Passage

Wrong, Joanna thought, and usually they aren’t lucky enough to be revived after they code. “The cardiologist will be here in a few minutes,” she said. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me what happened?” She switched on the minirecorder.

“Okay,” he said. “I was on my way back to the office from playing racquetball — I play racquetball twice a week, Stephanie and I go skiing on the weekends. That’s why I moved out here from New York, for the skiing. I do downhill and cross-country, so you can see it’s impossible for me to have had a heart attack.”

“You were on the way back to the office — ” Joanna prompted.

“Yeah,” Greg said. “It’s snowing, and the road’s really slick, and this idiot in a Jeep Cherokee tries to cut in front of me, and I end up in the ditch. I’ve got a shovel in the car, so I start digging myself out, and I don’t know what happened then. I figure a piece of ice off a truck must have hit me in the head and knocked me out, because the next thing I know, there’s a siren going, and I’m in an ambulance and a paramedic’s sticking these ice-cold paddles on my chest.”

Of course, Joanna thought resignedly. I finally get a subject Maurice Mandrake hasn’t already corrupted, and he doesn’t remember anything. “Can you remember anything at all between your — between being hit in the head and waking up in the ambulance?” Joanna asked hopefully. “Anything you heard? Or saw?” but he was already shaking his head.

“It was like when I had my cruciate ligament operated on last year. I tore it playing softball,” he said. “One minute the anesthesiologist was saying, ‘Breathe deeply,’ and the next I was in the recovery room. And in between, nothing, zip, nada.”

Oh, well, at least she was keeping him in bed until the cardiologist got there.

“I told the nurse when she said you wanted to talk to me that I couldn’t have had a near-death experience because I wasn’t anywhere near death,” he said. “When you do talk to people who have died, what do they say? Do they tell you they saw tunnels and lights and angels like they say on TV?”

“Some of them,” Joanna said.

“Do you think they really did or that they just made it up?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If I ever do have a heart attack and have a near-death experience, you’ll be the first one I’ll call.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Joanna said.

“In which case, I’ll need your phone number,” he said, and grinned the wolfish grin again.

“Well, well, well,” the cardiologist said, corning in with Vielle. “What have we here?”

“Not a heart attack,” Greg said, trying to sit up. “I work out—”

“Let’s find out what’s going on,” the cardiologist said. He turned to Joanna. “Will you excuse us for a few minutes?”

“Of course,” Joanna said, gathering up her recorder. She went out into the ER. There was probably no reason to wait, Greg Menotti had said he hadn’t experienced anything, but sometimes, on closer questioning, subjects did remember something. And he was clearly in denial. To admit he’d had an NDE would be to admit he’d had a heart attack.

“Why hasn’t he been taken to CICU?” the cardiologist’s voice, clearly talking to Vielle, said.

“You’re not taking me anywhere till Stephanie gets here,” Greg said.

“She’s on her way,” Vielle said. “I got in touch with her. She’ll be here in just a few minutes.”

“All right, let’s have a listen to this heart of yours and see what’s going on,” the cardiologist said. “No, don’t sit up. Just stay there. All right…”

There was a minute or so of silence, while the cardiologist listened to his heart, and then instructions that Joanna couldn’t hear. “Yes, sir,” Vielle said.

More murmured instructions. “I want to see Stephanie as soon as she gets here,” Greg said.

“She can see you upstairs,” the cardiologist said. “We’re taking you up to CICU, Mr. Menotti. It looks like you’ve had a myocardial infarction, and we need to—”

“This is ridiculous,” Greg said. “I’m fine. I got knocked out by a piece of ice, is all. I didn’t have a heart — ” and then, abruptly, silence.

“Mr. Menotti?” Vielle said. “Greg?”

“He’s coding,” the cardiologist said. “Drop that bed and get a crash cart in here.” The buzz of the code alarm went off, and people converged on the room, running. Joanna backed out of the way.

“Start CPR,” the cardiologist said, and something else Joanna couldn’t hear. The code alarm was still going, an intermittent ear-splitting buzz. Was it a buzzing or a ringing? Joanna thought irrelevantly. And then, wonderingly, that’s the sound they’re hearing before they go into the tunnel.

“Get those paddles over here,” the cardiologist said. “And turn off that damned alarm.” The buzzing stopped. An IV pole clanked noisily. “Ready for defib, clear,” the cardiologist said, and there was a different kind of buzz. “Again. Clear.” A pause. “One amp epi.”

“Too far away,” Greg Menotti’s voice said, and Joanna let out her breath.

“He’s back,” someone said, and someone else, “Normal sinus rhythm.”