Plague (37 page)

‘You sometimes
wish what were true?’ asked Glantz.

Dr. Petrie let
the drapes fall, and turned back into the room. ‘In Miami,’ he said, ‘they used
to joke about me and call me Saint Leonard. I just sometimes wish it were
true.’

Glantz looked
at him oddly.

‘Don’t worry,’
said Dr. Petrie. ‘I’m not a religious maniac, and I’m not going out of my mind.
But I’ve spent most of my medical life nursing rich old widows, and now I’ve
suddenly seen that there’s so much more to medicine than dishing out placebos
to dried-up geriatrics with more money than sense.’

Glantz sniffed.
‘Don’t knock money,’ he said. ‘Money makes it easier to have scruples.’

Dr. Petrie
rubbed his face exhaustedly. ‘I don’t know whether I want scruples right now.’

‘Have another
drink instead.’

Ivor Glantz was
pouring Dr. Petrie another large dose of Scotch when Adelaide and Esmeralda
came in with a hot egg-and-bacon quiche and a fresh salad. The girls laid
knives and forks on the glass coffee table, and they all sat down to eat
informally.

‘Usually,’ said
Glantz, ‘Esmeralda insists that we eat in the dining-room, with starched
napkins tucked under our chins. But tonight we’ll make an exception.’

Adelaide said,
‘I don’t know how we’re ever going to thank you for this. It’s so bad out on
the
streets,
I thought we’d never get out of it
alive.’

‘It doesn’t
take people long to revert to the jungle, does it?’ Ivor Glantz remarked.

‘You only have
to pour a few drinks down most people, and they start behaving like apes.
That’s how alcohol works. Layer by layer, it anesthetizes your civilized mind,
until you’re nothing but a caveman. Or cave-woman.’

Esmeralda was
slicing quiche. She didn’t look up, but handed Dr. Petrie a plateful of food.
He smiled at her, because he found her attractive. Her long black curly hair
was tied with ribbons, and she was wearing a dark brown satin negligee trimmed
with lace and bows. She looked a little pale, but it suited her fine profile.
He found himself glancing at the soft mobile way her breasts moved underneath
the satin, and her long bare legs.

Adelaide was
too tired and hungry to notice. She was looking scrubbed and plain, with no
make-up at all, and her brunette hair was tied back in a headscarf. She’d
borrowed a pink dressing-gown from Esmeralda, and the color didn’t suit her at
all.

Sexual
attraction,
thought Dr. Petrie, as he ate his flan, is the
unfairest urge ever.

Ivor Glantz
washed a mouthful of food down with whiskey. ‘To some people,’ he said, ‘this
plague is a blessing.’

Dr. Petrie
frowned. ‘What do you mean by that? I mean – who could ever benefit from a
disaster like this?’

‘Oh, you’d be
surprised. Our next-door neighbor is Kenneth Garunisch from the Medical
Workers’ Union. He’s been pressing for more pay for his members, because of the
dangers of treating plague victims. Then there’s Herbert Gaines. You remember
Herbert Gaines – the actor? Well, he lives upstairs. He’s gotten himself into
politics now, and his main plank is that blacks and immigrants have caused the
plague, and we ought to vote a right-wing Republican into the White House to
get rid of them. Then, of course, there’s Sergei Forward.’

Dr. Petrie was
puzzled. The way that Ivor Glantz had spoken that name – loudly and vehemently
– it had seemed that he was speaking to Esmeralda. But Esmeralda still didn’t
look up, and carried on eating in silence.

Dr. Petrie
said, ‘Dr. Murray mentioned him. Isn’t he the guy you’re
...’

‘Yes,’ said
Ivor Glantz. He was still looking at
Esmeralda,
and
not at Dr. Petrie at all.

‘He’s the guy
I’m sueing for infringement of patent. Or at least, I was sueing him for
infringement of patent. The plague, among other things, has let him off the
hook.’

‘You must be
pretty galled.’

Glantz turned
to Dr. Petrie at last. ‘Galled?’ he said. ‘You bet your ass I’m galled. It’s a
life’s work, right down the river. But that’s not the worst part.’

Dr. Petrie
glanced from Ivor Glantz to Esmeralda. There was some indefinable tension
between them. Esmeralda was still holding her knife and fork, but she wasn’t
actually eating. Her knuckles were white, and she was staring at her plate as
if willing it to disappear into the sixth dimension. Adelaide caught the
atmosphere, too, and looked up with a frown.

‘The worst
part,’ said Ivor
Glantz,
‘was losing a life’s loyalty,
and a life’s love.’

There was a long
silence. Then Esmeralda stood up, and took her plate out of the sitting-room
and into the kitchen. They heard her scraping her supper down the sink-disposal
unit.

‘Es!’
Ivor Glantz called.

She didn’t
answer.

‘Es!’ he called
again.

She appeared at
the kitchen door. ‘I’m not very hungry,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

Ivor Glantz
took a deep breath as if he was about to shout something, but then he changed
his mind and breathed out again. Esmeralda went off to her bedroom, and,
turning to Dr. Petrie, Glantz said, ‘How about one more Scotch, doctor? I’m
sure you can justify it on medicinal grounds.’

Dr. Petrie
passed his glass. He watched Ivor Glantz unstopper the crystal decanter, and
pour the drink out.

‘Listen,
Professor Glantz,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t mean to be personal, but...’

‘But what, Dr. Petrie?’

Dr. Petrie
shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s none of my business.’

Glantz handed
over his Scotch. ‘Of course it’s your business. You’re a guest here.’

‘I didn’t mean
to pry. It just seemed that, well...’

‘I know what it
seemed like. Well, it’s the truth. I’ve decided to withdraw my action against
Sergei Forward. The reason I’ve decided to do so is because my stepdaughter is
being blackmailed. It appears she was rather indiscreet. That’s if you want to
put it mildly.’

Dr. Petrie sat
back. ‘Is that the price? Is that what the blackmailers are asking for?

Your withdrawal from the case?’

Ivor Glantz
nodded.
‘Of course.
That’s why my stepdaughter was set
up in the first place. It was a deliberate ploy by Forward to hit me below the
belt. I can tell you something, Dr. Petrie – if ever I lay my hands on that
Finnish bastard, so help me I’ll tear his lungs out and use them for water
wings.’

‘Surely it
wasn’t Esmeralda’s fault?’ said Adelaide. ‘If she was set up, how can you blame
her?’

Glantz swigged
whiskey. ‘I blame her because she got herself drunk and she let them do what
they wanted. Not once did she think about me, and what could happen if she got
involved in something like that. She lives under my roof, I pay for everything
she wears, eats, and wipes her ass with. I bought her an art gallery and two
hundred paintings to stock it with. I’m a step-father in a million, and all she
can do is get
herself
squiffy on two glasses of
champagne. Do you know, Dr. Petrie, how much that bacteriological process means
to me?’

‘What do you
mean?
Financially?’

‘Of course, financially!
What do you think this is – the
Alexander Fleming Home for needy bacteriologists? Dr. Petrie – over twenty
years, that process could have brought me, in royalties and dues and industrial
licences, something in the region of thirty million dollars.’

Adelaide’s eyes
widened. ‘I see what you’re talking about. I think I’d be sore, too.’

Ivor Glantz
shook his head. ‘I’m not sore, my dear. I’m out of my goddamned mind with
rage.’

Shark McManus
started moaning again. He was lying curled-up on the cold plastic tiles of a
travel agency’s second-floor office on Third Avenue, shivering and sweating in
the darkness. From where he lay, He could see the legs of a desk, and a
waste-paper basket, and a half-open door. He still clutched his .38, but his
sight kept blurring, and he was hurting so bad that he didn’t even know if he
could pull the trigger or not. Pains like red-hot rakes stabbed into his groin
and his stomach, and every now and then a scalding squirt of diahorrea soaked
into his jeans.

‘Paston,’ he
whispered.
‘You still there?’

Edgar Paston
stood by the window, pale-faced and perspiring. In the street below he could
see gangs of black youths running and shouting and smashing windows.

‘I’m here,’ he
said quietly. He came across the office and bent over McManus with a serious
face. ‘How do you feel?’

McManus winced.
‘Oh, terrific.’

Edgar said,
‘Shark, I have to find you a doctor.’

McManus moaned
again, and shook his head. ‘Where do you think you’re going to find a doctor –
out there? I know you, Paston – you’re going to go – straight to the cops – and
tell them it was me.’

‘Shark, you’ll
die!’

‘What the fuck
– do you care? I used you – you used me – and your family got wasted.’

Edgar stood
straight again.

‘I still think
I ought to try and find you a doctor. There have to be doctors who wouldn’t ask
questions.’

McManus almost
laughed. But his laughter turned to coughing, and his coughing became gasps of
pain.

‘Paston –
you’re such a stupid shit!’

‘Don’t say
that, Shark.’

‘Aah... why
should you care?’ whispered McManus.

Edgar clenched
and unclenched his fists. He seemed to be trying to say something that wouldn’t
quite form itself into coherent words. He wiped his perspiring forehead with
his shirt-sleeve, and then he said, ‘Shark...’

McManus was
moaning. Edgar knelt down beside him, as close as he could, and took his hand.

‘Shark, I do
care.’

Shark’s
breath
smelled bad, and his face, in the gloomy darkness of
the office, looked like a white wax death-mask.

‘Shark, I don’t
want you to die.’

Shark slowly
moved his head from side to side.

‘Thass... bullshit.’

Edgar Paston
leaned over the dying boy and held his face in his hands. Shark’s eyes were
almost closed, and he was breathing thickly and slowly through his parted lips.

‘Shark, listen,
I have to tell you this. Please, listen, will you? I have to tell you.’

McManus opened
his eyes a little wider and stared at Edgar as if he had never seen him before
in his whole life.

‘I don’t
suppose you’ll understand,’ said Edgar. ‘But I have to tell you anyway. I know
Tammy and the kids were killed, but you have to believe that I don’t blame you.
You were trying to help us, Shark, I know that. It was the cops who killed
them. You have to understand that I don’t blame you.’

The office was
so dark that it was impossible to tell if Shark McManus was listening or not.
He quivered from time to time, and whimpered, but he didn’t answer.

Edgar Paston
was crying now. ‘Shark,’ he said, ‘I got it all wrong. I didn’t understand.

Don’t you see?
I got it all wrong because I was dead and you were alive. I didn’t recognize
you for what you really were. Shark, you’ve got your youth. Look at me.

How old do you
think I am? Shark, I’ve never had a youth! It was school, and then it was
college, and then it was Tammy and the kids and work. Christ, Shark, you’ve got
freedom and love and confidence and everything, and all I’ve got is a useless
dreary stupid supermarket!

Shark McManus,
after a few moments, seemed to smile. He managed to raise one limp hand and
touch Edgar’s tears.

‘Paston,’ he
croaked. ‘You’re such a stupid shit.’

‘For Christ’s
sake, don’t say that.’

‘I have to say
it, man. It’s true.’

Edgar Paston sat
up. His voice was unnaturally high, and in an odd way he was almost hysterical.

‘God!’ he
shrieked. ‘Can’t you see how much I envy you?’

McManus was in
less pain now. He gave a few breathy chuckles, and rolled his head to one side.

‘Paston,’ he
whispered. ‘I don’t want to be envied by you. I think I’d prefer to die.’

Edgar got to
his feet, and automatically brushed the dust from the knees of his pants.

‘Well, that’s
too bad,’ he said impatiently. ‘That’s just too bad because I’m going to go
right out there and find you a doctor. You’re going to get well again and then
we’ll see. Give me the gun.’

‘Paston,’ said
Shark, ‘you’re out of your head. You can’t go out there.’

‘Give me the
gun, Shark.’

Edgar bent over
and caught hold of McManus’ wrist. Shark was too weak to resist him, and he
gave up the .38 without a struggle.

‘Okay now,’
said Edgar, forcefully. ‘I’m going out there and I’m going to find you a
doctor. Give me an hour. If I’m not back after that time – well...’

‘Can I die
then?’ asked Shark McManus. ‘Am I allowed to?’

Edgar leaned
over and patted him on the cheek.

‘You are not to
die,’ he said tenderly.

Shark nodded.
‘Okay, then. I won’t.’

Edgar took the
gun and left the office. He walked along the landing to the concrete staircase
that led down to the street. As he reached the top step, he heard an unexpected
scuffling noise, and he paused. He peered into the darkness, and he could have
sworn that he saw something moving. He wished he had a torch.

Feeling his way
down step by step, with his hand against the rough concrete wall, he came to
the next turn in the stairs. He heard the noise again. There was a high-pitched
squeaking, and the patter of feet.

‘Rats,’ he said
to himself.
‘Oh, Jesus!’

He descended
the next few stairs cautiously. The rats scuttled down ahead of him, and he
could see their eyes reflecting the dim light from the open street door. He
managed to reach the sidewalk, kicking a couple of
rats
aside, and it was only then that he realized how many there were. The office
building was teeming with rats, and so were the streets. Disturbed by the
chaotic violence and looting, frightened by fires, aroused by the smell of dead
bodies, they were rising from the sewers and electrical conduits of Manhattan
in a gray tide.