Michael Malone - Weebly

circulation) still been owned by the Highwick family—
who, however, had sold it fifty years ago to a chain of
western New England papers that now belonged to a
television network that belonged to an oil company—
Ransom would have insisted that the Highwicks
oblige him by firing A.A. Hayes immediately.
But the highway business was over now; even
Hayes had dropped it. Everyone had grown
accustomed to that disconnected asphalt strip. It was
part of the landscape now, no more noticed than the
banks of the Rampage. Still, the place made Ransom
uncomfortable, and it had been four years since he last
saw it. He would not have come now except for that
image, wedged in his mind by the conversation
yesterday with Dr. Scaper, which last night had almost
kept him awake past his bedtime. Of course, what he
had seen four years ago would be gone by now; once
he proved that, the uneasy image ought to go as well.
That he should get rid of it as soon as possible, even if it
meant wasting his morning, was important to the
banker, for he disliked (and was unaccustomed to)
having anything uncomfortable in his life, or mind.