Chapter 12 #3
“We’re going to fight fire with fire. That’s how,” Pancho replied. “They insisted we get all dolled up for their banquet. Let’s start by using that to our advantage. I hope your noses are powdered girls.”
Pancho headed for the darkened ballroom.
She paused inside the door to push the row of buttons that illuminated the electric chandeliers.
Bright electric light flooded the space.
The California Hotel’s ballroom faced a large parking lot for guests, which she happened to know was currently filled with cars full of reporters.
Some of them were keeping an eye on expensive camera equipment.
Others were too junior to rate having their paper pay for a room.
The rest hadn’t been able to snag a room or a space on the floor of someone else’s room since the hotel was fully booked for the air race.
Pancho was confident more than a few of the men were still awake out there, drinking, playing cards, or working on articles for tomorrow’s leg of the race.
They wouldn’t fail to notice the bright light suddenly pouring out of the ballroom’s tall windows, as if a heavenly apparition had just dropped in for a visit.
And they also wouldn’t fail to wake up their fellow reporters who were already asleep to let them know something was up.
Perfect.
It only took a few seconds for her to start hearing car doors slamming. Less than a minute later, Mayor Mack came storming out of the gentlemen’s lounge into the ballroom, demanding to know what was going on.
Pancho sent him a bright smile. “We’re just doing what we were brought here to do.
We’re giving the press their headlines for the papers tomorrow morning.
The way I figure it, we’re just about in time to make the morning editions back East. Amazing things, telephones.
News can travel all the way across the country in the blink of an eye.
Handy thing if you’re in the news business. Real handy.”
“What are you up to, Pancho?” Mack demanded truculently.
The first reporter skidded around the corner into the ballroom at a run. Several more raced in behind him. The first one stuck his head back out in the hall and yelled down it, “They’re here. All the pilots. Something’s happening. Hurry! The ladies are doing something!”
Another voice yelled into a phone in the booth in the hall, “Get down to the lobby! And bring the camera! As fast as you can!”
Pancho smoothed her hair and straightened her couture evening gown.
She asked Mack sweetly, “Care to take your chances at being painted as a bully to a group of ladies? I’m told a picture is worth a thousand words.
And you’re about to be front-page news, Mr. Mack.
Oh, and you might want to straighten your tie. It’s askew.”
“I’m not bullying anyone!” he exclaimed, urgently tugging at his tie.
“How about keeping us delicate females awake to all hours of the night before we have to risk our lives tomorrow?” Marvel offered pleasantly.
Amelia withdrew a compact and snapped it open with a flutter of her eyelashes at Mack. The other women followed suit, primping and fixing their makeup, laying on the girlishness real thick.
The mayor looked warily at them as they formed themselves into a line for the photographers. “Smile and pose the way I taught you, girls,” Blanche said cheerily. On cue, they all smiled brightly and crossed their left feet over their right ankles, assuming a completely demure pose.
“Now see here,” Mayor Mack blustered through a fake smile. “The route isn’t up to me. Dr. Ayers is the race official.”
“But this is your town,” Pancho replied. “Someone—most likely several someones—will ask you in the next few minutes why you stood by silently while a decision was made forcing us to land at an unsafe airfield. I’m being real nice giving you time to think about how you’re going to answer that.”
The sound of men running down the stairs was like a stampede, growing louder every second.
“A decision made even more unsafe by the fact that it was only shared with us late this evening,” Marvel added. “That fact alone puts the decision squarely on your doorstep.”
Pancho tsk-tsked. “All those speeches you and your colleagues gave tonight about San Bernardino being a city of virtue and dignity—they’ll go right up in flames. You’ll forever be remembered as the mayor who allowed profit to be more important than nineteen lovely young women’s lives.”
“I’ll bet folks remember that when they go to vote,” Amelia added. “Especially women voters.”
The mayor bristled and glared at them.
Pancho and the other women stared straight back at him. Not one blinked in their game of chicken. Every one of them had nerves of steel, and they surely weren’t going to let some blustering politician intimidate them.
Long seconds crawled by while Mack visibly debated how to respond.
Finally, Mack snarled, “You’re wasting your time if you think you can get me to go against Dr. Ayers. I won’t be pushed around in my own city.”
“We’re about to see who pushes around whom,” Pancho said boldly. Then she turned to face the rapidly assembling members of the press.