the direction the paper should take. Dees supposed that confidence was the main reason Morrison had lasted as long as he had, in spite of his pipe and his tweed jackets from Asshole Brothers of London. What Morrison knew was that the flower children of the sixties had grown into the cannibals of the nineties. Huggy therapy, political correctness, and ‘the language of feelings’ might be big deals among the intellectual upper class, but the ever-popular common man was still a lot more interested in mass murders, buried scandals in the lives of the stars, and just how Magic Johnson had gotten AIDS.
Dees had no doubt there was still an audience for All Things Bright and Beautiful, but the one for All Shit Grim and Gory had become a growth stock again as the Woodstock Generation began to discover gray in its hair and lines curving down from the corners of its petulant, self-indulgent mouth. Merton Morrison, whom Dees now recognized as a kind of intuitive genius, had made his own inside view clear in a famous memo issued to all staff and stringers less than a week after he and his pipe had taken up residence in the corner office. By all means, stop and smell the roses on your way to work, this memo suggested, but once you get to there, spread those nostrils — spread them wide — and start sniffing for blood and guts.
Dees, who had been made for sniffing blood and guts, had been delighted. His nose was the reason he was here, flying into Wilmington. There was a human monster down there, a man who thought he was a vampire. Dees had a name all picked out for him; it burned in his mind as a valuable coin might burn in a man’s pocket. Soon he would take the coin out and spend it. When he did, the name would be plastered across the tabloid display racks of every supermarket checkout counter in America, screaming at the patrons in unignorable sixty-point type.
Look out, ladies and sensation seekers, Dees thought. You don’t know it, but a very bad man is coming your way. You’ll read his real name and forget it, but that’s okay. What you’ll remember is my name for him, the name that’s going to put him right up there with Jack the Ripper and the Cleveland Torso Murderer and the Black Dahlia. You’ll remember the Night Flier, coming soon to a checkout counter near you. The exclusive story, the exclusive interview . . . but what I want most of all is the exclusive picture.
He checked his watch again and allowed himself to relax the tiniest bit (which was all he could relax). He still had almost half an hour till dark, and he would be parking next to the white Skymaster with red piping (and N101BL on the tail in a similar red) in less than fifteen minutes.
Was the Flier sleeping in town or in some motel on the way into town? Dees didn’t think so.
One of the reasons for the Skymaster 337’s popularity, besides its relatively low price, was that it was the only plane its size with a belly-hold. It wasn’t much bigger than the trunk of an old VW
Beetle, true, but it was roomy enough for three big suitcases or five small ones . . . and it could certainly hold a man, provided he wasn’t the size of a pro basketball player. The Night Flier could be in the Cessna’s belly-hold, provided he was (a) sleeping in the fetal position with his knees drawn up to his chin; or (b) crazy enough to think he was a real vampire; or (c) both of the above.
Dees had his money on (c).
Now, with his altimeter winding down from four to three thousand feet, Dees thought: Nope, no hotel or motel for you, my friend, am I right? When you play vampire, you’re like Frank Sinatra — you do it your way. Know what I think? I think when the belly-hold of that plane opens, the first thing I’m gonna see is a shower of graveyard earth (even if it isn’t, you can bet your upper incisors it will be when the story comes out), and then I’m gonna see first one leg in a pair of tuxedo pants, and then the other, because you are gonna be dressed, aren’t you? Oh, dear