January Surprise: Chapter 6
When the show was over—and it had indeed been a show to remember—Hank Stanley turned off the projector's light, leaving the fan running to cool things down. He wished he had a fan he could use to cool his men down, after the surprise someone had inserted into the normally dry LACoFD Public Relations slide show.
He picked through the slides, lifting the first few out of the carousel until he found the two he needed to remove.
"These," he announced, holding the items up, "are now confiscated. And whoever took the original slides out needs to have them back in the carousel by lights out. Are we clear?"
Everyone nodded.
"Okay, everyone; let's get to the chores. It's been an eventful morning, but I'm confident that we can all rise to the task of making this shift happen smoothly," Cap said.
"Smooth as a freshly shaved chest," Johnny said, earning a punch in the arm from Chet.
The squad was toned out midway through the morning chores, to a situation where they were completely unnecessary. On their return trip, Roy thought of the sprained wrist call that had made him get home late at the end of his last shift, which then reminded him of the moment where he first saw Mr. January. He must have chuckled slightly, because Johnny's attention was on him instantly.
"That was pretty awesome this morning," Johnny said. "And for some reason, I have this sneaking feeling that you, Mr. Innocent, might actually be more than a tad guilty this time."
"Hey, I got you off the hook," Roy said. "And that's all I have to say about the matter."
"Oh, c'mon, Roy! You didn't even take a second look at those pictures—so I know you had to have seen 'em already. So fess up!"
Johnny had a point, Roy realized. But he'd been sworn to secrecy by Mike, so he'd just have to let Johnny figure it out on his own.
"Sorry, pal. No can do," he said.
"Aha!" Johnny shouted, so loudly that Roy swerved the squad slightly. "So you admit it—you know who's behind this! Which means it's either Marco, or Mike. And I can't really see either one of them pulling this off. I mean, who even found those pictures? I mean, I guess it's from one of those firemen calendars, but where would a guy even see something like that? They're kind of for the ladies."
Roy stayed silent, and kept the squad moving in a straight line.
"And I tell ya, Roy, that gives me new respect for the ladies. You always think they're all, I don't know, prim and proper, and … well, I mean, can you even imagine Joanne having one of those calendars?"
The squad swerved again, just a tiny, tiny bit.
"Anyhow," Johnny continued, ignoring Roy's silence. "It's gotta be either Marco or Mike. I'll have it figured out by the end of the shift anyhow, you know. So you'll save me a lot of trouble if you just tell Uncle Johnny who done it."
"Fat chance," Roy said. "Say, maybe you could team up with Chet to figure it out? He could probably use a pal around now."
Truth be told, Roy was feeling ever so slightly guilty about the whole thing. Chet certainly had done his fair share of pranks to others, but there was something about this one that was just a little more … personal.
But Johnny laughed. "No way, man! Pretty much no matter who's behind this thing, I'd say ol' Chester had it coming to him. Partly for all the pranks he's pulled on everyone around here—and wasn't it amazing the other day how he actually got Stoker riled up?—and partly because he posed for that picture in the first place!"
Once again, Roy realized, Johnny did have a point. Nearly everyone at the station had been affected by their resident prankster, and while it was all in good fun, Chet had been asking for some serious payback for years. Furthermore, Roy thought, everyone did things in their youth that could someday come back to haunt them, and Chet was just one of the unlucky ones. He allowed himself another grin, this time recalling Marco's stunned but then gleeful reaction to the Big Reveal, as Roy was now mentally referring to the moment that the projector screen rose.
He'd have to ask Mike how he got the pictures put onto projector slides—that was a really, really nice touch.
After a few minutes of contemplation, Roy realized that Johnny had gone quiet.
"Now what?" Roy asked, as if Johnny's silence was somehow more annoying than the ranting he'd just completed.
"Roy, I just realized something! I mean … holy crap, Roy!"
"If you could maybe be a little less specific, I might never figure out what you're talking about."
"I think," Johnny said dramatically, "that it was Stoker! Of all people! Because in all the drama of the morning, I'd completely and totally forgotten about how bad Chet got him last shift! It was brilliant, really—to just hit 'im with the good ol' water bombs—because you just don't do that to the quiet guy, ya know?"
"Hmm," Roy said, sure that Johnny would make up for his silence.
"That's it! That's gotta be it! And come to think of it, he didn't take a closer look at those pictures either. So it musta been him! And, he musta been hanging on to that picture for a long, long time, just waiting for the exact right moment to let 'er rip. Don'tcha think?"
"I guess," Roy said. "But …"
"But what?"
Roy realized, suddenly, that he didn't actually remember whether the picture that had been planted on the projector screen had a year on it. If he completed his sentence, with the intention of proving that Stoker couldn't have been holding on to the item, waiting silently for the perfect moment of revenge, he could be revealing himself as an actor in the play if the Big Reveal picture hadn't had the year on it. And there was no way to check, now that the page was in Chet's possession.
"Never mind," Roy said, knowing as he uttered those two words that they were futile, because John Gage didn't just let things go.
"Now Roy," Johnny said. "You oughta know me well enough by now to know that—"
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
The mobile radio heralded an incoming call. Roy swore to himself that he'd be grateful for the diversion even if it turned out to be an unknown problem—his least favorite.
"Squad 51, unknown medical problem, at the pizza parlor, 2893 North Shore Drive; 2-8-9-3 North Shore Drive, cross street Lincoln. Time out: 0917."
It just figured.
They arrived on scene, to find a man doubled up in pain. He had the sweaty upper lip and labored breathing of someone in severe discomfort, but not the grayish pallor of shock.
"Sir, can you tell us what happened?" Roy said, as Johnny started setting up equipment.
The man couldn't speak, but his wife was more than happy to help out.
"He chugged a 64-ounce soda, is what happened," she said, "and now he thinks he's having a heart attack. What I say, is that he needs to quit his whining and just—"
The man interrupted his wife with an enormous belch—the kind every ten-year-old boy around the world aspired to. If the man had been trying to get through the alphabet, even at a reasonable speed he would've gotten through "LMNOP."
"—belch," the woman finished. She was clearly not one to let someone else get the last word in.
The man clutched at his midsection, and heaved out another tremendous burp, with which he could have completed the alphabet, were he so inclined.
"Excuse me," he finished.
Johnny and Roy watched as the man straightened up and took a few deep breaths.
"I think I'm okay, actually," the fellow said. "Sorry to call you out here for nothing."
"Well, if you thought you were having a heart attack, calling us was the right thing to do," Roy said.
"You sure you don't want us to check you out?" Johnny asked.
"Yeah." The man stifled another burp, unsuccessfully.
"I swear, Tony," the woman said.
Johnny and Roy went through the instructions they always gave patients who decided they didn't need treatment. Sometimes, they really wished people who were declining help would consent to treatment and transport, but this time they felt confident that when they left the scene, nothing terrible would happen.
They returned to the station, and Roy backed the squad into the apparatus bay. Johnny got out of the passenger's side of the squad just in time to see Mike coming out of the cab of the engine—the back, not the front.
"Caught in the act," Johnny said, rubbing his hands together in glee.
"Shh!" Mike said, in a hissing whisper. "Just … forget you ever saw me."
"I knew it was you!" Johnny said, in a jubilant stage whisper. "I knew it!"
"Okay, okay! It was me! Now shut up, or you'll ruin the next part," Stoker said, hiding the roll of tape behind his back.
"That was priceless, Stoker! Absolutely, completely priceless!" Johnny exclaimed, still whispering.
"Well, you should've seen the look on your face," Mike said. "That was pretty priceless, too."
"How about Chet?" Johnny asked. "I was too busy having my own hysterics to even see what he was doing."
Mike pointed at the floor of the bay. "First, he turned that color." He pointed to the engine. "And then, that color. Also pretty priceless. But seriously, we gotta shut up."
"Okay, okay, shutting up!" Johnny said. "What's next, though?"
"You'll see," Mike said.
"Oh, c'mon," Johnny said.
"Actually," Mike said, frowning, "you won't, I guess, since you don't ride the engine. And neither will I, since there's no rear-view mirror."
"You'll hear, though," Johnny said, grinning. He stuck his head into the cab, and cackled quietly. "Oh yeah, you'll definitely hear."
TBC