Pool_2

operating room, "Which one?" "Room three. Dr. K's got it set up, hopefully."

There are two doctors you don't argue with, pathologists and anesthesiologists. What they say is law, at least until a hearing is called, but that's another day. That simple throat slit gesture meant simultaneously, "Fischbein, you're wrong. Leave now. You are dead if you don't yield immediately." So warned, he withdrew shaking and seething get evenisms. Dr. Kirshenbaum a young golden hands hand surgeon who hadn't yet been tainted by "the system" and the radiology techs were indeed ready, as were three nurses who had, on their own, stayed around and quietly set up the room. Kirshenbaum snapped, "Let's boogie." Woodrow curious about this turn of events had, followed to the door of the staging area, but then stepped back as if leaving, out of the way, but nevertheless, watching long enough to observe the melee and a furious Dr. Fischbein storming out, spitting oaths as he passed her. She thought to herself that this was a place where it was easy to make enemies. Then too, a place where allies were important. How like government. Power was more important than truth. Truth without power is tragedy. She left. It was jazz, two doctors, Macaluso and Kirshenbaum, playing off each other, with the x-ray tech and nurses following in the harmony, individuals yet, a singularity realigning a shattered arm, coaxing long stabilizing pins through a confusion of bone fragments in locking crossing patterns to procure stability, venting the very large hematoma - an internal pressure forming lake of hemorrhage - from the fracture site and decompressing the artery. "Intimal flap?" Kirshenbaum wondered as this was being played out. But then the once absent drummer was heard. The beat. Life itself joined the set. The Doppler