Plague

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Plague Page 10

by Graham Masterton


  Dr. Petrie pushed back his hair from his forehead. He knew how disreputable he must look after a whole night without sleep. He said weakly, 'This is my house. I mean, this was my house.'

  'This was your house?' said the cop. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

  'This was my house and this lady was my wife. We were having a slight argument. That's all.'

  The cop strained his eyes to see Margaret standing in the shadows of the hall.

  'Is this true, ma'am?'

  Margaret sounded so different that Dr. Petrie could hardly believe it was the same person. Instead of speaking harshly and bitterly, she was like a pathetic little girl, all weak and heartbroken and begging for sympathy.

  'I was only trying to reason with him, officer. He went crazy. Look, he broke the door. He went absolutely crazy. He said he was going to beat me up, and take my little girl away.'

  Dr. Petrie stared in amazement. 'But — this is preposterous — I was — '

  The cop reached down, and calmly attached a handcuff to Dr. Petrie's wrist. 'I have to advise you of your rights,' he said. 'You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to — '

  'I didn't do anything!' snapped Dr. Petrie. 'My wife came around to my place and took my little girl without my permission. Now she's sick with the plague and she won't let me take my daughter back. For God's sake, look at her! She's sick with the plague! If you take me away, my daughter's going to catch it and die! Don't you understand that?'

  The second cop was opening the police car doors.

  The first cop said, 'Listen, sir, we've all had a very trying time recently with this epidemic. You know what I mean? I picked up a guy for breaking in a TV store just half-an-hour ago. He said his old granny was dying of sickness, and he wanted to make her last hours happy by letting her watch TV. It's an emergency situation. Lots of people are trying to take advantage of it. Now, let's go, huh?'

  Dr. Petrie said, 'I don't suppose it would make any difference if I told you I was a doctor?'

  The cop pushed him into the car and sat down beside him. The second cop settled himself down behind the steering wheel, and pulled away from the kerb, siren whooping and lights ablaze.

  'You're a doctor, huh?' answered the cop, after a while. 'Well, maybe you ought to be out there healing some of these sick people, instead of bothering your ex-wife.'

  Dr. Petrie said nothing. The police car squealed on to the North-South Expressway, and sped downtown.

  They took his money, his keys and his necktie, and locked him in an open-barred cell with two black looters and a drunk. He was exhausted, and he lay on the rough gray blanket of his bed, and slept without dreams for four hours.

  It was eleven o'clock when he woke up, feeling cramped and sore but slightly more human. The drunk had gone, and the two negroes were left by themselves, murmuring quietly to each other.

  He sat up, and rubbed his face. There was a small basin in the corner of the cell, and he splashed cold water over himself, and wiped himself dry with his handkerchief.

  He went to the bars and looked out, but there was no sign of anyone. Nothing but a gray-painted corridor, and a smell of body odor and carbolic soap. He turned around to the blacks.

  'What do you have to do to get some service around here?'

  The blacks stared at him briefly, and then went back to their conversation.

  'I'm a doctor,' Petrie insisted, 'and I want to get out of here.'

  The blacks started at him again. One of them grinned, and shook his head.

  'They don't let nobody out today, man. It's emergency regulations. Anyway, if things don't get much better out there on the streets, maybe you safer where you at.'

  Dr. Petrie nodded. 'You're probably right. But what do I have to do to get some attention?'

  The other black said, 'This ain't the Coral-on-the-Ocean, man. This is the Slammer-in-the-city.'

  They both laughed, then resumed their talk.

  Dr. Petrie went to the bars and shouted, 'Guard!'

  The blacks stopped talking again and watched him.

  He waited for a while, and then shouted, 'Guard! Guard! Let me out of here!'

  A few more minutes passed, and then a young policeman with rimless spectacles came down the corridor jangling a bunch of keys.

  'You Dr. Petrie?' he asked.

  'That's right. I want to see my lawyer.'

  'You don't have to. You're free to leave.'

  The guard unlocked the cell, and Dr. Petrie stepped out. One of the blacks said, 'So long, honky, have a nice day,' and the other laughed.

  Dr. Petrie was ushered back to the police station desk, where the two arresting officers had brought him that morning. Adelaide was there, with dark rings under her eyes. She was still wearing the buttermilk-colored dress in which he had picked her up last night.

  'Leonard — are you all right? Oh God, I was so worried.'

  She came up and held him close, and he was so relieved to feel her and see her that he felt tears prickling in his eyes.

  The desk sergeant said, 'When you've quite finished the love tableau, would you mind signing for these personal possessions?'

  Dr. Petrie signed. 'Listen,' he told Adelaide, as he tied his necktie, 'I have to get back to the hospital. I promised Dr. Selmer.'

  'It was Dr. Selmer who told me you were missing,' Adelaide said. He called at the house to see if you were there. When I said you weren't, he called the police, and they found out that you were here. I came straight over.'

  'Have they closed the beaches yet?' he asked her, as they walked out of the tinted glass doors of the police station into the brilliant mid-morning sunlight.

  'Not yet. The news says that it's serious, this plague, but that people mustn't get too worried. But it doesn't make sense. What the newspapers are saying, and the TV, it doesn't seem to tie up at all. I've seen people sick in the streets, and yet they keep saying there's nothing wrong.'

  Dr. Petrie looked around. The sky was its usual imperturbable blue, flecked with shadowy White clouds. But the city was quiet. There were only a few cars, and they seemed to be rolling around the city streets in a strange dream. Some of them were piled high with possessions — chairs, tables and mattresses — and it was obvious that the few people who had realized what was going on were getting out as quick as they could.

  The sidewalks — usually crowded with shoppers and tourists — were almost empty. People who needed to go for food or drink were, hurrying back to their cars and avoiding strangers like — Like the plague, thought Dr. Petrie bitterly.

  'Have you seen any bodies?' he asked Adelaide.

  She shook her head. 'I've heard though,' she said quietly. 'I caught a taxi, and the taxi-driver said he'd seen people lying on the ground, dead.'

  'I saw a whole family last night,' Dr. Petrie said. 'It was awful. They were just lying on the sidewalk. I can't understand how Donald Firenza has kept this under wraps for so long.'

  'Are you going back to the hospital?' Adelaide asked.

  'I have to.'

  'Do you want me to come with you?'

  He shook his head. 'It's too risky. The hospital is full of infection. I don't know why on earth I haven't caught the plague yet but Dr. Selmer reckons that a few people could be immune. Maybe I'm one of them.'

  Adelaide held his arm. 'Maybe? Leonard — what if you go to the hospital and — well, what if I never see you again?' She looked away.

  'Adelaide, I'm a doctor. This city is dying around us. Look at it. Have you ever seen downtown Miami as quiet as this on a Tuesday lunchtime? I have to find out what's going on, and I have to help.'

  'Leonard, I'm not leaving you. Not again. I've just spent the most frightening night of my life, waiting for you to come back, and I'm not going to let it happen again.'

  A cab was parked at the corner. The driver, a squat middle-aged man in a straw hat, was calmly smoking a cigar and sunning himself as he leaned against the trunk.

  Dr. Petrie walked over, holding Adelaide's
hand, and said, 'Will you take me to the hospital?'

  The taxi driver looked him up and down. 'You sick?' he asked.

  'No, I'm a doctor.'

  The man reached behind him and opened the door. 'That'll be forty bucks,' he said, without taking the cigar out of his mouth.

  'Forty bucks? What are you talking about? That's a two-dollar ride at the most.'

  The taxi driver slammed the door shut again. 'That's the price. Forty bucks or no trip.'

  Dr. Petrie said firmly, 'Come on, Adelaide. We'll find ourselves a cab driver with some goddamned morality.'

  The taxi driver was unfazed. 'Mister,' he said, 'you can search all day. All the moral cab drivers have taken their taxis and headed north. So has anyone else who's realized what the hell's going on in this town.'

  Dr. Petrie reached for his wallet and peeled off three ten-dollar bills. 'Here's thirty. Take me down to the hospital, and you'll get the other ten. But don't think for one moment that I enjoy paying money to a flake like you.'

  The taxi driver tucked the cash in his shirt pocket, and opened the car door. They climbed in, and the driver performed a wide U-turn, and drove them downtown to the hospital.

  'I've seen fifty, sixty people dead in the streets,' said the driver conversationally, puffing on his cigar. 'I came out for my roster this morning, and I couldn't believe it. You know what they said on the radio? It's a kind of an influenza, and that it's all going to be over by the end of the week. Nothing to get excited about. You think fifty or sixty stiffs is nothing to get excited about?'

  'I'm surprised you didn't leave town along with the rest of your buddies,' said Adelaide tartly.

  'Why should I?' said the cab driver, turning the car towards the hospital. 'I can make a few bucks here in the city. I've lived here all my life. Look — there's another stiff on the sidewalk — right there.'

  They looked, and saw the body of a woman in a blue-and-green dress lying on the concrete sidewalk outside a delicatessen. Her basket of groceries had spilled all over the pavement, and her arms were drawn up underneath her like a sick child.

  The delicatessen proprietor was standing in his doorway staring at her, but what struck Dr. Petrie more than, anything else was the attitude of the few passers-by. They stepped over the sprawling woman as if she and her shopping were quite invisible.

  Dr. Petrie said, 'Don't slow down. I have to get to the hospital as soon as I can.'

  Adelaide was pale. 'Leonard,' she said. 'That woman.'

  Dr. Petrie looked away. 'There's nothing we can do. She's probably dead already.'

  The taxi driver puffed his cigar. 'You bet she's dead. I hear tell they got so many stiffs in the streets, they're going to start collecting them with garbage trucks.'

  Adelaide looked shocked. 'Yes,' Dr. Petrie said, 'I heard that too.'

  Dr. Selmer was waiting for him in his private office. The corridors outside were jammed with medical trolleys, and the weeping and wailing relatives of the dead were adding to the confusion of amateur ambulance drivers and local doctors who had been brought in to console the sick. All that was left to give was consolation. In spite of every kind of antibiotic treatment, people who caught the plague were dying with the inevitability of mayflies. 'Firenza was on the phone about an hour ago,' said Anton Selmer, leaning back wearily in his large leather chair, and resting his feet on his cluttered desk. 'He's agreed to close the beaches.'

  'What's the death toll?' asked Dr. Petrie, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.

  'About a hundred and twenty so far. That's with this hospital and all the others. Add to that another thirty who may be lying dead in their apartments or in the streets, and you've probably got yourself a reasonably accurate figure.'

  'The city's real quiet. I thought it would have been more.'

  Dr. Selmer shook his sandy head. 'Don't worry, Leonard. It will be more before the day's over. Every one of those dead people came into contact with seven or eight or maybe even more live people, and every one of those live people, right now, is incubating the plague bacillus.'

  'What about quarantine? Did Firenza mention that?'

  'He said that he's talking to Decker, when the mayor flies back from Washington this afternoon. Between them, they're going to decide what emergency action they ought to take.'

  Dr. Petrie heaved a sigh. 'For the first time in five years, I feel like smoking a cigarette.'

  Anton Selmer pushed a wooden box across the desk. 'Have one,' he said. 'It might even be your last.'

  Adelaide knocked on the door and came in. She had been down in the ladies' room, washing her face and repairing her make-up. She looked pale and tense, and her hands were trembling.

  'Hallo, Adelaide,' Anton Selmer said. 'Take a seat. Can I fix you a drink? I have some fine medicinal whiskey.'

  'Please.'

  'Leonard?'

  'I'll take a beer. The way this city's going, I'm not sure how long it's going to be before we taste cold beer again.'

  Selmer fixed the drinks. 'I wish I knew how this city was going, Leonard. It seems to be impossible to get any straight information. Either the newspapers are blind and deaf, or else they're following a deliberate policy of keeping this thing quiet. It's the same with the TV channels. They all keep saying that the epidemic is isolated, and that it's containable, and that it won't spread. But, Jesus Christ, you only have to come here to the hospital, or walk out into the streets, and you can see that something's wrong. We have a major epidemic on our hands, Leonard, and yet everybody in charge of anything seems to be smiling and waving and making out it's nothing worse than a slight headcold.'

  Adelaide said, 'Doesn't the government know? What about the federal health people? Surely they've been informed? Even if they haven't, they must be worried.'

  Dr. Petrie pulled the ring of his flip-top can, and took a freezing mouthful of beer. He stood up and walked across to the window. Through the Venetian blinds, he could see the sparse streets of downtown Miami, and the afternoon sun on the white buildings opposite. High in the sky, a long horse's-tail of cirrus cloud was curled by the wind.

  'Maybe they do know,' he said. 'Maybe they're helping to keep the whole thing quiet. I haven't heard any airplanes coming out from the airport this morning, Anton.'

  'Oh, that,' said Dr. Selmer. 'As a precautionary measure, the baggage handlers at Miami International Airport have suddenly decided to go on strike, which means all Miami flights are being diverted to Palm Beach or Tampa.'

  'That's convenient. Maybe Firenza does take this plague more seriously than we think. What about boats?'

  Dr. Selmer shrugged. 'I don't know, but I guess they're working the same kind of stunt there.'

  'But why no official quarantine?' frowned Dr. Petrie. 'I know this thing has spread in just a few hours, but surely there's somebody around with enough sense to seal the city off for a while, even if Firenza won't do it.'

  'Don't ask me,' said Dr. Selmer. 'The official line is perfectly straightforward. We have a minor epidemic of something akin to Spanish influenza which we expect to have run its course by the end of the week. I've seen it on the television, and I've read it in the paper. Here.'

  He leafed through a stack of letters and manila files, and produced the morning's paper. The main headline read: Twenty Die In Influenza Outbreak.

  'That's incredible,' Adelaide said. 'There are people lying around in the streets dead. Why don't they print the truth?'

  Dr. Petrie shuffled through the newspaper until he found the telephone number of its city desk. Without a word, he picked up Dr. Selmer's phone, and dialed. He waited while it rang, and Adelaide and Anton watched him in tense anticipation.

  The girl on the newspaper's switchboard answered, and Dr. Petrie asked for the city desk.

  There was a long pause, and then finally he was switched through. A nasal, surly sub-editor answered. 'Can I help you?'

  'Maybe you can. My name is Dr. Leonard Petrie and I'm down at the hospital here with Dr. Anton Se
lmer. Look, I've just seen your morning edition and it doesn't seem to bear any relation to what we know to be the real facts.'

  'I see.'

  'What we have here is a form of Pasteurella pestis, which is the medical name for plague. It's very virulent, and very dangerous, and so far as we know to date, almost a hundred and fifty people have died. By the end of the day, it could be five or six times that figure.'

  There was a silence. The sub-editor coughed, and then said, 'Well, Dr. Petrie. Your theory is very interesting.'

  'What are you talking about? These are facts! I've seen dead people on the streets myself.'

  'Oh, sure.'

  'Aren't you interested? Isn't this newsworthy? Or have you gotten so goddamned deadened to violence that when a hundred and fifty Miami residents die of the plague, it only rates two lines on the inside page?'

  'I am not deadened to violence, Dr. Petrie. I am simply doing my job.'

  Dr. Petrie frowned. 'I wish I knew what your job was. So far, it seems to amount to out-and-out misrepresentation.'

  'I resent that, Dr. Petrie.'

  'Oh you do, huh? Well, I resent a newspaper that deliberately obscures the truth.'

  The sub-editor sighed. 'Dr. Petrie, we're not dummies. We know what's going on, and so does City Hall and the County Health Department and the US Disease Control people in Washington.'

  'Well, there isn't much evidence of it.'

  'Of course not. We've already been briefed along with all of the other media that we have to play this thing right down. No screams, no shouts.'

  'No facts?' said Dr. Petrie, incredulous.

  The sub-editor sighed again. 'Dr. Petrie, do you have any idea what would happen if the majority of people in Miami became aware that plague was loose in the city? Panic, looting, robbery, violence — the city would die overnight. Apart from that, people carrying plague would spread over the surrounding countryside faster than you could say epidemic. It's not the way we usually do things, this play-down policy, but in this particular case we felt obliged to agree.'

  Dr. Petrie was silent.

  'The city health people have known about the plague since Friday of last week,' the sub-editor continued. 'A young baby in Hialeah went down with it, and died. The doctors did a routine test, and passed the information to Mr. Firenza. He went straight to the federal health authorities, they sought higher sanction, and the government decided that fewer people would be exposed to risk if they kept it quiet.'

 

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