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lighted doorway halfway down the hall and headed toward it.
    Ray Tsu was leaning over the dead Crip when I entered. He had just finished rolling a ten card, imprinting all of the man's fingerprints. He looked up as I entered.
    "You aren't supposed to be here."
    "How the hell can I not be here?"
    Ray was a good guy, even though it was always slightly annoying that he rarely spoke above a whisper.
    "You1 re gonna get your ass cooked unless you get out now," he warned.
    "1 need to know who this guy is."
    "Not from me tonight. Get it from Figueroa and Sepulveda tomorrow."
    "Ray, I won't burn you. Please, help me."
    He shook his head.
    "She's my wife. She's the only person who ever gave "
    I stopped, because there were suddenly tears in my eyes.
    "Shane, look at you," he said softly. "You're a mess. How're you gonna do anybody any good like this? Go home. Let Tommy and Rafie handle this."
    "We could put that print card through AFIS instead of NCIC," I said. AFIS was the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, which we'd just installed downstairs. It had a much bigger and faster database than the National Crime Identification Computer. "If this gangster's prints are in the system, AFIS will spit an ID back on a ten-finger roll in less than two minutes."
    "Come on, Shane. Really. Let those guys handle it."
    "I've seen this vie before," I lied. "His name's right on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite get it. If AFIS gives us an ID, I know I can remember what his connection to Alexa is. That's gonna be a huge help here."
    I watched as Ray processed this nonsense and rejected it with a frown. "Wait for Tommy and Rafie," he said. "It's their call."
    So I just reached over and snatched the drying card out of his delicate fingers.
    "This could end your career, Shane!" he said, as I walked out of the room with it.
    I didn't wait for him to follow. I was already sprinting toward a bank of freight-size elevators, each one large enough to carry three gurneys. I took the first one down to the basement where the electronic identification unit was housed. I exited just as the phone started ringing at reception. Had to be Ray. There was no one at this desk either. My luck was holding. For the first time since th e c utbacks happened, I applauded the city's budget crisis. I jumped over the vacant counter and picked up the receiver hitting the Hold button. Then I put all of the remaining five lines on hold as well. When I left, the desk telephone was blinking like a Vegas slot.
    I found the AFIS machine in a small room at the end of a long corridor. A young bored-looking blond girl was running a stack of print cards.
    "Hi. I need this run immediately," I said, offering her the ten card.
    "ID number?"
    I pulled out my CREDS and showed her. After she wrote down the number, she took the print card from me and scanned it into the machine.
    "If it's in the system, this should only take a few minutes," she said.
    I tried to make small talk, but frankly, I couldn't think of anything to say. I was an emotional wreck. Suddenly, her eyes went down to the flashing phone on the table across from us.
    "I wonder why the lines are all on hold," she said. "There's almost nobody down here."
    "There was a phone guy out front. Maybe he's working on the system." Total B . S ., but it must have worked because she nodded her head and smiled.
    Then I heard Ray coming down the hall. "Shane! Dammit, Shane! You down here?!" It was the first time I could remember hearing him shout.
    "He's with me, Mr. Tsu," the girl called out.
    Seconds later Ray Tsu planted his skinny body in the doorway, acting as if he could actually use his pipe-cleaner build to physically restrain me from leaving with his print card.
    "Shane, come on," he said. "Don't make this any worse."
    Then the AFIS machine started buzzing and a printout shot into the catch tray. We had a match. Ray made a move toward the tray, but I beat him to it and grabbed the printout along with the ten card and folded