'A couple of dozen maybe.'
'And what are you supposed to do about them?' The cop shrugged. His radio was blurting something about a traffic accident on the West Expressway. 'We have to report them, that's all. Those are the orders. Report them, but don't touch them.'
'And that's all? No orders to stop people using the beaches, or leaving the city?' The cop shook his head. Dr. Petrie stood beside the police car for a moment, thinking. Then he said, 'Thanks,' and walked back to his Lincoln. He climbed in, gunned the engine, and drove off in the direction of Donald Firenza's house.
The more he heard about the health chief's inactivity, the more worried and angry he grew. If one cop had seen two dozen cases, there must be at least a hundred sick people in the whole city, and that meant a plague epidemic of unprecedented scale. He drove fast and badly, but the streets were deserted, and it only took him five minutes to get out to Coral Gables.
He had no trouble in picking out Donald Firenza's house. There were cars parked all the way up the street, including a television truck and a blue and white police car, and every window was alight. He pulled his Lincoln on to the sidewalk and switched off the engine. Over the soft rustling of palm trees and the chirrup of insects, he could hear voices raised in argument.
He was greeted at the door by a fat uniformed cop with a red sweaty face.
'I'm a doctor,' Petrie said. 'I just came up from the hospital. Is Mr. Firenza home?'
The cop scrutinized Dr. Petrie's ID card. He was monotonously chewing gum. 'Guess Mr. Firenza's pretty tied up right now, but you can ask. Go ahead inside.'
Dr. Petrie stepped through the door. The house was crowded with newspaper reporters and television cameramen, all lounging around with cardboard cups of coffee and cans of beer. It was one of those houses that in normal circumstances was guaranteed to make Dr. Petrie wince. There were coach lamps and sculptured carpets, wrought-iron banistairs and paintings of horses leaping through the foamy sea. On one wall was a print of a small girl with enormous eyes, out of which two fat sparkling tears were dropping.
In the pink-decorated sitting-room, Petrie found Donald Firenza, sitting back in a large plastic-covered easy chair, talking to a young reporter from the Miami Herald and a bald man in a bright sport shirt from UPI. Dr. Petrie recognized a couple of friends from the city health department at the back of the room, and he nodded to them briefly. Tonight was not a night for smiles.
'Mr. Firenza?' he said crisply. 'I'm Dr. Leonard Petrie. I just came from Dr. Selmer, down at the hospital.'
Mr. Firenza looked up. He was right in the middle of saying, ' — all the epidemic deaths we've suffered so far have been tragic, but unfortunately they've been unavoidable — ' He didn't look at all pleased at being interrupted.
'Can it wait?' he said. He was a small, pale-faced, curly-headed man wearing a green turtle-neck sweater.
'I don't think so,' said Dr. Petrie.
The UPI man turned around in his chair. 'Is it something to do with the epidemic? Is it getting worse?'
Dr. Petrie didn't look at him. 'I came to talk to Mr. Firenza, not to the press.'
'What's the latest death-toll?' persisted the man from UPI. 'Has it gone above twelve yet?'
Dr. Petrie ignored him. 'Mr. Firenza,' he said. 'I'd appreciate a private word.'
Mr. Firenza sighed, and stood up. 'Excuse me, you guys,' he said to the two reporters. 'I'll be right back.'
He led Dr. Petrie through the throng of police, health department officials and newsmen to a small study at the back of the house. He closed the door behind them and shut out the babble of conversation and argument.
'Sit down,' said Mr. Firenza. 'We've met before, haven't we?'
Dr. Petrie sat down, and nodded. 'Two or three times, at health department meetings. Maybe at dinners once or twice. Perhaps we should've gotten better acquainted.'
Firenza reached for a large briar pipe and proceeded to stack it with rough-cut tobacco. 'I want to tell you here and now that I'm very proud of the way that Miami's doctors are rallying to help.' he said.
'Thank you.'
'However — I don't really think that you picked the subtlest way of breaking into a press conference,' Firenza went on. 'I've just been trying to convince our friends from the papers that this epidemic is containable and isolated.'
'Do they believe you?'
Firenza looked at Dr. Petrie curiously. 'Of course they believe me. Why shouldn't they?'
Dr. Petrie coughed. 'Because it's not true.'
Firenza pushed some more tobacco into his pipe, and then laughed. 'You've been talking to Dr. Selmer, haven't you? I know he thinks this is the end of the world, and that we're all going to get stricken down. I had to remind him that this is Miami, which has more qualified doctors per square inch than almost any other city in the continental United States, and that we have both the finance and the resources to cope with any kind of epidemic.'
'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.'
