Michael Malone - Weebly

Ransom hid his hands in the pockets of his blue
blazer. His voice was kindly and tolerant. "There are no
nuclear missiles out on that land, not as far as I know,
and I would be flabbergasted to find out I was wrong.
And if I knew, for a fact, that there was a clear danger
to Dingley Falls from anything built on land I might have
sold, I would not, as you seem to be accusing me, hide
the fact from the town council."
Miss Dingley tried to move out of the sun so that
she could study his eyes. But they looked as they
always had since he was a child—a bland, attractive
gray, innocent of irony. The eyes of a plodder, but so
successful a plodder that there was no visible strain. As
with his golf game, he had learned to work well with,
and within, his handicaps.
No, decided Miss Dingley, she was much brighter
than Ernie, craftier, more capable of subtle maneuvers.
No, he was not trying to mislead her. She snapped
open the purse in her lap and took out of it a yellow
canister of film. "Well, then. Find out if you are wrong.
My friends took these." She handed him the film. "It's
your land, Ernie. You have a right to know what's