"Brooks, Terry - Landover 01 - Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

clerk announced unsympathetically. Unimpressed with an
explanation that he had heard at least twenty times already
that November, he requested a setting for a preliminary in-
junctionЧonly to be told that the judge hearing stays and

MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE - SOLD!

10

pleas for temporary relief was vacationing for the next thirty
days at some ski resort in Colorado, and it hadn't been de-
cided yet who would bear his docket load while he was gone.
A decision on that would probably be made by the end of
the week and he should check back then.

The looks directed at him by clerks and judge alike sug-
gested that this was the way of things in the practice of law
and that he, of all people, ought to realize it by now. He
ought, in fact, simply to accept it.

He did not choose to accept it however, did not care in
the least to accept it, and was, by God, sick and tired of the
whole business. On the other hand, there was not very much
he could do about it. So, frustrated and angered, he went on
to work, greeted the girls in the reception area with a mum-
bled good morning, picked up his phone messages, and re-
tired to the confines of his office to fume. He had enjoyed
less than five minutes of that when Miles appeared through
the doorway.

"Well, well, just a little ray of sunshine this morning,
aren't we?" his friend needled cheerfully.

"Yeah, that's me," he agreed rocking back in his desk
chair. "Joy to the world."

"Hearing didn't go so well, I gather?"

"Hearing didn't go at all. Some incompetent took it off
the call. Now I'm told it can't be put back on until hell freezes
over and cows fly." He shook his head. "What a life."

"Hey, it's a living. Besides, that's the way it all worksЧ
hurry up and wait, time is all we've got."

"Well, I'm fed up to the teeth with it!"

Miles moved over to occupy one of the client chairs that
fronted the long oak desk. He was a big man, heavy through
the middle, thick dark hair and mustache lending maturity