“Can he keep his mouth shut?”

“Sure, I reckon. He’s a good enough old boy.”

The automatic feed kicked off. Hap squeezed off another twenty cents worth, then put the nozzle back on the pump and switched it off. He walked back to Joe Bob.

“So? What’s the story?”

“Well, let’s go inside. I guess the old fella ought to hear, too. And if you get a chance, you can phone the rest of them that was here.”

They walked across the tarmac and into the office.

“A good mornin to you, Officer,” Vic said.

Joe Bob nodded.

“Coffee, Joe Bob?” Hap asked.

“I guess not.” He looked at them heavily. “Thing is, I don’t know how my superiors would like me bein here at all. I don’t think they would. So when those guys come here, you don’t let them know I tipped you, right?”

“What guys, Officer?” Vic asked.

“Health Department guys,” Joe Bob said.

Vic said, “Oh Jesus, it was cholera. I knowed it was.”

Hap looked from one to the other. “Joe Bob?”

“I don’t know nothing,” Joe Bob said, sitting down in one of the plastic Woolco chairs. His bony knees came nearly up to his neck. He took a pack of Chesterfields from his blouse pocket and lit up. “Finnegan, there, the coroner—”

“That was a smartass,” Hap said fiercely. “You should have seen him struttin around in here, Joe Bob. Just like a pea turkey that got its first hardon. Shushin people and all that.”

“He’s a big turd in a little bowl, all right,” Joe Bob agreed. “Well, he got Dr. James to look at this Campion, and the two of them called in another doctor that I don’t know. Then they got on the phone to Houston. And around three this mornin they come into that little airport outside of Braintree.”

“Who did?”

“Pathologists. Three of them. They were in there with the bodies until about eight o’clock. Cuttin on em is my guess, although I dunno for sure. Then they got on the phone to the Plague Center in Atlanta, and those guys are going to be here this afternoon. But they said in the meantime that the State Health Department was to send some fellas out here and see all the guys that were in the station last night, and the guys that drove the rescue unit to Braintree. I dunno, but it sounds to me like they want you quarantined.”

“Moses in the bulrushes,” Hap said, frightened.

“The Atlanta Plague Center’s federal,” Vic said. “Would they send out a planeload of federal men just for cholera?”

“Search me,” Joe Bob said. “But I thought you guys had a right to know. From all I heard, you just tried to lend a hand.”

“It’s appreciated, Joe Bob,” Hap said slowly. “What did James and this other doctor say?”

“Not much. But they looked scared. I never seen doctors look scared like that. I didn’t much care for it.”

A heavy silence fell. Joe Bob went to the drink machine and got a bottle of Fresca. The faint hissing sound of carbonation was audible as he popped the cap. As Joe Bob sat down again, Hap took a Kleenex from the box next to the cash register, wiped his runny nose, and folded it into the pocket of his greasy overall.

“What have you found out about Campion?” Vic asked. “Anything?”

“We’re still checking,” Joe Bob said with a trace of importance. “His ID says he was from San Diego, but a lot of the stuff in his wallet was two and three years out of date. His driver’s license was expired. He had a BankAmericard that was issued in 1986 and that was expired, too. He had an army card so we’re checking with them. The captain has a hunch that Campion hadn’t lived in San Diego for maybe four years.”

“AWOL?” Vic asked. He produced a big red bandanna, hawked, and spat into it.

“Dunno yet. But his army card said he was in until 1997, and he was in civvies, and he was with his family, and he was a fuck of a long way from California, and listen to my mouth run.”

“Well, I’ll get in touch with the others and tell em what you said, anyway,” Hap said. “Much obliged.”

Joe Bob stood up. “Sure. Just keep my name out of it. I sure wouldn’t want to lose my job. Your buddies don’t need to know who tipped you, do they?”

“No,” Hap said, and Vic echoed it.

As Joe Bob went to the door, Hap said a little apologetically: “That’s five even for gas, Joe Bob. I hate to charge you, but with things the way they are—”

“That’s okay.” Joe Bob handed him a credit card. “State’s payin. And I got my credit slip to show why I was here.”

While Hap was filling out the slip he sneezed twice.

“You want to watch that,” Joe Bob said. “Nothin any worse than a summer cold.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Suddenly, from behind them, Vic said: “Maybe it ain’t a cold.”

They turned to him. Vic looked frightened.

“I woke up this morning sneezin and hackin away like sixty,” Vic said. “Had a mean headache, too. I took some aspirins and it’s gone back some, but I’m still full of snot. Maybe we’re coming down with it. What that Campion had. What he died of.”

Hap looked at him for a long time, and as he was about to put forward all his reasons why it couldn’t be, he sneezed again.

Joe Bob looked at them both gravely for a moment and then said, “You know, it might not be such a bad idea to close the station, Hap. Just for today.”

Hap looked at him, scared, and tried to remember what all his reasons had been. He couldn’t think of a one. All he could remember was that he had also awakened with a headache and a runny nose. Well, everyone caught a cold once in a while. But before that guy Campion had shown up, he had been fine. Just fine.

The three Hodges kids were six, four, and eighteen months. The two youngest were taking naps, and the oldest was out back digging a hole. Lila Bruett was in the living room, watching “The Young and the Restless.” She hoped Sally wouldn’t return until it was over. Ralph Hodges had bought a big color TV when times had been better in Arnette, and Lila loved to watch the afternoon stories in color. Everything was so much prettier.

She drew on her cigarette and then let the smoke out in spasms as a racking cough seized her. She went into the kitchen and spat the mouthful of crap she had brought up down the drain. She had gotten up wrath the cough, and all day it had felt like someone was tickling the back of her throat with a feather.

She went back to the living room after taking a peek out the pantry window to make sure Bert Hodges was okay. A commercial was on now, two dancing bottles of toilet bowl cleaner. Lila let her eyes drift around the room and wished her own house looked this nice. Sally’s hobby was doing paint-by-the-numbers pictures of Christ, and they were all over the living room in nice frames. She especially liked the big one of the Last Supper mounted in back of the TV; it had come with sixty different oil colors, Sally had told her, and it took almost three months to finish. It was a real work of art.

Just as her story came back on, Baby Cheryl started to cry, a whooping, ugly yell broken by bursts of coughing.

Lila put out her cigarette and hurried into the bedroom. Eva, the four-year-old, was still fast asleep, but Cheryl was lying on her back in her crib, and her face was going an alarming purple color. Her cries began to sound strangled.

Lila, who was not afraid of the croup after seeing both of her own through bouts with it, picked her up by the heels and swatted her firmly on the back. She had no idea if Dr. Spock recommended this sort of treatment or not, because she had never read him. It worked nicely on Baby Cheryl. She emitted a froggy croak and suddenly spat an amazing wad of yellow phlegm out onto the floor.

“Better?” Lila asked.

“Yeth,” said Baby Cheryl. She was almost asleep again.

Lila wiped up the mess with a Kleenex. She couldn’t remember ever having seen a baby cough up so much snot all at once.

She sat down in front of “The Young and the Restless” again, frowning. She lit another cigarette, sneezed over the first puff, and then began to cough herself.