hard. "First of all, get those nurses down here, the ones who helped you with the respirator. Get them off the hospital floor and get a list of every patient they've been near since they were down here—or anyone else they've contacted. Tell Miss Towne to open up the pharmacy and bring down ail the streptomycin and chloramphenicol we've got, and I hope to Christ we've got quite a lot. Meanwhile, lock the doors to this place and don't let anybody in until we can get some help-God! You, me, the whole emergency room, the respirator, those nurses, the patients, all contaminated. We're going to have to close this place down. A whole fine modern hospital turned into a pesthole in eight hours flat by that little bug that looks like a safety pin . . ."
"What is it?"
" Yersinia pestis. The kid's got plague pneumonia, and he's blowing it around with every breath he takes. Now get going, fast, and then come back. I'll have some other things for you to do when you get that all taken care of."
"But what are you going to do?"
"First I'm going to make a couple of calls, to the State Department of Public Health and then to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to find out what you do when you've got a live case of plague pneumonia that's contaminated a whole community hospital." Ed took a deep breath. "Then I'm going to start feeding streptomycin to everybody in sight—if we have enough on hand—and then I think I'm going to pray for a while. We're liable to need all the help we can get, before long."
10
Carmen Dillman had martinis already made when Jack came down from his studio around five, paint still on his fingertips. "Did you get that dust jacket finished?" she said.
"Finally."
"Do you like it?"
Jack made a face. "Alonzo will like it, and that's all I care about. It's part of a series layout, so it's nice exposure." Jack took half a martini down at a gulp. "I'll take it with me down to the city tomorrow and see what else he has stacked up for me."
"And lunch with Jocelyn, I suppose," Carmen said.
"Sure, why not? She hands me a lot of artwork to do. And I have to see that aerospace client of hers, too. That sounds like a nice fee—all kinds of fancy color work for their annual report."
Carmen nodded glumly, staring at her cocktail in silence. Jack watched her closely for a moment. "So what's the problem?" he said finally. "You know I go down there on Tuesdays. Why so gloomy about it?"
"Jack, 1 saw a rat in the backyard this morning."
"Oh yeah? You're crazy. We haven't had a rat here in Brookdale since the town council passed those sanitation ordinances ten years ago—and started enforcing them. You must have seen a squirrel."
"It was a rat," Carmen insisted. "I saw it come out of the woodshed and cross the backyard toward the house. It was a foot long, and black, with a pointy nose and a long naked tail. I grabbed a broom and ran outside. By then it was running along the foundation of the house, and then it just disappeared. I think it went in the basement."
"And where was Dummy all this time?"
"The cat? Asleep on the sofa. Where else?"
Jack poured himself more martini and stared soberly at his wife. She could have been right, of course. The rats used to come up from the river, years ago, when the restaurants in town were still leaving big cans of garbage open in the back alleys. He could remember seeing them dart across the road in his headlights now and then. But then people began to complain, and the County Health Department climbed all over the town council, and there was a big extermination program and the lids went onto the garbage cans and the disposal trucks started coming daily instead of once a week, and pretty soon the rats all disappeared . . .
No, he thought, it was a squirrel she saw, or maybe a wood-chuck, they're all over the place these days. But just the same . . . "Tell you what," he said. "Why don't you get Dummy off her ass and put her down in the basement for the night? If we've got a
"What is it?"
" Yersinia pestis. The kid's got plague pneumonia, and he's blowing it around with every breath he takes. Now get going, fast, and then come back. I'll have some other things for you to do when you get that all taken care of."
"But what are you going to do?"
"First I'm going to make a couple of calls, to the State Department of Public Health and then to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to find out what you do when you've got a live case of plague pneumonia that's contaminated a whole community hospital." Ed took a deep breath. "Then I'm going to start feeding streptomycin to everybody in sight—if we have enough on hand—and then I think I'm going to pray for a while. We're liable to need all the help we can get, before long."
10
Carmen Dillman had martinis already made when Jack came down from his studio around five, paint still on his fingertips. "Did you get that dust jacket finished?" she said.
"Finally."
"Do you like it?"
Jack made a face. "Alonzo will like it, and that's all I care about. It's part of a series layout, so it's nice exposure." Jack took half a martini down at a gulp. "I'll take it with me down to the city tomorrow and see what else he has stacked up for me."
"And lunch with Jocelyn, I suppose," Carmen said.
"Sure, why not? She hands me a lot of artwork to do. And I have to see that aerospace client of hers, too. That sounds like a nice fee—all kinds of fancy color work for their annual report."
Carmen nodded glumly, staring at her cocktail in silence. Jack watched her closely for a moment. "So what's the problem?" he said finally. "You know I go down there on Tuesdays. Why so gloomy about it?"
"Jack, 1 saw a rat in the backyard this morning."
"Oh yeah? You're crazy. We haven't had a rat here in Brookdale since the town council passed those sanitation ordinances ten years ago—and started enforcing them. You must have seen a squirrel."
"It was a rat," Carmen insisted. "I saw it come out of the woodshed and cross the backyard toward the house. It was a foot long, and black, with a pointy nose and a long naked tail. I grabbed a broom and ran outside. By then it was running along the foundation of the house, and then it just disappeared. I think it went in the basement."
"And where was Dummy all this time?"
"The cat? Asleep on the sofa. Where else?"
Jack poured himself more martini and stared soberly at his wife. She could have been right, of course. The rats used to come up from the river, years ago, when the restaurants in town were still leaving big cans of garbage open in the back alleys. He could remember seeing them dart across the road in his headlights now and then. But then people began to complain, and the County Health Department climbed all over the town council, and there was a big extermination program and the lids went onto the garbage cans and the disposal trucks started coming daily instead of once a week, and pretty soon the rats all disappeared . . .
No, he thought, it was a squirrel she saw, or maybe a wood-chuck, they're all over the place these days. But just the same . . . "Tell you what," he said. "Why don't you get Dummy off her ass and put her down in the basement for the night? If we've got a
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