Read Online The Trespassers by Laura Z. Hobson - Free Book Online
Authors: Laura Z. Hobson
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tight vision.
For years he had dreamed of the day he would own his own radio chain. The difficulties were prodigious; there were, even, no unused wave lengths that could be licensed; there were official regulations of all kinds. Yet, one by one, he had found ways to get around all the obstacles. Deals with independent owners, short-wave deals with foreign companies, contracts and subcontracts. In spite of everything it could be done.
Now in a few months, the American part of the dream would materialize. One key station was already his. His own fifty-thousand-watt transmitter pierced the sky. Soon he would have another station, and then the affiliates would sign—he would be well on the way to the ultimate dream: one band of the globe-girdling ether earmarked Jasper Crown.
Ten million dollars’ capitalization. He had been that bold, setting forth to raise ten million dollars. And that would cover only the first steps—the purchase last month of Grosvenor’s Mid West station, one of the best-known independent stations in the land, the financing of a hundred deals within the U.S., a few deals abroad, the beginnings of the new kinds of programs.
Ten million dollars. The boldness of his concept, the boldness of his demands from investors, had been the most persuasive element in his success thus far. Nothing could defeat him now. Over half of it was raised. Soon there would be a band-wagon rush to subscribe, again the little minds, the wary minds, afraid now to be left out of a good thing. Nasty, such people. Still, they wanted to be used, so one used them.
Crown was a powerful-looking man. He was a man just over middle height, yet with so impressive a bulk of shoulder, chest, lean muscularity in every line of him, that he seemed big, commanding, even among much taller men.
His black hair was thick, defiant, springing impatiently away from his wide, oddly undomed forehead. This flat expanse over his eyes lifted in contour only at the marked protuberance of bone just above each black, finely arched eyebrow. His forehead forced the attention; the perceptive observer compared it to that of a strong, butting animal. It was a vigorous, handsome brow, though every description of it denied that.
Under it were dark-brown eyes that were as unusual. For they could look as cool, as impassive, as pale-blue eyes; could obliterate their intensity of pigmentation, their warmth and depth of physical color, by some overlay of level-staring coldness. Then his gaze had a quality that was at once dead and cruel.
Jasper Crown was thirty-five years old. He had a secret vanity about his youth, for his success was out of all proportion to it. He liked to remember that at thirty-four, when he had resigned as vice-president of the biggest radio company in the world, he had a sixty-thousand-a-year salary and stock (in his ex-company as well as in its chief rival) worth a million dollars. Talking to some Wall Street millionaire, old, paunchy, frightened of his own advancing age, Jasper was wise enough to refrain from hammering too hard at the youth equation. But always, inevitably, there came into the conversation the quiet mention of the vigor of idea, of execution, of command that one could expect from a man who had made good, practically and demonstrably made good in a harsh, competitive world, while he was still in his early thirties.
He would see the old eyes of the Wall Streeter flinch a little, flinch, from the envy of Jasper’s own youngness, flinch from the suddenly evoked contrast with the Wall Streeter’s approaching or arrived oldness. Jasper always veered quickly to a less difficult or painful theme. But the effect was achieved. The Wall Streeter was remembering that he too, as a young man of the mid-thirties, had been at his most daring, his most productive, his most sure-touched. Whether his personal history would check out on that recollection or not, Jasper knew that every one of these rich and powerful old men had some hidden
For years he had dreamed of the day he would own his own radio chain. The difficulties were prodigious; there were, even, no unused wave lengths that could be licensed; there were official regulations of all kinds. Yet, one by one, he had found ways to get around all the obstacles. Deals with independent owners, short-wave deals with foreign companies, contracts and subcontracts. In spite of everything it could be done.
Now in a few months, the American part of the dream would materialize. One key station was already his. His own fifty-thousand-watt transmitter pierced the sky. Soon he would have another station, and then the affiliates would sign—he would be well on the way to the ultimate dream: one band of the globe-girdling ether earmarked Jasper Crown.
Ten million dollars’ capitalization. He had been that bold, setting forth to raise ten million dollars. And that would cover only the first steps—the purchase last month of Grosvenor’s Mid West station, one of the best-known independent stations in the land, the financing of a hundred deals within the U.S., a few deals abroad, the beginnings of the new kinds of programs.
Ten million dollars. The boldness of his concept, the boldness of his demands from investors, had been the most persuasive element in his success thus far. Nothing could defeat him now. Over half of it was raised. Soon there would be a band-wagon rush to subscribe, again the little minds, the wary minds, afraid now to be left out of a good thing. Nasty, such people. Still, they wanted to be used, so one used them.
Crown was a powerful-looking man. He was a man just over middle height, yet with so impressive a bulk of shoulder, chest, lean muscularity in every line of him, that he seemed big, commanding, even among much taller men.
His black hair was thick, defiant, springing impatiently away from his wide, oddly undomed forehead. This flat expanse over his eyes lifted in contour only at the marked protuberance of bone just above each black, finely arched eyebrow. His forehead forced the attention; the perceptive observer compared it to that of a strong, butting animal. It was a vigorous, handsome brow, though every description of it denied that.
Under it were dark-brown eyes that were as unusual. For they could look as cool, as impassive, as pale-blue eyes; could obliterate their intensity of pigmentation, their warmth and depth of physical color, by some overlay of level-staring coldness. Then his gaze had a quality that was at once dead and cruel.
Jasper Crown was thirty-five years old. He had a secret vanity about his youth, for his success was out of all proportion to it. He liked to remember that at thirty-four, when he had resigned as vice-president of the biggest radio company in the world, he had a sixty-thousand-a-year salary and stock (in his ex-company as well as in its chief rival) worth a million dollars. Talking to some Wall Street millionaire, old, paunchy, frightened of his own advancing age, Jasper was wise enough to refrain from hammering too hard at the youth equation. But always, inevitably, there came into the conversation the quiet mention of the vigor of idea, of execution, of command that one could expect from a man who had made good, practically and demonstrably made good in a harsh, competitive world, while he was still in his early thirties.
He would see the old eyes of the Wall Streeter flinch a little, flinch, from the envy of Jasper’s own youngness, flinch from the suddenly evoked contrast with the Wall Streeter’s approaching or arrived oldness. Jasper always veered quickly to a less difficult or painful theme. But the effect was achieved. The Wall Streeter was remembering that he too, as a young man of the mid-thirties, had been at his most daring, his most productive, his most sure-touched. Whether his personal history would check out on that recollection or not, Jasper knew that every one of these rich and powerful old men had some hidden
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