When she was gone, Andy leaned back and studied the ceiling. It seemed that wherever he moved, whatever he did, he was catapulted into the middle of some medical problem that he would have been pleased to avoid. Now it sounded as if he would be called upon to defend the integrity of retirement centers, for he had no doubt that Hasslebrook, whoever he was, had been inserted into the Palms to spy upon operations in the health center. And he wondered whether he should have a discussion with the man right now, so that the battle lines in whatever struggle might ensue were understood. He was strongly inclined to react quickly and firmly, but first he would seek the guidance of Ken Krenek and Nora Varney, experienced hands who would be just as eager to protect the Palms as he was.

'Now, I don't want anyone to panic or jump the gun, but the Duchess told me that our Clarence Hasslebrook looks to be an agent of the Life Is Sacred movement out of Boston. He received in the mail today a large packet of what she suspects was printed material from his agency. What do we know about his group? What should we do about having him in our midst?'

Krenek was eager to speak: 'Very powerful. Very persuasive. They publish good materials and seem to be growing in strength.'

'What specifically might they do here at the Palms?'

'They raised merry hell with the nursing homes in Texas. And I must say, some of them deserved it, and they were complimented for having done a public service. In some of their other interventions? Well, I got the idea they were interested mainly in publicity for their various causes.'

'Which ones might apply to us? Why would he be here?'

'They're fierce opponents of anything in care for the aged that smacks of terminating a human life.'

Andy interrupted: 'I've read somewhere they're masters at using the courts-'

'None better,' Krenek said, 'I've studied a couple of their cases in the newspapers, and their method is to tie you up. Positively hog-tie you, so you have to play by their rules.'

'What would be your guess as to why he's here?'

'Obviously he wants to check us out, but it could well be that he's chosen us because we're part of Taggart's chain. Put him down as an industrial spy.'

Andy considered this and said: 'You may be right. Now, what do we know about this particular fellow? Let's look at everything. Even little bits. Nora?'

'The high school waitresses report he's a bore. Sits there and never talks.'

'How old is he?'

'Mid-sixties?' Nora guessed.

'Ken, how was it exactly he came here?'

'I handled the case. Woman lawyer from his firm in Boston took care of arrangements. She wanted it for one of their staff who lost his wife, kids all married.'

'Kids?'

'Yes. Six, as I recall. His financial condition we didn't look into, since the law firm paid everything and the woman assured me he had small investments on the side. But I'm not so sure. We might want to bring in Chris Mallory. He took him shopping for a new suit, and his report of what happened is hilarious.'

'In what way?'

'Makes Hasslebrook a real dope. Highest he'd go for a sports coat, which he needed, was thirty-five dollars at Charley's, that outlet in the Spanish quarter that specializes in factory seconds. So I judge he's not loaded.'

'What to do?' Andy leaned back, looked over the heads of his assistants and for some moments contemplated this unwelcome development.

Krenek suddenly cried: 'I think I have it! In that famous case in one of the western states, a representative of Life Is Sacred butted into a family problem. The parents were trying to exercise their brain-dead daughter's wish expressed years before that she never be kept alive when meaningful life has vanished. And damned if he didn't get a court order making him custodial guardian of the young woman, and he absolutely stopped the parents from doing what they had promised, to let the girl die.' He paused dramatically, then said: 'I'm sure I remember that agent's name as Hasslebrook. If he did it out west, he can do it in Florida. Get a court order and take all our options away from us.'

Nora said: 'Florida courts aren't going to put up with that nonsense. Too many old people come here expecting protection,' but Krenek said: 'Trouble is, they might get the idea that Hasslebrook is protecting them. On paper his ideas look good, but they raise hell with private lives. Yes, now I remember. There was a two-hour television play on that western case. Pretty gruesome from our point of view.'

Andy, listening to this ominous news, concluded that Hasslebrook's intrusion could mean only trouble, for him, for the Palms and maybe even for the Taggart interests. What kind of trouble remained to be defined, but Andy had a strong intuition that it would be best to have that definition take place right now. He sighed heavily: 'To think I came down here to get away from this kind of legal nonsense.'

After a pause he placed both hands on his desk, pushed himself back and said: 'Ken, go fetch him. We'd better find out up front.'

Krenek did not leap to the door. Instead he warned: 'Andy, do not lose your temper with this man. You and I have seen only one aspect of the fellow, an aspect he's carefully presented, the dumb boob. That he is not. Believe me, Andy, this man is dangerous-to you-to me-to the whole Taggart chain.'

'You've convinced me of that, which is why I want to confront him now, at the start.'

'Nora,' Krenek asked, 'what do you think?' but before she could reply, Andy said quietly: 'In a case like this, where we're dealing with what looks like real danger, it's what I think that matters. It's my responsibility, and I've lived by the rule of meeting danger head-on.' He laughed and added: 'And look where it's got me. Kicked out of Chicago and now maybe out of Tampa. But here goes. Fetch him, Ken.'

When Krenek brought Hasslebrook into the office, Andy moved forward to shake hands and said: 'I'm sure you've met my nursing assistant, Mrs. Varney, and you met Mr. Krenek when you applied-' In some embarrassment he corrected himself: 'You've not met Krenek, have you? Your entry was arranged by a member of your staff in Boston. Well, this is Kenneth Krenek, and now if you'll leave me with Mr. Hasslebrook we can go about our business.' The dismissal was not well handled and everyone knew it, but the others filed out.

They were alone together for the first time: Clarence Hasslebrook, sixty-three years old, slightly overweight, slightly disheveled, and Andy Zorn, thirty-five years old, trim in his lightweight Florida summer suit, obviously able and eager to avoid trouble if possible. He proposed to find out.

'One of our residents informed me this morning that when she went to get her mail she saw next to her package outside the post office door a large packet addressed to you, and she couldn't help noticing that it came from an organization she knew well, Life Is Sacred, with its office in Boston, I believe.'

Hasslebrook leaned back, smiled and said: 'So it was you who cut the corner of my package and sniffed inside. I suppose you know, Dr. Zorn, that you could go to jail for that?'

Zorn was stunned by the speed and daring that Hasslebrook showed in his willingness to engage his target frontally, but he did not flinch: 'I assure you, as director of the Palms I'd never commit such an act. So let's not start by making threats. What I'm entitled to know, as the man responsible for the management of this place, is whether you are an agent of Life Is Sacred, and if so, why you inserted yourself in here as a kind of spy. And most important of all, what specifically are you spying on?'

Hasslebrook smiled, then pointed out that Zorn had asked 'three monumental questions,' any one of which could be considered quite intrusive on Zorn's part and something he was not obligated to answer.

Zorn broke into laughter, then said: 'They told me you were a dullard. Couldn't put three words together. Obviously not true. Actually, you're too damned clever for your own good.'

'Holy Cross, Boston Law and not particularly clever, but very determined.'

'Help me-determined to do what?'

'To check into the operations of a high-class nursing home.'

'A phrase we never use.'

'But the public does, the courts do. And believe me, Dr. Zorn, nursing homes bear looking into.' Pausing just a moment, he asked: 'Doctor Zorn? Are you in charge of medical services here? Are you the resident physician?'

Andy smiled: 'Come on, Mr. Hasslebrook, you know the answers to your questions better than I do. I am not licensed to practice here in Florida, and as you must surely know, retirement centers in this state rarely have resident physicians. We rely on those in the surrounding community.'

The two men had reached an impasse, each having established the fact that he was not going to be bullied by the other. Andy broke the silence: 'All right, Mr. Hasslebrook, let's get down to procedures. You are, I take it, an important member of your group?'

'Not an officer. But a trusted member. And we're determined to police nursing homes and places like them to ensure that old people are not being abused-and hastened to their deaths.'

'That's your job here?'

'Yes, and in the other establishments in this community.'

'Your committee is spending a lot of unnecessary money to lodge you in this place. Why not some less expensive boardinghouse?'

'Our society has funds to spend on worthy purposes. They wanted an inside view of how a luxury place like this functions.'

'I can show you right now, save you a lot of money.'

'I don't want to see your version of your behavior. I want to see our version of your misbehavior.'

'I can't persuade you to make your headquarters elsewhere? It'll be embarrassing to have you here, embarrassing to both of us.'

'If you even suggested throwing me out, there'd be a lawsuit, and a very ugly one indeed. And you would lose, because there's magic in our name. Life Is Sacred. That's not only true but it's something the public responds to deeply. Dr. Zorn, do not, I beg you, pit yourself against me in a courtroom, because, I assure you, you'll lose.'

Andy had heard threats like that before, and twice the lawyer making them had been right, he had lost. He felt himself being hemmed in, but since he'd been in that position before, he did not panic. Instead he asked: 'So what is our relationship to be?' and Hasslebrook replied: 'An amiable one. I have my job to do, surveillance. You have yours, to protect the reputation of your establishment. If your people are not engaged in evil practices, you'll have no problems with me, but if they are, you'll have real problems.' He stuck his hand out as if to signal that honorable warfare had begun, but the gesture was fruitless, because Andy, in a flush of anger, unwisely refused to take the hand. Hasslebrook, proving that he was more skilled in these matters than Andy, smiled, withdrew his hand and said pleasantly as he departed: 'I believe you, Doctor. I'm satisfied that you did not pilfer my mail. But someone in your organization did, and that's not a reassuring way for us to begin our association.'

In September, as World Series time approached, the men of the Palms received exciting news that gave everyone pleasure. On Long Island close to New York City a group of baseball fanatics made their living by trading in the little playing cards showing the notable big-league players dating back to the early 1900s. These cards, such as the extremely rare one of Honus Wagner, the Pittsburgh man who was the greatest third baseman of all time, brought fabulous prices, up in the hundred-thousand-dollar range, but later stars like Mickey Mantle also fetched high prices-say, in the forty-thousand-dollar class. Baseball cards were big business. This year the dealers in the Long Island district had organized what they ballyhooed as 'the mother of all card conventions,' a three-day extravaganza at which timeless heroes such as Stan Musial, Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle would appear to autograph baseballs in person, often for as much as seven or eight dollars a signature. A lot of money changed hands at these affairs, and this one promised to be the gala of the past five years.

One of the organizing dealers had the excellent idea of inviting the only surviving hero of that 1929 World Series game in which the Philadelphia Athletics scored ten runs in one unbelievable inning. 'His name,' the clever manager told the committee, 'is Buzz Bixby, and they tell me he's living somewhere down in Florida, sharp as a button and loves to talk about that historic game.' When others who had not been born when Bixby was a star player agreed that bringing him north might give a real boost to the convention, the principal organizer said: 'It would cost us peanuts to fly him up here. We'd put him up in my brother's motel, no charge, and we'd get a world of coverage in the sports section of the New York press, maybe television, too.'

So inquiry was made in Florida and the Long Island men learned that Buzz was living in the Palms. Commissioning a Florida dealer to speak for them, they authorized him to engineer a deal whereby Buzz would fly north for the three-day fiesta. When the dealer visited the Palms to extend the invitation, he also talked to Zorn and saw at once the reasonableness of the doctor's request for taking precautions and faxed his Long Island colleagues: Buzz Bixby in good health, has all his marbles. Loves to talk about the game. But at his age his people will not allow him to fly alone. Sensible and I agree. So you must provide two round-trips to La Guardia. If so, it's a deal.

The Long Island men had already received ample publicity on the rumor that Buzz Bixby might attend. Realizing that if his visit fell apart over an extra airfare from Florida, their big venture might turn sour, they promptly authorized their Florida contact to provide the two round-trip tickets.

The problem then became who should take Buzz to Long Island and bring him safely back. Both Ken Krenek and Bedford Yancey pointed out that they had long been baseball addicts and would be pleased to spend the required five days in the New York area, and it proved difficult to make a choice between them. The impasse was resolved by Dr. Zorn, who said that Buzz ought to be attended not by someone who would merely carry his suitcase but by someone with medical experience. Krenek and Yancey bowed to authority and agreed that Andy should accompany the old man north to ensure he did not overextend himself at the three-day bash.

In the meantime Bixby was packing his bag, reviewing his set speech and chafing in his eagerness to get started on a trip that would again bring him into contact with fans and many of the great players who had come along in the years since 1929. Andy saw that the only thing that might cause Buzz trouble would be his enthusiastic desire to do too much, a fear that proved well founded in the days prior to departure when one organization after another, upon learning that Bixby would be attending the show, wanted to sign him up for an appearance at some function, or an interview, or a short trip into New York City for one of the morning talk shows. Buzz wanted to do everything, and if any phone call reached him directly, rather than through Dr. Zorn's office, he blithely said: 'Sure, I'll be with you.' It was clear that this was going to be a rather hectic affair.

On Thursday morning, four baseball enthusiasts from the Palms drove Bixby and his caretaker to the Tampa airport, where Buzz actually ran up the various ramps to reach the train that carried passengers to the planes. Settled into comfortable seats for the long flight to New York, Buzz and Andy went over the proposed schedule of obligations for Long Island, and the doctor was surprised to find that there were two schedules, one that he had approved with considerable care, after consultation with the managers of the convention, and one that Buzz had agreed to in his informal phone conversations with anyone who happened to call. Since there was little similarity between the two, Andy saw that accommodations would have to be made, giving priority to the important meetings. Buzz brushed such discussion aside: 'We'll do 'em all,' and it was a standoff.

After settling into their motel, Andy and Buzz approached the immense industrial shed, a place larger than a football field, where some eighty card dealers had erected their stands. The hall contained so much clutter that Andy could scarcely see from one end to the other, for almost anything that could reasonably be related to baseball seemed to be for sale.

Pride of place, however, went to those stands whose occupants had baseball cards for sale or trade. There must have been four dozen big stalls, and whenever Andy and Bixby passed one of them the owners, who were busy arranging their goods for the opening the next day, guessed that the old man must be the immortal Buzz Bixby. They wanted Buzz's assurance that he would later autograph some of the special cards they'd had printed up with his picture as he had appeared in the 1929 game. He said yes to everyone.

The managers of the affair had arranged a small dinner in Bixby's honor on the evening before the opening, and at it he was at his best. He had acquired through the years a taste for dark German beer, although a Guinness stout would do as well, but with the self-discipline that had kept him active in the big leagues for so long, he restricted himself to one bottle a night. He did not want it served in a glass, for then the portion was apt to be smaller, and he nursed along his bottle, never gulping it down but savoring each carefully apportioned mouthful. He was, Andy thought as that first evening progressed with Bixby relating old adventures in the various ball-parks of the 1920s and '30s, as fine an example of a celebrated old-time professional athlete as one could have hoped for. Zorn realized that he now prized this old man far more than he had when he first heard him reciting his famous account of that historic game in Philadelphia.

Andy had to admit, however, that it was a strain on the three following days to sit and listen to Buzz give his speech twice a day, afternoon and evening. There would be a roll of drums and Buzz, seated in a comfortable chair with a glass of water at his side, would deliver the familiar opening sentence in a warm, husky voice: 'Some who are entitled to have an opinion believe it was the greatest game in the history of baseball, but I've seen better on television. Bobby Thomson's one-out homer against Ralph Branca....'

Andy thought that each of the six times Buzz gave his oration it got better, but that was improbable because the words and the delivery were always identical. These sessions were the biggest events of Buzz's life, and he savored them. But what surprised Andy was that when his talks ended, Bixby had the energy to circulate among the dealers, signing almost anything they placed before him: 'Buzz Bixby, 12 October 1929.'

Bixby, with his enormous popularity as the oldest World Series player ever to appear at such a function-'ninety years and still able to hit a curve,' the announcer said when introducing Bixby's speeches-had long lines waiting whenever he took his scheduled place at a dealer's table, and at seven bucks a throw for his autograph and the exchange of a few words he would make far more during this visit than he had in the entire year when he starred in the Series.

Andy was astounded at how much money was involved, and one of the Long Island men informed him: 'These grand old players earn much more money each year from us than they ever did playing the game, when salaries were so modest.'

'Does something like this take place elsewhere in the country?'

'All the time. Everywhere they can draw a crowd. Most affairs feature an old-timers' game. You see the men in action again, but they play it canny. No one wants to pull a hamstring from running too hard, and those who have to wear glasses play it very cautious at the plate.'

It was a phenomenon unmatched in any other sport. One of the managers explained, 'No football player can be idolized by the fans the way a baseball player is. He plays one hundred fifty-four games a year, old style, one hundred sixty-three new style. And he stays at it year after year. And most important of all, he usually does it for the same team, ten, twenty years at a time. The hometown fans grow to love him. But you take football. The players have so much gear on them that the fans never really see them. There's little identification and not much love, they move around so much, one town after another, loyalty doesn't have a chance to develop.'

'What's going on over there?' Andy asked, pointing to where a mob surrounded a player.

'That's the real phenomenon. Pete Rose. Very stormy career, banned from baseball for betting on the game, but a great hero. The fans love him, and Pete comes here with two truckloads of stuff. He sells everything. The shirt he wore when he broke Ty Cobb's record, the bat that got the base hit. He sells them everywhere. Or anything else you might be interested in. He earns a fortune at these affairs.'

Later, Andy was amazed when Buzz, his speech finished and his signings done, wanted most of all to visit with Pete Rose. When the two stood together for the photographers, Buzz acted out one of the memorable scenes of World Series play, instructing the cameraman as he went: 'Game six of the World Series, Tuesday, October twenty-first, 1971, Kansas City at bat in the ninth, bases full. Critical moment. Frank White batting for K.C. pops a high easy foul ball, which Phillies catcher Boone ought to catch with no trouble, but the ball pops out of his mitt, giving White another chance to win the game.

'But wait! Pete Rose far away at first base anticipates that his catcher might have trouble with the ball, so what does he do? He gallops full speed to where he guessed the catcher is going to wind up, and sure enough, when the catcher allows the foul ball to bounce out of his glove, there is Pete ready to dive for it like this!' And to Andy's amazement the ninety-year-old man leaped forward, fell onto his knees, and with outstretched left hand pretended to catch the errant foul ball, a few inches off the floor of the hall, just as Pete Rose had done nearly a quarter of a century before: 'I revere Rose for that supreme effort, mark of a true champion.'

Late Sunday night, at the close of the three-day festival, the Long Island card dealers had a small dinner to express their gratitude for Bixby's participation in their festival. He had one bottle of dark German beer, a small steak rare and a large wedge of pecan pie. In response to the speeches the managers made in his honor, he replied with his own set speech: 'And so we see that we are the toys of fate. Chance determines so much of our lives, as my case proves. I keep with me photographs of my two hits in the wild inning. They show Hornsby missing my grounder by less than an inch and my pop fly, same margin. An inch and a half in his favor, I'm a bum. An inch and a half my way, I'm in the Hall of Fame. Chance does direct all.'

At midnight, as the taxi drove them back to their motel, Buzz leaned over, patted Dr. Zorn on the hand and said: 'I'm so glad you allowed me to come. And thanks for seeing me get here safe. I'd never have been able to do it alone.' He then squeezed the doctor's hand and said with childish joy: 'They remembered me. They lined up to get my autograph as if they knew who I was. I earned so much money doing what I enjoy doing.' And he trundled off to bed happily.

Andy had barely fallen asleep when he heard a knock at his door. It was Buzz, who had found himself with a bad conscience when he reached his own room. At first he had decided he could wait and clear the matter with Dr. Zorn in the morning, but the more he worried about the impression he might have left, the more he knew he ought to explain right now. Hence the knocking on the door.

Andy climbed back into bed, invited Buzz to take the chair nearby and listened as the old ball player unburdened himself: 'I don't want you to misunderstand the way I treated Pete Rose, I love that man. He was always my kind of man on the field. Fight all the way. Don't surrender to nobody.'

'Why are you saying this? You treated him fine when you saw him.'

'I'm talking about another time-when the time came for Pete to be voted into the Hall of Fame, they wrote letters to guys like me who were already in. Would it be right for them to elect Pete, him being a lawbreaker?' He stopped, obviously pained by his remembrance of that difficult decision, and Zorn waited for him to continue: 'I argued with myself a long time. Finally voted against him. Yes, I voted against the same man you saw me with a few hours back.'

When Andy asked 'Why?' Buzz explained: 'Maybe you don't understand baseball, Dr. Zorn, but for the manager of a team to bet on games, that's way wrong.'

'I thought it was established that Mr. Rose had never bet against his own team. Pittsburgh, wasn't it?'

'Cincinnati. You see, a manager can control all angles of the game. Pitching rotation especially. He knows who he's going to pitch the next day and the day after that and right on down the line. Good pitcher, twenty-game winner, this day. Poor one the next day, against a poor team. He has to let the gamblers know when he's betting, when he's not, and word can spread. "Rose is laying off the Friday game," or "Pete is betting a bundle to win on Thursday." It messes up the whole system.' He sat silent for some moments, then said with a deep sigh: 'Poor Pete. I'm sure he never bet against his own team. But he'd worked himself into a hole he couldn't climb out of. So I had to vote against him.'

'That must have been painful.'

'Worse. It was confusing. Because Pete Rose is on my personal all-time team. I love that guy, but my team is a personal thing. When I had to think of putting him on baseball's Hall of Fame team, the one that stands for the game itself, I just couldn't do it. I can stomach Pete Rose. The game couldn't.' And this time he left the room for good.

As Zorn heard him go down the hall, a deeply worried man, he thought: How strange! No one in this life avoids facing up to moral problems. Half the discussions in the tertulia deal with profound questions of right and wrong. Who would have thought that quiet Buzz Bixby, interested only in baseball, could have been wrestling with a problem worthy of Immanuel Kant: 'Who in this world is the righteous man?' Reflecting on his own moral dilemmas, he did not fall asleep for some time.

When the time came on Monday for Dr. Zorn to shepherd the old man back to Florida, he found to his surprise that Buzz was uncharacteristically late. He received no answer to his call to the room, so he supposed that Buzz was on his way, but when he did not appear Andy grew suspicious and asked the motel people to check. Buzz had died peacefully in his sleep, not drunk with German beer but blissfully intoxicated with the affection that had been shown him by the fans on Long Island, not one of whom had ever seen him play.

The next morning on his flight back to the Palms, when Dr. Zorn glanced at his New York Times and came upon the obituary page, he found an answer to the question that had been posed by the men of the tertulia: Of all the people at the Palms, whose obituary would be given the most prominence in the press?

There it was-two full columns on the death at age ninety of Buzz Bixby, the famous baseball player of the 1929 Athletics, who in the World Series of that year drove in four and scored two of the ten runs in that historic seventh inning.

For some weeks after their experience with the death of the basketball star Jaqmeel Reed, Dr. Zorn and Nurse Varney avoided comment on that tragedy or on the continuing plague of AIDS because the topic was too painful for both of them. But there was another deterrent, and perhaps it was the more potent: as medical personnel both the doctor and his nurse realized that they ought somehow to be engaged in combating the rapid spread of the disease and they were ashamed that they were remaining on the sidelines while the enemy was being fought by others like the Angelottis with their hospice and Dr. Leitonen with his personal mission to the doomed.

And then, one day when Nora was giving Dr. Zorn a routine update on Health, she suddenly slumped in her chair, and said in a voice heavy with sorrow: 'I feel guilty.'

'About what?'

'Leaving Jaqmeel to die alone-by himself.'

'Nora! I was there to comfort him. So was Dr. Leitonen. And Pablo, of course, was there to help.'

The black woman shivered, lowered her head and whispered: 'That's what I mean. When you and the other two weren't around, Jaqmeel told me: "You've got to stay with me. I don't want to die surrounded by white men in rubber gloves." ' She paused, then said bitterly: 'That's how they all die. With no human touch.' Struggling to compose herself, she said: 'We turn our backs on them. Me most of all, because I was needed.'

'Nora, Dr. Leitonen fled, too. Couldn't risk being seen in company with Pablo at the end. As a licensed nurse, maybe you did the right thing, too-the prudent thing.'

'But I was his aunt. I was family.'

Zorn rose from his desk and strode about his office, trying to sort out his thoughts about this plague, which had so overwhelmed and confused the medical profession. Like many other doctors across the nation, he felt totally adrift.

'We start with one fact, Nora. You're the ablest health officer in the Palms. Far ahead of the other nurses, and way ahead of me. You're the comforter, the stable resource, and the strong woman we turn to in time of trouble.' He stopped by her chair and pressed one arm around her shoulder: 'That's how we see you, Nora, so don't castigate yourself.'

'Yes, I can comfort everyone except my dying nephew. That was too cruel for me to take. So I abandoned him. White men with rubber gloves, ending his life for him.' She collapsed into racking sobs, her head still on the desk: 'He was the hope of our family, that boy, and I deserted him.'