Letty dropped the sack of groceries she’d been toting and raced to the unit. The bedroom door was open and the first thing she saw was Harry Bronson, stretched out on the bed, clutching his chest and groaning. “I’m okay,” he protested, rolling onto his side. “I’m okay.” He didn’t look okay to Letty. His face was pale and flecked with perspiration. He was a beefy man, built, Letty thought, like the beer trucks he’d driven before retirement.

“Did you call 911?” Letty asked.

“He won’t let me call,” Sheila said, wringing her hands.

“No,” Harry growled. “I’m fine.…” His face contorted in pain. “Shit, it hurts.”

Letty reached for her phone. “Then I’ll call.”

“Goddammit, I said I’m fine!” Harry tried to sit up, but sank back down onto the bed. “Just leave me alone.”

“Harry! You don’t have to yell. She’s just trying to help,” Sheila said, starting to weep.

Letty backed out of the motel room, followed by Sheila. “He’s so stubborn, but he’s been having these chest pains since lunch. He swore it was just heartburn, because he ate kielbasa, and it always gives him heartburn.…”

Ava came out of the office and trotted over to where the two women stood in the breezeway. “Sheila? Is everything okay?”

“Well, not really,” Sheila said, her voice trembling.

Letty spoke up. “Harry might be having a heart attack. He’s been having chest pains for over an hour, and he’s pale and sweating, but he won’t let her call for an ambulance.”

“He doesn’t trust doctors down here,” Sheila said, glancing over her shoulder into the unit, where they could hear the husband softly moaning.

“I’m going back to the office and calling Joe,” Ava said. “Letty, stay here with Sheila, please.”

Letty reluctantly went back into the darkened bedroom. The nightstand beside Harry was littered with pill bottles and the remnants of a messy sandwich.

“Aspirin,” Letty said, remembering something she’d read somewhere about first aid for heart-attack patients. “Sheila, do you have any aspirin?”

“Y-y-yes,” the older woman stammered. She scrabbled around on the nightstand, shook out a capsule, and offered it to her husband.

“I think you’re supposed to chew it, not just swallow it, to make it work faster,” Letty said.

“Leave me alone,” he muttered, but after a moment, he took the tablet and chewed.

“Has he had chest pains before?” Letty asked.

“I told you, it’s just heartburn,” Harry said. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Joe DeCurtis looked down at the stricken man on the bed, while Ava, Sheila, and Letty hovered nearby. “I called 911,” he announced. He sat on the bed next to the patient. “Don’t think I’m getting fresh,” he said, “but I’m gonna unbuckle your belt and unfasten your shirt.”