‘Well,’ said the man patiently, ‘supposing you won’t, then I’ll have to drop you.’
‘And if I drop you first?’
‘You won’t.’
‘But just supposing I do?’
There was a pause. Then, out of the darkness from another direction altogether, a thicker voice said, ‘Mister, if you drop Harry first. I’ll make damn sure I drop you second.’
Dr. Petrie lowered his hands. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I think you win. Can we just spend the night here? I have a little girl, and I don’t want to wake her up.’
‘Just get the hell out,’ said Harry.
‘And if I refuse? No, don’t answer that. You’ll drop me. Okay, we’re going.’
Dr. Petrie bent down to pick up his rifle. ‘Leave the gun,’ Harry said.
‘Now wait a minute,’ Dr. Petrie protested. ‘If I’m going to go back into the plague zone, I’m not going without this.’
‘Leave it!’
Dr. Petrie remained where he was for five or six frozen seconds, half-bending towards the rifle. He screwed up his eyes and peered into the night for the slightest giveaway of Harry’s whereabouts. The other vigilante didn’t matter so much, because if Dr. Petrie ducked down behind the car he would be out of his firing line.
Harry said, ‘Come on, mister. Leave the gun and get your ass out of here. I aint won no medals for patience, and I aint going to win one now.’
Dr. Petrie saw a glint. It could have been the side of a pair of spectacles, or the buckle of a pair of dungarees. Whatever it was, it was enough. He dropped to the ground, snatched his rifle, rolled over in a flurry of leaves and fired a burst of three shots exactly where he had seen the glint.
A scatter gun went off with a deep boom, and one side of the Delta was tom and spattered with pellets. Dr. Petrie wriggled under the car on his elbows, and fired again – a random arc of bullets that may or may not have hit something.
There was silence again. He quickly elbowed his way out from under the car, tossed the rifle inside, and climbed in himself.
Adelaide said, ‘Are you all right? Did you hit them?’
He started the engine, backed the car wildly into the woods, swung it around and put his foot down. The scatter-gun went off again, and the Delta 88’s rear window was turned to milky ice. Dr. Petrie drove fast and wild, and thumped heavily into two or three roadside trees before he considered it safe to switch on his lights.
Adelaide sat up. Only her reclining seat had saved her from the first bullet, which had passed through the car in a diagonal line. Prickles was awake, but she was so tired that she wasn’t even crying. She, too, was unhurt. The scatter-gun had ripped the car’s outside skin, but hadn’t penetrated the soundproofing inside the doors, or the vinyl upholstery.
‘Did you hear what he said?’ asked Dr. Petrie tersely.
‘About the vigilantes?’
‘Exactly. It looks like they’ve drawn a plague line down the Appalachians, and anyone who tries to cross it gets killed. Maybe they’ve even got themselves federal backing. The way this situation’s been handled, who can tell?’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I guess we could try to cross someplace else, but the chances of getting through in a car must be pretty remote. Maybe we ought to try our luck in the north. Try and get into New York City. If we stick to the back roads, it could take us two or three days, but if they’re going to make it a secure quarantine area, it’s worth a try.’
Adelaide rubbed her eyes tiredly. ‘Let’s do it then. Let’s just get someplace where we can stop and have a bath and eat a decent hot meal. If I don’t get out of these clothes soon, I’m going to stink like a skunk!’
Dr. Petrie grinned at her through the darkness. ‘Me too. But then, skunks seem to fall in love just like the rest of us, don’t they, so what’s wrong with smelling like one?’
Adelaide settled down to sleep again, trying to make herself comfortable in the jolting car.
‘Leonard,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you a hundred good reasons. But not right now. Tomorrow.’
When it was scarcely dawn, and the car was still silvered with the cold breath of the night, they drove quietly out of the Georgia woods and back towards the main highway. They were low on gas, and Dr. Petrie’s first priority was to find a filling station. Then, tanked up and refreshed with sleep, they would make the long and complicated back-road haul to New York City.
Adelaide was yawning. ‘Do you think we’ll make it?’ she asked him.
Dr. Petrie pulled a face. ‘Maybe, maybe not. It depends how far the plague has spread. Half of the time, though, I feel more frightened of the people than I do of the plague.’
She looked serious for a long while. Then she said, ‘Yes. I know what you mean.’
Two
Esmeralda was arranging the last paintings in her Marek Bronowski exhibition when Charles Thurston III strolled into the gallery. He was looking very Fifth Avenue, in a lightweight suit of cream-colored mohair and a big floppy hat. He took off his sunglasses and stood back from the wall, ostentatiously admiring the pictures.
‘Well, well, well,’ said Esmeralda. ‘If it isn’t Charles Thirsty the Third.’
Charles gave a strictly regulated smile. ‘Thurston, actually. If we’re going to be friends, we ought to get it right.’
Esmeralda, in a dark red smock, was tapping the last hook into the green hessian-covered gallery wall. ‘Who said who was going to be friends?’ she said, through a mouthful of nails.
‘I hoped that we were. You and I.’
Esmeralda straightened the painting. It was a vivid gouache of reds and yellows. Charles Thurston stepped forward and peered closely at the label underneath.
‘This is a painting of Coney Island?’ he said. ‘It looks more like Hell on a warm day.’
‘Same thing,’ said Esmeralda.
She picked up her hammer and toolkit, and walked back towards
