BY SEPTEMBER, VICKI regarded her New York-to-Memphis run with nonchalance. With some pride too, for she had been transferred from the morning run to the evening flight. There was a dinner to serve, more elaborate than lunch, and there were five stops instead of two. But an evening run had a gala air about it. The passengers were more relaxed, it was exciting to fly amid the sunset streaks and then the stars. Even the airport looked doubly enchanted when one took off at seven in the evening.
Every seat was taken, this hazy blue evening, as Vicki’s plane cleared the lighted towers of New York and climbed up to meet the night. The passengers looked interesting too. Her manifest told her there was a Brazilian diplomat aboard, whose black fedora hat she would have spotted anyway; an atomic sci
