Plague Read Free Page A

replied. ‘Actually, it was the golf club party.’
    ‘By the look of
you, I’m not sorry I missed it. You look like death.’
    A pretty
dark-haired nurse came out of the emergency unit doors and both men watched her
walk down the corridor with abstracted interest.
    Dr. Petrie
said, ‘If it’s contagious, we’d better see about inoculating the parents. And
we’d better find out where he picked it up. Apart from that, I wouldn’t mind a
shot myself.’
    ‘When we know
what it is,’ said Selmer, ‘we’ll inoculate everybody in sight. Jesus, we’ve
just gotten rid of the winter flu epidemic. The last thing I want is an
outbreak of cholera.’
    ‘What a great
way to start the week,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘They don’t even live in my district.
The guy runs a garage on North West 20th.’
    Dr. Selmer took
of his green surgical cap. ‘I always knew you were the guardian angel for the
whole of Miami, Leonard. I can just see you up there on Judgement Day, sitting
at God’s right hand. Or maybe second from the right.’
    Dr. Petrie
grinned. ‘One of these days, Anton, a bolt of lightning will strike you down
for your unbelieving. You know, I bent my goddamn car on the way here. Some son
of a bitch in a truck was blocking the street, and I had to drive over the
sidewalk.
    Would you
believe he just sat there and lit a cigar?’
    Dr. Selmer
raised his gingery eyebrows. ‘It’s the selfish society, Leonard. I’m all right,
and screw you Charlie.’
    They started to
walk together down the corridor. ‘I guess that must have been when it
happened,’ Dr. Selmer said.
    ‘When what happened?’
    ‘When the boy died.’
    Dr. Petrie
stopped, and stared at him hard. ‘You mean he’s dead?’
    Dr. Selmer took
his arm. ‘Leonard – I’m sorry. I thought you realized. He was dead on arrival.
You better have your car cleaned out if he was sitting in the back. You
wouldn’t want to catch this thing yourself.’
    Dr. Petrie
nodded. He felt stunned. He saw a lot of death, but the death that visited his
own clientele was the shadowy death of old age, of failing hearts and hardened
arteries.
    The people who
died under Dr. Petrie’s care were reconciled to their mortality. But young
David Kelly was just nine years old, and today he was
supposed to have gone to the Monkey Jungle.
    ‘Anton,’ said
Dr. Petrie, ‘I’ll catch you later. I have to tell the father.’
    ‘Okay,’ said
Dr. Selmer. ‘But don’t forget to tell both parents to come in for a check-up. I
don’t want this kind of disease spreading.’
    Dr. Petrie
walked quickly down the fluorescent-lit corridors to the waiting-room.
    Before he
pushed open the door, he looked through the small circular window, and saw Mr.
Kelly sitting hunched on a red plastic chair, smoking and trying to read
yesterday’s Miami Herald.
    He didn’t know
what the hell he was going to say. How do you tell a man that his only son, his
nine-year-old son, has just died?
    Finally, he
pushed open the door. Mr. Kelly looked up quickly, and there was questioning
hope in his face.
    ‘Did you see
him?’ Mr. Kelly asked, ‘Is he okay?’
    Dr. Petrie laid
his hand on the man’s shoulder and pressed him gently back into his seat. He
sat down himself, and looked into Mr. Kelly’s tired but optimistic eyes with
all the sympathy and care he could muster. When he spoke, his voice was soft
and quiet, expressing feeling that went far deeper than bedside manner.
    ‘Mr. Kelly,’ he
said. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that David is dead.’
    Mr. Kelly’s
mouth formed a question, but the question was never spoken. He simply stared at
Dr. Petrie as if he didn’t know where he was, or what had happened. He was
still sitting, still staring, as the tears began to fill his eyes and run down
his cheeks.
    Dr. Petrie
stood up. ‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll drive you home.’
    By the time he
got back to his clinic, his assistant Esther had already arrived, opened his
mail, and poured his