'So did his parents,' Zorn said. 'So did his coaches.'

'But they didn't know any better,' Nora mumbled. 'I'm a nurse. It's my job to know.'

Zorn corrected her: 'But do any of us know? Apart from people like Leitonen and Pablo, how many of us have been willing to deal with this dreadful scourge? I'm as confused as you are, Nora. I'm a medical doctor and this is a medical crisis. I ought to be in the front lines, but I quit my practice because of the despicable things they did to me and now I'm outside the battleground and it gnaws at me.'

She reminded him that he had brought vitality to the Palms and had affected almost every life there for the better: 'You don't need to apologize to nobody, Dr. Zorn.'

'But when you took me to see Jaqmeel that first day, in that hovel, you took me into the heart of the hell that is AIDS, and I've been uneasy ever since. I feel as if I had betrayed my chosen profession, lost the ideals I had as a boy.

'But I don't want you to grieve, Nora. Too many people depend on you.'

When Nora was about to leave, she paused at the door, looked back at Dr. Zorn slouched over his desk and said: 'The comforting things we say to each other, Andy, they don't erase the fact that I escaped down those dark stairs when Jaqmeel was about to die. The echo of those steps I took won't ever go away.'

They did not speak again about AIDS until one morning when Andy abruptly said to Nora: 'I've been thinking about that kind woman with the Italian name, the one who runs the hospice,' and Nora said: 'Mrs. Angelotti-yes I've been thinking of her too, and about the hospice and Dr. Leitonen.'

'I think we ought to see what's happening at the Angelottis.' She agreed and they drove to the house where her nephew had died.

'What brings you here?' the Angelottis asked. 'Don't say you have another patient for us.' Nora answered first: 'I wanted to thank you for the way you eased things for my nephew. You made the passage tolerable.' Then she looked at Zorn and said: 'Him? I don't know why he wanted to come,' and Andy said with obvious embarrassment as he took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Angelotti: 'I wanted to help you keep this refuge going. It's really needed.' Then he said to Mrs. Angelotti: 'And I wanted to tell you that if you have any young men with ordinary diseases who need medical care, not in the dying stages because I can't help there, but-' He was aghast at the terrible distinction he was making and did not know how to make himself understood. In a rush of words he said: 'You know what I mean. A young man who has, let us say-' Again he could not finish, so Mrs. Angelotti helped him: 'Yes, I do know. Those men in the game room, the ones who won't be dying for some months. They too need help. Block the kidney disease, they have a chance of living six more months.'

'I suppose you know I'm not certified to practice medicine in Florida-'

'Who among us is? That's why Leitonen is such an angel in our eyes. He has certification and he risks it every day.'

'But I could give you advice,' Andy said. 'If you have a question, I could help you work it out.'

'And how would we get in touch with you?'

He spent some moments considering this crucial question. They must not call the Palms, for that might endanger the retirement area's licensing. Nora came to his assistance: 'You could call me, Mrs. Angelotti,' but Zorn protested: 'No, they'd know you were at the Palms, and the damage-'

'I'm aware of that,' Nora said. 'You can call me at home,' and she gave the Angelottis her number, adding: 'And if you need special nursing care, call the same number.'

Mrs. Angelotti turned to Dr. Zorn and asked: 'So if I have young men with associated medical problems, I can telephone you through Nora, and you'll come and help them.'

Carefully weighing the implications if he agreed to provide that service, he said: 'Yes, I'll help,' and with that decision he was drawn back into the medical profession at one of its most critical crises.

One morning Laura Oliphant on the ground floor had cooked her own breakfast, and while eating her toast she bit down so hard on an edge of rye crust that she loosened a small porcelain facing on a dental bridge. With her next bite the facing fell off into her mouth.

She was irritated, but in no way distressed, because with dentures such accidents were to be expected. A brief trip to a dentist would solve the problem quickly-perhaps fifteen minutes for the epoxy to harden and no harm done.

But her teeth were in such good condition that she had not established contact with any local dentists. So she went to the main office to consult with her trusted friend Nurse Varney, and when the black woman learned what the problem was, she laughed: 'Not to worry. Any dentists we use will be able to handle this with ease.'

'Do I have to go all the way to a dentist? Can't someone-'

'Miz Oliphant, in Florida we have a law which says that with any tooth problem you have to see a licensed dentist.'

'Even for gluing back on?'

'Especially for gluing back on. A young man in my neighborhood, he's one of the best dental mechanics in Tampa. He could fix your bridge in ten minutes, three dollars.'

'Will you take me to see him?'

'No, no! If there's even one dental piece in that boy's shop without a proper signed order from a licensed dentist, that young fellow is in trouble.'

'So I have to go to a dentist?'

'Yes.'

'How much will it cost, do you think?'

'We have one dentist in town north of here, Velenius, twenty-five dollars.'

So Ms. Oliphant was driven a few miles north to the pleasant suburban town of Royal Glade, where Dr. Velenius, an engaging young man with a neat, clean office, glued the porcelain facing back on, buffed it with a bit of pumice, inspected her other teeth, knocked away some plaque, buffed the other teeth and charged her three hundred and twenty-five dollars, which she paid by check.

When she returned to the Palms she went to Mrs. Varney's office and said: 'Your Dr. Velenius was good, but very expensive.'

'How much?'

'Three hundred and twenty-five dollars.'

The nurse gasped, asked her to repeat, then asked: 'But surely he did a lot of extra work besides the facing?'

'He poked around a bit. Did some polishing, with a buzzer.'

'How long?'

'Fifteen minutes.'

Mrs. Varney was so outraged by this gross overcharging that she took the matter to Dr. Zorn, and when he heard the charge for a routine service that should have cost no more than a hundred dollars at the most, he pushed both palms against his desktop and stood up, saying: 'That's it. Did you tell me some time ago that a young man in your building-'

'Yes. He's a dental mechanic.'

'Technician, they call such men.'

'He calls himself a mechanic.'

'Let's go see him.'

'Wait a minute, Dr. Zorn. I don't want you to put him in any trouble.'

'No fear. I can guess what pressures he's already under.' When Andy and his nurse went to the black part of Tampa and entered a small, well-arranged laboratory equipped with obviously expensive machines for forming and hardening first the metal structures that are the core of a denture and other materials for forming and backing the enamels that are glued on to make the denture, Andy found the young fellow to be knowledgeable about all aspects of his highly technical profession.

'I'd like to ask you some questions, so that I can help our residents better.'

'I can't sell you anything, you know. Or fix anything.'

'Mrs. Varney explained that. But as the head of a retirement center I'd still like to ask a few questions.'

'Shoot.'

'Is it true that you can work on any dental object only if it comes to you from a dentist licensed to practice in Florida?'

'Right.'

'And permission must come in the form of a written prescription?'

'Look at the things on that table,' and when Andy did, he saw that each denture had attached to it by rubber band a clearly written prescription from an authorized dentist.

'And if I tried to slip you a denture to have a fallen porcelain facing glued back on-?'

'I could lose my license.'

'What would it cost me if I could have you glue my facing back on?'

'Three dollars, and two would be my profit.'

'What would you say if I told you that one of our women residents at the Palms was charged three hundred and twenty-five dollars?'

The technician said nothing, just lowered his head. A statement like the one Andy had just made summarized so accurately the problems of medical care not only in Florida but also throughout the United States that he could only shake his head in disgust. The honest workmen like himself getting pennies for performing an honest task, while the fancy operators earned hundreds of thousands. It was unfair and embittering.

'Who was this robber?'

'No,' Zorn protested. 'I didn't come here to complain about individuals. The system is what infuriates me.'

'Velenius,' the nurse blurted out. 'I sent her there.'

The young man shook his head sorrowfully: 'He's a good man. He gives me a lot of work,' and he waved his right arm toward a bench containing three or four Velenius prescriptions. 'He's really a fine dentist. He doesn't need to play tricks like that. I'm astonished.'

When Zorn deposited Nora at the Palms, he impetuously decided to double back and confront Dr. Velenius to see if Ms. Oliphant's bill could be adjusted. He drove north along a tree-lined road that led him to the pleasant village of Royal Glade, where he had no difficulty in finding the offices of Dr. Mark Velenius.

Since the dentist was busy with a patient, Andy occupied himself with magazines taken from a hand-carved rack containing at least two dozen journals. He picked a Scientific American, which carried a technical account of recent developments in solving the Alzheimer's mystery and he became so deeply engaged in details about Chromosomes 21, 19 and 14 that he did not hear when the nurse at the telephone said: 'Dr. Velenius can see you now, Dr. Zorn.'

'Did you call my name?'

'Yes. The doctor's waiting.'

Andy entered a spacious room containing three different dental machines and decorated with expensively framed prints of Monet, Renoir and Pissarro. A muted sound system was playing Chopin.

'I'm told you're the able new manager out at the Palms, one of the best retirement operations in Florida.'

'I work at it. And we do try to make improvements.' He hesitated, looked at the three paintings and said: 'I see you too try to keep up to speed.'

'Yes, if some of my patients find a visit to that chair unpleasant, the least I can do is make the other surroundings agreeable. Chopin, do you cotton to him?'

'Like you, I find piano music soothing and delightful.'

'Now, what can I do for you?'

Zorn hesitated a moment, then looked straight at Velenius and said: 'Could we talk about the bill that one of our residents, Ms. Oliphant, received this morning?'

Dr. Velenius did not flinch: 'Oliphant? Was she that elderly woman with the broken plate?'

Andy noticed that the dentist had established right at the start that Ms. Oliphant was elderly and therefore in a special group: 'Yes, she is elderly but in no way confused or unable to make her own decisions.'

'Not at all! I remember her as well keyed in. Knew what she wanted.'

'Her plate was not broken, Dr. Velenius. A porcelain facing had fallen off.'

'We classify all accidents as breaks. Emergencies. Sometimes catastrophes.'

'I've asked around, and they tell me it costs about three dollars to replace a facing. One dollar for materials, two for time and knowing the proper materials.'

Velenius smiled, stood very straight and said: 'I suppose you could say that about almost any human endeavor. Cost of materials three cents, cost of the accumulated wisdom and skill, three hundred dollars.'

'But you charged her three hundred and twenty-five dollars.'

Velenius betrayed neither surprise nor alarm: 'Not excessive for all I did.'

'For example?'

'Dr. Zorn. I understand that you do not actually practice medicine? That you're not licensed in Florida? That you're serving as managerial director at the Palms?'

'Accurate in each detail.'

'I should think that you might be hesitant about inquiring into the practices of those of us who are licensed to work in Florida. You might, upon reflection, reconsider, and judge yourself to be just a bit out of bounds.'

'Yes, I would if I presumed to criticize your dental skills or the medical work you did on one of my residents. But when an elderly woman, as you accurately describe her, is most grievously overcharged for a mere gluing on of a facing-'

'You're forgetting the adjusting to make the new face fit accurately with the lower teeth, the careful checking of the overall bite, the probing to see if the gums are still firm, the half-dozen other things a careful dentist does.'

'You think it justified a three-hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar charge?'

Velenius rose and moved toward the door, where he waited stiffly: 'Dr. Zorn, it ill behooves a man who practically lost his license in Chicago for near malpractice to come here to Florida and lecture real professionals who are performing their duties in proper fashion. This interview is ended.'

'Not quite. You preyed upon an elderly woman on the assumption that she would soon be gone anyway, and that you might as well grab her money as allow someone else to get it.'

Now Velenius flushed, and only with steely control did he refrain from punching Zorn. Velenius would never admit, even to himself, that he felt free to charge wealthy old people whatever he could get from them, but that was the way he practiced, and he knew it. To hear an upstart who had fled a shady reputation in Chicago-local medical circles had been gossiping about Zorn since New Year's, when he arrived-was intolerable. So after practically throwing Zorn out of his office, the young dentist dictated a long memorandum to his secretary regarding the unprofessional behavior of Dr. Andy Zorn of the Palms, a physician unlicensed in Florida, who had fled malpractice accusations in Illinois.

While Dr. Zorn was dealing with a multitude of managerial matters-the most critical being the threat posed by Hasslebrook, the burial of Buzz Bixby and a possible fallout after the quarrel with the dentist, he was also surrendering his authority to move Betsy Cawthorn out of the Palms. She refused to go, and her obstinacy was supported by Andy's closest associates. Quietly, one by one, Miss Foxworth, Ken Krenek and Nora advised him against a decision he had announced without adequate study.

But the most surprising veto came from Betsy's father, who wrote from Chattanooga: Dear Andy, I was flabbergasted when Betsy told me over the phone that you had decided it was time for her to leave your place and come back to Chattanooga. This is dreadfully wrong advice and I hope you will not act upon it.

You cannot appreciate Betsy's condition when she was up here. I suspect she was actually close to death, either from wasting away or by her own hand. You and Yancey saved her, and just in time.

Zembright and I judge she needs at least another year with you and Yancey. Her condition when I last saw her in your place was what it ought to be, and I fear that if she came back here without your support, she might wither. Please reconsider.

Oliver Cawthorn When Andy was forced to acknowledge that his order to send Betsy home could not be enforced, he faced a curious emotional dilemma. On the one hand he felt some irritation because she had outmaneuvered him. And this kept him from being generous in his relations with her, for he now saw her as aggressive, willful and devious, all of which, because of her deep attachment to him, she was.

On the other hand, when Yancey kept inviting him to join Betsy at tennis, he leaped enthusiastically at the suggestion, as if there were perfect harmony between them. Dressed for the game in new twill shorts and a chic polo shirt bearing the logo of a famous French tennis star of decades back, he had to admit, when he looked at himself in a mirror, that he was quite presentable-perhaps even attractive.