Charles Britt listened to the bell. His office was diagonally across the street from the cathedral, and each peal of the massive bell made his walls shake, and he was contemplating a lawsuit, for he maintained that its constant tolling had loosened his fillings and was causing his remaining teeth to ache.
He brushed a wisp of white hair back from his forehead and squinted through the bottom of his bifocals.
He turned a page in the massive ledger and lowered his head to read further.
Losses, all. If only he'd cornered the drug market. Patent medicines and aspirin seemed the only things that were selling just then.
Clothing was out. Everyone was making do with what be had. Foodstuffs were all suspect. Hardwares were doing very poorly, for few repairs were being made these days. Why bother?
He was in deeply when it came to clothing, foodstuffs, and hardware.
He muttered a curse and turned the page.
Nobody was working, nobody was buying. Three ships waited in the harbor, unable to unload their cargoes, his cargoes, because of the quarantine.
And the looting! He'd saved three extra damns for the looters. He was sure that the insurance companies would find a way to renege. He was sure because there was a lot of Britt money in insurance. At least the police were shooting to kill when it came to the looters. He smiled at that.
A light rain stippled his window, melted the cathedral beyond it. He felt a small pity for the wet town crier, whose bawled "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" rang now across the square, competing with the monotonous tolling of the death bell. This, because he, Charles Britt, had once been town crier, many years ago when his pants had been short and his eyes unimprisoned by spectacles and ledgers, and in those days he had hated the rain.
Nobody was riding in his taxis. The hearses and the ambulances had all the business this day, and he owned neither.
Nobody was buying guns and ammunition. With the reduced population, there were now enough to go around, for all who desired to offend or defend.
Nobody was visiting his movie houses, for there was drama enough, and pathos, to fill each human life this day.
And nobody, nobody, but nobody, was buying the last edition of his newspaper, a special, at that, for which he had driven his decimated staff to heroic ends, not to mention himself, what with the double-time he'd paid them to produce the thing. The Plague Edition, it had been, with an attractive black-bordered front page; an exclusive article on "The Plague Throughout History," by a professor at Harvard, yet; a medical article on the symptoms of bubonic, pneumonic, and systemic plague, so you'd know which variety you were coming down with; six and a half pages of obituaries; one hundred human-interest interviews with fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, widows, and widowers; and a stirring editorial on the heroic drivers of the six doomed vehicles on their way to the west coast. He almost wept when he considered the stacks of these growing old in the warehouses, for nothing, but nothing, is so stale as a dated newsrag, even if it does have an attractive, black-bordered front page.
The only thing that made him smile again was the final page in the ledger. He'd managed at the last moment to corner sixty percent of the coffins in town, two florist shops, which were presently costing him dearly to keep open, and somewhat over five hundred cemetery plots. "Buy into a rising market," had always been his philosophy, not to mention his religion, sex, politics, and aesthetics. This, at least, would serve as a weight on the other side of the balance, possibly even net him a profit. If death is the wave of the future, ride it, he figured.
He tugged at his ear and listened again to the crier's words, half-hid among those of the bell.
"... there to be burned!"
This troubled him.
And as he heard the announcement repeated, he remembered the exclusive article on "The Plague Throughout History," by the Harvard professor.
Funeral homes, hospitals, and morgues were now as packed as the old charnel houses had been. So in those days they had taken to... Yes.
"...ass cremations to avoid spread of the disease!" cried the boy. "The following three places have been chosen, and the dead will be delivered to these sites, there to be burned! Number one, Boston Common..."
Charles Britt closed his ledger, removed his glasses, and began to polish them.
He resolved to bring suit in the morning, as his jaws tightened upon the cold iron blade, relentless, and a metallic taste filled his mouth.
After they had driven for about half an hour, the man called Greg said to him, "Is it true what Marlowe said?"
"What's a Marlowe?"
"He's driving the other car…Were you trying to kill us? Do you really want to skip out?"
Hell laughed, then, "That's right," he said. "You named it."
"Why?"
Hell let it hang there for a minute then said, "Why shouldn't I? I'm not anxious to die. I'd like to wait a long time before I try that bit."
Greg said, "If we don't make it, the population of the continent may be cut in half."
"If it's a question of them or me, I'd rather it was them."
"I sometimes wonder how people like you happen."
"The same way as anybody else, mister, and it's fun for a couple people for a while, and then the trouble starts."
"What did they ever do to you, Hell?"
"Nothing. What did they ever do _for_ me? Nothing. Nothing. What do I owe them? The same."
"Why'd you stomp your brother back at the hall?"
"Because I didn't want him doing a damn fool thing like this and getting himself killed. Cracked ribs he can get over. Death is a more permanent ailment."
"That's not what I asked you. I mean, what do you care whether he croaks?"
"He's a good kid, that's why. He's got a thing for this chick, though, and he can't see straight right now."
"So what's it to you?"
"Like I said, he's my brother, and he's a good kid. I like him."
"How come?"
"Oh, hell! We've been through a lot together, that's all! What are you trying to do? Psychoanalyze me?"
"I was just curious."
"So now you know. Talk about something else if you want to talk, okay?"
"Okay. You've been this way before, right?"
"That's right."
"You been any farther east?"
"I've been all the way to the Missus Hip."
"Do you know a way to get across it?"
"I think so. The bridge is still up at Saint Louis."
"Why didn't you go across it the last time you were there?"
"Are you kidding? The thing's packed with cars full of bones. It wasn't worth the trouble to try to clear it."
"Why'd you go that far in the first place?"
"Just to see what it was like. I heard all these stories, and I wanted to take a look."
"What was it like?"
"A lot of crap. Burned-down towns, big craters, crazy animals, some people..."
"People? People still live there?"
"If you want to call them that. They're all wild and screwed up. They wear rags or animal skins, or they go naked. They threw rocks at me till I shot a couple. Then they let me alone."
"How long ago was that?"
"Six, maybe seven years ago. I was just a kid then."
"How come you never told anybody about it?"
"I did. A coupla my friends. Nobody else ever asked me. We were going to go out there and grab off a couple of the girls and bring them back, but everybody chickened out."
"What would you have done with them?"
Tanner shrugged. "I dunno. Screw 'em and sell 'em, I guess.
"You guys used to do that, down on the Barbary Coast, sell people, I mean, didn't you?"