Airport by Arthur Hailey

believed it himself.
    But when Demerest’s own check flight came up… the next, and all others from this moment on… let him beware. Anson Harris had good friends among the supervisory pilots. Let Demerest be wearing a regulation shirt; let him hew to regulations in every other trifling way… or else . Then Harris thought glumly: The foxy bastard will remember; he’ll make sure he does.
    “Hey, Anson!” Demerest seemed amused. “You’ve bitten off the end of your pipe.”
    And so he had.
    Remembering, Vernon Demerest chuckled. Yes, it would be an easy flight tonight–for him.
    His thoughts returned to the present as the apartment block elevator stopped at the third floor. He stepped into the carpeted corridor and turned to the left familiarly, heading for the apartment which Gwen Meighen shared with a stewardess of United Air Lines. The other girl, Demerest knew because Gwen had told him, was away on an overnight flight. On the apartment door bell he tapped out their usual signal, his initials in Morse… dit-dit-dit-dah dah-dit-dit… then went in, using the same key which opened the door below.
    Gwen was in the shower. He could hear the water running. When he went to her bedroom door, she called out, “Vernon, is that you?” Even competing with the shower, her voice–with its flawless English accent, which he liked so much–sounded mellow and exciting. He thought: Small wonder Gwen had so much success with passengers. He had seen them appear to melt–the men especially–when her natural charm was turned toward them.
    He called back, “Yes, honey.”
    Her filmy underthings were laid out on the bed–panties, sheer nylons; a transparent bra, flesh colored, with a girdle of the same material; a French silk, hand-embroidered slip. Gwen’s uniform might be standard, but beneath it she believed in expensive individuality. His senses quickened; he moved his eyes away reluctantly.
    “I’m glad you came early,” she called again. “I want to have a talk before we leave.”
    “Sure, we’ve time.”
    “You can make tea, if you like.”
    “Okay.”
    She had converted him to the English habit of tea at all times of day, though he had scarcely ever drunk tea at all until knowing Gwen. But now he often asked for it at home, a request which puzzled Sarah, particularly when he insisted on it being correctly made–the pot warmed first, as Gwen had taught him, the water still boiling at the instant it touched the tea.
    He went to the tiny kitchen, where he knew his way around, and put a kettle of water on the stove. He poured milk into a jug from a carton in the refrigerator, then drank some milk himself before putting the carton back. He would have preferred a Scotch and soda, but, like most pilots, abstained from liquor for twenty-four hours before a flight. Out of habit he checked his watch; it showed a few minutes before 8:00 P.M. At this moment, he realized, the sleek, long-range Boeing 707 jet which he would command on its five-thousand mile flight to Rome, was being readied for him at the airport.
    He heard the shower stop. In the silence he began humming once again. Happily. 0 Sole Mio.
     
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07
    T HE BLUSTERING , biting wind across the airfield was as strong as ever, and still driving the heavily falling snow before it.
    Inside his car, Mel Bakersfeld shivered. He was heading for runway one seven, left, which was being plowed, after leaving runway three zero and the stranded Aéreo-Mexican jet. Was the shivering due to the cold outside, Mel wondered, or to memory, which the scent of trouble a few minutes ago, plus the nagging reminder from the old injury of his foot, had triggered?
    The injury had happened sixteen years ago off the coast of Korea when Mel had been a Navy pilot flying fighter missions from the carrier Essex . Through the previous twelve hours (he remembered clearly, even now) he had had a presentiment of trouble coming. It wasn’t