"Joseph Delaney - Brainchild" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Joseph)

Everything necessary to make the charge stick is right there in your
published papers. 'Simon Legree Schoonover,' it says at the top."
"Then why'd they try to get this?" He pointed to the jumbled pile of
notebooks and loose papers.
"To gild the lily, Delmar; to gain publicity, sympathy, rabid followers;
and to pacify Madelyn Hundin. That's what really irks me: Here's an
ignorant, big-mouthed busybody who probably never had an original
thought, who makes her living raking muck and printing lies in that
scandal sheet, and she's got enough influence in this country to get you
indicted for slavery. You, Delmar Schoonover, M.D., Pioneer Genetic
Engineer, Nobel Prize timber. She picks you to be her Big Tuna."
"I only met her once, Ruth. For about five minutes. Why is she doing
this to me?"
"She's not after the Pulitzer Prize, Delmar. She wants the hide off your
rump because, at the moment, that's a highly salable commodity. Right
now it's selling papers that otherwise wouldn't be fit for outhouse use.
Then there's T.V. appearances on the talk shows. Later, it'll be books. It'd
be better for her if you lost, of course, but either way she'll make money. If
you're acquitted she'll write an expos ├й on the crooked courts; you can book
it."
Schoonover's mind didn't work that way. To make money, he thought,
was a pretty poor reason to ruin a man and a worse reason yet to
consciously impede the progress of science. He'd always looked on his
research as a way to make an age-old dream come true; to make every
child yet to be born healthy, happy and alert; to make every man and every
woman as perfect as nature intended.
Now the dream was dying. Only Ruth believed it could be savedтАФor did
she? Perhaps she, too, played out a part for reasons of her own, or maybe
she intended simply to make the best of a bad situation and salvage what
she could from the wreckage. Somehow, he doubted that, although it was
possible that initially he'd represented only a professional challenge to
her.
Ruth had forward ways, utterly alien to his personal concept of the
feminine role. These, at first, had bothered him, until he found out she
enjoyed their effect. Now he was at the point where he'd almost stopped
blushing when she'd make an offbeat suggestion. If he could get his mind
off his troubles long enough to let it happen, Schoonover thought, he just
might be able to con her into seducing him. "Now there's a thought."
"O.K., so now we're both doing it, Delmar. Have you got an idea?"
"Yes, but on second thought, it's probably impractical. Forget it." He'd
been vocalizing thoughts.
''Well, we have to think of something pretty soon. We've got jury
selection tomorrow at ten, and probably no more than a week or two
before a trial setting. I'd better get back to the pile."



"All rise," yelled the bailiff.
Schoonover jumped to his feet and breathed deeply, his lungs filling
with the sweetly scented air. Ruth's perfume devastated him today, on