Plague

McManus nodded. 'I hear you. I hear you loud and clear.'

Edgar put his spectacles back on and peered at ' McManus close and hard. 'Is that all you can say?' he asked. 'After all that you've done, and all the trouble you've caused, is that all you can say?'

McManus frowned, as if he was thinking, and then gave a small smirk.

'I do have one thing to say,' he said quietly.

'And what's that?'

'It's a question, really. And the question is, if you're so respectable and upright, and if you're going to tear US all out root and whatitsname, then what are you doing in the slammer along with me?'

Edgar stood straight. He took a deep breath. 'Last night,' he said, 'after you wrecked my store, I went after you with a gun.'

'Don't tell me it was unlicensed.'

Edgar shook his head. 'It was licensed, all right. I was going out to find you and I was going to teach you a lesson! The trouble was — '

McManus looked up. 'Yeah?'

'The trouble was — '

Edgar could hardly get the words out. The reality of last night's killing suddenly stuck in his throat like a terrible knotted obstruction.

'You can tell me, man,' said McManus, mock-sympathetically. 'After all, it was me you wanted to shoot.'

Edgar looked grim. 'I went out, and I shot and killed someone I thought was you. It wasn't you at all, and that's what I'm doing here.'

McManus stared at him in disbelief. Then, gradually, a smile began to twitch at the comers of his mouth. He guffawed once, then again, and then he laughed out loud. A sour voice in the next cell said, 'For Christ's sake, can't we get any fucking sleep around here?'

McManus, wide-eyed with amusement, said, 'You wasted someone you thought was me? You really did that? Oh, man, you're beautiful! Tell me who it was!'

Edgar lowered his eyes. 'It was a Boy Scout. I don't know his name.'

'A Boy Scout! Oh, man, you're incredible! Don't you know that? You're just too fucking much! He blows away a Boy Scout, instead of me!'

Edgar thumped his fist against the wall of the cell and roared, 'It's not funny! Damn you — it's not funny!'

McManus stopped laughing and frowned. 'I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to upset you. But you have to admit it's beautiful.'

'Beautiful?' said Edgar disgustedly. 'Yeah. You know — poetic justice.' Edgar turned his head away. 'If there was any kind of justice in this world, you'd be lying in that morgue, instead of that innocent kid.'

McManus shrugged. 'Come on, man. Don't be so mad. There isn't nothing you can say that's going to bring him back — now is there?'

Edgar didn't answer. He felt as if he had rubbed his face in a bucket of wet grit. Tired, dispirited and anxious.

'I mean — death comes to all of us, in time, doesn't it?' said McManus. 'Especially now.'

He got up off his bunk and walked around the confines of the cell. 'I mean — you and me, we're lucky we're inside here, instead of outside there on the streets. Out there — well, I mean, wow. It could be per-il-usss!' Edgar looked up. 'What do you mean by that?' Shark McManus chewed his gum equably. 'It's the plague, man. How long have you been in here?'

'The plague?'

'It's all over Jersey. Everybody's supposed to lock themselves at home, man, and not go out. They got the National Guard patrolling the state line, and if you try to leave, you get blasted. It's true! I was out there ripping off a short, and that's why they pulled me in.' Edgar Paston stared at Shark McManus for a moment, and then said, 'No — that's nonsense. My wife was here just a few hours ago. She didn't say anything about it. And why haven't the police told me?'

McManus shrugged. 'I don't know. It all happened real quick. They knew they had a couple of sick people in Atlantic City, but then I guess a few people panicked, and kind of brought the plague up this way.'

'But — Tammy!' said Edgar. 'My kids! They're out there!'

Shark McManus didn't look at all fazed. 'Don't worry about it, man. Everybody's out there, excepting us.'

Edgar Paston went to the bars and shouted for the guard.

'Forget it, man,' said McManus. 'This whole joint is practically empty. They got all their guys out on the street, picking up the stiffs. I ain't joking, man. I saw a couple of stiffs myself, out by the crossroads.'

Edgar Paston turned on McManus. 'Kid,' he said, 'if you're fooling me, so help me I'll tear your head off.'

Shark McManus simply smiled. 'I ain't fooling.'

'In that case, we have to get out of here.'

'Why? This is the safest place.'

'What you seem to forget is that my wife and kids are out there.'

'Man — there's nothing you can do. Even if you get back home, they won't let you out of the state.'

Edgar Paston thumped on the bars of the cell. 'That's not the point. The point is that I'm a father, and my family's at risk. I have to be there!'

Shark McManus lay back on his bunk and thought for a while. Edgar shouted a few times, but when the prisoner in the next-door cell finally told him to keep his fucking yapper shut, he went back to his bunk and sat there with a gray, worried face, and kept silent.

An hour passed. Edgar Paston lay on his side for twenty minutes and dozed, but the light still glared in his eyes, and he had the added irritation of Shark McManus' endless whistling. He sat up and scratched his head.

'Are you awake, man?' said McManus.

'Yes, I'm awake.'

'Listen, man — do you really want to get out of here?'

'What do you suggest I do? Tear the cell door down with my bare hands?'

'It doesn't have to be that complicated. If you want to get out of here, I can get you out. But you have to make me a promise.'

Edgar eased himself down off his bunk, and looked at Shark McManus like a man who's found a dead cat under his bed.

'A promise?' he said. 'To you?'

Shark McManus pulled a face. 'It's the only way, man. Either you make the promise, or you stay here.'

'But the whole reason I'm in here is because of you!'

'That's the deal. No ifs or buts or maybes.'

Edgar lowered his head, and sighed. 'What's the promise?'

'All you have to do is take me with you. I need wheels and I need some respectable support. With your image and my know-how, we can get out of Jersey and into Manhattan, and the way they say it on the news, it looks like Manhattan's a kind of a plague-free zone, and they ain't letting anyone catch it.'

'You can really get me out?'

'Sure. Do you promise?'

'Well'

'It's up to you, man. Me, I don't have no family at all. I could sit here forever and it wouldn't bug me.'

Edgar Paston looked serious. 'What you're asking me to do is to go back on everything I think about people like you,' he said quietly. 'I think I'd rather get help from a snake.'

Shark McManus grinned. 'That's settled, then. Now, all you have to do is lie on your bunk and start shaking and sweating and moaning.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'Just do it, man. Shake and sweat and moan.' Reluctantly, Edgar Paston climbed up on to his bunk again, and lay back. He made his hands tremble, and started to wail feebly.

Shark McManus looked at him in exasperation. 'I said shake and sweat and moan, man. You're supposed to be sick. You're supposed to be dying. You sound like you didn't do nothing worse than walk into a smelly public toilet.'

Edgar, more convincingly, shouted, 'Ohhh! Oh, God, I'm dying, oh God I Ohhh…!'

That was when Shark McManus yelled for the guard. He didn't call politely like Edgar had done. He screamed 'Guuuaaarrrddd!!' at the highest pitch of his lungs, and straight away the duty cop came running down the corridor with his keys jangling. 'What's all the goddamned noise?'