"Sorry," said Kurtz and shuffled off to the next room.

The old man in the third room was obviously dying. The curtain was pulled as far out as it could be, he was the only occupant of the double room, and the chart on the foot of his bed had a small blue slip of paper with the letters DNR on it. The old man's breathing, even on a respirator, was very close to a Cheyne-Stokes death rattle.

Kurtz found the clothes folded and stored neatly on the bottom shelf of the small closet—an old man's outfit—corded trousers that were only a little too small, plaid shirt, socks, scuffed Florsheims that were slightly too large for Kurtz, and a raincoat that looked like a castoff from Peter Falk's closet. Luckily, the old guy had also brought a hat—a Bogey fedora with authentic sweat stains and the brim already snapped down in a perfect crease. Kurtz wondered what relative would be cleaning this closet out in a day or so and if they'd miss the hat.

He walked to the elevators with much more spring in his stride than he was really capable of, glancing neither left nor right. Rather than stopping at the lobby, he took the elevator all the way to the parking garage and then followed the open ramp up and out into brisk air and sunlight.

There was a cab near the emergency entrance and Kurtz got the door opened before the cabbie saw him coming and then collapsed into the back seat He gave the driver his home address.

The cabbie turned, squinted, and said around his toothpick. "I was supposed to pick up Mr. Goldstein and his daughter."

"I'm Goldstein," said Kurtz. "My daughter's visiting someone else in the hospital for a while. Go on."

"Mr. Goldstein's supposed to be an old man in his eighties. Only one leg."

"The miracles of modern medicine," said Kurtz. He looked the cabbie in the eye. "Drive."