[Georgia 03] Fallen

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.