I was so glad to be back in the field.
"I'm trying to tell you," thundered The Voice, "you don't need a gate for this. There's gotta be somebody around. Jesus Christ, Roger, I gotta do everything myself?"
The phone slammed, the door flew open, and he was past me, his voice trailing him down the corridor along with echoes of his hurried footsteps. "I'll be with you in a minute. I just gotta go… do…" And he was gone. I looked into the office he'd just vacated. Sitting quietly in a side chair was an uncommonly spindly young man, probably early twenties, with wavy blond hair, a pale complexion, and long legs covered with white cotton long johns. He wore a tight lime green bicycle shirt that emphasized his narrowness, and a pair of baggy shorts over the long underwear. A praying mantis in Birkenstocks. "Oh, hey," he said when he saw me.
"How are you?" is what I said, when "Who are you" would have worked much better.
"Kidney."
"What?"
"I'm waiting for the kidney," he said. "It was supposed to come in early this morning, but someone at the airlines screwed up. It just got here. I think the dude's going to get it himself."
Something clicked and the alternative dress made sense. "You're a courier."
He nodded. "Working for the hospital."
"Was that Dan Fallacaro?"
"That's what he told me." Something out on the ramp drew his attention. "There he is, man. Cool."
He unfolded himself from the chair and stepped over to the side wall of the office, which was a floor-to-ceiling window onto our ramp operation. Sure enough, the figure that had just about plowed me under was now sprinting across the concrete through the rain toward a B737 idling on the tarmac. He had on a company-issued heavy winter coat, but no hood or hat, and he carried a lightweight ladder. The courier and I stood side by side in the window watching as Dan Fallacaro climbed the ladder, banged on the cockpit window with his fist, then waited, soaked to the bone, to receive a small cooler about the size of a six-pack. He cradled it under his arm as he stepped down and collected his ladder. When he turned to jog, gently, back to the terminal, I saw that he hadn't even taken time to zip his jacket.
"Awesome," said the courier. "I didn't know you could do that."
"Some people wouldn't do that."
The courier checked his watch. Thinking about that fragile cargo, I had to ask, "Are you a bicycle courier?"
"In Boston? You think I'm crazy? I've got a Ford Explorer. See ya."
While I waited for Dan to reappear, I went back to the reception area. When the phone on the reception desk rang, I grabbed it. "Majestic Airlines."
"Hey, Molly…" It was a man's voice, strained, barely audible over the muffled whine of jet engines and the sound of other men's voices. "Molly, give Danny a message for me, wouldya?"
"This is not-"
"I can't hear you, Molly. It's crazy down here. Just tell him I got his package on board. I handed it to the captain myself. Make sure you tell him that part, that nobody else saw it."
"Who is this?"
"Who the hell do you think? This is Norm. And tell him I put her name on the manifest, but not the Form 12A, like he said. He'll know."
Norm signed off, assuming to the end that he'd been speaking to Molly.
The heavy door on the concourse opened and shut, those same hurried footsteps approached, and he was there. Dan Fallacaro in the flesh, out of breath, and sans cooler.
"Nice save," I said. "I'd hate to be responsible for the loss of a vital organ on my first day."
"Thanks." He peeled off the wet winter coat. Underneath, his sleeves were rolled up, his tie was at half-mast, and the front of his shirt was damp. It clung to his body, accentuating a chassis that was wiry, built for speed. From what I'd seen, his metabolism was too fast to sustain any spare fat.
"I'm Alex Shanahan," I said, extending my hand.
"I know who you are. I work for you." He wiped a wet palm on his suit pants and gave me a damp, perfunctory handshake. "Dan Fallacaro. How you doing?" Even though he looked past me, not at me, I could still see that he had interesting eyes, the kind that gray-eyed people like me always coveted. They were green, a mossy green that ran to dark brown around the edges of the irises. His phone rang and he shot past me into his office.
I waited at a polite distance until the call ended, then waited a while longer until it was clear he wasn't coming back and he wasn't going to invite me in. I moved just inside his doorway and found him sitting at his desk, drying his face and hands with a paper towel. If he felt any excitement about my arrival, he managed to keep it in check.
"What's the story with the kidney?" I asked.
"It got here late."
"How'd that happen?"
"Somebody in Chicago put it on the wrong flight. Had to be rerouted."
"You didn't have enough gates?"
"Nope."
"Because you're off schedule?"
"Yep."
"How come?"
"Winter."
"Uh-huh. Why'd you have to go get it yourself?"
He unfurled another towel from the roll on his desk and snapped it off. "Because Roger Shit-for-Brains is on in Operations this morning, I can't find my shift supervisor, and even if I could, no one would do what he says." He bent down to wipe off his shoes.
"By any chance, is Norm your shift supervisor?"
He popped up. "Did he call?"
"Just now," I said. "He gave-"
Dan grabbed the phone…
"He gave me a message for you."
…slammed the receiver to his ear…
"Do you want the message?"
…started to dial…
"The package you asked him to take care of is onboard."
…and stopped. "He told you that?"
"He said he put the name on the manifest but left it off the 12A. He handled it personally and no one else saw it."
He hung up the phone slowly, as if relinquishing the receiver would be a sign that he believed me, a sign of good faith he wasn't ready to offer. With one hand he tossed the wet paper towel into the metal trash can, where it landed with a thud. With the other he pulled a comb from his drawer and dragged it haphazardly through his thick, damp hair. "Molly can get you settled in." He raised his voice, "Mol, you out there?"
If Molly was within a hundred yards, she would have heard him, but there was no response.
"For chrissakes, Molly, I saw you come in."
A woman's voice floated in. "I told you before, Danny, I wasn't going to answer when you bellowed."
Satisfied, he stood up and began gathering himself to leave. "She can get you set up," he said, grabbing a clipboard and keys from his desk. I could have been the droopy potted plant in the corner for all that I was registering with him.
"We need to talk about last night," I said as he walked out the door.
"What about last night?" he snapped, executing a crisp about-face.
"Since you weren't around and I was, maybe I can brief you."
He folded his arms across the clipboard and held it flat against his chest. "The shift supervisor wasn't answering his radio," he began, accepting the unspoken challenge, "and the cabin service crew chief was AWOL along with everyone else on his crew. No one was cleaning the cabins. The flight attendants wouldn't take the airplanes because they were dirty, and they wouldn't clean 'em themselves because it's not in their contract. The agents were trying to do quick pickups onboard just to get them turned when they should have been working the queues." His words came so fast he sounded like a machine gun. "Chicago was socked in. Miami took a mechanical, and there was only one functioning microphone which you used to make announcements while standing on top of the podium at Gate Forty-two."
"You didn't mention that I was barefoot."
"It's not because I didn't know." He had enough self-control not to actually sneer, but he couldn't do much about his brittle tone.
"And you didn't mention the hundreds of inconvenienced passengers, all of whom were
jammed into the departure lounge screaming for blood. I thought we were going to have to offer up one of the agents as a human sacrifice."
His grip on the clipboard tightened. "What's your point?"
"My point is that the operation last night was a complete disaster, and there was some indication that it was all orchestrated for my benefit-some kind of 'Welcome to Boston' message from the union."
"Who told you that?"
"It doesn't matter. I'm now in charge of this place, you are my second in command, and I think we should talk about this. I want to understand what's going on."
"Last night is handled."
"What's handled?"
"I spoke to the shift supervisor about not answering his radio. As far as the crew chief on cabins, I've got a disciplinary hearing scheduled for Thursday. He was off the field. I know he was, everybody knows he was, but no one's going to speak up, much less give a statement, so I'll put another reprimand in his file, the union will grieve it, and you'll take it out. End of story."
"Is that how things work around here, or are you making a prediction about me?"
"I need to get to work," he said. "Is there anything else?"
"Could we… do you mind if we sit down for a minute? I'm having a hard time talking to the back of your head."
His jaw worked back and forth, his green eyes clouded over, and his deep sigh would have been a loud groan if he'd have given it voice. But he moved back behind his desk, immediately found a pencil, and proceeded to drum it against the arm of his chair.
I closed the door and settled into the seat across from him. "Dan, are you this rude, abrupt, and patronizing with everyone? Or is this behavior a reaction to me specifically? Or maybe you're unhappy with someone else, Roger-Shit-for-Brains, for example, and taking it out on me." I thought of another option. "Or maybe you're just an asshole."
His reaction was so typically male it was hard not to smile. He looked stunned, flabbergasted, as if my annoyance was totally unprovoked. Who, me?
"Why would I be mad at you? I don't even know you."
"Exactly my point. Most people have to get to know me before they truly dislike me."
He stared for a few seconds, then laid the pencil on his desk, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he was done, I noticed for the first time how thoroughly exhausted he looked. His eyeballs seemed to have sunk deeper into their sockets, his face was drawn, and his cheeks were hollowed out as if he hadn't had a hot meal or a good night's sleep in a week.
That's when I got it.
"You're upset about the ashes, aren't you?" He fixed those dark green eyes on me in a tired but riveting gaze. "The ones Norm handled for you."
"Goddamn him-" He was up on his feet and ready to go after Norm, and I knew I was right.
"Norm didn't tell me."
"Then who did?"
"I figured it out myself. Form 12A is a notification of human remains onboard. He said he put the box in the cockpit and not in the belly, so I have to assume the remains weren't in a coffin. And since your boss hung herself last week-"
"Last Monday. She died last Monday night."
"So another reason you might be this angry and upset is that you and Ellen Shepard were friends and I've walked in on a particularly difficult time because today is the day you're shipping her ashes home."
He sank back into his chair, dropped his head back, and closed his eyes. He looked as if he never wanted to get up again.
"Why all the mystery? Why not put her name on the manifest?"
"Because I didn't want the scumbags downstairs stubbing out cigarettes in her ashes."
"Tell me you're exaggerating."
"We're talking about the same guys who screwed over almost a thousand passengers last night just to send a 'fuck you' message."
I sat back in my chair, and felt my excitement about the new job and being back in the field drain away.
"I should have been here," he said, his head still back, eyes glued to the ceiling. "But I had to-I just should have been here."
He didn't actually say it, but that sounded as close to an apology as I was going to get. "I'm sorry about Ellen, Dan."
"Did you know her?"
"No."
His head popped up. "Then why would you be sorry?"
"Because you knew her."
This time when he bolted up, I couldn't have stopped him if I'd tackled him.
"Debrief is at 0900 sharp," he said, throwing the door open. "It's your meeting if you want it."
I sat and listened one more time to the sound of his footsteps fading down the long corridor. The door to the concourse opened and closed, and I knew he was gone. Eventually, I pulled myself up and went out to meet my new assistant.
"Don't take it personally," she said when she saw me. "He's that way with everyone."
Molly had a flop of dark curls on her head, big brown eyes, and full red lips that occupied half her face. Her olive complexion suggested Hispanic blood, or maybe Portuguese, this being Massachusetts. She was probably in her late fifties, but her dainty stature made her seem younger. She was thin, almost bird-like, but judging from the hard lines around her eyes and the way she'd spoken to Dan, she was more of a crow than a sparrow. At least she had a voice like one.
She squinted at me. "You're the new GM."
"And you're Molly."
"Danny's been a little upset these past few days."
"Judging from my first"-I checked my watch- "fifteen hours in this operation, he's got good reason."
She leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and took a long, deep sideways drag on a skinny cigarette, all the time looking me up and down like girls do in junior high when they're trying to decide who to be seen with in the school cafeteria. She might not have been inside a junior high school for over thirty years, but she still had the attitude.
"So they sent us another woman," she said, eyebrows raised.
"Apparently."
With a swish of nylon on nylon she rose from the chair and sidled around to my side of her desk. It's possible I'd passed muster, but more likely she couldn't resist a golden opportunity to dish.
"He found her, you know."
"Who?"
"Ellen."
"Dan found Ellen's body?"
"When she didn't come in that morning, he's the one who drove up to her house. She was in the attic." Molly reached around to the ashtray on the desk behind her and did a quick flick. "When he found her, she'd been hanging there all night."
I reached up instinctively and put a hand on my own throat, which was tightening at the thought of what a body looks like after hanging by the neck for that long. With my thumb, I could feel my own blood pumping through a thick vein. "It must have been horrible for him. Were they friends?"
She nodded as she exhaled. "He won't talk about it, but, yeah, he hasn't been the same since. Like I said, we don't take it personally." She reached behind the desk again and opened a drawer, this time coming back with a big, heavy ring chock full of keys. "I'll let you into your office."
She went to the door, and I stood back and watched her struggle with the lock.
"How's everyone else around here taking it?" I asked. "What's the mood?"
"Mixed. People who liked her are upset. People who didn't are glad she's gone. It's that simple. More people liked her than didn't, but the ones that didn't hated her so much, it made up for all the rest."
"Mostly guys down on the ramp, I hear. Not the agents."
She nodded. "You showing up the way you did last night and doing what you did, that's given them all something else to talk about. Everyone's waiting to see what you're like, what you're going to do about Little Pete." The lock was not releasing and she was getting frustrated. "Who's Little Pete and why is he 'Little'?"
"Pete Dwyer Jr. He's the missing crew chief, the one who caused all that trouble last night. Most of it, anyway. Everyone calls him Little Pete because his pop works here, too. Big Pete runs the union."
&
nbsp; "I thought Victor Venora was president of the local."
"Titles don't mean much here. And they have nothing to do with who's got the real power."
"And who would that-"
With a final, forceful twist, the door popped open. "Cripes!" Molly jerked her hand away as if it had been caught in a mousetrap. "I broke a nail. Damn that lock." She took the mound of keys, marched back to her desk, presumably for emergency repairs, and called back over her shoulder, "Go in. I'll be with you in a minute."
The door swung open easily at my touch. The office was slightly larger than Dan's. Instead of one floor-to-ceiling window on the ramp-side wall, it had two that came together at the corner. Unlike Dan's office, the blinds were closed, filtering out all but a few slats of daylight that fell across the floor like bright ribbons. The air smelled closed-in, faintly musty. In the middle of the space, dominating in every way, was a massive, ornate wooden desk. Its vast work surface was covered with a thick slice of glass. Underneath was a large, carved logo for… Nor'easter Airlines?
"Some desk, huh?" Molly leaned against the door-jamb with a new cigarette.
"It looks out of place," I said, walking over to open the blinds.
"It belonged to the president of our airline."
"Our airline" was how former Nor'easter employees always referred to their old company, which had teetered at the precipice of bankruptcy until Bill Scanlon, the chairman and CEO of Majestic, our airline, had sailed in and saved the day. As a result, Scanlon was revered by most Nor'easterners. It was the rest of us Majestic plebeians they resented.
I didn't tell her that no one at Majestic headquarters would have been caught dead with a desk like that. It didn't match the corporate ambiance, which was simple, spare, and, above all, featureless. When I pulled the blinds, the sun splashed in on a linoleum floor that was wax-yellow and dirty. The corner where I was standing was covered with a strange white residue, almost like chalk dust. It reminded me of rat poison. The morning light brought grandeur to the old desk, showing polish and detail I hadn't noticed. I also hadn't noticed the single palm print now clearly visible in the dust that coated the glass top.
Hard Landing Page 2