Plague (32 page)

Edgar bent over
him. ‘Don’t think you’re going to appease me like that. Oh, don’t you think
you’re going to get away with it that easy! If I have anything to do with it,
I’m going to make sure that hoodlums like you are torn out of Elizabeth, root
and branch.

You hear?’

McManus nodded.
‘I hear you. I hear you loud and cuh-lear.’

Edgar put his
spectacles back on and peered at
‘ McManus
close and
hard. ‘Is that all you can say?’ he asked. ‘After all that you’ve done, and all
the trouble you’ve caused, is that all you can say?’

McManus frowned,
as if he was thinking, and then gave a small smirk.

‘I do have one
thing to say,’ he said quietly.

‘And what’s
that?’

‘It’s a
question, really. And the question is, if you’re so respectable and upright,
and if you’re going to tear US all out root and whatitsname, then what are you
doing in the slammer along with me?’

Edgar stood
straight. He took a deep breath. ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘after you wrecked my
store, I went after you with a gun.’

‘Don’t tell me
it was unlicensed.’

Edgar shook his
head. ‘It was licensed, all right. I was going out to find you and I was going
to teach you a lesson! The trouble was...’

McManus looked
up.
‘Yeah?’

‘The trouble
was...’

Edgar could
hardly get the words out. The reality of last night’s killing suddenly stuck in
his throat like a terrible knotted obstruction.

‘You can tell
me, man,’ said McManus, mock-sympathetically. ‘After all, it was me you wanted
to shoot.’

Edgar looked
grim. ‘I went out, and I shot and killed someone I thought was you. It wasn’t
you at all, and that’s what I’m doing here.’

McManus stared
at him in disbelief. Then, gradually, a smile began to twitch at the comers of
his mouth. He guffawed once, then again, and then he laughed out loud. A sour
voice in the next cell said, ‘For Christ’s sake, can’t we get any fucking sleep
around here?’

McManus,
wide-eyed with amusement, said, ‘You wasted someone you thought was me? You
really did that? Oh, man, you’re beautiful! Tell me who it was!’

Edgar lowered
his eyes. ‘It was a Boy Scout. I don’t know his name.’

‘A Boy Scout!
Oh, man, you’re incredible! Don’t you know
that? You’re just too fucking much! He blows away a Boy Scout, instead of me!’

Edgar thumped
his fist against the wall of the cell and roared, ‘It’s not funny! Damn you –
it’s not funny!’

McManus stopped
laughing and frowned. ‘I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to upset you.

But you have to
admit it’s beautiful.’

‘Beautiful?’
said Edgar disgustedly.
‘Yeah.
You know – poetic
justice.’ Edgar turned his head away. ‘If there was any kind of justice in this
world, you’d be lying in that morgue, instead of that innocent kid.’

McManus
shrugged. ‘Come on, man. Don’t be so mad. There isn’t
nothing
you can say that’s going to bring him back – now is there?’

Edgar didn’t
answer. He felt as if he had rubbed his face in a bucket of wet grit.

Tired, dispirited and anxious.

‘I mean – death
comes to all of us, in time, doesn’t it?’ said McManus.
‘Especially
now.’

He got up off
his bunk and walked around the confines of the cell. ‘I mean – you and me,
we’re lucky we’re inside here, instead of outside there on the streets. Out
there – well, I mean, wow. It could be per-il-usss!’ Edgar looked up. ‘What do
you mean by that?’ Shark McManus chewed his gum equably. ‘It’s the plague, man.
How long have you been in here?’

‘The plague?’

‘It’s all over
Jersey. Everybody’s supposed to lock themselves at home, man, and not go out.
They got the National Guard patrolling the state line, and if you try to leave,
you get blasted. It’s true! I was out there ripping off a short, and that’s why
they pulled me in.’ Edgar Paston stared at Shark McManus for a moment, and then
said, ‘No – that’s nonsense. My wife was here just a few hours ago. She didn’t
say anything about it. And why haven’t the police told me?’

McManus
shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It all happened real
quick
.
They knew they had a couple of sick people in Atlantic City, but then I guess a
few people panicked, and kind of brought the plague up this way.’

‘But – Tammy!’
said Edgar.
‘My kids!
They’re out there!’

Shark McManus
didn’t look at all fazed. ‘Don’t worry about it, man. Everybody’s out there,
excepting us.’

Edgar Paston
went to the bars and shouted for the guard.

‘Forget it,
man,’ said McManus. ‘This whole joint is practically empty. They got all their
guys out on the street, picking up the stiffs.
I aint joking,
man.
I saw a couple of stiffs myself, out by the crossroads.’

Edgar Paston
turned on McManus. ‘Kid,’ he said, ‘if you’re fooling me, so help me I’ll tear
your head off.’

Shark McManus
simply smiled.
‘I aint fooling.’

‘In that case,
we have to get out of here.’

‘Why? This is
the safest place.’

‘What you seem
to forget is that my wife and kids are out there.’

‘Man – there’s
nothing you can do. Even if you get back home, they won’t let you out of the
state.’

Edgar Paston
thumped on the bars of the cell. ‘That’s not the point. The point is that I’m a
father, and my
family’s
at risk. I have to be there!’

Shark McManus
lay back on his bunk and thought for a while. Edgar shouted a few times, but
when the prisoner in the next-door cell finally told him to keep his fucking
yapper shut, he went back to his bunk and sat there with a gray, worried face,
and kept silent.

An hour passed.
Edgar Paston lay on his side for twenty minutes and dozed, but the light still
glared in his eyes, and he had the added irritation of Shark McManus’ endless
whistling. He sat up and scratched his head.

‘Are you awake,
man?’ said McManus.

‘Yes, I’m
awake.’

‘Listen, man –
do you really want to get out of here?’

‘What do you
suggest I do? Tear the cell door down with my bare hands?’

‘It doesn’t
have to be that complicated. If you want to get out of here, I can get you out.
But you have to make me a promise.’

Edgar eased
himself down off his bunk, and looked at Shark McManus like a man who’s found a
dead cat under his bed.

‘A promise?’ he
said.
‘To you?’

Shark McManus
pulled a face. ‘It’s the only way, man. Either you make the promise, or you
stay here.’

‘But the whole
reason I’m in here is because of you!’

‘That’s the
deal. No ifs or buts or maybes.’

Edgar lowered his
head, and sighed. ‘What’s the promise?’

‘All you have
to do is take me with you. I need wheels and I need some respectable support.
With your image and my know-how, we can get out of Jersey and into Manhattan,
and the way they say it on the news, it looks like Manhattan’s a kind of a
plague-free zone, and they aint letting anyone catch it.’

‘You can really
get me out?’

‘Sure. Do you
promise?’

‘Well’

‘It’s up to
you, man. Me, I don’t have
no
family at all. I could
sit here for ever and it wouldn’t bug me.’

Edgar Paston
looked serious. ‘What you’re asking me to do is to go back on everything I
think about people like you,’ he said quietly. ‘I think I’d rather get help
from a snake.’

Shark McManus
grinned. ‘That’s settled, then. Now, all you have to do is lie on your bunk and
start shaking and sweating and moaning.’

‘What the hell
are you talking about?’

‘Just do it,
man. Shake and sweat and moan.’ Reluctantly, Edgar Paston climbed up on to his
bunk again, and lay back. He made his hands tremble, and started to wail
feebly.

Shark McManus
looked at him in exasperation. ‘I said shake and sweat and moan, man. You’re
supposed to be sick. You’re supposed to be dying. You sound like you didn’t do
nothing
worse than walk into a smelly public toilet.’

Edgar, more convincingly,
shouted, ‘Ohhh! Oh, God, I’m dying, oh God I Ohhh ...!’

That was when
Shark McManus yelled for the guard. He didn’t call politely like Edgar had
done. He screamed ‘Guuuaaarrrddd!!’ at the highest pitch of his lungs, and
straight away the duty cop came running down the corridor with his keys
jangling.

‘What’s all the
goddamned noise?’

‘Guard,’ panted
McManus. ‘You have to get me out here! This guy’s got plague! Look at him –
he’s dying!’ The guard peered anxiously through the bars. Edgar was twisting
and groaning and clutching the bedclothes, trying to sound as if he was making
his last struggle to fight off a virulent, fast-breeding disease.

His performance
was convincing enough to make the guard unlock the cell door, and walk over to
take a suspicious look at him. Edgar redoubled his cries and moans, and rolled
his eyes up into his head so that only the whites were exposed.

Shark McManus
softly stepped up behind the guard and hooked his revolver, pickpocket-style,
out of his holster. Then he called, ‘Okay, man, the
plague’s
over for now!’

The guard swung
around, reaching for a revolver that wasn’t there. McManus was holding the gun
in both hands, and there was a wan grin on his foxy face.

‘Throw your
keys down,’ he said.
‘On the floor, man, and no shit!’

The guard did
as he was told. Edgar got down off his bunk, and stood uncertainly beside Shark
– a reluctant lawbreaker who found himself increasingly committed to evading
justice. He tried to smile reassuringly at the cop, but the cop just glared at
him, and said nothing.

They locked the
guard in their own cell, and walked swiftly and quietly along the corridor to
the stairs.

Upstairs,
treading as silently as they could, they found that McManus was right. The
police station was almost deserted, except for a switchboard operator who was
sitting behind a glass division with his back to them, busily dealing with
emergency calls. They crossed the polished lobby, and they were out through the
swing doors and into the night before anyone could notice.

‘You see,’ said
McManus, ‘it’s a piece of cake.’

Edgar said
nothing. Now he was out of jail, he felt less inclined to keep McManus with
him. But a promise was a promise – and even more persuasive than Edgar’s honor
was the fact that McManus was now armed. Edgar said, ‘This way,’ and they began
to walk through the night towards the crossroads.

They kept as
close as they could to buildings and shadows, but even Edgar doubted if anyone
was out looking for them. The night was different – there was a curious
atmosphere about it that made him both excited and fearful. He could hear
ambulance sirens warbling along the highway to Newark, and there was hardly any
traffic around at all. A couple of police cars passed them by, and they
squeezed themselves in the doorway of a delicatessen, but the cars were
silently speeding on a more important errand, their red lights flashing
urgently through the dark.

‘How far is
your house now?’ asked Shark McManus. ‘You know that when they start looking,
that’s the first place they’re gonna check up on.’

‘Just around
the next corner,’ panted Edgar. ‘That’s it – the one with the hacienda
ironwork.’

McManus nodded.
‘Nice residence, man.
Looks like it pays to run a
supermarket.’

Edgar glanced at
him and said nothing. McManus added, edgily, ‘Well, I guess you have to make
allowances for accidental damage.’

Edgar rang the
door-chimes. There was a long pause, and for a moment he thought that Tammy had
gone away, or was lying upstairs dead. But then the light went on in the hall,
and she came to the door in her pink dressing gown and curlers.

‘Edgar! What’s
happened? Did they let you out?’ Edgar stepped quickly inside the house,
hurried Shark McManus in after him, and closed the door. He kissed Tammy, and
held her close to him, for a moment too overwhelmed to speak.

‘Er – Tammy,
this is someone who helped me.’

‘Someone who helped you?
What do you mean?’

‘We just broke
out of the jail. The plague is everywhere, Tammy, and they’re not even looking
for us. We have to get away.’

Tammy was
incredulous. ‘You broke out?
But why?’

‘Tammy, we have
to get away. Shark says there are bodies in the streets – out at the
crossroads. The plague is everywhere. There are people dying like flies.’

‘That’s true,
ma’am,’ nodded McManus.
‘Flies.’
Tammy looked from
Shark to Edgar and back again. ‘It said on the news it was okay. They said the
state was in quarantine, and that nobody was supposed to leave, but it was all
right if you stayed indoors.’

Shark shook his
head.
‘Baloney.
I been out on the street and I seen
it. This thing kills you like you wouldn’t believe. I saw four stiffs on
main street
alone. I rolled a couple of ‘em for jewelry.
They must have died instant.’ Tammy frowned anxiously at Shark, and said,
‘Edgar – is this boy a criminal?’

Shark held out
his hand. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about me, ma’am. I’m strictly from petty
larceny. You know – phone booths, that kind of stuff. I just came along with
your husband here to help.’

Edgar took
Tammy’s arm, and gripped it firmly to communicate his tension and his
seriousness. ‘Darling – this is our only chance. Shark knows the streets, and
how to avoid the law. He got me out of jail in about five minutes. I swear it.
Apart from that, he has a gun.’