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Jennings finished his beer and struggled to his feet. “Might as well go home and face the music.”

Sturbridge told Maisie later, “Believe me, Jennings has really got it in for the hospital. Figures it’s all their fault. If Tanker had been allowed to die complete and natural as God intended, there wouldn’t be any trouble, as he sees it. He’s lining up all the heirs and if this deal costs them money, they’ll get it out of the hospital if they can. Legal costs, mental anguish, loss of time—they’ll hit them for all of that and any money they may lose from the estate.”

Sturbridge leaned on his elbows. “The hell of it is, three weeks ago that bunch of heirs were thick as thieves going over plans for new houses and picking out interior decorators, and now they hate each other. Everyone thinks someone should have stopped the transplants. And they all agree it’s Jennings’ and Hartman’s fault. But I was feeling a little teed off that night because they were going to get all that money, so I didn’t sound very enthusiastic. Now they all think if they had listened to me they’d be home free. And they would. So we’re ahead. Maisie, let’s go to bed.”

Sturbridge basically did not care whether the Tanker heirs or the Tanker transplants got the estate, or how they shared it. With Tony Krillus, however, he had to recognize that a transplant wasn’t just a surgical stunt ending in success or failure. After stewing it over for several days, he wrote a fifth article. “They Live Again” was syndicated nationwide and brought in sacks of mail. He had touched a nerve.

The Tanker case became the subject in Tankerville. To get an expert opinion, place a bet, or get your face kicked in for expressing your own view too freely was easy. Believing that in union there was strength, Yates had everyone who had received a transplant from Tanker convinced he was entitled to part of the estate. Those patients who had died were represented by their families. Anyone who had kept part of Tanker alive or was still keeping part of him alive was a relative; this was the line on which the battle would be fought.

The hospital called and asked for a conference. Sturbridge was relieved, because Jennings had been getting more and more fidgety. They met in Lawrence Jennings’ office: five of them. Dr. Wingate, Chief of Surgery; Cutler, Chief Attorney; Hartman, Jennings, and Sturbridge.

Jennings said, “None of us have any idea where we really stand, so no sense sitting here trying to bluff each other. Do you agree with me that what we want is some way to kill this whole silly lawsuit? If we can do that, we have no problem. If we can’t, we won’t know for several months or years, and then we can settle down to our mutual bloodletting.”

There was a certain amount of huffing and puffing by the lawyers, during which Jennings distributed drinks and beer and put out potato chips and peanuts; then he called the meeting to order by saying, “Bullshit, Holly. Let’s get down to real cases. Can the hospital make the diagnosis of legally dead stand, and if they can will you lawyers be able to get the court to accept it so we can go ahead and probate Tanker’s will?” He looked around. “What do you think, Doc?”

Dr. Wingate was a spare alert man in his early forties. His eyes twinkled. “I think we’re being led up a damned daisy trail by this lawyer, Yates,” he said. “To the legal mind a man is either dead or alive. Not so. We’ve got instruments sensitive enough to detect electrical and chemical changes in a dead man in the ice box in the morgue. The law says when a licensed physician pronounces a man legally dead, he is dead. Doctors have made mistakes and can still make mistakes. Everyone in the transplant business is afraid of arguments about this. So we set up a committee. Just remember that, Mr. Jennings, five of our best doctors said Mr. Tanker was dead. If the court says that won’t do, that we have to wait until every possible evidence of activity is gone, then that is the end of the transplant business.”

“I don’t want to be unpleasant,” Jennings said, “but suppose they come right out and say you were a little bit quick about taking parts out of John. What then?”

“They’ve been through this in other places,” said Cutler, the hospital attorney. “The releases they sign are pretty comprehensive.”

Jennings looked at the two lawyers. “Do you fellows feel that with the permits and the evidence of the five doctors you can knock this out of court?”

The two lawyers buzzed together, then Hartman said, “As the law stands now we’re in. If the judge decides to dream up a new law, then God alone knows.”

Jennings took a swallow of beer, wiped his mouth, and looked around the table. His gaze settled on Sturbridge. “Walter,” he said, “you got anything to offer?”

“Yes,” Sturbridge said, “but it doesn’t help any and you won’t like it.”

“I can’t see how we can be any worse off,” Jennings said. “Shoot.”

Sturbridge said. “I’m not a doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief but I am a reporter, and I would like to ask Dr. Wingate a few questions to clear up what I want to say.”

“Go to it.” Dr. Wingate said.

“Everyone, subconsciously, thinks of a person as actually living in his head somewhere. Certainly not in his liver or heart. We were talking about it and realized that a person can lose arms, legs, gall bladder, spleen, appendix, and can be deaf, dumb and blind but we regard them as still being the same person. But suppose you take their head off and keep all the rest of the body living—would it still be the same person. Dr. Wingate?”

“We’ve never done that,” Dr. Wingate said.

“Just suppose. Doctor.” Sturbridge said.

Wingate looked at him and smiled. “I’ll be damned if Iknow.”

Sturbridge turned to the lawyers. “How about you?” he asked.

They buzzed some more. “Maybe,” they said.

“Then let’s take it a step further.” Sturbridge said, “and imagine that Dr. Wingate and his team over at University Hospital take the head off John Brown and put it on the body of Bill Smith and the operation is a perfect success. What’s the name of the survivor? What are his legal rights to the two estates, to the estate of John Brown, whose head he has, and to the estate of Bill Smith, whose body he has?” He looked at Hartman.

“He’s still John Brown and he owns whatever John Brown owned and that’s it,” Hartman said.

“Now let’s imagine that John Brown, who contributed the head, isn’t worth a nickel, but that Bill Smith, who put in the body, is worth ten million dollars. How would you feel about that?” Sturbridge looked at Cutler, the hospital attorney.

Cutler stuck his lower lip out. “There would be one hell of a lawsuit.”

“That’s what you’re going to have,” Sturbridge said, looking around. “While I’m being my poisonous self, I’ve got one more. Tell me, Dr. Wingate, doesn’t any bunch of cells whether they’re in a plant, or a heart, or a kidney have a natural right to live by whatever means they can?”

“It's the struggle for existence,” Dr. Wingate said. “All evolution depends on it.”

“Right,” Sturbridge said. “So tell me. who has the authority to sign away this natural right of Tanker’s heart or kidneys to try and keep on living? Even if the only way they can find to do it is to get Dr. Wingate to put them in somebody else? Does anybody? And if nobody can, then why can’t Tanker’s heart or kidney look to Tanker's estate for food, shelter, amusement and medical care, even though the host Dr. Wingate selected—even if it’s Tony Krillus—has to receive all these things at the same time?”

“Your question makes me realize I’m just a surgeon and damn glad of it.” Dr. Wingate said.