’d come for that moneybag with nets someday. Men in white.”
Payton, the city editor, said, “Just what do you want, Coley?”
The managing editor sighed. “I merely want to undo the work of about forty thousand damned good citizens-not to mention a like number of school kids—over the last years.” He considered. “Every day in Green Prairie, people get hurt in car crashes. All people hurt this afternoon will be victims of our crazed Civil Defense policies. Any dogs run over will be run over because of the air-raid rehearsal. Any fires started. All people delayed will be delayed unnecessarily. If anybody died in the hospitals, it will be—because the traffic jam held up some doctor.”
Grieg whistled. “The works, eh? Jesus! She must be mad!”