Due Preparations for the Plague

“You know,” she confides, “I only go to bed with men powerful enough to have code names. I went to bed once with a man whose code name was Goliath, but he was too much of a Philistine for my taste. Another time, I had sex with Arctic Fox, but it left me cold. And then there was Salamander, whoosh, what a slitherer, what a firecracker, comes like a rocket. I had to turn the hose on him, but it didn’t douse his flame for one second. That guy is burning, burning, burning, first cousin to a desert wind. Keep your fire extinguisher handy when Salamander’s around because he knows about explosions before they come, and he knows where the hot sirocco blows.

“Did you hear the one about the former head of the CIA who made a deal with bin Laden? ‘Look,’ he says to bin Laden, ‘it’s the year 2000, and we know you’ve got a millennial itch. You need global publicity and global sympathy. We need to nail your ass. Neither of us can make a move, because we know everything you plan to do before you do it, and you know every countermove we plan to take. We’re both stalemated. So here’s a proposal. How about we bankroll a movie, Getting Osama, with a look-alike actor? In the movie, your cave stronghold is infiltrated by Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford. Your guys catch them. Our guys survive barbaric Islamic persuasion. They get their hands cut off, then their ears. They don’t talk. They escape and blow your compound and the entire Taliban army to smithereens. In the movie, only your little son survives the blast, and Harrison Ford gives him his pack of baseball cards and takes him back to California. When your son asks Sammy Sosa for his autograph, there’s not a dry eye in the house. Your little boy becomes an icon like Elian Gonzalez. Think of the public relations coup. As far as global opinion is concerned, depending on political allegiance, of course, you die a tragic hero or you got what was coming to you. Either way, the violence ends, the famine ends, the suffering ends, and the whole world loves your little son.’

“‘What’s the catch?’ bin Laden wants to know.

“‘The catch is, we film on location in Afghanistan.’”

And so it goes, and so it goes.

Even by candlelight, there are men who murmur comments into handheld dictaphones. But stand-up comics are like jesters in the court of medieval kings. They can take liberties. They can get away with murder, so to speak. They can make fools of those who walk in the corridors of power, and the powerful love them for it. The powerful court them. They offer proposals and enticements. They seek occasions to compile a photographic dossier in case the need for future blackmail should arise.

“My dear,” a silver-haired gentleman says, stroking Samantha’s thigh. “What a wickedly delicious mind you have. May I buy you a drink?”

(Will you walk into my parlor? says the spider to the fly.

There’s a microphone behind me and a hidden camera eye.)

“You may buy me anything you please,” Samantha says, low and sultry, making sheep’s eyes and sitting on his lap.

“Excuse me,” some clumsy lout says, lurching against her. She is doused in ice cubes and scotch, and the drunken bungler catches hold of her wrist.

“Sam,” he says, low and intense, “are you out of your mind?”

“Jacob,” she murmurs, her lips against his ear, “mind your own damn business.”

“I’m minding it,” he whispers.

“You are sabotaging weeks of preparation.”

“I’m saving your skin. I’ll meet you out on the street in fifteen minutes. Be there.” Samantha shakes her head in a gesture of incredulity. “Can you believe this?” she says to the silver-haired gentleman, brushing scotch from her bag-lady shirt. “I’m soaked. I’ll have to go change.”

3. Phoenix One, Phoenix Two (#ulink_77b8d638-af29-5415-b199-178ef9e68fa7)

“You’re sailing way too close to the wind, Sam. It’s stupid and it’s dangerous.”

“Part of the fallout, isn’t it? We’re all addicted to risk.”

“Is that so?” Jacob lines up cardboard drink coasters, three round ones on his left, two diamond-shaped ones on his right. He moves a round one from the left side to the right and places it between the two diamonds. He frowns, considering this equation, then moves it back. The tavern they are in is small and dimly lit, which suits them. Ironically, they seem to need confined spaces.

“It’s well known,” Samantha says flippantly. She is at pains to be flippant with Jacob, to stop herself sliding into him. Sometimes their edges match so exactly that a waiter will bring them only one drink. Nutrient fusion, Jacob calls it. No; ego confusion, Sam insists. Phoenix One and Phoenix Two are the names they are known by in their circle—sometimes for particular kinds of communication, sometimes for a grim private joke—but they are Siamesed from the same charcoal pit, two barbecued peas in a pod. Their circle is small and exclusive. The members call themselves the Phoenix Club, and they mostly make contact via the Web.

“Risk addiction’s commonplace for our lot,” Samantha says. “For all survivors. Earthquake survivors, rape survivors, whatever. There’s a special section in bookstores now: survival lit. Articles all over the place. You must have read some.”

“Not my cup of tea.”

“Well, I’m telling you, whether you want to know about it or not, risk addiction’s part of the syndrome. There’s statistical evidence, conferences, papers, proceedings, God knows what. Interesting to speculate on the reasons, don’t you think? And if you want to know why I’m babbling on like this, it’s because that disapproving look of yours upsets me.”

“There are certain kinds of risk that you don’t have the right to take.”

“Why not?”

“Because they put all of us in greater jeopardy, that’s why.”

“We’re all in perpetual jeopardy anyway. Don’t we take that as a given?”

“That’s why we have a certain understanding.”

“Right,” Samantha snaps. “We understand that all of us manage in whatever way we can and we don’t sit in judgment on each other. I don’t judge, you don’t judge, he doesn’t judge, we don’t judge—”

“But we do keep an eye out for each other. That’s part of the deal.” He touches Samantha’s cheek. “You’re manic,” he says uneasily. “What are you on?”

“On getting somewhere. On the trail getting hot. On nailing down answers.”

“Sam, Sam. There aren’t any answers. Or none that will make the slightest difference.”

“It’s amazing what I’m learning from next-of-kin. It’s amazing what the website brings in.”

“You’re burning yourself up.”

“I’m on fire,” she acknowledges, “but I’m learning plenty. I’m doing this for the future. I’m doing this for the historical record. As well as for my thesis in American history, don’t forget. It’s like a map coming into focus.”

“The Phoenix Club’s one thing. We need each other. It helps, keeping contact, it helps us all. But you’re casting your net too wide. You’re drawing dangerous attention.”

“I need to draw fire. I know exactly what I’m doing and I’m careful.”

“You’re reckless.” He clenches his hands together. He leans across the table, his forearms over the line-up of coasters. He looks like a gambler shielding a spread of cards. “We need each other to survive, Sam. We need each other too much. If something happened to you—”

“It won’t.”

“If something did—”

“What can happen to someone who’s indifferent to what happens?”

“Enough.”

“We’re immune to harm, Jacob, or we wouldn’t be here. You can’t snuff a phoenix out.”

“Unfortunately, you can.” He pulls at his fingers and the knuckles make an ominous sound. He looks more ravaged than usual. “I went to see Cassie yesterday.”

“Ah,” Samantha says uneasily. “How is she?”

“Getting worse, I think.”

“So that’s what all this is about.”

“Not only that.”

Jacob blinks, slowly and heavily. He makes Samantha think of an owl and the thought trips a nervous tic in her hand. Her thumb, of its own free will, does a little series of calisthenics. “You had that look on your face,” she says, “when the news broke—”