Her Last Flight(22)

Irene stuck to coffee and sandwiches. She stared at Sam, across the table, and said to Mrs. Rofrano, “I guess he learned all that during the war. How to land with a broken rudder.”

“How to land with a broken anything, really. Look at him. You wouldn’t know anything had happened at all, would you?”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“What he needs is a real airplane. Not like that secondhand Lockheed he tried to fly to Hawai’i, but a new one with decent engines and modern design.”

“I hear your husband’s designed one.”

“Did you?” Mrs. Rofrano plucked a piece of chicken from within her sandwich and popped it into her mouth. “I guess Sam spilled the beans about that. Well, it’s still a prototype, but we like it just fine. Of course it would be ideal for Sam.”

“He says it’s too expensive.”

“It is expensive to build a ship like that. Heaps and heaps of money.”

“How much?”

“Thousands. More than he can afford, even with all the exhibition fees and the students and the movie stunts. That’s why he entered that ridiculous pineapple derby last year.”

Irene looked back at Sam, who held a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. She thought how strange it was, to see the living Sam Mallory in front of her, a man of flesh and bone and three dimensions, who ate and drank and spoke and surfed and found small kittens in the sand dunes. He didn’t seem to bear more than a passing resemblance to the Sam Mallory of last summer’s ballyhoo.

“What would he do with an airplane like that?” she asked.

“Oh, he wants to do something big, like all the pilots, a groundbreaking flight somewhere. But the airplane’s just the start of it. You need fuel, you need equipment, you need a million little things. You see that fellow over there, next to my husband? That’s George Morrow. He’s a publisher, crazy for flying. Word has it he’s looking for the next Lindbergh.”

Over the top of her coffee cup, Irene peered at George Morrow. He had dark hair, brushed straight, and slight, lean shoulders under a gray suit jacket and sharp navy tie. He was in serious conversation with Rofrano. He seemed to be illustrating some point with an arrangement of soup crackers on the table between them. His fingers made quick, impatient movements. Irene thought he looked immaculate and intent and nervous, like a man who never took a vacation. At the other end of the table, Sam leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud. He still wore his flight suit, stained with oil and blood; his hair was curling and windblown. The white bandage had the same effect as an eyepatch on a pirate.

“What about Sam?” said Irene. “He’s a tremendous pilot.”

Mrs. Rofrano leaned her chin on her hand, as if she were thinking this over, and then she raised her other hand and waved it. “George! Yoo-hoo!”

Mr. Morrow looked up from the soup crackers and stared in their direction, first at Mrs. Rofrano and then at Irene, squinting a bit.

Mrs. Rofrano moved to the empty chair to her right and patted the one she’d left, between her and Irene. “Come join us, George. I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet.”



George Morrow settled himself in the chair between them like a pedigree cat. Down the table, Sam’s laughter had vanished, and Irene, glancing his way as Mrs. Rofrano introduced her—This is Miss Irene Foster, a friend of mine—caught him staring warily at the three of them.

George Morrow offered his hand. “Morrow,” he said. “Pleasure.”

“This was Miss Foster’s first flying exhibition,” said Mrs. Rofrano.

“Is that so? What did you think of it?”

“I thought it was thrilling,” said Irene. “I thought it was a magnificent example of piloting. Bringing in that airplane with a broken rudder.”

“Ah.” Morrow cast just a flicker of a glance in Sam’s direction. “Was it broken, though?”

“Why, didn’t you see? I mean, I don’t know much about airplanes, but everybody said it was the rudder, that the rudder somehow broke during the flight.”

Morrow had brought his glass with him. He tapped the side with his finger, lifted, drank, and set the glass down again. “Listen to me, Miss Foster. I haven’t looked at the ship since he brought it in. For all I know the rudder broke midflight, just as we saw, and Mr. Mallory brought it in by his fine piloting and the skin of his teeth. But I will say this. The public out there, the people who watch these things, what do you think they really want to see? An airplane looping the loop? A few thrilling aerobatic maneuvers? No. I’ll tell you what your average spectator wants to see, in his heart of hearts. He wants to see a crackup. Like that derby out to Hawai’i, you saw what happened. Everybody living their nice quiet lives, working in some office or driving some delivery truck, they want to see something horrifying, something life or death, and the best pilots know that. The best pilots give them what they want.”

Irene stared at his hand, which had lifted and settled the glass at least twice during the course of this speech, adjusting it one way and then the other. He had a funny way of speaking, an East Coast twang that spat out words like a machine gun, and like bullets the words were all precise, manufactured in advance, so you knew he had already delivered this speech many times. It took her a moment or two to realize what he meant by them.