an important decision.'
'Right. Only sometimes I wonder if we're debriding the memory or just the ability to access it,'
'What's the difference?'
'No practical difference. That's why I told you there wouldn't be any magic here. We're like a couple of Neanderthals looking at the insides of a supercomputer. We can't directly repair any of the trillions of synapses or rewire any of the live neurons to bypass the ones we had to remove. Even if we magically saw the connections, we're still screwed because all the synapses and neuron patterns are different for everyone, the product of genes, environment, education, experience. There are an infinite number of possible connections among a trillion cells. Only an infinite intellect could possibly know all the infinite permutations and combinations.'
'God?'
'I believe so.'
'Caveman.'
'Uh-huh.'
We worked steadily to the end of the bullet track
'I need a pair of bayonet forceps, please.'
Helen handed me the tool, and moments later I pulled the slug from Lashonna's brain. 'We need to rinse and secure it for the police,' I said. Helen held out a stainless steel kidney pan and I dropped it in and gave it a quick squirt from the saline bottle.
'We'll need a clear evidence trail, Helen. Let's make sure it doesn't leave your sight or mine until the police take possession.'
We finished the debridement moments later.
'Okay, let's clean this up and cover the wounds with sterile dressings.'
'You're going to leave the wounds open?' Tyrone asked.
'The brain is going to swell,' I said. 'If the tissue can expand out of the openings, there's less chance of intracranial pressure buildup.' Tyrone nodded slowly. I looked at Helen.
'If we can't get a chopper, I think she should start to Jackson in an ambulance. One that can maintain a program of controlled hyperventilation to reduce the PaCO 2 to twentyfive to thirty torr. This should give us enough cerebral vasoconstriction to help reduce intracranial pressure. I'd also like you to start mannitol at half a gram per kilo and dexamethasone at point three. Make sure the ambulance crew has diazepam in case she has convulsions. Make up a couple of hypodermics for them ahead of time at point two grams per kilo.'
'Right.'
'Also, if you have fresh frozen plasma, send it along. It could help with thromboplastin releases.'
'I'll check.'
'Go ahead and do it now,' I said. 'We'll finish up while you handle the ambulance and the medications.'
She headed for the door
'The bullet?' I asked after her. She stopped. 'Why not take it down to the police when you go?'
She nodded, then retrieved the crumbled mass of lead from the pan, dried it out on her scrubs, then tucked it in her pocket.
As she pushed through the stainless-steel OR doors, I looked back down at Lashonna's brain and knew then that the shooting had not merely been another routine drive-by but had been designed to look like it.
CHAPTER 41
I felt old and in desperate need of sleep by the time Tyrone and I finished with Lashonna. What little sleep I had snatched between connecting flights on the red-eye from Los Angeles hadn't done much to erase the deficit I had been running since the sinking of the Jambalaya. The wound to my ear was minor, but still it throbbed with every heartbeat, my lower back ached from standing over the operating table, and my feet slogged as if mired in the red, slickery goo of wet Yazoo clay.
Wordlessly, Tyrone and I ditched our gloves, masks, and splatter guards and followed Lashonna's gurney toward the ambulance dock. Outside, heat and humidity smothered us in a steaming blanket. Warm afternoon light painted the street with deep, oblique shadows. We crossed the concrete platform and made for the open doors of an ambulance, where Helen huddled with two EMTs.
Cigarette smoke carried the essence of burning horse manure from the backlit silhouettes of two uniformed police officers and a man in plainclothes to my right. Fear squirmed in my gut. Drive-by shooting investigators or LAPD? My hands turned cold and my heart warmed up for a race.
Jasmine stood upwind from the police, avoiding their smoke. Seeing her cleared my head, shook the mud off my feet, and leavened my fear. She waved at me, then detached herself from the smoking men. A deep voice boomed behind me, 'Nice work, Doctor!'
I turned as Clifford Scarborough ambled through the ER's double doors. He examined Lashonna on the gurney and inspected the dressings on her head.
'No doubt your fine work gives her the best possible chance,' he said.
'Thank the whole team,' I said, looking at Tyrone, Helen, and the nameless nurse who had assisted. I looked at Lashonna. As you can see, there's a lot more for the folks in Jackson to do.'
'Will she make it?' Jasmine's voice reached over my shoulder.
I turned toward her and squinted as the sun dazzled my eyes and bathed her face in shadows. Beyond her, the policemen took deep, terminal drags off their smokes, then tossed them on the platform. They ground the butts under their shoes and walked toward us. I wrestled with an irrational impulse to run and instead watched Jasmine go to Lashonna and place the tips of her middle fingers on the wounded young woman's forearm. With her head bent reverently, her face reflected a deep inner tincture of sorrow, fear and concern. Jasmine looked like a Madonna urging a miracle to flow from her touch. Then she straightened up and looked at me.
'Is she going to make it?'
Fatigue lined Jasmine's face. Lashonna's blood had dried brown and puckered on her white silk blouse and trailed onto her dark skirt. Lashonna had also been dressed in a white blouse and dark skirt. The cops drew within earshot but without crowding our space.
'Well? Will she make it?'
'She could.'
'Could?'
'I think she stands a good chance but-'
Jasmine's composure imploded. Her arms locked around me as she buried her face in the warm shelter of my right shoulder and sobbed quietly. I returned her embrace, patting her gently on the back.
The moment froze, statues caught in the uneasy creeping shadows of a hot Delta afternoon. Wet, heavy air pressed on us like a hand. After a respectful moment, Tyrone caught my eye. He pointed toward Lashonna. I nodded. When the gurney wheels rattled, Jasmine straightened up and stepped back half a step. She wiped at her face.
'Hold on a moment,' I said to Jasmine. She raised her head and squared her shoulders.
As the EMTs secured the gurney and Lashonna's IV rack in the ambulance, I huddled with Tyrone, Helen, and Scarborough about the medications and the preparations in Jackson. When we finished, I eavesdropped as Tyrone and Helen briefed the ambulance crew. Jasmine took a last peek as the ambulance doors closed, then stood silently as the lights and sirens launched the big boxy truck off into the glare of the setting sun, where it turned left on Highway 82 and wailed its way toward Jackson. From the corner of my eye, I caught the mast heads of another thundercloud armada sailing our way.
With the ambulance gone, tension vanished like spit on a hot sidewalk. Scarborough shook my hand and left. Helen gave me her business card. The other nurse said she appreciated the recognition. Most of my fear evaporated as two of the cops made their way toward a Greenwood PD squad car.
'That was one helluva ride, man,' Tyrone told me with wonder still in his eyes. 'You may have just derailed my specialty.'
'Think long and hard before you do that,' I said.
