William Kienzle - Deathbed

Dr. Kim said something. It might have been in his own language. It sounded like an expletive. Koesler didn’t understand it, but he recognized the tone. The others registered emotions from disgust to disappointment.

“What’s the matter?” Koesler asked of anyone.

“The head will take precedence over the hand,” Dr. Meyer explained.

“They’ll have to call in another team,” the anesthetist said.

“Looks like we could be here till midnight,” one of the nurses said.

There followed a lively discussion ranging from laws that would compel cyclists to wear helmets to the general danger of riding on anything so unprotected.

“Danger or not,” Kim said, “that is what I want.”

“What’s that?” Meyer asked.

“A bike. A big one. With horses to spare.”

Koesler was slightly surprised. He never associated the notion of doctors with their wanting anything. His concept was too generalized to be all-encompassing, but Koesler subconsciously thought doctors could buy anything they wanted. Evidently, Dr. Kim could not. Not yet. A big expensive motorcycle must be part of his planned upward mobility. The plan that Dr. Scott had described.

“I’ve got a friend with a bike like that,” Meyers said, “who wants me to go along on a ride all the way out to the West Coast. A nut.”

“Sounds terrific,” Kim said. “If you do not want to go, you might tell your friend that there is another doctor at St. Vincent’s who is willing to go along with him.”

“Who said anything about a ‘him’?”

Kim smiled. “Even better.”

The phone rang. Kim picked it up. “Yes, the cyclist . . .? He what . . .?

“You could not, eh . . .?

“Well, that is terrific news! Very good! Magnificent!” Kim hung up and turned to his team. He obviously considered himself the bearer of good news. “The cyclist is dead. He arrested in ER and they could not stabilize him. The hand is coming down now.”

For just a moment, revulsion passed across the faces of the two nurses. Neither Meyer nor the anesthetist displayed any emotion.

“Will we do this with a local or are you going to put her out?” Meyer asked.

“She’ll be asleep,” the anesthetist replied.

A medical student appeared at the door of the lounge. “Your family is here, Father,” he announced.

“Thanks.” Koesler rose and left the lounge for the quiet room that in a few minutes would not be very quiet. He was shocked at Dr. Kim’s reaction to the death of the cyclist. Koesler could not imagine exulting over the death of anyone, much less a stranger whose care would be the cause of nothing more than an inconvenience.

During his time as temporary chaplain at St. Vincent’s, Koesler had met many other Oriental doctors on the hospital’s staff. He had never encountered a shred of indifference to human life from any of them. Before coming to St. Vincent’s, he had shared the Occidental prejudice which held that Orientals had a lesser value for life. That prejudice had been shaken when a Philippine parishioner had reminded Koesler that, to date, only Americans had dropped a nuclear bomb, that it was the Occidental allies who had leveled much of Germany with bombs of just about every description, and it was the United States that nearly destroyed Vietnam and Cambodia.

Considerations like that could shake one’s faith in convenient prejudices.

And, as far as St. Vincent’s was concerned, there was no hint of a lack of respect for life among either Occidentals or Orientals.

With the major exception of Dr. Lee Kim.

Until now, Koesler had only heard-tell of Dr. Kim’s reputedly casual approach to human feelings and life. Now, Koesler felt he had experienced at least the semblance of such an attitude.

Of course it was possible that Kim’s reaction to the death of a patient might have been a poor joke or perhaps an aberrant response. But given his reported history, this probably was Kim’s real personality.

If this were true, Koesler wondered further about Kim’s attitude toward Sister Eileen. If Kim, indeed, had precious little regard for human life, and if Sister Eileen posed a serious challenge to all Kim desired, what might be Kim’s intent with regard to Eileen? Could he be a threat? To her life?

Koesler had no answer to these questions. At the moment, they were no more than hypothetical. But how long could such a dangerous hypothesis go unchallenged? Koesler had no answer to this question either. Nor had he any more time to spend on such speculation. He was nearing the quiet room and a very vocal group was impatiently awaiting.

* * *

George Snell, nonpareil guard of St. Vincent’s Hospital, assessed his situation.

On the plus side: He didn’t have to patrol the ill-lit corridors. All he needed to do for this entire night shift was sit in the command center and watch the closed-circuit monitors. It was a promotion, with a promised raise in the near future. And he was out of harm’s way.

Actually, he never thought of St. Vincent’s Hospital in terms of danger. He was a very large man. And he was imbued with the false confidence of the big man who feels he can handle any challenge. He had never been thrown by a small person who was skilled in the martial arts. He had never even given any consideration to that possibility.

On the negative side: He didn’t have to patrol the ill-lit corridors. Thus he would have no opportunity to find empty rooms with empty beds and a growing list of willing nurses and aides to help fill them. This was the one and only negative factor. But given Snell’s proclivity for rambunctious sex, it was nearly enough to offset all the positive factors.

Upon further thought, he would add one more drawback. It was dull.

He tilted his chair back and propped his feet on the desk. He scanned the four monitors. One was out of order. Well, he thought, three out of four ain’t bad. The three functioning screens revealed little. The areas they covered were, by and large, not sufficiently illuminated to avoid obscuring shadows. Some system, thought Snell; if thieves wanted to clean out St. Vincent’s, nighttime, with a skeleton staff and monitors that were either inadequate or nonfunctioning, would be the time to do it.

Fortunately, there was a commercial television set in the room. It was a miniature set, identical to those provided the patients. The set might be small but the picture was in color and it provided just the distraction that Snell would need to get him through the night.

WKBD-TV, Channel 50, was carrying a rerun of an old “Barney Miller” episode. Snell had seen practically every “Miller” show repeatedly. He now was able to anticipate most of the dialogue. From the first few frames of tonight’s program, Snell instantly recalled the entire plot. Wojo’s girlfriend bakes a batch of cookies. Wojo brings the cookies to the squad room where Sergeants Harris and Yamana eat a goodly supply and then begin to react. Eventually, Barney wants to know what’s happening. A bemused Harris diagnoses that the cookies have been laced with hashish.

Snell could hardly wait for Harris to say he thought there was hash in the cookies. “. . . from the way that I feel . . .” Then Yamana would continue the thought in song: “. . . when that bell starts to peal. Why, it’s almost like being in love.”

Great episode. Snell had always thought Barney Miller was the coolest dude. He intended this as a compliment from one law-enforcement officer to another, of course.

* * *

Before beginning his own evening program, Bruce Whitaker took the time to check out the command center. He was overjoyed to find George Snell ensconced there and completely absorbed by a TV program.

This Bruce took to be a further sign of divine providence. Snell had appeared to be his nemesis. Twice, when Whitaker was on his way toward that ill-fated mission to mutilate the IUDs and while he was altering the pneumonia patient’s chart, he had almost been apprehended by the same guard—George Snell.