For Van Horn had often listened to the recitals of Jerry's pedigree by Tom Haggin, over Scotch-and-sodas, when it was too pestilentially hot to go to bed.

Delayed flights, mixed connections, metal detectors, lost luggage, toddler-size airplane seats, crying infants, pestilentially recycled air and inquisitorial customs officials: this is a new kind of travel, but not a less taxing one.

The figure of Nosferatu in that light becomes readable as a grotesque and frightening form of desire, a version of the awakened or indulged wish that's both irresistibly powerful and pestilentially dangerous.