- •Part one
- •Instinctively, Mel did. It was three quarters of an hour since he had left Danny Farrow at the Snow Control Desk. Getting up from the table, he told Tanya, "Don't go away. I have to make a call."
- •In the elevator going up, he remembered another good thing. The flight to Rome would be an easy one.
- •Vernon Demerest did too. On several occasions Anson Harris had heard Demerest speak disdainfully of the company's shirts and point to the superior quality of his own.
- •In a second echelon, farther to the right, were two more plows, a second Snowblast.
- •It was done; on the radar screen, blips were changing direction.
- •It was also the last day of his life.
- •It would be simpler if Mel didn't. Keith felt unequal to the effort, even though they had been as close as brothers could be all their lives. Mel's presence might be complicating.
- •I won't be home for a few days. I'm going away. I expect to have some good news soon which will surprise you.
- •In two strides the lieutenant was beside him. "You heard me! Right now!"
- •It was said so casually that at first the words failed to register. He reacted blankly. "You're what?"
- •In return for all this, the airline asked three assurances from the stewardess---hence the Three-Point Pregnancy Program.
- •It was the reason that Keith Bakersfeld had decided on suicide tonight.
- •It was the only time Natalie had hinted at the possibility of their marriage breaking up. It was also the first time Keith considered suicide.
- •It took a dozen rings, then several minutes more of waiting, before the Avis manager's voice came on the line. "Ken Kingsley here."
- •Vernon Demerest seemed not to notice. "Now, madam and gentlemen, we come to the most significant, the vital point."
- •Vernon Demerest flushed. He was accustomed to command, not to being questioned. His temper, never far below the surface, flashed. "Madam, are you normally stupid or just being deliberately obtuse?"
- •In the spectator section, Captain Demerest shot to his feet. "Great God!---how many disasters do we need to have?"
- •In the corridor outside, Vernon Demerest was waiting for Mel.
- •It had not always been that way.
- •It occurred to Cindy that perhaps she could manage both.
- •Vernon Demerest grinned. "I guess your manuals are okay, Anson. I've changed my mind; I won't inspect them."
- •It was Gwen Meighen who met the three pilots as they came aboard the aircraft. She asked, "Did you hear?"
- •Inez could see the drugstore clock. By now, it was nearly five past ten.
- •Inez began, "Isn't there any way..."
- •Ignoring the snow, which swirled about him like a scene from South with Scott, Patroni considered, alculating the possibilities of success.
- •Ingram grunted. "They're aboard. The goddarn captain and first officer."
- •It was the opening Demerest had been waiting for. He said carefully, "It needn't be shattering. What's more, we don't have to be parents unless we choose to be."
- •It was Guerrero, appearing hurried and nervous, whom Captain Vernon Demerest had seen arrive there, carrying his small attaché case which contained the dynamite bomb.
- •Vernon Demerest, who had just copied their complicated route clearance, received by radio---a task normally performed by the absent First Officer---nodded. "Damn right! I would too."
- •Is there something else; that you've never told?"
- •It was Keith's turn to nod. "I'm going to."
- •Instead of telephoning the Snow Control Desk, Mel walked down one floor of the control tower and went in. Danny Farrow was still presiding over the busy snow clearance command console.
- •In the taxi, Cindy opened her eyes and mused.
- •It was over now. Both knew it. Only details remained to be attended to.
- •It was Lieutenant Ordway. He entered, closing the door behind him. When he saw Cindy, he said, "Oh, excuse me, Mrs. Bakersfeld."
- •It was Mel's turn to see the reporters' pencils racing with his words.
- •In the cockpit, the pilots completed their checklist.
- •It was what Joe Patroni had feared.
- •It was when the agent had gone and Inez realized that despite the press of people around her in the terminal, she was utterly alone, that she began to cry.
- •Issued a policy. Are you people
- •Inez nodded slowly.
- •Inez shook her head. "Only, that... If you knew how to handle them... They were safe."
- •Inez whispered, "They were gone!"
- •Vernon Demerest regarded her searchingly. "I don't have to tell you that this is important. If you've any doubt, go back and make sure."
- •Ignoring him, Gwen gave Mrs. Quonsett a shove which sent her staggering. "You heard me! Sit down and be quiet."
- •In the unlikely event... And... Government regulations require that we inform you.
- •In the drill for explosive decompression one rule was fundamental: the crew took care of themselves first. Vernon Demerest observed the rule; so did Anson Harris and Cy Jordan.
- •Vernon Demerest was clambering over the smashed flight deck door and other debris outside. Hurrying in, he slid into his seat on the right side.
- •It was this effect which d. O. Guerrero had not allowed for. He had blundered and miscalculated from the beginning. He bungled the explosion, too.
- •It was then that Lieutenant Ordway and Mel Bakersfeld came down together from the administrative mezzanine.
- •In front of Mel a broadcast microphone had joined the hand mike he was using. The tv lights were on as he continued.
- •Vernon Demerest's voice came calmly on the cabin p.A. System a few moments later.
- •Vernon Demerest, his face paler than usual, had been steeling himself to copy the doctor's information onto the flight log clipboard. Now, with sudden shock, he stopped.
- •Vernon Demerest reasoned: So far as Gwen was concerned, he might just as well make a decision now.
- •It would also pose the question: just how far would Sarah go?
- •Isn't there?
- •Inside the car the reporter, Tomlinson, whistled softly. Tanya turned toward Mel, her eyes searching his face.
- •It almost did, at the news of Mel's intention.
- •Inside the car, the reporter asked again, "Mr. Bakersfeld, could you name a few of those people---the most imaginative ones about airports and the future?"
- •In smooth succession, engines four, two, and one followed.
- •In the hope of rocking the wheels free, Patroni slackened engine power, then increased it.
- •In the worst way, though, he needed a cigar. Suddenly Joe Patroni remembered---hours ago, Mel Bakersfeld bet him a box of cigars he couldn't get this airplane free tonight.
- •In mel Bakersfeld's car, on the runway, Tanya cried, "He's done it! He's done it!"
- •It was the speed at which they must pass over the airfield boundary, allowing both for weight and the jammed stabilizer.
- •If it does, Demerest thought, at a hundred and fifty knots we've had it...
- •Vernon Demerest clicked his mike button twice---an airman's shorthand "thank you."
- •I'm glad we had our ration With love and passion.
- •It would still take time, though, to adjust.
In the corridor outside, Vernon Demerest was waiting for Mel.
"Hi, Vernon!" Mel spoke quickly, making an effort at conciliation before his brother-in-law could speak. "No hard feelings, I hope. Even friends and relatives have to differ now and then."
The "friends" was, of course, an overstatement. Mel Bakersfeld and Vernon Demerest had never liked each other, despite Demerest's marriage to Mel's sister, Sarah, and both men knew it; also, of late, the dislike had sharpened to open antagonism.
"You're damn right there are hard feellings," Demerest said. The peak of his anger had passed, but his eyes were hard.
The commissioners, now filing out from the Board room, looked curiously at them both. The commissioners were on their way to lunch. In a few minutes Mel would join them.
Demerest said contemptuously, "It's easy for people like you---ground-bound, desk-tied, with penguins' minds. If you were in the air as often as I am, you'd have a difforent point of view."
Mel said sharply, "I wasn't always flying a desk."
"Oh, for Christ's sake! Don't hand me that hero veteran crap. You're at zero-feet now; the way you think shows it. If you weren't, you'd see this insurance deal the way any self-respecting pilot does."
"You're sure you mean self-respecting, not self-adoring?" If Vernon wanted a slanging match, Mel decided, he could have one. There was no one else within hearing now. "The trouble with most of you pilots is you've become so used to thinking of yourselves as demigods and captains of the clouds, you've convinced yourselves your brains are something wonderful too. Well, except in a few specialized ways, they're not. Sometimes I think the rest of what you have has addled through sitting up in that rarefied air too long while automatic pilots do the work. So when someone comes up with an honest opinion which happens to run counter to your own, you behave like spoiled little children."
"I'll let all that stuff go," Demerest said, "though if anybody's childish it's you right now. What's more to the point is that you're dishonest."
"Now look, Vernon..."
"An honest opinion, you said." Demerest snorted in disgust. "Honest opinion, my eye! In there, you were using an insurance company poop sheet. You were reading from it! I could see from where I was sitting, and I know because I have a copy myself." He touched the pile of books and papers he was carrying. "You didn't even have the decency, or take the trouble, to prepare a case yourself."
Mel flushed. His brother-in-law had caught him out. He should have prepared his own case, or at least adapted the insurance company's notes and had them retyped. It was true he had been busier than usual for several days before the meeting, but that was no excuse.
"Some day you may regret this," Vernon Demerest said. "If you do, and I'm around, I'll be the one to remind you of today. Until then, I can do without seeing you any more than I have to."
Before Mel could reply, his brother-in-law had turned and gone.
REMEMBERING now, with Tanya beside him in the main terminal concourse, Mel wondered---as he had several times since---if he could not have handled the clash with Vernon a good deal better. He had an uneasy feeling that he had behaved badly. He could still have differed with his brother-in-law; even now Mel saw no reason to change his point of view. But he could have done it more good-naturedly, avoiding the tactlessness which was a part of Vernon Demerest's makeup, but not of Mel's.
There had been no confrontation, since that day, between the two of them; the near-encounter with Demerest in the airport coffee shop tonight had been Mel's first sight of his brother-in-law since the airport commissioners' meeting. Mel had never been close to his older sister, Sarah, and they seldom visited each other's homes. Yet sooner or later, Mel and Vernon Demerest would have to meet, if not to resolve their differences, at least to shelve them. And, Mel thought, judging by the strongly worded snow committee report---unquestionably inspired by Vernon's antagonism---the sooner it happened, the better.
"I wouldn't have mentioned the insurance bit," Tanya said, "if I'd known it would send you so far away from me."
Though the recollections which had flashed through his mind occupied only seconds of time, Mel was conscious once again of Tanya's perceptiveness concerning himself. No one else that he could remember had ever had quite the same facility for divining his thoughts. It argued an instinctive closeness between them.
He was aware of Tanya watching his face, her eyes gentle, understanding, but beyond the gentleness was a woman's strength and a sensuality which instinct told him could leap to flame. Suddenly, he wanted their closeness to become closer still.
"You didn't send me far away," Mel answered. "You brought me nearer. At this moment I want you very much." As their eyes met directly, he added, "In every way."
Tanya was characteristically frank. "I want you too." She smiled slightly. "I have for a long time."
His impulse was to suggest that they both leave now, and find some quiet place together... Tanya's apartment perhaps... and hang the consequences! Then Mel accepted what he already knew; he couldn't go. Not yet.
"We'll meet later," he told her. "Tonight. I'm not sure how much later, but we will. Don't go home without me." He wanted to reach out, and seize and hold her, and press her body to his, but the traffic of the concourse was all around them.
She reached out, her fingertips resting lightly on his hand. The sense of contact was electric. "I'll wait," Tanya said. "I'll wait as long as you want."
A moment later she moved away, and was instantly swallowed up in the press of passengers around the Trans America counters.
06
DESPITE HER forcefulness when she had talked with Mel a half-hour earlier, Cindy Bakersfeld was uncertain what to do next. She wished there were someone she could trust to advise her. Should she go to the airport tonight, or not?
Alone and lonely, with the cocktail party babel of the Friends of the Archidona Children's Relief Fund around her, Cindy brooded uneasily over the two courses of action she could take. Through most of the evening, until now, she had moved from group to group, chatting animatedly, meeting people she knew, or wanted to. But for some reason tonight---rather more than usual---Cindy was aware of being here unaccompanied. For the past few minutes she had been standing thoughtfully, preoccupied, by herself.
She reasoned again: She didn't feel like going unescorted into dinner, which would begin soon. So on the one hand she could go home; on the other, she could seek out Mel and face a fight.
On the telephone with Mel she had insisted she would go to the airport and confront him. But if she went, Cindy realized, it would mean a showdown---almost certainly irreversible and final---between them both. Commonsense told her that sooner or later the showdown must come, so better to have it now and done with; and there were other related matters which had to be resolved. Yet fifteen years of marriage were not to be shrugged off lightly like a disposable plastic raincoat. No matter how many deficiencies and disagreements there were---and Cindy could think of plenty---when two people lived together that long, there were connecting strands between them which it would be painful to sever.
Even now, Cindy believed, their marriage could be salvaged if both of them tried hard enough. The point was: Did they want to? Cindy was convinced she did---if Mel would meet some of her conditions, though in the past he had refused to, and she doubted very much if he would ever change as much as she would like. Yet without some changes, continuing to live together as they were would be intolerable. Lately there had not even been the consolation of sex which once upon a time made up for other inadequacies. Something had gone wrong there too, though Cindy was not sure what. Mel still excited her sexually; even now, just thinking about him in that way was enough to arouse her, and at this moment she was conscious of her body stirring. But somehow, when the opportunity was there, their mental separation inhibited them both. The result---at least in Cindy---was frustration, anger, and later a sexual appetite so strong that she had to have a man. Any man.
She was still standing alone, in the plush La Salle Salon of the Lake Michigan Inn, where tonight's reception for the press was being held. The buzz of conversation around her was mostly about the storm and the difficulty everyone had had in getting here; but at least---unlike Mel, Cindy thought---they had made it. Occasionally there was a mention of Archidona, reminding Cindy that she still hadn't found out which Archidona---Ecuador or Spain...
damn you, Mel Bakersfeld! Okay, so I'm not as smart as you are--- her charity was directed at.
An arm brushed against hers and a voice said amiably, "No drink, Mrs. Bakersfeld? Can I get you one?"
Cindy turred. The questioner was a newspaperman named Derek Eden, whom she knew slightly. His by-line appeared in the Sun-Times frequently. Like many of his kind, he had an easy, confident manner and air of mild dissipation. She was aware that each of them had taken note of the other on previous occasions.
"All right," Cindy said. "A Bourbon and water, go lightly on the water. And please use my first name; I think you know it."
"Sure thing, Cindy." The newspaperman's eyes were admiring and frankly appraising. Well, Cindy thought, why not? She knew she looked good tonight; she had dressed well and made up carefully.
"I'll be back," Derek Eden assured her, "so don't go away now I've found you." He headed purposefully for the bar.
Waiting, surveying the crowded La Salle Salon, Cindy caught the glance of an older woman in a flowered hat. At once Cindy smiled warmly and the woman nodded, but her eyes moved on. She was a society page columnist. A photographer was beside her and together they were planning pictures for what would probably be a full-page layout in tomorrow's paper. The woman in the flowered hat motioned several of the charity workers and their guests together, and they crowded in, smiling obligingly, trying to look casual, but pleased that they had been selected. Cindy knew why she had been passed over; alone she was not important enough, though she would have been if Mel were there. In the city's life, Mel rated. The galling thing was---socially, Mel didn't care.
Across the room the photographer's light gun flashed; the woman in the hat was writing names. Cindy could have cried. For almost every charity... she volunteered, worked hard, served on the meanest committees, did menial chores which more socially prominent women rejected; then to be left out like this...
Damn you again, Mel Bakersfeld! Damn the bitching snow! And screw that demanding, stinking marriage-wrecking airport!
The newspaperman, Derek Eden, was coming back with Cindy's drink and one of his own. Threading his way across the room, he saw her watching him and smiled. He looked sure of himself. If Cindy knew men, he was probably calculating what his chances were of laying her tonight. Reporters, she supposed, knew all about neglected, lonely wives.
Cindy did some calculating of her own concerning Derek Eden. Early thirties, she thought; old enough to be experienced, young enough to be taught a thing or two and to get excited, which was what Cindy liked. A good body from the outward look of him. He would be considerate, probably tender; would give as well as take. And he was available; even before he left to get the drinks he had already made that clear. Communication didn't take long between two reasonably sensitive people with a similar idea.
A few minutes earlier she had weighed the alternatives of going home or to the airport. Now, it seemed, there might be a third choice.
"There you are." Derek Eden handed her the drink. She glanced at it; there was a lot of Bourbon, and he had probably told the barman to pour heavily. Really!----men were so obvious.
"Thank you." She sipped, and regarded him across the glass.
Derek Eden raised his own drink and smiled. "Noisy in here, isn't it?"
For a writer, Cindy thought, his dialogue was deplorably unoriginal. She supposed she was expected to say
Yes , then the next thing he would come up with would be, Why don't we go some place where it's quieter?
The lines to follow were equally predictable
Postponing her response, Cindy took another sip of Bourbon.
She considered. Of course, if Lionel were in town she would not have bothered with this man. But Lionel, who was her storm anchor at other times, and who wanted her to divorce Mel so that he, Lionel, could marry her, Cindy... Lionel was in Cincinnati (or was it Columbus?) doing whatever architects did when they went on business trips, and wouldn't be back for another ten days, perhaps longer.
Mel didn't know about Cindy and Lionel, at least not specifically, though Cindy had an idea that Mel suspected she had a lover somewhere, stashed away. She also had a parallel notion that Mel didn't mind much. It gave him an excuse to concentrate on the airport, to the total exclusion of herself; that goddanined airport, which had been fifty times worse than a mistress in their marriage.