Edgar almost laughed. ‘Wild? He’s a goddamned maniac. I mean, what kind of a person goes around stealing beer and slashing tires? What the hell’s it all for?’
Gerry shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Mr. Paston. I guess they get kind of frustrated.’
‘Oh yeah? Well, I wish they wouldn’t take their half-baked frustrations out on me.’
He went to check the cold shelves and the meat, to make sure that everything was kept at the right temperature for overnight storage. Then he swept up the rubbish, while Gerry restocked some of the canned goods. He did everything quickly and superficially, because he wanted to get home. He could always get up early and clean the place more thoroughly tomorrow.
He was almost finished when he thought he heard a tap on the store window. He looked up, frowning. There was another tap, louder. Then, right in front of his eyes, the huge plate-glass window smashed, and half-a-hundred-weight of glass dropped to the sidewalk with a shattering, pealing sound.
Edgar ran to the front of the store and stared out into the night. It was silent, and dark. The wind blew fitfully into the store, making price tags flap on the shelves. He crunched across the sea of broken glass, still staring, still searching.
In the distance, he thought he heard someone laugh. It could have been a dog barking, or a car starting up. But the sound of it was enough to make him shiver.
Three
Miami was always quiet in the small hours of the morning, but tonight that silence seemed to be sultry and threatening. As Dr. Leonard Petrie drove through echoing and deserted streets, he sensed in the air the beginning of something new and frightening and strange.
Two or three cars and an ambulance passed him as he drove downtown. Out on the expressway, lines of traffic still shuttled backwards and forwards from the airport, and trucks and cars still traveled up and down US 1, heading north for Fort Lauderdale or south for the Keys. It could have been any night of any year in Miami. The radio was playing country music from Nashville, and the hotels along the Beach glittered with light.
Dr. Petrie swung the Lincoln left on West Flagler and 17th. For the first time, he saw the spreading effects of the plague. There were four or five bodies lying on the sidewalk, sprawled-out and motionless in the light of a store window. They looked as if they were fast asleep.
He drew the Lincoln into the kerb, and got out to take a look. It was a family. A father – middle-aged, with a small mustache; a middle-aged mother; and two small boys, aged about eight and ten. It was so unbelievably odd to see them here, on this warm and normal night, lying dead and pale on the sidewalk, that Dr. Petrie was moved to prod the father’s body with his toe, to see if he were sleeping.
The father’s hand slipped across his silent chest, and rested on the concrete.
A police-car came cruising up 17th in the opposite direction, and Dr. Petrie quickly stepped across the sidewalk to flag it down.
The cop was wearing orange sunglasses, even though it was night-time, and a handkerchief over his mouth, bandit-style.
‘I’m a doctor,’ Petrie said. ‘I came around the block and saw those people. They’re all dead, I’m afraid. I guess it’s the plague.’
The patrolman nodded. ‘We’re getting cases all over. Six or seven cops down with it already. Okay, doctor. I’ll call headquarters and notify them about the dead people. Between you and me, though, I don’t think they got enough ambulances to cope. It won’t be long before it’s garbage trucks.’
‘Garbage trucks?’ said Dr. Petrie. He was appalled. He looked back across the street, and the family was lying there, pale and still. The children must have died first, and the mother and father died while trying to nurse them. ‘You mean—’
The cop said, ‘They don’t have enough ambulances, doctor. It’s either that, or we leave them to rot in the streets.’
Dr. Petrie rubbed his face tiredly. ‘Have you seen many like this?’ he asked the cop.
‘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
