"That means breakfast," Ronkers told the nurse. They had Kesler on a hundred milligrams of Demerol every four hours; that makes you less than alert.
Ronkers was getting out of the elevator on the first floor when the intercom paged "Dr. Heart." There was no Dr. Heart at University Hospital. "Dr. Heart" meant that someone's heart had stopped.
"Dr. Heart?" the intercom asked sweetly. "Please come to 304.
Any doctor in the hospital was supposed to hurry to that room. There was an unwritten rule that you looked around and made a slow move to the nearest elevator, hoping another doctor would beat you to the patient. Ronkers hesitated, letting the elevator door close. He pushed the button again, but the elevator was already moving up.
"Dr. Heart, room 304," the intercom said calmly. It was better than urgently crying, "A doctor! Any doctor to room 304! Oh, my God, hurryr That might disturb the other patients and the visitors.
Dr. Hampton was coming down the floor toward the elevator.
"You still having office calls?" Hampton asked Ronkers.
"Yup," Ronkers said.
"Go back to your office, then," Hampton said. "I'll get this one."
The elevator had stopped on the third floor; it was pretty certain that "Dr. Heart" had already arrived in 304. Ronkers went back to his office. It would be nice to take Kit out to dinner, he thought.
At the Route Six Ming Dynasty, Kit ordered the sweet and sour bass; Ronkers chose the beef in lobster sauce. He was distracted. He had seen a sign in the window of the Route Six Ming Dynasty, just as they'd come in the door. It was a sign about two feet long and one foot high -- black lettering on white shirt cardboard, perhaps. It looked perfectly natural there in the window, for it was about the expected size -- and, Ronkers falsely assumed, about the expected content of a sign like TWO WAITRESSES WANTED.
Ronkers was distracted only now, as he sipped a drink with Kit, because only now was the real content of that sign coming through to him. He thought he was imagining it, so he excused himself from the table and slipped outside the Route Six Ming Dynasty to have another look at the sign.
Appallingly, he had not imagined it. There, vividly in a lower corner of the window, plainly in view of every customer approaching the door, was a neatly lettered sign, which read: HARLAN BOOTH HAS THE CLAP.
"Well, it's true, isn't it?" Kit asked.
"Well, yes, but that's not the point," Ronkers said. "It's sort of unethical. I mean, it has to be Margaret Brant, and I'm responsible for releasing the information. That sort of thing should be confidential, after all."
"Turds," said Kit. "Good for Margaret Brant! You must admit, Raunch, if Harlan Booth had played fair with you, the whole thing wouldn't have happened. I think he deserves it."
"Well, of course he deserves it," Ronkers said, "but I wonder where else she put up signs."
"Really, Raunch, just let it be.
But Ronkers had to see for himself. They drove to the Student Union. Inside the main lobby, Ronkers searched the giant bulletin board for clues.
70 BMW, LIKE NEW ...
RIDERS WANTED TO SHARE EXPENSES AND DRIVING TO NYC, LV. THURS., RETURN MON. EVE., CALL "LARRY," 351-4306....
HARLAN BOOTH HAS THE CLAP....
"My God."
They went to the auditorium; a play was in progress. They didn't even have to get out of their car to see it: a NO PARKING sign had been neatly covered and given the new message. Kit was hysterical.
The Whale Room was where a lot of students drank and played pool and danced to local talent. It was a loud, smoke-filled place; Ronkers had several emergency calls a month involving patients who had begun their emergency in the Whale Room.
Somehow, Margaret Brant had warmed the bartender's heart. Above the bar mirror, above the glowing bottles, above the sign saying CHECKS CASHED FOR EXACT AMOUNT ONLY, were the same neat and condemning letters now familiar to Ronkers and Kit. The Whale Room was informed that Harlan Booth was contagious.
Fearing the worst, Ronkers insisted they take a drive past Margaret Brant's dorm -- a giant building, a women's dormitory of prison size and structure. Ivy did not grow there.
In the upcast streetlights, above the bicycle racks -- seemingly tacked to every sill of every third-floor window -- a vast sewn-together bedsheet stretched across the entire front of Catherine Cascomb Dormitory for Women. Margaret Brant had friends. Her friends were upset, too. In a massive sacrifice of linen and labor, every girl in every third-floor, front-window room had done her part. Each letter was about five feet high and single-bed width.
"Fantastic!" Kit shouted. "Well done! Good show! Let him have it!"
"Way to go, Maggie Brant," whispered Ronkers reverently. But he knew he hadn't seen the end of it.