Airport

breathing, seemed to him an accusation.
The effect of sleepless nights, the mental turmoil, showed quickly in his
work. His reactions were slow, decisions hesitant. A couple of times,
under pressure, Keith "lost the picture" and had to be helped. Afterward
he realized he had been under close surveillance. His superiors knew from
experience what might happen, had half-expected some such signs of
strain.
Informal, friendly talks followed, in upper-level offices, which achieved
nothing. Later, on a suggestion from Washington , and with Keith's
consent, he was transferred from the East Coast to the Midwest-to Lincoln
International for control tower duty. A change of locale, it was
believed, would prove therapeutic. Officialdom, with a touch of humanity,
was also aware that Keith's older brother, Mel, was general manager at
Lincoln ; perhaps Mel Bakersfeld's influence would be steadying too.
Natalie, though loving Maryland , made the transition without complaint.

The idea hadn't worked.
Keith's sense of guilt persisted; so did the nightmares, which grew, and
took on other patterns, though always the basic one remained. He slept only
with the aid of barbiturates prescribed by a physician friend of Mel's.
Mel understood part of his brother's problem, but not all; Keith still kept
the secret knowledge of his washroom dawdling at Leesburg solely to
himself. Later, watching Keith's deterioration, Mel urged him to seek
psychiatric help, but Keith refused. His reasoning was simple. Why should
he seek some panacea, some ritualistic mumbo-jumbo to insulate his guilt,
when the guilt was real, when nothing in heaven or earth or clinical
psychiatry could ever change it?
Keith's dejection deepened until even Natalie's resilient nature rebelled
against his moods. Though aware that he slept badly, Natalie had no
knowledge of his dreams. One day she inquired in anger and impatience, "Are
we supposed to wear hair shirts for the rest of our lives? Are we never to
have fun again, to laugh the way we used to? If you intend to go on this
way, you'd better understand one thing-1 don't, and I won't let Brian and
Theo grow up around this kind of misery either."
When Keith hadn't answered, Natalie went on, "I've told you before: our
lives, our marriage, the children, are more important than your work. If
you can't take that kind of work any more-and why should you if it's that
demanding?-then give it up now, get something else. I know what you always
tell me: the money'll be less; you'd throw away your pension. But that
isn't everything; we'd manage somehow. I'll take all the hardship you can
give me, Keith Bakersfeld, and maybe I'd complain a little, but not much,
because anything would be better than the way we are right now." She had
been close to tears, but managed to finish. "I'm warning you I can't take
much more. If you're going on like this, it may have to be alone."
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.
Later, his idea hardened to resolve.

The door of the darkened locker room opened. A switch snapped on. Keith was
back again in the control tower at Lincoln International, blinking in the
overhead light's glare.
Another tower controller, taking his own work break, was coming in. Keith
put away his untouched sandwiches, closed his locker, and walked back
toward the radar room. The other man glanced at him curiously. Neither
spoke.
Keith wondered if the crisis involving the Air Force KC-135, which had had
radio failure, had ended yet. Chances were, it had; that the aircraft and
its crew had landed safely. He hoped so. He hoped that something good, for
someone, would survive this night.
As he went in, he touched the O'Hagan Inn key in his pocket to be sure,
once again, that it was there. He would need it soon.

4

It was almost an hour since Tanya Livingston had left Mel Bakersfeld in the
central lobby of the main terminal. Even now, though other incidents had
intervened, she remembered the way their hands touched at the elevator, the
tone he used when he had said, "It'll give me a reason to see you again
tonight."
Tanya hoped very much that Mel remembered too, and-though she was aware he
had to go downtownthat he would find time to stop by first.
The "reason" Mel referred to-as if he needed one –was his curiosity about
the message received by Tanya while in the coffee shop. "There's a stowaway
on night 80," a Trans America agent had told her. "They're calling for
you," and "the way I hear it, this one's a dilly."

The agent had already been proved right.
Tanya was once more in the small, private lounge behind the Trans America
check-in counters where earlier this evening she had comforted the
distraught young ticket agent, Patsy Smith. But now, instead of Patsy,
Tanya faced the tittle old lady from San Diego.
"You've done this before," Tanya said. "Haven't you?"
"Oh yes, my dear. Quite a few times."
The little old lady sat comfortably relaxed, hands folded daintily in her
lap, a wisp of lace handkerchief showing between them. She was dressed
primly in black, with an old-fashioned high-necked blouse, and might have
been somebody's great-grandmother on her way to church. Instead she had
been caught riding illegally, without a ticket, between Los Angeles and
New York.
There had been stowaways, Tanya recalled reading somewhere, as long ago
as 700 B.C., on ships of the Phoenicians which plied the eastern
Mediterranean. At that time, the penalty for those who were caught was
excruciating death-disembowelment of adult stowaways, while children were
burned alive on sacrificial stones.
Since then, penalties had abated, but stowaways had not.
Tanya wondered if anyone, outside a limited circle of airline employees,
realized how much of a stowaway epidemic there had been since jet
airplanes increased the tempo and pressures of passenger aviation.
Probably not. Airlines worked hard to keep the whole subject under wraps,
fearing that if the facts became known, their contingent of nonpaying
riders would be greater still. But there were people who realized how
simple it all could be, including the little old lady from San Diego.
Her name was Mrs. Ada Ouonsett. Tanya had checked this fact from a Social
Security card, and Mrs. Quonsett would undoubtedly have reached New York
undetected if she had not made one mistake. This was confiding her status
to her seat companion, who told a stewardess. The stewardess reported to
the captain, who

radioed ahead, and a ticket agent and security guard were waiting to
remove the little old lady at Lincoln International. She had been brought
to Tanya, part of whose job as passenger relations agent was to deal with
such stowaways as the airline was lucky enough to catch.
Tanya smoothed her tight, trim uniform skirt in the gesture which had
become a habit. "All right," she said, "I think you'd better tell me
about it."
The older woman's hands unfolded and the lace handkerchief changed
position slightly. "Well, you see, I'm a widow and I have a married
daughter in New York. Sometimes I get lonely and want to visit her. So
what I do is go to Los Angeles and get on an airplane that's goin g to
New York."
"Just like that? Without a ticket."
Mrs. Quonsett seemed shocked. "Oh, my dear, I couldn't possibly afford
a ticket. I just have Social Security and this small pension my late
husband left. It's all I can do to manage the bus fare from San Diego to
Los Angeles."
"You do pay on the bus?"
"Oh, yes. The Greyhound people are very strict. I once tried buying a
ticket to the first stop up the line, then staying on. But they make a
check at every city, and the driver found my ticket wasn't good. They
were quite unpleasant about it. Not like the airlines at all."
"I'm curious," Tanya said, "why you don't use San Diego airport."
"Well, I'm afraid, my dear, they know me there."
"You mean you've been caught at San Diego?"
The little old lady inclined her head. "Yes."
"Have you been a stowaway on other airlines? Besides ours?"
"Oh, yes. But I like Trans America best."
Tanya was trying hard to remain severe, though it was difficult when the
conversation sounded as if they were discussing a stroll to the comer
store. But she kept her face impassive as she asked, "Why do you like
Trans America, Mrs. Quonsett?"
"Well, they're always so reasonable in New York.

When I've stayed with my daughter a week or two, and I'm ready to go home,
I go to your airline offices and tell them."
"You ten them the truth? That you came to New York as a stowaway?"
"That's right, my dear. They ask me the date and the flight number-I
always write it down so I'll remember. Then they look up some papers."
"The flight manifest," Tanya said. She wondered: was this conversation
real or just imagination.
"Yes, dear, I think that's what it's called."
"Please go on."
The little old lady looked surprised. "There isn't anything else. After
that, they just send me home. Usually the same day, on one of your
airplanes."
"And that's everything? Nothing else is said?"
Mrs. Quonsett gave a gentle smile, as she might have done at a vicarage
afternoon tea. "Well, I do sometimes get a little scolding. I'm told I've
been naughty, and not to do it again. But that really isn't much, is it?"
"No," Tanya said. "It certainly isn't,"
The incredible thing, Tanya realized, was that it was all so obviously
true. As airlines were aware, it happened frequently. A would-be stowaway
merely boarded an airplane-there were plenty of ways it could be done