She reached into the tote on her lap without taking her right hand off the cooler and found the paper boarding pass Esperanza had printed for her and held it up. Gunnar took it. He looked at it and at the curling strip of thermal paper in his other hand, one and then the other, the way you would compare two keys.
"I've got a different name for this seat," he said.
"The agent moved me," Laverne said. "About forty-five minutes ago. Mr. Vandermolen was kind enough to exchange with me. He's in my seat, 33E."
"Why would he do that?"
It was a simple question. It was asked in the soft Minnesota voice. Billie heard it the way Laverne must have heard it, the way every Black woman who had ever sat in the front of anything in America had heard it, and she watched the courier's face not change at all, which was its own kind of answer.
"Because I needed the space," Laverne said, "for this." She did not look down at the cooler. "It's a medical shipment, Captain. I have documentation from the hospital and from the registry. I'm happy to show it to you." She paused. "Not here."
Garrison Yancey made a small noise in his throat. It was barely a noise. It was the sound of a man at a poker table hearing someone check.
"What is it?" Gunnar said.
"It's in the letter," Laverne said. "I'd be glad to step into the galley with you and show you."
"Has it been screened?"