BUZZ KILL

The mosquito had been in Fort Stockton considerably longer than Lyle David Goodhue, and if seniority counted for anything, it intended to remain.

It had survived drought, flash flood, cattle, sheep, screen doors, rolled newspapers, kerosene, profanity, and generations of West Texans who believed anything small enough to be killed with one hand did not deserve the expense of a second. It had learned to breed wherever two tablespoons of water could remain undisturbed for forty-eight hours. Horse troughs. Rain barrels. Irrigation ditches. Tin cans. Flowerpots. The mysterious green puddle behind the Lucky Lady Lounge that nobody admitted knowing anything about. Fort Stockton mosquitoes were not especially numerous by Gulf Coast standards, but what they lacked in population they compensated for with ambition.

They were also hungry.

Which was unfortunate for Lyle David Goodhue and William N. Sullivan, who arrived in Fort Stockton one warm evening in 1941 aboard approximately two tons of polished evidence that somebody had recently come into money.

Goodhue’s new Cadillac was a black 1941 Series 62 Convertible Coupe Deluxe, and it entered town with the solemn magnificence of a Pullman car that had somehow escaped the railroad. Cadillac had restyled its automobiles that year, lowering the hood and giving the front end a broad rectangular grille surrounded by enough chrome to make approaching insects reconsider their appearance. The headlights had migrated into the fenders. Parking lamps were tucked into the grille. A Cadillac crest sat proudly above the brightwork, and a hood ornament rode ahead of everything like a tiny silver herald announcing that whatever was coming behind it cost more than your house.

The beige power-operated top was raised against the dust. Beneath the black fenders were red-painted fifteen-inch steel wheels, chrome Cadillac hubcaps and broad whitewall tires. Rear wheel skirts concealed most of the back tires because Cadillac apparently considered the sight of a complete wheel vulgar. A spotlight and mirror stood on the driver’s side. The split windshield leaned back just enough to suggest speed without making any promises the law would object to.

Inside was red leather.

Acres of it.

The front bench was red leather. The rear bench was red leather. The door panels were red. The carpet was dark red. The dashboard was wood-grained and filled with chrome knobs, a push-button AM radio, heater controls and instruments arranged around a 100-mph speedometer whose upper numbers were probably included primarily to encourage optimism. Ahead of the driver stood a large ivory steering wheel. Beneath the hood was Cadillac’s 346-cubic-inch Monobloc L-head V8, rated at 150 horsepower and connected to a three-speed manual transmission shifted from the steering column.

The engine made the sort of sound that suggested internal combustion had recently graduated from college.

Goodhue eased the Cadillac beneath the awning of the Cattle Baron Hotel and shut it down.

For a few seconds, the engine ticked quietly in the evening heat.

Then something landed on Sullivan’s neck.

He slapped himself.

Goodhue looked over.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Sullivan examined his palm.

There was blood on it.

“Something bit me.”

Goodhue glanced toward the hotel.

“You’re in Texas.”

That seemed sufficient explanation.

They checked into the Cattle Baron, carried their bags upstairs, washed two hundred miles of West Texas from their faces and decided that civilization required a drink before bed. Someone at the desk directed them to the Lucky Lady Lounge, two blocks away, with the qualification that the word lounge had been selected by the owner rather than an independent accreditation board.

They walked.

The evening was warm and nearly still. Somewhere beyond town a pump engine thumped with monotonous patience. The smell of dust mingled with creosote, gasoline, hot pavement and cattle from sufficiently far away to remain an abstraction. Porch lights had begun coming on. Moths orbited them in pale, suicidal circles.

And mosquitoes rose from the darkness.

One found Goodhue’s wrist.

Another found Sullivan’s ear.

A third flew directly into Sullivan’s mouth.

He stopped walking.

Goodhue turned around.

Sullivan spat into the street.

“Bug.”

“Don’t eat them.”

“I didn’t order it.”

They continued toward the Lucky Lady.

By the time they reached the door, Sullivan had been bitten on both arms, behind his left ear and through one sock. Goodhue had three welts on his neck. Something buzzed around his hair. He waved it away.

Inside, the Lucky Lady smelled of beer, cigarette smoke, whiskey, floor wax and the accumulated disappointments of people who had expected Thursday to turn out better.

They took two stools.

The bartender set down their drinks.

Sullivan slapped his forearm.

“Dammit.”

The bartender looked.

“Mosquito.”

“I know what it is.”

“Then you’re ahead of most tourists.”

Goodhue was rubbing the back of his neck.

“Are they always this bad?”

The bartender considered the question.

“Naw.”

Goodhue relaxed.

“Sometimes they’re worse.”

Sullivan stared at him.

A local man two stools away raised his whiskey.

“Big ones ain’t out yet.”

Sullivan slowly turned.

“Big ones?”

“These are mostly females.”

“What difference does that make?”

“They’re the ones that bite.”

Goodhue looked down at a mosquito feeding on the back of his hand.

He allowed it another second.

Then flattened it.

“I work for the United States Department of Agriculture.”

The local nodded.

“Well, you ought to know better than to stand around outside.”

That ended the scientific portion of the evening.

They returned to the Cattle Baron shortly afterward, moving at a pace just below running because running would have suggested fear and both men still possessed reputations.

At 6:40 the following morning, they checked out.

At 6:43 they checked back in.

The reason was inside the Cadillac.

Sullivan opened the passenger door first.

The red leather interior appeared to be moving.

Mosquitoes clung to the windshield. They sat on the dashboard. They rested on the seats. They occupied the rear compartment in sufficient numbers to suggest they had held a meeting during the night and elected officers. Several floated lazily beneath the beige convertible top. One perched on the ivory steering wheel at approximately ten o’clock, thereby claiming the driver’s position.

Sullivan closed the door.

Goodhue looked at him.

“Well?”

“No.”

“No what?”

“Just no.”

Goodhue opened the driver’s door.

The buzzing intensified.

He closed it.

“That’s impressive.”

“That’s not the word I had.”

They stood beside the Cadillac.

A bellman came out carrying their luggage.

“Problem?”

Goodhue pointed through the glass.

The bellman looked.

“Mosquitoes.”

“We know.”

The bellman nodded.

“Want me to put your bags back?”

“Yes.”

He picked them up.

“Same room?”

“Yes.”

The bellman started toward the hotel.

Sullivan called after him.

“Doesn’t this seem unusual to you?”

The bellman turned.

“What?”

Sullivan pointed furiously at the Cadillac.

The bellman looked at it again.

“Nice car.”

Then he went inside.

That was the precise moment Fort Stockton ceased being an overnight stop and became a scientific problem.

Goodhue and Sullivan were not strangers to insects. Both men worked in the government’s entomological research establishment, where entire careers could be spent studying creatures most Americans considered worthy only of immediate death. Mosquito control was serious work. Malaria remained a genuine threat, particularly in warm climates, and the world had recently developed an alarming habit of sending large numbers of young men to warm climates carrying rifles.

The problem wasn’t merely finding something that killed mosquitoes.

People already had insecticides.

The problem was putting the insecticide where the mosquito was.

A mosquito did not generally cooperate by sitting patiently on a saucer while a government scientist applied poison with an eyedropper.

Goodhue stared through the Cadillac window.

The insects floated through the enclosed cabin.

Air.

That was the battlefield.

They needed to put the poison into the air.

Not droplets.

Not a stream.

Not a wet spray that fell immediately onto the floor.

Something finer.

A cloud.

Goodhue looked at Sullivan.

“We’re staying.”

Sullivan scratched his ankle.

“I gathered that.”

By noon they had rented an empty storefront across the alley from the Piggly Wiggly.

The building had previously housed, depending upon whom one asked, a feed concern, a shoe repair shop, a taxidermist or an illegal card room. There was physical evidence supporting all four possibilities. The front room contained a counter, several shelves, a sink with one functioning faucet and a ceiling fan that rotated at a speed incapable of moving air but entirely sufficient to distribute dust.

The landlord asked what they intended to do.

“Entomological experimentation.”

The landlord waited.

“Insect control.”

Nothing.

“We’re killing mosquitoes.”

His face brightened.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

Within two days, half of Fort Stockton knew.

Within four, everyone did.

The first experiments involved conventional hand sprayers. Goodhue and Sullivan tested different formulations and nozzle arrangements, trying to create droplets fine enough to remain suspended. They sprayed screens. They sprayed boxes. They sprayed jars. They sprayed a wooden enclosure containing mosquitoes and nearly suffocated themselves when Sullivan opened it too soon.

The mosquitoes survived.

Goodhue coughed for eleven minutes.

“Write that down.”

Sullivan’s eyes were watering.

“What?”

“Mixture Four. Ineffective against mosquitoes.”

Sullivan leaned against the wall.

“What about people?”

“Promising.”

Mixture Five killed seven mosquitoes and removed the varnish from a stool.

Mixture Six killed nothing but smelled so terrible that the Piggly Wiggly manager came across the alley and asked whether a mule had died.

Mixture Seven produced a beautiful suspended fog.

They congratulated themselves.

Then the fog settled.

The mosquitoes resumed biting.

Mixture Eight rendered the insects motionless.

Goodhue and Sullivan celebrated prematurely.

Twenty minutes later the mosquitoes recovered.

One immediately bit Sullivan.

He stared at the welt.

“They’re angry now.”

“Don’t anthropomorphize them.”

“Lyle, that one made eye contact.”

Fort Stockton began taking an interest.

People stopped by.

Not to help.

To watch.

There is an important distinction.

A barber brought a folding chair and sat outside for nearly an hour. Two ranch hands spent their lunch break leaning against the Piggly Wiggly loading dock. A woman from the hotel brought a pie because she had heard the government men were “trying to invent bug death.” Three schoolboys peered through the window until Sullivan put them to work washing jars.

Then somebody made the mistake of mentioning that they needed live mosquitoes.

The following morning a boy arrived carrying a Mason jar.

“Got eleven.”

Goodhue held it toward the light.

There were indeed mosquitoes inside.

“Where did you get these?”

“Cistern.”

Goodhue looked at Sullivan.

Sullivan looked at the boy.

“How much?”

The boy had not previously considered the possibility that mosquitoes possessed monetary value.

“Nickel.”

Sullivan gave him a nickel.

By sundown the market had collapsed.

Children arrived from every direction carrying jars, bottles, jelly glasses and one milk container with a rag tied across the top. A girl delivered thirty-seven mosquitoes and demanded fifteen cents. Two brothers attempted to sell the same jar twice. Someone brought larvae. Someone else brought a wasp.

One boy produced a quart Mason jar containing three mosquitoes, two flies, a moth and an insect Goodhue could not immediately identify.

“Those aren’t all mosquitoes.”

“Jar’s a nickel.”

“We’re paying for mosquitoes.”

The boy shrugged.

“Rest are free.”

Goodhue paid him.

The laboratory developed a smell.

At first it smelled merely chemical.

Then it acquired layers.

Pyrethrum. Oil. Solvents. Hot metal. Cigarette smoke. Sweat. Dust. Coffee. The peculiar medicinal sweetness of substances whose labels contained more syllables than reassurance. By the second week the odor had penetrated their clothing. Sullivan claimed he could taste it in scrambled eggs.

Goodhue claimed this was impossible.

The waitress at the Cattle Baron refused to serve them near the kitchen.

The Cadillac remained outside the hotel.

Its beautiful black paint accumulated dust. The whitewalls acquired a tan edge. The red leather was wiped clean repeatedly, but mosquitoes continued finding their way inside, as though word had spread through the local insect community that Cadillac had opened a private club.

Sullivan wanted to leave.

Goodhue wanted one more experiment.

This disagreement repeated itself daily.

The breakthrough came not from finding a new insecticide, but from reconsidering how to deliver one.

Liquefied gas under pressure.

A container.

A valve.

A formulation capable of being expelled not as a wet stream but as an extraordinarily fine mist.

They worked with pyrethrum-based mixtures and a liquefied propellant. Pressure would force the contents through a small opening. Once released, the propellant would flash away, leaving tiny insecticidal droplets suspended in the air.

That was the theory.

The first container leaked.

The second clogged.

The third sprayed backward.

The fourth worked beautifully for approximately three seconds before the valve stuck open.

Goodhue threw it onto the floor.

The can spun in circles.

PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST.

Sullivan jumped onto a chair.

Goodhue opened the door.

The barber outside stood up.

A white cloud poured into the alley.

The Piggly Wiggly manager appeared.

“What happened?”

Goodhue coughed.

“Valve malfunction.”

The manager sniffed.

“Smells better than Tuesday.”

The can finally stopped.

Silence returned.

Sullivan climbed down.

“Did it work?”

Goodhue looked around.

Dead mosquitoes covered the windowsill.

They stared at them.

Then they stared at each other.

Neither man said anything.

Because sometimes the difference between comedy and history is whether the stupid thing works.

They repeated the experiment.

Then repeated it again.

Different concentrations. Different pressures. Different valves. Different nozzle openings. Different exposure times.

Again.

Mosquitoes died.

Not eventually.

Quickly.

The mist reached them in the air.

That was what mattered.

A mosquito did not have to land on a treated wall. It did not have to crawl across poison. The insecticide could occupy the same space the mosquito occupied.

Air had become the delivery system.

The locals remained unconvinced.

A rancher examined one prototype.

“So it’s a can.”

“Yes.”

“Full of bug poison.”

“Yes.”

“And you push that.”

“Yes.”

“And bug poison comes out.”

“Correct.”

The rancher handed it back.

“You boys been here three weeks.”

Goodhue nodded.

The rancher considered this.

“We’ve had flyswatters the whole time.”

Science has always suffered from poor marketing.

Goodhue decided they needed a demonstration.

Sullivan suggested the laboratory.

Goodhue suggested something larger.

Sullivan suggested an enclosure where conditions could be controlled.

Goodhue looked out the window.

Across the street sat the Cadillac.

Sullivan followed his eyes.

“No.”

“It’s ideal.”

“No.”

“Enclosed volume.”

“No.”

“Leather surfaces make observation easy.”

“Absolutely not.”

“We can put the top up.”

“It’s your automobile.”

“Exactly.”

“Then why am I arguing?”

“I don’t know.”

They prepared the Cadillac that afternoon.

The beige top went up.

Windows closed.

They collected live mosquitoes and released them into the cabin.

This was more difficult than anticipated because mosquitoes possess no respect for experimental design.

Some escaped.

Some bit the researchers.

One disappeared beneath the dashboard.

Another settled directly on the Cadillac crest in the center of the steering wheel, which Sullivan interpreted as arrogance.

Eventually the cabin was alive with them.

They gathered around the red leather seats, hovered beneath the top and drifted across the split windshield.

Several locals had assembled.

The barber was there.

So was the Piggly Wiggly manager.

The landlord arrived carrying a chair.

The boy with the mixed-insect jar appeared despite having contributed nothing useful since Tuesday.

Goodhue held the prototype aerosol dispenser.

Sullivan looked through the window.

“How much are you going to use?”

“Enough.”

“That’s not a unit of measurement.”

“It is today.”

Goodhue opened the driver’s door.

He reached inside.

Mosquitoes swarmed toward him.

He pressed the valve.

PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST.

A fine cloud filled the Cadillac.

Goodhue withdrew his arm.

Sullivan slammed the door.

Everyone leaned toward the windows.

At first nothing happened.

The mosquitoes continued flying.

The barber scratched his chin.

The Piggly Wiggly manager folded his arms.

The landlord shifted in his chair.

Then one mosquito fell.

It landed on the red leather rear seat.

Another struck the dashboard.

Three more spiraled downward.

Then ten.

Then dozens.

They dropped from beneath the convertible top. They tumbled against the glass. They landed on the floor, the seats, the dashboard, the steering column.

Within minutes the Cadillac was still.

No buzzing.

No movement.

Goodhue pressed his face near the split windshield.

Sullivan looked through the passenger window.

“Dead?”

“I believe so.”

“Open the door.”

Goodhue looked across the roof.

“It’s your side.”

Nobody laughed.

That was strange.

For weeks Fort Stockton had treated the two government scientists as free entertainment. They had been the fellows across from Piggly Wiggly who bought mosquitoes from children and occasionally released suspicious clouds into the alley. Their failures had become local weather. Their successes had been regarded as temporary administrative errors.

But now everyone was staring through the glass of the Cadillac.

The barber took off his hat.

The Piggly Wiggly manager leaned closer.

The landlord stood up.

The boy looked at the dead mosquitoes scattered across the red leather and understood, perhaps before anyone else, that his nickel business had just been ruined.

The laughter had stopped because something had changed.

Goodhue and Sullivan knew what mosquitoes meant.

Not merely welts.

Not merely sleepless nights.

Disease.

Malaria.

And beyond Fort Stockton, beyond Texas, beyond the absurd little laboratory smelling of pyrethrum and solvents, the world was at war.

American soldiers would soon sleep beneath canvas in places where the air was hot, wet and alive. Jungles. Islands. Barracks. Field hospitals. Ships. Trenches. Temporary camps hacked from vegetation. Places where mosquitoes did not arrive one at a time but in clouds, carrying parasites from one bloodstream to another with an efficiency no army quartermaster could match.

A soldier could shoot at an enemy.

He could not shoot malaria.

But perhaps now somebody could put something beside his cot that would.

The crude pressurized dispensers Goodhue and Sullivan helped develop became known as aerosol bombs, or simply bug bombs. Their work helped make portable insecticide dispersal practical, and the devices would become valuable to American forces during the Second World War, particularly in mosquito-infested areas where malaria threatened troops almost as relentlessly as the enemy did.

The principle was elegantly simple after somebody had endured enough failures to discover it.

Put insecticide into a pressurized container.

Release it as particles fine enough to remain suspended.

Let the air carry death to the insect.

The aerosol can would eventually escape the mosquito business altogether. Paint. Deodorant. Hair spray. Lubricants. Cleaners. Food products. Medicine. Countless things would eventually emerge from pressurized containers at the push of a finger, and generations of Americans would use them without ever wondering why anyone had thought to put a valve on a can in the first place.

But in Fort Stockton, naturally, the important question was whether the Cadillac still smelled funny.

It did.

For several days.

The red leather had survived. The wood-grained dashboard had survived. The chrome survived because chrome in 1941 had apparently been designed with nuclear war in mind. Goodhue cleaned the seats. Sullivan cleaned them again. They aired the car with the beige top down beneath the West Texas sun until the interior smelled less like an agricultural experiment and more like an expensive automobile that had recently made a series of poor decisions.

Eventually the equipment was packed.

The rented building was swept.

The landlord received his key.

The Piggly Wiggly manager inspected the alley and declared it unlikely to explode.

The boys were informed that the government was no longer purchasing mosquitoes.

There was considerable disappointment.

Goodhue and Sullivan checked out of the Cattle Baron for the second time.

The bellman brought down their bags.

“Leaving?”

“That’s the plan.”

He loaded the luggage.

“Kill the bugs?”

Sullivan looked at Goodhue.

Goodhue looked at the Cadillac.

“Some of them.”

The bellman nodded.

“Plenty more.”

There was no malice in it.

Just information.

Goodhue started the Cadillac.

The 346-cubic-inch V8 caught immediately and settled into its deep idle. He worked the column shifter into first. The enormous black convertible rolled away from the Cattle Baron, its red wheels turning slowly inside those wide whitewalls, beige top folded now behind the brilliant red interior.

They passed the Lucky Lady.

They passed Piggly Wiggly.

Across the alley, the empty storefront stood with its door shut, looking once again like a building where nothing of consequence had ever happened.

At the edge of Fort Stockton, Goodhue shifted into high gear.

The Cadillac gathered speed.

Wind poured across the split windshield and into the open cabin, carrying away the last faint chemical traces of the previous weeks. The road stretched east beneath an enormous blue sky. Telephone poles clicked past. The V8 hummed. The white centerline disappeared beneath that immense chrome grille.

Sullivan settled against the red leather.

For the first time in weeks, he relaxed.

Then he heard it.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

His eyes opened.

Goodhue heard it too.

Neither man moved.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sullivan slowly turned toward him.

“No.”

Goodhue kept his eyes on the road.

“It’s probably a fly.”

Something landed on Sullivan’s forearm.

He looked down.

Mosquito.

Fat.

Female.

Fort Stockton.

Sullivan reached for the glove compartment.

Goodhue glanced over.

“Don’t.”

Sullivan opened it.

Inside was one of their prototypes.

“Lyle.”

“Leave it alone.”

“It followed us.”

“We have the top down.”

“I don’t care.”

“You spray that in here and we’re going to breathe it.”

Sullivan took the can.

Goodhue accelerated.

The mosquito lifted from Sullivan’s arm and disappeared somewhere behind the front seat.

Sullivan turned around.

“Where’d it go?”

“Put that thing away.”

“I lost it.”

“Good.”

“How is that good?”

“Because we’re doing sixty.”

The mosquito appeared beside Goodhue’s ear.

Sullivan raised the can.

Goodhue saw it.

“Sullivan.”

PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST.

The black Cadillac disappeared eastward through Pecos County trailing a faint cloud of mankind’s newest weapon against the mosquito, while its driver shouted something that would never appear in any USDA publication.

Years later, people would know the aerosol can.

Soldiers would know the bug bomb.

Historians would know Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan.

The government would know about pyrethrum, propellants, pressure, particle size and mosquito control.

And Fort Stockton?

Fort Stockton would remember two fellows who rented a building across from the Piggly Wiggly, paid children for mosquitoes, nearly poisoned themselves, filled a brand-new Cadillac with bugs on purpose and spent weeks inventing a complicated mechanical substitute for slapping yourself.

Which, when you think about it, is probably why nobody believed the story.

Until it wasn’t one.