Rescued By A Kiss (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 1) (4 page)

“Be quiet before someone inside hears you and comes out asking why I’m taking the station wagon. We’re going to the emergency room to find out who that guy is.” Finally, the engine turned over. This thing hated me. My mission involved someone named Isabella. I was getting a queasy feeling in my stomach over who this ‘Isabella’ might be. I didn’t want to mention this to Julia just yet.

Julia stood her ground. “I want to go on record saying that this is not, I repeat, N-O-T a good idea.”

“You want to go on record? That’s my line, and quit using it.” I said. “Now, get in the car.” I considered Julia to be my wingman. Dante said we were more like wing nuts. I thought cosmic forces must be causing Julia and I to experience role reversal. “I’m thinking my wing nut should be helping me, not trying to sabotage me, unless, you want him for yourself? Is that it?”

Julia was fidgeting, “No, no, besides, Dante said to wait here.”

“Dante said to wait here? When did you start listening to Dante? Or any man, for that matter. And when, oh when, did you start thinking I should listen to Dante?” I wanted her, no, I needed her, to come with me. This situation scared me and excited me all at the same time. “I’m the voice of reason, remember? Not Dante, and we know, not you. Besides, I need you to help me. Now get in.”

She got in on the passenger side. “How are we going to find out which emergency room? He could be in any one of six hospitals.”

“He has a gunshot wound. Dante says all gunshots go to Charity Hospital. Having a boyfriend that’s a cop comes in handy. Besides, if we get to Charity, and he isn’t there, we can listen to the police scanner at the ER entrance and pick up where they took him.”

Julia started getting out of the car again. “Are you crazy? Charity Hospital? Do you know how dangerous it is driving around there, not to mention, parking and getting out of the car? Forget going in there. It’s a war zone. If you don’t go in injured, you’ll get shot or mugged when you come back to your car, assuming it hasn’t been stolen.”

She had a point. The nursing staff in the emergency room wore T-shirts that read ‘Charity Hospital Where The Life You Save May Take Your Own’.

“Julia, get in the car. We’ll be fine. There will be a ton of police there. It’s Mardi Gras and a shooting just happened.”

She didn’t move.

“Fine. I’ll just go by myself.” That did it. She got in and started taking off her jewelry and putting it all in her purse. She wore more bling than the Royal Family wore to a Coronation.

“Why do you wear all that jewelry at the same time? Aren’t you afraid of it getting stolen?” I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she took off two large diamond rings, several gold bracelets, some with diamonds, her diamond earrings that were two carats each, and another smaller, half carat earring. She wore multiple earrings in each ear.

“It’s insured, and like these,” she said as she removed her ankle bracelet with as many diamonds as a tennis bracelet, a tennis bracelet, and a necklace with a diamond the size of my big toe, “they remind me of Barry.” She put each into its own separate blue-velvet pouch that closed with a drawstring. It all disappeared into her enormous shoulder bag.

“Barry? Isn’t that the one whose wife ransacked your condo?”

“Oh, you’re right. Now that I think about it, he was a spineless jellyfish that sent his wife to break up with me. He gave her the key or she found it, and she threw my makeup all over my bedroom. She left a message in lipstick on my mirror ‘Leave Barry alone!’ He sent me these after that episode. I think it was to say, ‘I’m sorry, I have no backbone’.” Julia was still removing jewelry.

“You know, it would take less time for cops to strip off all their weapons before going through a metal detector.” I said.

“Funny. You’re a riot. Remember who is helping who here.” While she attracted a lot of men and dated nonstop, she didn’t keep them long, but she always got great parting gifts. I often thought the men she dated were happy to get out alive, and a couple of baubles were worth it.

“Good,” I said, “if anyone tries to give us trouble, hit them with your purse now that you have all those rocks in it.”

With all her jewelry in the safety of her handbag that was the size of some people’s carry on luggage, she looked around the station wagon as if she just realized what vehicle we were in and asked, “Why does your mother still drive this thing? She like antiques or something? I bet they don’t even make anything this color anymore. Does she have a refrigerator that matches it?”

“I really don’t know. If I had the money, I would buy her another car and send this one to a junkyard,” I answered her while trying to negotiate the potholes in the streets that could take a car’s front end out.

“Well, if you want this monstrosity stolen or if you get us shot, Charity’s the place to go.” She was doing a full body pat down of herself to see if she removed all her jewelry.

“See, I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking,” I laughed as she gave me the evil eye.

Charity Hospital is the largest hospital with the best trauma and burn unit in the South. If you get shot, you want to go to Charity. They see more gunshots than a firing range. The number of people who shuffle through the place is staggering. It’s like Grand Central Station with legal access to morphine. Charity is a public facility that treats everything: Orleans-Parish prisoners with self-inflicted wounds, the indigent, gunshot wounds, burn victims, car crashes of the variety where the jaws of life are required, and just about every other trauma humans can create for themselves or other humans.

We walked through the emergency entrance and into a hall lined head to toe with stretchers on both sides of the corridor. There were women in various stages of childbirth, all screaming for someone to help or attend to them. An intern walked from woman to woman asking without a lick of interest, “Did you wait until you started delivery to see a doctor for the first time?” He marked their answers on a chart.

A few stretchers further along the hallway sat a man with an axe stuck in the middle of his head. He sat facing sideways, feet hanging off the gurney, and looked at people passing. The axe was buried in his skull between his eyes and it made him appear cross-eyed when he looked at Julia to check out her boobs. Even an axe in the head didn’t stop men from looking at boobs. The corridors were jammed with patients standing, sitting on the floor, or lying on stretchers moaning and writhing. A few grabbed at us for help. We had entered the Gates of Hell.

Two staff members in scrubs walked shoulder to shoulder down the hall making plans for when their shift ended, oblivious to the people suffering on stretchers lining their path. I was successful in maneuvering us down the hallway crammed with people on and off stretchers until we had to squeeze past these two. We stepped to the side allowing them to pass when a man leaning on the wall grabbed Julia asking, “Are you a doctor? Can you help me?”

“Dr. Julia is a sex therapist, but we will find you a real doctor,” I told him and he, reluctantly, let go of her arm.

“A sex therapist? Is that the best you could do? Really? Tell the next one who asks that I’m a brain surgeon.” I ignored her. Julia didn’t have sympathy for the sick or injured as they took attention away from Julia.

I leaned into her hair and whispered in her ear, “I’m hoping all the confusion in this place will be enough of a distraction so we can find out who this guy is, and maybe even talk to him.”

“Wow, you’re trying to meet a guy who might be comatose, and you don’t want me setting you up with anyone I know?” Julia asked amused.

We found an admission station, and I asked the very large woman with an RN badge if anyone had been admitted with a gunshot wound. Without looking up or stopping what she was doing, she asked, “Man, woman, or child? What time did they get shot?”

A child? I had heard all the horror stories from Dante. I tried with a little more info, “Well, it was at the end of the parade tonight, one of the guys in the marching club got shot.”

“Sorry, Sugar. Can’t give out any information unless you are his next of kin,” Nurse Camille Aucoin responded as if on auto pilot.

“My friend,” pointing over at Julia standing by herself looking around and checking out her surroundings as if lost, “is his sister. Someone called her and told her to come down here. She’s very distraught. I’m a family friend, and I’m just trying to help her find her brother.”

Still looking at the chart in her hand, RN Aucoin said to me, “Well, he would’a been put in that hall on a stretcher down on the right. He might be in surgery already. After surgery he’ll get moved to a room or stay in ICU if he isn’t stable.” She looked up from her clipboard and said, “He needs his next of kin, your friend, to stay here and fill out some information for him.”

“Of course, after she sees her brother I will get her right back here to fill out any forms you need. Thank you for your help, Miss, uh . . . Nurse Aucoin.” I looked around for Julia to head down the hall in the direction she indicated with her head nod. Just as she was about to shout at me to take the paperwork, the phone started ringing and she took the call. It distracted her long enough for me to get away.

A police officer stood writing on a clipboard a few feet away from Julia. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders flipped her hair back with one hand, and moved right up next to him. He was a young guy, late twenties, and as tall as Julia. He filled out a uniform that made you know he worked out, a lot. He and Julia had something in common, tight clothes. I could hear her asking in her flirty voice if he was the Captain who helped her friend, the one shot at the end of the parade. God, I hoped that nurse stayed on that call and didn’t look up. He told her he was the one who brought him to the hospital, but he was only a patrolman. Bingo.

“You know, if his name’s spelled wrong, the insurance company will hold up his money, and the poor fella already has been shot. Oh my gosh, can you imagine how his insurance claims will get all gummed up?” She removed the clipboard from him checking to make sure the victim’s name was spelled right. This guy was putty in Julia’s hands even if he did have a gun. I started moving away just as I heard the cop trying to impress Julia, by telling her he pulled the name and address right off his driver’s license. “Does it all look right to you, Miss Uh? How are you related to the victim?” he asked. She was on her own.

I moved down the hall looking for the third stretcher when someone grabbed me from behind and spun me around. I stood face-to-face with Dante and his partner Joe.

“What are you doing here? How did you get here?” The shocked look on Dante’s face must have been a mirror image of what my face felt like seeing him. He leaned into me like a drill sergeant on a new recruit. We stood nose-to-nose as he waited for an answer. Julia walked up behind them and stopped dead in her tracks.

“I walked in. It was kinda easy,” I said leaning backwards trying to recapture my personal space.

“Julia’s rubbing off on you, and that’s not a good thing. Let me ask you again. What in the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you stay home like I told you?”

I stammered, “I, I thought the police wanted to question us?”

“If the police wanted to question you, it would be at the station, not roaming around in Charity.” Dante usually didn’t have a temper, but he was hot. He hadn’t seen Julia yet, and if he started dragging me to another squad car I would have two cars to get home, one being my mother’s. I needed to get away from him.

Julia, overhearing the conversation, gave me the thumbs up signal—mission ccomplished. I said, “OK, I’ll go home. I was worried about you and wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt, too.”

He didn’t buy it. When I reached around him and pulled Julia from behind, his eyes grew wide, his fists clenched, and his entire body tensed. Julia and I made a fast walking retreat toward the exit. Dante followed us and watched as we got into the car to leave. I saw him in the rear view until we rounded the corner.

“I’ve never seen him so ticked off at you,” Julia said.

“Me either.”

“I saw Dante and his partner when they spotted you. They didn’t notice me, but his partner, Joe, isn’t that his name? He saw you first and nudged Dante to point you out.”

“Really? He had to know that would set Dante off.”

“I think Joe intended to set Dante off, and I wonder why. C’mon, let’s go get killed on the way to the car.”

W
hen we were
clear of the hospital and Dante, I demanded, “OK, out with what you know. What did you find out?” I kept my eyes on the street, watching all around us as we made our way out of Charity’s DMZ.

“He is one of the Heinkels. Big oil family, and they own most of the oil leases in Placquemines and St. Bernard Parishes. Think, ‘The Shah of South Louisiana.’ They have beaucoup money, and I think they’re German. They’re all attorneys: Jiff, Jason, Jake, Jimmy, and Jeffrey Heinkel. All their names start with a J; I think there’s a Jared, too. The dad lives on Audubon Place Uptown, you know the street. It’s the one across from Audubon Park with all the big mansions, big wrought iron gates, and security guards. That’s guards, with an ‘s’, as in plural. You hit the jackpot, girlfriend. Daddy Heinkel is a big hot shot attorney and all his sons work at the firm. They have been in the newspapers over oil lease disputes with some crackpot hustler down in The Parish.”