Chapter 20

Garcia reached the top of the stairs with three bottles in hand. He casually wandered over to the communications counter where Bob had his feet up and April May was sitting in a half broken roller chair. Bob looked easy enough as he had his hands behind his head and was looking out the windows at the surf. April was not in as good a shape. She looked dumpy and depressed so Garcia handed her a beer while he just sat Bob’s down on the counter.

Garcia apologized to April for the beer, “hope you ain’t Canadian cause all we got is Longnecker Horns.”

That got a little bit of a smile out of the girl as she replied, “that’s ok. I even like Alamo State sometimes.”

Bob looked a little annoyed at actually having to reach for his own beer but, he was also used to that kind of thing when dealing with Garcia. He was not as irritated as Shannon though. She was sitting down at the far end of Ops. It was the first time, today, that Garcia had seen her without a phone in her hand and furiously slapping at it with her thumbs. Despite this, Garcia noted, her phone was sitting on the counter next to her and she kept glancing at it every few seconds. She looked ticked every time she saw the screen.

She looked even more irate with Garcia, “you didn’t bring me one?”

“Your’s in on order,” Garcia told her, “In about four or five more years.”

“We got no water Alvarez,” Shannon replied with a sneer, “what am I supposed to drink?”

“Hey Darlin,” Garcia replied apologetically but stern, “we got a whole cabinet down there full of soda.”

Shannon rolled her eyes, “oh yeah, that generic WMD crap that Cal buys. It’s not even cold cause somebody keeps taking my stuff out of the fridge and putting in…” She took a strategic pause and then said, “BEER!”

Bob quickly changed the subject, “still think we should call Barbara and tell her the water’s off.”

Garcia quickly shot that idea down, again, “and tell her what dude? She’s out in the field. She don’t need to be dealing with that shit right now. Told you man, I’m on top of it.” Garcia then took a big pull from his beer.

Bob nodded and sarcastically replied, “yeah you look it.”

“Oh that’s funny man,” Garcia replied noting the sarcasm. “I already called Chuck. He’s on his way out to the pump house, as we speak.”

“I feel so confident now,” Bob replied. He had not turned the sarcasm off yet, “I’m sure the chopper’s will be working at full pressure the next time we try to go up in one.”

The ominous sound of footfalls, on the stairs, got everyone’s attention. Shannon became unusually guarded but, she hid it well enough. She found herself doing it every time she heard someone coming up those stairs, these days. Bob paid only a little attention to it but, Garcia did look until he saw who it was. They all pretended not to ease up when Calvin obliviously entered the room. His attention was focused fully on the papers in his hand.

Even with his eyes never leaving the papers, Calvin still managed to navigate the junk in the room with ease. He stopped where everyone was sitting and asked them, “you guys don’t know where Kent is, do you?”

Garcia replied, “what you asking us for man. You the one that told me, remember?”

Only half paying attention, Cal replied, “yeah I did, didn’t I. He was supposed to be checking out that drug supply but…”

April suddenly became very concerned, “drug supply?”

Bob almost laughed as he told her, “he’s one of our medics. We have to go up to Valley and do this immunization junk every year. He’s talking about vaccines.”

“Yeah well,” Cal told them in response, “I talked to Posey Medical a few minutes ago and he already did that.”

Garcia just shrugged and after another swig of beer he replied, “so what? Did his Majesty just decide to take the day or something?”

Cal bit his bottom lip and thought about it for a minute. Then with a click of his teeth he turned and began to leave, “I don’t know. I’d sure like to find out though.”

As Cal’s steps signaled he was at the bottom of the stairs, Bob looked to his partner and asked, “what’s up with him?”
“It’s that time of the month dude,” Garcia replied.

April broke out in a giggle. Bob joined her for a second and then explained, “he has to do all the station reports and stuff. Usually he has some help but…”

Garcia finished the sentence, “yeah, Barbara decided she wanted to play field officer today. Left us real cops back here to tend the chicken coup.”

Shannon’s nose wrinkled at the sound of that, “oh is that what you’re doing?” She then went on the attack, “Garcia, what was your job before my Mom hired you?”

“Hey,” Garcia told her waiving it off, “we don’t need to get into them kind of details. Just cause I worked for corrections don’t mean…”

“No,” Shannon crossed her arms and became superiorly smug, “I mean before that.”

Bob put his hands back behind his head and leaned back in his chair again. He had a little smile as he asked, “yeah Gar, I don’t think you ever even told me what you were doing before you got on with the CG.”

Even April was curious, “yeah. Tell us Agent Alvarez.”

After another swig of beer, Garcia replied, “it ain’t nothing but a small thing guys. What’s it matter, huh?”

Shannon spilled the beans, “he was working for Trader Nick’s and…”

“Hey,” Garcia growled at Shannon, “do you mind?”

Bob was seriously thinking that over and then it came to him, “you were hauling garbage? I mean they do a lot of stuff but that’s their biggest contract.”

April seemed genuine and she was probably the only one in the room who was, “you were a garbage man? Did you work on those little trucks with the…”

“Hell no,” Garcia snapped. “I ran the cranes on one of their scows. All right, you happy now?”

Shannon wasn’t, “and mister real police was a part time security guard on the side.”

Garcia shot flames out of his eyes at the little girl, “was not! I was a theft prevention officer for WMD. It’s not the same thing.”

Bob let a laugh half escape his lips and then he said, “yeah man. The difference being they don’t even give you a uniform for that.”

“What you laughing at Bob,” Garcia replied, “at least I don’t buy my whole wardrobe there and how long were you out of the academy when Barbara hired you?”

“Hey,” Bob replied, “at least I was a cop.”

“What was it,” Garcia thought for a second and then said, “two months, right?”

“It was three,” Bob protested.

Garcia laughed, “yeah that sounds like Shannon telling everybody she’s going to be fifteen on her next birthday.”

Shannon had suddenly ignored everyone as she was busy on her phone once again. She did hear the last sentence though and she added, “and old enough to drink beer.”

“Well you ain’t there yet little lady,” Garcia told her as she walked past them towards the stairs. When she began to descend Garcia called out to her, “where you going?”

“Since you don’t know how to buy a woman a drink,” Shannon replied.

Garcia yelled back out, “well when one shows up, let me know.”

April had tried to remain silent during most of this. She was not exactly sure how serious any of these people were. They acted like they wanted to kill each other but, then they would turn around and go right back to being more normal. Bob proved that when he eased off and said, “she’s getting more and more like her mother every day.”

Garcia snorted out a laugh, “she ain’t that good at it yet.”

April was a bit more concerned, “is she all right? She seems… you know?”

Bob took the first sip of his beer and went back to looking at the ocean, “the kids had a pretty rough time here, lately. We try and cut her some slack.”

April became kind of nervous. It looked to her like that little episode they just had was anything but slack, “I take it to mean that you aren’t talking about the normal kinds of things we girls go through at that age?”

Garcia pointed with his beer hand to the back hallway, “that used to be our offices down there, years ago. We use it for storage and junk now.”

Bob snorted a laugh, “more like storage of junk, you mean.”

April just shrugged so Garcia continued, “go about halfway down the hall and look in front of the door that we got wedged halfway shut.”

In monotone Bob injected, “it’s as close to shut as we can get it.”

Garcia went on, “ Yeah and we ain’t cleaned that part of the floor yet nether.”

April nervously asked, “what’ll I find?”

Bob dryly replied, “a huge blood stain.”