Deathbed

carefully he removed it, keeping it close to his side so onlookers couldn’t see it. Ethel, of course could.

“Oh, my God, Bruce, what is it? Is that a fetus, Bruce? Oh, my God, Bruce, why would you carry a fetus around in your pocket? Oh, my God, Bruce, that is gross!”

“Quiet, Ethel. It’s not a fetus.” But Whitaker was studying the object as if it might be something akin to a fetus. “Ethel, do you know if penicillin can grow on baloney?”

“Baloney! Do you mean to tell me that is baloney?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact ... at least it was baloney.”

“Where in the world did you get it? And why would you carry baloney around in your pocket?” For the first time in their relationship, Ethel began to seriously wonder about Bruce. After all, she began to reason, how far can you trust someone who carries a slice of baloney around in his pants’ pocket until the meat begins to grow a culture?

“Ethel, you’ll just have to trust me on this. I did somebody a favor by taking this baloney. Honest. Then I forgot all about it until now. Honest, Ethel, it is just a fluke. Forgive me?”

Ethel thought about that one for a while. “Well . . . okay, I guess. But I still think this is a bit strange.”

They continued to sit across from each other but the magic moment had been somewhat spoiled. Not unlike the baloney.

Ethel had to think things through once more. It was a new and wonderful feeling being protected and looked after by someone for the first time in her life. But when that someone carried dead baloney around in his pocket, the rapture becomes somewhat modified.

*       *       *

“That is almost unbelievable: The entire riot was caused by inferior marijuana?” Inspector Walter Koznicki observed.

“Yup,” Lieutenant Ned Harris replied. “One kid bought a bad joint from another kid. The trouble was the one kid was Hell’s Kitchen and the other guy was Devil Drivers. And both gangs were at Cobo in force.”

“So what began as a war between two gangs grew into a full-scale riot.” Koznicki frowned. “It makes me wonder whether everything that goes wrong in this city is caused by drugs or dope.”

“Kinda seems that way don’t it,” Harris agreed. “Even muggers usually go through a pawnshop to support a habit. I guess some of the domestic disturbances are just bad blood between a couple or a triangle. But even some of them start when somebody is snorting . . . or drinking.”

“What are the damages for the other night?”

Harris consulted his note pad. “Let’s see . . . seventy-three injured—twelve still hospitalized—luckily no one killed.”

Koznicki shook his head.

“And all over a lousy joint!” Harris added.

“Do the media have the complete story yet? Including the marijuana?”

“As far as I’ve been able to tell, so far only Cox of the Free Press has it.”

Koznicki smiled. “Ah, yes, Cox of the Free Press.”

“He got it about the same time we did, I think. So far, it’s his exclusive.”

“There is no reason to hold it any longer. You might as well hold a news conference. Mr. Cox will still have his scoop.”

Harris was about to leave the office. He hesitated. “Is there something else, Walt? You’ve been sort of glum the last day or so.”

Harris, tall, handsome, black, had moved through the Detroit Police Department virtually in Koznicki’s shadow. Koznicki, almost ten years Harris’s senior, had gone rather quickly from patrol to homicide, from sergeant to lieutenant to inspector. Harris had followed suit and everyone believed that one day he too would be an inspector. In the homicide department, Koznicki and Harris had been partners at one time. They remained close friends. They were sensitive to one another.

Koznicki waved a hand, as if brushing away Harris’s concern. “It’s nothing.”

“Something.”

“Oh, I’ve been a bit concerned about Father Koesler.”

“Koesler! What’s he been up to?”

The priest’s involvement in several homicide investigations over the past few years had never set well with Harris. He was a strong believer that murder was a matter for professionals to investigate. There was no room for amateurs in something so serious.

The fact that Koesler would have agreed wholeheartedly with Harris made no difference. With Harris it was an emotional reaction. Intellectually, Harris would admit that the relatively few times Koesler had been involved in police business, he had been practically dragged in because he was a natural source for consultation on religious matters, or because he was simply there on the scene and thus involved. Intellectually, too, Harris would have had to admit that when drawn into an investigation, Koesler had proven helpful. Sometimes to the point of actually solving the case. And this, emotionally, was Harris’s complaint.

If there were a reasonable aspect to Harris’s standpoint, it would be that the department might be mesmerized by Koesler’s luck and grow somewhat dependent on him. Down that road, Harris was certain, lay disaster. Thus he was not overjoyed when Walt Koznicki dropped Koesler’s name.

“Is your Father Koesler ill or something?” Harris inquired with no noticeable concern.

“No; nothing like that. He is substituting as a chaplain in St. Vincent’s Hospital.”

“Right in our backyard,” Harris commented, not happily. “But why should that give you concern? Nothing wrong with being a chaplain, is there? I mean, he’s qualified; he is a priest, after all.”

“No, no. It’s just that he has a premonition that something bad is about to happen at St. Vincent’s.”

“A premonition! Really, Walt!”

“You do not know him as I do, Ned. Father is not one to cry wolf. And when it comes to an intuitive sense, he has been right more often than anyone else I know. So if he has a premonition of evil, I tend to pay attention.”

“But, Walt, that’s something like saying that things come to a conclusion at a mortuary. Things like that happen in a hospital. People are sick. People die. It happens whether Father Koesler is there or not.”

“He is not concerned with the ordinary, expected occurrences of hospital routine. He is worried that something extraordinary might happen at St. Vincent’s.”

“‘Something extraordinary,’ Walt? You’re talking about murder, aren’t you?”

“That was the ultimate concern.”

“Even then—even if he’s right—there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re not in the business of preventing homicide; we just investigate it.”

“I am well aware of that. I am concerned mainly because if he is proven correct, he is there in the midst of it. He could be drawn into it innocently.”

“There is always another possibility, Walt.”

“What?”

“That he’s wrong.”

“I hope you are right.”

“I have a premonition. It’s that Father Koesler is wrong. And I’ll match my premonition against his any day. Make you feel any better?”

Koznicki sighed deeply. He wanted to argue the point no more. “You win, Ned. All is well.”

*       *       *

Sister Rosamunda was making her rounds. She was trying not to be bitter. It was not easy. Her bones seemed to ache clear through to the marrow. She was feeling her years and trying not to show it.

Put her on the shelf, would they? Well! We’ll see about that!

She had checked the Crawford woman and her neighbor, Millie Power. All appeared normal there. Power’s pneumonia seemed stabilized and Crawford was just scared, as well she might be, being operated on tomorrow. Rosamunda promised herself and Crawford a visit tonight to try to quiet and reassure the patient into a decent night’s sleep.

The next patient on her list was an Alice Walker in 2218-A, who had been admitted earlier this day.

Rosamunda entered the room, her practiced eye catching all the essentials at a glance. The bed nearest the door was vacant. Too much of that going on at St. Vincent’s. A hospital’s financial situation is not helped by empty