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                                       THE HOSPITAL



                                        Written by

                                     Paddy Chayefsky




                                      SHOOTING DRAFT

                                           1971

                

               THE HOSPITAL. DAY. MAY,

               PANORAMIC VIEW of The Hospital -- a vast medical complex, a 
               sprawling pastiche of architecture extending ten blocks north 
               and south on First Avenue and east to the river.

               The Hospital was founded in the late 19th century, and there 
               are still a few begrimed Victorian Bedlams and Bastilles 
               among the buildings. Mostly though, it is Medical Modern 
               1971, white and chrome and lots of glass and concrete shafts 
               and rotundas. A spanking new Community Mental Health Clinic 
               towers among the tenements at the northern end of the complex. 
               On the far side of First Avenue, a twenty-story apartment 
               house with recessed balconies and picture windows to house 
               the resident staff has just recently been completed, and 
               next to it, eight ghetto buildings are being demolished to 
               make way -- according to the construction company's sign -- 
               for a new Drug Rehabilitation Center, to be completed in 
               1973, we should all live so long. This is where the shattering 
               SOUNDS OF CONSTRUCTION are coming from. A block length of 
               generators and cement and demolition machines are POUNDING, 
               CRASHING, SCREAMING. Traffic HONKS and BRAYS up First Avenue.

               It is a cold spring morning -- 10:00 A.M.

               A 1966 station wagon pulls up to the Holly Pavilion.

               A tiny, fragile, white-bearded OLD MAN, almost lost in his 
               overcoat, is helped from the rear of a station wagon and 
               slowly led to the entrance doors by a middle-aged nurse.

                                     NARRATOR
                         On Monday morning, a patient named 
                         Guernsey, male, middle-seventies was 
                         admitted to the hospital complaining 
                         of chest pains.

               HOLLY PAVILION. EIGHTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

               The old man is now in a wheelchair pushed by a hospital 
               orderly down the corridor.

                                     NARRATOR
                         He had been referred by a nursing 
                         home where the doctor had diagnosed 
                         his condition as angina pectoris. 
                         Now it is axiomatic that nursing 
                         home doctors are always wrong.

               ROOM 806

               The old man, shirtless, is propped on the edge of the bed, 
               wheezing. DR. SCHAEFER, a young intern in white-uniform, 
               perches beside him with the old man's chart in his lap, taking 
               down his history. The other patient in the two-bedded room, 
               a MIDDLE-AGED MAN, is comatose and all rigged up with I.V.'s 
               and catheters.

                                     NARRATOR
                         The intern who admitted Mr. Guernsey, 
                         however, accepted the diagnosis and 
                         prescribed morphine, a drug suitable 
                         for angina but not at all suitable 
                         for emphysema, which is, 
                         unfortunately, what the old man 
                         actually had. Within an hour...

               EIGHTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

               Two orderlies rush the old man's bed with, of course, the 
               old man in it, past the Nurses' Station and into a waiting 
               elevator.

                                     NARRATOR
                         ...the patient became unresponsive 
                         and diaphoretic and was raced up to 
                         Intensive Care with an irregular 
                         pulse of 150, blood pressure 90 over 
                         60, respiration rapid and shallow.

               INTENSIVE CARE

               An oxygen mask is applied to the old man's face by the 
               resident.

                                     NARRATOR
                         The resident on duty now compounded 
                         the blunder by treating the old man 
                         for pulmonary edema. He gave him 
                         digitalis, diuretics and oxygen. 
                         This restored the old man's color...

               EIGHTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

               The elevator door opens. Two orderlies wheel the sleeping 
               man on his bed back around the Nurses' Station and down the 
               corridor to his room.

                                     NARRATOR
                         ...and he was sent back to his room 
                         in the Holly Pavilion, ruddy 
                         complected and peacefully asleep.

               ROOM 806. EVENING

               The old man is back in his room sleeping serenely, his tiny 
               body making barely a ripple in the white sheet that covers 
               him. The room is in hushed shadows. A yellowish light diffuses 
               into the room from the half-opened bathroom door. The other 
               patient in the room remains as before, comatose and silent.

                                     NARRATOR
                         In point of fact, the patient was in 
                         CO2 narcosis...

               ROOM 806

               All the lights are on now. NURSE PENNY CANDUSO and an orderly 
               are wrapping the old man in a post-mortem shroud. BRUBAKER, 
               the senior resident, is giving hell to Schaefer, the intern.

                                     NARRATOR
                         ...and died at seven-thirty that 
                         evening.

               The shrouded body of the old man is wheeled out of the room. 
               CAMERA STAYS on the vacated bed.

                                     NARRATOR
                         I mention all this, only to explain 
                         how the bed in Room 806 became 
                         available.

               PAN from bed to Schaefer, now alone in the room and regarding 
               the empty bed with frowning interest. Schaefer is a scraggly 
               young fellow, bespectacled, with a contemporary mess of hair 
               and a swinging unkempt moustachio. HOLD on Schaefer.

                                     NARRATOR
                         The intern involved was a prickly 
                         young buck named Schaefer who had a 
                         good thing going for him with a 
                         technician in the hematology lab. In 
                         the haphazard fashion of hospital 
                         romances, Dr. Schaefer had been 
                         zapping this girl on wheelchairs, 
                         stretchers, pantry shelves...

               Dr. Schaefer moves for the phone on the table between the 
               two beds.

                                     NARRATOR
                         ...in the kitchen, in the morgue, in 
                         the dark corners of corridors...

               Schaefer speaks softly into the phone.

                                     NARRATOR
                         ...standing up, sitting down -- so 
                         you can imagine what an available 
                         bed meant to him.

                                     SCHAEFER
                              (on phone)
                         Hey, Sheila, this is Howard, Sheila. 
                         Hey listen. I got us a bed for 
                         tonight. A real, honest-to-god bed.

               FREEZE on CLOSE-UP of the beaming, lubricious Schaefer on 
               phone as

               CREDITS AND MUSIC ERUPT ONTO THE SCREEN --

                                       THE HOSPITAL

               INTERSPERSED WITH CREDITS, the following scenes:

               ROOM 806. NIGHT

               Dark. Just a bit of moonlight streaking through the not quite 
               closed bathroom. The hallway door opens, and a young woman, 
               carrying a top coat, slips quickly in giggling like hell, 
               followed by Schaefer, who is likewise giggling and admonishing 
               her to be quiet. Her name is SHEILA. Sheila notices the other 
               patient in the room sleeping away and looks questioningly at 
               Schaefer, who reassures her as he removes her coat. After 
               which he strips off his own white jacket and trousers and 
               hangs them in the armoire. The girl asks in a hoarse whisper 
               if they're going to get totally nude and wonders if that's 
               such a good idea. For an answer, Schaefer fondles her crotch. 
               They both giggle, they both shush each other, they giggle 
               again; they're both stoned. The girl unzippers her dress. 
               The dark room is filled for the moment with the flurry of 
               undressing, flung garments, elbows, legs and arms, bumpings 
               into each other, and Sheila saying between giggles, "Boy, I 
               sure hope nobody walks in."

               They eventually wind up on the unoccupied bed, and the scene 
               ends looking ACROSS the sleeping profile of THE PATIENT in 
               the other bed as Schaefer and his girl thump away at each 
               other with much creaking of springs, moans, groans, giggles 
               and the white-limbed patterns of fornication.

               ROOM 806

               Dark, silent, hushed. The fun and games are over. Sheila is 
               in front of the armoire. She slips back into her dress, after 
               which she tiptoes back to the bed where Schaefer is deeply 
               asleep, smiling in postcoital peace. Sheila bends, shakes 
               his shoulder.

                                     SHEILA
                              (whispers)
                         I'll see you.

               Schaefer smiles, grunts, sleeps on.

               END OF CREDITS.

                                                                  FADE OUT.

               FADE IN:

               THE HOSPITAL. 6:30 A.M. NEXT MORNING, TUESDAY

               A cold newly-dawned sun shines down on the vast sprawling 
               complex of the hospital. Desultory early morning traffic on 
               First Avenue.

               HOLLY PAVILION, EIGHTH FLOOR

               The night shift of nurses is closing out another night's 
               work, which has been on the whole uneventful. The head nurse, 
               MRS. REARDON, hunches over her paperwork. NURSE ELIZABETH 
               RIVERS sits at the desk beside her, resting her head on the 
               palm of one hand. NURSE'S AID J.C. MILLER crosses with an 
               armful of linens. She disappears into the pharmacy and supply 
               areas behind the Nurses' Station. In the west corridor, NURSE 
               LUCINDA PEREZ glances at her watch, then pads down to Room 
               806. She enters.

               ROOM 806. DAY

               A cold gray light cheerlessly illuminates the room. Nurse 
               Perez checks the I.V. on the comatose patient who is in the 
               bed nearest the door. Then she turns to regard the other bed -- 
               which gives her pause.

               NURSE'S P.O.V.: Intern Dr. Schaefer is lying on this bed, 
               rigid, eyes dilated, pupils staring unseeing. An I.V. tube 
               sticks out of his naked right arm. Nurse Perez doesn't quite 
               know what to make of the fact that Dr. Schaefer is lying on 
               that bed with an I.V. tube sticking out of him looking dead. 
               Frowning, she reaches out a tentative hand to shake his naked 
               shoulder.

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         Doctor Schaefer...

               There is, of course, no response. A terrible suspicion enters 
               Nurse Perez's mind, and she closes her eyes and sighs a long 
               shuddering sigh. Then she opens her eyes and, with a second 
               and briefer sigh, reaches for Schaefer's neck to take his 
               pulse. Clearly, the result is not encouraging. She sighs 
               another short sigh and regards Schaefer's unblinking, dilated 
               pupils. It's all a bit too much for her; she shuffles to the 
               window and stares out into the gray morning where things are 
               a little more comprehensible. Once again, she returns to the 
               bed, regards Schaefer's death mask. She raises the bedsheet 
               and, for one short but appreciative moment, considers 
               Schaefer's naked body. She lets the bedsheet carefully down. 
               She sighs again.

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                              (trying again, with 
                              little hope)
                         Doctor Schaefer?

               She sighs, turns and leaves the room.

               EIGHTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

               Nurse Perez, frowning and pursing her lips, moves slowly 
               back to...

               EIGHTH FLOOR, NURSES' STATION

               Head Nurse Reardon is still bent over her paperwork.

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         Listen, did you know Doctor Schaefer 
                         was in Eight-O-Six, because he's 
                         dead?

                                     MRS. REARDON
                              (late forties, 
                              continues her 
                              painstaking paperwork, 
                              grunts)
                         What?

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         I'm just telling you, Dr. Schaefer 
                         is dead.

                                     MRS. REARDON
                              (works on; after a 
                              moment, looks up)
                         What do you want, Perez?

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         Look, I don't know what the hell 
                         this is all about, but Dr. Schaefer 
                         is in Room 806 with an I.V. running 
                         and he's dead. I didn't even know he 
                         was sick.

                                     MRS. REARDON
                              (regards Perez a moment)
                         Perez, what the hell are you talking 
                         about?
                              (appeals to Nurse 
                              Rivers coming out of 
                              the floor pharmacy)
                         Do you know what the hell she's 
                         talking about?

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         Well, maybe I'm going crazy. I don't 
                         know. Isn't Room 806 the patient 
                         Guernsey? I mean, did something happen 
                         I don't know about?

                                     MRS. REARDON
                         Perez, I don't know what you're 
                         talking about.

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         This is the nuttiest thing I ever 
                         saw. Dr. Schaefer's in Room 806 dead.

                                     MRS. REARDON
                         What Dr. Schaefer? Our Dr. Schaefer?

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         Our Dr. Schaefer. The one who's always 
                         grabbing everybody's ass.

                                     MRS. REARDON
                              (to Nurse Rivers)
                         Do you know what she's talking about? 
                         I don't know what she's talking about.
                              (to Perez)
                         What do you mean Doctor Schaefer's 
                         in Room 806 dead?

                                     NURSE PEREZ
                         I mean, he's lying on the far bed, 
                         stone dead, and with an I.V. tube 
                         sticking out of him. And if you don't 
                         believe me, maybe you just ought to 
                         get up and look for yourself.

               With a short, irritable sigh, Mrs. Reardon abandons her 
               paperwork and heads down the west corridor, followed by Nurses 
               Perez and Rivers. CAMERA TRACKS as Mrs. Reardon turns to 
               Nurse Rivers.

                                     MRS. REARDON
                         All right, maybe you'd better call 
                         Mrs. Christie.

               Phone RINGS.

               BOCK'S HOTEL ROOM

               Dark. Venetian blinds drawn. TV set on, a gray coarse-grained 
               square. PHONE RINGS.

               DR. HERBERT BOCK, 53 years old, a large man, bulky, 
               disheveled, apparently fell asleep in a chair while watching 
               television the night before. The bed still has its spread on 
               but is rumpled. Bock is in trousers and shirt, collar opened, 
               barefooted. PHONE RINGS. The reading lamp is the only light 
               in the room except for the sheen of gray hissing from the 
               television. Newspapers litter the floor. Books, two-day-old 
               plates of food, yesterday's mugs of coffee, cigar-stuffed 
               ashtrays, a shirt, a pair of pants, a winter overcoat, a 
               battered gray fedora have been slung about. PHONE on the 
               bedtable RINGS again, begins to penetrate the sotted sleep 
               of the man. Two bottles of booze, one empty, and a clump of 
               glasses are on the coffee table in front of Bock. He grunts, 
               opens an eye. PHONE RINGS. Bock suddenly exsufflates in a 
               snorting grunt. He stands, shuffles to the bed, a big, sodden 
               fellow, picks up the receiver, interrupting its next RING. 
               He sinks, sitting on the bed.

                                     BOCK
                         This is Dr. Bock... Yes, Mrs. 
                         Christie, what is it? It's all right, 
                         I'd be getting up in a few minutes 
                         anyway... I'm sorry I missed that. 
                         Would you say it again? Yes, I know 
                         him, Schaefer, the stud with the 
                         glasses, who fancies the nurses... 
                         I'm afraid I don't understand that, 
                         what do you mean? Was he sick? I 
                         mean, was he... uh, what was the 
                         cause of death? Was he being treated? 
                         I don't understand. What was he doing 
                         in the bed? You did say he... Look, 
                         Mrs. Christie, did you call the 
                         office? Good, well, I'll... No, no, 
                         it's all right. I'll be getting my 
                         wake-up call any minute anyway.

               He returns the receiver to its cradle, sits disoriented, 
               unbuttoning his shirt.

               HOSPITAL. MORNING. 8:00 A.M.

               LONG SHOT of the hospital, now alive and jumping. Taxis pull 
               up and out of the large U-shaped drive. A noisy picket line 
               of about twenty chanting protesters parade with signs in an 
               uneven ellipse.

                                     GRUMBLING PROTESTERS
                              (chanting)
                         Two-four! Help the poor!

               Most of the placards are slogan-y: "PEOPLE YES! DOCTORS NO!" -- 
               "CURE POVERTY! HEAL THE POOR!" Two protesters move toward 
               the street, waving and yelling at an approaching car. One, a 
               young white fellow wears a sandwich board that goes into the 
               matter at some length: "WE PROTEST THE EVICTION OF 386 BLACK 
               FAMILIES AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THEIR HOMES TO SERVE THE 
               EXPANSIONIST POLICIES OF THIS IMPERIALIST HOSPITAL."

               In the back seat of the car sits JOHN SUNDSTROM, handsomely 
               graying, tanned, early fifties, the Director of the Hospital. 
               He looks up. That young demonstrator, DR. IVES, a sandy-haired 
               bespectacled man of 30 in a white doctor's coat, sidles to 
               the car's open rear window angrily shouting.

                                     DR. IVES
                         What do you say, Sundstrom? How much 
                         longer do you think our monopolistic, 
                         exclusionary, racist policies will 
                         work?

                                     PROTESTER
                         We're the hope!

               Sundstrom lowers his window and gives his driver directions. 
               He exits in the BACKGROUND parking area, where he notices 
               Bock emerging from his car. Sundstrom waits for him.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         So how's it going, Herb?

               Bock's sour glance says it all. He locks his car, joins 
               Sundstrom, and the two men start down the concrete ramp.

                                     BOCK
                              (after a moment)
                         One of my interns dropped dead this 
                         morning.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Really? I'm sorry to hear that. I 
                         understand you've moved out to a 
                         hotel.

                                     BOCK
                         Yes.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         It got that bad with Phyllis?

                                     BOCK
                         It's been that bad for twenty-four 
                         years. Are you going to be solicitous?

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Yes.

                                     BOCK
                         Oh, God.

               They trudge across the U-shaped entrance drive, pausing to 
               let a car pass.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Listen, Herb, I'm the guy who brought 
                         you into this hospital, so I think I 
                         can skip the diplomatic overtures. 
                         Marty stopped me in the hall 
                         yesterday, very upset. He had just 
                         had lunch with you and said you 
                         sounded suicidal. Marty tends to be 
                         extravagant, but he's not the only 
                         one. Jack Singer mentioned the other 
                         day you've been boozing it up a lot. 
                         And let's face it, you've been 
                         sloughing off. I understand you 
                         haven't even been doing rounds.

                                     BOCK
                         I'm going to do rounds today.

               They pick their way around the shuffling line of protesters -- 
               many with Afro haircuts and tinted glasses, including a black 
               minister and four young white activists.

               HOSPITAL, HOLLY PAVILION, EXECUTIVE CORRIDOR

               Early-arriving secretaries chat in the doorways. The corridor 
               itself connects to the Bryce Pavilion (pediatrics, gynecology 
               and obstetrics), so a steady stream of traffic moves back 
               and forth. Bock and Sundstrom enter the corridor and slow to 
               a halt to continue their chat by a wall.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Herb, want a couple of days off?

                                     BOCK
                         No.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Go down to Montego Bay, get drunk, 
                         get laid, get a little sun.

                                     BOCK
                         For God's sake, John, I'm fifty-three 
                         years old with all the attendant 
                         fears. I just left my wife after 
                         twenty-four years. Standard case of 
                         menopausal melancholy.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Maybe you ought to have a talk with 
                         Joe Einhorn.

                                     BOCK
                         I don't want to see a psychiatrist. 
                         Stop worrying about me. All I have 
                         to do is get my ass back to work, 
                         and I'll be fine. I'm sorry I've 
                         caused you concern.

               He sets off down the long corridor to the elevators. MILTON 
               MEAD, the Administrator of the Hospital, comes out of one of 
               the offices, waves a good morning to Bock, who acknowledges 
               him and plods on. Mead comes up to Sundstrom, now moving 
               toward his own office.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         Sid just called from St. Luke's, and 
                         he's heard that the demonstrators up 
                         there are planning a march to join 
                         the bunch down here.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Oh, God.
                              (he wraps his arm 
                              around Mead's 
                              shoulders, ushering 
                              him into his office 
                              area)
                         Did you call the cops?

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         Yes.

               HOLLY PAVILION, EIGHTH FLOOR. 8:15 A.M.

               The elevator door opens. Out comes Bock, overcoat unbuttoned 
               now. He clumps to the Nurses' Station. An unusual number of 
               nurses seems to be there. Through the doorway of the floor 
               pharmacy, we can see Nurse Rivers of the night shift being 
               comforted by Nurse Perez of the night shift and Nurse Edwards 
               of the morning shift. The head morning nurse, MRS. DONOVAN, 
               is at the desk hunched over her paperwork. (Nurses are always 
               hunched over their paperwork.) NURSE FELICIA CHILE is also 
               seated at the desk doing some paperwork. Head Nurse Donovan 
               looks up briefly as Dr. Bock approaches.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                              (back to her paperwork)
                         They're all in Eight-O-Six, Doctor.

                                     BOCK
                         What happened?

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         I think I'll just let Mrs. Christie 
                         tell you about it.

               Bock lumbers off for the west corridor through a press of 
               activity. Kitchen workers trundle creaking portable carts, 
               nurse's aids and attendants pop in and out of doorways bearing 
               trays and used dishes. A robed patient or two ambulates along 
               the hall. Morning rounds have just started, which means a 
               clump of white-jacketed, white-trousered young doctors are 
               gathered in a gaggle at the far end. The group includes senior 
               resident MONROE BRUBAKER, junior resident HARVEY BIEGELMAN, 
               interns SAM CHANDLER and IRVING AMBLER and another medical 
               student, all lounging outside a door discussing the condition 
               of the patient within.

               Chandler is presenting the case from a handful of notecards 
               in his hand. The others lean against the walls, listening. 
               They wear shirts and ties with the exception of Ambler, who 
               is new to the floor and still in the canonical white tunic 
               under his jacket. They are all in their twenties and have 
               swinger sideburns and occasional mustaches. When he spots 
               Dr. Bock, senior resident Brubaker turns the rounds over to 
               Biegelman and joins Bock just outside 806.

                                     BRUBAKER
                              (as he approaches, 
                              rolls his eyes)
                         Oh boy.

                                     BOCK
                         What happened?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         I've seen some pretty good snafus, 
                         but this one... I mean, there's a 
                         certain splendor to this one. One of 
                         the night nurses, a float, thought 
                         Schaefer was a patient and plugged 
                         an I.V. into him. He was a diabetic, 
                         you know.

                                     BOCK
                         What do you mean, a nurse plugged an 
                         I.V. into him?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Oh, it's really a screwed-up story, 
                         Doctor. You see, what happened was 
                         we had an old man in that bed who 
                         died last night, so the bed was 
                         available. And you know Schaefer. 
                         He's Sammy Stud.

                                     BOCK
                         And he talked a nurse into zapping 
                         him on that bed.

                                     BRUBAKER
                         I think it was a girl from hematology 
                         he's been running with.

                                     BOCK
                         My God, it's a Roman farce.

               The door to Room 806 opens, and an Assistant Administrator 
               named HITCHCOCK pokes his head out.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         I thought I heard you out here, 
                         Doctor.
                              (he too rolls his 
                              eyes heavenward in 
                              an expression of 
                              incredulity)

               Bock makes a noise and goes into...

               ROOM 806

               Aside from Hitchcock, the room includes MRS. CHRISTIE, the 
               Director of Nurses, a fusty forty-six, in streetclothes; 
               Head Night Nurse, Mrs. Reardon, in uniform; Head Evening 
               Nurse, MRS. DUNNE, mid-fifties, who had apparently been called 
               in from home because she's in mufti and wearing a winter 
               coat; and, of course, the comatose patient and the dead Dr. 
               Schaefer. Mrs. Christie is instructing the two nurses.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         I'll need one from both of you, three 
                         copies, and I suggest you do that 
                         right now. The forms are in my 
                         office...

               Mrs. Dunne, on the verge of tears, head bobbing, looks up to 
               Bock.

                                     MRS. DUNNE
                         I'm really so terribly sorry about 
                         this, Dr. Bock. I...

                                     BOCK
                              (regarding Schaefer's 
                              rigid death mask)
                         As I understand it, one of the nurses 
                         inadvertently administered an I.V. 
                         to Schaefer here. How the hell could 
                         that happen?

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Listen, I think we ought to straighten 
                         this out somewhere else.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Yes, very good idea. Oh God, what a 
                         mess.

               They all file out now, Bock in the rear into...

               HALLWAY, NURSES' STATION AND LOBBY AREA

               They all go along to the Nurses' Station where Mrs. Reardon 
               and Mrs. Dunne disappear into the rooms behind. Mrs. Christie 
               leads Hitchcock and the trailing Bock to the TV-solarium; 
               but Dr. Brubaker is now holding his rounds there. He stands, 
               quietly expounding on the uses of heparin, a decoagulant. 
               One of the patients last night had hemorrhaged consequent to 
               injudicious use of that drug. Listening, the other young 
               doctors make notes. Mrs. Christie leans against the wall. 
               Apparently, the conference is to take place in the corridor. 
               Background activity continues normally.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                              (with a sigh)
                         Well, these things happen, of course.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         I suppose I'd better call the Medical 
                         Examiner.

                                     BOCK
                         I still don't know what happened.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Well, it took an hour to get it sorted 
                         out. It seems a patient named Guernsey 
                         died last night in Eight-O-Six, but 
                         that information wasn't given to the 
                         night nurses. These things happen.

               Bock has begun to get the drift. A curious state of apathy 
               settles over him.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                              (rattling on)
                         At any rate, according to the cardex, 
                         the patient Guernsey was down for 
                         twenty-five milligrams of Sparine Q-
                         6-H, so Mrs. Reardon sent Nurse Perez 
                         to give him his twelve o'clock shot. 
                         Meanwhile, it seems Dr. Schaefer had 
                         usurped that particular bed for his 
                         own purposes. Dr. Brubaker suggests 
                         it was for a love tryst, and some 
                         weight is given that hypothesis by 
                         the fact that Dr. Schaefer was naked.

                                     BOCK
                              (trying to give his 
                              attention to this)
                         I get the drift, Mrs. Christie. In 
                         other words, Nurse Perez went in and 
                         sedated Dr. Schaefer thinking it was 
                         the patient Guernsey. My God! What I 
                         don't understand...

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         If I may finish, Doctor. Well, after 
                         Perez gave him his shot, she noticed 
                         the I.V. on the bed had been pinched 
                         off, and she reported that back to 
                         Mrs. Reardon, who then assigned Nurse 
                         Rivers to restart the I.V.
                              (Bock sighs)
                         Now Rivers was a float. She didn't 
                         even know the staff people on the 
                         floor, and nobody knew what the 
                         patient Guernsey looked like anyway, 
                         since he'd only been admitted that 
                         morning.

                                     BOCK
                         So she plugged an I.V. into him.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Yes.

                                     BOCK
                         How much?

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         A liter.

                                     BOCK
                              (The doctor in him 
                              intrudes into his 
                              lassitude)
                         A five percent glucose solution won't 
                         kill anybody. Did he have any other 
                         ancillary conditions? He wasn't 
                         dehydrated, was he? Didn't anybody 
                         bother to go in to check him during 
                         the night, even under the impression 
                         he was merely a patient? Was he 
                         hyperasthmolic? Did he have a bad 
                         heart? He must have had some kind of 
                         thrombosis. I want the post done 
                         here, Mr. Hitchcock. And you and I 
                         better have a little chat, Mrs. 
                         Christie, about your excessive use 
                         of float nurses.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         I've got nearly a thousand nurses in 
                         this hospital.

                                     BOCK
                              (gathering rage)
                         And every time one of them has her 
                         period, she disappears for three 
                         days. My doctors complain regularly 
                         they can't find the same nurse on 
                         the same floor two days in a row. 
                         What the hell am I supposed to tell 
                         that boy Schaefer's parents? That a 
                         substitute nurse assassinated him, 
                         because she couldn't tell the doctors 
                         from the patients on the floor? My 
                         God, the incompetence here is 
                         absolutely radiant! I mean, two 
                         separate nurses walk into a room, 
                         stick needles into a man -- and one 
                         of those was a number eighteen jelco! -- 
                         tourniquet the poor sonofabitch, 
                         anchor the poor sonofabitch's arm 
                         with adhesive tape, and it's the 
                         wrong poor sonofabitch! I mean, my 
                         God! Where do you train your nurses, 
                         Mrs. Christie? Dachau!?
                              (he is aware his voice 
                              has risen and is 
                              attracting attention. 
                              He lowers his voice)
                         All right, wrap him up and get him 
                         down to Pathology. I'm especially 
                         interested in his blood sugar. A 
                         liter of glucose never killed anybody. 
                         Your ladies must've done something 
                         else to him.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Will there be anything else, Doctor?

                                     BOCK
                         No.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Before you call the family, Doctor, 
                         I wish you'd talk to Mr. Mead about 
                         this. We'd like, naturally, to avoid 
                         litigation.

               Bock heads abruptly down the corridor to the elevators.

               HOLLY PAVILION, SEVENTH FLOOR, CORRIDOR

               A corridor of offices. This is the Department of Medicine, 
               where Bock and all the senior staff members of the department 
               have their offices. It's quiet, since most of the staff are 
               away at their various specialties about the hospital.

               Bock comes up the corridor still wearing the overcoat he 
               arrived in some hours ago. He has only managed to unbutton 
               it in all the time it has taken him to reach the corner 
               office. Gilt lettering on the door reads: DEPARTMENT OF 
               MEDICINE and below that DR. HERBERT E. BOCK.

               BOCK'S OFFICE, OUTER OFFICE

               Small office with two desks. As Department Chief, Bock gets 
               two secretaries. Both are at their desks, one on the phone, 
               MISS GLORIA LEBOW, and the other rattling away on the IBM, 
               MISS STEPHANIE McGUIRE.

                                     MISS LEBOW
                              (mouthing)
                         Coffee?

               It would seem not. Bock waves a listless hand, exits into...

               BOCK'S PRIVATE OFFICE

               The modestly imposing office is lined with medical tomes. 
               Bock slips out of his coat and jacket and hangs them in the 
               closet. In shirtsleeves with his tie a bit askew -- 
               fastidiousness in dress is not Bock's strong point -- he 
               crosses to his desk and sits, breathing more heavily than 
               his small exertions would seem to warrant. He seems exhausted. 
               There is a KNOCK on the door. Miss Lebow enters, holding a 
               filing envelope stuffed with papers.

                                     MISS LEBOW
                         A few things have been piling up. 
                         Would you like to go into them?

               A guttural noise indicates yes. Miss Lebow pulls up a chair, 
               opens her folder.

                                     MISS LEBOW
                         A quickie. Dr. Esterhazy wants to 
                         start hiring temporary people to 
                         cover the summer vacations. He says 
                         last year some of the replacement 
                         people didn't receive their checks 
                         until they waited six months. He 
                         wonders if you could do something 
                         about getting these people paid more 
                         promptly.

               She places a sheet of paper on the desk in front of Bock. He 
               tries to give his attention to it.

                                     MISS LEBOW
                              (drones on)
                         Miss Aronovici complains the lab 
                         reports are coming in slow into the 
                         E.R. I called Dr. Immelman about 
                         that, and she said three microscopes 
                         have been stolen out of her lab in 
                         the last two months. Charley Waters 
                         also complains about pilferage. I've 
                         clumped all those together for you...
                              (she lays a sheaf of 
                              memos in front of 
                              Bock, who stares at 
                              them blankly)
                         Now, as you know, Doctor, we've agreed 
                         to take over the local ambulance 
                         cases as part of the hospital's 
                         commitment to the community, and 
                         it's created a serious overload in 
                         the E.R. I don't know why this was 
                         dumped in our lap, but...

               Bock obviously isn't up to all this. He waves a limp hand to 
               stop Miss Lebow's morning report.

                                     BOCK
                              (staring at his desktop)
                         Find out if Dr. Einhorn is in his 
                         office yet.

                                     MISS LEBOW
                         Which Dr. Einhorn? Ophthalmology or 
                         Psychiatry?

                                     BOCK
                         Psychiatry.
                              (suddenly stands)
                         Never mind. I'll look in myself.

               He lumbers across the room and out into...

               BOCK'S OUTER OFFICE

               ...and down past Miss McGuire, rattling away on her IBM, and 
               out into...

               HOLLY PAVILION, SEVENTH FLOOR, CORRIDOR

               ...down past several closed doors, stopping at a door marked 
               DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY, DR. JOSEPH EINHORN. He enters.

               DR. EINHORN'S OFFICE, SECRETARY'S OFFICE

               A secretary at her desk, sips coffee and reads a paperback 
               novel.

                                     BOCK
                         Is he in?

               The doctor is obviously in. He can be seen through the open 
               door sitting at his desk writing in a notebook. Bock leans 
               in.

                                     BOCK
                         Can you give me a few minutes, Joe?

                                     EINHORN
                              (short, chunky, 
                              bespectacled, late 
                              fifties)
                         Of course.

               Bock goes in, closes the door behind himself.

               DR. EINHORN'S OFFICE

               Bock looks only at the floor.

                                     BOCK
                              (ill at ease)
                         I've been having periods of acute 
                         depression recently. Apparently, 
                         it's becoming noticeable. A number 
                         of people have remarked on it. Anyway, 
                         John Sundstrom thought it might be a 
                         good idea if I spoke to you about 
                         it.

                                     EINHORN
                         Do you want to sit down, Herb?

                                     BOCK
                         No. I'm not good at confessional.
                              (he ambles around)
                         Well, what can I tell you? The last 
                         year, two, three... it goes way back, 
                         I suppose. I can remember entertaining 
                         suicidal thoughts as a college 
                         student. At any rate, I've always 
                         found life demanding. I'm an only 
                         child of lower-middle-class people. 
                         I was the glory of my parents. My 
                         son the doctor. Well, you know. I 
                         was always top of my class. 
                         Scholarship to Harvard. The boy 
                         genius, the brilliant eccentric. 
                         Terrified of women, clumsy at sports. 
                         God, Joe, how the hell do I go about 
                         this?

                                     EINHORN
                         I understand you just separated from 
                         your wife.

                                     BOCK
                         I left her a dozen times. She left 
                         me a dozen times. We stayed together 
                         through a process of attrition. 
                         Obviously sado-masochistic dependency. 
                         My home is hell. We've got a twenty-
                         three-year-old boy I threw out of 
                         the house last year. A shaggy-haired 
                         Maoist. I don't know where he is, 
                         presumably building bombs in basements 
                         as an expression of his universal 
                         brotherhood. I've got a seventeen-
                         year-old daughter who's had two 
                         abortions in two years and got 
                         arrested last week at a rock festival 
                         for pushing drugs. They let her off. 
                         The typical affluent American family. 
                         I don't mean to be facile about this.

               Indeed, he does not. He is horrified by the fact his eyes 
               are wet and he is verging on tears. He turns away quickly.

                                     BOCK
                         I blame myself for those two useless 
                         young people. I never exercised 
                         parental authority. I'm no good at 
                         that. Oh, God, I'm no good at this 
                         either. Joe, let's just forget the 
                         whole thing. I'm sorry I bothered 
                         you.

               He starts for the door.

                                     EINHORN
                         How serious are your suicidal 
                         speculations, Herb?

                                     BOCK
                              (at the door)
                         I amuse myself with different ways 
                         of killing myself that don't look 
                         like suicide. I wouldn't want to do 
                         my family out of the insurance.

                                     EINHORN
                         Digitalis will give you an arrhythmia.

                                     BOCK
                         A good toxologist would find traces. 
                         Potassium's much better. Sixty milli 
                         equivalent. Instantaneous. Of course, 
                         then you're stuck with how to get 
                         rid of the hypodermic. Forty milli 
                         equivalent. Gives you plenty of time 
                         to dispose of the evidence.

                                     EINHORN
                         You seem to have given considerable 
                         thought to the matter.

                                     BOCK
                         You ought to know a man who talks 
                         about it all the time never does it.

                                     EINHORN
                         I don't know. I see a man who's 
                         exhausted, emotionally drained, 
                         riddled with guilt, and has been 
                         systematically stripping himself of 
                         his wife, children, friends, isolating 
                         himself from the world. Are you 
                         impotent?

                                     BOCK
                         Intermittently.

                                     EINHORN
                         What does that mean?

                                     BOCK
                         It means I haven't tried in so long, 
                         I don't know. Let's just drop the 
                         whole thing, Joe. I feel humiliated 
                         and stupid. All I have to do is pull 
                         myself together and get back into my 
                         work. I'm sorry I troubled you. Take 
                         care of yourself. I'll see you.

               Before Einhorn can say a word, he slips away and disappears 
               into his own office.

               HOLLY PAVILION. 8:30 A.M.

               The score of protesters outside the pavilion still move in 
               an uneven ellipse and shout: "Two -- Four! Help the Poor!" 
               Ives, the bespectacled demonstrator who shouted at Sundstrom 
               earlier, is removing his sandwich boards and giving them to 
               his replacement. He hurries across the walk and into...

               HOLLY PAVILION, LOBBY

               Ives cuts through the congestion of people and moves swiftly 
               up the long corridor leading to the Farkis Building, 
               unbuttoning his overcoat as he goes into...

               THE FARKIS BUILDING, FIFTH FLOOR

               ...and comes out, as the elevator opens. This is a laboratory 
               floor, and the corridors are empty except for a white-
               uniformed orderly leaning against a wall and for one young 
               woman in a white smock in the background, who waves to the 
               young man before disappearing into one of the rooms. Ives 
               fishes out a ring of keys and unlocks the door to his own 
               lab. He enters into...

               FARKIS BUILDING, NEPHROLOGY LAB

               Dingy and cheerless place, as labs go. Ives hangs his coat 
               in the cupboard, loosens his tie, unbuttons his suit jacket, 
               squats on a stool, reaches over for a loose file on the work 
               table, opens the file and begins to read the papers inside.

               A door CLICKS open behind him, and without looking up, he 
               waves briefly to whoever has entered. CAMERA DOLLIES to FULL 
               SHOT of Ives frowning over his notes. We are suddenly 
               conscious of a white-uniformed presence behind him. We know 
               it's medical personnel, but we can't see the face. Ives starts 
               to turn to the presence behind him, when suddenly a small 
               hospital sandbag is whipped down on his head, and he slumps 
               forward, his forehead thumping against the black surface of 
               the lab table.

                                                               DISSOLVE TO:

               HOSPITAL. NOON

               HIGH ANGLE SHOT establishing the passing of hours. Sun high 
               overhead, traffic on First Avenue an impenetrable river of 
               HONKS and HOOTS. At a crosswalk, a loose procession of fifty 
               or so shouting demonstrators, bearing placards, flows toward 
               the main gates. Their posters read: "FIGHT DOPE -- NOT DOPES!" 
               "DRUGS YES! TRANSPLANTS NO!" and "SAVE OUR KIDS FROM THE 
               SKIDS!" which is what they now chant: "Save our kids! From 
               the Skids!" The demonstration moves through a handful of 
               city cops where our original group of twenty still ramble 
               around, chanting: "Two -- Four! Help the Poor!"

               HOLLY PAVILION, EIGHTH FLOOR

               The staff elevator doors open and Bock comes out, wearing 
               his long white doctor's coat unbuttoned. Hanging about the 
               Nurses' Station are Dr. Brubaker and a few young men in white. 
               They come quickly to respectful attention at Bock's entrance. 
               CLATTERING TRAYS dominate the lunchtime atmosphere.

                                     BOCK
                         All set?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Yes, sir.

               The doctors move off toward the solarium on the east corridor 
               overlooking the river. They pass a curious quartet of people 
               consisting of a very handsome YOUNG WOMAN in her late twenties 
               in an out-of-fashion miniskirt (She has great legs, long and 
               tanned.); an ELDERLY MAN, uncomfortable in city clothes and 
               unmistakably an INDIAN; a tall overcoated man in his forties 
               wearing a MINISTER's white collar; and a DISTINGUISHED MAN 
               dressed in fashionable gray who is trying to persuade the 
               young woman of something. The young woman and the Indian 
               stand absolutely still, silent, impassive. The minister is 
               more fidgety.

                                     BOCK
                              (to Brubaker en passant)
                         Who's that exotic group?

                                     BRUBAKER
                              (murmurs)
                         You got me. They've been here about 
                         an hour.

                                     ONE YOUNG DOCTOR
                         I think they're with the old man in 
                         Eight-O-Six.

               Bock and Brubaker, trailed by young doctors, move into the 
               TV room.

                                     BOCK
                         Dr. Perry said he picked the 
                         tuberculosis and the liver nodes for 
                         today, right?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Yes, sir.

                                     BOCK
                         Good. Because that's the one I studied 
                         up. A hell of a case.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, TV ROOM

               Some twenty-five or thirty young doctors, two or three of 
               them black, three or four of them women, fill the room. At 
               Bock's entrance, they find places around the walls, sofas, 
               soft chairs and benches. The TV set has been pushed into a 
               corner, and a large portable blackboard has been set up. 
               This is the Chief of Service Round, attended by every 
               available intern and resident. Somebody closes the door, 
               just as two young doctors come hurrying in.

                                     BOCK
                         All right, who's presenting?

               EMERGENCY AREA, WAITING ROOM

               People of all ages sit around on aluminum chairs arranged 
               around the walls of the room. All are in streetclothes. Some 
               speak to each other. A line of people, extending into the 
               hallway and holding their charts, waits for a lady from the 
               accounting department taking Blue Cross numbers. This lady 
               from accounting is MRS. CUSHING, late forties, bespectacled 
               and testy. She calls out at large.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Is there anybody seated who hasn't 
                         been to see me first? Is there anyone 
                         here who hasn't given me their health 
                         insurance number?

               Her phone RINGS. She picks it up.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Emergency Room... Well, I don't know, 
                         Sybil. What's his name?

               To a man on line at her desk, thrusting his chart out to 
               her.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Would you wait a moment, please. I'm 
                         on the phone, can't you see I'm on 
                         the phone?
                              (rummaging through a 
                              stack of charts, 
                              large paper forms in 
                              quadruplicate)
                         ...Of course not, do they ever?
                              (hangs up, takes two 
                              charts from the desk, 
                              pushes through the 
                              waiting line)
                         Would you mind, please. I have to 
                         get through, do you mind?

               She makes her way to the door and goes out into...

               EMERGENCY AREA, ENTRANCE LOBBY

               ...which is congested. Mrs. Cushing enters...

               EMERGENCY, ADMITTING AND TREATMENT ROOMS

                                     NURSE
                              (on phone)
                         Give me that one again... thirty-
                         two?

               Facing the desk are six curtained treatment rooms, mostly 
               open to view. Behind the desk are a supply room and another 
               treatment room. Both are occupied, the former by a PARANOID 
               LADY wringing her hands in a paranoid rush and listened to 
               by a very patient young intern.

                                     PARANOID LADY
                         They follow me everywhere. Three big 
                         black men. Naked, completely exposed. 
                         Right in the street. Hanging down to 
                         their knees. Disgusting. They're 
                         waiting out there for me now...

               ...and in the other room, a man in his thirties is being 
               treated for some sort of head lacerations. In one treatment 
               room, the Chief of Emergency Service, DR. SPEZIO, a man in 
               his late thirties, along with an intern, an anesthesiologist 
               and a nurse, is bent over a naked and comatose young black 
               woman of eighteen, covered somewhat with a sheet. She's a 
               junkie, being intubated, i.e. a small endotracheal tube has 
               been inserted into her mouth. This is the most melodramatic 
               of the varied activity here.

               A middle-aged man complaining of chest pains is lying clothed 
               in another treatment room; a nurse attends him.

               An asthmatic middle-aged woman sits in still another room 
               being administered her 500 mg. of amenophylene subcutaneously.

               The curtains on another room are drawn for privacy. On chairs 
               in the corner sit a teenage boy with a badly sprained ankle 
               and an elderly man bathing his hand in an enamel basin held 
               in his lap.

               A young mother with a five-year-old daughter with a badly 
               cut arm is being attended to by the back wall. The Emergency 
               Room Nursing Supervisor, MISS ARONOVICI, a pretty woman in 
               her mid-twenties, is sterilizing the little girl's wound.

               Mrs. Cushing makes her way to Miss Aronovici. They detest 
               each other.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Did you call upstairs and tell them 
                         to admit a patient named Mitgang?

                                     MRS. ARONOVICI
                              (continuing to treat 
                              the little girl)
                         The concussion?

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         I don't know. They just called me. 
                         They said you didn't fill out the 
                         chart. And where do you come off 
                         sending anyone up to Admitting without 
                         my okay?

               Miss Aronovici turns to Mrs. Cushing, regarding her sweetly.

                                     MRS. ARONOVICI
                         Sally, would you get the fuck out of 
                         here. The patient's in the Holding 
                         Room. You want his Blue Cross number, 
                         you go in and you get his Blue Cross 
                         number.

               Mrs. Cushing elbows back through the line of patients waiting 
               at the Admitting desk.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Do you mind, please...

               There are now three nurses behind the desk, all of them on 
               phones. One nurse calls to Dr. Spezio.

                                     NURSE
                         O.P.D. wants to know how that 
                         asthmatic they sent down is.

                                     DR. SPEZIO
                              (just leaving the 
                              group around the 
                              junkie)
                         She's fine. We'd like to keep her 
                         here a little while.

               Spezio heads for the door where he is intercepted by Mrs. 
               Cushing.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         May I see you a moment, Doctor, if 
                         you don't mind.

                                     DR. SPEZIO
                              (sighs, calls back to 
                              the triage nurse)
                         I'll be right back.

               He goes out, followed by Mrs. Cushing, into...

               EMERGENCY AREA, LOBBY

               Spezio and Mrs. Cushing move between laundry and supply carts.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                              (thrusting some papers 
                              at the doctor)
                         If you don't mind, Doctor, is this 
                         your handwriting?

               Spezio stops, sighs, examines the paper.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Am I supposed to read that? Was it a 
                         sprain? Was it a broken wrist? I 
                         can't read that scribbling. I mean, 
                         I have to bill these people. I know 
                         you doctors are the ministering 
                         angels, and I'm just the bitch from 
                         the Accounting Department, but I 
                         have my job to do too. I mean, if 
                         you don't mind, Doctor...?

                                     DR. SPEZIO
                              (studies the paper)
                         The kid had a collar fracture. We 
                         had him in the O.R. We reduced it 
                         and we gave him a small cast.

               He strides off.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                              (calls after him)
                         But did you give him a sling? You 
                         must have taken X-rays. How am I 
                         supposed to make up the charges?

               She turns into...

               EMERGENCY AREA, HOLDING ROOM

               Designed to hold patients who've been examined and wait to 
               be admitted to a room upstairs, it's in fact used for 
               examination, treatment, storage. The room is quiet. Two male 
               patients lie on comfortable stretchers, apparently sedated 
               and resting. Mrs. Cushing turns to the patient immediately 
               to her right as she enters. To the still figure she poses 
               her questions.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Are you Mitgang?

               She gets no answer from that bed. From another direction, a 
               voice.

                                     MITGANG
                         I'm Mitgang.

               She turns to Mitgang. Something bothers her about the first 
               patient. She finds Mitgang's chart tucked in under his pillow, 
               takes out her pencil.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Do you carry Blue Cross, Blue Shield, 
                         Mr. Mitgang, if you don't mind?

               Mitgang, eyes closed, emits a sound.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Do you have your card with you?
                              (no answer)
                         Do you know your number?

               Negative grunt from Mitgang.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Mr. Mitgang, you're not leaving this 
                         room until I have this information.

                                     NURSE
                              (enters for some chore)
                         Will you leave that man alone?

               In a fit of temper, Mrs. Cushing throws the chart and her 
               pencil down on the floor.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                              (indicating the other 
                              patient)
                         Do you mind if I at least ask this 
                         gentleman to fill out his chart?

               She pulls his chart from under his pillow, bends and retrieves 
               her pencil from the floor, straightens. She speaks to the 
               silent patient.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         May I have your A.H.S. policy number, 
                         sir?

               No answer. CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY IN on the patient. We now 
               recognize him as the bespectacled young activist Dr. Ives, 
               so recently coshed over the head with a sandbag.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                              (looming)
                         Do you carry Blue Cross? Blue Shield?

               Mrs. Cushing stares at the patient. He is not breathing. 
               Behind her, the nurse exits carrying whatever she came for. 
               Mrs. Cushing turns to her, but she is gone. Frowning, Mrs. 
               Cushing backs out...

               ...as Dr. Spezio and others come down the corridor.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                              (as Spezio approaches, 
                              with spiteful relish)
                         I think one of your patients in here 
                         is dead, Dr. Spezio.

                                     DR. SPEZIO
                              (enters the Holding 
                              Room)
                         Why do you say that, Mrs. Cushing?

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Because he wouldn't give me his Blue 
                         Cross number, Dr. Spezio.

               HOLDING ROOM

               Spezio regards the death mask of a face.

                                     DR. SPEZIO
                         Oh, Christ.

               He moves quickly forward to raise the dead man's eyelid. 
               Behind him, a nurse enters. He wheels on her angrily.

                                     DR. SPEZIO
                         How the hell long has this man been 
                         lying here? Isn't this that doctor 
                         who came in around nine o'clock?

               MILTON MEAD'S OFFICE. 2:00 P.M.

               MILTON MEAD, late thirties, lean, efficient but under constant 
               strain, is having his daily staff luncheon conference, which 
               consists of a CHIEF ENGINEER, the ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR OF 
               PERSONNEL, three residents in administration, including 
               Hitchcock, sandwiches and coffee.

                                     CHIEF ENGINEER
                         I mean, they gave me a hard time, 
                         Con Ed. "For Pete's Sake," I said, 
                         "this is a hospital. One of our 
                         feedlines just blew..."

               Mead's phone RINGS and he picks it up.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         Yeah?
                              (it's another 
                              annoyance; he sighs 
                              with irritation)

                                     CHIEF ENGINEER
                         I mean, it's lucky we traced it in 
                         time.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (on phone)
                         No, I'll be right up.
                              (hangs up, stands)
                         Have we covered about everything?

                                     ADMINISTRATIVE RESIDENT
                         Dr. Kish has been driving me nuts 
                         with the O.R. schedule.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         He's supposed to see me about that.

               He moves across his office into...

               MEAD'S SECRETARY'S OFFICE

               Actually a communal office with desks for three secretaries.

                                     MEAD'S SECRETARY
                              (looks up to Mead 
                              from talking on the 
                              phone)
                         This is the Emergency Room. One of 
                         the doctors just died of a heart 
                         attack.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (pauses)
                         One of our staff?

                                     MEAD'S SECRETARY
                         I think so.

               Mead frowns, leans back into his own office.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (to Hitchcock)
                         Tom, you want to go down to the 
                         Emergency Room? One of our doctors 
                         just died.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         What? Another one?

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         Yeah, see what that's about.
                              (en passant to 
                              secretary)
                         I'll be on Holly Eight. I'll be right 
                         back.

               HOLLY PAVILION, EIGHTH FLOOR

               The staff elevator door opens, and Milton Mead comes out. He 
               has apparently been buttonholed in the elevator by a woman 
               in a doctor's coat, DR. IMMELMAN, Pathology, who follows him 
               out...

                                     DR. IMMELMEN
                         It's no longer pilferage, Milton. 
                         It's reached the point of piracy. 
                         That's the third microscope this 
                         month.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         Why don't we get together on this 
                         sometime this afternoon, Fran?

                                     DR. IMMELMAN
                         One o'clock?

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         One o'clock will be fine.

               He turns left and heads for...

               HOLLY PAVILION, EIGHTH FLOOR, NURSES' STATION

               ...where Head Nurse Donovan is bent over her paperwork. In 
               the background, we see normal morning hospital activity. 
               Nurse's Aid, SHARLENE STONE, takes towels into a room. R.N. 
               Felicia Chile comes out of another, bearing her enamel tray 
               of instruments.

               Also in the background, the curious quartet from before -- 
               the beautiful woman, the elderly Indian, the minister, Dr. 
               Sutcliffe. Mead hardly notices them as he makes for the desk.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                              (without pausing or 
                              looking up)
                         Your brother's in the room, Mr. Mead.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         What room is it?

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         Eight-O-Six.

               Mead bobs his head thank you and heads for the west corridor.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, ROOM

               As Milton Mead enters, his elder brother, WILLIAM MEAD, mid-
               forties, a smaller and manifestly nervous man, is seated 
               sullenly puffing a cigar, fidgeting, still wearing his coat 
               and hat. He looks up briefly when Milton enters and avoids 
               his brother's eye. His wife, MARILYN, late thirties, is 
               standing in suppressed exasperation, staring out the window. 
               Out of respect for the COMATOSE PATIENT, the ensuing agitated 
               scene is held in whispers.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         For heaven's sake, Willie, you're 
                         going to be in the hospital for two 
                         lousy days. What're you making such 
                         a fuss about?

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         You're supposed to be such a big 
                         wheel here.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         There are no private rooms available. 
                         If they brought in Jesus Christ fresh 
                         off the cross, I couldn't get Him a 
                         private room.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         I'm not going to stay in a room with 
                         a dying man...

                                     MARILYN MEAD
                         He's not dying. They'll screen him 
                         off. You won't even know he's here.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         If you want a private room, go on 
                         home, and I'll call you the first 
                         one that comes up. But you're the 
                         one who phoned me in a panic, you're 
                         going on a vacation. For heaven's 
                         sake, Willie, they'll cut this polyp 
                         out tomorrow morning. You'll be home 
                         Thursday, you'll be in Miami Friday. 
                         Marilyn, will you talk some sense 
                         into this lunatic?

                                     MARILYN MEAD
                         Well, you said it, he's a lunatic.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         Big wheel, can't even get me a private 
                         room.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         I'll get you a tranquilizer...

               He exits.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, TV ROOM

               Bock -- excited, vivid, alive -- is in full flush with his 
               lecture. He moves around in front of the blackboard, chalk 
               in hand. The blackboard itself is scrawled with formulae and 
               diagrams. He is writing the words "full abdomen," as the 
               fifth in a list reading "(1) parexia, (2) hepatomegaly, (3) 
               splenomegaly, (4) episodes of arthralgia." The audience is 
               forty young doctors rapt with attention. There is a good 
               deal of note-taking.

                                     BOCK
                         ...five, a full abdomen contrasted 
                         to wasting elsewhere; six, ascites 
                         with a protein content above four 
                         grams; unexplained anemia, leukopenia, 
                         unexplained elevation of the serum 
                         gamma globulin level, especially 
                         abnormal flocculation tests, and of 
                         course, a positive P.P.D. All these 
                         findings assume special significance 
                         among Negroes. This has been a very 
                         commendable workup, as commendable a 
                         workup of an F.U.O. as I can remember. 
                         The staff of this floor is to be 
                         applauded.
                              (spots Brubaker among 
                              the others)
                         It's a reportable case, Brubaker. 
                         Write it up.
                              (a brief, rare smile)
                         Well, let's go have a look at the 
                         girl.

               He rumbles toward the door. The class of doctors dissolves 
               into hospital murmurs and mutters and a general dispersal. 
               They follow Bock out to...

               EIGHTH FLOOR, EAST CORRIDOR

               ...where Dr. Sutfcliffe, the beautiful young woman, the 
               elderly Indian and the minister are engaged in agitated 
               discussion. The girl and the Indian retain their stoic 
               impassivity. Dr. Sutcliffe leaves them and moves down the 
               corridor to the counter of...

               EIGHTH FLOOR NURSES' STATION

                                     SUTCLIFFE
                         Nurse! Nurse, who's the Senior 
                         Resident on this floor?

                                     NURSE
                         That would be Dr. Brubaker. But I'm 
                         afraid he's at Chief of Service rounds 
                         right now.

               Sutcliffe points off right.

                                     SUTCLIFFE
                         That's... this way?

               The nurse nods indifferently.

               ACROSS to Bock coming out of the TV room, followed by some 
               dozen young doctors. Bock is in very good spirits indeed. He 
               quizzes his young doctors en route:

                                     BOCK
                         I wonder if there might not be some 
                         correlation between hepatic 
                         tuberculosis and drug addiction. 
                         Presumably, there was an early 
                         consideration of S.B.E.

                                     BRUBAKER
                              (off-screen)
                         Yes, sir. We discounted it after 
                         repeated blood cultures were negative.

                                     BOCK
                         You, Ambler. Is that right, Ambler?

                                     AMBLER
                         Yes, sir.

                                     BOCK
                         What else do you look for in bacterial 
                         endocarditis?

                                     AMBLER
                              (nervous)
                         Some sort of embolic phenomena, sir.

                                     BOCK
                         Good.

                                     SUTCLIFFE
                              (flagging Brubaker)
                         Dr. Brubaker, I wonder if I could 
                         see you for a moment?

               Brubaker detaches himself from his group to join Sutcliffe. 
               CAMERA STAYS with Bock and his entourage, following them 
               down the east corridor, Bock still happily conducting class. 
               Bock strides into...

               ROOM 819

               Past two beds, they group around the foot of a third bed on 
               the right side of the room. Bock checks the patient lying in 
               the bed.

                                     BOCK
                         Still a little icteric. Who's got an 
                         opthalmoscope?

               One of the young men hands his to Bock, who leans over the 
               patient to look through it.

                                     BOCK
                         Did anyone note Roth spots?

               The doctors exchange a look as Bock rises, moves toward them, 
               laughing.

                                     BOCK
                         Well, don't worry about it. There 
                         aren't any. Ambler, you're our big 
                         man on S.B.E. What was the latex-
                         fixation?

                                     BIEGELMAN
                         It wasn't done, sir.

                                     BOCK
                         Don't you think that's an important 
                         test to differentiate S.B.E. from 
                         miliary T.B.?

                                     BIEGELMAN
                              (off-screen)
                         No, s...

                                     BOCK
                         Not you, Biegelman. Ambler.

                                     AMBLER
                         Well, there's about a seventy percent 
                         incidence of false-positive latex in 
                         S.B.E.

               Bock hands the opthalmoscope to Ambler.

                                     BOCK
                         You have been reading up. If the 
                         diagnosis were S.B.E., would a 
                         positive latex indicate anything in 
                         the therapy?

                                     AMBLER
                         We'd expect the latex to become 
                         negative.

                                     BOCK
                         If...?

                                     AMBLER
                         If the antibiotic therapy were 
                         successful.

                                     BOCK
                         Are you applying for your internship 
                         here?

                                     AMBLER
                         I'm not sure.

                                     BOCK
                         Come and see me.
                              (to the patient, 
                              helping her up)
                         Would you sit up for a minute?

               Bock turns to the off-screen patient, helping her sit up and 
               forward, percussing her back as the students look on.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, EAST CORRIDOR

               Brubaker and Sutcliffe are now both involved in discussion 
               with the woman, the Indian and the minister, as Bock drifts 
               through the background, followed by the band of young doctors 
               now dispersing. Bock crosses past the foreground group to 
               the staff elevator. He pushes the button. Brubaker approaches 
               Bock. They confer quietly in the hallway.

                                     BRUBAKER
                         We've got a little thing over here, 
                         Doctor. The girl over there is the 
                         daughter of the patient in Eight-O-
                         Six. He is at the moment comatose 
                         and requires intravenous feeding and 
                         meds.

               The elevator comes and goes, disgorging some, taking on 
               others. Bock, who greeted Brubaker with a rare, benign smile, 
               has begun to look a bit sodden. Poor Brubaker, aware of the 
               gathering storm in Bock's demeanor, sighs and continues 
               regardless.

                                     BRUBAKER
                         The thing is, the daughter wants to 
                         take the father out of the hospital 
                         and back to Mexico where they live. 
                         The patient's name is Drummond. He's 
                         apparently a Methodist missionary, 
                         and he and his daughter run some 
                         kind of religious mission among the 
                         Apache Indians. The daughter claims 
                         to be a licensed nurse, so she can 
                         give the necessary I.V. treatment. I 
                         certainly don't think he should be 
                         let out of this hospital. The 
                         Attending -- he's the guy in gray 
                         over there -- concurs.

               Bock squints at Brubaker.

                                     BOCK
                         All right, wait a minute. Let me 
                         have all that again.

                                     BRUBAKER
                         As a matter of fact, Doctor, this is 
                         Dr. Biegelman's case.

                                     BOCK
                         Never mind the professional ethics, 
                         what happened?

                                     BRUBAKER
                              (sighs)
                         I don't know why I'm covering for 
                         that sonofabitch in Farkis Pavilion 
                         anyway.
                              (sighs and begins)
                         The patient, a man of fifty-six, was 
                         admitted to the hospital ten days 
                         ago for a check-up, in good health, 
                         no visible distress. We did the 
                         mandatory work-up on him. Blood 
                         cultures, stool, L.E. preps, chest, 
                         E.K.G., all negative. But there was 
                         apparently some evidence of protein 
                         in his urine. I don't know how that 
                         sonofabitch in Farkis Pavilion ever 
                         found out about it. Maybe he had 
                         some kind of deal with one of the 
                         girls in the lab. Anyway, he turned 
                         up the next day, conned the patient 
                         into signing an authorization for a 
                         biopsy...

                                     BOCK
                         What sonofabitch in Farkis Pavilion?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Some post-grad fellow named Ives. 
                         Elroy Ives. I never met him. He's on 
                         one of the immunology research 
                         programs.

                                     BOCK
                         Are you trying to tell me some post-
                         grad fellow came up here and did a 
                         biopsy on the patient?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Yes, sir. He conned Biegelman with 
                         that old story about...

                                     BOCK
                         ...protein in the urine?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Yes, sir.

                                     BOCK
                         And he biopsied the man?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         And he nicked a vessel, and at two 
                         o'clock in the morning, they woke up 
                         Biegelman because the nurse found 
                         the patient in shock. Biegelman called 
                         the kidney people for a consult right 
                         away. What was there to see? The man 
                         was sour and bleeding. We spoke to 
                         this fellow Sutcliffe, and he referred 
                         us to a surgeon named Welbeck...

                                     BOCK
                         Welbeck?! That barber!

                                     BRUBAKER
                         You ain't heard nothing yet. So we 
                         finally got Welbeck around four in 
                         the morning. He said, go ahead. So 
                         they laid on the surgery for eight. 
                         Welbeck turns up, half-stoned, orders 
                         an I.V.P., clears him for allergies...

                                     BOCK
                         ...without actually testing.

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Right.

                                     BOCK
                         And the patient went into shock...

                                     BRUBAKER
                         ...and tubular necrosis. They lopped 
                         out the bleeding kidney, ran him 
                         back to the room, and we sat around 
                         waiting for three days to see how 
                         obstructed he was. Fever began spiking 
                         like hell, euremia, vomiting, so we 
                         arranged hemodialysis. He's putting 
                         out good water now. But some nurse 
                         goofed on his last treatment. A leak 
                         in the tube, something. His blood 
                         pressure plunged. They ran him right 
                         up to I.C.U., checked out vital signs, 
                         all normal except he's comatose. 
                         That was two days ago.

                                     BOCK
                         In short, a man came into this 
                         hospital in perfectly good health, 
                         and, in the space of one week, we 
                         chopped out one kidney, damaged the 
                         other, reduced him to coma and damn 
                         near killed him.

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Yes, sir.

               A great sad serenity has settled over Bock.

                                     BOCK
                         You know, Brubaker, last night I sat 
                         in my hotel room, reviewing the 
                         shambles of my life and contemplating 
                         suicide. Then I said "No, Bock, don't 
                         do it. You're a doctor, a healer. 
                         You're the Chief of Medicine at one 
                         of the great hospitals of the world. 
                         You're a necessary person. Your life 
                         is meaningful." Then I came in this 
                         morning and find out one of my doctors 
                         was killed by a couple of nurses who 
                         mistook him for a patient because he 
                         screwed a technician from the 
                         nephrology lab...

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Hematology, sir.

                                     BOCK
                         And now you come to me with this 
                         gothic horror story in which the 
                         entire machinery of modern medicine 
                         has apparently conspired to destroy 
                         one lousy patient. How am I to sustain 
                         my feeling of meaningfulness in the 
                         face of this? You know, Brubaker, if 
                         there was an oven around, I'd stick 
                         my head in it. What was the name of 
                         that sonofabitch from Farkis Pavilion 
                         again?

                                     BRUBAKER
                         Ives, sir. Elroy Ives. Somebody ought 
                         to ream his ass.

               The gathering storm erupts. Rage suffuses Bock's face. Out 
               of respect for the hospital corridor and the people working 
               around him and Brubaker, he keeps it glacial. But there is 
               no mistaking the volcanic fury he feels.

                                     BOCK
                              (barely containing 
                              himself)
                         I'm going to ream his ass. And I'm 
                         going to break that barber Welbeck's 
                         back. I'm going to defrock those two 
                         cannibals. They won't practice in my 
                         hospital, I'll tell you that!

                                     BRUBAKER
                         What'll I tell the girl, sir? She 
                         says we have no legal right to stop 
                         her from taking her father out. She's 
                         willing to sign an A.O.R. form.

                                     BOCK
                         Let him go. Before we kill him.

               The elevator door opens. A couple of nurses come out. Bock 
               strides in.

               SEVENTH FLOOR, DEPT. OF MEDICINE CORRIDOR

               Bock advances in a cold fury down to his office. He wrenches 
               the door open.

               BOCK'S OFFICE, OUTER OFFICE

               Miss Lebow and Miss McGuire clatter away at typewriters. 
               Sitting on a chair in the crowded office is a senior staff 
               doctor, a man in his late forties, wearing a coat similar to 
               Bock's. He is DR. LAGERMAN. He looks up from the magazine 
               he's been leafing through as Bock storms in.

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         Hi, Herb...

               Bock acknowledges him with a brusque nod, storms over to 
               Miss Lebow.

                                     BOCK
                         Get me Dr. Gilley. Put him on page 
                         if you have to. I want to talk to 
                         him right now. I don't care if he's 
                         operating.
                              (wheels around to 
                              Miss McGuire)
                         And you get me some monkey named 
                         Ives. Ives. I-V-E-S, first name Elroy. 
                         He's in the Farkis Pavilion.

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         Herb...

                                     BOCK
                         I want to talk to you, Joe. Would 
                         you mind coming into my office?

               He strides, followed by Dr. Lagerman, into...

               BOCK'S PRIVATE OFFICE

               ...and slams the door shut behind him.

                                     BOCK
                         Have you got some punk named Ives 
                         rotating in your department?

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         Listen, Herb...

                                     BOCK
                              (sits at his desk)
                         I also want to know what the hell 
                         kind of a dialysis room you're 
                         running. I just came from...

               The phone RINGS. Bock seizes it.

                                     BOCK
                         Yeah... Gilley? Put him on. Bock. 
                         Didn't you tell me a couple of months 
                         ago you were going to cut off all 
                         privileges for that assassin, Welbeck? 
                         Yeah. Wellbeck. He just butchered 
                         another one of my patients... Oh, 
                         come on, Harry! The man's a buccaneer! 
                         I want him brought before the Medical 
                         Executive Committee... He's in your 
                         department, Harry, not mine. He's 
                         putatively a surgeon!... I'll be 
                         here!
                              (slams receiver down, 
                              stares at Lagerman)
                         Listen, Joe, I think you should know 
                         that you've got a research guy in 
                         your department named Ives who's 
                         been doing some very dubious biopsies. 
                         We're having enough trouble squeezing 
                         grants out of the Nixon 
                         administration...

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         Ives is dead, Herb. That's why I'm 
                         here.

               This gives Bock pause. He blinks at Lagerman.

                                     BOCK
                         What do you mean, Ives is dead?

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         I mean he's dead. He had a heart 
                         attack in the Emergency Room.

                                     BOCK
                         He had a heart attack in the Emergency 
                         Room?

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         Yeah.

                                     BOCK
                              (blinking)
                         What the hell is this? Some kind of 
                         plague?
                              (stands)
                         Where is he now?

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         They were just taking him down to 
                         Pathology.

               HOLLY PAVILION, FIRST FLOOR, PATHOLOGY DEPT

               Bock, Lagerman and Hitchcock have gathered across the shrouded 
               figure of Dr. Ives on a stretcher. We are in the lab section 
               of Pathology; in the background, through the glass part of 
               the door separating the lab from the surgery room, we can 
               see the autopsy on Dr. Schaefer being performed.

               Schaefer's naked white cadaver is stretched out on an 
               operating table. He has been opened up and all his vital 
               organs are being excised. It's bloody. The autopsy is being 
               performed by DR. BREWSTER, the Resident in Pathology, dressed 
               in surgical scrub.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         ...and the next thing anybody knew, 
                         about three hours later, Mrs. Cushing 
                         from Accounting came in and said 
                         there was a dead man in the Holding 
                         Room.

                                     BOCK
                         You don't find anything grotesque 
                         about all this?

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         What do you mean?

                                     BOCK
                         I mean, at half past eight this 
                         morning, we meet over a doctor who's 
                         been killed intravenously, and here 
                         we are again, four hours later, with 
                         another doctor who had a heart attack 
                         in the Emergency Room.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Well, what're you suggesting Doctor? 
                         Do you think we have a mad killer 
                         stalking the halls of the hospital? 
                         Presumably, Dr. Ives died of a heart 
                         attack and Schaefer in a diabetic 
                         coma. People do die of these things. 
                         It's all perhaps coincidental, but I 
                         don't think I'd call it grotesque.

                                     BOCK
                         How long are they going to be on 
                         Schaefer's post?

               He knocks on the glass window of the door separating the 
               laboratory from the operating room. Dr. Brewster turns from 
               his gory chore. Bock makes a gesture saying, "How much 
               longer?" Brewster raises ten blood-drenched rubber-gloved 
               fingers. Bock turns and shuffles across the lab for the door 
               out.

                                     BOCK
                              (pauses at door, to 
                              Lagerman)
                         I don't suppose you'd like to call 
                         next of kin?

                                     DR. LAGERMAN
                         No thanks.

                                     BOCK
                              (deeply depressed)
                         Oh God, I need a drink.

               He goes down...

               THE PATHOLOGY CORRIDOR

               ...and is soon lost in the normal traffic of the area.

               THE HOSPITAL. NIGHT

               CRASH of THUNDER. CRACKLE of LIGHTNING. A horror-film 
               rainstorm lashes the vast dark complex of buildings.

               SEVENTH FLOOR, DEPT. OF MEDICINE CORRIDOR

               Dark, empty, silent. One lonely light at the lobby end of 
               the long, closed corridor of offices. The door to Bock's 
               office stands ajar and issues a trace of light.

               BOCK'S OFFICE

               ACROSS the silent, dark, typewriter-covered desks of the two 
               secretaries through the doorway to Bock's private office, we 
               can see Bock at his desk, lit by the desk lamp. He has a 
               bottle of booze on his desk. He gets up from his desk. He 
               has made a decision.

               HOLLY PAVILION, EIGHTH FLOOR

               The corridors are silent; the night lights are on, subdued. 
               Head Evening Nurse Mrs. Dunne is back at her desk, hunched 
               over paperwork. Resident Brubaker passes by.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, PHARMACY

               Nurse SHERLEE DEVINE, a black woman in her mid-twenties, has 
               a porcelain tray on the shelf onto which she puts a small 
               jar of alcohol, cotton swabs, a wrapped hypodermic needle 
               and syringe. She moves out into...

               NURSES' STATION

               ...where Mrs. Dunne looks up as she passes.

                                     NURSE DEVINE
                         Mead.

               Mrs. Dunne nods. Nurse Devine makes her way silently down 
               the sleeping doors to...

               ROOM 806

               Dark, sleeping. The bathroom light is on, but only a thin 
               stream of yellow light trickles through the door. THUNDER 
               CRASHES. William Mead sleeps fitfully. The other patient is 
               entirely curtained off. Nurse Devine sets her tray on Mead's 
               bedtable, turns on the goose-neck lamp, keeping it from his 
               eyes. She unwraps the hypodermic syringe, sets in the needle, 
               draws the required dosage, reaches over and gently shakes 
               Mead by the shoulder.

                                     NURSE DEVINE
                              (softly)
                         Mr. Mead... Mr. Mead, I have an 
                         injection for you.

               Mead sleeps on. Expressionlessly, Nurse Devine extracts Mead's 
               right arm from under the sheets, wets a swab with alcohol 
               and rubs down the vein. The needle slides into Mead's vein. 
               OVER THIS, we begin to hear a distant sibilant HISSING, 
               indistinct like the leakage of a bad heart. There is also an 
               occasional distinctly human but not quite civilized sound.

               CAMERA PULLS BACK SLOWLY to Nurse Devine withdrawing the 
               needle, looking up, for she too has heard the soft, strange 
               sounds. They emanate from behind the curtains of the other 
               bed. Nurse Devine returns the syringe to the tray, gathers 
               her things and pads silently around Mead's bed to Drummond's 
               bed. With her free hand, she opens the curtains a little and 
               stares in.

                                     NURSE DEVINE
                         What the hell is going on in there?

               NURSE DEVINE'S P.O.V.: THE INDIAN AND BARBARA DRUMMOND BEND 
               OVER DRUMMOND PERFORMING SOME PAGAN RITUAL. THE HISSING IS 
               BARBARA'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE CEREMONY. (IT SOUNDS LIKE PIS-
               PIS, AND IS IN FACT AN IMITATION OF THE NIGHTHAWK, MEANT TO 
               APPEASE THE SPIRIT OF THE THUNDER.)

               The old Indian has stripped to the waist and marked his body 
               with smears of dye and tule pollen. He wears a ceremonial 
               hat, a sort of beaded beanie. He holds a small buckskin bag 
               of pollen in his cupped palms and is facing north, east, 
               south and west, offering the bag and prayers under his breath 
               as he does. A beaded amulet lies stretched across the white 
               sheet covering the comatose Drummond.

               When Nurse Devine draws the curtains, Barbara frowns at Nurse 
               Devine, holds a cautioning finger to her lips and draws the 
               curtains closed again. Nurse Devine, carrying her porcelain 
               tray, exits.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, NURSES' STATION

               Bock comes out of the elevator, jacketed now, fairly drunk 
               but holding it well.

               He heads for the Nurses' Station as Nurse Devine comes down 
               the west corridor. Bock grunts at Mrs. Dunne and goes into...

               PHARMACY

               ...where he quickly runs his finger along the second shelf 
               until he comes to the bottle of potassium which he filches 
               off the shelf and slips into his pocket. He rummages through 
               the drawers for a hypodermic syringe. Through the open 
               doorway, we see Nurse Devine making her way swiftly up to 
               Mrs. Dunne at the desk.

                                     NURSE DEVINE
                         Well, honey, we got a witch-doctor 
                         in Eight-O-Six, and you better go in 
                         there. You know that Indian that was 
                         sitting in Eight-O-Six all night? 
                         He's still there, and the girl's 
                         there, and they're doing some voodoo 
                         in there, and I ain't kidding.

               Behind Mrs. Dunne, Bock appears in the doorway to the pharmacy 
               where he stands listening.

                                     MRS. DUNNE
                              (looking up)
                         What are you talking about?

                                     NURSE DEVINE
                         I mean that Indian's in there, half-
                         naked and going pis-pis-pis with a 
                         little bag. You just better get in 
                         there, Mrs. Dunne.

               Mrs. Dunne, annoyed, gets up and heads for the west corridor, 
               followed by Nurse Devine and by an intrigued Dr. Bock at a 
               few paces behind.

                                     NURSE DEVINE
                              (to NURSE WEITZENBAUM, 
                              coming out of another 
                              room)
                         You want to see somethin', baby? You 
                         jus' come here.

               As the small procession bears down, Barbara Drummond slips 
               out of that room to intercept them.

                                     BARBARA
                              (keeping her voice 
                              low)
                         Look, it's a perfectly harmless 
                         ceremony, nothing to get excited 
                         about. It'll be over in a few minutes 
                         anyway. Mr. Blacktree is a shaman 
                         who gets his power from the thunder, 
                         and it's imperative he conclude his 
                         rituals while the storm is still 
                         going on.

                                     NURSE DUNNE
                         Visiting hours were over at nine 
                         o'clock, Miss.

               Bock reaches for the door to the room.

                                     BARBARA
                         All that's going on in there, Doctor, 
                         is a simple Apache prayer for my 
                         father's recovery.

               Bock makes a vague noise, neither contradicting her nor 
               assenting, and continues around her into...

               ROOM 806

               As Bock slides in, a bit of the corridor light comes in with 
               him. The curtains have been left sufficiently open to reveal 
               Mr. Blacktree. He is still stripped to the waist and marked 
               with crosses of pollen. He extends two twigs to the four 
               directions after which he places the twigs carefully on the 
               white sheet covering Drummond in a pattern around the amulet 
               already there. Behind Bock, Mrs. Dunne can be seen peeking 
               in. The Indian is oblivious to both of them. Bock watches it 
               all with interest for a moment and then backs out into...

               EIGHTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

               ...closing the door after him.

                                     BARBARA
                         The markings he's made on my father's 
                         arms are from the pollen of the tule 
                         plant. The twigs have no significance 
                         other than they've been struck by 
                         lightning and are consequently appeals 
                         to the spirit of lightning. It's all 
                         entirely harmless, a religious 
                         ceremony, not a medical one.

                                     BOCK
                         You don't seriously believe all that 
                         mumbo-jumbo will cure him?

                                     BARBARA
                         On the other hand, it won't kill 
                         him, Doctor.

               They regard each other levelly.

                                     BOCK
                              (grunts)
                         Okay. Go ahead.

               He wheels and clumps off for the stairway exit.

                                     BARBARA
                         Thank you.

               Nurse Weitzenbaum opens the door of the room and peeks in. 
               At the stairway exit, Bock pauses to look back at all the 
               women in front of Room 806.

                                     BOCK
                         Miss Drummond, are you still taking 
                         your father out?

                                     BARBARA
                         Yes. I still have to arrange an 
                         ambulance service. Is there a phone 
                         around I could use?

                                     BOCK
                         Use my office.

                                     BARBARA
                         Thank you.

               Bock exits. Barbara edges past Weitzenbaum, who is still 
               peeking into the room.

               ROOM 806

               Barbara comes in, gathers her coat and purse from a chair 
               and moves to the Indian, now occupied with what seems to be 
               the rolling of a cigarette. The two exchange a brief dialogue 
               in Apache. The old Indian nods. Barbara turns and exits, 
               taking Nurse Weitzenbaum out with her and closing the door. 
               The room is dark and hushed again. Blacktree lights his 
               cigarette and "sends the smoke up," a ritual which consists 
               of puffing smoke to each of the four directions, muttering 
               in Apache "May all be well" after each puff.

               CAMERA SLOWLY PANS to the other bed where William Mead sleeps 
               fitfully. The Apache words and pis-pis-pis penetrate Mead's 
               drugged sleep. He opens one eyelid and stares glazedly at 
               the dark air. The SOUNDS persist. Blacktree chooses this 
               moment to sidle out from behind the curtains and continue 
               his ritual in the less-confined space at the head of 
               Drummond's bed. It's quite a sight for a nervous, sedated 
               man to wake to.  Thunder RUMBLES and the rain SLASHES and a 
               sudden, savage STREAK of lightning illuminates it all.

               Mead figures it's all a bad dream and, after a moment of 
               dully regarding the odd spectacle, closes his one eye and 
               goes back to sleep.

               BOCK'S OFFICE, OUTER OFFICE

               Barbara Drummond comes in. Bock has apparently turned the 
               lights on for her, but Bock himself is not immediately 
               visible. She looks through the half-open door to Bock's 
               private office, and there he is, staring blankly at the 
               bottle. Barbara starts to say something, thinks better of 
               it, lays down her coat, and looking around, spots a Manhattan 
               classified directory which she hauls up from its shelf and 
               sets on Miss Lebow's desk. She sits, quickly flips through 
               the pages.

               Barbara flips through the directory. Bock is partially visible 
               in the background at his desk. He sits soddenly. Barbara 
               finds what she wants, opens her purse and takes out two 
               airplane tickets. She dials. The CLICKING of the dial catches 
               Bock's ear. He looks up for a moment.

                                     BARBARA
                              (on phone)
                         Hello. I'd like to arrange an 
                         ambulance for one-thirty tomorrow 
                         afternoon... Thank you...

               REVERSE ACROSS Bock at his desk with Barbara partially visible 
               at Miss Lebow's desk. All he can see are her great long tanned 
               legs.

                                     BARBARA
                              (in background on 
                              phone)
                         ...Drummond, first name, Barbara. 
                         I'll pay cash...

               Bock stands a little unsteadily and moves around his desk to 
               get a better look at those legs.

                                     BARBARA
                              (on phone)
                         No, you're to pick up my father, 
                         Drummond, Edward, at the Manhattan 
                         Medical Center, Holly Pavilion, Room 
                         Eight-O-Six. It's a stretcher case. 
                         I presume you provide the stretcher.

               She senses Bock watching her, turns, smiles. She's a very 
               beautiful girl. She returns to the phone.

                                     BARBARA
                         He's to be taken to American Airlines, 
                         Yes... No... Kennedy Airport, Flight 
                         Seven-Two-Nine to Yuma, Arizona. 
                         I'll accompany the patient... Yes, 
                         thank you.

               She returns the receiver to its cradle. When she looks up 
               again, Bock is no longer there. She returns the flight tickets 
               to her purse, snaps it shut, stands and moves to the doorway, 
               enters a step into...

               BOCK'S OFFICE

               Bock, back at his desk, looks up.

                                     BOCK
                         You believe in witchcraft, Miss 
                         Drummond?

                                     BARBARA
                         I believe in everything, Doctor.

                                     BOCK
                         Like a drink?

                                     BARBARA
                         Yes.

               Bock drains his glass and pours her a hefty shot of bourbon.

                                     BARBARA
                              (from the door suddenly)
                         My father, you should know, was a 
                         very successful doctor in Boston, a 
                         member of the Harvard Medical Faculty. 
                         He was a widower, and I was his only 
                         child. He was not an especially 
                         religious man, a sober Methodist. 
                         One evening, seven years ago, he 
                         attended a Pentecostal meeting in 
                         the commons rooms at Harvard and 
                         suddenly found himself speaking in 
                         tongues.
                              (she takes her drink 
                              and crosses to the 
                              sofa)
                         That is to say, he suddenly sank to 
                         his knees at the back of the room 
                         and began to talk fluently in a 
                         language which no one had ever heard 
                         before. This sort of thing happens 
                         frequently at Pentecostal meetings, 
                         and they began to happen regularly 
                         to my father.
                              (she sits)
                         It was not unusual to walk into our 
                         home and find my father sitting in 
                         his office, utterly serene and happily 
                         speaking to the air in this strange 
                         foreign tongue. I was, at that time 
                         twenty years old and having my 
                         obligatory affair with a minority 
                         group, in my case a Hopi Indian, a 
                         post-graduate fellow at Harvard doing 
                         his doctorate in the aboriginal 
                         languages of the Southwest. One day, 
                         I brought the Indian boy home just 
                         as my father was sinking to his knees 
                         in the entrance foyer in one of his 
                         trances. The Indian wheeled in his 
                         tracks and said, "Well, I'll be a 
                         sonofabitch." You see, my father was 
                         speaking an Apache dialect, an obscure 
                         dialect at that, spoken only by a 
                         ragged band of unreconstructed Indians 
                         who had rejected the reservation and 
                         were living in total isolation in 
                         the Sierra Madre Mountains of northern 
                         Mexico. Well! What do you say to 
                         that, Dr. Bock?

                                     BOCK
                              (who has been staring 
                              at her as if she 
                              were insane)
                         What the hell am I supposed to say 
                         to that, Miss Drummond?

               Barbara throws back her head and roars with laughter.

                                     BOCK
                         I'm sitting here boozing and, all of 
                         a sudden, you start telling me some 
                         demented story about your father's 
                         religious conversion.

                                     BARBARA
                         No, no, you miss the point, Doctor. 
                         Not my father's conversion -- mine. 
                         You see, I had been hitting the acid 
                         pretty regularly at that time. I had 
                         achieved a few minor sensory 
                         deformities, some suicidal despairs, 
                         but nothing as wild as fluency in an 
                         obscure Apache dialect. I mean, like 
                         wow, man! I mean, here was living 
                         afflatus right before my eyes! Within 
                         a week, my father had closed his 
                         Beacon Hill practice and set out to 
                         start a mission in the Mexican 
                         mountains. And I turned in my S.D.S. 
                         card and my crash helmet and followed 
                         him. It was a disaster, at least for 
                         me. My father had received the 
                         revelation, not I. He stood gaunt on 
                         a mountain slope and preached the 
                         apocalypse to solemnly amused Indians. 
                         I masturbated a great deal. We lived 
                         in a grass wickiup and ate raw rabbit 
                         and crushed piñon nuts. It was 
                         hideous. Within two months, I was 
                         back in Boston, a hollow shell and 
                         dizzy with dengue, disenchanted with 
                         everything. I turned to austerity, 
                         combed my hair tight and entered 
                         nursing school. I became haggard, 
                         driven and had shamelessly incestuous 
                         dreams about my father. I took up 
                         with some of the senior staff at the 
                         hospital. One of them, a portly 
                         psychiatrist, explained I was 
                         generated by an unresolved lust for 
                         my father. I apparently cracked up. 
                         One day, they found me walking to 
                         work naked and screaming obscenities. 
                         There was talk of institutionalizing 
                         me, so I packed a bag and went back 
                         to my father in the Sierra Madre 
                         Mountains. I've been there ever since. 
                         That's three years. My father is, of 
                         course, mad as a hatter. I watch 
                         over him and have been curiously 
                         content. You see, Doctor, I believe 
                         in everything.

               She pauses, her story over. Throughout, Bock has been trying 
               to keep his glowering eye on the desktop. During her long 
               narrative, he once seized the bottle and took a swig. Mostly 
               he is finding the experience murkily sensual. His glance 
               keeps darting out from under his brows to surreptitiously 
               look at the beautiful long tanned legs; or, when she bends 
               for the drink she set on the floor, to peer down the flapping 
               open scalloped neck of her dress; she is bra-less.

               She, on the other hand, has been crossing and uncrossing her 
               legs, bending, stretching, so that her short dress has ridden 
               up almost to her waist and is saved from utter exhibitionism 
               only by the darkness of the shadows. She seems unaffected by 
               Bock's voyeuristic interest in her, but she is surely not 
               unaware of it. It is hard to believe she is not courting his 
               attention.

                                     BOCK
                         Now what was that all about, Miss 
                         Drummond?

                                     BARBARA
                         I thought I was obvious as hell. I'm 
                         trying to tell you I have a thing 
                         for middle-aged men.

                                     BOCK
                         I admire your candor.

                                     BARBARA
                         You've been admiring a lot more than 
                         that.

               Bock looks up, and they suddenly find their eyes locked. The 
               dark, dense air in the room fairly steams with incipient 
               sexuality.

                                     BOCK
                              (looks down again)
                         You're wasting your time. I've been 
                         impotent for years.

                                     BARBARA
                         Rubbish.

               With a crash of his fist on the desktop, Bock stands; he is 
               in a drunken rage.

                                     BOCK
                              (lurches about)
                         What the hell's wrong with being 
                         impotent? My God, you kids are more 
                         hung up on sex than the Victorians! 
                         I've got a son, twenty-three. I threw 
                         him out of the house last year. 
                         Pietistic little humbug. He preached 
                         universal love and despised everyone. 
                         He had a blanket contempt for the 
                         middle class, even its decencies. He 
                         detested my mother because she had 
                         petit bourgeois pride in her son the 
                         doctor. I cannot tell you how 
                         brutishly he ignored that rather 
                         good old lady. When she died, he 
                         didn't even come to the funeral. He 
                         thought the chapel service an 
                         hypocrisy. His generation didn't 
                         live with lies, he told me. "Everybody 
                         lives with lies," I said. I grabbed 
                         him by his poncho, dragged him the 
                         full length of our seven-room 
                         despicably affluent middle-class 
                         apartment and flung him out. I haven't 
                         seen him since. But do you know what 
                         he said to me as he stood there on 
                         that landing on the verge of tears. 
                         He shrieked at me: "You old fink! 
                         You can't even get it up anymore!" 
                         That was it, you see. That was his 
                         real revolution. It wasn't racism 
                         and the oppressed poor and the war 
                         in Vietnam. The ultimate American 
                         societal sickness was a limp dingus. 
                         Hah!
                              (he lurches about, 
                              laughing rustily)
                         My God, if there is a despised and 
                         misunderstood minority in this 
                         country, it's us poor impotent 
                         bastards. Well, I'm impotent and 
                         proud of it! Impotence is beautiful, 
                         baby!
                              (he raises a militant 
                              fist)
                         Power to the Impotent! Right on, 
                         baby!

                                     BARBARA
                              (smiling)
                         Right on.

                                     BOCK
                              (stares drunkenly at 
                              her)
                         When I say impotent, I don't mean 
                         merely limp. Disagreeable as it may 
                         be for a woman, a man may sometimes 
                         lust for other things, something 
                         less transient than an erection, 
                         some sense of permanent worth. That's 
                         what medicine was for me, my reason 
                         for being. When I was thirty-four, 
                         Miss Drummond, I presented a paper 
                         before the annual convention of the 
                         Society of Clinical Investigation 
                         that pioneered the whole goddam field 
                         of immunology. A breakthrough! I'm 
                         in all the textbooks. I happen to be 
                         an eminent man, Miss Drummond. And 
                         you want to know something, Miss 
                         Drummond? I don't give a goddam. 
                         When I say I'm impotent, I mean I've 
                         lost even my desire for work, which 
                         is a hell of a lot more primal a 
                         passion than sex. I've lost my raison 
                         d'etre, my purpose, the only thing I 
                         ever truly loved. It's all rubbish 
                         anyway. Transplants, antibodies, we 
                         manufacture genes, we can produce 
                         birth ectogenetically, we can 
                         practically clone people like carrots, 
                         and half the kids in this ghetto 
                         haven't even been inoculated for 
                         polio! We have assembled the most 
                         enormous medical establishment ever 
                         conceived, and people are sicker 
                         than ever! We cure nothing! We heal 
                         nothing! The whole goddam wretched 
                         world is strangulating in front of 
                         our eyes! That's what I mean when I 
                         say impotent! You don't know what 
                         the hell I'm talking about, do you?

                                     BARBARA
                         Of course, I do.

                                     BOCK
                         I'm tired, I'm terribly tired, Miss 
                         Drummond. And I hurt, and I've got 
                         nothing going for me anymore. Can 
                         you understand that?

                                     BARBARA
                         Yes, of course.

                                     BOCK
                         Then can you understand that the 
                         only admissable matter left is death?

               He suspects he is going to cry and turns quickly away. He 
               sits heavily and fights his tears.

                                     BARBARA
                         Sounds to me like a familiar case of 
                         morbid menopause.

                                     BOCK
                         Oh Christ.

                                     BARBARA
                         Well, it's hard for me to take your 
                         despair very seriously, Doctor. You 
                         obviously enjoy it so much.

                                     BOCK
                         Oh, bugger off. That's all I need 
                         now, clinical insights. Some 
                         cockamamie twenty-five-year-old...

                                     BARBARA
                         Twenty-seven.

                                     BOCK
                         ...acidhead's going to reassure me 
                         about menopause now. Look, I'd like 
                         to be alone, so why don't you beat 
                         it? Close the door and turn off the 
                         lights on your way out.

               They are both suddenly conscious of a third presence in the 
               room. They look to the door where Mr. Blacktree, fully clothed 
               again and carrying his coat, is standing in the doorway. 
               Barbara uncrosses her long legs and stands.

                                     BARBARA
                              (crossing to the door)
                         Mr. Blacktree disapproves of my 
                         miniskirt, but it was the only thing 
                         I had to come to the city with. Back 
                         at the tribe, I wear ankle-length 
                         buckskin.

                                     BOCK
                         Swell. Just close the door and turn 
                         off the lights.

               Barbara regards his hunched form and, murmuring in Apache, 
               she exits, closing the door. In the subsequent hush, thunder 
               RUMBLES and CRASHES. Wind sweeps the rain against the window 
               panes.

               The sounds go unheeded by Bock, still as marble. Slowly, he 
               raises his head and sighs and then fishes about in his jacket 
               pockets to bring out the bottle of potassium and syringe. He 
               takes off his jacket, rolling up his shirtsleeve, poking 
               about for the vein. He removes his trouser belt, which he 
               ties tightly about his upper arm for a tourniquet. Now, he 
               tears the wrapping of the syringe and fits the needle to it. 
               Fiddling about in the pockets of his jacket, he finally finds 
               a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He lights one and returns to 
               the business of killing himself, puffing expressionlessly as 
               he does. Thunder RUMBLES and rain SLASHES. He carefully draws 
               just the right amount of potassium from the bottle to the 
               syringe, peering at the procedure against the light of his 
               desk lamp. He sets the cigarette on the ashtray, switches 
               the hypodermic to his right hand, holds his left arm rigidly 
               out under the light of the lamp...

                                     BARBARA'S VOICE
                              (off-screen)
                         What're you shooting, Doc?

               He turns slowly to the doorway, his bare left arm still 
               rigidly extended, the belt dangling, the hypodermic clenched 
               in his other hand. Barbara is perfectly framed in the doorway. 
               He stares at her, slowly suffusing with the numb, blind, 
               total rage of the aborted suicide. The thunder CRASHES.

                                     BOCK
                              (barely gets the words 
                              out)
                         Leave me alone...

               She approaches the desk affably, turns the potassium around 
               to read the label.

                                     BARBARA
                         Potassium. You take enough of this 
                         stuff, it'll kill you, Doc.
                              (moves toward the 
                              couch)
                         It occurred to me that I might have 
                         read you wrong, that you really were 
                         suicidal. So I came back.

               Bock's rage erupts. He crashes the hypodermic syringe down, 
               shattering it. The potassium puddles on the wood.

                                     BOCK
                              (hysterical rage)
                         Who the hell asked you!

               He moves around the desk, a shambling bear of a man, a leather 
               belt dangling dementedly from his arm, tears coursing down 
               his cheeks. He advances on her in a stuperous shuffle.

                                     BOCK
                         Who the hell asked you!

               She regards his lumbering approach with a faint, grotesquely 
               sensual smile. He reaches with his naked left arm to the 
               neck of her dress and, with one savage wrench, rips her stark 
               naked, sobbing through hysterical tears.

                                     BOCK
                         Leave me alone! Why the hell don't 
                         you leave me alone!

               He is on her, crushing her down into the shadows of the couch, 
               ravenous at her neck and shoulders in a brutish assault, 
               sobbing.

                                     BOCK
                         Why didn't you let me do it? Who the 
                         hell asked you!

               Throughout the scene, CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY IN through the 
               flesh and fury to an INTENSE TWO-SHOT of this terrified act 
               of love. Then slowly over Bock's plunging shoulder to the 
               woman's face. She gasps at the moment of penetration, then 
               her lovely face slowly shapes into smiling serenity. Bock 
               sobs; even in the shadows we can see the path of the tears 
               on his cheek.

               ABRUPT SILENCE.

               OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL, NIGHT. 4:00 A.M.

               The quiet, black streets glisten wetly in the puddles of 
               lamplight.

               THE STEINMETZ PAVILION, TENTH FLOOR

               The night shift is finishing up. THERESA CAMPANELLA, R.N., a 
               high-strung girl in her early twenties, stands at a water 
               tap holding a glass and popping some pills in her mouth. To 
               the room:

                                     CAMPANELLA
                         Well, I'll see you.

               TENTH FLOOR CORRIDOR. NIGHT

               Campanella comes out of the Dialysis room, puts on her coat 
               and walks to...

               HOLLY PAVILION LOBBY. NIGHT

               Campanella moves down the empty corridor. All the doors are 
               closed now; only the overhead light in the background of the 
               corridor glows weakly. Campanella puts a cigarette in her 
               mouth, pauses to look for matches; she hasn't any. Scowling 
               with annoyance, she continues to the lobby and stops by a 
               partially visible white-jacketed figure reading a newspaper.

                                     CAMPANELLA
                         Do you have a match, Doctor?

               She takes the matches, lights her cigarette, inhaling deeply, 
               when he suddenly sandbags her from behind. She goes down.

               BOCK'S OFFICE. DAYBREAK, WEDNESDAY

               Covered by Bock's overcoat, Barbara tosses and turns on the 
               couch in a small nightmare. Through the windows comes the 
               first gray wash of dawn. FULL SHOT of Barbara, awake and up 
               on one elbow on the verge of a scream. She looks around the 
               room. It is dark, empty, silent.

               ACROSS Barbara looking through the door to the secretarial 
               office. It is likewise dark, but suddenly the lights go on 
               and, a moment later, Bock enters. He holds a container of 
               coffee in each hand and has something white draped over his 
               forearm. From under Bock's bulky coat, Barbara watches him 
               lumber to his desk, where he sets the containers of coffee 
               down. He drops the whitish garment over the back of a chair 
               and then sits. He hoists a bulging folder of correspondence 
               from his filing tray and hunches to work, reading. After a 
               moment, he regards the silent figure on the couch across the 
               room.

                                     BOCK
                         You wouldn't be awake.

                                     BARBARA
                         What time is it?

               He rises, picks up the second container and white dress from 
               the chair. She reaches out an arm for the coffee. Bock holds 
               up -- a nurse's uniform.

                                     BOCK
                         I swiped this for you out of the 
                         nurses' locker room. I'll make good 
                         on your dress. I'm afraid it's torn 
                         beyond repair. Buy yourself a new 
                         one or, if you like, give me your 
                         size and I'll send it on to you. But 
                         I want to talk to you about that.

                                     BARBARA
                         Talk to me about what?

                                     BOCK
                         About your father. You really 
                         shouldn't move him in his condition. 
                         I just had a look at his chart. 
                         There's no reason to presume brain 
                         damage. You know as well as I you 
                         can't predict anything in these 
                         instances. He could pull out of that 
                         coma at any time. I think you should 
                         let him stay here. I'll personally 
                         look after him.

               He has perched on the edge of the couch, and she rests her 
               cheek against the long, bent curve of his back, smiling.

                                     BARBARA
                         Is this your way of saying you'd 
                         like me to stay in town a few more 
                         days?

               He turns to look at her, smiles back.

                                     BOCK
                         Well, that would be nice, too.

               She sips her coffee.

                                     BOCK
                         What do you say, Miss Drummond?

                                     BARBARA
                         I expect you can call me Barbara, 
                         considering you ravished me three 
                         times last night.

                                     BOCK
                         Three times?

                                     BARBARA
                         Oh, look at him, pretending he didn't 
                         count. You were as puffed up as a 
                         toad about it. Punched a couple of 
                         holes in your crusade for universal 
                         impotence, didn't it? I think we're 
                         on a first name basis by now. I'll 
                         call you Herb.

                                     BOCK
                         Let's give your father a week, 
                         Barbara, what do you say?

                                     BARBARA
                              (a frown darkens her 
                              face)
                         No, I don't want my father in this 
                         hospital. I had a dream about this 
                         hospital.
                              (some of the terror 
                              shows on her face)
                         I dreamt this enormous starched white 
                         tile building suddenly erupted like 
                         a volcano, and all the patients, 
                         doctors, nurses, attendants, 
                         orderlies, the whole line staff, the 
                         food service people, the aged, the 
                         lame -- and you right in the middle -- 
                         were stampeding in one hideous 
                         screaming suicidal mass into the 
                         sea.
                              (she stares at him 
                              wide-eyed, reliving 
                              the dream)
                         I'm taking my father out of here -- 
                         and as quickly as I can.

               They stare at each other, she in terror, he with affection.

                                     BOCK
                         You're a real fruitcake, you know?

               She sets her coffee down on the couch and decides to wear 
               Bock's overcoat rather than use it as a cover. She searches 
               for the sleeves. Bock assists her.

                                     BARBARA
                         Well, let me put it this way. I love 
                         you. I fancied you from the first 
                         moment you came lumbering down that 
                         hallway upstairs. I said to Mr. 
                         Blacktree, "Who's that hulking bear 
                         of a man?" The Apaches are reverential 
                         about bears. They won't eat bear 
                         meat; they never skin bears. Bear is 
                         thought of as both benign and evil, 
                         but very strong power. Men with bear 
                         power are highly respected and are 
                         frequently said to be great healers.

               By now she's standing, the overcoat reaching her toes. She 
               looks down at Bock perched on the couch.

                                     BARBARA
                         I said to Mr. Blacktree, "That man 
                         gets his power from the bear."

                                     BOCK
                         Swell. Now, look, do you have a hotel, 
                         some sort of accommodations where 
                         you can stay for a week or so?

               Barbara reaches for her coffee, sips, moves around in her 
               tent of a coat.

                                     BARBARA
                         All right, let me put it this way, 
                         Herb. My father and I accept the 
                         implacability of death. If he dies, 
                         he dies, but I'm taking him out of 
                         here and back to Mexico about one 
                         o'clock this afternoon. I want you 
                         to come with us, because I love you 
                         and want children.

                                     BOCK
                         I'm afraid Mexico sounds a little 
                         too remote for me.

                                     BARBARA
                         We could use you down there, you 
                         know. There's a curiously high 
                         incidence of T.B. And you'd be a 
                         doctor again, Herb. You'd be necessary 
                         again. If you love me, I don't see 
                         what other choice you have.

                                     BOCK
                         What do you mean, if I love you? I 
                         raped you in a suicidal rage. How 
                         did we get to love and children all 
                         of a sudden?

                                     BARBARA
                         Oh, for heaven's sake, Herb, I ought 
                         to know if a man loves me or not. 
                         You must have told me half a hundred 
                         times last night you loved me. You 
                         murmured it, shouted it; one time, 
                         you opened the window and bellowed 
                         it out into the street.

                                     BOCK
                         I think those were more expressions 
                         of gratitude than love.

                                     BARBARA
                         Gratitude for what?

                                     BOCK
                         Well, my God, for resurrecting 
                         feelings of life in me I thought 
                         dead.

                                     BARBARA
                         Well, my God, what do you think love 
                         is?

                                     BOCK
                         Okay, I love you, and you love me. 
                         I'm not about to argue with so 
                         relentless a romantic. Well, then, 
                         since we have this great passion 
                         going for us, I don't see why you 
                         won't stay on here in New York for a 
                         week or ten days...

                                     BARBARA
                         It's up to ten days now.

                                     BOCK
                         As long as it takes for your father's 
                         condition to improve.

                                     BARBARA
                         No. I've had these prophetic dreams 
                         for seven nights. Seven is a sinister 
                         number. The meaning of these dreams 
                         is very clear, seven times as clear. 
                         I am to get my father and you out of 
                         this hospital before we are all 
                         destroyed.

                                     BOCK
                              (throws up his hands)
                         You're certifiable! My God, half the 
                         time you're a perfectly intelligent 
                         young woman, and then suddenly you 
                         turn into a goddam cabalist who 
                         believes in dreams, witchcraft and 
                         bear power! And I don't like the way 
                         you dismiss my whole life as 
                         unnecessary. I do a lot of healing 
                         right here in Manhattan. I don't 
                         have to go to Mexico for it. I also 
                         teach. I send out eighty doctors a 
                         year into the world, sometimes 
                         inspirited, at least competent. I've 
                         built up one of the best damned 
                         departments of medicine in the world. 
                         We've got a hell of a heart unit 
                         here and a hell of a kidney group. A 
                         lot of people come into this hospital 
                         in big trouble, Miss Drummond, and 
                         go out better for the experience. So 
                         don't tell me how unnecessary I am.

                                     BARBARA
                              (who's been slipping 
                              into the nurse's 
                              uniform)
                         Yeah?

                                     BOCK
                         Yeah.

                                     BARBARA
                         So how come, eight hours ago, you 
                         were trying to kill yourself with an 
                         overdose of potassium?

                                     BOCK
                         Where are you going now?

               This last in reference to Barbara crossing to the secretaries' 
               office, zippering her uniform.

               BOCK'S SECRETARIES' OFFICE

                                     BARBARA
                              (gathering her coat 
                              and purse)
                         My hotel. I have to check out. Mr. 
                         Blacktree doesn't speak any English.

                                     BOCK
                              (from the connecting 
                              doorway)
                         Well, you're coming back, of course.

                                     BARBARA
                         Of course. I have to settle the bill 
                         here and pack my father. And I think 
                         you need a few hours alone to make 
                         your decisions.

                                     BOCK
                         What decisions?

                                     BARBARA
                         You're a very tired and very damaged 
                         man. You've had a hideous marriage 
                         and I assume a few tacky affairs 
                         along the way. You're understandably 
                         reluctant to get involved again. 
                         And, on top of that, here I am with 
                         the preposterous idea you throw 
                         everything up and go off with me to 
                         some barren mountains of Mexico. It 
                         sounds utterly mad, I know. On the 
                         other hand, you obviously find this 
                         world as desolate as I do. You did 
                         try to kill yourself last night. So 
                         that's it, Herb. Either me and the 
                         mountains or the bottle of potassium. 
                         I'll be back in an hour or so. I'll 
                         be in my father's room.

               She slips into her coat and exits, as Bock looks after her 
               thoughtfully, then turns back to his own office.

               BOCK'S OFFICE

               He shuffles around distractedly, not knowing how to articulate 
               the exuberance he feels. Suddenly, he opens the window, leans 
               out and bellows to the empty air.

                                     BOCK
                         All right. I love you!
                              (softly)
                         My God!

               FIRST AVENUE, CONSTRUCTION AREA. DAWN

               A construction sign fills the screen. It reads ON THIS 
               LOCATION, THE NEW YORK MEDICAL UNIVERSITY CENTER WILL BUILD 
               A DRUG REHABILITATION COMMUNITY CENTER, TO BE COMPLETED IN 
               1973. E.F. SCHLAGER & CO., CONTRACTORS. Suddenly, the sign 
               comes crashing down into CAMERA. It has been wrenched off 
               the wooden fence protecting the row of tenements and 
               brownstones being demolished. About a dozen young and loud 
               militants have torn it down.

               CAMERA PANS to show the row of houses behind the fence, two 
               of which have already been reduced to rubble; the others 
               have been boarded up. The demolition generators and cranes 
               are parked silently along the curb. In the dark of 5:00 A.M., 
               three black families, carrying children, and children carrying 
               household effects, mattresses, pots, pans, bags of groceries, 
               etc., are repossessing the condemned buildings.

               FIRST AVENUE, CONSTRUCTION AREA. DAY, 10:00 A.M.

               Strong sun overhead. The street has been roped off, and police 
               are all over the place. A sparse crowd of a hundred or so 
               throng the sidestreets off First Avenue. Signs read, "People 
               Sí, Doctors No." A Channel 11 mobile news crew, newspaper 
               photographers, and a radio newscaster are recording the 
               situation with desultory interest.

               A POLICE CAPTAIN stands in the middle of the cordoned street, 
               bullhorning the occupiers of the condemned brownstones, who 
               can be seen through the broken windows.

                                     POLICE CAPTAIN
                         I repeat. I'm asking you to come out 
                         peacefully. These buildings are 
                         condemned and unfit for habitation.

               A piece of brick arches down from the roof of a building and 
               cracks the street a few feet from the Captain.

                                     POLICE CAPTAIN
                              (sighs, tries again)
                         You people are possessing this 
                         building illegally and in violation 
                         of the law. I'm asking you to come 
                         out peacefully...

               HOLLY PAVILION, ENTRANCE LOBBY. DAY

               A small press conference is going on in a corner of the lobby. 
               Reporters cluster, and TV cameras surround the Press 
               Representative of the Hospital, a young woman in her thirties 
               named EVELYN BASSEY, who is trying to read a statement, 
               squinting under her mod glasses at the blaze of lights set 
               up by the camera crews.

                                     MRS. BASSEY
                              (reading)
                         ...complete sympathy with the tenants. 
                         So the hospital has assumed the 
                         responsibility of finding 400 housing 
                         units in good buildings. The hospital 
                         wishes to point out that this 
                         particular row of buildings on First 
                         Avenue was condemned by the City 
                         before the hospital acquired 
                         ownership, and even then, only after 
                         responsible leaders in the community 
                         had approved the building of our new 
                         drug rehabilitation center.

               SUNDSTROM'S OFFICE

                                     SUNDSTROM
                              (explodes on the phone)
                         Goddammit, Barry, I've got a dozen 
                         community leaders waiting for me in 
                         the library! We've been trying to 
                         work out some kind of negotiable 
                         formula for two years! And with no 
                         help from you people in the Urban 
                         Affairs Division, I might add!

               DR. WELBECK appears in the doorway. He's in his fifties, 
               gray, distinguished and very tanned with terribly, terribly 
               kindly old country doctor eyes. He wears a camel hair topcoat. 
               He smiles benignly and twinkles at Sundstrom from one of the 
               leather chairs across the desk from the Director.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                              (hardly notices Welbeck)
                         And I'm not going to throw all that 
                         down the drain because some cockamamie 
                         activist group is show-boating for 
                         the television cameras! You get those 
                         people out of those buildings before 
                         a wall collapses or a fire breaks 
                         out and we've got a riot on our 
                         hands!... Okay!

               He hangs up, sighs, turns to the man across the desk.

                                     WELBECK
                              (smiles, twinkles)
                         Having your troubles, eh? Well, I 
                         won't take much of your time. My 
                         name's Welbeck. I've been associated 
                         with this hospital for six years, 
                         and, yesterday afternoon, Dr. Gilley 
                         called me to say he was cutting off 
                         my privileges at the hospital. Do 
                         you know anything about it?

                                     SUNDSTROM
                              (glances at his watch)
                         It's news to me.

                                     WELBECK
                         He said he sent the report on.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         I'll probably get it tomorrow. Report 
                         on what?

                                     WELBECK
                         Well, I'm not sure myself. I did a 
                         nephrectomy on a man about seven 
                         days ago. Emergency, called in at 
                         four in the morning. The man was 
                         hemorrhaging, he'd gone sour...

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Welbeck, I'm terribly sorry, but I 
                         do have this meeting.
                              (crosses to the door)
                         In any event, there's nothing I can 
                         do about it. If Gilley wants to cut 
                         your privileges, he's Chief of 
                         Surgery, it's within his province. 
                         You'll have to have the hearing...

               He exits, followed by Welbeck into the...

               DIRECTOR'S SUITE, SECRETARIES' OFFICES

               Buzzing now. Typewriters clicking. Phones ringing.

                                     WELBECK
                         I have a laparotomy laid on for this 
                         morning. I assume I'll be allowed to 
                         go through with that.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Of course.

                                     WELBECK
                              (huffing a little)
                         I've been associated with this 
                         hospital for six years...

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Now, now, Welbeck. It seems to me 
                         I've had your name down here before 
                         for something...
                              (to his secretary en 
                              passant)
                         I'll be in the staff room.

               He and Welbeck pass out into the...

               EXECUTIVE CORRIDOR

               Flowing with a normal stream of traffic, Sundstrom and Welbeck 
               turn right and head down to the last room of the corridor. 
               Something comes to him, and Sundstrom pauses.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Wait a minute. You're the fellow 
                         with the Medicaid collecting business 
                         who incorporated and went public, 
                         right? I mean, something like that? 
                         Milton Mead was telling me about you 
                         just the other day. You're a whole 
                         medical conglomerate. You've got a 
                         Factoring service, a computerized 
                         billing company, and a few proprietary 
                         hospitals, a few nursing homes. Good 
                         heavens, Welbeck, you shouldn't be 
                         brought up before a committee of 
                         mere doctors. You should be 
                         investigated by the Securities and 
                         Exchange Commission. You'll have to 
                         go through with the hearing, Welbeck. 
                         I don't interfere in these things.

               He opens the door of the staff room and strides in. Even 
               before he enters, we get a blast of angry voices, both male 
               and female. For the moment the door is ajar, we see a harried 
               Milton Mead being assailed by angry blacks and Puerto Ricans 
               and young white activist doctors.

               HOSPITAL LIBRARY

                                     VOICES
                              (all overlapping)
                         ...no goddam halfway house, no way, 
                         baby! We ain't gonna wait 'til 1973 
                         to deal with this problem! We want 
                         to kill the drug thing right now!... 
                         imperializing the Blackaporican 
                         community, and we reject the bourgie-
                         ass middle-class black traitors and 
                         flunkies who are selling out the 
                         Blackaporican proletariat masses to 
                         the expansionist, racist policies of 
                         this shit hospital!...

                                     WOMAN
                         Let's get back to the abortion issue!

                                     VOICE
                         Sit down, Woman!

                                     WOMAN
                         What the hell does the male 
                         establishment know about abortions?

               There's an agitated reaction in the crowd.

                                     BLACK WOMAN
                         Who the hell raised the issue of 
                         birth control? The issue at hand is 
                         the control of drug addiction in 
                         this community and in the ghetto 
                         generally.

               A black man jumps up and points off right.

                                     BLACK MAN
                         We don't want no goddam abortion...

               A white doctor jumps in from the left.

                                     WHITE DOCTOR
                         Let's... let's get down to the core 
                         of this matter.

               More murmuring. A Che Guevara -- styled revolutionary moves 
               toward Mead and Sundstrom at the table.

                                     MAN
                         The point is that this hospital is 
                         the landlord for those buildings and 
                         they should've turned them down.

               Angrily, he leans over the table facing Sundstrom.

                                     MAN
                         Those buildings are imperialistic 
                         extensions of the medical 
                         establishment. This hospital ought 
                         to be rebuilding those tenements, 
                         give those people decent housing.

               Sundstrom raises his hands for quiet and starts to rise. The 
               hostile din has gotten to him.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Please, please, please!

               HOLLY PAVILION, ROOM

               William Mead is transferred from his bed to a rolling 
               stretcher by an orderly in shirt and trousers and by Nurse 
               Felicia Chile. Nurse Chile tucks Mead in. He opens his eyes 
               to look at her drowsily.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                              (under sedation)
                         You know, I hallucinated last night. 
                         I hallucinated there was an Indian 
                         doing a war dance in here.

                                     NURSE CHILE
                              (affably)
                         You weren't hallucinating, Mr. Mead. 
                         There was an Indian in here last 
                         night.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                              (staring through his 
                              sedation at her)
                         There was?

               They wheel him out into...

               HOLLY PAVILION, SURGICAL AREA CORRIDOR

               Mead is wheeled down the corridor by the orderly. At the far 
               end, an anesthetized patient, blue in the harsh light, fresh 
               from surgery, is being wheeled into a recovery room.

               Surgery is busy and efficient but not as clinically tidy as 
               we'd like. Linens and equipment and surgical gear are piled 
               into corners or on empty stretchers. Green-uniformed nurses, 
               doctors and orderlies go in and out of the many doors flanking 
               the corridor. This is the non-sterilized area, where doctors 
               and nurses confer in the corridors; three black orderlies 
               await an assignment, sit on stretchers, chuckle, mutter. 
               Phones can be heard RINGING. The orderly wheeling Mead turns 
               left into the...

               SURGICAL AREA, CENTRAL PLAZA

               ...a small, cluttered central area with the office of the 
               Operating Room Nursing Supervisor on the right and the Holding 
               (for Anesthesia) Room on the left. The O.R. is like the 
               Emergency Ward, desperately busy but staffed by people grown 
               so accustomed to it that they display a calm, almost casual 
               but febrile efficiency. A large blackboard faces the 
               Supervisor's Office with the day's schedule of operations 
               neatly chalked in. It is full. A middle-aged surgeon, still 
               in his overcoat, is studying the schedule.

               A green-uniformed NURSE swings through the glass doors from 
               the Operating Room area to lean into the Supervisor's Office.

                                     NURSE
                         Dr. Norris says about half an hour.

                                     SECOND NURSE
                         Tell Shirley it was just an ovarian 
                         cyst.

               The THIRD NURSE leans back into the Supervisor's Office to 
               relay this information.

                                     THIRD NURSE
                         Shirley, it was just an ovarian cyst!

               This is apparently good news, for we hear someone saying

                                     VOICE
                              (off-screen)
                         Oh, thank God.

               An orderly rumbles by with an E.K.G. machine. O.R. Nursing 
               Supervisor DOROTHY KIMBALL, a pleasant lady in her late 
               thirties, leans out of her office to speak to one of the 
               lounging orderlies.

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                              (handing the orderly 
                              a slip)
                         All right, Jerry, go up to Holly 
                         Six.

               The orderly detaches himself from his cronies and exits. It 
               is into this atmosphere of subdued febrility that William 
               Mead is wheeled.

                                     ORDERLY
                              (to Mrs. Kimball)
                         William Mead from Holly Eight.

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                         Hold him there, Tom. We've got 
                         somebody coming out right now.

               Indeed, a stretcher is being wheeled out of the Holding Room. 
               The patient is sedated and covered. As the orderly wheels 
               her past CAMERA, we may recognize the pale, sleeping profile 
               of Miss Campanella, the nurse who had been coshed with a 
               sandbag not many scenes ago. A CIRCULATING NURSE comes through 
               the glass doors, examines the chart dangling from the 
               stretcher.

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                              (to this nurse)
                         Who's that? Mangafranni?

                                     CIRCULATING NURSE
                              (checking wristband)
                         Yeah.
                              (to orderly)
                         Number three, Marty.

               The orderly wheels the silent Miss Campanella off to Operating 
               Room Three, as Dr. Welbeck, in his natty blue suit, carrying 
               his camel coat, turns in from the outer corridor and examines 
               the blackboard. He goes back to...

               OUTER CORRIDOR

               ...Welbeck crosses, opens a door and enters...

               SURGEONS' LOCKER ROOM

               All four walls are lined with lockers. Shelves and cartons 
               of green surgical clothes, caps, masks, trousers, shoe-
               coverings. Obviously, surgeons dress for their operations 
               here. Two surgeons, one middle-aged and the other a young 
               RESIDENT, are changing. The resident turns to Welbeck on his 
               entrance and says:

                                     RESIDENT
                         It's legal for a doctor to incorporate 
                         in New York, isn't it, Doctor?

                                     WELBECK
                              (en route to phone)
                         Since last September. If they had 
                         that when I was your age, I'd have 
                         put away a couple of million by now.
                              (dials)
                         It gives you a variety of deferral 
                         devices, profit-sharing for example. 
                         Let's say you pick yourself an October 
                         31-fiscal. You declare a bonus payable 
                         in '71. An accrued item payable to a 
                         principle share-holder must be paid 
                         within two and half months after the 
                         close of the year to get the deduction 
                         in the prior year. But your 
                         corporation doesn't pay that tax, 
                         because we've eliminated the taxable 
                         income with the bonus. With two 
                         taxable entities, you can bury a 
                         hell of a lot of expenses...
                              (on phone)
                         Hello, this is Welbeck, any 
                         messages?... Well, I'm at the 
                         hospital. I have to cut open some 
                         guy in a couple of minutes. I'll try 
                         to make it as fast as I can. How 
                         urgent did he say it was?... Well, 
                         Dr. Hogan made those arrangements 
                         with the underwriters. The 
                         Registration Statement was filed 
                         with the S.E.C. well over a year 
                         ago... If he calls again, have me 
                         paged here.
                              (hangs up, turns back 
                              to the attentive 
                              young doctors to 
                              conduct his class in 
                              medical finance while 
                              changing into surgical 
                              scrub)
                         The really big money is in health 
                         leasing, of course. Dr. Hogan, the 
                         eminent orthopedic surgeon, and I 
                         incorporated a leasing company and 
                         went public last year. I hold a 
                         controlling interest in a number of 
                         proprietary hospitals, nursing homes 
                         and rest farms, and I've been leasing 
                         hospital equipment to my own hospitals 
                         at excessive rates. Why, you ask, am 
                         I draining my own hospitals? Well, 
                         my hospitals are taxed at 48 percent, 
                         and I'm giving my leasing company a 
                         hell of a price-earnings ratio, 
                         which'll balloon the market value of 
                         the stock. I hold three hundred 
                         thousand shares of that stock, 
                         lettered of course, but in a year, 
                         I'll dump those shares at a capital 
                         gain and walk off with a bundle...

               OPERATING ROOM THREE

               Just like on TV -- well, almost. The surgeon, DR. MALLORY, a 
               bad-tempered man in his fifties, sits on a stool with his 
               gloved hands wrapped in a towel, waiting for the two surgical 
               RESIDENTS to finish painting the operable area, which happens 
               to be the abdomen. It's a hysterectomy. The patient is sheeted 
               except for the small square of abdominal area.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         Mangafranni, right?

                                     SCRUB NURSE
                         Right.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                              (grumbles to one of 
                              the residents)
                         What do you say, huh? We're not going 
                         to hang it in the Louvre, you know.

               The anesthesiologist, DR. CHU, injects pentathol in the I.V. 
               tube.

                                     DR. CHU
                         Bring a mask over.

               The RESIDENT ANESTHESIOLOGIST trundles over the oxygen tank, 
               takes the hypodermic syringe from Dr. Chu, who now applies 
               the oxygen mask to the enmarbled profile of the patient. He 
               studies the gauges and equipment around him at the head of 
               the operating table.

                                     RESIDENT ANESTHESIOLOGIST
                         There's no pulse, Doctor.

                                     DR. CHU
                         What's the pressure?

                                     RESIDENT ANESTHESIOLOGIST
                         There's no blood pressure, Doctor.

                                     DR. CHU
                         No pulse. Get the tube and E.K.G.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         What's the matter?

                                     RESIDENT
                         I can't feel a thing, sir.

               The room galvanizes into the swift, silent activity of a 
               chest massage. Dr. Mallory, standing and stretching in the 
               back of the room, turns and moves toward the off-screen 
               patient. He begins a vigorous rhythmic massage of the 
               patient's rib cage over the heart.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         What the hell happened?

               Dr. Mallory thumps the patient's chest hard with his fist, 
               and the others, likewise, go to work.

                                     DR. CHU
                         I don't know. She must have thrown 
                         an embolus. She was doing fine up to 
                         now.
                              (to Resident 
                              Anesthesiologist)
                         Did you check the gasses?

                                     RESIDENT ANESTHESIOLOGIST
                         I did, sir.

                                     DR. CHU
                         The only time I ever saw anybody 
                         conk out like this, some jerk switched 
                         the nitrous oxide and the gas lines.

               The scrub nurse is applying electrode paste to the 
               defibrillators. Dr. Mallory yanks the sheets and hospital 
               shirt off the patient and begins very rigorous massage of 
               the exposed ribs; we can hear one rib crack.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         Get the damn leads on. For Chrissakes, 
                         what the hell is this?!

                                     RESIDENT
                         She's just a young woman, sir. Do 
                         you think we should open the chest?

                                     DR. MALLORY
                              (defibrillating)
                         She's fifty-three, you buttonhead!

                                     RESIDENT
                              (off-screen)
                         Bicarb?

               Dr. Chu, who has been inserting some suprel and bicarbonate 
               into the tube of the patient's I.V., is frowning at her rigid, 
               white-capped face. He leans over to check the E.K.G. readings.

                                     DR. CHU
                         She's fibrillating, Doctor.

               Mallory straddles the patient. He's doing heavy heart massage.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         Jesus H. Christ!

                                     DR. CHU
                         Okay, stop for a minute... Doctor...

               Dr. Chu pushes back, the operating cap on the patient's head, 
               revealing jet-black hair. Mallory starts to massage again.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                              (barking at the scrub 
                              nurse)
                         You got those paddles ready?

               Dr. Chu stares blankly at the patient's face, then looks up 
               at the sweating surgeon, perched on the operating table, 
               rhythmically crushing away at the patient's rib cage.

                                     DR. CHU
                         I may be crazy, Doctor, but I don't 
                         think this is your patient.

               Dr. Mallory, now pausing for a moment, looks up. He is beaded 
               with sweat.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         What the hell are you talking about?

               He massages away. Another rib cracks.

               HOLLY PAVILION, BOCK'S OFFICE

               The Supervisor of Nurses, Mrs. Christie, is sitting on a 
               chair reading a report. Bock, now in his doctor's coat, is 
               hunched over his desk, hands clasped.

                                     BOCK
                         Now, I don't want to get into an 
                         institutional hassle with you, Mrs. 
                         Christie. The malpractice here is 
                         monumental. As you see, Dr. Schaefer's 
                         blood sugar was twenty-three. No 
                         glucose solution is going to do that. 
                         The only thing that will do that is 
                         at least fifty units of insulin, 
                         probably more. The only presumption 
                         is that one of those nurses on the 
                         Eighth Floor shot fifty units of 
                         insulin into Schaefer's blood stream, 
                         either by injection or through the 
                         I.V., although how in God's name...

               Mrs. Christie's electric pocket-pager BEEPS.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         I'm very sorry, Doctor.
                              (reaches for a phone)
                         May I?

               Miss McGuire leans in from the secretaries' office.

                                     MISS MCGUIRE
                              (to Bock)
                         Doctor, did you ask the head nurse 
                         on the eighth floor to let you know 
                         when a Miss Drummond got there?

                                     BOCK
                         Yes.

                                     MISS MCGUIRE
                         Well, she just got there.

                                     BOCK
                         Thank you.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                              (on phone)
                         Oh, dear me, Dorothy. I better get 
                         right down there directly. Have you 
                         called the O.O.D.? And you better 
                         call Dr. Gilley. And you better call 
                         Mr. Sloan... Yes, I'll be down 
                         directly.
                              (hangs up; to Bock)
                         I'm very sorry, Doctor, but there's 
                         a real nasty one in the O.R. They've 
                         just operated on the wrong patient...

               O.R. NURSING SUPERVISOR'S OFFICE

               Crowded now. The administrative resident, Hitchcock, is here 
               and a uniformed man in his fifties, MR. SLOAN, the Chief of 
               Safety and Traffic. Sloan represents the Hospital's security 
               force. Mrs. Kimball is at her desk, on the phone.

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                              (on phone)
                         ...well, I don't understand, is she 
                         back in her room? When did she get 
                         back to her room? Who brought her 
                         back?...
                              (she stares at 
                              Hitchcock)
                         She's back in her room.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Who?

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                         Mrs. Mangafranni, the woman who was 
                         supposed to have been operated on...
                              (calls to a nurse 
                              passing)
                         Are they still working on that woman 
                         in Three?

                                     NURSE
                         Yeah.

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                              (back on phone)
                         I'm sorry, Mrs. Fried, would you say 
                         that again?... Well, nobody in this 
                         office sent her back up... Well, all 
                         right, Mrs. Fried, I'll have to call 
                         you back.

               She hangs up, stands, goes out into...

               THE OPERATING AREA, PLAZA

               ...where three orderlies lounge about.

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                         Did any of you take a woman named 
                         Mangafranni out of the Holding Room 
                         back up to Holly Five around ten 
                         o'clock?

               Apparently, none of these three. Mrs. Christie turns in from 
               the outer corridor. Normal Operating Room activity flows by: 
               patients wheeled to and from their various surgeries, surgeons 
               checking the blackboard, staff doctors, orderlies keeping 
               the noise level low but steady.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                              (to Hitchcock in the 
                              doorway)
                         What happened?

               Hitchcock shrugs helplessly.

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                              (to Mrs. Christie)
                         I don't know what happened. A patient 
                         named Mangafranni was scheduled for 
                         a hysterectomy at ten o'clock -- Dr. 
                         Mallory. I talked to Sylvia in the 
                         Holding Room who admitted her, so 
                         she was here. And now I just spoke 
                         to Mrs. Fried on Holly Five, and she 
                         says an orderly brought Mrs. 
                         Mangafranni back to her room about 
                         twenty minutes ago. Now Mrs. 
                         Mangafranni is in her room sleeping.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Well, who's the woman in the operating 
                         room?

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                         I don't know.

               Mrs. Kimball, Mrs. Christie, Hitchcock and Sloan push through 
               the glass doors to the crossroads of the operating rooms. 
               Through each window, we see operating crews hacking away.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Is she dead?

                                     MRS. KIMBALL
                         Well, they had to open her up, and 
                         that's not good.

               They gather in anticipation outside O.R. Three and peer over 
               each other's shoulders into the room where the operating 
               crew is hunched over the open-heart massage. The masked 
               circulating nurse looks up, notices the audience at the door, 
               and gives a hopeless shrug.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         I better get Mr. Mead.

               HOLLY PAVILION, THE STAFF ROOM

               Milton Mead is sitting in a back seat of the Staff Room -- a 
               lounge with couches, easy chairs and magazine racks -- gives 
               half an ear to the several opinions being simultaneously 
               expressed by:

                                     LADY FROM WOMEN'S LIB
                         ...abortion? The clinic should be 
                         under the supervision and entirely 
                         staffed by women and administered by 
                         a member of the Women's Committee 
                         for Medical Liberation!

               and by

                                     YOUNG WHITE ACTIVIST
                         ...let's get to the core of the matter 
                         which is the criminal and gangster 
                         collusion between the American medical 
                         establishment and the drug, insurance 
                         and tobacco companies who, through 
                         their combined racketeering efforts, 
                         have produced a dual system of health 
                         care. Everything for the rich and 
                         nothing for the poor!

               and by

                                     BLACK PANTHER
                         ...abortion clinic! That's genocide, 
                         baby! You're just killing off blacks! 
                         We consider proliferation elemental 
                         to the class struggle!

               and by

                                     SUNDSTROM
                              (who has lost his 
                              cool altogether and 
                              is screaming right 
                              along with everyone 
                              else)
                         ...for God's sake! We've got eleven 
                         people in these buildings, and we've 
                         got to get them out of there! We can 
                         rectify the injustices of the world 
                         tomorrow, but right now, for God's 
                         sake, can we get those people out of 
                         those buildings? Will you people 
                         please listen to me? Will you people 
                         please shut up and listen to me? 
                         Will you people please call a halt 
                         to this participatory democracy and 
                         address ourselves to the immediate 
                         problem?!

               During this maelstrom, the phone at Mead's elbow RINGS. Mead 
               answers it, listens, nods, returns the receiver, stand and 
               slips out of the room into the delicious silence of the...

               HOLLY PAVILION, EXECUTIVE CORRIDOR

               ...where Hitchcock emerges from the Administration offices. 
               The two men move down the hall toward each other.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         How long ago did this happen?

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         About half an hour.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         Have you called the Medical Examiner?

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Not yet.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         Well, you'd better do that now. And 
                         you better call the precinct station 
                         house as well.

               OPERATING ROOM THREE

               Dr. Mallory is wrenching off his blood-drenched rubber gloves 
               and flinging them to the floor in a rage. The door to the 
               room opens, and Mrs. Kimball, Mrs. Christie and Mr. Sloan 
               enter. Dr. Mallory is stupefied with anger. Dr. Chu, blessed 
               with Eastern containment, blandly gathers his equipment 
               together, nods to Mrs. Christie.

                                     DR. CHU
                         Good morning.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Good morning, Doctor.

                                     DR. CHU
                         This is really something, isn't it? 
                         I thought she looked a little 
                         different when they brought her in. 
                         I even said to one of the nurses, 
                         "She looks a little younger without 
                         her dentures." I'd only talked to 
                         her half an hour before.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Does anybody know who she is?

               Dr. Mallory can only stare at her numbly. He turns and stares 
               numbly at Mr. Sloan.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                              (to Mrs. Kimball, 
                              examining the chart 
                              dangling from the 
                              operating table)
                         What's her chart say?

                                     CIRCULATING RESIDENT
                         Her chart says Mangafranni. Her 
                         bracelet says Mangafranni. The only 
                         thing that isn't Mangafranni is the 
                         woman.

               Dr. Mallory finally explodes.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         Jesus H. Christ! I've been chopping 
                         out three uteruses a day for twenty 
                         years, and is it too much to expect 
                         for you people to bring in the right 
                         goddam Jesus Christ uterus?!

                                     DR. CHU
                         I had just been talking to her in 
                         the Holding Room. She was perfectly 
                         fine. A little drowsy. I thought it 
                         was funny that when they brought her 
                         in, she was out cold.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                              (shuffling around in 
                              aimless circles)
                         Jesus H. Kee-rist!

               Mrs. Christie stares down at the face of the dead patient on 
               the table, who has had her chest spread wide open so that 
               the organs are exposed.

                                     MRS. CHRISTIE
                         Well, we'll just all have to stay 
                         here until Mr. Mead or someone from 
                         the O.O.D. comes back.

                                     DR. MALLORY
                         Well, I'm not taking the rap for 
                         this! I've already got one malpractice 
                         suit pending, and I'm not taking the 
                         rap for this one!

               HOLLY PAVILION, ROOM

               William Mead's bed is empty. The Reverend Drummond's suit, 
               still on its hanger, is lying on it. Drummond himself lies 
               comatose and rigged out with I.V.s and catheters. Barbara 
               Drummond is packing her father's things into an open one-
               suiter valise. The door opens. She looks up. It's Bock. They 
               look at each other -- two people in love.

                                     BOCK
                         Look, you're not going. I love you, 
                         and I'm not going to let you go.

               He picks up the suit lying on the bed.

                                     BOCK
                         Come on, let's start putting your 
                         father's things back. He's staying 
                         here.
                              (hangs the suit in 
                              the closet)
                         I'll find an apartment somewhere. 
                         I'm staying in a filthy little hotel 
                         room. We can't use that.

               His eyes are caught by a white doctor's uniform hanging in 
               the armoire along with the suits and overcoats of the two 
               patients in the room. He bends over to peer at the nameplate 
               over the breast pocket.

                                     BARBARA
                         I can't make it here, Herb. I'll 
                         crack up. I cracked up once already. 
                         One week here, and I'd be running 
                         naked through the streets screaming 
                         again. I can retain my sanity only 
                         in a simple society.

                                     BOCK
                         For God's sake, Barbara, you can't 
                         seriously see me living in a grass 
                         shack hunting jackrabbits for dinner? 
                         Be sensible for God's sake.

                                     BARBARA
                         I am being sensible. What is it you're 
                         so afraid of leaving here? Your 
                         plastic home? Your conditioned air? 
                         Your synthetic clothes? Your instant 
                         food? I'm offering you green silence 
                         and solitude, the natural order of 
                         things. Mostly, I'm offering me. I 
                         think we're beautiful, Herb.

                                     BOCK
                              (utterly in love)
                         You make it sound almost plausible.

                                     BARBARA
                         I don't know why you even hesitate. 
                         What's holding you here? Is it your 
                         wife?

                                     BOCK
                         No, that's all over. I suppose if 
                         I'm married to anything, it's this 
                         hospital. It's been my whole life. I 
                         just can't walk out on it as if it 
                         never mattered. I'm middle-class. 
                         Among us middle-class, love doesn't 
                         triumph over all. Responsibility 
                         does.

                                     BARBARA
                         Herb, don't ask me to stay here with 
                         you, because I love you, and I will. 
                         And we'll both be destroyed.

               He turns to her again. They both look away.

                                     BARBARA
                         I've got the bill here to pay yet.

                                     BOCK
                         I'll come with you.

               She gathers her raincoat and goes. Bock follows her out into 
               the...

               HOLLY PAVILION, EIGHTH FLOOR, CORRIDOR

               ...where Dr. Joseph Lagerman, Head of Nephrology, perhaps 
               remembered from an earlier scene, has been waiting for Bock. 
               He joins them en route to the elevators.

                                     LAGERMAN
                         Herb, you asked me to find that 
                         dialysis nurse.

                                     BOCK
                         What dialysis nurse?

               Barbara has continued walking. Bock starts to follow her.

                                     BARBARA
                         I'll go pay the bill.

                                     LAGERMAN
                         The one who goofed on your patient, 
                         Drummond.

               Bock turns back to Lagerman.

                                     LAGERMAN
                         Well, her name is Theresa Campanella, 
                         but you are not going to believe 
                         this, Herb. She died on the operating 
                         table in O. R. Three about an hour 
                         ago.

               Barbara is disappearing into an elevator. Bock starts after 
               her, then turns back to Lagerman.

                                     BOCK
                         What do you mean, she died on the 
                         operating table in O.R. Three?

               They hurry down the corridor to the elevators.

                                     BOCK
                         You mean she was the one?

                                     LAGERMAN
                         That's the one. I just identified 
                         her.

                                     BOCK
                         What the hell's going on around here? 
                         Every time I try to find somebody in 
                         this hospital, they either died of a 
                         heart attack in Emergency or of 
                         anesthesia shock in an operating 
                         room.

               Elevator doors open. A nurse and visitor get out. Bock and 
               Lagerman go into...

               THE ELEVATOR

               Two or three people besides the elevator operator are there, 
               as well as a patient on a stretcher and an orderly.

                                     LAGERMAN
                         Listen, I just came from the O.R. 
                         They're trying to find a Dr. Schaefer. 
                         Don't you have a kid named Schaefer 
                         in your service?

                                     BOCK
                              (scowls, mutters)
                         I had a Schaefer. He died yesterday 
                         of an overdose of insulin. What do 
                         they want Schaefer for?

                                     LAGERMAN
                         The Holding Room nurse says there 
                         was a Dr. Schaefer hanging around 
                         the Holding Room. It wouldn't have 
                         been your Schaefer anyway. The nurse 
                         says it was senior staff, a middle-
                         aged man.

                                     BOCK
                         There's no senior staff named Schaefer 
                         in this hospital.

                                     LAGERMAN
                         I told them that. I said, I don't 
                         know any senior staff around here 
                         named Schaefer. They've got detectives 
                         down there, everything. It's a whole 
                         big investigation.

               The elevator stops at the seventh floor. The doors open and 
               Bock and Lagerman stroll into...

               HOLLY PAVILION, SEVENTH FLOOR, CORRIDOR

               Bock lumbers down the west corridor, turns into...

               ROOM 806

               William Mead, sedated and apparently zonked out cold, is 
               being transferred from a stretcher back into bed by an O.R. 
               orderly and nurse's aid. Bock rolls back the curtains around 
               Drummond's bed revealing the comatose patient, his face 
               sculptured against the white pillow, an I.V. tube in his 
               right arm, a catheter projecting from under the sheet. Bock 
               lowers the protective railing, leans in, takes the man's 
               pulse on his neck, raises one closed eyelid, then the other. 
               The pupils stare vacuously back at him; the eyelids drop 
               closed as soon as they are released.

               In the background, the orderly and aid finish tucking in 
               William Mead and exit, wheeling their creaking stretcher 
               out. The room is shockingly silent. Bock goes to the window 
               and frowns in thought.

               HOLD ACROSS the patient Drummond, on Bock in the background 
               at the window with his back to us. Suddenly, Drummond's eyes 
               open. He lies rigid, his eyes staring dementedly into the 
               air above him.

               Slowly, his left hand reaches out and carefully withdraws 
               the catheter from his bladder, lays it on the white sheet 
               beside him, and silently reaches over to withdraw the I.V. 
               needle from his right arm. He lets the needle dangle, dripping 
               onto the bed. Carefully, he twists out from under his sheet, 
               swings his legs over the side of the bed and sits up.

               REVERSE ACROSS Bock at the window, pondering. With a swift 
               lash of movement, the double tubes of a stethoscope are 
               whipped over his head and tightened around his throat.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (mad as a hatter)
                         I am the Fool for Christ and the 
                         Paraclete of Caborca.

               CLOSE TWO SHOT of Bock being strangled, Drummond's face frozen 
               in bland dementia behind him.

                                     BARBARA'S VOICE
                              (off-screen)
                         For heaven's sake, Dad! What the 
                         hell's going on?

               Drummond pauses in his strangling and, releasing the poor 
               man altogether, turns to his daughter in the doorway.

               CAMERA DOLLIES to include all three -- Bock recuperating; 
               Drummond staring madly; and Barbara infuriated with her 
               father.

                                     BARBARA
                              (annoyed)
                         We all thought you were at Death's 
                         Door! What're you doing out of bed?

               Drummond, abashed, stands there, a scolded schoolboy, a 
               rawboned figure in a hospital shift, a stethoscope dangling 
               from his right hand.

                                     BARBARA
                              (to Bock)
                         What happened? Did he say anything 
                         to you?

                                     BOCK
                              (sufficiently recovered)
                         As a matter of fact, he said, "I am 
                         the Fool for Christ and the Paraclete 
                         of Caborca." And you'd better close 
                         the door, because if he's going to 
                         tell everyone who walks in here he's 
                         the Fool for Christ and the Paraclete 
                         of Caborca, they'll put us all away. 
                         He's already killed two doctors and 
                         one nurse.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         I am the wrath of the lamb and the 
                         angel of the bottomless pit.

                                     BARBARA
                         What do you mean he killed two doctors 
                         and a nurse?

                                     BOCK
                         I mean, he's killed two doctors and 
                         a nurse! And he just tried to kill 
                         me! He has something against doctors. 
                         Somehow he got hold of a thousand 
                         units of insulin and put it in Dr. 
                         Schaefer's intravenous solution. And 
                         somehow he got Dr. Ives to die of a 
                         heart attack in the middle of the 
                         Emergency Room. And somehow he got a 
                         dialysis nurse named Campanella to 
                         die of anesthesia shock on an 
                         operating table!
                              (opens the closet, 
                              points to the white 
                              doctor's uniform 
                              hanging there)
                         He's been running around the hospital 
                         wearing Dr. Schaefer's uniform. Right 
                         now, they're looking all over the 
                         place for this mysterious Dr. 
                         Schaefer. I know this all sounds as 
                         grotesque to you as it does to me, 
                         but you can see for yourself your 
                         father is not the helpless comatose 
                         patient we thought he was. Don't 
                         look at me like I'm the one who's 
                         crazy. Ask your crazy father!

                                     DRUMMOND
                         I was merely an instrument of God. I 
                         killed no one. They all three died 
                         by their own hands, ritual victims 
                         of their own institutions, murdered 
                         by irony, an eye for an eye, biblical 
                         retribution. Schaefer was first, you 
                         see, because he killed God. God was 
                         admitted to this hospital last Monday 
                         under the name of Guernsey...

               ROOM 806. MORNING. (FLASHBACK)

               A cheerless, gray sunlight fills the room as the fragile, 
               white-haired and bearded old Guernsey (whose admittance to 
               the hospital was the opening scene of the film) is being 
               helped into the room by Nurse Felicia Chile. She solicitously 
               helps the wispy old man off with his coat and jacket and hat 
               which she puts in the armoire. With palsied fingers, the 
               little old man unknots his stringy tie and unbuttons the 
               collar, which is three sizes too large. In the other bed, 
               Drummond's eyes slowly open.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         I was instantly aware of a divine 
                         presence.

               The old man is slipping out of his clothes to expose a thin 
               little body in a torn nightshirt.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         I was convinced this porcelain old 
                         man was, in fact, an Angel of the 
                         Lord...

               The old man sits back, wheezing a little. Nurse Chile smiles 
               nicely at him and takes her leave. For a moment, Drummond 
               lies rigidly on his bed, staring dully into the air and the 
               old man sits with his hunched back to us. The room is silent 
               except for his rheumy wheeze.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         ...perhaps even Christ Himself.

               After a moment, the old man rises and goes to the washbasin 
               and, with some wheezing, spits into it. He shuffles back to 
               bed. Dr. Schaefer comes into the room with a professional 
               smile and the patient Guernsey's chart.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         Our Savior was, it seems, suffering 
                         from emphysema.

               Schaefer perches on the bed beside Guernsey and begins to 
               take his history.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         He was relentlessly subjected to the 
                         benefits of modern medicine. He was 
                         misdiagnosed, mismedicated, and put 
                         into shock by Dr. Schaefer; raced 
                         off to Intensive Care, where the 
                         resident compounded the blunder and 
                         induced a coma. I can tell you with 
                         authority that God is indeed dead. 
                         He died last Monday under the name 
                         of Guernsey.

               CLOSE-UP of Drummond in deep shadow shows him sleeping.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         A few hours later, he appeared to me 
                         in a revelation.

               ROOM 806. NIGHT, 7:00 P.M.

               The room is lit only by the yellow light from the half-opened 
               bathroom door. Guernsey walks out of the shadows, hands 
               raised. He shuffles to Drummond's bedside and looks down on 
               him from his frail height.

                                     GUERNSEY
                              (softly)
                         Rise up, Drummond. You are dead, now 
                         you are restored.

               Drummond's eyes open and roll to the direction of the voice.

               DRUMMOND'S P.O.V.: Guernsey, dressed only in his hospital 
               shift, is shuffling up and down the aisle of the room, hands 
               clasped behind his back like a Mittel-European intellectual, 
               head hunched forward -- a little old man with a white beard 
               talking to himself.

                                     GUERNSEY
                         Those who killed you and those who 
                         killed me will die in our place. You 
                         are the Paraclete of Caborca, the 
                         wrath of the lamb. The angel of the 
                         bottomless pit.

               Guernsey closes his eyes in religious ecstacy.

                                     GUERNSEY
                         In this fashion has it been revealed 
                         to you.

               Drummond starts to sob and slowly sits up in his bed, imbued 
               with belief. He looks mutely up at the frail old man, who 
               now raises his right hand and his face is transfigured into 
               vast majesty.

                                     GUERNSEY
                              (thunders out)
                         The age is closed! The end is at 
                         hand! The seal is broken!

               So saying, he reverts to the little old man he was, wheezing 
               a bit, and with some effort, climbs back on his bed and lies 
               there, eyes closed. His thin, high nose projects from the 
               whiteness of his face. He sighs the rattling last sigh of 
               life and dies. CAMERA DOLLIES slowly to CLOSE-UP of Drummond 
               lying motionless on his bed. His eyes are wide, glinting in 
               the shadows, a man imbued. His cheeks are wet with tears of 
               exaltation.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         Well! Not quite the burning bush 
                         perhaps but prodigal enough for me. 
                         I was to avenge the death of God and 
                         my own brutalization. I was to kill 
                         Doctors Schaefer, Ives and Welbeck 
                         and the dialysis nurse Miss 
                         Campanella, whose negligence caused 
                         my coma.

               FULL SHOT of Drummond. He raises his left hand, flexing his 
               fingers. Then he moves his other arm, his head, his shoulders. 
               Obviously, he is regaining his faculties.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         I awaited a further sign from God, 
                         which was given to me later that 
                         evening. Dr. Schaefer, it seems, had 
                         arranged an assignation with a girl 
                         from the hematology lab named Sheila.

               ACROSS Drummond to the now empty other bed. All the lights 
               are on. PAN on Nurse Penny Canduso and an orderly wheeling 
               away the wrapped body of Guernsey. Intern Schaefer, at the 
               door, considers the empty bed with interest. Moving to the 
               bedtable, he picks up the receiver of the phone.

                                     SCHAEFER
                              (on phone)
                         Hey Sheila, this is Howard, Sheila. 
                         Hey listen, I got us a bed for 
                         tonight. A real, honest-to-god bed.

               ROOM 806. NIGHT

               REPRISE the scene originally played UNDER CREDITS where Dr. 
               Schaefer and his girlfriend Sheila sneak into the room and 
               undress. Giggles and shushings, gooses and fondles.

                                     SHEILA
                         Boy, I sure hope nobody walks in.

               During the replay, however, an additional segment is added. 
               At one point, the girl, hanging her dress in the armoire, 
               turns and holds something up.

                                     SHEILA
                         What's this in your pocket?

                                     SCHAEFER
                         That's my insulin. Put it back.

                                     SHEILA
                         What do you take insulin for? 
                         Diabetes? I didn't know you were a 
                         diabetic.

                                     SCHAEFER
                         It ain't contagious, don't worry 
                         about it.

               They head for the unoccupied bed. CLOSE-UP on Drummond's 
               profile.

               ROOM 806

               Dark, hushed. Schaefer's girl is leaving; she tiptoes to the 
               door, peeks out. Apparently, the coast is clear. She quickly 
               slips out.

               ROOM 806. DAY

               Drummond on his chair. Barbara perched on one side of her 
               father's bed, Bock on the other. William Mead sleeps on.

                                     BOCK
                         And you put Schaefer's insulin into 
                         the I.V. jar.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         Yes. And then a second nurse came 
                         and plugged the I.V. jar into 
                         Schaefer. God clearly intended a 
                         measure of irony here. The hospital 
                         was to do all the killing for me. 
                         All I need do was arrange for the 
                         doctors to become patients in their 
                         own hospital. Accordingly, the next 
                         morning, I set out for Dr. Ives. I 
                         put on Dr. Schaefer's uniform, pinched 
                         some digoxine from the pharmacy and 
                         a sandbag from a utility cart, and 
                         found my way to Dr. Ives' laboratory. 
                         I coshed him with the sandbag, gave 
                         him a massive shot of the digoxine. 
                         This, you see, brought on an instant 
                         condition of cardiac arrhythmia. 
                         When he came to, I brought him down 
                         to the Emergency Room.

               EMERGENCY ROOM AREA, LOBBY. DAY

               The usual E.R. crush and motion goes on in the background. 
               Drummond escorts an obviously ill Dr. Ives to the Admitting 
               Room. Drummond's voice under the narration explains matters 
               to Miss Aronovici at the desk.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         This is Dr. Ives. He's in the 
                         Nephrology Lab. I was in there a 
                         little while ago, and he was suddenly 
                         taken ill, and I thought I'd better 
                         get him over here right away.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         He had at that time perhaps an hour 
                         to live. Prompt treatment would have 
                         saved his life.

               They go into the...

               EMERGENCY ADMITTING AND TREATMENT ROOMS

               Ives, seated on a table in evident distress, breathes heavily.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (voice-off)
                         As a staff doctor, he was seen without 
                         preliminaries...

               An attendant takes his pulse, pressure and respiration. Ives 
               collapses.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (voice-off)
                         His vital signs were taken, an 
                         electrocardiogram...

               PAN SLOWLY across the Emergency Room to catch its state of 
               contained febrility. Every curtained treatment room is 
               occupied, including the storage room in the back. The triage 
               nurse and a second nurse behind the desk are busy on the 
               phones. The triage nurse takes the history of the first in a 
               line of five people seeking admission even as she answers 
               her phone.

               We watch Miss Aronovici and the other nurse and Dr. Spezio 
               and his two interns, the two attendants -- all busy with one 
               patient or another.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (voice-off)
                         ...which revealed occasional 
                         ventricular premature contractions. 
                         An intern took his history...

               ACROSS Drummond, white-uniformed, standing in the back against 
               the filing cabinets and linens, watching the the new patients 
               trickle and crowd in.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (voice-off)
                         ...and then he was promptly...

               At the Admitting Desk, a MAN in his forties is being signed 
               in by a uniformed cop.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (voice-off)
                         ...simply... forgotten to death. 
                         Simply mislaid...

               CAMERA JUST STARES at the pageant of pain.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (voice-off)
                         ...mislaid among the broken wrists, 
                         the chest pains, scalp lacerations, 
                         the man whose fingers were crushed 
                         in a taxi door, the infant with the 
                         skin rash, the child swiped by a 
                         car, the old lady mugged in the 
                         subway, the derelict beaten by 
                         sailors, the teenage suicide, the 
                         paranoids, drunks, asthmatics, the 
                         rapes, the septic abortions, the 
                         overdosed addicts...

               EMERGENCY ROOM AREA, LOBBY

               Looking to the street doors as two ambulance attendants, 
               bearing a seventeen-year-old black girl on a stretcher, burst 
               in.

                                     AMBULANCE ATTENDANTS
                              (shouting)
                         Not breathing! Not breathing!

               They hurry into the Admitting Room past a nurse and into 
               the...

               EMERGENCY ADMITTING AND TREATMENT ROOMS

               ...which is already galvanized into action. Miss Aronovici 
               is at the girl's pulse even as she is being transferred to 
               the bed that has just been cleared of Mr. Mitgang and his 
               concussion case.

                                     INTERN
                              (instructing attendant 
                              with Mitgang)
                         Better put him in the Holding Room.

                                     MISS ARONOVICI
                              (with the seventeen-
                              year-old girl)
                         She's taking a little pulse.

                                     DR. SPEZIO
                              (to triage nurse)
                         Get an anesthesiologist, one-five-
                         one-five...

               On screen we continue watching the scene of the overdose 
               case treatment, as the live-action sound in the room fades 
               behind Drummond's tale.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         ...the fractures, infarcts, 
                         hemorrhages, concussions, boils, 
                         abrasions, the colonic cancers, the 
                         cardiac arrests -- the whole wounded 
                         madhouse of our times...

               REACTION SHOT of Drummond staring at this ceaseless panorama 
               of pain, tears streaking down his cheeks.

                                     MAN'S VOICE
                              (off-screen)
                         I wonder if I could have a minute of 
                         your time, Doctor...

               Drummond turns to the voice. CAMERA PULLS BACK to include 
               the man who had been brought into the E.R. by a uniformed 
               cop.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         I am the fool for Christ and the 
                         Paraclete of Caborca.

                                     NAMELESS MAN
                         Well, it's an honor and a privilege, 
                         Doctor. I've been here ten minutes, 
                         I can't seem to get anybody to help 
                         me. I'm suffering from some sort of 
                         amnesia. I can't remember my name. 
                         As a matter of fact, it's pretty 
                         screwy. I got mugged. Two hours ago, 
                         walking out of a coffee shop on Fifty-
                         Seventh Street and Second Avenue, 
                         eight o'clock in the morning, broad 
                         daylight, I got mugged. A sixteen-
                         year-old girl walks up to me, shows 
                         me a knife about a yard long and 
                         says, "Give me your wallet." I thought 
                         she was kidding. I mean there's 
                         hundreds of people walking right by. 
                         Well, she wasn't kidding. "Listen," 
                         I said, "all I got's about twenty 
                         bucks." So she takes the wallet 
                         anyway. So I said, "How about leaving 
                         me my identification?" I mean, I had 
                         my driver's license, my Diner's Club, 
                         my credit cards. But she took them 
                         all, the whole damn wallet, credit 
                         cards, everything. So I stopped some 
                         guy, I said, "Hey, you see that girl 
                         there, walking away?" He says, "Yeah." 
                         I said, "She just stole my wallet, 
                         credit cards and everything." He 
                         says, "Well, that's what they want, 
                         the credit cards." So I started 
                         looking for a cop. I mean, go find a 
                         cop, right? Well, I finally find a 
                         cop. The girl's halfway to South 
                         America by now, probably bought the 
                         ticket with my credit cards. So the 
                         cop says, "What's your name?" And 
                         you want to know something? I couldn't 
                         think of my name. The girl took all 
                         my identification, you know what I 
                         mean? She took all my credit cards. 
                         So I said, "You know this is screwy. 
                         I can't think of my name." So he 
                         took me to the station house. The 
                         sergeant says, "What's your name?" I 
                         said, "I don't know! She took all my 
                         credit cards!" So they took me down 
                         here. So what do you think, Doctor? 
                         I'm nuts, right? I finally flipped.

               PAN SLOWLY to Drummond who stares at the Nameless Man.

               In BACKGROUND the door opens and Mrs. Cushing, the lady from 
               accounting, enters. She calls out in her annoying voice from 
               a chart.

                                     MRS. CUSHING
                         Who's number 7-6-8-0-2-S? Is there 
                         anybody here who is that number?

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (off-screen)
                         In this way was it revealed to me 
                         the manner of Nurse Campanella's 
                         death. She was to die of the great 
                         American plague -- vestigial identity.

               RETURN FROM FLASHBACK:

               ROOM 806. DAY

               Drummond in his hospital shift, gaunt and mad as a prophet, 
               sits rigidly on his chair. Barbara perches on her father's 
               bed. Bock wanders disorientedly about the room, staring 
               incredulously first at Barbara and then at her father.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         So last night, I coshed Miss 
                         Campanella with a sandbag, sedated 
                         her with thorazine, shaved her, 
                         prepped her, and parked her in a 
                         corridor of the X-Ray Department for 
                         five hours.

                                     BOCK
                         Why X-Ray?

                                     DRUMMOND
                         Well, at X-Ray, a sedated body lying 
                         around unattended for five hours 
                         wouldn't seem unusual.

                                     BOCK
                         Of course.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         Her operation -- that is to say, 
                         Mrs. Mangafranni's operation -- was 
                         not scheduled until nine-thirty. So 
                         at nine-fifteen this morning, I rang 
                         for my nurse...

                                     BOCK
                         You rang for your nurse?

                                     DRUMMOND
                         To insure one full hour of 
                         uninterrupted privacy.

                                     BOCK
                         Oh yes.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         I got up, wheeled Miss Campanella 
                         off to the operating rooms, replaced 
                         her bed with Mrs. Mangafranni's, 
                         exchanged charts and identity 
                         bracelets. She died officially of 
                         anesthesia shock. But, in point of 
                         fact, she died because she was wearing 
                         another woman's identity.

                                     BARBARA
                              (to Bock)
                         God, what do we do now? Let me take 
                         him back to Mexico. It's a simple 
                         world there. If you turn him in, 
                         they'll just cage him in the Rockland 
                         State Hospital for the Criminally 
                         Insane. Let me take him back, Herb.

                                     BOCK
                         Are you kidding? We'll both take 
                         him. I'm going with you! Get him 
                         dressed. We're getting out of here 
                         before the police put us all in 
                         Rockland State.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         I haven't finished my work here. I 
                         have this Welbeck to dispose of. I 
                         am the angel of the bottomless pit 
                         and the wrath of the lamb.

                                     BARBARA
                         Oh dear, he's having another 
                         revelation.

               Bock holds Drummond's coat and hat and crosses to take his 
               arm. He finds the entranced Drummond as rigid as a statue.

                                     BOCK
                         Look, that ambulance must be here by 
                         now. You go down and get them. I'll 
                         give him a shot of something to knock 
                         him out. We'll take him to the airport 
                         in the ambulance.

               They both hurry out of the room. Drummond remains enmarbled 
               in his trance. CAMERA SUDDENLY MOVES DOWN to William Mead, 
               whose eyes now open; he has heard it all. In background, 
               Drummond, suddenly released from his catatonic trance, heads 
               for the armoire and extracts the white trousers of Dr. 
               Schaefer's uniform. He puts them on, tucking in the tails of 
               his hospital shift. He notices William Mead staring at him.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         You're hallucinating again.

               William Mead just stares at Drummond.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, NURSES' STATION AND LOBBY AREA

               Bock and Barbara come hurrying around the corner from the 
               west corridor. Barbara heads for the elevators. Bock heads 
               for the Nurses' Station. The Eighth Floor is going about its 
               normal 1:15 P.M. activity. Mrs. Donovan is at her desk on 
               the phone.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         ...Edwards never showed up. I'm short-
                         staffed as hell. It's just me and 
                         Felicia. It's like Sunday. Nobody's 
                         here.

                                     DR. BIEGELMAN
                         I'll be at lunch...

               A nurse's aid, a bathrobed patient and two of his visitors 
               stroll by. It's the end of the lunch hour, when the kitchen 
               workers bring used trays back.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         Yeah, you gotta send me somebody... 
                         Oh yeah?

               Bock moves past Mrs. Donovan and into the pharmacy where we 
               see him scouring the shelves for thorazine and a syringe. An 
               elevator arrives, disgorging Milton Mead and his resident 
               assistant, Thomas Hitchcock and, of all people, Dr. Richard 
               Welbeck himself. Barbara and Dr. Biegelman go into the 
               elevator. The doors close. Milton Mead and Hitchcock head 
               for the west corridor. Welbeck, in his natty double-breasted 
               suit and carrying his cashmere coat, heads straight for the 
               Nurses' Station.

                                     MEAD
                         We'll be in Eight-O-Six.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                              (chuckles into phone)
                         ...then what did she say?

                                     WELBECK
                              (to Mrs. Donovan)
                         I'm Dr. Welbeck. I have a patient on 
                         this floor named Drummond, and I'd 
                         like to see his chart.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         I'll call you back.

               Bock immediately emerges from the pharmacy holding a bottle 
               of thorazine and a wrapped hypodermic syringe. He scowls at 
               Welbeck, who scowls back.

                                     WELBECK
                         Oh, Dr. Bock. Can I have a few minutes 
                         of your time, sir?

                                     BOCK
                         No.

               He starts to pass Mrs. Donovan and would continue, but Welbeck 
               lays a restraining hand on his arm.

                                     WELBECK
                         Dr. Gilley tells me you're the one 
                         who initiated these proceedings 
                         against me.

                                     BOCK
                         I'm busy, Welbeck.

                                     WELBECK
                         I'd like to know what you have against 
                         me.

                                     BOCK
                         You turned up half-stoned for a simple 
                         nephrectomy eight days ago, botched 
                         it, put the patient into failure and 
                         damn near killed him. Then, pausing 
                         only to send in your bill, you flew 
                         off on the wings of man to an island 
                         of sun in Montego Bay. This is the 
                         third time in two years we've had to 
                         patch up your patients; the other 
                         two died. You're greedy, unfeeling, 
                         inept, indifferent, self-inflating 
                         and unconscionably profitable. Aside 
                         from that, I have nothing against 
                         you. I'm sure you play a hell of a 
                         game of golf. What else do you want 
                         to know?

               Welbeck's pocket-beeper BEEPS.

                                     WELBECK
                         Excuse me for a moment, Doctor.
                              (he reaches over the 
                              nurses' desk for a 
                              phone)
                         This is Dr. Welbeck. Were you paging 
                         me?
                              (regarding Bock with 
                              cold scorn)
                         How much do you make a year, Bock? 
                         For a guy who makes a lousy forty, 
                         fifty grand...
                              (on phone)
                         Hello, Arthur, I understand you've 
                         been trying to reach me all morning...

               Bock turns and heads back for...

               EIGHTH FLOOR, WEST CORRIDOR

               ...and down that through the kitchen workers and strolling 
               patients to...

               ROOM 806

               ...which he enters. He is startled to find Milton Mead and 
               Hitchcock leaning over William Mead, who is up on one elbow 
               and in a state.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         I'm telling you, Milton, he pulls 
                         out all the wires and the tubes, and 
                         he gets up and puts on a doctor's 
                         uniform, and he goes out, and he 
                         murders doctors! He just went out 
                         ten seconds before you came in!

               Indeed, there is no Drummond to be seen. His bed is empty. 
               Bock nods to Milton Mead and Hitchcock, who nod back, and 
               crosses quickly to look into the bathroom which is likewise 
               empty.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         And I'll tell you something else 
                         about this crazy place you got here! 
                         There was a naked Indian in here 
                         last night doing a war dance! That's 
                         the kind of crazy place you're running 
                         here, Milton! You got to get me out 
                         of here, Milton. This is a crazy 
                         place, Milton!

               Milton Mead's pocket-beeper BEEPS. Milton Mead reaches for 
               the phone.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                              (appealing to Bock)
                         I wake up last night, there's a goddam 
                         Indian in here, a naked Indian! What 
                         kind of hospital is this?

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (on phone)
                         This is Mr. Mead, are you paging me?

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         A couple of hours later I wake up 
                         again, and the guy in that bed there 
                         is getting out of the bed...

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (to Hitchcock)
                         Are the police still in the building?

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Yes.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         You'd better get them up here. Yes.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         All day long, he lays there like a 
                         dead man. All of a sudden, in the 
                         middle of the night, he gets out of 
                         bed! I thought I was going crazy!

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (on phone)
                         Yes, this is Mead... Oh, dear. 
                         When?...

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         You know what he says to me? He says, 
                         you're hallucinating. Listen, I just 
                         saw a naked Indian. Now, I'm seeing 
                         a ghost. I got to figure he's right, 
                         I'm hallucinating, right?

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         I'll be down directly.
                              (hangs up)
                         Never rains but it pours. A fire 
                         just broke out in one of those 
                         condemned buildings. The squatters 
                         in the building came out. The police 
                         tried to arrest them and, apparently, 
                         the situation has erupted into a 
                         riot.
                              (to Bock as he heads 
                              for the door)
                         I'm sure you're wondering what this 
                         is all about, Herb.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         You're not going to leave me alone 
                         in this crazy place, Milton!

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (at the door with 
                              Bock)
                         Mr. Hitchcock is staying with you.
                              (to Hitchcock)
                         You better call the cops, Tom.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         Milton! Milton! Milton!!!

               The door slams.

               WEST CORRIDOR AND NURSES' STATION

               Bock and Milton Mead stride up the corridor through the linen 
               wagons and kitchen carts.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                         I haven't the time now, and I'm not 
                         even going to try to tell you this 
                         curious story my brother just told 
                         me. I'll fill you in on it at lunch 
                         some time.

               He waves his hand helplessly to indicate the utter incredulity 
               of it all.

                                     MILTON MEAD
                              (rushes not to miss 
                              the elevator)
                         Hold it!

               They reach an open elevator. Mead goes in, the doors close. 
               The doors of a second elevator then open, and Barbara comes 
               out. She and Bock stare at each other. In background, Welbeck 
               is on the phone at the Nurses' Station.

                                     BARBARA
                         The ambulance is here.

                                     BOCK
                         Yeah, but your father isn't. He's 
                         disappeared. He put on Schaefer's 
                         uniform and has gone out to do God's 
                         work, presumably the murder of Dr. 
                         Welbeck. Except, that fellow on the 
                         phone over there is Dr. Welbeck.

                                     WELBECK
                              (in background on 
                              phone)
                         Oh my God, Arthur! What are you 
                         talking about? Have you talked to 
                         Dr. Hogan about this?

                                     BOCK
                         And, on top of everything else, the 
                         other patient in your father's room 
                         overheard his whole confession and 
                         just told the Chief Administrator of 
                         the hospital. They're sending for 
                         the cops.

               REVERSE ACROSS Welbeck on phone at Nurses' Station. In the 
               background, Bock and Barbara stare at him.

                                     WELBECK
                              (almost apoplectic on 
                              phone)
                         Oh, my God, Arthur. Well, who held 
                         title? Do the underwriters know about 
                         this yet?... Oh my God! Arthur, 
                         what're you waiting for? Arrest the 
                         son of a bitch! Turn him in!... Oh 
                         my God! When?... Of course, Arthur, 
                         call me right back. I'm at the Holly 
                         Pavilion, Eighth Floor. Please! Right 
                         away!

               He hangs up.

                                     BOCK
                         Are you all right, Welbeck?

                                     WELBECK
                         All right?! That son of a bitch is 
                         trying to wipe me out! My partner, 
                         the eminent orthopedic surgeon, Dr. 
                         Noel Hogan, is a miserable thief. 
                         And he's trying to wipe me out!

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                              (extending a chart)
                         Mr. Drummond's chart, Doctor.

                                     WELBECK
                              (angrily seizes the 
                              chart)
                         What room is it?

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         Eight-O-Six.

                                     WELBECK
                         I'm expecting a phone call. Put it 
                         straight through to me in that room.

               He strides off angrily, followed by an anxious Bock and 
               Barbara, for the...

               EIGHTH FLOOR, WEST CORRIDOR

               Bock and Barbara hurry along in Welbeck's wake.

                                     WELBECK
                         The son of a bitch has been draining 
                         the company with phony purchase orders 
                         on another company, of which, it now 
                         turns out, his wife is the principal 
                         stockholder! Transparent fraud! I'll 
                         send him up for twenty years!

               He wrenches open the door of 806, marches in, followed by 
               Bock and Barbara.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, ROOM

               Welbeck advances on William Mead's bed, since he is the only 
               patient in the room. (Hitchcock is on the phone.)

                                     WELBECK
                         Well, Drummond, you don't seem that 
                         much the worse for the wear.

               William Mead stares dully at Welbeck. Then he looks dully at 
               Bock.

                                     WELBECK
                              (to Hitchcock)
                         Would you mind using some other phone? 
                         I'm expecting an important call.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         What is this? Who... who is this 
                         guy?

                                     HITCHCOCK
                              (on phone)
                         Yes, well, I'll be at the Nurses' 
                         Desk, Sergeant. It would be futile 
                         for me to try to explain this to you 
                         over the phone.

                                     WELBECK
                              (leafing through 
                              Drummond's chart)
                         You've got a bit of fever, Drummond, 
                         but you're coming along very well.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         I'm not Drummond, you monkey! 
                         Drummond's the other bed!

               The phone now BUZZES. Welbeck and Hitchcock both head for 
               it.

                                     WELBECK
                         That's mine.
                              (on phone)
                         It's Welbeck here... Yes, Arthur, go 
                         ahead...

               William Mead is painfully trying to get off his bed.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         I'm getting out of this nuthouse!

                                     BOCK
                              (pushing him gently 
                              back)
                         All right, take it easy, Mr. Mead.

               Hitchcock, satisfied the call is not for him, exits.

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                         I came in here just to get a lousy 
                         polyp cut out.

                                     WELBECK
                              (on phone)
                         Oh, my God, what do you mean? How 
                         many transactions were there? Bu... 
                         but Arthur, I... I borrowed against 
                         that stock! I'm in the hole for over 
                         three hundred thousand!...

                                     WILLIAM MEAD
                              (appealing to the 
                              gods)
                         I'm a sick man! I'm supposed to have 
                         peace and quiet!

                                     WELBECK
                              (on phone and 
                              apoplectic)
                         What do you mean, Brazil?! I just 
                         spoke to Hogan's office yesterday, 
                         and they just told me...

               The phone slips from his fingers. He turns to stare at Bock 
               and Barbara.

                                     WELBECK
                         I'm wiped out. The S.E.C. has 
                         suspended trading in my stock!

               He keels over like a felled tree, falling face-up on 
               Drummond's bed, his legs dangling to the floor. William Mead 
               promptly hides his head under his sheet.

               Bock moves quickly to the prostrate Welbeck, feels his throat 
               for the carotid pulse, pulls out his stethoscope, rips 
               Welbeck's shirt open, and listens for heartsounds. He picks 
               up the dangling telephone receiver, gets a dial tone.

                                     BOCK
                              (on phone)
                         Cardiac arrest, Holly Eight.

               Barbara strips off her coat. She is still in nurse's uniform. 
               She leans into the hall and calls a passing nurse.

                                     BARBARA
                         We have an emergency here.

                                     BOCK
                              (rips off Welbeck's 
                              natty jacket)
                         Breathe him.

               Barbara helps Bock get Welbeck's dead weight onto the floor. 
               On his knees, Bock straddles Welbeck's prone form, balls his 
               fist and belts Welbeck on his chest. He begins intensive 
               heart massage. Barbara gets down on her knees, opens Welbeck's 
               mouth and commences mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In the 
               background, the P.A. system blandly echoes:

                                     P.A. SYSTEM
                              (off-screen)
                         C.A.C. Holly Eight. Please clear all 
                         corridors.

               Mrs. Donovan and aides move C.A.C. into the room, immediately 
               followed by Intern Chandler rushing past them.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         Where's Biegelman?

                                     CHANDLER
                         He went to lunch.

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         Natch. Get that other bed out of 
                         here.

               William Mead, of course, is still huddled under his sheet. 
               He peers out from under his covers in wide-eyed disbelief 
               and ducks under again. Bock massages Welbeck's heart. Barbara 
               continues mouth-to-mouth. Nurse Felicia Chile hurries in, 
               pushing the emergency cart before her.

                                     BARBARA
                              (to Nurse Chile as 
                              others begin moving 
                              William Mead's bed 
                              out of the room)
                         Give him an ambu bag and an airway.

                                     VOICE
                              (off-screen)
                         What's been happening?

               Nurse Chile has shunted the emergency cart aside to let the 
               bed out and is extracting an ambu bag and tube from the cart's 
               lower shelf.

                                     CHANDLER
                              (to Seventh Floor 
                              Nursing Supervisor 
                              just outside door)
                         Watch it...

                                     P.A. SYSTEM
                              (off-screen)
                         C.A.C. Holly Eight. Please clear all 
                         corridors.

               Nurse Chile hands the Berman airway and ambu bag to Barbara, 
               who inserts the airway and the ambu tube into Welbeck's mouth 
               and pumps in air by hand. Bock massages away.

               EIGHTH FLOOR, WEST CORRIDOR

               Mrs. Donovan and Intern Chandler finally get Mead and his 
               bed out into the corridor where they park it. In background, 
               emergency activity on all sides. The resident cardiologist, 
               DR. GEOFFREY MORSE, and anesthesiologist, DR. LAWRENCE LOOMIS, 
               both thirty-three, come hurtling around the corner.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         In here?

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         Yeah.

               She follows Morse in as, from the lobby corner, two 
               technicians come racing a max cart and an I.V. stand before 
               them. Behind them, a bewildered Hitchcock moves into view, 
               trying to determine what's going on.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                              (to Intern Chandler)
                         Who is it?

                                     P.A. SYSTEM
                              (off-screen)
                         Dr. Robert Jackson.

                                     CHANDLER
                         One of the patients had a cardiac 
                         arrest.

               Hitchcock looks down at the sheeted figure hunched on the 
               bed parked in the hallway and slowly pulls the sheet off his 
               head. William Mead stares up at him like a hunted animal. 
               Hitchcock covers Mead's head again.

               ROOM 806

               Bock still massages, sweating bullets by now. Barbara works 
               the ambu bag. Dr. Morse is feeling Welbeck's groin for his 
               femoral pulse.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         What do you have, Dr. Bock?

                                     BOCK
                         Total cardiac arrest.

                                     P.A. SYSTEM
                              (off-screen)
                         Dr. Rigby. Dr. Rigby. Dr. Lilac.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         How long has he been like this?

                                     BOCK
                         About a minute. No pulse, no 
                         heartbeat, no respiration...

               If we can see anything of Welbeck through other bodies, we 
               notice almost all his clothes have been ripped off his body. 
               Dr. Loomis replaces Barbara.

                                     DR. LOOMIS
                         All right, I'll take over.

               The two nursing supervisors have been getting the max cart 
               ready, snapping up the gateleg-footrest and attaching the 
               I.V. tube to the oxygen jar, and that to the ambu bag.

                                     BOCK
                         Endotrachial tube.

                                     DONOVAN
                              (rushing in background 
                              with others)
                         I'm sorry, Doctor, but we have another 
                         emergency in 823.

                                     CHANDLER
                         Endotrachial tube.

                                     DR. LOOMIS
                         Shall we get him up on the cart?

                                     DR. MORSE
                         Yeah.

               Drs. Loomis, Bock and Morse struggle to lift the the nearly 
               naked dead weight of Dr. Welbeck up from the floor and onto 
               the max cart. Dr. Morse has picked up Drummond's chart from 
               the bed where Welbeck had left it.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         All right, who is this patient? What's 
                         the story on this patient?

               CLOSE-UP of Bock trying to hoist Welbeck and looking up 
               slowly.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         Is this his chart, Dr. Bock?

               Bock cocks his head to him.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         What's his name? Drummond?

               Bock looks across to Barbara, now helping out at the max 
               cart. She looks back at Bock. She shrugs. He shrugs. They 
               exchange a smile.

                                     BOCK
                         Yes, his name's Drummond. That's his 
                         chart.

               Straining under the effort, the three doctors get Welbeck 
               off the floor.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (studying the chart)
                         Oh Christ, the poor son of a bitch 
                         just had a nephrectomy a week ago.

               Mrs. Donovan exits into...

               EIGHTH FLOOR, WEST CORRIDOR

               ...as Mrs. Donovan comes out, Hitchcock turns to her.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Was it Drummond?

                                     MRS. DONOVAN
                         Who else would it be?

               Hitchcock silently thanks God.

               ROOM 806

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (off-screen)
                         Pick him up. Put him on it. Stop the 
                         massage.

               Welbeck's body is finally on the max cart. Nurses and doctors 
               converge on him. Dr. Loomis sets about intubating Welbeck, 
               and the Nursing Supervisor begins clamping the metal bands 
               of the E.K.G. machine on each of Welbeck's extremities.

               While all this goes on, Bock and Barbara have picked up the 
               remnants of Welbeck's jacket, trousers, shirt and underwear. 
               Dr. Morse is squatting by the max-cart reading the E.K.G. 
               script as it rolls slowly out of the cart.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         Ventricular fibrillation. Get me the 
                         paddles. Push another amp of bicarb.

               The Nursing Supervisor starts applying electrode paste to 
               the defibrillating paddles. Another nurse measures off an 
               ampule of bicarbonate of soda which Dr. Loomis injects into 
               the I.V. tube.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         Set it for two hundred.

               Barbara unsnaps her father's valise and stuffs Welbeck's 
               garments in it. Bock takes Welbeck's coat and piles Drummond's 
               things on top of that.

               The Nursing Supervisor hands Dr. Morse the defibrillating 
               paddles to place on Welbeck's left breast.

                                     NURSE
                              (off-screen)
                         That's two hundred.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         Everybody bock away.

               All back away from the max-cart. Bock and Barbara are at the 
               window, piled up with valise and coats; they look like they're 
               off for Europe.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (off-screen)
                         One-two-three...

               He pushes the defibrillating button, sending an electric 
               shock through Welbeck's body so as to bounce it into the 
               air.

               Bock and Barbara remain at the window with heart-resuscitation 
               team in background. Barbara slips into her own coat, in 
               preparation for escape.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (in background)
                         Did he convert?

                                     DR. LOOMIS
                              (in background)
                         No, he's still fibrillating.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (in background)
                         Let's go to four hundred.

                                     BARBARA
                              (sotto voce to Bock)
                         What do we do now?

               Bock is staring out the window. Barbara stares out with him.

               THEIR P.O.V.: looking down onto the U-shaped drive of the 
               entrance plaza of the hospital and First Avenue full of 
               traffic. A band of some fifty black and Puerto Rican youths, 
               including females and young white revolutionaries, most in 
               Che Guevara garb, have broken past the security guards at 
               the gates and spill across the drive. Some policemen and 
               security guards move tentatively out of the hospital to 
               intercept them.

               The shouting can't be heard from up here. Off-screen we hear 
               the activities of the resuscitation team.

                                     NURSING SUPERVISOR
                              (off-screen)
                         It's four hundred.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (off-screen)
                         Everybody back One-two-three...

               SOUND of the shock.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (off-screen)
                         That didn't work either.

               FIRST AVENUE. HIGH SHOT

               Low crowd noises. Bock looks out the window at the protesting 
               mob below.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (off-screen)
                         All right. Let me have a c.c. of 
                         Adrenaline and intercardiac needle.

               CAMERA PANS SLOWLY UP over the melee in the plaza to the 
               fence. Barbara and Bock stare down at the crowd.

                                     DR. MORSE
                              (off-screen)
                         Stop the massage. Ventricular 
                         fibrillation. Put another amp of 
                         bicarb. Two hundred.

               ZOOM DOWN into the maelstrom to FULL SHOT of the Reverend 
               Drummond dressed in Schaefer's white uniform, standing on 
               the slim island separating the uptown traffic from the 
               downtown traffic. Drummond is a private island of his own, 
               hands stretched to the skies. He is prophesying.

                                     DRUMMOND
                              (barely audible above 
                              the traffic rumbling 
                              heedlessly around 
                              him)
                         Let those who are in Judea flee to 
                         the mountains, for the age is closed, 
                         the season of the seventh seal is at 
                         hand!

               ROOM 806

               Bock and Barbara slip through doctors and nurses, heading 
               for the door.

                                     DR. MORSE
                         Hang isopril, two in five hundred. 
                         Let's take one more crack with the 
                         paddles. Everybody back off the cart.

               Bock, carrying two overcoats, and Barbara, wearing hers and 
               carrying her father's valise, exit into...

               EIGHTH FLOOR, WEST CORRIDOR

               ...as Bock and Barbara come out, the activity is normal, 
               with the exception of William Mead's bed along the wall. 
               Hitchcock and two overcoated men are in the hallway, and 
               Hitchcock hurries to Bock.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Is he dead?

                                     BOCK
                         They can't get him out of fib. I 
                         don't think he'll make it.

                                     HITCHCOCK
                         Thank God.
                              (sighs, turns to the 
                              two detectives)
                         This should close the case, Sergeant.

               Bock and Barbara hurry toward the elevators.

               THE HOSPITAL, HOLLY PAVILION, LOBBY

               The small army of militants and activists has broken through 
               the security into the lobby. Their entrance is greeted by 
               one small scream from a woman in the lobby. A LEADER of the 
               invading troop calls out.

                                     LEADER
                         Everybody take it easy! Nobody's 
                         going to be hurt! We just want the 
                         Director!

               Others in the troop shout reassurances, but it doesn't really 
               reassure anybody. The lady in the gift shop closes her door 
               and locks up. People crowd in a solid block in the doorway 
               to the coffee shop to see what's going on.

               From the long tunnels of corridors, nurses, doctors, 
               administrative personnel pause in their chores and errands 
               and missions to watch the tide of events in the lobby.

               HOLLY PAVILION, EXECUTIVE CORRIDOR

               The exit door is wrenched open, and Bock comes hurtling into 
               the carpeted executive corridor toward the lobby, and at 
               that moment the troop of militants come rumbling in from the 
               other end. Every door of the corridor fills with secretaries 
               and administrators unsure of what's happening. Then, Sundstrom 
               elbows his way through the clutch of secretaries in his 
               doorway and comes into the corridor. He regards the militants 
               moving down the corridor toward him.

                                     SHOUTING CROWD
                         We want Sundstrom! We want Sundstrom! 
                         Community control! Community control! 
                         Hip-hip-Hippocrates! Up with service! 
                         Down with fees!

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         You people want to see me?

                                     FIRST MILITANT
                         Yeah, baby, we want to see you...

                                     SECOND MILITANT
                         We're taking over this hospital, 
                         man...

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         I've had it up to here. I'm not 
                         dealing with this kind of cheap 
                         blackmail!

                                     LEADER
                         Now look, man. Now wait a minute 
                         there!

                                     FIRST MILITANT
                         We're looking for a hostage!

                                     LEADER
                         Fourteen people just got arrested 
                         for doing...

               In the background, one of their fellow revolutionaries speaks 
               up...

                                     MAN
                         Lookit, man, where's the TV camera?

               ...but he's shut up by the Leader.

                                     LEADER
                         Would you be cool, man?
                              (now yelling)
                         Fourteen people got arrested for 
                         doing nothing but living in their 
                         homes, which you people threw them 
                         out of.

                                     CROWD
                         Right on!

                                     LEADER
                         So now we're going to arrest you. 
                         We're going to hold you hostage and 
                         we ain't letting you go un...

               Ambler, the medical student we met during Bock's teaching 
               rounds, pushes in front of the Leader to face Sundstrom.

                                     AMBLER
                         We, the members of the Doctors 
                         Liberation Committee indict this 
                         hospital for the criminal neglect of 
                         the community in which it is situated! 
                         We demand an immediate dissolution 
                         of the governing and executive boards.

                                     SHOUT
                         What are you going to do about those 
                         fourteen ghetto people?

               As the shouts continue, Sundstrom raises a hand to quiet the 
               crowd.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         I am not going to do anything... 
                         about anything.

                                     SHOUT
                         Yes, you are!

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         By God, if you want to take over 
                         this hospital, you take it over!

                                     SHOUTS
                         We will! Right on!

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         You run it! I am finished! I quit! 
                         You run it! You pay the bills! You 
                         fight the city!

                                     MILITANT
                         We will!

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         You fight the state! You fight the 
                         unions. You fight the community! 
                         You... you think you can do a better 
                         job, you do it! Now I am finished! I 
                         quit! It's all yours!

               Eyes filled with tears of rage, Sundstrom lowers his head 
               and moves into the mass of militants, which parts for him to 
               leave.

                                     CROWD
                         Quit! Quit!

               The mass engulfs Sundstrom, moving back out into the lobby 
               with him, pushing him, shoving him, humiliating him.

               REACTION SHOT of Bock watching it all from the far end of 
               the corridor. He closes his eyes and the pain of watching 
               all this shows on his face. He opens his eyes. The corridor 
               is now silent and empty. He hurries to...

               HOLLY PAVILION, THE LOBBY

               Bock rushes in, as the milling throng dissolves into the 
               bystanders, security police and city cops. Common sense has 
               settled in and the general tenor is to avoid any further 
               trouble. We can hear the rhythmic patter of cops.

                                     SHOUTS OF COPS
                         All right, come on... come on -- 
                         Let's clear the area. -- Come on, 
                         let's clear this place... Keep cool. 
                         Everybody keep cool.

               Bock elbows his way through the throng as it drifts toward 
               the doors to...

               THE HOSPITAL, ENTRANCE PLAZA. DAY

               ...and goes through the gathering police. A mobile TV camera 
               crew and a few reporters are hurrying up through the gates 
               from First Avenue.

               FIRST AVENUE. DAY

               The Reverend Drummond stands, a solitary human island, among 
               the shrill ROAR of the city. The protesters protest endlessly, 
               CHANTING, SHOUTING. Absolutely no one pays any attention to 
               the gaunt, doctor-clad sixty-year-old man standing on an 
               island.

               Except, of course, for Bock, who must pause to wait for a 
               red light. Bock hustles through the traffic to where Drummond 
               stands.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         Let those who are in Judea flee to 
                         the mountains, for the age is closed, 
                         the season of the seventh seal is at 
                         hand! The age is closed! The season 
                         of the seventh se...

                                     BOCK
                         Dr. Welbeck is dead. They thought he 
                         was you.

                                     DRUMMOND
                         Yes, I know. We must arrange to have 
                         his body shipped to my Apache village 
                         where we will bury him with full 
                         tribal rites. In a day or two, 
                         somebody'll ask, "Whatever happened 
                         to Dr. Welbeck?" And it will be 
                         assumed he absconded to Brazil to 
                         join his partner, the eminent 
                         orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Noel Hogan. 
                         Welbeck, too, was mislaid, overlooked, 
                         forgotten to death, you see.

               The ambulance pulls up and Barbara gets out of it.

                                     BARBARA
                              (taking her father 
                              around to the back)
                         We have to hurry, Dad.

               The light turns green. The traffic starts flowing around 
               them, disjoined by the ambulance blocking one lane on each 
               side of the dividing island. An ambulance attendant has opened 
               the back doors to get Drummond in. Barbara hurries toward 
               the front, climbs in, holds the door open for Bock. He stands 
               a few paces back.

                                     BOCK
                         I'm not going.
                              (he moves to the 
                              ambulance, closes 
                              the door)
                         The hospital's coming apart. I can't 
                         walk out on it when it's coming apart. 
                         Somebody has to be responsible, 
                         Barbara. Everybody's hitting the 
                         road, running to the hills, running 
                         away. Somebody's got to be 
                         responsible.
                              (across Barbara to 
                              the driver)
                         Kennedy Airport. You've got a two-
                         thirty flight to make.

               He turns, and the ambulance pulls away. Bock goes back to 
               the sidewalk where he meets Sundstrom, now wearing his coat.

                                     BOCK
                         You going back in?

                                     SUNDSTROM
                         Yeah.

               They make their way back toward...

               THE HOSPITAL, ENTRANCE PLAZA

               The two physicians trudge across the U-drive.

                                     SUNDSTROM
                              (matter-of-factly)
                         It's like pissing in the wind, right, 
                         Herb?

                                     BOCK
                         Right.

                                                                  FADE OUT.

                                         THE END



Hospital, The



Writers :   Paddy Chayefsky
Genres :   Comedy  Drama


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