twenty-eight.”
Tanya said shortly, “Thirty-seven.”
“Well, you have a young mature look. Perhaps it comes from being married.”
“Come off it,” Tanya said. “That isn’t going to help you.”
“But you are married.”
“I was. I’m not now.”
“Such a pity. You could have beautiful children. With red hair like your own.”
Red hair, perhaps, but not with the beginnings of gray, Tanya thought — the gray she had noticed again this morning. As to children, she might have explained that she did have a child, who was at home in their apartment and, she hoped, asleep. Instead, she addressed Mrs. Ada Quonsett sternly.
“What you’ve done is dishonest. You’ve defrauded; you’ve broken the law. I suppose you realize you can be prosecuted.”
For the first time, a gleam of triumph crossed the older woman’s innocent face. “But I won’t be, will I? They never do prosecute anybody.”
There was really no point in continuing, Tanya thought. She knew perfectly well, and so apparently did Mrs. Quonsett, that airlines never prosecuted stowaways, on the theory that publicity would be more harmful than otherwise.
There was just a chance, though, that some more questions might produce information useful in the future.
“Mrs. Quonsett,” Tanya said, “since you’ve had so much free travel from Trans America, the least you can do is help us a little.”
“I’ll be glad to if I can.”
“What I’d like to know is how you get aboard our flights.”
The little old lady smiled. “Well, my dear, there are quite a few ways. I try to use different ones as much as I can.”
“Please tell me about them.”
“Well, most times I try to be at the airport early enough so I can get myself a boarding pass.”
“Isn’t that difficult to do?”
“Getting a boarding pass? Oh, no; it’s very easy. Nowadays airlines use their ticket folders as passes. So I go to one of the counters and say I’ve lost my ticket folder, and please may I have another. I pick a counter where the clerks are busy, with a lot of people waiting. They always give me one.”
Naturally they would, Tanya thought. It was a normal request which occurred frequently. Except that, unlike Mrs. Quonsett, most people wanted a fresh ticket folder for a legitimate reason.
“But it’s just a blank folder,” Tanya pointed out. “It isn’t made out as a gate pass.”
“I make it out myself — in the ladies’ room. I always have some old passes with me, so I know what to write. And I keep a big black pencil in my purse.” Depositing the lace handkerchief in her lap, Mrs. Quonsett opened her black beaded purse. “See?”
“I do see,” Tanya said. She reached out, removing the crayon pencil. “Do you mind if I keep this?”
Mrs. Quonsett looked faintly resentful. “It’s really mine. But if you want it, I suppose I can get another.”
“Go on,” Tanya said. “So now you have a boarding pass. What happens after that?”
“I go to where the flight is leaving from.”
“The departure gate?”
“That’s right. I wait until the young man checking the tickets is busy — he always is when a lot of people come together. Then I walk past him, and on to the airplane.”
“Suppose someone tries to stop you?”
“No one does, if I have a pass.”
“Not even the stewardesses?”
“They’re just young girls, my dear. Usually they’re talking to each other, or interested in the men. All they look at is the flight number, and I always get that right.”
“But you said you don’t always use a boarding pass.”
Mrs. Quonsett blushed. “Then, I’m afraid, I have to tell a little white lie. Sometimes I say I’m going aboard to see my daughter off — most airlines let people do that, you know. Or, if the plane has come in from somewhere else, I say I’m going back to my seat, but I left my ticket on board. Or, I tell them my son just got on, but he dropped his wallet and I want to give it to him. I carry a wallet in my hand, and that works best of all.”
“Yes,” Tanya said, “I imagine it would. You seem to have thought everything out very carefully.” She had plenty of material, she mused, for a bulletin to all gate agents and stewardesses. She doubted, though, if it would have much effect.
“My late husband taught me to be thorough. He was a teacher — of geometry. He always said you should try to think of every angle.”
Tanya looked hard at Mrs. Quonsett. Was her leg being gently pulled?
The face of the little old lady from San Diego remained impassive. “There’s one important thing I haven’t mentioned.”
On the opposite side of the room a telephone rang. Tanya got up to answer it.
“Is that old biddy still with you?” The voice was the District Transportation Manager’s. The D.T.M. was responsible for all phases of Trans America operations at Lincoln International. Usually a calm, good-natured boss, tonight he sounded irascible. Clearly, three days and nights of flight delays, rerouting unhappy passengers, and endless needlings from the airline’s Eastern head office were having their effect.
“Yes,” Tanya said.
“Get anything useful out of her?”
“Quite a lot. I’ll send you a report.”
“When you do, use some goddam capitals for once, so I can read it.”
“Yes, sir.”
She made the “sir” sufficiently pointed, so there was a momentary silence at the other end. Then the D.T.M. grunted. “Sorry, Tanya! I guess I’m passing on to you what I’ve been getting from New York. Like the cabin boy kicking the ship’s cat, only you’re no cat. Can I do anything?”
“I’d like a one-way passage to Los Angeles, tonight, for Mrs. Ada Quonsett.”
“Is that the old hen?”
“The same.”
The D.T.M. said sourly, “I suppose, a company charge.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What I hate about it is putting her ahead of honest-to-goodness fare-paying passengers who’ve been waiting hours already. But I guess you’re right; we’re better off to get her out of our hair.”
“I think so.”
“I’ll okay a requisition. You can pick it up at the ticket counter. But be sure to alert Los Angeles, so they can have the airport police escort the old hag off the premises.”
Tanya said softly, “She could be Whistler’s Mother.”
The D.T.M. grunted. “Then let Whistler buy her a ticket.”
Tanya smiled and hung up. She returned to Mrs. Quonsett.
“You said there was an important thing — about getting aboard flights — that you hadn’t told me.”
The little old lady hesitated. Her mouth had tightened noticeably at the mention, during Tanya’s conversation, of a return flight to Los Angeles.
“You’ve told me most of it,” Tanya prompted. “You might as well finish.
“There certainly is.” Mrs. Quonsett gave a tight, prim nod. “I was going to say it’s best not to choose the big flights — the important ones, I mean, that go nonstop across the country. They often get full, and they give people seat numbers, even in Economy. That makes it harder, though I did it once when I could see there weren’t many others going.”
“So you take flights that aren’t direct. Don’t you get found out at intermediate stops?”
“I pretend to be asleep. Usually they don’t disturb me.”
