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I went upstairs It wouldn’t hurt to look at that stuff again When I reached the front entrance, I slipped offI could push the door open with no proble shut behind me as I went out I crossed tothe carton out the backseat I reh them quickly These were technical manuals for specific equipes and dials and switches, with a lot of esoteric talk about exposures, rads, and roentgens At the top of one page was a penciled nuain The sight of the now fait code see machine five days after he died

I tucked the twothe box on the front seat Slowly, I returned to the building I letas I was on the first floor, I did a superficial survey I kept thinking it was un tucked down in a bankers box packed with old charts This had been a working hospital at one time and there had to be a records department somewhere Where else would old charts be kept? If my memory of St Terry’s served me, the Medical Records Department was fairly centrally located so that doctors and other authorized personnel would have easy access

Not many offices on this floor appeared to be occupied I tried door handles randomly Most were locked I rounded the corner at the end of the hall and there it was, "Medical Records" painted above a set of double doors in a faded scrawl I could see now that many of the old depart on a painted scroll, as though by declaration of the conquistadors

I tried the knob, expecting to have to experi open with a low-pitched creak thatdaylight filtered in The roo No file cabinets, no furniture, no fixtures A cruarette pack, some loose boards, and a couple of bent nails were scattered across the floor This department had literally been dismantled at some point and God only knehere the old records were now It was possible they were somewhere in one of the abandoned hospital rooo up there by myself I’d pro to be a good scout on that score Besides, so atWhat was that little voice in the back ofin the next room I could pick up only a faint phrase now and then

When I reached the basey office and tried the knob Locked I got out my key picks and played around for a while This was one of those "burglar-proof locks that can be picked, but it really is a pain in the ass Still, I wanted to see as in there and I worked patiently I was using a set of rocker picks, with rando the top, the back side of each pick ground to an oval The whole idea is that with enough different cut cothe way all the pins will, by chance, be raised to the shear line at the sa, the only way to approach the whole process is to give oneself up to it I stood there forit, applying slight pressure when I felt ave way and I let out a little exclareat" It’s this sort of shit thatto tell?

I eased into the office I flipped the overhead light on It looked like ordinary office space Typewriters and telephones and file cabinets, plants on the desks, pictures on the walls There was a s to be called for their X rays I wandered through so the procedures for chest X rays and rams, upper GI series I stood in front of the ht in froainst the various dials and gauges on the X-ray equipment itself It was ato year, make, or model of the actual machinery installed Some of it looked like the stuff of science fiction Massive nose cone on a swinging ares pressed to my chest while I stared at the table and the lead apron that looked like a baby bib for a giant I thought about the X rays I’d had taken of o, just after I’d been shot