"The Fairmont. Yes, I remember. Go on."

"Well, I'm afraid I was careless. I'd quit taking pills because they were making me overweight; then I thought I didn't need any other precautions that day, but it turned out I was wrong. Anyway, because I was careless, now I have a teensy-weensy little Vernon Demerest inside me who's going to get bigger and bigger." There was a silence, then he said awkwardly, "I suppose I shouldn't ask this..."

She interrupted. "Yes, you should. You're ent.i.tled to ask." Gwen's deep dark eyes regarded him with open honesty. "What you want to know is, has there been anyone else, and am I positive it's you? Right?"

"Look, Gwen..."

She reached out to touch his hand. "You don't have to be ashamed of asking. I'd ask too, if things were the other way around."

He gestured unhappily. "Forget it. I'm sorry."

"But I want to tell you." She was speaking more hurriedly now, a shade less confidently. "There hasn't been anybody else; there couldn't be. You see... I happen to love you." For the first time her eyes were lowered. She went on, "I think I did... I know I did... love you, I meaneven before that time we had in San Francisco. When I've thought about it, I've been glad of that, because you ought to love someone if you're to have his baby, don't you think so?"

"Listen to me, Gwen." He covered her hands with his own. Vernon Demerest's hands were strong and sensitive, accustomed to responsibility and control, yet capable of precision and gentleness. They were gentle now. Women he cared about always had that effect on him, in contrast to the rough brusqueness with which he dealt with men. "We have to do some serious talking, and make some plans." Now that the first surprise was over, his thoughts were becoming orderly. It was perfectly clear what needed to be done next.

"You don't have to do anything." Gwen's head came up; her voice was under control. "And you can stop wondering whether I'm going to be difficult, or whether I'll make things awkward for you. I won't. I knew what I was getting into; that there was the chance this would happen. I didn't really expect it to, but it has. I had to tell you tonight because the baby's yours; it's part of you; you ought to know. Now you do, I'm also telling you you don't have to worry. I intend to work things out myself."

"Don't be ridiculous; of course I'll help. You don't imagine I'd walk away and ignore the whole bit." The essential thing, he realized, was speed; the trick with unwanted fetuses was to get the little beggars early. He wondered if Gwen had any religious scruples about abortions. She had never mentioned having a religion, but sometimes the most unlikely people were devout. He asked her, "Are you Catholic?"

"No."

Well, he reflected, that helped. Maybe, then, a quick flight to Sweden would be the thing; a few days there was all Gwen would need. Trans America would cooperate, as airlines always did, providing they were not officially involvedthe word "abortion" could be hinted at, but must never be mentioned. That way, Gwen could fly deadhead on a Trans America flight to Paris, then go by Air France to Stockholm on a reciprocal employee pa.s.s. Of course, even when she got to Sweden, the medical fees would still be d.a.m.nably expensive; tbcre was a jest among airline people that the Swedes took their overseas abortion customers to the clinic and the cleaners at the same time. The whole thing was cheaper in j.a.pan, of course. Lots of airline stewardesses flew to Tokyo and got abortions there for fifty dollars. The abortions were supposed to be therapeutic, but Demerest mistrusted them; Swedenor Switzerlandwere more reliable. He had once declared: when he got a stewardess pregnant, she went first cla.s.s.

From his own point of view, it was a b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance that Gwen had got a bun in the oven at this particular time, just when he was building an extension on his house which, be remembered gloomily, had already gone over budget. Oh well, he would have to sell some stockGeneral Dynamics, probably; he had a nice capital gain there, and it was about time to take a profit. He would call his broker right after getting back from Romeand Naples.

He asked, "You're still coming to Naples with me?"

"Of course; I've been looking forward to it. Besides, I bought a new negligee. You'll see it tomorrow night."

He stood up from the table and grinned. "You're a shameless hussy."

"A shameless pregnant hussy who shamelessly loves you. Do you love me?"

She came to him, and he kissed her mouth, face, and an ear. He probed her pinna with his tongue, felt her arms tighten in response, then whispered, "Yes, I love you." At the moment, he reflected, it was true.

"Vernon, dear."

"Yes?"

Her cheek was soft against his. Her voice came, m.u.f.fled, from his shoulder. "I mean what I said. You don't have to help me. But if you really want to, that's different."

"I want to." He decided he would sound her out about an abortion, on their way to the airport.

Gwen disengaged herself and glanced at her watch; it was 8:20. "It's time, Captain, sir. We'd better go."

"I GUESS YOU KNOW you really don't have to worry," Vernon Demerest said to Gwen as they drove. "Airlines are used to having their unmarried stewardesses get pregnant. It happens all the time. The last report I read, the national airline average was ten percent, per year."

Their discussion, he noted approvingly, was becoming increasingly matter-of-fact. Good!it was important to steer Gwen away from any emotional nonsense about this baby of hers. If she did become emotional, Demerest knew, all sorts of awkward things could happen, impeding commonsense.

He was handling the Mercedes carefully, with the delicate yet firm touch which was second nature to him when controlling any piece of machinery, including a car or airplane. The suburban streets, which were newly cleared when he drove from the airport to Gwen's apartment, were thickly snow-covered again. Snow was still coming down continuously, and there were deepening drifts in wind-exposed places, away from the shelter of buildings. Captain Demerest warily skirted the larger drifts. He had no intention of getting stuck nor did he even want to get out of the car until the shelter of the enclosed Trans America parking lot was reached.

Curled into the leather bucket seat beside him, Gwen said incredulously, "Is that really truethat every year, ten out of every hundred stewardesses get pregnant?" He a.s.sured her, "It varies slightly each year, but it's usually pretty close. Oh, the pill has changed things a bit, but the way I hear it, not as much as you'd expect. As a union officer I have access to that kind of information." He waited for Gwen to comment. When she made none, he went on, "What you have to remember is that airline stewardesses are mostly young girls, from the country, or modest city homes. They've had a quiet upbringing, an average life. Suddenly, they have a glamour job; they travel, meet interesting people, stay in the best hotels. It's their first taste of la dolce vita." He grinned. "Once in a while that first taste leaves some sediment in the gla.s.s."

"That's a rotten thing to say!" For the first time since he had known her, Gwen's temper flared. She said indignantly, "You sound so superior; just like a man. If I have any sediment in my gla.s.s, or in me, let me remind you that it's yours, and even if we didn't plan to leave it there, I think I'd find a better name for it than that. Also, if you're lumping me together with all those girls you talked about from the country and 'modest city homes,' I don't like that one d.a.m.n bit either."

There was heightened color in Gwen's cheeks; her eyes flashed angrily. "Hey!" he said. "I like your spirit." "Well, keep on saying things like you did just now, and you'll see more of it." "Was I that bad?" "You were insufferable."

"Then I'm sorry." Demerest slowed the car and stopped at a traffic light which shone with myriad red reflections through the falling snow. They waited in silence until, with Christmas card effect, the color winked to green. When they were moving again, he said carefully, "I didn't mean to lump you with anybody, because you're an exception. You're a sophisticate who got careless, You said you did, yourself. I guess we were both careless."

"All right." Gwen's anger was dissipating. "But don't ever put me in bunches. I'm me; no one else."

They were quiet for several moments, then Gwen said thoughtfully, "I suppose we could call him that." "Call who what?" "You made me remember what I said earlierabout a little Vernon Demerest inside me. If we had a boy, we could call him Vernon Demerest, Junior, the way Americans do."

He had never cared much for his own name. Now he began to say, "I wouldn't want my son..." then stopped. This was dangerous ground.

"What I started to say, Gwen, was that airlines are used to this kind of thing. You know about the Three-Point Pregnancy Program?"

She said shortly, "Yes."

It was natural that Gwen did. Most stewardesses were aware of what airlines would do for them if they became pregnant, providing the stewardess herself agreed to certain conditions. Within Trans America the system was referred to familiarly as the "3-PPP." Other airlines used differing names, and arrangements varied slightly, but the principle was the same.

"I've known girls who've used the 3-PPP," Gwen said. "I didn't think I'd ever need to."

"Most of the others didn't, I guess." He added: "But you wouldn't need to worry. It isn't something that airlines advertise, and it all works quietly. How are we for time?"

Gwen held her wrist watch under the light of the dash. "We're okay."

He swung the Mercedes into a center lane carefully, judging his traction on the wet, snowy surface, and pa.s.sed a lumbering utilities truck. Several men, probably an emergency crew, were clinging to the sides of the truck as it moved along. They looked weary, wet, and miserable. Demerest wondered what the men's reaction would be if they knew that he and Gwen would be under warm Neapolitan sunshine only hours from now.

"I don't know," Gwen said; "I don't know if I could ever do it."

Like Demerest, Gwen knew the reasoning of management which lay behind airline pregnancy programs. No airline liked losing stewardesses for any reason. Their training was expensive; a qualified stewardess represented a big investment. Another thing: the right kind of girls, with good looks, style, and personality, were hard to find.

The way the programs worked was practical and simple. If a stewardess became pregnant, and did not plan to be married, obviously she could return to her job when her pregnancy was over, and usually her airline would be delighted to have her back. So, the arrangement was, she received official leave of absence, with her job seniority protected. As to her personal welfare, airline personnel departments had special sections which, among other things, would help make medical or nursing home arrangements, either where a girl lived or at some distant point, whichever she preferred. The airline helped psychologically, too, by letting the girl know that someone cared about her, and was looking out for her interest. A loan of money could sometimes be arranged. Afterward, if a stewardess who had had her child was diffident about returning to her original base, she would be quietly transferred to a new one of her own choosing.

In return for all this, the airline asked three a.s.surances from the stewardess hence the Three-Point Pregnancy Program. First, the girl must keep the airline personnel department informed of her whereabouts at all times during her pregnancy. Second, she must agree that her baby be surrendered for adoption immediately after birth. The girl would never know the baby's adoptive parents; thus the child would pa.s.s out of her life entirely. However, the airline guaranteed that proper adoption procedures would be followed, with the baby being placed in a good home. Thirdat the outset of the three-point program the stewardess must inform the airline of the name of the child's father. When she had done so, a representative from Personnelexperienced in such situationspromptly sought out the father with the objective of obtaining financial support for the girl. What the personnel man tried to obtain was a promise, in writing, of enough money to cover medical and nursing home expenses and, if possible, some or all of the stewardess's lost wages. Airlines preferred such arrangements to be amiable and discreet. If they had to, though, they could get tough, using their considerable corporate influence to bring pressure on noncooperating individuals.

It was seldom necessary to be tough where the father of a stewardess's baby was a flying crew membera captain, or first or second officer. In such cases, gentle company suasion, plus the father's wish to keep the whole thing quiet, were usually enough. As to keeping quiet, the company obliged. Temporary support payments could be made in any reasonable way, or, if preferred, the airline made regular deductions from the employee's pay checks. Just as considerately, to avoid awkward questions at home, such deductions appeared under the heading: "personal misc." All money received by these means was paid, in its entirety, to the pregnant stewardess. The airline deducted nothing for its own costs.

"The whole point about the program," Demerest said, "is that you're not alone, and there's all kinds of help."

He had been careful of one thingto avoid any reference, so far, to abortion. That was a separate subject because no airline would, or could, become directly involved in abortion arrangements. Advice on the subject was frequently given unofficially to those who sought itby stewardess supervisors who learned, through experience of others, how such arrangements could be made. Their objective, if a girl was determined on abortion, was to insure its performance under safe medical conditions, avoiding at all costs the dangerous and disreputable pract.i.tioners whom desperate people sometimes resorted to.

Gwen regarded her companion curiously. "Tell me one thing. How is it you know so much about all this?"

"I told you, I'm a union officer..."

"You're part of the ALPA's for pilots. You don't have anything to do with stewardessesnot in that way, anyhow."

"Maybe not directly."

"Vernon, this has happened to you before... getting a stewardess pregnant... Vernon, hasn't it?"

He nodded reluctantly. "Yes."

"It must come pretty easily to you, knocking up stewardessesthose gullible country girls you were talking about. Or were they mostly from 'modest city homes'?" Gwen's voice was bitter. "How many have there been altogether? Two dozen, a dozen? Just give me an idea in round figures"

He sighed. "One; only one."

He had been incredibly lucky, of course. It could have been many more, but his answer was the truth. Well... almost the truth; there was that other time, and the miscarriage, but that shouldn't count.

Outside the car, traffic density was increasing as they neared the airport, now less than a quarter mile away. The bright lights of the great terminal, though dimmed tonight by snow, still filled the sky.

Gwen said, "The other girl who got pregnant. I don't want to know her name..."

"I wouldn't tell you."

"Did she use the thingummytbe three-point program?"

"Yes."

"Did you help her?"

He answered impatiently, "I said earlierwhat kind of a man do you think I am? Of course I helped her. If you must know, the company made deductions from my pay checks. That's how I knew about the way it's done."

Gwen smiled. "'Personal misc.?'"

"Yes."

"Did your wife ever know?"

He hesitated before answering. "No."

"What happened to the baby?"

"It was adopted."

"What was it?"

"Just a baby."

"You know perfectly well what I mean. Was it a boy or a girl?"

"A girl, I think."

"You think."

"I know. It was a girl."

Gwen's questioning made him vaguely uncomfortable. It revived memories he would as soon forget.

They were silent as Vernon Demerest swung the Mercedes into the airport's wide and imposing main entry. High above the entry, soaring and floodlighted, were the futuristic parabolic archesacclaimed achievement of a world-wide design contest symbolizing, so it was said, the n.o.ble dreams of aviation. Ahead was an impressive, serpentine complex of roads, interchanges, flyovers, and tunnels, designed to keep the airport's unceasing vehicular traffic flowing at high speed, though tonight the effects of the three-day storm were making progress slower than usual. Great mounds of snow were occupying normally usable road s.p.a.ce. Snowplows and dump trucks, trying to keep remaining areas open, were adding their own confusion. After several brief hold-ups, Demerest turned onto the service road which would bring them to the Trans America main hangar area, where they would leave the car and take a crew bus to the terminal.

Gwen stirred beside him. "Vernon."

"Yes."

"Thank you for being honest with me." She reached out touching his nearer hand on the steering wheel. "I'll be all right. I expect it was just a bit much, all at once. And I do want to go with you to Naples."

He nodded and smiled, then took his hand off the wheel and clasped Gwen's tightly. "We'll have a great time, and I promise we'll both remember it." He would do his best, he decided, to ensure the promise came true. For himself, it would not be difficult. He had been more attracted to Gwen, had felt more loving in her company, and closer in spirit, than with anyone else he remembered. If it were not for his marriage... He wondered, not for the first time, about breaking with Sarah, and marrying Gwen. Then he pushed the thought away. He had known too many others of his profession who had suffered upheavalpilots who forsook wives of many years, for younger women. More often than not, all the men had in the end were shattered hopes and heavy alimony.

Sometime during their trip, though, either in Rome or Naples, he must have another serious discussion with Gwen. Their talk, so far, had not gone exactly as he would have liked, nor had the question of an abortion yet been raised.

Meanwhilethe thought of Rome reminded himthere was the more immediate matter of his command of Trans America Flight Two.

3.

THE KEY was to room 224 of the O'Hagan Inn.

In the semi-darkened locker area adjoining the air traffic control radar room, Keith Bakersfeld realized he had been staring at the key and its identifying plastic tag for several minutes. Or had it been seconds only? It might have been. Just lately, like so much else, the pa.s.sage of time seemed inconstant and disoriented. Sometimes at home recently, Natalie had found him standing quite still, looking into nothingness. And when she had asked, with concern, Why are you there?, only then had he become awakened to where he was, and had resumed movement and conscious thinking.

What had happened, he supposedthen and a moment agowas that his worn, weary mind had switched itself off. Somewhere inside the brain's intricaciesof blood vessels, sinew, stored thought, and emotionwas a tiny switch, a self-defense mechanism like a thermal cutout in an electric motor, which worked when the motor was running too hot and needed to be saved from burning itself out. The difference, though, between a motor and a human brain, was that a motor stayed out of action if it needed to.

A brain would not.

The floodlights outside, on the face of the control tower, still reflected enough light inward through the locker room's single window for Keith to see. Not that he needed to see. Seated on one of the wooden benches, the sandwiches Natalie had made, untouched, beside him, he was doing nothing more than holding the O'Hagan Inn key and thinking, reflecting on the paradox of the human brain.

A human brain could achieve soaring imagery, conceive poetry and radarscopes, create the Sistine Chapel and a supersonic Concorde. Yet a brain, too--holding memory and consciencecould be compelling, self-tormenting, never resting; so that only death could end its persecution.

Death... with oblivion, forgetfulness; with rest at last. It was the reason that Keith Bakersfeld had decided on suicide tonight. He must go back soon to the radar room. There were still several hours of his shift remaining, and he had made a pact with himself to finish his air traffic control duty for tonight. He was not sure why, except that it seemed the right thing to do, and he had always tried to do the right thing, conscientiously. Perhaps being conscientious was a family trait; he and his brother Mel always seemed to have that much in common.

Anyway, when the duty was donehis final obligation finishedhe would be free to go to the O'Hagan Inn, where he had registered late this afternoon. Once there, without wasting time, he would take the forty Nembutal capsulessixty grains in all which were in a drugstore pillbox in his pocket. He had husbanded the capsules, a few at a time, over recent months. They bad been prescribed to give him sleep, and from each prescription which Natalie's druggist had delivered, he had carefully extracted half and hidden it. A few days ago he had gone to a library, checking a reference book on clinical toxicology to a.s.sure himself that the quant.i.ty of Nembutal he had was well in excess of a fatal dose.

His present duty shift would end at midnight. Soon after, when he had taken the capsules, sleep would come quickly and with finality.

He looked at his watch, holding its face toward the light from outside. It was almost nine o'clock. Should he return to the radar room now? Nostay a few minutes longer. When he went, he wanted to be calm, his nerves steady for whatever these last few hours of duty might contain.

Keith Bakersfeld fingered the O'Hagan Inn key again. Room 224. It was strange about the coincidence of figures; that his room number tonight, allocated by chance, should have in it a "24." There were people who believed in that kind of thingnumerology; the occult significance of numbers. Keith didn't, though if he did, those third and last figures, prefaced by a "2," could be taken to mean 24 for the second time.

The first 24 had been a date, a year and a half ago. Keith's eyes misted, as they had so many times before, when he remembered. The date was searedwith selfreproach and anguishin his memory. It was the wellspring of his darksome spirit, his utter desolation. It was the reason he would end his life tonight.