Plague

by Graham Masterton

  Dick Bortolotti leaned forward.

  'This thing is spreading like shit on a shoe,' said Garunisch. 'Here's the first reported outbreak — in Hialeah, on Friday. By Tuesday afternoon, they're counting the dead in hundreds. By Tuesday evening, they've stopped counting the dead because there are too many. The last I heard was four A.M., and the whole of Miami has packed up. No power, no police, no nothing.'

  'Any of our members still alive?'

  Garunisch shrugged. 'It's hard to tell. I had Evans call Grabowsky, but his home phone isn't answering, and we can't get through to the hospital. If you ask me, Dick, this epidemic is a whole lot worse than anyone knows. We've had reports of outbreaks down as far as Bahia Honda, and we've had them here, at Fort Lauderdale, and here, at Fort Pierce, and about fifteen minutes ago I heard that there are suspects at Jacksonville.'

  'So? What's your conclusion?'

  'My conclusion has got to be very simple,' he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. 'I take out my measuring rule and I discover that the distance between Miami and Jacksonville is approximately 300 miles. I divide 300 miles by four days and I learn that this plague is traveling northwards up the East Coast at a rate of 75 miles a day. Maybe faster. This means that if it continues spreading over the next couple of weeks in the same way that it's been spreading up till now, it'll be here.'

  'Here?' said Bortolotti, frowning at the map.

  'Here, dummy!' snapped Garunisch. 'Here in New York City! They're already dropping dead in the goddamned streets in Miami! Imagine what's going to happen if it starts infecting people here!'

  Bortolotti blinked. 'Jesus,' he said. 'That would be murder. Nothing short of murder.'

  'You bet your ass it'd be murder,' Garunisch stood up and walked across to the window. A dirty dawn was just making itself felt over the East River, and he lifted the embroidered net curtains and stared out at it. Then he turned around.

  'And do you know whose murder?' he said. 'Not the fucking federal government's murder. Not the kiss-my-butt President of the United States. Oh, no. They're okay. They have their private doctors and their quarantined quarters, and if the worst comes to the worst, they can always fly off and leave us to stew in our own germs. Dick — if anyone's going to get murdered in this epidemic it's the members of the Medical Workers' Union. Our members. Our boys. And what do you think the federal government is doing about it, right now, right this minute?'

  'Fuck all, I should guess,' said Bortolotti. Garunisch wrinkled up his nose. 'Don't swear, Dick, it doesn't suit you.'

  Bortolotti said, 'But I'm annoyed, Ken. I'm just as annoyed as you.'

  Garunisch, in a burst of temper, threw his half-full can of beer across the living-room. It splashed against the wall and rolled under, a fat Colonial settee.

  'Nobody is as annoyed as I am! Nobody! This half-assed administration is using my members as cattle-fodder, and it's going to stop!'

  Dick Bortolotti coughed. "What are you going to do, Ken?'

  'I want the legal department round here right now. Get them out of bed if you have to. I want Edgar and Cholnik round here too. This government may have gotten the press to play patsy, but they're not doing it to me. Unless we get assurances on protection and pay, we're coming out. Today.'

  Dick Bortolotti put down his can of beer. 'Ken,' he said uncertainly, 'wouldn't that kind of make matters worse? I mean, if this plague's spreading at 75 miles a day, and our members go out for a couple of days, well that's 150 miles, and maybe a whole lot more, just because they weren't there to slow it down.'

  Kenneth Garunisch stepped up to his aide and patted him, a little too briskly for comfort, on the cheeks.

  'You're quite the little Einstein, aren't you Dick? Yes, that's exactly what would happen. And if this tight-assed government have any sense at all, they won't argue for five minutes. We're just about to see the biggest pay and benefits deal that any union ever negotiated, Dick.'

  It was five hours later before Herbert Gaines woke up. To help himself sleep, he had drunk half a bottle of Napoleon brandy, and his mouth was furred and dry. He slept in a long kimono of black silk, decorated with dragons, with a hair-net to keep his white leonine mane from getting mussed up on the pillow. He opened his eyes just a fraction, and reached across the bed to make sure that Nicky was still there.

  Nicky, of course, was. He was rude, bitchy and defiant to Herbert, but he never forgot that he was comfortably ensconced in a luxury condominium in Concorde Tower, and it would take more than an argument, no matter how brutal or vicious, to winkle him out. He lay naked and seraphic, his hands raised on either side of his head, his soft and hefty penis resting on his thigh.

  Herbert raised himself on one bony elbow, leaned over, and kissed that penis with showy reverence. Then he swung his legs out of bed, and went to fix himself a blender full of mixed vegetable juice.

  He was slicing up tomatoes and green peppers when the doorbell chimed. He frowned up at the early-American wall-clock, and muttered, 'Who the hell…?' He was still trying to figure out which of his less couth friends would dare to disturb him before noon when the doorbell chimed again, and someone hammered on the door. Herbert Gaines sighed crossly, and tugged off his hair net. He walked quickly through the dark, heavily-curtained living-room, and up the three steps to the door. 'Who is it?' he called. There was no reply.

  He bent down and put his eye to the peep-hole, but whoever was out there must have had his hand across it. Herbert called, 'I can't let you in until I see who you are!'

  The hand was removed. Herbert squinted out, and saw a stocky, well-groomed man in a respectable gray mohair suit.

  'Well,' said Herbert. 'What do you want?'

  The well-groomed man gave a smile. A radiant, politician's smile. 'My name's Jack Gross,' he said. 'I was wondering if you could spare me a few minutes of your time, Mr. Gaines.'

  'Do I know you?' asked Herbert irritably. Shouting always made him hoarse, and there was still enough of the actor left in him to worry about protecting his voice.

  'You should do. Do you read Time magazine?'

  'Sure, for the showbiz section.'

  'Well, if you have last week's edition, you'll see something about me in the politics section. Go and look. I can wait.'

  Herbert sighed again. 'Look here, Mr — '

  'Gross, Jack Gross.'

  'This is very early for me, Mr. Gross. At this time of the morning, I am still rescuing myself from the little death. Even if you are who you say you are, I can't help feeling that a few minutes of my time would be a ridiculous waste of yours.'

  Jack Gross, seen through the peep-hole in the door, smiled his radiant smile again. 'I'm sure it won't be, Mr. Gaines. All I want to do is make you an interesting offer.'

  Herbert Gaines stood up, away from the peep-hole, and rubbed his eyes: Until noon, and until he'd ingested a pint of cold vegetable juice and a large plain gin, his brain never seemed to function at all. But he supposed it was going to be easier to invite this grinning Mr. Gross inside, than go through the complicated hassle of getting him to go away.

  'Mr. Gaines?' persisted Mr. Gross.

  'Very well,' said Herbert, and opened the security locks. He turned away from the door, haughtily winding himself in his long black kimono, as Jack Gross stepped inside.

  Jack Gross respectfully removed his hat, and peered into the stale, unventilated gloom. 'I've never been in Concorde Tower before. Quite a place you have here.'

  'It's adequate,' said Herbert. 'I trust you don't mind if I finish preparing my breakfast.'

  'Not at all,' said Jack Gross, affably. 'You just go right ahead.'

  Herbert Gaines shuffled back into the kitchen and picked up his slicing knife. Jack Gross followed him, peeping as discreetly as he could into bedrooms and down corridors.

  Herbert sliced vegetables while Jack Gross perched himself on a kitchen stool, balanced his hat on his knee, and started to talk. Gross spoke directly and fast, but his eyes flickered around the room as
he talked, taking in the authentic antiques, the genuine butcher's table and the expensive built-in ovens and ranges. Even the view through the kitchen window, a misty panorama of Gabriels Park and downtown Manhattan, was worth more money than most people ever accumulated in their whole lives.

  'Mr. Gaines,' he said, in his brusque, cheerful voice, 'you're still something of a hero to most people.'

  Herbert looked at him balefully. 'Do you think I don't know that? Down in Atlanta, people still stand up in the movies and cheer at Captain Dashfoot. A thirty-year-old picture, and they cheer.'

  Jack Gross kept smiling. 'We know that. That's why I've come around to see you this morning.'

  'Well, fire away, Mr. Gross. I may look as if I'm fixing breakfast, but I assure you that I'm agog.'

  Jack Gross said, 'Thank you.' Then he fixed his smile into a serious, sincere expression and continued, 'It's a question of public sympathy, if you see what I mean.'

  'No. Spell it out for me.'

  'Well, it's like this. A politician and an actor have got more in common that most people would like to think. Look at Ronald Reagan. Look at Shirley Temple Black. They didn't have to go through the hard graft of building themselves a sympathetic image in the public eye because they had it already, through movies. All they had to do was convince the public that they were serious, identify themselves with a clear-cut political line, and they were made.'

  Herbert Gaines dropped peppers, tomatoes, celeriac and sliced apple into his blender. 'Are you trying to suggest something, Mr. Gross?'

  Jack Gross smiled warmly. 'My people are, Mr. Gaines.'

  'And who, exactly, are your people?'

  Jack Gross looked almost embarrassed. 'Well, Mr. Gaines, let's say that my people are political realists. They come mainly from the staunch right wing of the Republican party, and also from industry and finance. They're not, though, what you'd call the old guard. I guess the easiest way of describing us would be to say that we are the young, committed right.'

  Herbert Gaines raised an eyebrow. 'How right?' he asked. 'Right of Ford?'

  'Certainly.'

  'In other words,' Herbert said, 'you're the Green Berets of the Grand Old Party?'

  Jack Gross grinned. 'You could say that, Mr. Gaines. That's a nice turn of phrase.'

  Herbert Gaines left his blender and moved closer to Jack Gross.

  'Mr. Gross,' he said steadily, 'I've been a Republican all my voting life. I used to go around with pals of Duke Wayne, and I've come out now and again and said my piece about pinko thinking and moral standards. I have letters of admiration from the Daughters of the American Revolution, and I contribute to veterans' charities and several other conservative causes.'

  Jack Gross didn't flinch. 'We know all that, Mr. Gaines. We have a dossier.'

  Herbert Gaines stood straight, and nodded. 'I'm sure you do, Mr. Gross. But there is one thing that your dossier obviously omits to mention.'

  'What's that, Mr. Gaines?'

  'I am not a politician, Mr. Gross, and I never want to be. I have a patriotic duty to my country, but I also have a private and personal duty to my art.'

  'Your art?'

  Herbert Gaines lifted his gaunt, withered head.

  'Yes, Mr. Gross, my art. I am — I was — one of the finest movie actors that ever crossed the screen. I made two pictures and both pictures are classics. Even today, after three decades, people still applaud out loud when they see them. Mr. Gross, I have an abiding duty to those people. It is my task in life to make sure that those magical images I created in my youth stay fresh. If I come out now, like a skeleton out of a closet, and try to whip up political support on the strength of those images, my whole life's achievement would be destroyed. Who could ever look at Captain Dashfoot again, after seeing me, as I am today, talking about busing and housing and economic tariffs?'

  Jack Gross still smiled. 'Mr. Gaines,' he said gently, 'we don't want you to talk about anything like that. We want you to talk about plague.'

  Herbert Gaines frowned. 'I beg your pardon?'

  'Plague, Mr. Gaines. The ancient scourge of nations. The Black Death.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'Have you heard the news?'

  'I haven't had breakfast yet, for God's sake.'

  'Well,' Jack Gross explained, 'there's a serious epidemic down in Florida. The government and the press have been keeping it tightly under wraps, saying it's an isolated outbreak of swine flu, but we know better. It's a highly dangerous, highly virulent strain of plague. The whole of Miami is afflicted, and there's talk of razing the whole city to the ground. It's also broken out in Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Brunswick and Charleston.'

  'Is this some sort of joke?'

  Jack Gross shook his head. 'It's not a joke, Mr. Gaines. It's the most disastrous result of this administration's mismanagement we've ever experienced. The US Disease Control Center have failed to contain the outbreak, and the government is so terrified that they don't know what to do next. They're too frightened even to tell the nation what's really going on.'

  'But — '

  Jack Gross raised his hand. 'It's the chance my people have been waiting for, Mr. Gaines. It's the chance to show up these weak-kneed liberals for what they really are. It's the chance to make the GOP a pure and concerted and effective machine again.'

  Herbert Gaines ran his hand through his white hair. 'And you want me to help you? Is that it?'

  'We want you as our figurehead. Captain Dashfoot to the rescue.'

  Herbert Gaines found himself a kitchen stool and sat down. He was thoughtful and grim-faced.

  'Mr. Gross,' he asked, after a few moments, 'is this epidemic really serious?'

  Jack Gross nodded. 'As far as we can tell, between six and seven thousand people are dead, and many more are dying.'

  Herbert Gaines looked up. 'So there must be great fear and panic in those places? In Florida and Georgia?'

  'There is. The police and the National Guard have cordoned off the Florida state line, as far as they can. And no one, but no one, is allowed out.'

  Herbert Gaines got up from his stool and walked across to the kitchen window. He stared out at Gabriels Park for a while, then he said, 'Mr. Gross, you're asking me to do something that conflicts with my sensitivities.'

  'I'm sorry, Mr. Gaines. I don't get you.'

  The old movie actor turned around. 'If there's an epidemic in the south, and people are dying, then the last thing I want to do is make political capital out of it. It's against my nature to advance myself through the fear and suffering of others. I have made terrible personal mistakes in my life, Mr. Gross, and I have been fortunate or unfortunate enough not to have been punished for them. I don't intend to add callousness and exploitation to my list of sins.'

  Jack Gross smiled. 'Well, I understand your objections. But there's no reason why they should stand in your way. You have to see this thing in its historical context. A chance like this may never happen again.'

  'A chance like what? A chance to put the squeeze on the public's uncertainty and fear? A chance to sweep into power on a tide of dead bodies? I'm not interested, Mr. Gross.'

  Jack Gross sighed. 'I really think you're being oversensitive, Mr. Gaines.'

  Herbert returned to his blender, and mixed his vegetables into a reddish-green froth. He poured the juice into a tall glass of crushed ice, and sipped it. He didn't look at Jack Gross, and was obviously waiting for him to go.

  Jack Gross stared at the floor. 'I didn't want to do this, Mr. Games,' he said softly.

  Herbert Gaines patted his lips with a Kleenex. 'Do what?' he said impatiently.

  'Exert pressure.'

  'Don't make me laugh," said Herbert Gaines. 'What possible pressure could you exert on me?'

  Jack Gross shrugged, still staring at the floor. 'There's always Nicky,' he said.

  'What do you mean by that?'

  Jack Gross was silent. He just smiled.

  'What do you mean by that?' Herbert snapped.
<
br />   Jack Gross looked up. 'I mean that our patriotic duty sometimes has to come before our personal opinions and that it always has to come before our personal pleasures.'

  'Is that a threat? By God, you'd better not threaten me, Mr. Jack Gross.'

  Jack Gross took his hat off his knee and parked it neatly on his head.

  'I'll make myself plain, Mr. Gaines. We need you, and we need you now. If you don't oblige us with your assistance, then some friends of ours will have to pay you a visit. Those friends of ours come from Chicago, Mr. Gaines, where the stockyards are, and they've had a lifetime of experience with stud bulls like Nicky. When those stud bulls won't behave, they take their stockman's knives, the sharp ones with the hooked blades, and they castrate them.'

  Jack Gross said all this with the same radiant smile on his face with which he had first walked in. At the kitchen door, he turned and said, 'Think about it, Mr. Gaines. I'll be in touch.'

  Then he let himself out of the apartment, and closed the door behind him.

  Herbert Gaines, pale-faced, went slowly into the bedroom, and stared for a long while at Nicky, sleeping peacefully on the satin sheets. 'Oh, God… ' he murmured, with a shiver and went back into the living-room to find the brandy.

  At two-thirty, just before the court hearing Glantz vs Forward went back for its afternoon session, the news finally hit the streets that Florida and parts of Georgia were stricken with plague.

  The New York Post brought out a special edition with a front-page photograph of Miami's ruined Civic Center, and a banner headline saying SUPER-PLAGUE SWEEPS SOUTH, THOUSANDS DIE. A kind of nervous ripple went through the city, and the lunchtime bars stayed crowded until well after three as New Yorkers watched the special half-hourly TV reports on the effects of the epidemic.

  The President, looking tired but, trying to sound optimistic, explained in a special interview that 'everything humanly possible has been done to contain the outbreak.' He announced that the entire state of Florida was quarantined until further notice, and that ocean bathing was prohibited all the way from Cape Fear to Key West.

  'It appears on first examination that a possible source of the plague bacillus is pollution of the ocean by raw sewage, although where this sewage is coming from, and how such an unusual and virulent bacillus could have developed within it, are still mysteries. This year's unusual climatic conditions, in which the currents in the ocean are running counter-clockwise, may be a contributing factor.'