“You didn’t say in your letter how long you’d be staying this year. Four weeks?”
“Six, I think.”
“Wonderful!” His gray eyes glittered merrily; but in that very craggy face, the expression might have appeared to be malice to anyone who didn’t know him well. “You’re staying the night with us, as planned? You aren’t going up into the mountains today?”
Paul shook his head: no. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. We’ve been on the road since nine this morning. I don’t have strength to pitch camp this afternoon.”
“You’re looking good, though.”
“I’m
“Needed this vacation, did you?”
“God, yes.” Paul drank some of the Pepsi. “I’m sick to death of hypertense poodles and Siamese cats with ring-worms.”
Sam smiled. “I’ve told you a hundred times. Haven’t I? You can’t expect to be an honest veterinarian when you set up shop in the suburbs of Boston. Down there you’re a nurse-maid for neurotic house pets — and their neurotic owners. Get out into the country, Paul.”
“You mean I ought to involve myself with cows calving and mares foaling?”
“Exactly.”
Paul sighed. “Maybe I will one day.”
“You should get those kids out of the suburbs, out where the air is clean and the water drinkable.”
“Maybe I will.” He looked toward the rear of the store, toward a curtained doorway. “Is Jenny here?”
“I spent all morning filling prescriptions, and now she’s out delivering them. I think I’ve sold more drugs in the past four days than I usually sell in four weeks.”
“Epidemic?”
“Yeah. Flu, grippe, whatever you want to call it.”
“What does Doc Troutman call it?”
Sam shrugged. “He’s not really sure. Some new breed of flu, he thinks.”
“What’s he prescribing?”
“A general purpose antibiotic. Tetracycline.”
“That’s not particularly strong.”
“Yes, but this flu isn’t all that devastating.”
“Is the tetracycline helping?”
“It’s too soon to tell.”
Paul glanced at Rya and Mark.
“They’re safer here than anywhere else in town,” Sam said. “Jenny and I are about the only people in Black River who haven’t come down with it.”
“If I get up there in the mountains and find I’ve got two sick kids on my hands, what should I expect? Nausea? Fever?”
“None of that. Just night chills.”
Paul tilted his head quizzically.
“Damned scary, as I understand it.” Sam’s eyebrows drew together in one bushy white bar. “You wake up in the middle of the night, as if you’ve just had a terrible dream. You shake so hard you can’t hold on to anything. You can barely walk. Your heart is racing. You’re pouring sweat — and I mean sweating pints — like you’ve got awfully high blood pressure. It lasts as much as an hour, then it goes away as if it never was. Leaves you weak most of the next day.”
Frowning, Paul said, “Doesn’t sound like flu.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of anything. But it scares hell out of people. Some of them got sick Tuesday night, and most of the others joined in on Wednesday. Every night they wake up shaking, and every day they’re weak, a bit tired. Damned few people around here have had a good night’s sleep this week.”
“Has Doc Troutman gotten a second opinion on any of these cases?”
“Nearest other doctor is sixty miles away,” Sam said. “He did call the State Health Authority yesterday afternoon, asked for one of their field men to come up and have a look. But they can’t send anyone until Monday. I guess they can’t get very excited about an epidemic of night chills.”
“The chills could be the tip of an iceberg.”
“Could be. But you know bureaucrats.” When he saw Paul glance at Rya and Mark again, Sam said, “Look, don’t worry about it. We’ll keep the kids away from everyone who’s sick.”
“I was supposed to take Jenny up the street to Ultman’s Cafe. We were going to have a nice quiet dinner together.”
“If you catch the flu from a waitress or another customer, you’ll pass it on to the kids. Skip the cafe. Have dinner here. You know I’m the best cook in Black River.”
Paul hesitated.
Laughing softly, stroking his beard with one hand, Sam said, “We’ll have an early dinner. Six o’clock. That’ll give you and Jenny plenty of time together. You can go for a ride later. Or I’ll keep myself and the kids out of the den if you’d rather just stay home.”
Paul smiled. “What’s on the menu?”
“Manicotti.”
“Who needs Ultman’s Cafe?”
Sam nodded agreement. “Only the Ultmans.”
Rya and Mark hurried over to get Sam’s approval of the gifts they had chosen for themselves. Mark had two dollars’ worth of comic books, and Rya had two paperbacks. Each of them had small bags of candy.
Rya’s blue eyes seemed especially bright to Paul, as if there were lights behind them. She grinned and said, “Daddy, this is going to be the best vacation we’ve ever had!”
2
Thirty-one Months Earlier: Friday, January 10, 1975
Ogden Salsbury arrived ten minutes early for his three o’clock appointment. That was characteristic of him.
H. Leonard Dawson, president and principal stockholder of Futurex International, did not at once welcome Salsbury into his office. In fact Dawson kept him waiting until three fifteen.
When Dawson’s secretary finally ushered Salsbury into the great man’s chambers, it was as if she were showing him to the altar in a hushed cathedral. Her attitude was reverent. The outer office had Muzak, but the inner office had pure silence. The room was sparsely furnished: a deep blue carpet, two somber oil paintings on the white walls, two chairs on this side of the desk, one chair on the other side of it, a coffee table, rich blue velvet drapes drawn back from seven hundred square feet of lightly tinted glass that overlooked midtown Manhattan. The secretary bowed out almost like an altar boy retreating from the sanctuary.
“How are you, Ogden?” He reached out to shake hands.
“Fine. Just fine — Leonard.”
Dawson’s hand was hard and dry; Salsbury’s was damp.
“How’s Miriam?” He noticed Salsbury’s hesitation. “Not ill?”
“We were divorced,” Salsbury said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Was there a trace of disapproval in Dawson’s voice? Salsbury wondered. And why the hell should I care if there is?
“When did you split up?” Dawson asked.
“Twenty-five years ago — Leonard.” Salsbury felt as if he ought to use the other man’s last name rather than
