Montpelier scratched at his beard. “Listen. I’ll tell you about B.F. There’s a lot more to him than you think. Like that time he kicked me down the elevator shaft…”

“He what?”

“It was an accident,” Brenda said quickly.

“Sure,” Montpelier agreed. “We were discussing something in the hallway; my memory’s a little hazy…”

“The chess show,” said Brenda.

“Oh, yes.” Montpelier’s eyes gleamed with the memory of his idea. “I had this terrific idea for a chess show. With real people—contestants, you know, from the audience—on each square. We’d dress them in armor and all and let them fight it out when they got moved onto the same square…”

“And the final survivor gets a million dollars,” Brenda said.

“And the Hospital Trust gets the losers… which we would then use on our ‘Medical Miracles’ show!”

Oxnard felt a little dizzy. “But chess isn’t…”

Brenda touched him with the fingertips of one hand. “It doesn’t matter. Listen to what happened.” She was smiling. Oxnard felt himself grin back at her.

Montpelier went on, “Well, B.F. and I went round and round on this idea. He didn’t like it, for some reason. The more I argued for it, the madder he got. Finally we were at the end of the hallway, waiting for the elevator and he got so mad he kicked me! He actually kicked me. He was taking Aikido lessons in those days and he kicked me right through the goddamned elevator door!”

“You know how flimsy the doors around here are,” Brenda quipped.

Before Oxnard could say anything, Montpelier resumed:

“I went bum-over-tea-kettle right down the elevator shaft!”

“Geez…”

“Luckily, the elevator was on its way up the shaft, so I only fell twenty or thirty floors. They had me fixed up in less than a year.”

“Les was the star of ‘Medical Miracles’ for a whole week… although he didn’t know it at the time.”