Boils. Hail. Leprosy, Harlan said.
The wind blew punishing granules into his face. He tilted forward against gusts to reach the car. Inside, the noise lessened, and the radio announcer said a worse storm was coming. Today it was ravaging swaths of the Midwest.
“We’re in for the biggest blizzard of the decade!”
Orrin had gotten away with it! He was safe! He drove carefully along Rock Creek Parkway, passing sliding cars, a crash, a Chevy idling at a light like a horse afraid to cross water. Washington sent powerful armies ranging across the earth. But it froze with fear if half an inch of snow fell.
Orrin waited until he was back in Northwest Washington to punch in Harlan’s number on the disposable.
“Burke is worried about one of his investigators. A man named Rush. I’m sending you his photo,” Harlan said.
NINE
A quarantined town is a ghost town filled with living people. The stillness gives weight to air, turns streets into still lifes, exaggerates any movement at all. Smoke curling from a chimney seems more ominous than comforting. Faces at windows drop away quickly, and curtains fall back in place. Even a stray dog, sensing fear, walks tentatively down a deserted street with its tail down as a trio of biosuited figures knocks on a bar door, the banging sounding, in the stillness, far too loud.
“Go away,” called the frightened man inside. “I’m sick of you people. You’re not taking me away!”
“Sir, if we have to break in, we will.”
A handful of weathered, sun-blasted wooden homes. A dozen diagonal parking spots before a motel/gas station combo. I saw a brown hawk staring down at me from the flat roof of Gazzara’s Tavern. Its creamy feathers matched the dun color of surrounding scrub desert, the dark streaks the escarpments in the hazy distance.
The voice called, “I’m not going to any hospital!”
We’d come into town during a gap between medical team visits, when investigators took samples of blood, hair, fingernails, urine, and probed and examined wall mold, air conditioners, refrigerators, vents.
The screen and wooden slat door opened. Gazzara’s smelled of pine sawdust, beer, garlic, and bananas. A hand-scrawled sign by an oval mirror read, OUR SPECIALTY: SPAGHETTI AND ELK SAUSAGE, FRIDAY NIGHTS. Antelope jerky sticks leaned like pretzels in a tall jar. Electric beer signs — RUBY MOUNTAIN ANGEL CREEK AMBER ALE, TENAYA CREEK — were turned off at midday, below a banner for the Nevada Wolf Pack football team. The sawdust muted the shuffle of our biofootwear. I saw a half dozen empty tables and a pool table and dart board on a wall.
“See my arm? They poke me every six hours!”
Art Gazarra kept the bar between us, like a protective barrier. He looked about forty, balding on top, wearing soiled Levi’s and a sweat-stained T-shirt that showed a well-developed chest and biceps, but a pot belly swelling over his belt. Eddie, Chris, and I stood at the rail in our gear, probably looking like aliens waiting for beers.
Gazzara growled, “You have no right to cut us off!”
“We’re here to help.”
He laughed insanely. Two Gazzaras stood before us, the frightened one and a healthier one in the softball team photo behind the bar. Before illness struck, he’d been a sad-faced man with hangdog eyes, large ears, thick brows, and clumpy chestnut hair that seemed hacked off by a blind person. He’d not shaved in days. Based on the damage I saw — nose decay, red spots by the mouth, cauliflower left ear — I guessed that his beard obscured more. No wonder he was angry. If he’s not at the hospital, this damage is new.
Eddie kept his hand on his sidearm. But Gazzara’s fear was not aggressive. He was a rabbit hiding in his hole. Once we were in that hole, his resistance collapsed, and he became pliant. I didn’t need a friend just now. I needed information.
Had he noticed anyone sick in town prior to two Fridays ago? No, he snapped. Had anything unusual happened recently? Had food or drink tasted odd? Had any illness resembling this one ever happened here before?
“Why did you ask about that Friday?”
“My understanding is,” I said, taking a stool to position myself at eye level, “that’s when the base people — first ones to get sick — came in. For the birthday.”
“You’re trying to pin this on me?”
“I’m trying to figure it out.”
He resumed wiping the bar. It did not need cleaning but he didn’t stop. The movement gave him something to do.
“I don’t remember anything special about that day, if that’s what you mean,” he said.
“Good! Then if nothing special happened that day, please just go over what was normal.”
He polished that bar over and over. His vocal cords sounded unaffected, but I remembered how victims in Somalia had manifested symptoms differently. One person suffered skin damage first. Another, voice loss. There was no way to tell at this point how far the disease had progressed in Gazarra. He’d need to go to the hospital, but I wasn’t going to say that yet.
“You want normal? I came down from upstairs — we live there — at ten. I made jerky. Normal! We get hunters on weekends so I keep extra around. I knew there would be a party that night. Crystal already had the cake in the fridge. That help?” he challenged. “Help you figure out what the hell is going on?”
“You never know what can be important. I appreciate hearing about even little things.”
His expression soured even more. “I paid some bills. Normal! I cleaned spigots. I got burgers from the freezer. I made lunch for those two weird tourists from L.A.”
I felt a sudden throbbing in the back of my head. My lungs seemed to tighten, and for an instant, my breathing slowed. Tourists were here? Chris looked shocked. We were thinking the same thing. This bar may have been ground zero for an outbreak. The soldiers would have arrived too late if tourists had been here for the initial infection, if they had then gone blithely out into the world, days ago, shedding the disease.
I felt Chris Vekey come closer behind me.
“I made his elk burger well done. Hers was rare, with crispy fries,” Gazzara said. “They’re long gone.”
“Did they give you their names, sir?”
“I don’t require names to take an order.”
“Did they say where they were going? Or pay with a credit card?”
That would have been too easy. Food orders were his memory tricks. I curbed my impatience while he recalled clearly that she’d asked for extra pickles. The man had shaken pepper on his fries. But talk? He had no memory of talk, beyond their order. Did he recall the license plate on their car? The kind of car? A rental company sticker or regional accent? Sorry.
“They definitely had two beers each.”
“If they said nothing you remember,” Chris asked, trying to keep frustration from her voice, “why are you so sure they came from L.A.?”
“Hmmm. Good question. Hmmm. Maybe they did say something. Or I just assumed L.A. I mean, most tourists who show up turn out to be from there. Ask Jack Lawrence at the Quick Mart. I think I saw them buy gas. Wait. He’s at the hospital with his wife, Millie.”
My face had started prickling, and I hoped all that meant was that I was alarmed.
“Mr. Gazarra, did you tell any of the doctors who examined you about these tourists?”
“I might have. I’m not sure. They mostly wanted to know whether I lost power in the freezers, as if I’d serve rotted food to customers! The assholes!”