Meomartino made the telephone call from his office.

“Hello?” Ted Bergstrom said.

“Mr. Bergstrom? This is Dr. Meomartino, at the hospital.”

“What is it?” Bergstrom asked, and in the voice Meomartino felt the subconscious hatred of the surviving relative toward the surgeons who were losers.

“It’s about the autopsy,” he said.

“I made that clear when I talked with the other doctor. It’s over. We’ve all gone through enough. Her death will be the end of it.”

“There’s something else I think I should mention to you,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

“You have two daughters.”

“So?”

“We don’t believe they’re in danger. We have no real evidence that a predisposition to kidney failure is hereditary.”

“Oh, my God,” Bergstrom said.

“I’m sure the post-mortem will indicate that there is absolutely nothing to worry about,” Meomartino said.

Bergstrom was silent. Then from the telephone came a hoarse grunting, the sound of an animal in grief.

“I’ll send somebody right over with the permission slip. All you have to do is sign it, Mr. Bergstrom,” he said.

Meomartino sat and listened to the terrible sound for what seemed like a very long time and then, gently, he replaced the receiver.

That evening at 8:20 when the chimes sounded indicating the first arrival he answered the door himself.

“Hi, Doc,” Maish Meyerson said.

Meomartino brought the ambulance driver in and introduced him to Liz. She had gone to the hairdresser’s that morning and had surprised him by coming home with black hair.

“Do you like it?” she had asked, almost shyly. “They said it would grow out to my own color so that you’ll hardly know.”

“Very much.” It frightened him a little, made her even more remote, a complete stranger. But he had been urging her to do it for a long time, and he was happy that she had done it for him, hopeful that it was a good sign.

Now Meyerson chose sour mash bourbon. They lifted their glasses to one another.

“Nothing for you, Mrs. Meomartino?”

“No, thank you.”

They both knocked it back neat and gasped.

“What’s it all about, Maish?” he asked.

“What?”

“The whole damn thing.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.” They grinned at one another and he filled Meyerson’s glass and then his own.