The rickety We’ll Take You There!Lines MD-80 smacked the Texas runway, bouncing along on taxi until Shep glanced out the window to see if perhaps they’d landed on a dirt road in error. Shortly, the flying bucket of bolts lurched to a halt at the gate, and Shep wasn’t surprised to see two women on their knees in the jet bridge kiss the ground as he hurried past.
His pal at the ticket counter in New Orleans had given him a printed card with little more on it, as far as he could tell, than his name and the airport code L-A-X, and sent him on his way with instructions to roll up at the gate for the earliest Los Angeles departure he could find and hope for the best. He scanned the departure screens and spied an 11:15 flight. It was eleven o’clock now. If he was going to get on that plane, it w
