Plague

'Is that your considered opinion, or is that the story you're telling the press?' Dr. Petrie asked.

'It's both.'

'Have you been down to the hospital within the last hour?'

'No, of course not. I've been up here. This is where we're doing all the planning and the organization. I get constant reports from all over, and the police and the hospitals are keeping me up to date with every new case.'

'So you know how many people have died?'

Firenza looked at him narrowly. 'Yes, I do,' he said, in a slow voice. 'What are you getting at?'

'I'm not getting at anything. If you know how many people have died, how come this city isn't already in quarantine? When I drove here, I saw people lying dead on the sidewalks.'

Firenza struck a match and began to light his pipe. 'There are more people lying dead on the sidewalks in New York City, my friend, and they don't even have an epidemic there.'

Dr. Petrie frowned. 'Mr. Firenza,' he said, 'that is completely irrelevant. We have a serious epidemic disease on our hands right here in Miami, and it's up to us to do something about it.'

Firenza crossed his little legs. 'We are doing something about it, doctor. We have all the medical people on call that we need. But you don't think that a medical officer can only concern himself with medicine, do you? It's just as important for me to protect Miami's interests as a city as it is for me to protect the health of its citizens.'

Dr. Petrie stared at him. 'You mean — what you're telling the press — it's all to protect the city's business?'

'Partly. It has to be. You think I want panic in the streets? What we have here is a very tragic, very unfortunate incident. But it's no more than an incident. The last thing we want is for people to get hysterical.'

Dr. Petrie looked up. 'In other words, you don't want them to cancel their holidays?'

Firenza caught the tone of his voice. 'Look here, Dr. Petrie, I don't quite know why you're here, but I have a serious job to do and I don't appreciate sarcasm.'

'Dr. Selmer has a serious job to do, too. He has to stand there and watch people die.'

'He's getting all the back-up he needs. What more does he want?'

'He wants to be sure that this epidemic doesn't spread. We have a general idea of how it started. All that raw sewage that's been piling up on the beaches in the past couple of days has polluted the water and the sand. Somehow, the plague bacillus has been developing inside the sewage, and anyone who's gone down on the beach or swum in the ocean has caught it.'

Firenza puffed his pipe. 'You've got proof?' he said shortly.

'I don't think it needs proof. Every plague victim we've come across went swimming over the weekend or early yesterday morning.'

'That doesn't mean anything. Sixty percent of the population goes swimming over the weekend.'

'Yes — but mostly in private pools. All the victims went for a swim in the ocean.'

'I still find that hard to believe, Dr. Petrie. We've had raw sewage wash up on the beaches a couple of times before, and each time it's proved neutral.'

'Have you tested this sewage?'

'The health department didn't consider it necessary,' Firenza replied firmly.

Dr. Petrie stared at him. 'Mr. Firenza,' he said, 'am I hearing things? We have a dozen people dead of plague down at the hospital, and thirty or forty, maybe more people sick. We have beaches ankle-deep in sewage. Don't you think that, between the two, there's just the shadow of a probable link?'

Firenza shrugged. 'You're a doctor. You ought to know the danger of jumping to conclusions.'

Dr. Petrie sucked in his breath in exasperation. 'Mr. Firenza, I came here to ask you to close down the beaches. Not ask — insist. We have some kind of disease on our hands that's spreading faster than any disease we've ever come across before. People are dying within three to four hours of first catching it. Unless you want the whole population of Miami dead or dying within a couple of days, I suggest you act pretty fast.'

'Oh, you do, do you?' sneered Firenza. 'And just how do you suggest that I shut down twenty miles of beach without setting off the biggest hysterical exodus in American history?'

Dr. Petrie stood up. He was very tired, and he was angry. 'I think it's far better to set off an hysterical exodus of living people, than it is to shovel them up unhysterically when they're dead.'

Firenza almost grinned. 'Dr. Petrie,' he said. 'You have a fine turn of phrase. Unfortunately, you're reacting like all of your breed when you're faced with genuine diseases instead of old people's hypochondriac complaints. Real diseases frighten the pants off you. For once, you've got to do some real medical work, instead of prescribing sugar pills and syrup for rich and bad-tempered old ladies. Come on — admit it — you're scared.'

Dr. Petrie's face was strained with suppressed fury.

'Yes,' he said, in a shaking voice. 'I'm scared. I'm scared of a disease that kills people off like bugs down a drain, and I'm scared of you.'

Firenza stood up, too. He was nearly a foot shorter than Dr. Petrie.

'I suggest you go get yourself some rest,' said Firenza. 'In the light of day, the whole thing is going to look a lot less scary. I'm not saying that the situation isn't serious. It is, and I'm treating it as a medical emergency. But that's no reason to disturb the whole city, to cause unnecessary distress and anxiety, and to kill off the proceeds from a vacation season that's only just started. If we quarantine this city, Dr. Petrie, we'll destroy our business-folk, and our ordinary men and women, just as surely as if they'd gotten sick.'

Petrie looked at him for a long while, then slowly shook his head.

Mr. Firenza said, 'I promise you, and I promise Dr. Selmer, that if this epidemic gets any worse by tomorrow noon, I'll bring in the Dade County Health Department, and seek some federal help if we need it. Now — is that to your satisfaction?'

There was a long, awkward silence. Dr. Petrie opened the door of the study. 'I don't know what to say to you, Mr. Firenza. If you won't listen, you won't listen. Maybe I should go straight to the mayor.'

'The mayor's in Washington, for two days.'

'But he knows about the epidemic, surely?'

'He's heard about it, on the news. He called me, and I told him it was all under control, and to stay put. All I can say, Dr. Petrie is that it's up to the men of healing like you and Dr. Selmer to prove me right.'

Dr. Petrie turned away. 'If it didn't mean a terrible loss of life,' he said bitterly, 'I'd do anything to prove you wrong.'

He called Dr. Selmer from the phone-booth on the corner of the street, and told him what had happened. Selmer sounded frayed and worried, and on the point of collapse.

'Doesn't he have any idea how bad it is?' asked Anton Selmer. 'I've had fifteen more deaths since you left. I've had three nurses and two doctors down with it, and it won't be long before I get it myself.'

'Of course you won't. Just like you said, you and I are probably immune. Maybe it was contact with David that did it, or maybe we're just lucky.'

'I need to be lucky, if Firenza won't close the beaches.'

'I'm sorry, Anton. I did try. He's still telling the press that it's containable and localized, and that we're all going to wake up in the morning and discover it was nothing more than a nasty dream.'

'Jesus Christ.'

'I'm going after Prickles now,' Dr. Petrie said. 'I don't know where Margaret's taken her, but maybe if she's sick she's gone home. It shouldn't take long.'

'Will you come back here, just as soon as you can? I need every bit of help I can get. Joe Mamiya is making some tests on the bacillus, but it's going to take him a long time to come up with anything positive.'