"Almost anything is," Chiun spat back, and then was silent again, leaving only the television's voice in the room.
"Chiun, you're a shit," Remo yelled.
But there was no answer again, and Remo slipped on the dark glasses, which he did not really like to wear, and the wearing of which infuriated Chiun.
Remo had bought them while wandering the streets of San Francisco late one afternoon with Chiun. San Francisco was one of their favourite cities, because its cosmopolitan polyglot nature found nothing unusual about an eighty-year-old Oriental in ceremonial robes walking along the street with a hard-faced lean-looking American, and just as long as Remo kept Chiun away from Chinatown, they had never been hassled in San Francisco.
This day, they wandered into Union Square and Chiun insisted upon going into a large department store there.
Remo had gone to look at golf clubs. When he came back, he found Chiun in a corner of the store's ground floor, watching an optometrist fit a woman with eyeglasses.
Chiun was clucking loudly. The eye doctor and the woman kept turning to glare at him, and Chiun glared back.
"What are you doing, Little Father?" Remo had asked.
"Watching this man ruin that woman's eyes."
"Shhhh," said Remo. "Somebody will hear you."
"Good," Chiun said. "Think how many eyes I can save if all will but listen."
"Chiun. Some people need glasses."
"Wrong. No one needs the glasses for seeing."
"Sure they do. You've seen those funny little eye charts that all start with E. Some people can't read the letters."
"Ahah, but they do not spell words," said Chiun triumphantly. "Who would want to read the letters?"
"That's not the point. Some people just can't even see what the letters are."
"That is because their eye muscles do not work correctly. The muscles are untrained. Yet, instead of training the muscles to work properly, what do people do? They go to a so-called doctor who puts these pieces of glass in front of their eyes. This makes sure that the person will never have a chance to train the eye muscles to work correctly. It is a terrible thing this man is doing."
"Some people can't control their eye muscles," Remo said in mild protest.
"That is true," Chiun agreed. "Most of them are Americans. This country is a cesspool of laziness. We have been many places, but only in this place do you find almost everyone wearing eyeglasses. Do you need any further proof of laziness?"
"That's not true, Chiun. One of the reasons many people in this country have eye trouble is from watching television."
Chiun's mouth dropped open in amazement. "You lie," he said.
"No, it's true. Too much television hurts the eyes."
"Oh," moaned Chiun. "Oh, the infamy. Do you tell me that those beautiful dramas could harm my eyes?"
"Well, maybe not yours. But most people's."
"Oh, the infamy. To say such a thing, and only to hurt my feelings." He looked at Remo questioningly.
Remo shook his head. "Truth, Little Father."
Chiun was silent momentarily, considering the terribleness of it all, then smiled craftily and raised a long-nailed index finger into the air. "Ahhh," he said, "even suppose what you say is true. Think of how much good these beautiful dramas do for the soul and the heart."
Remo sighed. "That's true enough, Little Father. They're beautiful. They enrich everyone's life, blind or sighted. I'd rather have the whole country go blind than to have the wonderfulness of those shows reduced by even so much as one minute."
"There is hope for you yet, Remo," said Chiun. "But not for him," he said, pointing to the eye doctor. "He should tell these people to exercise their eye muscles, not to wrap them up in a glass bandage that prevents them from ever using their eyes correctly."
"What is all this noise?" came a woman's voice. It came from a young blonde with a Scandinavian accent, who had come out of the back room of the optical department.
To quiet her down, Remo had bought a pair of almost black sunglasses, even though he did not like wearing them. Chiun was, of course, right. Left alone, the trained eye muscle was more than able to screen out light, to let in light, to focus, to see. Sunglasses were just another crutch for a muscular cripple.
As he tried on different frames, Chiun had demanded of the woman that she try to find him a pair of spectacles that did not use glass but had wooden lenses. "Since he insists upon ruining his vision, we should at least protect him from flying glass."
Remo had settled for the darkest pair of lenses he could find. He stuck the glasses in his pocket and had not worn them until entering the Robler Clinic, when they became part of his billionaire's disguise.
Remo heard the organ music come up and over signifying a commercial and Chiun turned to see Remo in his dark glasses.
"That is very good," said Chiun. "You come to this hospital looking for something and the first thing you do is cover over your eyes so you cannot see. A truly American approach to a problem." He turned back to the television, consigning Remo to a lower rung on the ladder of his interest than a horse-faced lady plumber selling soap.
Remo thumbed his nose at Chiun's back and stepped out into the hall.
The walls and floors were a creamy-tan marble and looked cold, but Remo touched a wall and found it warm. The latest innovation in heating. Warmed walls. Obviously, Robler Clinic did not worry about where its next buck was coming from.
Three doors down from his room, he saw a closet and slipped inside. On a top shelf he found what he wanted; when he exited a few moments later, he was wearing a full-length white medical gown.
With his sunglasses and gown, he looked like a hungover playboy which, Remo decided, characterized most of the doctors he had ever known.
He went down to the fourth floor by the stairs and rudely interrupted a nurse talking on a telephone at a desk. "Where is the emergency room?"
"First floor, doctor," she answered. "That elevator over there."
"Your collar's getting a little frayed, nurse," said Remo. "Better watch that."
"Yes sir, doctor," she said, and, puzzled, watched as he walked away. She wondered who he was.
Remo decided to walk to the emergency room and was astonished as he made his way through the hospital corridors to the action center of the hospital. No one stopped him; no one questioned who he was. He could have accepted that if it were obvious that people thought he was a doctor and asked him to do doctorly things. But no one did. He stuck his head into different examining rooms, looking for Mrs. Wilberforce, but no one asked his advice or help.
He had physical acceptance in that his presence was tolerated, but he did not have professional acceptance, as no one had asked him for help. He did not know if this were good or bad, but he decided it was insulting and caused by his lack of a stethoscope. As he passed a doctor in the hall, he filched the stethoscope from around the man's neck, snaking it off his collar with a finger. The doctor kept walking ahead, unmindful of his loss, and Remo put the stethoscope around his own neck.
The stethoscope worked wonders. Before he had gone fifty feet more, Remo was asked for advice on three separate cases.
He stuck his head in one room, stethoscope dangling from his ears, and was asked his opinion about a patient suffering a broken leg. He prescribed aspirin and plenty of bed rest. He called another patient a faker, using up hospital space that was needed by really sick people. In the third room, he had his first chance to use the stethoscope. He was amazed that one could really hear things through it.
A fat woman lay on an examining table, being examined by a young man in white gown, obviously an intern. He looked up hopefully as Remo came in.
Remo placed the stethoscope on the woman's stomach and broke out laughing. "Listen to that rumbling," he said. "Wow, what a racket. It sounds like pea soup cooking."
"What do you think, doctor?" asked the intern.
"I'd say two tablespoons of Pepto Bismol every three hours ought to do the trick
. And you, lady, you better knock off the beer."
The intern moved closer to Remo and whispered in his ear: "But it's the headaches she's complaining of."
Remo nodded officiously. "Right," he said. "That comes from the beer. It's the yeast in the beer. It blows up inside the body and the gas causes pressure in the skull cavity. I remember hearing Brother Theodore explain that at the last medical lecture I went to. Watch that yeast. And you, lady, knock off the beer."
"Well, I never…" the woman said to Remo's back.
He paused at the door, turned, smiled and said, "Don't worry about the bill either. Just send it to me."
Then he was out in the hallway, moving along, hoping for someone else to try his stethoscope on.
At the end of the corridor were a heavy pair of metal swinging doors with large wired glass panels in them. Remo glanced through the panels then pushed open a door. He was, he realized, in the emergency room complex.
There were four rooms; all but one were empty. In that one, he found Mrs. Wilberforce. Going in the door, he found a face mask in the pocket of his gown and put it on.
There was a figure on the emergency table, partially covered by sparkling white sheets, and around her hovered a team of men and women, doctors and nurses, all busy. Two nurses massaged the patient's legs and feet. A doctor and nurse were leaning on the chest area, rhythmically, in a kind of team artificial-respiration effort.
Remo's eyes were drawn to another doctor who was standing alongside the patient drawing a fluid into a syringe, possibly for injection into the heart, which would make it adrenalin.
That doctor did not look happy, Remo thought. He watched the man's hands holding the syringe and the small adrenalin ampoule, saw them shake, and realized what was wrong—the doctor had been drinking.
Remo moved into the room, whistling softly, the whistle turning into a hiss of air through his mask.
A few heads turned toward him.
"Hi, folks," he said. "Just keep doing what you're doing. If I spot anything wrong, I'll let you know."
He lifted his stethoscope in reassurance. Faces turned back toward the patient.
Casually, Remo walked up to the side of the patient. It was a woman, but an aged woman, as Remo could see in glimpses of her face when a young nurse sporadically removed the oxygen mask from her nose and mouth. Remo thought back to the visit to Mrs. Wilberforce in Scranton, the big, buxom battleaxe he had slapped on the rump. Then he looked down on the shrivelled old woman, lying in the bed.
Dammit, he thought. Where is Mrs. Wilberforce?
He turned to go, but as he did, his eyes caught sight of a magic-markered name tag on the head of the bed. "Wilberforce," it read.
He looked again at the face of the woman. How could it be? But the eyes… the hooked nose… it might be… it could be. He looked again, hard. It was. But how? A few days ago, she had looked like a member of the Praetorian Guard, but now she was small and weak, frail and old.
How could it be?
He looked again at the doctor who, still shakily, had finished filling the syringe. Behind the patient, an electrocardiogram screen was jumping erratically. The artificial respiration continued; the extremity massage went on.
Another person came into the room. Like the doctor with the syringe, she did not wear a hospital robe. She was wearing a tight yellow sweater and a short white skirt that showed off long, full legs.
She entered the room imperiously, as if she owned the hospital. A nurse caught sight of the movement at the door and looked up as if to reprimand the visitor, but when she saw who it was, she turned back to her massage of the right leg.
The reddish-haired beauty walked up and stood alongside the man with the syringe.
"How is it going, Dr. Demmet?" she said.
"Serious case, Ms. Hahl," he answered. His voice was wavering, cracky.
"Oh?"
"General breakdown of body functions. Advanced senility."
"Can you save her?"
"I don't know," the doctor said.
"Try to," the woman said. Her eyes met the doctor's. "Try to," she said again. It was almost like a challenge, Remo thought.
"I'm going to," the doctor said.
"You do that. You do that."
The doctor leaned forward, inserted the syringe between the woman's ribs and injected the jolt of adrenalin directly into her heart.
The woman in the yellow sweater watched detachedly for a moment, then looked around the room. Her eyes stopped on Remo, standing behind the crowd of doctors and nurses. He realized how out of place he must look with his black sunglasses.
The woman came to his side.
"Who might you be?" she asked.
Remo decided he would be eccentric.
"Williams my name, sickness my game."
"Williams? Are you the Mr. Williams?"
Remo nodded. He could see the woman was impressed. Her fine, intelligent eyes lit up as if illuminated from within.
"But why are you here?" she asked.
"I like hospitals. I always wanted to be a doctor. I play golf every Wednesday. I own my own stethoscope. I wanted to be here. I wouldn't have missed it."
Kathy Hahl nodded. "I'm Kathy Hahl, the assistant administrator. I've been meaning to check with you to see if there was anything you needed."
Remo shook his head. "Nope. Having a great time right here, watching these fine people work on that poor old lady. Funny thing. I hear she's not as old as she looks."
"So I'm told," Kathy Hahl said.
"Unusual case," Remo said.
Kathy Hahl nodded.
"Kind of instant aging," Remo said. "Never heard of anything like that before."
"I understand it happens sometimes. A shock to the nervous system can do it. I understand this woman recently lost a son she was very close to."
Remo did not answer. He was watching the doctor at the side of the bed. What was his name… Dr. Demmet? He was pounding on the woman's chest with a fist. The electrocardiogram was now smoothly beeping along, rolling hills, gentle valleys. Demmet pounded hard. "Live, Goddamnit, live," he cried.
"Ummmm," Remo said. "Yes, a shock. Her son, Nathan. They were very close." As he watched the doctor, he did not see the glint in Kathy Hahl's eyes as he mentioned the name "Nathan." No one had said anything about a Nathan. She suddenly realized that Mr. Williams was not just an eccentric billionaire; he was something more. And dangerous.
Demmet clenched his fists and shook them in front of his own face in frustration. "All right," he said, his voice heavy and sullen. "You can stop now. She's gone."
He looked up to where Remo and Kathy Hahl stood.
"I couldn't save her," he said to Kathy Hahl across Mrs. Wilberforce's dead body.
"That's a terrible shame, Dr. Demmet," Kathy Hahl said, and Remo thought he detected sarcasm. "Beyond the reach of your medical skill, no doubt."
Demmet looked at her, then down at the patient, and as Remo watched, the anger at her death seemed to drain from his face, and was replaced by something resembling relief. He paused a moment, then turned and walked out of the emergency room. Now that was strange, Remo thought. Dr. Demmet might bear some watching.
"He seems to be taking it very hard," Remo said conversationally to Kathy Hahl.
"Yes," she said. "Some doctors get personally involved. It makes their lives difficult." She paused, then said brightly, "And you, Mr. Williams, has everything been all right?"
"Fine," Remo said.
"Medical service all right?"
"I don't know. I've brought my own physician. He won't let anybody else touch me."
"Plan to be here long?" she asked.
What'd she say she was? Assistant administrator? That might do. She might be just the person to put out the rumour Remo wanted put out around the hospital.
He leaned over to her conspiratorially. "Not too long. Just until some Internal Revenue wiseguys get off my back."
"Oh, I see. Tax problems."
"The cu
rse of the billionaire class," Remo said.
"Well, let's hope they resolve themselves."
"Yes, let's hope."
"I live in the hospital, Mr. Williams. The switchboard can always reach me. If you want anything… anything at all, or if I can help, don't hesitate to call me at any hour. Day or night." She looked at Remo with a gaze that was all electric.
By the time he got back to his room, Remo felt pretty good. In the hospital only a few hours and already he had a suspect in that Dr. Demmet. And he had already put out the word that he had tax problems and might be appreciative of some help in getting rid of them. That might promote an offer. All in all, a good day's work. All head and no muscle. No more Scrantons. He would intellect his way through this case. Yes, he would. And when he was done and he had tied up the solution neatly, with no blood and no killing, why Smith would be delighted and even Chiun would have to admit that Remo could figure out a thing or two.
Yes, indeed.
In Remo's view, a plan planned was as good as an act acted. He already tasted the glow of victory. He paused outside his hospital suite, then pushed open the door and jumped into the room, his white robe swirling about him, his stethoscope flopping against his chest.
"Da daaaaaa," he trumpeted.
"What is this da daaaaa?" asked Chiun who was now seated at the window, looking out over the hideousness which was downtown Baltimore a few miles away.
"That's called a triumphant entry," said Remo. "I am Dr. Lance Ravenel come to save the world from the agony of psoriasis."
"Silence your face," said Chiun. "Dr. Ravenel is no fit subject for your retarded sense of levity."
"Ummmm," said Remo, feeling as if the air of joy had been squooshed out of him. "Is that so?"
"Yes, that is so. Dr. Ravenel is a noble member of a noble profession. The profession of healing. You see how he makes people well again in the beautiful stories."
"Those are only stories."
"There is more truth in those stories than in your so-called facts," Chiun said.
"Pfooey."
"Do you tell me there is no truth in how Dr. Ravenel heals the ill?"
"Remember in San Francisco? You told me illness is a sign of lack of discipline on the part of the patient? You've changed your mind?"
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