But his receptionist was flashing him with mad regularity, and Ronkers gave in. He saw a four-year-old girl with a urinary infection (little girls are more susceptible to that than little boys); he saw a 48-year-old man with a large and exquisitely tender prostate; he saw a 25-year-old woman who was suffering her first bladder problem. He prescribed some Azo Gantrisin for her; he found a sample packet of the big red choke-a-horse pills and gave it to her. She stared at them, frightened at the size.
"Is there, you know, an applicator?" she asked.
"No, no," Ronkers said. "You take them orally. You swallow them."
The phone flashed. Ronkers knew it was Kit.
"What happened?" he asked her. "I heard it!"
"Dougie cut right through the limb and the rope that was guiding the limb away from the house," Kit said.
"How exciting!"
"Poked the limb through Bardlong's bathroom window like a great pool cue ..."
"Oh," said Ronkers, disappointed. He had hoped for the bay....
"I think Mrs. Bardlong was in the bathroom," Kit said.
Shocked at his glee, Ronkers asked, "Was anyone hurt?"
"Dougie sawed into Mike's arm," Kit said, "and I think Joe broke his ankle jumping out of the tree."
"God!"
"No one's badly hurt," Kit said. "But the tree looks awful; they didn't even finish it."
"Bardlong will have to take care of it," Ronkers said.
"Raunch," Kit said. "The newspaper photographer was here; he goes out on every ambulance call. He took a picture of the tree and Bardlong's window. Listen, this is serious, Raunch: Does Kesler get a newspaper on his breakfast tray? You've got to speak to the floor nurse; don't let him see the picture, Raunch. Okay?"
"Okay," he said.
Outside in the waiting room the woman was showing the Azo Gantrisin pills to Ronkers's receptionist. "He wants me to swallow them. ..." Ronkers let the letter slot close slowly. He buzzed his receptionist.
"Entertain them, please," he said. "I am taking ten."
He slipped out of his office through the hospital entrance and crossed through Emergency as the ambulance staff was bringing in a man on a stretcher; he was propped up on his elbows, his ankle unbooted and wrapped in an ice pack. His helmet said JOE. The man who walked beside the stretcher carried his helmet in his one good hand. He was MIKE. His other hand was held up close to his breast; his forearm was blood-soaked; an ambulance attendant walked alongside with his thumb jammed deep into the crook of Mike's arm. Ronkers intercepted them and took a look at the cut. It was not serious, but it was a messy, ragged thing with a lot of black oil and sawdust in it. About 30 stitches, Ronkers guessed, but the man was not bleeding too badly. A tedious debridement, lots of Xylocaine ... but Fowler was covering Emergency this morning, and it wasn't any of Ronkers's business.
He went on to the third floor. Kesler was in 339, a single room; at least a private death awaited him. Ronkers found the floor nurse, but Kesler's door was open and Ronkers stood with the nurse in the hall where the old man could see them; Kesler recognized Ronkers, but didn't seem to know where he recognized Ronkers from.
"Kommen Sie hinein, bitte!" Kesler called. His voice was like speech scraped on a file, sanded down to something scratchier than old records. "Grass Gott!" he called.
"I wish I knew some German," the nurse told Ronkers.
Ronkers knew a little. He went into Kesler's room, made a cursory check on the movable parts now keeping him alive. The rasp in Kesler's voice was due to the Levin tube that ran down his throat to his stomach.
"Hello, Mr. Kesler," Ronkers said. "Do you remember me?" Kesler stared with wonder at Ronkers; they had taken out his false teeth and his face was curiously turtlelike in its leatheriness -- its sagging, cold qualities. Predictably, he had lost about 60 pounds.
"Ach!" Kesler said suddenly. "Das house ge-bought? You ... ja! How goes it? Your wife the walls down-took?"
"Yes," Ronkers said, "but you would like it. It's very beautiful. There's more window light now."
"Und der Bardlong?" Kesler whispered. "He has not the tree down-chopped?"
"No."
"Sehr gut!" Herr Kesler said. That is pronounced zehr goot. "Gut boy!" Kesler told Ronkers. Goot buoy. Kesler blinked his dull, dry eyes for a second and when they opened it was as if they opened on another scene -- another time, somewhere. "Fruhstuck?" he asked politely.