Ernest Seidelberger sniffed. ‘Fine words, Mr. Garunisch. But not quite accurate. Your members are not prepared to give courage; they’re not prepared to give their lives. They’re only prepared to sell them, at a price. I suggest to you, Mr. Garunisch, that your medical workers are whores, and that you are their whoremaster.’
Kenneth Garunisch stared at Seidelberger with bulging eyes for a moment, and then laughed loudly.
‘In that case, Mr. Seidelberger, we’re all whores. We’re all getting paid for sitting here. All I can say is, when you get out on the street and strut your stuff, I hope you get picked up by some sex-starved matelot who fucks some sense into that impervious skull of yours. Come on, Dick, let’s call it a night.’
Seidelberger sat silent while Garunisch and Bortolotti packed up their cases and made ready to leave. But as they opened the door of the conference room, he turned his clerical profile in their direction and said, ‘Mr. Garunisch!’
Kenneth Garunisch paused. ‘What is it? Did you finally see sense?’
Seidelberger shook his head. ‘No, I have not seen what you so inaccurately call “sense”. I just wanted to wish you a happy Saturday, and a long life, because the longer your members stay out on strike, the more urgently you will need it.’
Kenneth Garunisch bit his lip, saying nothing. Then he turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him.
Outside the hospital, on First Avenue, a warm and grimy summer breeze was blowing from the south-west. The glittering spires of Manhattan were reflected in the oily depths of the East River, and a lone barge chugged upriver towards Roosevelt Island. From the north, they heard the sound of sirens, and there was a strange amber glow in the sky.
A Medical Workers’ picket was standing by the hospital entrance, smoking a cigarette. Kenneth Garunisch recognized him – a tough onetime stevedore called Tipanski. He had shoulders as wide as a taxi-cab, and a blue baseball cap.
He slapped Tipanski on the back. ‘How you doing?’
Tipanski nodded. ‘Okay, thanks, Mr. Garunisch.’
‘What time are they relieving you?’
‘Two-thirty. Then Foster comes on.’
‘Any trouble?’
‘Naw. But look at them fires uptown.’
‘Fires? Is that what they are?’
‘Sure. This Gaines guy says on the tube that the niggers is all to blame for the plague, so the white gangs have been cruisin’ up to Harlem and puttin’ a torch to everythin’ that burns, and a few things that don’t.’
Even as they spoke, a fire chief’s car came howling past them.
‘Mr. Garunisch,’ said Tipanski. ‘Is it true what they say about the plague? That it’s comin’ here? It says on the news there aint no way they can stop it.’
Kenneth Garunisch looked at the man for a long while, saying nothing. For the first time in his life, he was beginning to feel unable to protect his members. His instincts had always been those of a tough mother hen, scooping her brood into her wings at the first sign of trouble. But now, just across the Hudson, a different type of peril was growing, a peril that could be carried invisibly in the warm night wind, and could infect them all without any chance of saving themselves.
Kenneth Garunisch felt frightened.
‘I guess they’ll find some way of stopping it okay,’ he said, unconvincingly. ‘After all, they can seal Manhattan off like a lifeboat, right? Just close all the tunnels and all the bridges, and presto, we’re all safe.’
Tipanski frowned. ‘They seem pretty worried on the news, Mr. Garunisch. They even said what to do if you thought you had it.’
‘Don’t you worry, brother. When the time comes, we can deal with it.’
‘Okay, Mr. Garunisch.’
Kenneth Garunisch was about to say goodnight, when he heard footsteps clattering up the sidewalk behind him. Dick Bortolotti said, ‘Ken,’ in a nervous kind of way, and tugged his sleeve. Kenneth Garunisch turned around.
There were five of them. They were hard-faced and big, and they could only have been off-duty cops. No mugger cuts his hair so neat, nor wears such a well-trimmed mustache. They wore black leather jackets, and they stood around Kenneth Garunisch and Dick Bortolotti so that there was no possible way to escape.
‘Are you Garunisch?’ said one of them gruffly.
Kenneth Garunisch looked from one cop to the other. He was trying to memorize their faces. He kept his arms down beside him, and said, ‘What of it?’
‘Kenneth Garunisch, the Medical Workers’ boss?’
‘What of it?’
‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes. What of it?’
Garunisch had once been a physically hard man but he was too old and slow these days. The leading cop slopped up to him, pulled back his arm, and punched him straight in the face. Garunisch felt his bridge-work break, and he was banged back against the hospital wall behind him. Another punch caught him across the side of the face and fractured his jaw, and then he was kicked in the wrist and the hip.
Tipanski, shouting with rage, tried to attack the cops, but they were too quick and too well-trained. One of them twisted his arm around behind his back, and another one thumped him in the stomach. Tipanski dropped to his knees on the sidewalk, gasping.
Dick Bortolotti got away. He ran down the length of the hospital as fast as he could, crossed 34th Street, and didn’t stop running until he reached Second Avenue. He leaned against a building panting for breath, and then slowly and cautiously made his way back to Bellevue. As he crossed back towards the hospital, he had the strangest sensation that everything had changed
