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!

10

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 hom 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