Dead Certain

and discarded packages from which tubes and needles had been ripped. I couldn’t help but wonder, just for a second, how it could be possible to figure out the cost of what I’d just witnessed.
    I turned and looked with new eyes at the petite figure of my roommate. I used to think that the demands of my profession—the endless workweeks and demanding travel schedule—set me apart from other people. But now I realized that my situation was nothing compared to Claudia’s. How did you go to work knowing that your job was to look death in the face and stare it down? How did you put your hand inside another person’s chest and hold their heart and then go home and have anything that resembled a normal life?
    I knew eventually I would have to ask her, but not today. Instead I said, “Is he going to be okay?”
    “We’ll know better when we get him upstairs and open up his chest,” she replied, automatically stripping off her bloody gloves. “A lot depends on where the clot is and how much damage was already done to the heart muscle. All we can do down here is try to give him a chance in the operating room.” She picked up her stethoscope from the top of an adjacent rolling cart and slung it automatically around her neck. “So you say this guy’s one of your clients?”
    “You know the computer thing I’m working on?” I replied somewhat incoherently. “He’s the engineer who invented the new input engine. Delirium is his company. I had just picked him up at McCormack Place. We were supposed to be going to a meeting,” I said, feeling like I was relating events that had happened in another lifetime.
    “Well, it’s a good thing you were in the neighborhood,” said Claudia. “With a massive MI like that, normally you’d give the patient a fifty-fifty chance at best.”
    I was about to ask her if she still thought those were Bill Delius’s chances, when the nurse I recognized as having done CPR popped her head in the doorway.
    “They just called down from OR three,” she told Claudia. “Dr. Laffer wants to know if you’re available to assist or if they should page Dr. Jacobs.”
    “Tell them I’m on my way,” replied Claudia.
    “It was cool to watch you work,” I said, knowing that she was in a hurry, but not wanting to let the moment Pass without saying it. “Thanks for letting me stay.“
    “Even you have to admit it,” she grinned as she headed for the door. “I have the coolest job in the world.”
     
    I wandered back out into the waiting room and dug through my purse for my cell phone and asked the mobile operator to connect me to the Four Seasons. While I waited for her to find the number I checked my watch. I had no idea what time it was and was surprised to hnd that it was nearly ten o’clock. I remembered Claudia talking about how time stood still in the trauma room, and now I understood.
    The operator at the Four Seasons regretted to inform me that she was under strict instructions to put no calls through to Mr. Hurt or any of the other Icon people’s rooms. Apparently they were having some sort of party and did not wish to be disturbed. I did everything I could think of to persuade her to make an exception, short of bursting into tears—though at this point I probably could have managed that without too much trouble— but to no avail. The closest I was going to get to Gabriel Hurt that night was the hotel’s voice mail.
    I left a message that was long on apologies and short on detail. I had no idea if Bill Delius was going to survive the night, and even though it was my job, I couldn’t begin to think about what impact this turn of events might have on any possible deal. Instead I dug through my Day Runner for Mark Millman’s home number and tried to figure out what I was going to say.
    I was so wrapped up in what I was doing that I didn’t notice Claudia’s ex-boyfriend, Carlos, until he’d plopped down into the seat beside me.
    “Hi, Kate, how’re ya doin’?” he asked, throwing his arm around my shoulder, the very picture of fraternal concern. Instinctively, I got to my feet, anxious to put some distance between us.
    Carlos was an attractive, well-put-together man with a shock of thick black hair, a little boy’s smile, and just enough mischief in his eyes to let you know that he knew just how much fun you could have being bad. With his chest muscles rippling through the dark fabric of the Chicago Fire Department T-shirt that the paramedics all wore, I had no