Hard Landing

He stopped so abruptly that I shot ahead and had to backtrack.

"I understand your concerns, I do," he said. "And I wouldn't want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, so I'm going to find a way to allay those concerns. But let me give you a word of advice." He was smiling, his tone was sickly sweet, and I was concentrating on breathing, having lost the natural rhythm of respiration. "Unless and until you can prove any of what you're saying, it would be unwise to generate even one word of documentation. Because if you did, I would have to consider you to be reckless, u

We were standing in the middle of the vast ticketing lobby, where we were surrounded by a swirl of people and bags and skycaps and carts and animal carriers. But all I could hear was the edge under the drawl, and it was sharp enough to cut diamonds. I knew I'd crossed the line, and I knew I had been stupid to threaten him. I could have anticipated the consequences. But having him articulate them with such cool confidence made my knees weak.

When it came down to it, I figured Bill would intervene if Le

He moved in close enough that I could smell his tangy aftershave. Then he actually put his hand on my shoulder. It felt like a rat had perched on my suit jacket, and it was all I could do not to smack it off. "Let me give you some advice," he whispered. "Don't ever threaten me again. If you do, you'd better have what it takes to follow through, or it will be the last thing you do in this company. Now," he said with a jaunty smile, "let's go see your operation."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I'd spent the entire excruciating day with Le

"I been trying to reach you most of the day."

John didn't say hello, but I recognized his voice. Boarding a

"Are you on break?"

"Yeah, but I'm off in an hour. I got your message. What's up?"

If I had told him over the phone that his brother was about to be fired, I could have saved the trip. I could have stayed on the bed, ordered room service, and spent the evening feeling sorry for myself. But I was talking to a man who had gone out on one long limb for me. I changed my clothes and dragged myself out to meet him.

He came around the bend at Tremont, and I immediately picked him out of the crowd by his stevedore's build and his lightweight dress. What was it with this guy? Everyone on the street, including me, had every inch of flesh covered, and he looked as if he was going to a sailing regatta. Topsiders, jeans, a sweater, and a windbreaker. His one concession to the cold was a knit cap pulled down over his ears.

"Don't you ever get sick dressing like that?"

"Never. I love this weather. Great for working. What I can't stand is the heat in the summer. It makes you slow."

He took a deep, sustained breath and indeed seemed to draw energy from the cold. Just watching him made my lungs frost. "Can we at least get out of the wind?"

"Sure."

We weren't far from the Park Street T stop, so I suggested we get on a subway to nowhere.

"There's lots of guys on the ramp take the T to work," he said, shaking his head. "But that gives me another idea."

I followed him past a knot of sidewalk vendors clustered around steaming carts filled with roasted chestnuts and hot pretzels. We went through the swinging doors, down the wide concrete stairs to the underground station, and for the cost of two eighty-five-cent tokens, into the bowels of Boston mass transit. As we moved down the crowded platform, I noticed that most of the rush-hour commuters were dressed too warmly for the underground air, but seemed too tired to do anything but sweat. I could feel their collective exhaustion. It felt like my own.

John disappeared down another set of concrete stairs, into a narrow subtu

"Here?"

"You said you wanted to get out of the wind."

The sound of the trains grinding and creaking above rolled down into the tu

He laughed. "I told you I used to work on a fishing boat. What's the news on Terry?" he asked as I peeled off my hat, gloves, and scarf.

"Le

"We heard."

Of course they had. "He's not enthusiastic about the way I've been handling things. He's going to bring Little Pete and Angelo back to work, and he's going to hear Terry's grievance himself."

"That's it then for Terry."

It would have been easier if I had seen some anger in him, or even cynicism. But there was nothing like that, just the hopelessness, and the bleak acceptance that showed on his face and made me ashamed to be in the same chain of command with Le

"He said that?"

"Pretty much."

"I know you did what you could," he said, showing at least as much concern for me as for his brother, "and it's not worth giving up your job. Besides, I'd rather have you as GM than some of the others he could bring in."

We were quiet, both staring at the floor. The ground was covered with discarded handbills, some wet and soaked through, promising all ma

He shook his head. "No."

"Would you tell me if you did?"

He pushed his knit cap higher, then whipped it off altogether and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "I wouldn't tell you everything that goes on down there, but I would tell you that. Settin' off a bomb on the ramp so close to the fuel tanks, an aircraft sittin' right there on the gate-that's just stupid. People coulda been killed."