Now, the intravenous for 310. But where were the I.V.’s kept? He couldn’t ask Miss Fultz, he thought, and then swiftly changed his mind; why allow the old witch to frighten him off?

“Hallway closet,” she said, head still bent.

Old lady, you look at me, he said silently. It’s just black skin, it doesn’t hurt your eyes. He got the I.V. and of course Abraham Batson in 310 turned out to be what he had expected in 304, a dried-up little man with hair-line veins and the puncture marks to show that others had tried and failed. It took eight additional stabbings amid groans and looks and mutterings from the pincushion, and then he was able to flee.

Jesus, the cut-down kit.

“Miss Fultz,” he said.

This time she looked at him. He was enraged by the contempt in her eyes, which were faded blue.

“Where will I find a cut-down kit?”

“Three doors down on the left.”

He got it and found Silverstone in the women’s side of the ward.

“God. I was about to send out an alarm,” the resident said.

“I spent most of the time being lost.”

“Me, too.” Together they went to Room 308.

Roger Cort was carcinoma of the bowel. If a man stared hard enough, Spurgeon thought, he could see the angel perched on Roger Cort’s right shoulder.

“You ever do a cut-down?”

“No.”

“Watch closely. You’ll do it yourself next time.”

He watched while Silverstone sterilized the ankle and injected Novocaine and then snapped on sterile gloves and made a tiny incision anterior to the medial malleolus. He made two stitches, one above and one below, slipped in the cannula and tied it in with the second stitch, and in a few seconds glucose was dripping into Roger Cort’s bloodstream. Silverstone made it look easy. I’ll be able to do that, Spurgeon thought. “What’s your next pleasure?” he asked.

“Coffee,” Silverstone said, and they went for some. The pretty brunette nurse poured it for them.

“What do you think of our ward?” she said.

“What’s the secret sorrow of your head nurse?” the Chief Resident asked. “She hasn’t done more than grunt at me all morning.”

The girl laughed. “Oh, she’s a hospital legend. She doesn’t talk to doctors unless she likes them, and she likes very few doctors. Some of the visiting men have known her for thirty years and they still get grunts.”

“What an inheritance,” Silverstone said gloomily.

At least, Spurgeon thought, it isn’t my color she hates. She hates everybody. Somehow the thought made him happy. He finished his coffee and left Silverstone and changed several dressings without having to ask Miss Fultz where anything was. I’d better start exploring this place, he thought, wondering suddenly what he would do if somebody were to go into heart failure. He didn’t know where the defibrillator was, or the resuscitator. A nurse was hurrying down the corridor. “Can you tell me where the Code 99 equipment is kept?” he asked.