The White Plague (15 page)

OLD MAN:
What do you know of my grief? You’re a stripling lad who’s never had a woman!

YOUTH:
And you’re a whining old bastard! It’s the likes of you cost me all the hope of my life. You think I can’t know the grief of something taken because I’d not yet had it?

– from
Plague Time
, an Irish play

O
N THE
flight to Paris, John reflected carefully on the things he had done (and was doing) to cover his tracks. The plane was a Boeing 727 with one of the “facelifts” the airline was promoting – slick leather upholstery in first class, extra cabin attendants there, a fine choice of wines and food. John’s seat mate was a chunky Israeli businessman who bragged that he had ordered kosher. John made no response, merely looked out the window beside him at the cloud cover over the Atlantic. The businessman shrugged and brought out a briefcase, from which he took sheafs of papers on which he set to work.

John glanced at his wristwatch, calculating the time difference to Seattle. By now, investigators would be raking through the ashes of the Ballard house. They would suspect arson immediately, of course. An all-consuming blaze – multiple thermite charges, phosphor arranged to spill from its water cover, exploding bottles of ether-ammonium hydroxide.

The investigators naturally would seek human remains, but not even bones could survive the heat of that fire. It would not be surprising to have them conclude that “John McCarthy, the inventor,” had perished in the accidental ignition of one of his experiments.

The high heat could be enough.

And the investigators would be scrambling the evidence they would want later. By then it would be too late, the ashes hopelessly disturbed.

John’s wrist itched under the watch. He removed the watch and scratched, glancing at the back of the case. The engraving was professionally scrolled there, a Spencerian “J.G.O’D.” John Garrett O’Day or John Garrech O’Donnell. The O’Day passport nestled in his coat pocket next to his heart. The O’Donnell passport lay with the spares in the secret compartment of the carry-on bag under the seat in front of him. He restored the watch to his wrist. The engraving was a small touch but he thought a good one.

His wallet contained the proper confirmations for the O’Day identity. The Social Security card had been the easiest forgery of them all. Before becoming a chunk of melted slag in the Ballard basement, the little letterpress had produced an assortment of calling cards and letterheads. His checkbook was a valid one from Seattle First National Bank, the home address one of his drops. Not much money there, but enough to establish the account’s validity. The bag next to his feet contained letters from invented friends and business associates, all addressed to the proper drop, stamps canceled. Everything agreed with his passport. John Garrett O’Day would stand up under any casual investigation, not that he expected such an occurrence.

With the spare passports in the bag at his feet was his forger’s kit and $238,000 in United States currency. He had $20,000 in traveler’s checks, purchased in $5,000 blocks, in a leather pouch around his waist. His wallet held $2,016 U.S. and 2,100 French francs, neat and crisp bills from the Deak-Perera counter at Seatac Airport. He thought of this money as the “ready energy” to complete O’Neill’s revenge.

At Charles de Gaulle Airport, he rode up through the rather dated plastic tubes to Baggage Claim, retrieved his other bag and strode out under the “Nothing to Declare” sign into a dark afternoon. The smell of diesel was thick under the concrete canopy covering the taxi and bus pickup lanes. The sounds of engines were loud and jangling. A darkly Romanesque woman with heavy features and thick lips stood directly ahead of him in the taxi queue surrounded by shopping bags and tattered luggage, shouting in harsh Italian at two teenage girls who apparently did not want to wait there. Her voice grated on John. His head felt clogged, thinking slowed. He ascribed this to the swift change of time zones. His circadian rhythms were wrong.

He felt a positive relief when the Italian woman and her children climbed into a taxi and drove off. It was even better to enter his own taxi and lean back against the cool upholstery. The car was a shiny blue Mercedes diesel, the driver a thin, sharp-featured man wearing a black nylon jacket with a rip at the right shoulder from which white lining material protruded.

“Hotel Normandy,” John said and closed his eyes.

There was a pain in his stomach and he thought:
I’m hungry
. The hotel would have room service. And a bed. Sleep, that was what he needed.

He did not actually sleep in the taxi, although he kept his eyes closed most of the way. There was a general awareness behind his eyes of the swift movement along the Autoroute. The occasional sound of a heavy truck intruded on his dozing. The driver uttered several low-voiced curses. Once, there was the screech of a high-pitched horn. He was aware when they pulled off the Peripherique onto the streets of Paris, the change of rhythm, more stops and starts.

It was almost dark when they reached the hotel and it was beginning to rain, a light drizzle. He paid off the driver and added a generous tip, which elicited a growled
“Merci, M’sieur.”
There was no bellman. John picked up his bags and shouldered his way through the two swinging glass doors, to be met there by a hurrying older man in a red-piped beige uniform, who took the bags and greeted him in English.

“Welcome, sir. Welcome.”

The lobby smelled of a pungent insecticide.

When he was in his room, a change of clothing laid out for morning, John put a hand on his stomach. Tender. And it felt hard and distended.

I don’t have time to be sick.

The room was oppressive, too warm, and it smelled musty. He closed the shades on the two tall windows, which looked onto the Avenue St. Honoré, turned to survey his quarters: a drab green-and-gray floral pattern in the wallpaper. He could hear the old-fashioned elevator grinding and clanking nearby. The room was not even square: it was a trapezoid with a double bed in the wide end. The door to a tiny bathroom opened off one corner of the narrow end, an entry achieved by skirting a heavy bureau. For a closet, there was a giant monstrosity of dark wood furniture beside the bed – drawers in the center, hanging space on each side behind creaking doors. The bottom drawer came out to reveal a thin space underneath. He put his wallet, passport and traveler’s checks there and returned the drawer to its proper place.

I’ll call room service for some soup.

He felt his gorge rising at this thought and barely made it to the bathroom, where he vomited into the toilet. He slipped to his knees beside the toilet, one hand clutching the washbasin, his stomach heaving and heaving.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

In the back of his mind lay the fear that he had picked up a “stray” from his lab, a random offshoot of his perfectly tailored plague, something unnoticed in the rush of success.

Presently, he climbed to his feet, bathed his face in the washbasin and flushed the toilet. His legs trembled with weakness. He staggered out of the bathroom and threw himself face down on the bedspread. It smelled of caustic soap and his nose was surrounded by the stink of vomit.

Should I call a doctor?
The American Hospital would have a reliable doctor.

But a doctor would be the most likely to remember him. And a doctor would prescribe antibiotics. John reflected on the fact that he had made his plague to feed on antibiotics.

What if it is a stray from the lab?

On will power alone, he climbed to his feet, put his precious carry-on bag on the floor of the clothes cupboard and closed the creaking door. He leaned against the cool wood for a moment to recover his strength. Pushing himself away from the cupboard, he fell back onto the bed and weakly pulled part of the bedspread over him. There was a switch beside the head of the bed. He reached it on the third try. Welcome darkness engulfed the room.

“Not now,” he whispered. “Not yet.”

He was not aware of falling asleep, but there was daylight around the edges of the window draperies when next he opened his eyes. He tried to sit up and his muscles would not obey. A surge of panic swept over him. His body was cold and drenched in perspiration.

Slowly, by a concentrated focusing of his will, he got one hand out, groped for and found the telephone. The operator, thinking he wanted Housekeeping, sent a Spanish maid, a buxom elderly woman with dyed gray hair and thick arms, the muscles compressed by tight sleeves.

Using her own key, she swept into the room, wrinkled her nose at the thick smell of vomit, took in John’s face pale and weak above the rumpled bedspread and said in thickly accented English: “You wish a doctor, Señor?”

Gasping between each word, John managed: “They… are… too… ex… pensive.”

“Everything is expensive!” she agreed, coming to stand beside his head. She put a cool palm on his forehead. “You have the fever, Señor. It is the terrible French sauces. They are bad for the estomach. You should stay away from the rich foods. I will bring you something. We see how you are in a little while, eh?” She patted his shoulder. “And I am not as expensive as the doctors.”

He did not sense her departure, but presently she was there beside him again with a steaming cup of something hot in her hand. He smelled chicken soup.

“A little broth for the estomach,” she said, helping him to sit up.

The broth burned his tongue but felt soothing in his stomach. He drank most of it before sinking back against the pillows, which the Spanish maid fluffed for him.

“I am Consuela,” she said. “I will come back when I have finished the other rooms. You are better then, eh? We get you into bed proper.”

Consuela returned with more broth, awakening him and helping him to swing his feet off the bed. She had to steady him there.

“You drink,” she said. She held his hand with the cup, forcing him to drink all of the broth.

“You are better,” she said, but he did not feel better.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“It is time to make the bed and get you into clothing of the night,” she said. She brought a chair from outside, wedged it beside the head of the bed and lifted him into the chair, where he sat while she straightened the bed and folded back the covers.

God, she’s strong
, he thought.

“You are a modest man,” she said, standing in front of him, the thick arms akimbo, hands on hips. “We remove only to the underclothing, eh?” She chuckled. “Do not have the face red, Señor. I have bury two husbands.” She crossed herself.

Unable to resist, barely able to comment, John went passive while Consuela undressed him and muscled him into the bed. The sheets felt cool against his flesh.

She left the draperies closed, but he still could see daylight around them.

“What… time… is… it?” he managed.

“It is time for Consuela to do much other work. I come back with more broth. You gotta hungry?”

“No.” He shook his head weakly.

A wide grin illuminated her face. “You are lucky man for Consuela, eh? I speak the good English, no?”

He managed a nod.

“It is lucky thing. In Madrid I am the maid for Americans. My firs’ husband is Mexican from Chicago in the U.S.A. He is teach me.”

“Thank,” was all he could say.

“Gracias a Dios,”
she said and let herself out of the room.

John slept.

His sleep was tormented by dreams of Mary and the twins. “Please, no more O’Neill dreams,” he muttered. He turned and twisted in the bed, unable to escape the O’Neill memories – the twins playing in the backyard of their home, Mary laughing with joy at a Christmas present.

“She was so happy,” he whispered.

“Who has the happy?” It was Consuela standing beside him. Darkness framed the draperies of the windows.

He smelled the chicken broth.

A muscular arm slipped behind him and levered him upright. The other hand held the broth for him to drink. It was only lukewarm and it tasted even better than the first time. He heard the clunk of the cup as she placed it on the stand beside the telephone.

“Escusado,”
she said and snapped her fingers. “Bathroom! You wish to go to the bathroom?”

He nodded.

She half carried him into the bathroom and left him leaning against the washbasin. “I wait outside,” she said. “You call, eh?”

When she had him back in the freshly made bed, he asked: “What… day?”

“This day? It is the day after you arrive, Señor O’Day. It is the day O’Day is better, eh?” She grinned at her own joke.

All he could give her was a twitching of the lips.

“You do not wish the expensive doctor, Señor?”

He shook his head from side to side.

“We see tomorrow,” she said. She let herself out, pausing to give him a cheery
“Hasta mañana!”
before closing the door.

Morning was identifiable by the return of Consuela. This time she brought a small bowl with a coddled egg in addition to the broth. She propped him up with pillows and spooned the egg into his mouth, wiping his chin as though he were a baby before giving him the broth.

John thought he felt stronger but his brain remained fuzzy and there was this maddening inability to identify the day or the hour. Consuela frustrated him by responding to his question with quips.

“It is the day O’Day eats two eggs in the morning.

“It is the day O’Day has the bread and meat for dinner.

“It is the day O’Day has ice cream with his
comida
.

“… day O’Day… day O’Day…” Consuela’s cheerful face became an uncountable daily blur, but John could feel his strength returning. One day he took a bath. He no longer needed help getting to the bathroom.

When Consuela took his breakfast dishes away, he lifted the telephone and asked for the manager. The operator said she would connect him
immediately
with Monsieur Deplais. And Deplais was on the line in almost two minutes, speaking with a pronounced British accent.