Murder Ward

by Warren Murphy

  “Are you Anthony Stace, alias Anselmo Stacio?” Remo asked.

  The old man nodded. “It doesn’t matter any more. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,” he said. His voice cracked with age.

  Remo looked at the thin white hair, the crinkling skin hanging beneath the eyes, the bony hands with the age spots, the old stoop of the spine.

  “You don’t look like you’re in your mid-fifties,” Remo said.

  “That’s right. I don’t look it.”

  “Well, sorry to wake you, old fella, but you’ve been playing naughty-naughty. That’s not always unprofitable, but if you get in the way of Upstairs, it’s invariably fatal.”

  “What are you going to take away from me, young man? A day? A few hours? A minute? What do you want to know? It doesn’t make any difference anymore.”

  The old man sat heavily on a crate near the boiler.

  “You know, you’re really spoiling the spirit of the Feast of the Pig. You sure you don’t want to be a little nasty or angry? Would you like to call some of your bodyguards? Maybe threaten me?”

  “It’s all over. Nothing will do any good anymore. It just doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”

  “Well, okay. If you want to be that way about it. Go ahead, ruin the whole evening.” And Remo heard about why Stace had wanted Wilberforce out of the way, the loan-shark funnel through the bank, the three attempts on Wilberforce’s life and how it all didn’t mean much anymore.

  “Anything else?”

  “You have everything. Just a word of advice. Stay out of hospitals.”

  Was that a smile he saw on the old man’s face? Remo started to find out for certain if there was anything else, but the man’s age and his downed spirit seemed like a depressing armor, and since everything made sense and since there appeared to be no loose ends, nothing more to find out about, Remo said goodbye and dispatched Anselmo Stacio, alias Anthony Stace, in the basement of his mansion on the Eve of the Feast of the Pig.

  And across town in the Wilberforce house, Nathan David Wilberforce woke up with one hell of a head cold.

  Mrs. Wilberforce phoned a doctor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MRS. WILBERFORCE BLAMED HERSELF. If she hadn’t been so lax with Nathan David…if she had insisted that he wear his rubbers…gone to the office to make sure…it was those lunch hours that did it. A person could walk out willy nilly in the snow in his bare feet even and what would the government care? She could see why there were so many radicals nowadays. Government insensitivity.

  “It’s more than rubbers,” said the doctor gravely. He spoke in hushed tones outside Nathan David’s room. “It’s pneumonia. We’ll have to hospitalize him immediately.”

  “I’ll break the news,” said Mrs. Wilberforce.

  The doctor nodded and asked for a phone. He had called it pneumonia. Most of the symptoms were pneumonia. And why the hell not pneumonia? It was probably pneumonia, and when the patient got to the hospital, they could run more tests and make sure it was pneumonia or whatever. There was trouble in the lungs and the man had to be in the hospital so they might be able to control whatever he had or at least get some handle on it.

  You couldn’t tell the next of kin you didn’t know. That caused panic. You had to give them something to hold on to, something they knew could be cured. If it turned out to be incurable, well, let a specialist handle that. He wasn’t being paid enough money for a Christmas season house call to tell someone he didn’t know what was wrong with a patient…that it could be terminal. Then again, it was very possible, even probable, that it wasn’t terminal.

  The human body was a miraculous thing. It healed itself in so many ways. And if it did, then he would have saved the patient and he would be a hero. He phoned the hospital where he had privileges, fought for and got a bed. No, he couldn’t wait another day. He had a sick patient, he told the admitting office. Pneumonia.

  He apologized for being unable to wait for the ambulance and Mrs. Wilberforce tearfully accepted his apologies.

  “Other house calls. We’re so busy.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s a hard life, being a doctor,” said Mrs. Wilberforce, and watched him put on his cashmere coat and carefully cross the unshoveled walk to his black Eldorado Cadillac with the high antenna.

  By nightfall, there were complications and by dawn a special team of physicians was called in to save Nathan David’s life. They worked through noon. Mrs. Wilberforce was called into a private office. She was introduced to one of the visiting doctors, a kindly looking man with a drawn aquiline face.

  “We did everything we could,” said the doctor.

  “Complications?” asked Mrs. Wilberforce.

  “Yes. Complications,” said Dr. Daniel Demmet.

  Remo was surprised to see Dr. Harold Smith travel all the way out to California to congratulate him for a job well done. Remo and Chiun had been in a La Jolla waterfront hotel suite for two days, having traveled on Sunday, when Chiun said none of the good dramas were on television, just many fat men running into each other. The Master of Sinanju had written the networks suggesting that it would be a far nicer way to celebrate Sundays and national holidays by having fine daytime drama than all that running into each other and fat men hurting each other ineptly. Each network had answered, thanking him for his interest in their programming. Assuming they were asking for guidance, Chiun had responded by outlining how each could improve its shows by taking off violence and shooting and fat people running into each other and other people sitting down and just talking. They could run their daytime dramas from sunrise to sunset and invigorate the minds of the populace with beauty. Again, Chiun had received letters thanking him for his help, at a post office box set up for him by Upstairs in a northeastern state.

  Chiun was delighted. To him, this meant that there would be seven full days a week of what Remo called soap operas and they would never be canceled for fat men running into each other. But as each Sunday came and passed, Chiun became more disappointed, damning the networks as liars who should be shown what beauty was. Remo decided it would be wise to explain to Chiun that the network executives were really friends of the emperor, which was the only thing Chiun could understand as a reason for not fatally visiting beauty upon the network executives who had lied to him. Chiun finally resigned himself to what he called American craziness.

  But now the soaps were on again and Remo quietly led Smith to a sitting room where they could talk. Smith carried his briefcase and wore an unseasonably heavy coat—unseasonable for La Jolla at noon.

  “It was nothing,” said Remo. “A piece of cake. I jumped the pipe to the source and got the source. You got the whole report the morning after.”

  “I see,” said Smith. He unlocked the briefcase and sorted out three typewritten sheets. They were of translucent material that when placed over each other in the correct fashion formed understandable writing, or at least to Smith. Remo couldn’t make out the writing. It appeared like notes.

  “There were a few problems and I want to get them ironed out. How many people were in the pipeline you jumped?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s see, one, two, three, uh, four, the fat guy with the statues, six with the guy with the penthouse, the broads, three, I think, and uh, the source, so that’s eight. Eight,” said Remo.

  “They were all necessary?”

  “Yeah. Sure. It’s not entertainment. I don’t go around doing someone because I don’t like him.”

  “I see. And did you possibly go through Scranton wishing Merry Pig or something? We’re getting some very strange stories about that night. The city is in a state of terror, which was not exactly your purpose or the purpose of our organization.”

  “Oh, that,” said Remo smiling. “The Feast of the Pig. It’s sort of an inside joke I have with myself.”

  “Well, it seems as if you shared it quite freely that night.”

  Remo shrugged.

  “I thought you were well aware of our mission. If this becomes known,
the entire purpose of our organization is for naught. The government, everything. Remo, you don’t understand the gravity of this. We’re struggling to keep a country alive.”

  “And if it doesn’t want to stay alive, Smitty?”

  “Are you beginning to think like Chiun that one emperor is the same as another? That the only thing important is the House of Sinanju? I know how Chiun thinks.”

  “Chiun’s worth his money. You have no complaints. Chiun’s worth more than his money. He didn’t leave himself and the organization as open as a meadow once. You know, Smitty, I mean, let’s look at this thing. Let’s really look at it. Sinanju has got a hell of a lot more going for it than any little three-hundred-year-old country.”

  “I wasn’t complaining about Chiun, Remo. Chiun is Chiun. But you, what about you? Where are your loyalties?”

  “With myself. And if you don’t like it, we can end this thing. You may not know it, but I am incredibly employable. Chiun keeps getting job offers at the post office box.”

  “I know that, Remo. I have the mail read. But where do you stand?”

  “I do my frigging job.”

  “Then do it. Wilberforce is dead.”

  “How can he be dead?”

  “When the heart stops, when the brain stops functioning, when a person no longer breathes, he is dead, Remo. That is what we, even in a little three-hundred-year-old country, call dead.”

  “Who got him?”

  “Pneumonia with complications.”

  Remo rose from the chair and bowed deeply. “My apologies for once again having failed you. Next time I will guard his lungs with my life.”

  “It was your job to keep him alive.”

  “I thought we already established this. I can do what I can do. I can do no more. You want to save someone from pneumonia, get yourself a nurse or a doctor. You don’t need me.”

  “We did an autopsy on Wilberforce. Surreptitiously, of course. It’s possible he was killed on the operating table.”

  “Then get better doctors. What do you want from me?”

  “I want you, without wreaking havoc and slaughter indiscriminately, to find out which doctors may be killers. It is beyond coincidence. The law of probabilities says these people are being killed.”

  “Good thing we have math. Now we know for sure Wilberforce is dead.”

  “We know more than that,” said Smith. “We’re almost sure there’s a medical system that has become a killer. I have here a list of doctors to check. I do not under any circumstances want indiscriminate killing. I don’t want to have to deal with another Scranton.”

  “So you won’t have another Scranton, sweetheart. Don’t get so angry.”

  “I am not angry. I am sad. I am sad to see what is happening to you. There is something good in this country. It is a hope that the world needs now. And if you or others do not believe it, nevertheless this hope exists and I wanted very much for you to share it, too.”

  Remo was silent. He heard the traffic down on the street, heard the air conditioner hum and felt uneasy.

  “Yeah. Well,” said Remo, “I don’t believe in talking about it.”

  “All right,” said Smith. “I understand.”

  When the five-minute news break came just before one o’clock, Chiun glided into the room in which Remo and Smith were going over the probables on the list of doctors. They had pinpointed an exclusive medical clinic outside of Baltimore, a clinic frequented by many high government officials.

  “Why did you not tell me Dr. Smith was here?” demanded Chiun angrily. “When I heard voices, I thought, no, it could not be Dr. Smith for surely Remo would tell me of such an important visit. I did not even entertain the possible thought that Dr. Smith could be here and I would not be informed.”

  Chiun bowed graciously and Smith returned it with a short nod.

  “It’s all right. We have everything worked out.”

  “I overheard there were possible improprieties,” said Chiun and for four and a half minutes, Chiun vowed the services of the House of Sinanju to Emperor Smith, called perfection of service to Emperor Smith the goal of the House of Sinanju, hinted darkly that there were forces in Smith’s empire that wished him no good and the House of Sinanju was here to assure him that he need but point them out and he would have no further worries. Approximately four seconds before the next soap opera was to come on, Chiun vowed service to the death and was out of the room before Smith could respond.

  “He’s got a certain grace,” said Smith.

  “Yeah, grace,” said Remo.

  When Smith was gone and when the organ music followed Dr. Ravenel’s last worry about Marcia Mason’s failing to appear at Dorothy’s Dunsmore’s cocktail party because her unwed daughter might be pregnant with a child of Rad Dexter’s leprosy-ridden son, Remo spoke to Chiun.

  “Little Father, why did you give Smith all that nonsense?”

  “An emperor wants nonsense. You were telling him the truth, were you not?”

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “I heard his annoyance. No emperor wants the truth for the very fact of a man being an emperor is a lie unto itself. What would you tell a khan or a czar or prince? That he rules because of his extraordinary skill in choosing his parents? Hah. They are born with lies and they spend their lives seeking facts to support those lies. Therefore a fact supporting a lie must be a lie itself, and therefore when you deal with an emperor you must, above all, avoid getting too close to the truth. That was why Smith was annoyed.”

  “We don’t have emperors like that in America. People are chosen by merit and elections.”

  “Of elections, millions vote, do they not?”

  “Yeah. Millions.”

  “Do these millions ever sit down and talk with the man they vote for?”

  “Well, no, of course not. But they hear him speak.”

  “And do they have the opportunity to say what did you mean by this and what did you mean by that and why do you say this now when you said that yesterday?”

  “Reporters question them.”

  “Then only reporters should vote.”

  “What about merit?” asked Remo. He crossed his arms.

  “The biggest lie of all which requires the most fantastic fabrications to support it. Should a man be chosen by this merit, then everything he does must be meritorious. Since this is impossible, especially if one is not born in Sinanju, one must create lies to show that he is always meritorious. In the future, you would do well to tell Smith the lie he wishes to hear.”

  “And what lie would that be, Little Father?”

  “That you love America and that one form of government is better than another.”

  There was silence in the hotel suite, as Remo pondered Chiun’s statement. That the second was a lie, he did not doubt. But love America? Perhaps, after all, he really did. It would be a thing Chiun could not understand.

  The silence was broken by Chiun muttering. It was a familiar phrase, referring to the inability of even the Master of Sinanju to transform mud into diamonds.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MS. KATHLEEN HAHL MADE time on her busy schedule to see one visitor who didn’t want to see her.

  “I want to see the administrator of the Robler Clinic, not the assistant administrator. What’s your name, young lady? And don’t beat around the bush. I’ve been given more information that made less sense in the last two days than since I don’t know when,” said Mrs. Wilberforce.

  “Won’t you please sit down?”

  “I’ll stand, thank you. I don’t intend to stay here long.”

  “If you sit down, I can talk to you,” said the snippet of a girl with the brownish red hair and the loose white blouse that hid who knew what sort of lewd contraption of a bra instead of a solid, sensible, firm, snug, strong and holding underwear as God had intended bras to be. If there was one fortunate thing in this whole unfortunate tragedy, it was that girls like this would no longer be looking to defile Nathan David.

&n
bsp; When Mrs. Wilberforce thought about Nathan David she became deeply sad and almost instantly angry. Furious.

  “My name is Ms. Hahl. Won’t you sit down, please? I’d like to help you.”

  “Good. Then I want to see every doctor who treated Nathan David Wilberforce. I know they came from this clinic. I have their names right here. Right here in my pocketbook.”

  “This Mr. Wilberforce is a patient here, is that right?”

  “He is not. He is dead. I gave your doctors a healthy boy and they gave me back a corpse. You murdered him. Murder.” And seeing that this word somehow disturbed the young woman, Mrs. Wilberforce yelled the word full lung. “Murder. Murder. Murder. A hospital of murderers.”

  “Mrs. Wilberforce, please. How can I help you? What do you want?”

  “Admit you’re a pack of murderers. Admit it. Have your doctors admit it. They had to import doctors to kill Nathan David. The local doctors weren’t good enough. I spoke to my lawyer. I know. You doctors stick together. But you’re not fooling me. I gave them a healthy boy who wore his rubbers—he wore them, I checked. He put on his rubbers and I gave him his vitamins and you killed him. That’s what you did. Dead. Murdered. A whole hospital of murderers.”

  “Mrs. Wilberforce, now you know that is not true,” Ms. Hahl said. Her voice was sincere, yet gentle, yet very firm.

  “I don’t know it’s not true unless you prove it to me. Until I see those murderers investigated and brought up on charges. You have just one decent doctor in your entire hospital, and he’s just the anesthesiologist. If he were the surgeon, Nathan David would be alive today.”

  “Dr. Demmet?”

  “Yes. Him. He was decent. He showed proper concern. He was as heartbroken as I was. If all doctors were like Dr. Demmet, Nathan David would be alive today. He was the only one who spoke to me. The others just hung their heads and walked away, but not Dr. Demmet.” Mrs. Wilberforce began to sob. She felt a soft arm on her shoulder. It was the girl.