Robert returned from the phone saying Jerry Donovan would be right down and offered his guests coffee. Before they had a chance to drink it, Jerry arrived on the run. The first thing he did was give Cassi a hug. Joan was impressed. Cassi seemed to be on friendly terms with everyone. Then he slapped Robert on the shoulder and said, “Hey, man, thanks for the call,” Robert winced at the impact of the blow and forced a smile.
To Joan, Jerry was dressed like the usual house officer. His white jacket, rumpled and soiled, hung askew due to the weight of an overstuffed black notebook in the right pocket. His pants were spotted with a line of bloodstains across the thighs. Next to Robert, Jerry looked like a floor sweeper in a meat-packing house.
“Jerry went to the same medical school as Robert and I,” explained Cassi.
“Only he was an upper classman.”
“A distinction that is still painfully obvious,” kidded Jerry.
“Let’s go,” said Robert. “I’ve had one of the autopsy rooms on hold long enough.”
Robert left first, followed by Joan. Jerry stepped aside for Cassi, then caught up to her.
“You’ll never guess who I had the pleasure of watching do his thing last night,” said Jerry as they skirted the microscope table.
“I wouldn’t even try,” said Cassi, expecting some off-color humor. “Your husband! Dr. Thomas Kingsley.”
“Really?” said Cassi. “What was a medicine man like you doing in the OR?”
“I wasn’t,” said Jerry. “I was on the surgical floor trying to resuscitate the patient we’re going to autopsy. Your husband responded to the code. I was impressed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such decisiveness. He ripped this guy’s chest open and gave open-heart massage right on the bed. It blew my mind. Tell me, is your husband that impressive at home?”
Cassi shot Jerry a harsh glance. If that comment had come from anybody but Jerry, she probably would have snapped back. But she expected off-color humor and there it was. So why make an issue? She decided to let it drop.
Ignoring Cassi’s less-than-positive reaction, Jerry continued: “The thing that impressed me was not the actual cutting open of the guy’s chest but rather the decision to do it in the first place. It’s so goddamn irreversible. It’s a decision I don’t know how anybody could make. I agonize over whether or not to start a patient on antibiotics.”
“Surgeons get used to that sort of thing,” said Cassi. “That kind of decision making becomes a tonic. In a sense they enjoy it.”
“Enjoy it?” echoed Jerry with disbelief. “That’s pretty hard to believe, but I suppose they must; otherwise we wouldn’t have any surgeons. Maybe the biggest difference between an internist and a surgeon is the ability to make irreversible decisions.”
Entering the autopsy room, Robert donned a black rubber apron and rubber gloves. The others grouped around the pale corpse whose chest still gaped open. The edges of the wound had darkened and dried. Except for an endotracheal tube that stuck rudely out of the mouth, the patient’s face looked serene. The eyes were thankfully closed.
“Ten to one it was a pulmonary embolism,” said Jerry confidently. “I’ll put a dollar on that,” said Robert, positioning a microphone which hung from the ceiling at a convenient height. It was operated by a foot pedal. “You told me yourself the patient initially had been very cyanotic. I don’t think we’re going to find an embolism. In fact, if my hunch is correct, we’re not going to find anything.”
As Robert: began his examination, he started dictating into the mike.
“This is a well-developed, well-nourished Caucasian male weighing approximately one hundred sixty-five pounds and measuring seventy inches in length who appears to be of the stated age of forty-two …”
As Robert went on to describe the other visible evidence of Bruce Wilkinson’s surgery, Joan stared at Cassi, who was placidly sipping her coffee. Joan looked down at her own cup. The idea of drinking it made her stomach turn.
“Have all these SSD cases been the same?” asked Joan, trying not to look at the table where Robert was arranging scalpels, scissors, and bone clippers in preparation of opening and eviscerating the corpse.