Plague (19 page)

‘Did you try
your guy at
The Daily News
?

‘I just came
off the phone. He says there’s a hundred percent media cooperation with the
federal government. It’s not as voluntary as it looks, though. The White House
is apparently ready to do some kind of deal over their interpretation of
secrets bill. If the press and the TV boys play ball, the government will ease
off their legislation.’

Dick Bortolotti
swallowed beer, and grinned wryly. ‘Sounds just like the politicians I know and
love.’

Kenneth
Garunisch opened his cigarette box and lit a cigarette. ‘Don’t worry about it.

The most
important thing is protecting our members. Apart from that, I think we can
squeeze some future guarantees and emergency pay scales out of the health
people. This may be a serious situation, but it’s an ill illness that brings
nobody any good.’

‘You
kidding?’
Bortolotti asked.

Garunisch blew
smoke noisily, and nodded. ‘I’m kidding that this whole goddamned business
doesn’t bother me, because it sure as hell does. But there’s no future in being
squeamish. If we can’t force some favorable negotiations out of this little
baby, then we don’t deserve to be wearing long pants. Take a look at this map.’

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?’