The Squares of the City by John Brunner

Author:John Brunner
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 1964-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

XVII

I was still staring incredulously at the drawing when a discreet knock came at my door and the chambermaid brought in my morning mail. Automatically, my mind not on what I was doing, I slit the two envelopes she gave me and glanced at the contents.

The first was a letter from a friend of mine in the States to whom I’d promised to write and then—as I usually do—had put it off. The second was the front page torn from a copy of this morning’s Tiempo, identical with the one I was reading except that the cartoon had been ringed with red and a single word added in English beside it: “Well?”

“Dalban,” I said aloud. “Who else?”

Well, Dalban or whoever was responsible, this was going to stop. Now. Tiempo seemed to get away with a hell of a lot of libel and near libel, but Maria Posador had told me that Seixas obtained an injunction to prevent them from accusing him of taking bribes. Someone was going to have to organize the same for me. Right now.

I put the torn page back in its envelope, stuffed the envelope in my pocket, and went to the traffic department to see Angers. I told him what had happened, showed him the red-ringed cartoon, and then slammed my fist down on his desk.

“Right!” I said. “There’s a law about this sort of thing. Get something done!”

Angers bit his lip. “So you think it’s Dalban behind this, eh? I suppose that’s logical, after the threat he made to you. Your best course, Hakluyt, would be to have a word with Lucas—suppose I call him and see if he’s free to join us for lunch?”

He picked up the envelope and glanced at the postmark.

“Posted early this morning or last night, about half a mile from the Plaza del Sur—at least, I think that’s the postal zone in that area. Early today, more likely, unless whoever was responsible got hold of an advance copy of the paper.”

He picked up his interoffice phone and told his secretary to get Lucas for him. I waited, feeling my first hot-tempered reaction cool perceptibly.

Lucas was free; he was engaged in sewing up the case against Sam Francis, which was mainly a matter of collating the evidence of witnesses. I told him my story over lunch in the plaza that noon.

He nodded gravely when I’d finished. “Yes, Señor Hakluyt,” he said. “You have what is, I think, called a hard nut to crack in both these problems. The Mendoza brothers are very skilled at almost libeling persons they disapprove of, without being so rude as to bring the fury of the law about their heads. Since, however, you are not a citizen but, so to say, a guest of our government, I think it well worthwhile to investigate the possibility of a suit over this attack. At the very least, we can obtain an injunction to muzzle them for the time being.”

“That would help,” I said. “But it’s not enough. I want Dalban investigated.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.