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

by Graham Masterton

  They were almost level with Gratigny Drive when he had to pull the Torino up short. The road was entirely blocked by two burning cars. One of them, a Riviera, was already blackened and smoldering, but the other, a Cadillac, still had its tires ablaze, like a fiery chariot from Heaven.

  Dr. Petrie opened his car door and got out. The heat was oily and fierce. Shielding his eyes, he went as close to the wrecks as he could, and to his horror, he saw a woman still sitting in the Cadillac – her face was roasted raw, but she was lifting her smoking arm up and down, trying to call out. A lurch of nausea made his empty stomach turn over, and he had to look away.

  Adelaide called out, ‘What is it? Can we get past?’

  Dr. Petrie shouted back, ‘Stay there! Just stay there!’

  He took the security guard’s revolver out of his pocket, held it tight in both hands, and hoped to God that he wouldn’t miss. He inched as close to the blazing car as he could, and then fired. The woman jerked sharply back into her ruined seat as if he had kicked her. She disappeared in a torrent of rubbery smoke.

  Dr. Petrie climbed back into the Gran Torino.

  ‘Was there someone in there?’ Adelaide asked quietly.

  He nodded, and laid the gun on the parcel shelf. For some reason, the killing seemed to have purged something within him; to have quelled his broken nerves. Maybe it was because, for the first time since Mr. Kelly had woken him up on Monday morning, he had been able to act, to do something positive.

  ‘Honey – I’m going to have to ram my way through there,’ he said. He twisted around in his seat, and backed the car up thirty or forty yards. He stopped. ‘All you have to do is hold tight.’

  He licked his lips. Then he shifted the car into 2, and stamped on the gas. The back tires screeched and slithered as they fought for traction on the concrete, and then the Torino bellowed forward – straight towards the two smoking wrecks.

  There was a heavy smash, and for a moment Petrie thought the car was going to roll over. But he forced his foot harder on the gas, and their car gradually shoved the black carcass of the Riviera, its buckled hubs scraping and shuddering on the road, right to the edge of the expressway. Then Dr. Petrie backed up a foot or two, turned the wheel, and drove the Gran Torino over broken glass and oil and litter until they were clear. The car gave one last snaking skid, and they were driving north again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Dr. Petrie.

  Adelaide brushed back her hair. ‘I bruised my knee when we collided, but that’s all. I’m okay.’

  Dr. Petrie checked his watch. ‘Another two or three minutes, and we’ll be there. Then we can try and get out of this godforsaken place.’

  They drove without talking for a moment or two, and then Adelaide said, ‘Was it a man or a woman?’

  Dr. Petrie frowned. ‘Was what a man or a woman?’

  ‘In that burning car. I just wondered.’

  He rubbed at his left eye. The road was dark and confusing, and he had to swerve to avoid an abandoned police car.

  ‘It was a woman,’ he said baldly. ‘Does it make any difference?’

  ‘I don’t know. I got the feeling you needed to kill someone.’

  He glanced across at her. ‘What made you think that?’

  ‘It was the way you fired at that security man. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just doing his job. Somehow, you looked as though you really needed to kill him.’

  She was right, but Dr. Petrie could no more analyze his reactions than she could. It was connected with his present sense of helplessness as a doctor, with the need to protest, however ridiculously, against the outrage that was sweeping through his city. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I guess I’m just tired and frustrated.’

  They didn’t say anything more until they had driven through the dark suburbs of North Miami Beach up to Dr. Petrie’s former house. He pulled the Gran Torino up to the kerbside, and climbed out. With Adelaide he walked across the grass to the house next door. It was a pink Spanish-style ranchette, called El Hensch, and owned by the Henschels. There was a bright gas-light burning in the living-room, so Dr. Petrie assumed his erstwhile neighbors were at home. He rang the doorbell, and it played The Yellow Rose of Texas.

  The frosted-glass door opened half-an-inch. Dr. Petrie saw one bespectacled eye and the muzzle of a .38 revolver.

  ‘Who’s that?’ said David Henschel. ‘You get along out of here before I put a hole through ya.’

  ‘Mr. Henschel,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘It’s me. Leonard Petrie. Used to live next door – remember? I’ve come for Prickles.’

  There was a pause, then Dr. Petrie heard Gloria Henschel saying, ‘David – open the goddamned door, will ya? It’s Dr. Petrie. I seen him through the upstairs window.’

  After a lot of rattling of chains and locks, the door was opened. Dr. Petrie took Adelaide by the arm and stepped inside. Mr. Henschel, a fat, fiftyish man with a check shirt and a pot belly, opened the living-room door for them.

  On the living-room table was a butane camping lamp. It made the room seem like a dazzling religious grotto. Pickles was lying on the red velvet-style settee, with her thumb in her mouth, and her long honey-colored hair tied back with a pink ribbon. She was holding a worn-out teddy bear with a peculiarly maniac smile on its face, and she was wearing a red dressing gown and one red slipper.

  Dr. Petrie knelt down on the floor beside her, very quietly, and watched her sleeping. Her cheeks were flushed, but she didn’t look as if she had contracted plague. He ran the tip of his finger down the middle of her forehead, and down the small curve of her nose. Adelaide came up behind him, and put her arm around him.

  He looked up. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ he said, shaking his head – a proud father who couldn’t believe that his luck was real.

  Mrs. Henschel came into the room in a dazzling yellow bathrobe and pink-rinsed hair in curlers. She looked like a giant canary.

  ‘Dr. Petrie,’ she crooned. ‘Well, it’s been a long time I Have you come to stay awhile? You know you’re welcome.’

  Dr. Petrie looked at his watch. It was 12:35. ‘I’m sorry, Gloria,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to collect Prickles, and then we’re getting out of here.’

  Mr. Henschel frowned, ‘Getting out? You mean, leaving town?’

  ‘Sure. Don’t you know how bad it is?’

  ‘How bad what is?’

  Dr. Petrie felt like a time-traveler who has accidentally stepped into the past.

  ‘The plague. The epidemic. The whole of Miami is sick with plague.’

  Mr. Henschel looked suspicious. ‘Plague?’ he said. ‘You mean – like sickness? I heard on the television there was ‘flu, and that forty or fifty people was dead, but that’s all. We haven’t been out of the house today, this is my week off work.’

  ‘Is that all they’ve been saying on television?’ Adelaide asked. ‘Forty or fifty dead?’

  ‘Sure. They said it wasn’t nothing to worry about.’

  Dr. Petrie sat down on the edge of the settee where Prickles slept. ‘I’ll tell you how much it is to worry about,’ he told them. ‘Margaret died of this sickness just an hour or two ago, and she’s just one of thousands.’

  While the Henschels stood there, barely able to grasp what he was telling them, he explained the raw facts about the plague, and how long it was going to be before fire or bacilli were going to destroy the Miami way of life for ever.

  As he spoke, he saw the growing desperation and terror in their faces, and he understood for the first time why nobody from city hall or Washington had considered it prudent to let them know before.

  ‘I’ll get my rifle,’ said David Henschel, his voice unsteady. ‘I’ll get my rifle and I’ll blast my way out of this town, even if I die trying.’

  ‘Mr. Henschel,’ said Dr. Petrie, as the old man went for the door.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m afraid you probably will.’

  ‘I probably will what?’

  ‘Die trying.’<
br />
  Mr. Henschel stared at him balefully for a moment, and then without a word, went off to fetch his gun.

  Four

  Kenneth Garunisch eased himself back into his big Colonial armchair and took a swig from his ice-cold beer. Pulling his necktie loose, he propped his feet up on the Colonial coffee table. It had been a hard, long night, and he felt as if he had been beaten up by three Polish muggers in a Turkish bath.

  The lavatory flushed, and Dick Bortolotti came out, wiping his hands on a towel.

  ‘Is there any of that beer going spare?’ he asked, coughing.

  ‘There’s a six-pack in the icebox,’ growled Garunisch. ‘I couldn’t face any breakfast.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  Garunisch peered at his watch. ‘Five-forty-five.’

  Bortolotti came back with a beer and sat down next to him. There was a large-scale map of Florida and Georgia on the coffee table, and it was marked in several places with red felt-tip pen. During the night, Garunisch, apart from the US Disease Control Center and the federal government, had been one of the best-informed people on the spread of the unstoppable plague. His members in hospitals all the way up the East Coast had been reporting outbreaks as they happened, and although he didn’t yet know that Miami had been completely sealed off by National Guardsmen, he did know that the hospital system there had virtually collapsed.

  ‘What are they saying on the television news?’ asked Bortolotti.

  ‘They’re still making out that it’s swine ’flu or Spanish ’flu or some other kind of ’flu. But they’re having to fess up that it’s getting worse. They can’t hold the lid on this thing for ever.’

  ‘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 ea
rly-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.