"Conclusion: " said Philips, "Cerebral angiography shows a large arteriovenous malformation of the right basal ganglia in this nineteen-year-old male. Period. This circulatory malformation is supplied by the right middle cerebral artery via the lenticulostriate branches as well as from the right posterior cerebral artery via the thalamoperforate and the thalamogeniculate branches. Period." End of dictation. Please send a copy of this report to doctors Mannerheim, Prince, and Clauson. Thank you."
With a click, the recorder stopped, and Martin swung around in his chair. He was wearing a mischievous smile and he rubbed his hands together like a Shakespearean rogue.
"Perfect timing," he said.
"What's gotten into you?" she asked, pretending to be scared.
"Come," said Philips, leading her outside. Against the wall was a loaded gurney complete with IV bottles, linen, and a pillow. Smiling at her surprise, Martin began pushing the gurney down the hall. Denise caught up to him at the patient elevator.
"I gave you this fabulous idea?" she asked, helping guide the gurney into the car.
"That's right," said Philips. He hit the button for the sub-basement and the doors closed.
They emerged in the bowels of the hospital. A tangle of pipes, like blood vessels, ran off in both directions, twisting and turning on one another as if in agony. Everything was painted gray or black, eliminating all sense of color. The light, which was sparse, came from wire-mesh encased fluorescent bulbs placed at distant intervals, causing contrasting patches of white glare to be separated by long stretches of heavy shadow. Across from the elevator was a sign: MORGUE: FOLLOW RED LINE.
Like a trail of blood, the line ran along the middle of the corridor. It traced a complicated route through the dark passages, winding sharply when the corridor branched. Ultimately it ran down a sloping incline, which nearly pulled the gurney from Martin's hands.
"What in God's name are we doing down here?" asked Denise, her voice echoing with their footsteps in the lifeless spaces.
"You'll see," said Philips. His smile had waned and his voice sounded tense. His original playfulness had given way to a nervous concern about the prudence of what he was doing.
The corridor abruptly opened up into a huge underground cavern. The lighting here was equally as meager as in the corridor, and the two-story-high ceiling was lost in shadow. On the left wall was the closed door to the incinerator, and the hiss of hungry flames could be heard.
Ahead were the double swinging doors leading into the morgue. In front of them the red line on the floor ended with abrupt finality. Philips left the gurney and advanced toward the entrance. Pushing open the door on the right he looked inside. "We're in luck," he said, returning to the gurney. "We have the place to ourselves."
Denise followed reluctantly.
The morgue was a large neglected room, which had been allowed to decay to the point that it resembled one of those unearthed porticoes of Pompeii. A multitude of hooded lights hung on bare wires from the ceiling, but only a few had bulbs. The floor was constructed of stained terrazzo, while walls were surfaced with cracked and chipped ceramic tile. In the center of the room was a partially sunken pit containing an old marble autopsy slab. It had not been used since the twenties, and standing amid the debris, it appeared like an ancient pagan altar. Autopsies were currently done in the department of Pathology on the fifth floor, in a modern stainless steel setting.
Numerous doors lined the walls of the room, including a massive wooden one that resembled a meat refrigerator in a butcher shop. On the far wall was an inclined corridor that led up in utter darkness to a door opening on a back alley of the hospital complex. It was deathly quiet. The only noise was an occasional drip from a sink and the hollow sounds of their own footsteps.
Martin parked the gurney and hung up the IV bottle.
"Here," he said, handing Denise a corner of one of the fresh sheets and directing her to tuck it around the pad on the gurney.
He went over to the large wooden door, pulled the pin from the latch, and with great effort opened it up. An icy mist flowed out, layering itself on the terrazzo floor.
After finding the light switch Martin turned and noticed Denise had not budged.
"Come on! And bring the gurney."
"I'm not moving until you tell me what's going on," she said.
"We're pretending it's the fifteenth century."
"What do you mean?"
"We're going to snatch a body for science."
"Lisa Marino?" asked Denise incredulously.
"Exactly."
"Well I'm not going to have any part of this." She backed up as if about to flee.
"Denise, don't be silly. All I'm going to do is get the CAT scan and X rays I wanted. Then the body is coming right back. You don't think I'm going to keep it, do you?"
"I don't know what to think."
"What an imagination," said Philips as he grabbed the end of the gurney and pulled it into the antique walk-in refrigerator. The IV bottle clanked against its metal pole. Denise followed, her eyes rapidly exploring the interior which was completely tiled; walls, ceiling and floor. The tiles had once been white; now they were an indeterminate gray. The room was thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. Parked in rows on each side were old wooden carts with wheels the size of those on a bicycle. Down the center of the room was an open lane. Each cart supported a shrouded corpse.
Philips slowly moved down the center aisle, glancing from side to side. At the back of the room he turned around and began lifting the corner of each sheet. Denise shivered in the damp cold. She tried not to look at the bodies closest to her, which had been the gory result of one of the rush-hour traffic accidents. A foot, still wearing its shoe, stuck out at a crazy angle, advertising that the leg had been broken in mid-calf. Somewhere out of sight an old compressor chugged to life.
"Ah, here she is," said Philips, peering under one of the sheets. Thankfully, for Denise, he left the shroud in place and motioned for her to bring the gurney down. She did it like an automaton.
"Help me lift her," said Philips.
Denise grabbed Lisa Marino's ankles through the sheet to avoid touching the corpse. Philips hefted the torso. On the count of three, they moved the body, noticing that it had already become stiff. Then with Denise pulling, and Martin pushing, they guided the gurney back out of the refrigerator. Philips closed and secured the door.
"What's the IV for?" asked Sanger.
"I don't want people to think we're pushing around a corpse," said Philips. "And for that effect, the IV is the maestro's touch." He pulled the sheet down, exposing Lisa Marino's bloodless face. Denise looked away as Martin raised the head and shoved the pillow under it. Then he ran the blank IV line beneath the sheet. Stepping back, he checked the effect. 'Perfect." Then he patted the corpse's arm, saying, "Are you comfortable now?"
"Martin, for God's sake, do you have to be so gruesome?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, it's a defense. I'm not sure we should be doing this."
"Now he tells me", moaned Denise as she helped guide the gurney through the double door.
They retraced their steps through the subterranean labyrinth and entered the patient's elevator. To their dismay, it stopped on the first floor. Two orderlies were standing with a patient in a wheelchair. Martin and Denise stared at each other for a moment, in fear. Then Denise looked away, castigating herself for becoming involved in this ridiculous caper.
The orderlies wheeled the patient onto the elevator so that he was facing the rear, which they weren't supposed to do. They were involved in a conversation about the upcoming baseball season, and if they had noticed Lisa Marino's appearance, they didn't mention it. But the patient was different. He looked over and saw the huge sutured horseshoe incision on the side of Lisa Marino's head.