Plague: A gripping suspense thriller about an incurable outbreak in Miami Read online

  ‘And?’

  Dr. Selmer’s voice was unsteady with emotion. ‘It’s not going to work, Leonard. It’s not going to work at all.’

  Dr. Petrie frowned. ‘What do you mean – not going to work?’

  ‘Just that, Leonard. The plague is not responding to the normal methods of treatment. Not sulfonamide, not anything. I guess it’s because it’s some kind of mutation. It’s totally resistant to antibiotics, and it’s even resistant to heat.’

  ‘What about the antigens?’

  Dr. Selmer took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Then he blew his nose loudly. ‘They slow it up, that’s all. Usually, they cut the mortality rate. You can save two out of three. But with this plague, they hardly help at all. Whatever we do, Leonard, they’re dying just the same.’

  Dr. Petrie leaned back against the wall. He tried not to think of Prickles and Adelaide. The corridor was bright and clinical and smelled of disinfectant. Outside, through the constantly swinging doors, he could see the red flash of ambulance lights, and the clatter and shuffle of trolleys. He heard someone shouting and moaning, and someone else trying to argue in a high, persistent voice.

  ‘Have you told the health people?’ he asked quietly.

  Dr. Selmer nodded. ‘I told them around half-past nine. They didn’t really believe me at first. Wanted proof. So I brought Jackson and Firenza down here, and let them see for themselves.’

  ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Wait and see. Firenza said he thought it was probably an isolated outbreak.’

  ‘Wait and see? Are you kidding? What makes him think it isn’t going to spread around the whole damn city?’

  Dr. Selmer shrugged. ‘Precedent. The worst outbreak in American history was New Orleans, in 1920, when eleven people died. Firenza doesn’t believe that we’re going to lose more than twelve.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell him you’d lost five already? Jesus, Anton, this thing is far worse than bubonic plague. Doesn’t he understand that?’

  Dr. Selmer pulled his surgical cap on again. He looked at Leonard Petrie with his pale, worn-out eyes, and when he spoke his voice seemed hollow with tiredness.

  ‘I think he understands that, yes. But he’s like everyone else. They watch Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey, and they don’t believe that American medicine can ever be licked. They don’t understand that we can make mistakes. Officially, we’re not allowed to. Officially we’re not even permitted to be baffled.’

  Dr. Petrie looked serious. ‘Anton,’ he said, ‘how bad is it really?’

  Before Dr. Selmer could answer, his nurse came out of the emergency ward door and said, ‘Doctor, he’s almost gone. I think you’d better come.’

  ‘There’s a mask and a gown spare, Leonard,’ Dr. Selmer said. ‘Come inside and you can see for yourself how bad it really is.’

  They pushed their way into the emergency ward. Dr. Petrie tugged on a tight surgical cap and laced a mask over his nose and mouth. The nurse helped him put on green rubbers and a long gown. She gave him transparent latex gloves, and he pulled them on to his hands as he followed Selmer into the glare of the surgical lamps.

  It was the middle-aged man that Herb Stone and Francis Poletto had picked up in Alton Road. His face was drawn and lividly pale, and his eyes were rolled back into his head so that only the whites were showing. Beside the couch, on the luminous dials of the diagnostic equipment, his respiration, heartbeat and blood pressure were slowly subsiding.

  The nurse said, ‘His breathing is failing. Dr. Selmer. We can’t keep him much longer.’

  Dr. Selmer, helpless, stood at the end of the couch and watched the man gradually die.

  ‘This is how bad it really is,’ he said to Dr. Petrie, in a hushed voice. ‘This man’s wife told us that he felt sick just after lunch. By the evening, it had gotten so bad that he decided to go and look up his doctor. He was on his way there when he was picked up by the cops for drunk driving. He wasn’t drunk, of course. He was dying of plague. Twelve hours from first symptoms to death.’

  Dr. Petrie saw the pulse-rate drop and drop and drop. The luminous ribbon of the cardiac counter was barely nudged by the man’s weakening heart.

  ‘Is his wife here?’ Dr. Petrie asked.

  Selmer nodded. ‘We’re keeping every relative and friend in the waiting-room, under observation. The way this plague seems to develop, you show your first symptoms three or four hours after you’ve been exposed to it. We had a young girl brought in about three-and-a-half hours ago, and her father’s showing the first signs. Dizziness, sickness, diarrhoea, shivering. It’s the fastest infectious disease I’ve ever seen.’

  Dr. Petrie said nothing as the man on the couch died. Whoever he was, whatever he did, his forty-five years of life and memory and experience dwindled to nothing at all, and vanished on that hard, uncompromising bed.

  Dr. Selmer motioned to the nurse and they drew a sheet over his face and disconnected the diagnostic equipment. One of the doctors called for a porter from the mortuary.

  ‘Poor guy,’ said Dr. Petrie, ‘He never even knew what it was.’

  Dr. Selmer turned away. Though an emergency ward doctor he was tom apart by losing his patients. He was skilful and talented and he never lost his enthusiasm for other people’s survival. What was happening here today was, for him, relentless and unstoppable agony.

  ‘There’s one consolation,’ said Dr. Selmer hoarsely. ‘It looks as though we’re not going to get it ourselves.’

  ‘We’re not? I always thought doctors and nurses were first-line casualties with plague.’

  ‘Maybe they are. But it was nine o’clock this morning when you came into contact with David Kelly, wasn’t it? And are you sick yet? I came into closer contact than you, and I’m okay. Perhaps we’re going to get lucky, and stay alive.’

  ‘I still think you ought to call Firenza. Tell him again how bad this is.’

  Dr. Selmer shrugged. ‘It’s not that he doesn’t believe me. It’s his reputation. I don’t think he wants to be known as the health official with the highest mortality rate in the history of Florida.’

  ‘That’s absurd,’ said Dr. Petrie.

  ‘You think so? Go and talk to him yourself. Meanwhile, you can do me a favor.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Tell this guy’s wife that he’s gone. Her name’s Haskins. She’s waiting by the water fountain, just down the corridor.’

  Dr. Petrie lowered his head. Then he said, ‘Okay,’ and went back to the wash-up room to take off his mask and robe. He glanced at himself in the mirror as he straightened his jacket, and thought that he looked tall, tired, handsome and helpless. Maybe Margaret had been right all along. Maybe it was futile, caring for rich and hypochondriac old ladies. Maybe his real work was here, in the thick of the blood and the pain, the failing hearts and the teeming bacteria.

  He opened the door and peered down the crowded corridor. Mrs. Haskins was standing on her own – a gray-haired woman in a cheap brown print dress, holding a plastic carrier bag with her husband’s clothes and shoes in it. She seemed oblivious to the bustle of medics and porters, as more and more sick people were wheeled swiftly into the hospital. Outside, as the doors swung open, the ambulance sirens echoed through the warm night streets of Miami. Mrs. Haskins, alone by the water fountain, waited patiently.

  Dr. Petrie walked across, and took her arm. She looked up at him, her eyes pink with tiredness and suppressed tears.

  ‘Mrs. Haskins?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Is George all right?’

  Dr. Petrie bit his lip. In a few short words, he was going to destroy this woman’s whole world. He almost felt like saying nothing at all, prolonging her suspense. At least she would believe her husband was still alive. At least she would have some hope.

  ‘George was very sick,’ said Dr. Petrie softly.

  She nodded. ‘I know. He was taken bad right after his lunch. He took his swim in the morning, and then he came back and was taken real bad.’
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  ‘He took a swim? Where?’

  ‘Where he always does. Off the beach.’

  Dr. Petrie looked at the woman’s weary, work-lined face. First it was David Kelly, and he’d taken a swim. Then it was Margaret, and she’d taken a swim. Now it was George Haskins. And all along the beaches, raw sewage was floating in from the Atlantic Ocean. Poisonous, virulent, and seething with diseased bacteria.

  ‘Mrs. Haskins,’ he said simply, ‘I’m sorry to tell you that George is dead.’

  Mrs. Haskins stared at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

  ‘George died, about five minutes ago.’

  She frowned, and then looked down at her carrier bag. ‘But he can’t have. I’ve got all his clothes in here.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Haskins. It’s true.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, that’s all right,’ she said, with an attempt at brightness. ‘I’ll just wait here.’

  ‘Mrs. Haskins—’

  He was interrupted by the public address system. ‘Dr. Petrie, telephone please. Dr. Leonard Petrie, telephone.’ He held Mrs. Haskins’ hand. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he told her. ‘You just wait there, and I’ll be right back.’

  Mrs. Haskins smiled blandly, and agreed to wait.

  Dr. Petrie pushed his way past trolleys and anaesthetic cylinders, nurses and porters, and made his way to the phone outside the emergency ward. He picked it up and said, ‘This is Dr. Petrie. You have a call for me?’

  ‘Hold on, doctor,’ said the telephonist. ‘Okay, ma’am, you’re through now.’

  Dr. Petrie said, ‘Adelaide?’

  Adelaide sounded jumpy and frantic. ‘Leonard? Oh God, Leonard, something awful has happened! I’ve been trying to call you for the past twenty minutes, but the hospital lines were all tied up.’

  ‘What is it? Is it Prickles? Is she sick?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It was Margaret. She knocked at the door, and I opened it up, thinking it was you. She came straight in, like she was drunk or something, and she pulled Prickles out of bed and carried her off.’

  ‘She what?’

  ‘She carried her off, Leonard,’ said Adelaide miserably, bursting into tears. ‘I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t. Oh God, Leonard, I’m so sorry. I tried to stop her.’

  ‘You say she was drunk?’

  ‘She seemed like it. She was swaying around and cursing. It was awful.’

  Dr. Petrie rested his head against the wall. ‘Okay, Adelaide, don’t worry. I’ll get right back there. I shouldn’t think she’s taken Prickles far. Just stay there, and I’ll get back in ten minutes.’

  He laid down the phone. Dr. Selmer was standing right behind him.

  ‘You’re not going home?’ asked Dr. Selmer. ‘I’m sorry, but I came to look for you, and I couldn’t help overhearing.’

  ‘Anton, I have to. My wife has taken my little girl.’

  ‘Leonard, I need you here. You have to talk to Firenza. Please. I can’t get away myself.’

  Dr. Petrie shook his head. ‘Anton – I can’t. I think that Margaret has the plague. I have to go get Prickles back, Anton. I can’t just leave her. Look—’ he checked his watch ‘—just give me two hours, and I’ll come right back here. I promise.’

  Dr. Selmer looked desperate. ‘Leonard, it’s Firenza. You have to convince him. If we don’t put this whole city into quarantine – well, God knows what’s going to happen. I spoke to him just now. He still refuses. He says that until we find out what’s causing this epidemic, there’s no medical justification for sealing the city off.’

  ‘We do know what’s causing it,’ said Dr. Petrie.

  ‘We do?’

  ‘I think so. It’s the sewage that’s been washed up on the beaches. Every one of the people I’ve come across with plague went swimming – either yesterday, or today.’

  Dr. Selmer dropped his hands in resignation. ‘Then we have to close the beaches,’ he said. ‘Go see Firenza, tell him what you think, and insist that he closes the beaches.’

  Dr. Petrie looked at his watch again. He had just seen a man die from the plague; he knew how short a time it took. If Margaret was already in the dizzy, drunken stage, she may only have a couple of hours left – three or four at the most. Supposing she died when Prickles was with her? Supposing she was driving her car?

  ‘Anton,’ he said desperately. ‘Just two hours. Please. No one goes swimming at night, anyway.’

  Dr. Selmer wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Go on, then,’ he said softly. ‘I can’t stop you.’

  ‘Anton, it’s my daughter.’

  Dr. Selmer nodded, and looked at Mrs. Haskins, waiting, shocked and patient, by the water fountain, and the white shivering people who were being wheeled in through the hospital’s double doors.

  ‘Sure. It’s your daughter, and her husband, and his son, and my uncle. Everybody belongs to somebody, Leonard. I’m just disappointed, that’s all. No matter how people criticized you, I didn’t think you were that kind of a doctor.’

  Leonard Petrie rubbed the back of his neck. The muscles were knotted and tense, and he could feel the beginnings of a pounding headache.

  Dr. Selmer watched him, saying nothing, waiting for him to make up his mind.

  Finally, Dr. Petrie sighed. ‘All right, Anton. You win. Where does Firenza live?’

  ‘Out by the university on South West 48th Street. The number’s here.’

  Dr. Petrie took the creased card and tucked it in his pocket. ‘I’ll be right back when I’ve seen him. Then I must go and look for Prickles. You understand that?’

  Dr. Selmer nodded and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I won’t forget this, Leonard. Just talk sense into those bastards, that’s all. I’ll catch you later.’

  Dr. Petrie was about to leave when he noticed Mrs. Haskins.

  ‘Anton,’ he said quietly. ‘She still doesn’t believe it. Tell her, for Christ’s sake, or she’s going to stand by that fountain all night.’

  Dr. Selmer nodded. Then Dr. Petrie turned, and walked quickly down the hospital corridor, out through the double doors, and into the humid tropical night. By the clock over the hospital’s main entrance, it was just past one-thirty. He slung his jacket in the back of his car, started the engine, and squealed off south.

  He made a conscious effort to wipe any thoughts of Prickles out of his mind as he drove. There were too many giddy dollies in this city to think about just one of them, no matter how dearly he loved her, no matter how much it hurt to leave her to whatever fate she faced.

  Two

  Ivor Glantz stalked fiercely across his New York apartment, plucked the stopper out of the whiskey decanter, and splashed himself a more-than-generous glassful. He swallowed it like medicine, grimacing at every gulp, and then, with heavily suppressed fury, he set the glass quietly and evenly back on the table.

  His attorney, Manny Friedman, stood watching this performance with respectful distaste.

  ‘Ivor,’ he said, in his persistent, nasal voice. ‘Ivor, you’ll kill yourself.’

  Ivor Glantz looked at him and said nothing. He walked across to the floor-to-ceiling window, and parted the expensive translucent drapes. Sixteen floors below, on this gray and rainy Tuesday, the four o’clock traffic was beginning to congest the junction of First Avenue, measled with yellow taxis and teeming with people. Glantz let the drape fall back, and turned to face his attorney with exasperation and badly-concealed ill grace.

  ‘You smart-ass,’ he growled. ‘You unctious, greasy, half-circumcized smart-ass.’

  Manny Friedman frowned nervously. He was clutching his briefcase in front of him like a protective shield.

  ‘Ivor,’ he said uncertainly, ‘it’s a question of legal technique.’

  ‘Technique?’ snapped Glantz. ‘You tell the jury what a short-tempered tyrannical bastard I am, and that’s supposed to be technique?’

  Manny Friedman licked his lips. ‘Ivor, I explained it. I explained that we had to admit your past mistakes befor
e the defense could get their teeth into them and make a meal out of the whole thing. What we’re trying to say is that you’re human, and you’ve made mistakes, but that now, in spite of everything, you’ve been misjudged, and taken advantage of.’

  Ivor Glantz sat down heavily in one of the huge off-white armchairs. ‘Oh, sure,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Well, you certainly made a good job of that. Now they think I’m a cross between Caligula and Adolf Hitler. I’ve been misjudged? And taken advantage of? What the hell kind of a performance is that?’

  ‘Ivor, listen to me—’

  ‘I won’t listen!’ snapped Glantz. ‘I think I’ve listened to your half-assed advice long enough! This is my court case, and we’ll run it the way I want it! Just because that Finnish bastard has lived a life of one hundred percent purity, that’s supposed to give him the right to steal my research? It’s not my fault the guy’s a virgin, is it? That’s my fucking patent, and he’s infringed it. That’s all there is to it!’

  Manny Friedman swallowed hard. He sat down, still clutching his briefcase.

  ‘Ivor,’ he said. ‘For one moment, just for one second, please listen.’

  Ivor Glantz sniffed. ‘What do you want me to do now? Confess that I’m a homosexual, so the jury won’t think I’m having an incestuous relationship with my daughter?’ He paused, looking the discomfited Manny up and down. ‘Come on, stop looking so goddamned nervous!’

  ‘It’s all a question of credibility,’ said Friedman earnestly. ‘You’re a scientist, and a good scientist, but you also have a checkered kind of a past.’

  ‘Because I argued with those stuffed shirts at Princeton, and told DuPonts to go fuck themselves? That’s a checkered past?’

  Friedman winced. ‘To a jury, Ivor, yes. What we’ve been trying to do today is to show that you’re an honest American Joe, with a particular talent for bacteriological research, and that in spite of your mistakes you’ve been trying to make good. All of a sudden, you find out how to mutate bacilli with radio-active rays – the greatest discovery of your whole life, the discovery that’s going to make it big – and what happens? Some foreign schmuck steps in and claims that it’s his idea, and that you’re some kind of a quack.’