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.

“You can’t be saying he crashed that airplane deliberately,” she said.

“I’m not saying he did or he didn’t. But all the money in this business comes from publicity. You’ve got to keep the public interested, or you won’t make a dime. The books and lecture tours and racing prizes, that’s all because the public wants to hear about your daring escapes and your gory crackups. You’ve got to do something new and exciting. If you want to keep flying, you have to feed the public.”