The sound of a man and woman laughing together drew her attention across the pool. She saw a young couple, with a pair of young children about them. It made her maudlin. They looked impregnable, happy, complete. They were continually aware of each other, almost as if invisible spiderlike threads were strung between them, holding them together.
Why couldn’t she have loved someone that way? Why couldn’t she have enjoyed her children and her marriage instead of continually thinking of them as an ordeal? Her self-pity was making her feel old and tired. She tried to fight it off but couldn’t. It turned into bitterness. Those husbands would stray from those wives soon enough, she mumbled, and the wives would do the same. Their children would grow up to be self-centered and ungrateful just like hers. They were no different. Why, she thought, I bet Manny and I even looked that happy once upon a time. She tried to resurrect the images but no such memory existed.
It made her angry and she took relief in the change of emotions. Where was that idiot? How long could he sleep? Did he have to spend so many hours drinking and playing cards? Their vacation always turned out this way, him going along his own way and leaving her alone. She’d fix him. She’d make it as miserable for him as he was making it for her. Maybe she would do the drinking tonight and not come back until 4
A.M.
How would he like that for a change?
None of these vengeful thoughts really satisfied her. They left her even more miserable than before. Now the sun was getting too hot. Her shoulders felt sunburned. She was thirsty. The straps of the lounge were cutting into her back. Those damn little kids were splashing water. The band was playing too loud. She reached for her robe, slipped into her sandals and scooped up her belongings. Then she stood up abruptly and started back to the room. If that son of a bitch was still asleep …
A large group of people at the end of the pool had turned their attention to something going on down the path. It drew her curiosity so she followed the crowd to see what was happening. It was disgusting. What looked like a teenage boy was throwing up into one of the small ponds by the rock garden. Two of his friends stood nearby laughing.
An elderly man on a bench looked up at her.
“I’ll bet you anything,” he said, “that young whippersnapper drank too much
shnapps
last night. Such a shame to have to drink so much in order to be happy.”
She thought about Manny.
“You’re probably right,” she said and walked on.
Sandi opened her mother’s office door just enough to peer in. Ellen had just put the phone down and sat back. Sandi walked in further because she didn’t see Bruce seated to one side. The moment she did, she stopped.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were alone, mom.”
“That’s all right, honey. Come in. This is Mr. Solomon. Bruce, this is my daughter Sandi.”
“Hi,” Bruce said. He winked and smiled at her. Cute, she thought, moving to the desk.
“I just stopped by to take a breather.”
“Oh?”
“I was helping out at the day camp.”
“I know. Magda told me. I think that’s just great.”
“The counselors took the rest of them on a hike.”
“Rest of them?”
“Yeah. A couple of the kids had accidents.”
“My God, I hope nobody got hurt. What kind of accidents?”
“They got sick,” she said, looking at Bruce again. His face changed completely. “One made number two in her pants a few times and the other kid threw up. Right on Mary Dickson!”
“Where are these children now?” Bruce asked.
“We took them back to their parents.”
“We?” Ellen said. Sandi stared at her. Her mother’s face suddenly had a look of genuine fear. She didn’t know what to say. “
You
did?”
“Take it easy, Ellen,” Bruce said. “There are very limited ways in which this thing can be spread.”
“What thing?”
“Oh, Sandi.”
“What is it, mama?” Sandi moved around the desk to her mother’s side.
“We have big trouble, baby. Big.”
“It’s essential you understand this thing.” Bruce went on, very much tuned in to the mounting hysteria forming in Ellen’s voice. Sandi took her mother’s hand. “Wait a minute, Sandi,” he said leaning forward and extending his right hand. “Did you have any contact with … the mess the children made?”
“Contact?”
“Did you accidentally touch any of it or did any of it get on your clothes that you might have touched?”
“No.” She shook her head. “The head counselor took care of the little girl and the boy threw up on someone else. I just brought him back to the hotel.”
“Do you know if he or his counselor touched anything he threw up?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“You haven’t eaten anything since you brought him in, have you? Even a stick of gum?”
She shook her head and looked at Ellen, who seemed to be holding her breath.
“All right,” Bruce went on, relaxing some and leaning back. “Just to be on the safe side, go wash your hands real good, lots of soap and hot water, will you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just listen, Sandi.” Her mother spoke in a quick, clipped command. She let go of her hand and backed away. “Go on.”
“Isn’t anybody going to tell me what this is all about?”
“Just go wash up and come back. Then I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”
Sandi looked at Bruce again and then turned and left the office.
“You see,” Bruce began as if he had just been interrupted, “direct contact with contaminated material is our major concern.”
“There’s so much I don’t know about this. Actually, I barely know how to spell the damn word. All I do know are all sorts of horrible stories …”
“I know. That, and misinformation, lack of information, confusion—will be out biggest problems for the next few days.”
“Days? How long will the quarantine last?”
“Well, if my memory serves me correctly, we’re talking about five or six days. It’s the length of the incubation period, you see.”
“Five or six days,” Ellen murmured softly. “An awful lot can happen in five or six days.”
The State Police car was parked inconspicuously just outside the main gate. From the main building no one could see it, let alone the two uniformed men standing beside the regular Congress security guard at the small booth. Equally hidden was the police car at the side entrance usually used by the staff and a third police vehicle parked at the entrance to the guest parking lot.
The first confrontation came with the arrival of a telephone repair truck. One of the state policemen at the gate held up his hand and brought it to a halt. The driver leaned out of his window, annoyed at not being waved through.
“What’s up?”
“You can’t go in.”
“Whaddya mean I can’t go in? I have a repair order for a couple of pay phones in the coffee shop,” he said, shaking some papers at him.
“Not today.” The tall highway patrolman had a stern, military demeanor and the repairman wondered what he was doing there.
“What ’dya mean, not today?”
“The hotel grounds have been closed off. Those are our orders.”
“You’re kiddin’?” He looked at the other policeman but he offered no encouragement. “Jesus,” he said, “they sure as hell ain’t gonna believe this back at the office.”
He slammed his shift into reverse and backed the truck out. The policemen watched him go in silence. A few moments later, a light blue Chevy four-door turned into the entrance and came to a stop. There were two nurses in the front seat and three others in the back. The driver flashed some identification to the officer.
“Looks like you have your work cut out for you,” he said.
“That’s what they tell us” the nurse who was driving said. They drove on into the grounds, winding slowly down the driveway toward the main house.
“The place seems quiet enough now,” one of the patrolmen said.
“I guess the people don’t know about it yet.”
“When they find out, all hell’s gonna break loose.”
“You better believe it. The sheriff’s department’s supposed to send more cars as backup in case we run into trouble.”
“Helluva thing, turning a resort into a prison.”
“Hey,” the hotel security man said stepping out of his booth. “What happens to me?”
“Happens?”
“I’m off duty in about twenty minutes. Do I just leave?”
“Hell, no,” the taller patrolman said. “You turn your ass around and go right back into the hotel. You had lunch in there today.”
“So what? I got a home in town to go to.”
“Maybe so, but until you get authorization, you have to stay inside the grounds just like everybody else. Sorry.”
The security guard stared at them for a moment and then slammed his clipboard down on the small table inside the booth. He sat on his chair and sulked.
In the distance they could hear the siren of yet another ambulance. It had a sobering effect. Even the birds in the woods across the way seemed to have retreated deeper into the shadows.
Ellen’s office resembled the Pentagon war room. Two large portable blackboards borrowed from the hotel’s day camp were wheeled in and set up on the left. On one, a basic outline of the hotel complex had been drawn with all the exits and entrances circled in red. This was the guide to setting up barriers so that no unauthorized persons would be able to enter or exit without being checked. Rafferty, the security chief, was going over it inch by inch, marking off breaks in the fence and crossing out the areas with x’s where forest rather than fencing bordered the grounds. Sheriff Balbera stood to one side and studied the map. He had come to the hotel directly from a speaking engagement at the Concord where a contingent of law enforcement agents had gathered for the weekend. He was a tall, hard-looking man with a lean ruddy face and strong jaw, a man one would imagine more at home in a checkered shirt and jeans sitting on top of a horse somewhere than stuffed into the business suit he had on.
“Once the guests get the full story, we’ll have to expect a few of them might take to those woods there,” he said, pointing to one of the Xed out areas.
“With luggage?”
“People in a panic will do anything,” he said. He spoke with the quiet authority that automatically begets respect. Rafferty nodded. “We’ll need some men in that area patroling.”
“I’ve got my hands full with the main building already and I’m understaffed at that,” the hotel chief muttered.
“Lieutenant Fielding from the Ferndale State Police barracks should be here any minute. We’ll see if we can borrow some manpower from him.” He turned and looked at Bruce Solomon, who was seated to the right of Ellen’s desk. Bruce was taking notes as the sheriff spoke. Sid Bronstein, already exhausted and haggard, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat, his tie loosened and hair disheveled, sat behind the desk talking to his office. He was telling his receptionist to cancel all appointments and post a notice stating there would be no office hours for the rest of the weekend.
Gerson Kaplow, the local public health officer, sat on the couch seemingly detached from the events taking place around him. In fact, he was anything but. It was an open secret that medicine was not his primary interest and that the
Wall Street Journal
was infinitely more important to him than any issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association.
Kaplow was a speculator in real estate, having sunk most of his income into syndicates that bought up Catskill acreage for resale to hotel and motel chains and land and housing developers. With the possibility of gambling coming to the area, he considered it a good risk and in the last few years his medical practice had dwindled in almost direct proportion to his business activity.
He was the laughing stock of the medical community and more than once they had tried to get him ousted as public health officer. “He’s so damn stupid that if we ever had a real emergency it would turn into a tragedy, simply because he was in control.” “C’mon, fellows,” the county supervisor countered, “when’s the last time we had a real health emergency up here? Besides, he’s politically connected and there’s no way I can oust him from the board.” So he stayed.
When Bronstein had called him to the office earlier, he tried desperately to extricate himself from the involvement. First, he knew that for him it was going to mean economic suicide. Second, he wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to do in a situation like this. Cholera? He hadn’t even thought of the word for the past thirty years. Fortunately, the story had already broken at the hospital and arrangements for special facilities made. Also, the public health nurses had been contacted and the sheriff’s office informed. Ellen, in a quick, deliberate action, had contacted the police herself. She had an instinctive understanding that law and order would be serious considerations in the hours and days to follow.
There was no point in trying to fake it. The situation was too serious. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“First you have to contact the state authorities.” Sid found it hard to hide the contempt in his voice. “Then you formally have to place the hotel in quarantine.”
Quarantine. The word stuck in his throat. The word he had buried in his mind. The word he didn’t want to hear. Sweat started to pour from his face. All his investments, his entire economic future, going to hell with one brisk directive.
“You’ve got to do it,” Bronstein repeated. “You’ve got the authority.”
Authority, shit, Gerson thought. I’ve got nothing.
So now he sat half an hour later still in Ellen Golden’s office, a man watching events over which he had no control, caught in a violent downstream there was no way to fight. All he could do was be carried along like everybody else.
“I don’t consider it the source of the problem,” Bruce said, looking up from his papers, “but just to be sure, you are running a thorough analysis of the water, aren’t you?”
“Samples are being taken from every major outlet,” Kaplow said, almost by rote.
“Good. Jonathan Lawrence, the general manager, was supposed to have sent some out for analysis, but the way he’s screwed up everything else…”