Plague

Adelaide rubbed her eyes tiredly. 'Let's do it then. Let's just get someplace where we can stop and have a bath and eat a decent hot meal. If I don't get out of these clothes soon, I'm going to stink like a skunk!'

Dr. Petrie grinned at her through the darkness. 'Me too. But then, skunks seem to fall in love just like the rest of us, don't they, so what's wrong with smelling like one?'

Adelaide settled down to sleep again, trying to make herself comfortable in the jolting car.

'Leonard,' she said, 'I'll give you a hundred good reasons. But not right now. Tomorrow.'

When it was scarcely dawn, and the car was still silvered with the cold breath of the night, they drove quietly out of the Georgia woods and back towards the main highway. They were low on gas, and Dr. Petrie's first priority was to find a filling station. Then, tanked up and refreshed with sleep, they would make the long and complicated back-road haul to New York City.

Adelaide was yawning. 'Do you think we'll make it?' she asked him.

Dr. Petrie pulled a face. 'Maybe, maybe not. It depends how far the plague has spread. Half of the time, though, I feel more frightened of the people than I do of the plague.'

She looked serious for a long while. Then she said, 'Yes. I know what you mean.'

Two

Esmeralda was arranging the last paintings in her Marek Bronowski exhibition when Charles Thurston III strolled into the gallery. He was looking very Fifth Avenue, in a lightweight suit of cream-colored mohair and a big floppy hat. He took off his sunglasses and stood back from the wall, ostentatiously admiring the pictures.

'Well, well, well,' said Esmeralda. 'If it isn't Charles Thirsty the Third.'

Charles gave a strictly regulated smile. 'Thurston, actually. If we're going to be friends, we ought to get it right.'

Esmeralda, in a dark red smock, was tapping the last hook into the green hessian-covered gallery wall. 'Who said who was going to be friends?' she said, through a mouthful of nails.

'I hoped that we were. You and I.' Esmeralda straightened the painting. It was a vivid gouache of reds and yellows. Charles Thurston stepped forward and peered closely at the label underneath.

'This is a painting of Coney Island?' he said. 'It looks more like Hell on a warm day.'

'Same thing,' said Esmeralda.

She picked up her hammer and toolkit, and walked back towards her elegant white-painted office at the back of the gallery. Charles Thurston followed her, and perched himself on the edge of her desk.

'You're very sure we're going to get along,' said Esmeralda.

'Of course I'm sure. Here's me, the famous art writer, and there's you, the beautiful gallery lady. It's a match made in Heaven, or someplace quite close. Perhaps a suburb of Heaven.'

'Heaven has suburbs?'

'Of course it does. Where do you think the people from Queens go when they die?'

Esmeralda laughed. She found Charles Thurston an inch too elegant for his own good, and an obviously incurable smartass, but there was something about him she really liked. He was, after all, very good-looking, and he gave the impression that when he got a woman into bed, he would lavish a great deal of time and athletic energy on exotic forms of stimulation. Esmeralda liked that.

'Well?' she said, reaching for her chrome cigarette-box. 'Have you come to buy a painting? Bronowski is young and vital and, most important of all, he's still quite cheap.'

'Is that because nobody's discovered him yet, or because he's been discovered and nobody wants him?'

'Don't be so cynical. He's the new wave in gouache. Go on — buy one.'

'If I buy one, will you come out to lunch with me?'

Esmeralda lowered her eyelashes provocatively. 'Is that a condition of sale?' she asked him.

Charles Thurston laughed. 'How much is this young and vital and cheap artist of yours?'

'To you, five hundred.'

Esmeralda didn't look up. This was a favourite test of hers. It immediately weeded out the unsuitable suitors from the genuinely enthusiastic, because if a man wasn't prepared to toss away five hundred bucks for the sake of getting to know her better, then in Esmeralda's opinion he couldn't be really sincere.

Charles Thurston III flipped open his checkbook and scribbled a check with a handmade gold pen. He blew it dry, and passed it over with a flourish. It was for one thousand dollars.

'This is too much,' said Esmeralda, raising an eyebrow.

Charles Thurston shrugged. 'What's the use of buying just one painting? I have a couple of blank spaces either side of my living-room door, and Mr. Bronowski will liven them up nicely.'

He stood up and tucked his pen back in his pocket. 'Perhaps you could show me some more sometime,' he said. 'My bedroom could do with livening up, too.'

Esmeralda smiled. 'I'm afraid Jacob Bronowski is into landscapes — not erotica.'

'We can't all be perfect,' said Charles. 'Now why don't we find ourselves a bite to eat?'

She took off her smock. Underneath she was wearing a simple but beautifully cut blue dress, with a Victorian pendant and lots of bracelets. She brushed her hair, and then pronounced herself ready.

'Have you heard any more about the plague?' asked Charles Thurston, as they rode across town in a taxi. 'Nothing very much. Father's furious about it.'

'Oh?'

'Haven't you read the case of the plagiarized bacteria? Father's sueing some Finnish character in the Federal District Court, but the Finnish character's got himself a sneaky adjournment, on the grounds that all public-spirited bacteriologists should be off fighting the plague.'

Charles Thurston nodded. 'I see. I wondered what you were doing in that district. This plague's pretty serious, though, isn't it? They've got cops on the Lincoln Tunnel and the 59th Street Bridge, and they're turning back everyone with a southern license plate.'

'You're kidding.'

'No, it's true. I saw it myself this morning. They had some guy in a pick-up with a Maryland plate, and they were making him turn right around and go back to Maryland. They said on the news that there's a contingency plan for sealing off the whole of Manhattan.'

Esmeralda crossed her legs.'

'Well, I don't know. It sounds to me like they're exaggerating the whole thing.' Charles Thurston laughed. 'I'm glad someone's optimistic. Especially the daughter of the nation's leading bacteriologist.'

'Step-daughter.'

'Does it make any difference?'

'You bet it makes a difference. Where are you taking me for lunch?'

'There's a unique little bistro I know. The prices are astronomic, but the food's terrible.'

'What's it called?'

'Chez-moi.'

'You mean the same chez-moi that has a couple of blank spaces either side of the living-room door, and has a bedroom that also needs livening up?'

'You guessed,' said Charles Thurston, with a winning smile.

Esmeralda didn't look amused. 'In that case,' she said, 'you'd better get this hack to turn itself around and take me right back to the gallery. I've heard of fast workers, but this is ridiculous.'

'What you're really saying is that you haven't even had time to clear my check.'

'I'm saying, Mr. Thurston, that I'm not a painting. I can't be conveniently bought with a paltry thousand dollars to fill a blank space on one side of your bed.'

'Don't you like me?'

'Like you? I don't even know you.'

Charles Thurston sighed. 'Well, if you want to skip lunch, you can. But at least come and look at it. I've prepared it myself — cold soup, smoked fish, salad, and chilled vintage champagne.'