"I'm guessing Big Pete Dwyer would be a hardliner."
"Right you are. No concessions to management, ever, no matter what. Johnny McTavish was on the other side. His feeling was, if they didn't help bail the company out, there would be no more company. And he was right. The contract lost by the slimmest of margins, and that's the reason Nor'easter is gone today, may she rest in peace."
"At least you guys didn't go bankrupt."
"Tell that to the four thousand people Majestic laid off. That was over two years ago, and most of us still haven't gotten over the shock."
"It doesn't appear that John and Big Pete have buried the hatchet, either."
"No. I don't think they ever will. Dwyers and McTavishes, they are cut from different cloth."
From my vantage point at the window, I could see John unloading the bags from the stranded Majestic Express. "How is it no one showed up to work this flight?"
"The kid who usually works it called in sick. That's what I was told."
"Okay, but any one of forty or fifty rampers on shift could have covered."
"Sure, they could have, the problem being, in this station most rampers won't work the Express."
"What does that mean? We have seven Expresses every day. You're saying they refuse to work them at all?"
"It's not the Express so much as they won't work prop jets. Won't go near 'em, especially the senior men. Usually the junior guy on shift gets stuck with the trip."
"Okay, I give up. Why won't they work the props?"
"It's because of the crash."
"What cra-" I stopped for a moment. "The Baltimore crash?'
He nodded. "Nor'easter Express flight 1704. Went down on approach just outside of Baltimore, which is why most people remember it that way. What they don't remember is that the flight originated in Boston."
"Which means it was loaded here."
"Precisely. Rampers are a superstitious lot. And it's not just them. You won't find many in this station that will talk about The Incident. Bad luck. That's how we refer to it, 'The Incident,' just so you'll know."
"When was that? Ninety-four? Ninety-five?"
"Twenty-two hundred hours on the evening of March 15, 1995. Easy to remember."
"The Ides of March," I said. "Not to be indelicate or disrespectful in any way because I know it must have been extremely difficult for everyone here, but that was years ago. You're not even the same airline, and furthermore, if I remember right, the cause of that crash was pilot error. It had nothing to do with the ground operation."
"Ah, but that's the nature of superstition, isn't it? It's neither rational nor reasonable."
"Is it possible this superstition can be explained by the fact that rampers simply don't like to work these little airplanes because they're a pain in the ass to load?"
His coy smile said it all.
I reached up to rub my temples because my head was throbbing, and as soon as I realized that, it occurred to me my legs were aching, and when I noticed that, I couldn't help but feel the stiffness in my neck. I'd been in this station nine days, and every day had been longer than the one before.
"Kevin, I came into this job under the impression that I was supposed to be in charge of this operation at Logan. How come I can't find anything that I'm in charge of?"
He laughed. "We do have a unique way of doing things here. It takes a little getting used to."
"Has anyone ever tried to take action with the union on this issue?" Just contemplating the idea made me want to go to the hotel, get in bed, and pull the covers over my head. But that was probably just what they wanted.
"It's so ingrained now, most of the boys would rather lose their job than work a prop. You'd have to fire them all."
Big Pete was making his way across the ramp, in uniform now and apparently on the clock.
"I don't think so," I said. "You'd just have to fire the right one."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
According to Ellen's running log, the Esplanade along the Charles River had been one of her favorite haunts. It was in the heart of the city, nowhere near Marblehead, yet she'd gone back to it over and over. I understood why when I tried it myself. With the skyline of Boston to the south, Cambridge to the north, and the Charles in between, there was something dazzling to gaze at from every angle, especially on a night like this when the clear winter air brought the lights of the city so close.
It felt good to run, to be outside and not cooped up in my hotel room watching videos. I'd made a decision not to feel threatened every minute of every day, to take charge of my life again, and it felt good.
I'd left my cell phone in the car, which didn't help much when my beeper went off somewhere around the Harvard Bridge. I had to run around Cambridge until I found a pay phone. The number on the beeper wasn't one I recognized, and when I dialed, it didn't even ring once.
"Shanahan?"
"Dan?"
"I've been beeping you for twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes, huh?" It was ten minutes, at most.
"What's that noise?" he asked. "Where are you?"
"I'm out running. Is this your car phone number?"
"Yeah. I'm on my way to the airport. If we get cut off, it's because I'm in the tunnel."
"Why don't you tell me why you called before you go into the tunnel?"
"There was a fight tonight at the airport. Two rampers got into it. They called me about a half hour ago from the hospital."
"Who's hurt and how bad?"
"It was Little Pete Dwyer and Terry McTavish. Little Pete's at the hospital. Cuts and lacerations. I don't know about Terry."
"Is Terry McTavish John's brother?"
"Yep."
"That's a coincidence."
"That two guys with the same name are brothers?"
"No, no. We had a stare-down last night between John McTavish and Big Pete. It was when you were at that sales meeting."
"Shocked the shit out of me," he said. "Terry's not a guy who causes trouble."
"Do you know what the fight was about?"
"No idea. I'm on my way in to do the investigation."
"Do you want help? I can be there in an hour."
"No. I want you to hear the grievance, so you need to stay out of the action. That way it never has to go out of the station."
"You don't want it to go to Lenny."
"When Lenny hears our grievances, he always finds for the union. Or he makes some deal. There's nothing they can do bad enough that Lenny won't cut a deal and bring 'em back to work."
"That sounds like an exaggeration."
"You can check the record."
"All right. What time is it? I don't have a watch on."
"It's just after nine." The connection was starting to break up. "What are you doing out so late?"
"Call me when you're finished and give me the details," I said, ignoring the question. He sounded like my mother.
"You gonna be at the hotel?"
Before I could answer, the line went dead. He must have gone into the tunnel.
A United B767 under tow crept along the outer taxi-way toward the maintenance hangar. I could see it from my hotel window. Except for anti-collision lights, the aircraft was dark, all engines off. Moving like that through the night, it looked like a submarine running in deep water.
It had been almost three hours since Dan had called about the fight. I imagined him down there, interviewing closed-mouth rampers, trying to conduct an investigation, trying to figure out who had done what to whom. It was hard waiting. I could have beeped him, but I knew he'd call when he had something.
The Celtics were on TV keeping me company. Listening with one ear, I knew it was late in the campaign and the Celts were out on the West Coast getting clobbered by Golden State, of all teams. I came away from the window, stood in the light of the TV, and stared blankly. Someone in the hometown team's shamrock green uniform had just been called for goal-tending. I started to turn it off, but then sat on the bed instead and watched.