They went through Chinatown to the Expressway. “Eat,” Maish commanded, the Jewish mother of the ambulance corps. The sandwich was like cardboard on his nervous tongue, the coffee nauseatingly cold, gulped as they rumbled over the Tobin Memorial Bridge. “You got twenty-five cents?” It was the driver’s job to pay tolls, but Spurgeon shelled out, making a mental note to collect later.

The streets all looked the same. The houses all looked the same. It took Maish ten minutes to admit he couldn’t find Simmons Court, another five minutes before he abandoned the City Directory map.

After lengthy consultations with two policemen and a Navy shore patrol they found it, an unlighted cul-de-sac at the end of a snow-rutted private street. The Catletts lived on the third floor, of course. The apartment was dark and dirty, smelling of relief checks. There were children frightened out of sleep and a silent, sullen man. The woman was porcine from a life of starches, trouble and too-frequent breeding. They got her on a litter and lifted, grunting in unison. The oldest girl laid a brown paper bag on the stretcher with her mother.

“My nightie and things,” the woman told Spurgeon proudly.

They moved toward the door and then Spurgeon stopped, the stretcher digging into the backs of his knees. “Don’t you want to tell her goodbye?” he asked the man.

“’Bye.”

“’Bye,” she said.

She was very heavy. They maneuvered her down the narrow, creaking double flight of stairs and out of the dark smell of the hallway.

“Watch the ice,” Maish the Leader warned.

Their arms and legs were taut and trembling when finally they pushed her into the ambulance.

She screamed.

“What’s the matter?” Spurgeon asked.

It was almost a minute before she could answer. In his first fright he did not think to look at his watch.

“I got a pain.”

“What kind of a pain?”

“You know.”

“Was that the first one?”

“No. I already had lots.”

“Meyerson, you’d better get going,” he said. “Use your little toy whistle.”

Maish hit the siren immediately, the show-off, the cretin, and they moved across the empty courtyard and down the empty street, as in every apartment lights blossomed and a black or a brown face peered from a window.

He sat down near her and put his feet on the opposite wall to steady his knees while he used them to write against.

“I MIGHT AS WELL TRY TO WORK UP THE FIRST PART OF THE CASE HISTORY,” he roared against the onslaught of the siren. “WHAT WAS YOUR FULL NAME, MOTHER?”

“WHAT?”

“YOUR FULL NAME?”

“MARTHA HENDRICKS CATLETT. HENDRICKS MY MAIDEN NAME.” She spelled hoarsely.

He nodded. “WHERE BORN?”

“ROCHESTER.”

“NEW YORK?” She nodded. “THOMAS YOUR HUSBAND’S NAME. MIDDLE INITIAL?”

“C. CHARLIE.” Her face twisted and she shrieked, rolling on the litter.

This time he glanced at his watch. 9:42. The contraction lasted almost a minute.

“WHERE WAS YOUR HUSBAND BORN?”