against the wall, ladies and gentlemen, and we can't keep our eyes blinkered any longer.
'The crisis is so serious that an American hero has returned to speak the truth about it. A man whose voice once spoke out on the movie screen for honesty and purity and the preservation of the American way, and who has now emerged from honorable retirement to take up our cause. Ladies and gentlemen — Captain Dashfoot, better known as Herbert Gaines.'
There was a light smattering of, applause. Herbert's movies were still doing the rounds of art houses and late-night TV channels, and most of the pressmen there had seen at least one of them.
Herbert Gaines stood up. With the TV lights on him, he hardly seemed to have aged. He could have dismounted from his Civil War horse just a few moments ago, flushed with success from his famous ride in Incident at Vicksburg. He raised his hand for silence.
'Ladies and gentlemen.' he said, in his rich, deep timbre. 'I never thought the time would come when I would feel it my bounden duty to ride once again in defense of the American people.'
There was clapping, and someone said, 'Dashfoot to the rescue!'
Herbert Gaines smiled ruefully. 'I wish Captain Dashfoot could come to the rescue, but we're shooting from a different script today. Our nation is being scythed to the ground by a foul and terrible disease, and what we need is not lone heroes on horses but quick and effective federal action.
'What we need, ladies and gentlemen, is someone who will speak the truth about this plague. Someone who will tell us where it really originated. They say sewage. All right — but whose sewage? Are any of you infected with plague and hepatitis? Is your sewage infected?'
Herbert grasped the lectern in front of him, and lowered his leonine head.
'What we are saying here today, friends, is unpopular. It's unpopular.' he repeated, raising a rigid finger, 'but it's true. I know it's true, and you know it's true, and I dare any man in the continental United States to prove it ain't so. That sewage — that infected sewage — has come from the bowels of the black man, from the bowels of the Puerto Rican, from the bowels of the shiftless vagrant and the unwashed hippie. Not only have they poisoned our society with their subversive politics and their revolutionary mania, they have actually physically poisoned our American sons and daughters with their excremental filth!'
The sound that went up from the press when Herbert said that was extraordinary. It was a kind of surprised moan, like a dog crushed under a car. A black reporter from The New York Times walked out and slammed both double doors of the conference room, and a young girl from the Village Voice shrieked out, 'You're not a hero, you're a fascist!'
Herbert Gaines, his eyes hard, his hands white, turned in the direction of the girl's voice.
'A fascist?' he said softly. 'Is it the mark of a fascist, to speak the truth? It's true, isn't it, that diseases communicated from the bowels are ripe among black and Spanish peoples in America? It's true, isn't it, that the sewage dumped off Long Island contains the infections of diseased negroes? Because it's no longer inside them, this sewage, does that mean negroes no longer bear the responsibility for the disgusting plague it has caused?' A television reporter said in a quiet but penetrating voice, 'Mr. Gaines, if you're blaming the coloured elements in our society for this plague, what do you suggest we do about it?'
Herbert Gaines turned on him fiercely. 'I suggest this. I suggest we cast out our ineffectual political leaders at the first opportunity, and re-elect men who will keep the black man in his place, and the immigrants where they belong. Out of America.'
Another reporter said, 'Mr. Gaines, this is kind of extreme, all this stuff.'
Herbert Gaines turned his best profile to the cameras. 'Of course it's extreme. This is an extreme situation. It requires quick, decisive and urgent treatment. Face The Truth is the only political group that has faced up to that fact so far, and the only political group who could possibly save this nation from ruination and downfall at the hands of the black man.'
The same reporter said, 'What do you suggest we do? Ship 'em all back to the Gold Coast?'
Herbert Gaines smiled patiently and shook his head. 'Of course not. That would be ridiculous. But I have several suggestions that would finally overcome America's race problem once and for all. First — only black medics and doctors should be assigned to plague hospitals. They started it — they can take the risk of treating it. Second — when the plague has finally been contained, arrangements should be made over a ten-year period for the gradual rehousing of blacks in areas where their unsanitary personal habits do not threaten decent Americans.
'Every American citizen, under the Constitution, has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How can we truly say that we are upholding these rights if we jeopardize the first of them from the word go. An American is entitled to life, ladies and gentlemen, and if the diseased black man is allowed to walk beside him, work beside him, eat from the same plates, sit on the same seats and defecate in the same public toilets, then we have failed to protect his Constitutional rights. We have abdicated our responsibilities as leaders of this great nation.'
A reporter from the Christian Science Monitor said, 'Mr. Gaines, you're not a leader of this great nation. You're an out-of-work actor.'
Herbert Gaines, lit by a flurry of photographers' flashguns, said, 'I am a leader because I speak the truth. You, because you question the truth, are less than a patriot.'
In normal times, Herbert Gaines would have won fifteen seconds' attention on the early evening news. But these were not normal times, and the fact that press and television crews even stayed to listen showed that. As the conference continued, a strange disturbed buzzing filled the room, as if the newspapermen had just discovered some unsettling secret that had been deliberately hidden away from them.
By half-past five, the New York Post was on the street with a headline that ran: BLACKS TO BLAME FOR PLAGUE, claims 'Captain Dashfoot', and that was only the beginning. Herbert Gaines was interviewed seven times that evening on New York and network television, and an almost tangible wave of resentment against the black population made itself felt across the breadth of the American continent. What Jack Gross had calculated exactly right, of course, was that everyone in America, including the President, was looking for someone to blame. Just as Adolf Hitler had successfully blamed the Jews for the financial depression of the 1930s, Herbert Gaines had laid the blame for the plague on the shoulders of the American blacks.
As night fell on New York City, fires broke out in Harlem, and the windows of black stores and restaurants were smashed by marauding gangs of white youths. Friday ended in Manhattan to the wow-wow-wow of fire trucks and the bitter smell of smoke. By midnight, thirty-six cases of arson had been reported, fifty-two cases of wilful damage, and more than a hundred injuries, varying from fractured skulls to knife wounds. Other crimes noticeably decreased, as black whores and muggers played it safe and made a point of staying home. In the early hours of Saturday, Herbert Gaines was driven back to Concorde Tower in the back of Jack Gross' Cadillac. He was exhausted, and he was looking forward to a large brandy and a long sleep. 'You did beautiful,' said Jack Gross. 'In one day, you made more of a hit than Gerry Ford made in three years.'
Herbert rubbed his eyes. 'It seems to me that I've caused nothing but distress and confusion. Even if this whole thing about the blacks were found to be true, there are times when it's kinder not to tell the truth at all.'
Jack Gross grinned. 'Herbert, you're a man of conscience and no mistake. Can I pick you up at three?'
'You mean there's more?'
'Of course there's more. This is just the beginning.'
'Mr. Gross, I tell you quite plainly, I don't want to anymore.'
Jack Gross waved his hand deprecatingly. 'Don't even think that, Herbert. You're just tired. Have a nice rest, freshen yourself up, and then we're off to make a speech to the New York Republicans.'
Herbert Gaines stared at him gloomily. 'And if I refuse?'
Jack Gross smirked. 'You know very well. If you refuse, young Nicky starts singing in the girls' choir.'
Herbert looked out of the car window at the deserted wastes of 43rd Street. He felt desolated and old.
'Very well,' he said, after a while. 'If I have to do it, I suppose I might as well enjoy it. I'll see you at three.'
Kenneth Garunisch, as Friday dwindled into Saturday, was still talking with the officials of Bellevue Hospital. He had chosen Bellevue as his last discussion of the day, because he could walk home up First Avenue afterwards, and he usually felt like a short stroll at the end of a day's work to clear his head.
The cream-painted conference room was thick with cigarette smoke, and the table was strewn with
