Chapter 13

The monitor on the stand next to the rail left a green spike followed by smaller spikes both above the line and below it. The attendant had the sound turned low ... just loud enough to be disturbed by the absence of sound than by the sound itself.

Clamped to the stand were various pumps injecting various liquids into the back of both strapped down hands. On an extended hanger at the top of the stainless steel stand was a bag of whitish thick liquid that had taken hours to adjust correctly. It moved sluggishly through yet another pump on the stand ... forced through a clear tubing that threaded through the nose and down to the stomach. A feeding tube.

A chemical block kept the body from breathing on its own and a second tube was taped to the mouth of the man in the bed. The second tube inflated and deflated the lungs. It too was attached to a pump, that pump was attached to the chrome plated O2 plumbing. There was a continuous suck whoosh ... suck whoosh sound as the pump compressed and vacuumed. The pump actually clattered. The attendant noted that the pump needed replacing and charted it for the Doc to order.

Another pump line led under the sheet at the foot of the bed. The line was attached to a pair of cloth covered bags that expanded and contracted forcing the blood in the veins to circuit through the body and prevent the idle blood in the lower legs from clotting.

A line snaked its way from under the sheet ... carrying a yellow liquid away to a bag hanging from a rail ... the line weeped and dripped.

The television on the wall at the foot of the bed displayed some mindless drivel soundlessly.

A nurse left her desk and opened the door to the room. Although all the telemetry from the various pumps and meters were displayed at her desk station ... and she knew exactly the condition of the patient ... there is that about a professional that needs to SEE. She asked the attendant, "Any change?"

"Not a peep or beep out of place. It's a great assignment though. I've read every bulletin and advisory dispensed over the past six months. I'm caught up on the local news and my studies. I even did my nails." She displayed them.

"Pretty color ... how did you... '' The talk degenerated into women's secrets and the antics of residents and ER nurses. That subject exhausted ... even though it was hashed and rehashed every night ... the main question was asked.

"Who is he?" with a nod of the head towards the bed.

"David. Other than that? No one knows," said the Nurse. "There's absolutely no record anywhere."

Even though it was old hat the discussion turned to the money ... the gold. Fifty five pounds of 99.999 fine gold in five pound ingots ... one million five hundred eighty four thousand dollars at the exchange rate of 1800.00 dollars an ounce ... was found tied up in a box inside the Emergency Unit door. The note read 'Care for David. We watching.'

And watching they were.

At a Hospital Board meeting, there arose a consensus that the gold was 'found' money ... it would make a nice bonus. David could go the way of all poverty patients. There was silence in the boardroom.

Two days later, when security broke down the boardroom doors, there were seven piles of human slush dripping from seven skeletons contorted with fear, and a tape recorder playing a tape discussing the theft of the money. The note on the table read, 'David care. We is watching. Copy to public purveyors.'

The board members were very important men ... the investigation was far too thorough for the comfort of bankers and lawyers ... The theft of millions of donated hospital funds spilled over the political parties like ink from an escaping octopus. No actionable cause was ever found accounting for the deaths. There was plenty of cause for arrests in the local legal community. Arrests that found their way as far as Senate chambers in Washington.