“Oh, yeah. Maybe they do one token autopsy for teaching purposes. Fella named Sam Mayes, Hostvogel’s second-in-command, will sit around with two or three of the docs, talk about how Jerry Winters’ boy has been accepted to med school over in Florida, maybe cuss out the forces of socialized medicine down in Washington and comment on the shapeliness of a new nurse’s ass. Then they’ll yawn and somebody’ll say ‘Too bad about this pour soul, unavoidable death, of course,’ and they’ll all nod and go home and diddle their wives.”

They were silent for a moment. “I like it better the way it is here,” Spurgeon said finally. “It’s less comfortable—in fact, it scares the bejesus out of me—but it’s sure to keep us sharp, maybe guarantee that we won’t become what the public is beginning to think doctors are like.”

“And what’s that?”

“You know—Cadillac drivers. Fat cats. Rich philistines.”

“Screw the public.”

“Easier said than done.”

“What do they know about what it takes to force yourself into medicine? I’m twenty-six. I’ve been stone-poor twenty-six years. I am personally looking forward to the longest, most expensive, luxury-assed Cadillac money can buy. And lots of other things, material things, I’m going to get with the money I earn as a surgeon.”

Spurgeon looked at him. “Hell, you want those things, you don’t have to suffer through a long residency. You’ve interned. You could go out tomorrow and earn good money.”

Adam shook his head, smiling. “Ah, there’s the fallacy. Good, but not big. What pays real money in this world is board-certification. That takes time to acquire. So I’m putting in the time. For me, the next year will be the best kind of self-torture, the last moments of humping before the orgasm.”

Spurgeon had to grin at the simile. “You come up before that Death Committee a few times, you can join a monastery,” he said.

They drank again, then Adam pointed the beer can at the guitar. “You play that thing?”

Spur picked it up and tinkled a few bars, Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton . . .

Adam grinned. “Goddam liar.” Several blocks away an ambulance siren called, the lonely banshee sound growing as it bore upon them.

When it had dwindled, Spurgeon chuckled. “I was talking to an ambulance driver today, a nice beer-bellied con man named Meyerson. Morris Meyerson. Call me Maish, he says.

“Anyway. Last month he was sent out in the wee hours to pick up this fella in Dorchester. Seems the patient has insomnia, and one night he couldn’t sleep. The sound of a dripping faucet in the kitchen was driving him crazy, so he climbed out of the sack and went downstairs to fix it.”

He belched. “Pardon. Now, get this.

“He’s one of these people who sleeps in pajama tops only? No bottoms, understand? So he goes down into the cellar to get his monkey wrench or something, and in the cellar is where they keep their big, mean old Tom cat? On the way back up into the kitchen he forgets to shut the cellar door, and he’s on his hands and knees under the sink, turning off the water—no bottoms, remember—when tommycat comes pussyfooting up and in, sees this strange object and—” the black hand rose, fingers transformed into claws, and then fell.