The temperature was colder two stories down in the sub-basement. Sara pulled her lab coat closed as she walked past the records department. Unlike the old days when she’d interned at Grady, there was no need to stand in line for charts. Everything was automated, a patient’s information only as far away as the computerized tablets that worked on the hospital’s intranet. X-rays were on the larger computer monitors in the rooms, and all medications were coded to patient armbands. As the only publicly funded hospital left in Atlanta, Grady was constantly teetering on bankruptcy, but at least it was trying to go out in style.
Sara stopped in front of the thick double doors that separated the morgue from the rest of the hospital. She waved her badge in front of the reader. There was a sudden whoosh of changing air pressure as the insulated steel doors swung open.
The attendant seemed surprised to find Sara in his space. He was as close to goth as you could get while wearing blue hospital scrubs. Everything about him announced that he was too cool for his job. His dyed black hair was pulled into a ponytail. His glasses looked like they had belonged to John Lennon. His eyeliner was something out of a Cleopatra movie. To Sara, the paunch at his stomach and the Fu Manchu made him look more like Spike, Snoopy’s brother. “You lost?”
“Junior,” she read off his nametag. He was young, probably Nan’s age. “I was wondering if someone from the Fulton ME’s office was here.”
“Larry. He’s loading up in the back. Is there a problem?”
“No, I just want to pick his brain.”
“Good luck finding it.”
A skinny Hispanic man came out of the back room. His scrubs hung on him like a bathrobe. He was around Junior’s age, which was to say that he had probably been in diapers a few weeks ago. “Very funny, jefe.” He punched Junior in the arm. “Whatchu need, Doc?”
This wasn’t going as planned. “Nothing. Sorry to bother you guys.” She started to turn away, but Junior stopped her.
“You’re Dale’s new lady, right? He said you were a tall redhead.”
Sara bit her lip. What was Dale doing hanging around all these ten-year-olds?
Junior’s face broke out into a grin. “Dr. Linton, I presume.”
She would’ve lied but for her badge hanging off her jacket. And her name embroidered over the breast pocket. And the fact that she was the only doctor with red hair working in the hospital.
Larry offered, “I’d be pleased to help Dale’s new squeeze.”
“Hells yeah,” Junior chimed in.
Sara plastered a smile onto her face. “How do you two know Dale?”
“B-ball, baby.” Larry feigned a hoop shot. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“No emergency—” she said, before realizing he was just being funny. “I had a question about the shooting yesterday.”
“Which one?”
This time he wasn’t joking. Asking about a shooting in Atlanta was like asking about the drunk at a football game. “Sherwood Forest. The officer-involved shooting.”
Larry nodded. “Damn, that was freaky. Guy had a belly full of H.”
“Heroin?” Sara asked.
“Packed into balloons. The gunshot split ’em open like …” He asked Junior, “Shit, man, what’re them things with sugar in ’em?”
“Dip Stick?”
“No.”
“Is it chocolate?”
“No, man, like in the paper straw.”
Sara suggested, “Pixie Stix?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Dude went out on an epic high.”
Sara waited through some fist bumping between the two. “This was the Asian man?”
“No, the Puerto Rican. Ricardo.” He put an exotic spin on the r’s.
“I thought he was Mexican.”
“Yo, ’cause we all look alike?”
Sara didn’t know how to answer him.
Larry laughed. “That’s cool. I’m just playin’ ya. Sure, he’s Puerto Rican, like my moms.”
“Did they get a last name on him?”
“No. But, he got the Neta tattooed on his hand.” He pointed to the webbing between his thumb and index finger. “It’s a heart with an N in the middle.”
“Neta?” Sara had never heard the name before.
“Puerto Rican gang. Crazy dudes want to break off from the U.S. My moms was all up in that shit when we left. All ‘we gotta get out from the rule of the colonial oppressors.’ Then she gets here and she’s all, ‘I gotta get me one’a them big-screen plasma TVs like your aunt Frieda.’ Word.” Another fist bump with Junior.
“You’re sure that’s a gang symbol—the N inside a heart?”
“One of ’em. Everybody who joins up has to bring in more people.”
“Like Wiccans,” Junior provided.
“Exactly. Lots of ’em drop out or move on. Ricardo there can’t be big-time. He don’t got the fingers.” Larry held up his hand again, this time with his index finger crossed in front of his middle finger. “Usually looks like this, with the Puerto Rican flag around the wrist. They’re all about independence. At least that’s what they say.”
Sara remembered what Will had told her. “I thought Ricardo had the Los Texicanos tattoo on his chest?”
“Yeah, like I said, a lot of ’em drop out or move on. Brother must’ve moved on and up. Neta ain’t got pull here like Texicanos.” He hissed air through his teeth. “Scary stuff, man. Them Texicanos don’t screw around.”
“Does the ME’s office know all of this?”
“They sent the pictures to the gang unit. Neta’s the top organization in PR. They’ll be in the Bible.”
The Gang Bible was the book used by police officers to track gang signs and movements. “Was there anything on the Asian men? The other victims?”
“One was a student. Some kind of math whiz. Won all kinds of prizes or some shit.”
Sara remembered Hironobu Kwon’s photo from the news. “I thought he was at Georgia State?” State wasn’t a bad school, but a math prodigy would end up at Georgia Tech.
“That’s all I know. They’re doing the other guy right now. That apartment fire got us backed up big-time. Six bodies.” He shook his head. “Two dogs. Man, I hate when it’s dogs.”
Junior said, “I feel ya, bro.”
“Thank you,” Sara said. “Thank you both.”
Junior pounded the side of his fist against his chest. “Be good to my man Dale.”
Sara left before more fists were bumped. She dug her hand into her pocket, trying to find her cell phone as she walked down the hallway. Most of the staff carried so many electronic devices that they were all likely going to die of radiation poisoning. She had a BlackBerry she received lab reports and hospital communiqués on as well as an iPhone for personal use. Her hospital cell phone was a flip-style that had previously belonged to someone with very sticky hands. Two pagers were clipped to her coat pocket, one for the emergency department and one for the pediatrics ward. Her personal phone was slim and usually the last thing she found, which was the case this time.