"Come on! With that red hair of yours, there's got to be some Irish in you somewhere, partner!" Johnny teased as he and Roy each carried two bags of garbage to the dumpster out behind the station. Roy opened the lid of the dumpster and held it open while Johnny threw in the bags.
"And I'm telling you there isn't--unless great-grandma DeSoto had an affair with an Irishman and had an illegitimate child--I'm not Irish!" Roy responded, as he let the lid slam down with a loud bang. Johnny cringed at the noise and then continued, as they walked to the back door,
"Okay, okay! I guess I'll have to take your word for it. You're still going to be in the running to cook for the St. Patrick's Day shift, though. Nobody else is going to believe your denial, either!" Roy shook his head as he resigned himself to the fact that Johnny was probably right. The shift had agreed that whoever had the most Irish heritage in their family was going to cook for the crew on St. Patrick's Day, which was only 2 days away. Of course, whomever was elected was expected to provide some sort of Irish meal, and everyone had agreed that part of the meal had to be something GREEN. Roy shuddered as he thought about the usual GREEN foods that were served on the holiday-GREEN beer, GREEN gravy, and all sorts of other things died unnaturally GREEN. As they entered the kitchen again, Johnny said smugly,
"One thing's for sure, no one's going to accuse me of having any Irish blood, so it looks like I'm off the hook for cooking that day, anyway."
"Thank God for small miracles!" Chet said from over on the couch, where he was sitting with Henry on his lap. Marco spoke up from over at the stove, where he was stirring something in a large pot,
"Gage, I don't think anybody's going to argue with either of us about our heritage, but just because you're not Irish doesn't mean you can't make a good Irish Stew! That's what we're having for lunch today, you know!"
"No arguments there, Marco. You make the best Irish Stew I've ever tasted, and you're definitely not of Irish descent!" Hank interjected from over at the table, where he was looking at the newspaper. Still irritated at Chet's earlier remark, Johnny wandered over toward the couch and said,
"What about you, Chet? With a name like Kelly, there's got to be some Irish in you!" Confidently, Chet volunteered,
"I'm not going to deny it, Gage. I'm half Irish on my Dad's side. I don't know what you guys are arguing about-I'll gladly cook for the St. Paddy's Day shift!" Johnny thought for a minute and asked,
"Hey, if he's volunteering, are we sure we want to risk it?" Roy rolled his eyes and warned Chet,
"And if you're thinking about making Irish Stew, this time you'd better be more careful about your ingredients. Remember how your chili for the charity chili cookoff gave us all food poisoning!"
"Hey, that's right!" Hank remembered, looking up from the paper. "And no weird GREEN stuff, Kelly! Just some good, basic Irish cuisine!"
"You guys are never going to let me forget that chili thing, are you? It wasn't even my fault! Anyway, I promise I'll come up with something not too weird for you for you non-Irish wusses!" Johnny was helping set the table for lunch and commented, as he set the bowls around,
"Well, it's a good thing we're having Marco's Irish Stew today, Chet, so you've got a good example to follow for Friday!"
"Ha Ha! I'll just consult with my Dad and get his recommendations on what to make. My Dad's a good cook, you know!" Chet retorted. From over by the refrigerator, Roy was beginning to wish he had never heard the word "Irish", even though he was relieved that he wasn't stuck cooking for the holiday.
"Well, let's hope that your Dad sticks to the basics and doesn't go off in left field like your grandmother-I still can't believe she used rattlesnake meat in her chili!" Roy grumbled. Marco set the pot of stew on the table and said,
"Okay, guys! Quit your bickering-stew's on! Let's eat before we get a run!"
"Gladly," Roy said as he joined the others at the table.
After lunch, the klaxon tones sounded as Johnny and Roy were washing the dishes.
"Squad 51. Woman down. Intersection of Mackenzie and Riverton. Mackenzie and Riverton. Ambulance is responding. Time out 1303." Roy hurriedly dried his hands on a towel and hurriedly followed Johnny out to the squad.
"Squad 51. KMG 365," Hank acknowledged, then handed the address slip to Roy, who in turn handed it off to Johnny for entry in the log book. As they pulled out of the vehicle bay, both of them noticed a foul odor in the cab.
"What is that smell?" Johnny asked, with a disgusted expression on his face.
"I don't know. Almost smells like something dead, doesn't it?" Roy commented as he opened his window. It was strong enough that Johnny rolled down his window the rest of the way to facilitate fresh air movement in the cab.
"Oh man! Whatever is it, we'd better find it as soon as we get back so the next shift doesn't blame us for it! It wasn't there this morning when we went out, was it?" Johnny asked.
"I don't think so. Can you tell where it's coming from?" Roy asked. Johnny began sniffing around for the source of the odor and thought he detected it was emanating from under the dash, as the smell was stronger as he bent down near the floor.
"Think it's coming from under the dash, Roy. We'll have to crawl under there later and take a look. Oh man! Whatever it is, it's disgusting!" he commented as he sat up again and leaned over toward his window for some fresh air.
It was only a couple of minutes until they reached 48th, where Roy turned left. They began watching the intersections for any sign of a police vehicle, because there would most likely be one there already, and two intersections ahead they saw a squad car with its emergency lights still flashing parked off on the side street to the right of the intersection. Ahead of the squad car was a a GREEN compact car parked along the curb.
"This must be it!" Roy said, as he turned the corner and pulled the squad over to the curb ahead of the 2nd car. As Roy parked the squad, Vince walked over to them to fill them in on what was going on.
"Hey, Vince-what've we got?" Johnny asked as he came around the back of the squad carrying the biophone.
"There's a young lady in that car ahead of mine who's not feeling well. Said she got really dizzy and pulled her car over to park it because she was afraid she'd have an accident if she kept driving," Vince told them.
"Let's go take a look before we bring any more equipment, huh?" Roy asked Johnny. Johnny nodded in agreement, and they followed Vince over to the car. As they got closer, they saw their patient was a young woman with short, strawberry blonde hair who was sitting in the driver's seat, looking pale and generally miserable. Johnny knelt down next to her and asked, as he checked her pulse in her wrist,
"Hi there! What's your name?"
"Ashley. Ashley Steiner," she replied.
"My name is John Gage and my partner over there is Roy DeSoto. We're paramedics with the LA County Fire Department. What seems to be the problem, Ashley? I understand you're not feeling well."
"I was on my way home when I just got really dizzy and my heart started pounding."
"Pulse is 120 and bounding," Johnny told Roy, who had opened up the biophone and set it on the hood of the car. He reached in his belt pack for his penlight and told her,
"Okay, I need you to look at me so I can check your eyes here. Can you do that for me?" As he was checking her pupils, she felt another wave of dizziness sweep over her, and she reached out for something to grab onto. Johnny quickly took hold of her arm to steady her and asked,
"Just take it easy. Looks like you're feeling really dizzy, huh?" She nodded in response.
"Pupils are equal and reactive, Roy," Johnny told him. "Has this ever happened to you before?" Johnny asked as he placed his hand on her abdomen to check her respiration rate. She replied, breathing heavily,
"No, never."
"Do you take any medication?" Roy asked. Ashley shook her head and responded,
"No."
"Okay. I'm going to go get the BP cuff and drug box. Better watch her just in case she gets dizzy again." Roy knelt down by Ashley while he waited for Johnny to return.
"Have you been sick at all recently, Ashley?" he asked.
"Just a bladder infection a couple weeks ago. I finished my antibiotics for that," she replied, leaning her head back against the seat and closing her eyes in the hope that everything would stop spinning around her. Johnny came running back with the drug box and knelt down beside her again.
"She's had a bladder infection within the last two weeks but finished a course of antibiotics for it," Roy told Johnny, as he got up and walked back over to the biophone to make contact with the hospital. Johnny wrapped the BP cuff around her left arm and told her,
"Okay, Ashley. I'm just going to check your blood pressure here." Roy picked up the biophone handset and transmitted,
"Rampart, this is Squad 51." Dr. Brackett was just outside the base station door when he saw the incoming transmission light above the door come on, so he opened the door and walked inside to take the call.
"Unit calling in repeat," he replied.
"Rampart this is Squad 51. We have a female, approximately 30 years old, complaining of severe dizziness and heart palpitations. She is conscious. Vital signs are pulse is 120 and bounding, respirations are 20. Stand by for BP," Roy said. Roy watched as Johnny deflated and reinflated the cuff again, as he wasn't sure he believed the reading he got the first time. After getting the same reading on the second try, he deflated the cuff and told Roy, as he removed the stethoscope from his ears and rested it around his neck,
"80/50. I checked it twice."
"Rampart, BP is 80/50. Patient indicates she has had a bladder infection within the past two weeks but completed a course of antibiotics." Studying the notes on the notepad, Kell debated a minute what to do for her and then replied,
"51, start an IV with Normal Saline TKO. Is there an ambulance on scene yet?"
"Negative, Rampart," responded Roy.
"10-4, 51. Keep monitoring her vitals and transport as soon as possible."
"10-4 Rampart," Roy acknowledged. Once Johnny heard the order for the IV, he began gathering the supplies for it out of the drug box, all the while watching her out of the corner of his eye, thinking that she seemed to be in greater distress as the minutes had passed since they arrived. "Okay, Ashley. The hospital wants us to start an IV on you, just a precaution. I'll need to take a look at your arm, here," he told her, as he picked up her left arm to check for a vein in which to run the IV. She was very fair skinned and he had a hard time seeing a good vein to use, so he said to Roy, who had gone around and opened the passenger door of the car so he could sit beside her,
"Her veins are pretty dilated. Do you see anything prominent on the other arm?" he asked Roy, who picked up her right arm and began looking for a better vein. Finding what looked like a decent one on her wrist, he pointed it out to Johnny and said,
"Here's one that looks pretty good. Just hand me the shunt and I'll do it since I've got my eye on it." He showed Johnny where to swab her skin with the alcohol and told her,
"Okay. There'll be a little stick now, hon! Just relax!" Johnny moved over a little closer to Ashley, just in case she passed out when Roy stuck her with the needle. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Roy inserted the needle in the vein, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she lost consciousness. Johnny grabbed her by the shoulders to hold her up so Roy could finish the IV. Roy saw her head fall forward and asked,
"You got her?" Johnny nodded and said,
"Yeah. I figured that might happen. Go ahead and finish it up and we'll move her out of the car when you're done." Roy carefully taped the shunt down, inserted the IV line into it and said,
"Okay, all set. Can you pick her up?" Johnny nodded as he worked one arm under her thighs and the other behind her shoulders and picked her up.
"I've got her. Let's go!" Johnny told Roy as he carried her over by the squad. As he began laying her down on the grass he said to Roy,
"Watch her head." Johnny got his penlight out again and lifted her eyelids to check her pupils while Roy ran to get the biophone. Roy came back with it and the drug box, and Johnny told him,
"Pupils are still equal and reactive."
"Okay. I'll get on the horn again," Roy replied as he picked up the biophone handset.
"Rampart, this is Squad 51."
"Go ahead, 51," Kell replied from the base station.
"Rampart, normal saline IV is established but patient has lost consciousness since our last transmission. The ambulance is just arriving now, so we can transport momentarily."
"10-4 51. Monitor her vitals in transit and keep me advised."
"10-4 Rampart," Roy replied, putting the handset back in the case and closing the biophone cover. Johnny was just finishing taping her arm to an armboard to protect the IV as the ambulance pulled up next to the squad. The attendants opened up the back doors and pulled out the gurney, which they rolled over the curb and onto the grass beside the girl. Johnny walked around to her head, while Roy handed one of the attendants the IV bag. Johnny put his arms under Ashley's and Roy prepared to lift her legs.
"Okay. Ready? 1..2..3!" Roy said, and together they lifted her onto the gurney. Roy took the IV bag and tucked it under her shoulder as the attendants covered her up and fastened the straps over the blanket. Johnny grabbed the drug box while Roy picked up the biophone.
"You going in with her?" Roy asked, as he slid the biophone in the back of the ambulance.
"Yeah. Have you got the handi-talkie?" Johnny asked. Roy unclipped it from his belt and handed it to Johnny. Johnny got up in the ambulance and told Roy,
"Okay. See you there!" The attendants closed the doors then, and Roy walked back to the squad and radioed in to the dispatcher that they were on a follow up to Rampart as he drove behind the ambulance down the street toward the hospital with full sirens.
As Roy got in the cab of the squad, it was evident that their mysterious odor hadn't disappeared and once again, Roy rolled down his window, hoping to get a breeze going through the cab to air it out.
In the back of the ambulance, Johnny had set up the biophone again and decided to re-check Ashley's vital signs, as she still hadn't regained consciousness. Her respirations were still 20 as before, but he noted with concern that her pulse had risen to 130. No sooner had he wrapped the BP cuff around her arm again than her whole body stiffened up and her upper body began twitching violently in an uncontrolled, spastic manner. Realizing that she was having a seizure, Johnny immediately reached across the Gurney to hold down the arm with the IV so she didn't accidentally pull it loose.
"Harold! Pull over!" He yelled to the driver.
Following them in the squad, Roy saw the ambulance abruptly pull over to the side of the road and knew something had to be wrong. Roy immediately pulled up behind the ambulance, threw the squad's transmission in park and ran over to the rear door, where he flipped the exterior lock and threw one of the doors open. He saw Johnny leaning over the Gurney, trying to hold down her arm with the IV and immediately hopped up in the ambulance beside him.
"What is it? A seizure?" Roy asked as he checked to make sure the IV line wasn't tangled.
"I think so. Can you try to roll her over on her side so we can try to keep her airway clear until she settles down?" Johnny asked. Roy put his arms under Ashley and managed to shift her on her side a little bit, but her body was so rigid that he couldn't roll her over all the way.
"That's the best I can do. I'm going to have to hold onto her so she doesn't roll back!" Roy told him. Johnny nodded and said, as he shook his head to get his hair out of his face because it was sticking to his sweaty forehead,
"Okay. I'll hold onto this if you can keep her propped up on her side. Hopefully it'll abate in a minute, here." After a couple stressful minutes, the twitching slowed, then stopped, and both of them breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ashley, can you hear me?" Johnny asked her in a calm, quiet voice. After the involuntary movements stopped, she began trembling, then slowly opened her eyes.
"What happened? Where am I?" she said, still shaking. Roy smiled at her and said, as he checked her pulse,
"Just take it easy. You're okay. We're just taking you in to the hospital so they can take a look at you." Johnny checked to make sure the IV was still in place, then sat down again to take her blood pressure.
"Pulse is 130, respirations are 25." Roy told him, as he pulled the biophone open again and installed the antenna. Johnny shook his head and quietly told Roy, as he deflated the cuff,
"BP is 75/50, Roy. She's slipping." Roy wrote down the readings and transmitted,
"Rampart, this is Squad 51." Dr. Brackett was standing by just outside the base station, hoping they would call in with a second set of vital signs on their patient, and he immediately answered,
"51, this is Rampart, go ahead."
"Rampart, en route to your location our female patient developed a seizure which lasted about 3 minutes. It's abated now, and she's conscious but disoriented. Vital signs are BP 75/50, Pulse 130, Respirations 25." When he heard that the vital signs were slipping, he immediately transmitted back,
"51, if the seizure's abated, get some oxygen on her and get her in here Code R!"
"10-4, Rampart. We're on our way!" Roy replied, hanging up the handset and reaching for the oxygen mask on the wall behind him. After securing it over her nose and mouth, he asked Johnny,
"Ready to go?"
"Yeah. Let's get her in there before it happens again!" Johnny told him. Roy backed out of the ambulance, locked the door and signaled the driver to take off, after which he ran back to the squad and continued to follow them to the hospital.
***************************
After delivering Ashley to Dr. Brackett in Treatment Room 1 without further incident, Johnny and Roy were out at the front desk with Dixie replenishing supplies.
"That should about do it," Roy commented. "Ready to go?" he asked. With an uncomfortable expression on his face, Johnny replied,
"Not if we have to put up with that smell all the way back to the station!"
"Smell?" Dixie inquired, with a puzzled look on her face.
"Yeah. The cab of the squad smells like something died. It's pretty raunchy!" Roy explained. Dixie grinned and suggested,
"Well, maybe it's a mouse that got away from the cat and crawled up inside somewhere."
"Maybe. Whatever it is, we need to find it and clear it out before the next shift or they'll blame us for it. See you later, Dix," Johnny said as he picked up the box of supplies.
"Good luck!" Dixie told them.
"Thanks," Roy replied, unenthusiastically.
Upon returning to the station, Johnny and Roy immediately pulled open both doors of the squad and crawled down on the floor to look up underneath the dash to see if they could find the source of the smell. Roy looked up around the steering column and under the left side of the dash to see if he could see anything suspicious, but he didn't.
"I don't think there's anything here. What about over there?" he asked Johnny, who was looking up under the passenger side dash. Hoping he'd find something quickly, as the smell was almost overpowering down near the floor, Johnny looked around and thought he saw something shiny tucked up underneath the dash among the maze of wires and hoses.
"Roy, I think I found something," he commented as he reached up to see what it was. After he got hold of the edge of the object, he could immediately tell it was a can of some sort.
"It looks like a can," Johnny commented as he pulled the tape loose that had been holding it in place and worked it out of the dash.
"A can?" Roy asked, wondering what kind of a can could possibly smell that bad. He watched as Johnny pulled the flat tin can out from under the dash and immediately recognized it as an empty sardine can with the roll-back top pulled back about 3/4 of the way. He started to laugh and said to Johnny as he got up from the floor of the cab,
"A sardine can! No wonder it smelled so awful!" As he looked at it a little closer, he thought he saw a piece of paper inside and said, as he pulled the paper out,
"Who the heck would do something like that?" Roy continued to laugh and replied, as Johnny read the piece of paper he had pulled out of the can,
"I'll give you two guesses."
"The Phantom strikes again," Johnny read from the note. "That figures!" Then both of them heard someone come out of the kitchen and turned to look at who it was. When he saw it was Chet, Johnny walked around the front of the squad with the can in his hand and yelled,
"Chet! Did you do this?"
"Do what?" Chet asked innocently. Johnny walked up to Chet, held the can under his nose and said,
"Put this sardine can under the dash of the squad, that's what!" Chet pushed the can away and said,
"Whoa! I bet the cab smelled real good with that in there, eh guys? I see by the note that it looks like the phantom got you again, Gage!"
"Yeah. Only this time I was along for the ride!" Roy commented. "I'd appreciate it if you'd tell the phantom not to make a habit of dragging me into his practical jokes-it's not my war, you know!"
"Apparently the phantom doesn't discriminate among his victims, Roy. He strikes anywhere, anytime..." Chet said, as he turned to walk back to the kitchen. Disgusted, Johnny yelled back at Chet as he threw the can in the garbage,
"Yeah, well next time tell him not to set up his jokes in the squad! That's our office and we have to work out of there, you know!" As they went back to the squad and closed the doors, Johnny muttered,
"One of these days, Roy, the phantom is going to get his!"
"Uh-huh. And every time you've tried to retaliate it's always backfired. Do me a favor and tell me what you're doing so I can stay out of the way, huh?" Roy pleaded.
That night about 10:30, the entire shift was getting ready for lights out in the dormitory. Most of the guys were in bed already, and Johnny and Roy were the last ones to wander in from the locker room. Both were yawning sleepily.
"Oh, man! Am I bushed!" Johnny commented.
"Me too," agreed Roy as they walked into their bunk section. Johnny noticed immediately that Sheba, the station's cat, wasn't in her usual spot in the middle of his pillow; instead, she meowed at him from on top of the brick wall which separated Johnny's bunk from the next section. As Johnny turned down the covers on the bed, he reached up to pet the cat and asked,
"Hey, girl! Why the change in routine tonight, huh?" Roy had a feeling that something might be wrong with Johnny's bed, because Sheba didn't change her routine unless something was drastically wrong to interfere with it.
"Uh, Johnny...you might want to check your bed over a little. If the cat won't lay on it, maybe you shouldn't either," Roy suggested as he got under the covers himself. Heeding Roy's warning, Johnny opened up the sheets all the way to the foot of the bed and felt for anything suspicious between the sheets or on the mattress, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary in it.
"Hm! Seems to be okay. Maybe we're just paranoid, partner," Johnny said, as he put the bed back together and crawled between the covers.
"Maybe. Well, see you in the morning," Roy told him, yawning once again as he rolled over.
"Or when the first call comes..." Johnny replied as he reached over for the light switch on the wall.
"Meow-ow!" Sheba scolded Johnny as he turned off the light. From across the room, Hank's voice barked sternly,
"Gage! Shut that cat up already!" Before he lay down on the pillow, Johnny picked Sheba up from off the wall above his head and brought her down on the bed so she'd settle down with him and not make any more noise. No sooner had he laid his head down on the pillow when he heard a squishing sound and felt something oozing out of the end of the pillowcase where he had rested his arm. He immediately sat bolt upright in bed and sputtered out some profanity as he turned on the light again, which immediately raised loud protests from the rest of the guys in the room. As he looked down at the pillow, he saw globs of white shaving cream oozing out of the end of the pillowcase and shook his head in disgust. Roy squinted at the light and asked,
"Don't tell me...let me guess. Shaving cream in the pillow, right?"
"Yeah. No wonder the cat wouldn't go anywhere near it!" Johnny said.
"Guess she's smarter than you, huh Gage?" remarked Chet from his bunk.
"That does it!" Johnny said as he picked up the pillow, got out of bed and proceeded to walk over to Chet's bunk on the other side of the room with it. Johnny angrily threw the pillow with all his might at Chet, who tried to duck but still ended up with some shaving cream in his hair.
"Hey, Gage! Knock it off!" Chet protested. Johnny stomped away down to the linen closet at the other end of the room, picked another pillow off the shelf and walked back to his bunk, muttering,
"Is nothing sacred? Not even a good night's sleep?" From his bunk, Hank groaned and said,
"Will you guys PLEASE knock it off already! If you keep this up, it's going to be a heck of a long shift for all of us!"
Roy silently hoped that he'd be able to stay out of the way and not get dragged into any more of the shenanigans that he suspected were probably going to occur over the next 24 hours until their St. Patrick's Day shift was done.
After two fire runs during the night, the crew was awakened at 6:00 A.M. by the dispatcher and the radio test. Morning had come way too soon due to their night of frequently interrupted sleep, and everyone moved rather slowly as they showered, changed and got ready for another day.
One of the last to finally get dressed, Johnny noticed as he left the locker room that someone was in one of the bathroom stalls, as he could see their boots under the door. Not thinking anything of it, he went out to the kitchen to get some coffee.
"Morning, morning, morning!" Johnny greeted everyone as he entered the kitchen. Roy was standing over by the stove, already half done with his first cup of coffee.
"How can you be so cheerful after a night like we had last night?" Roy asked tiredly. Johnny poured his cup of coffee, took a sip and replied, as he looked around the room at the rest of the crew, who were moping around, trying to wake up,
"Hey, I'm just a cheerful guy when I wake up no matter how much sleep I've had."
"Yeah, well, do us a favor and go be cheerful somewhere else, pally! The rest of us are trying to wake up slowly!" Chet suggested. Suddenly, as he looked around the room, it occurred to Johnny that everyone was assembled in the kitchen and no one had come in after he had; consequently, he began to wonder who it was that was in the bathroom stall when he'd left the locker room. The more he thought about it, the more it began to bother him, and he decided he had to go find out what was going on. He put down his coffee cup and said to Roy,
"Bring your coffee and come on, Roy. There's something I've got to ask you about." Puzzled, Roy followed Johnny out of the kitchen, asking,
"Like what?"
"Just follow me and you'll see," Johnny told him as they walked across the vehicle bay to the locker room. Grudgingly, Roy followed Johnny into the locker room, where Johnny led him over to the row of stalls and pointed out the pair of boots visible under the door.
"See that?" Johnny asked.
"So?" Roy questioned.
"Hey, who's in there?" Johnny demanded. Immediately, Roy began to suspect something was amiss and cautioned,
"Johnny..."
When there was no response, Roy saw Johnny reach for the handle on the stall door to see if it was locked,
"Johnny, I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Roy warned him again. As the unlocked door swung open, Johnny looked at Roy and asked,
"Why not?" At that moment, as the door swung open, a hefty stream of water doused Johnny on the head from a bucket that had been wired to the top of the stall door. Roy immediately began laughing and said,
"That's why not!" Johnny, who looked like a drowned rat with his hair and uniform shirt soaking wet, yelled back at Roy,
"If you knew, why didn't you say something?"
"I tried! Your curiosity is going to be the death of you someday, partner!. You should have seen that one coming!" Roy replied, still laughing. After he wiped his wet hair out of his face, Johnny looked at the pair of boots which had been carefully placed in front of the stool and reached in to pick them up. He saw a white piece of paper sticking out of the top of one of the boots and muttered,
"Don't tell me...let me guess!" as he pulled out the paper to read it. "The phantom strikes again!" he moaned. At that moment, while Johnny was still standing by the stall, soaking wet, with the pair of boots in his hand, Hank and Chet came in the locker room. Chet took one look at Johnny and immediately said,
"Uh-oh, Gage! He got you again, huh?" Hank snickered and asked,
"What the heck happened to you?" Johnny walked over to his locker, dropped the boots on a bench nearby and began unbuttoning his wet shirt, not saying a word.
"His curiosity got the best of him, Cap, and the phantom was there to take advantage of it!" Roy responded. Hank shook his head and said,
"Look, you guys! This has got to stop! Your little practical joke war was funny at first, but this has been going on a long time."
"Hey, Cap! The phantom can't help it if Gage is gullible," Chet protested. Johnny had hung his wet shirt on a hanger to dry and was putting on a dry one when he retorted, angrily,
"Well, you warn the phantom that he's going to get his, Chet! This isn't over yet!"
"Yes it is! Now I want this to stop! Do I have to make it an order?" Hank demanded. Johnny and Chet glared at each other for a minute, then Chet conceded,
"Okay, Cap. I'll let the phantom know."
"That's better. John?" Hank asked, hoping to get a similar commitment out of Johnny,
"Okay, Cap. If you insist," Johnny agreed, albeit very reluctantly, as he combed his wet hair again.
"Good. Now let's get breakfast and get to work!" Hank told them. Chet followed Hank out the door, and Johnny slammed his locker door shut after he finished getting dressed and combed for the second time. As they walked out the locker room door, Johnny muttered,
"Somehow I'm going to find a way to get even with Chet!"
"You'd better not go against what Cap said, or you'll be in for it! If you decide to get stupid and do something, at least warn me so I can stay out of the way! I don't want to get dragged into it!" Roy pleaded.
"Don't worry, partner, you'll be the first to know what I'm up to!" Johnny reassured him.
All day, Johnny pondered in his mind what he could do as a practical joke on Chet to get even. Roy noticed that Johnny was preoccupied and, on their way back from a run before lunch, said,
"The gears must be turning. You've hardly said a word all morning." Sighing, Johnny replied,
"Yeah. It's tough trying to come up with something that I can do to Chet that won't affect anyone else."
"I'll bet. You'd better be careful," Roy cautioned. "You tick off the Cap and you'll be scrubbing toilets for a month! You know your retaliation attempts always backfire!"
"Yeah, I know," Johnny reluctantly admitted. Suddenly, he remembered that Chet had been working on sorting incident reports from the past 3 months that had gotten screwed up in the computer at headquarters and had been sent to them to be re-sorted and submitted again. He'd been sitting at Hank's desk every afternoon they'd worked this week sorting them and had commented yesterday that he still had a day's work left on it before he'd be done. Then he got an idea.
"I've got it!" he exclaimed. Roy rolled his eyes and said, sarcastically,
"Do I even want to hear this?"
"Yeah, you do! Trust me! Here's what I've got in mind..." Johnny said and explained to Roy about the project Chet was working on.
"...You see, he keeps the stuff he still has to sort in the top left drawer of Cap's desk," he enthusiastically continued. "Now, didn't you say you used some of those military pop string alerts to booby trap Joanne's flowers to keep the rabbits out?"
"You mean those tiny little noise bombs that go off when you put tension on the string?" Roy inquired.
"Yeah. Have you got any left?" Johnny asked. Roy realized where the conversation was going and shook his head as he replied, emphatically,
"No! No! Absolutely not! I'm not going to get sucked into your retaliation scheme! Besides, if I supply you with anything for this I'll be guilty of contributing to the delinquency of an idiot!"
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that! I'll keep your name out of it, I promise!" Johnny pleaded. Roy then thought for a minute about Johnny's request. He didn't want to get involved in Johnny and Chet's sparring match, but at the same time he didn't like to see his partner end up being the butt of the jokes all the time. He had to admit to himself that Chet had been pretty merciless in his pursuit of a few laughs at Johnny's expense, and part of him wanted to see Johnny get a little revenge for once, just to put Chet in his place.
"Come on, Roy! All I need you to do is give me a few of those so I can tape a bunch of them under the desk or the drawer and hook the strings to the drawer when it's closed. Then when he opens the drawer it'll stretch the strings and...POW! Instant scare tactic! What do you think?" Roy shook his head as he began backing the squad up the driveway and reluctantly replied,
"All right-I'll ask Joanne to bring some over later this morning! But I think you're nuts for even considering doing this! What if Cap opens the drawer instead?"
"He won't!" Johnny confidently assured him. "He told Chet he'd stay out of the office until he got the project completed so as not to mess up what he was doing!" Roy sighed and said, as he parked the squad and turned off the ignition,
"Well, I hope you're right, because if you're not, both of us might be getting very familiar with latrine cleaning duty. Don't say I didn't warn you!" Johnny shook his head and grinned, as he got out of the squad.
"Don't be such a pessimist! This one's going to work-I can feel it!"
After he had reluctantly called Joanne and had her bring down some of the noise makers, Roy noticed Johnny was conspicuously absent while he was helping Chet in the kitchen. Consequently, he assumed that Johnny was working on setting up the joke he had planned for Chet in the office. He thought to himself that he didn't even want to know what Johnny was up to. He turned his attention back to Chet, who was stirring a pot of Irish Stew on the stove.
"So, Chet! What's on the St. Patrick's Day lunch menu besides Irish Stew? That looks pretty good, by the way!"
"Thanks, Roy. And you don't have to worry-it's my dad's recipe. Nothing weird or exotic in here!"
"Good," Roy replied, gratefully. Roy then noticed a small, stuffed leprechaun sitting on the canisters next to the stove and asked,
"What's with the leprechaun?"
"It's my dad's," Chet replied. "It sits on the windowsill in his kitchen, and he thinks it gives him good luck when he's cooking. He told me I'd better take it along for today, as he thought I'd need all the help I could get!" Then Chet lifted the lid on another pot on the back of the stove and said,
"I thought I'd be really good to you guys and make a pot of my Mom's corned beef and cabbage, too, in case there's some that are adventuresome and want to try some real Irish food other than stew."
"Sounds good. I'm almost afraid to ask, but what's the requisite GREEN element of the menu?" Roy inquired. Chet smiled and replied,
"That's the best part! Light GREEN Pistachio cake with dark GREEN frosting!" Roy was pleasantly surprised at Chet's creativity and told him,
"You've outdone yourself this time, Chet! Sounds like a heck of a good lunch to me!"
"Thanks. One thing's for sure-no one can accuse us of not eating Irish food today!" Chet replied.
The crew didn't get to sit down and eat lunch until around 1:00 due to a fire run. Everyone was pleased with what Chet had made and, consequently, ate heartily. As Marco and Mike cleared away the dishes, everyone else was sitting around the table, feeling incredibly stuffed.
"Kelly, I gotta hand it to you! That was the best meal you've done for us! My compliments to the Chef!" Hank commented.
"Mine, too!" Roy chimed in. "I only wish I hadn't eaten so much!" Even Johnny agreed,
"You know, I hate to admit it, but that was really good, Chet!"
"Coming from you, Gage-the resident food critic-that's a real compliment! Thanks you guys!" Chet acknowledged, as he finished putting the leftovers in the refrigerator.
"Well, I suppose I'd better get busy in the hose room. The rest of you guys better join me-I'm not cleaning up that mess alone!" Hank told them, as he got up from his chair. "Except for you, Kelly. You need to finish up that incident report project this afternoon so we can turn it in to HQ tomorrow."
"Right, Cap. I'll go start working on it right now," Chet replied, as he followed Hank out of the kitchen. Noticing that no one was following him, Hank stuck his head back in and asked,
"Go ahead and finish the dishes, Mike and Marco. John, Roy-come on!"
"Be there in a minute, Cap," Johnny replied, trying to stall for time by tying his shoes, hoping that Chet would get settled in the office and open the desk drawer. Roy knew that Johnny was probably waiting for the noise bombs to go off and really didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity when they did, so he got up from his chair and commented,
"I'll be in the hose room!" Johnny winked at him and said,
"Be there in a minute, partner." Roy walked across the vehicle bay to the hose room, and once he walked inside, he noticed nobody was there and wondered where Hank had gone. Puzzled, he glanced out the door to see if he was out by the engine, when he spotted Hank just about to walk into his office. In an effort to avert the impending disaster, Roy ran across the vehicle bay, muttering to himself,
"I knew this was going to happen," then he yelled a warning, "Cap! Don't..." At that moment, several loud popping noises, almost like firecrackers, resoundingly echoed throughout the station. Roy stopped running, closed his eyes and shook his head, knowing that Johnny was going to be in trouble now if Hank had opened the drawer instead of Chet. Everyone came running from various parts of the building when they heard the noise. Roy and Johnny were just about to reach the door, when Hank yelled at the top of his lungs,
"KELLY! GET IN HERE!" When Johnny heard Hank's voice, he stopped right where he stood, and Roy watched the color drain from his face. Marco, Mike, Roy and Chet looked into the office, only to see Hank breathing heavily and with a very red face, standing behind the desk with the remains of the noise bombs sitting on the top of the desk. Obviously, the joke had had its intended effect-to scare the living daylights out of the victim-but the wrong victim had reaped the benefits of Johnny's attempted revenge.
"Kelly, is this one of yours?" Hank asked, calmly, although Roy could tell he was furious.
"No, Cap! I swear-it's not mine! Really!" Chet pleaded. Then everyone simultaneously turned to look at Johnny, who was standing against the wall outside the door, looking very sheepish. Taking a deep breath, Hank walked slowly out from behind the desk and said, still in a calm tone,
"Thank you, Kelly. That's all I needed to know." Everyone backed away as Hank approached the office door. After a short pause, he then bellowed,
"GAGE!" With a look of dread on his face, Johnny approached the office door and peeked cautiously inside.
"Yeah, Cap?" he asked, very sheepishly. Hank picked up the debris from the noisemakers that lay on the desk, slowly and deliberately walked over to Johnny and asked,
"This mess belongs to you, does it?"
"Yeah, Cap," Johnny reluctantly admitted, holding out his hand, into which Hank dropped the remains of the strings and unspent noisemakers. Taking another deep breath, Hank continued,
"Now, I realize this little gem wasn't intended for me, but you're damn lucky that I don't have a heart condition or you'd be scraping me up off the floor right now and shuttling me off to Rampart!" Johnny looked down at his feet and said,
"Yeah, Cap, I know. What can I say, except I'm sorry!"
"Sorry ain't gonna cut it this time, Mister! Now, if any of the rest of you were involved with this, I don't even want to hear about it! The two main culprits are going to get what they deserve! I am, however, hereby giving everyone a direct order that there will be no more practical jokes on this shift unless they are cleared with me first! Does everyone understand?" Hank asked, raising his voice to a decibel level they'd rarely heard him use. Everyone acknowledged that they understood, and he continued,
"Good! Now, not being an unreasonable guy, I realize that since we work so many long hours together that a little humor now and again helps lighten things up, and that's why I'm not forbidding this stuff altogether. Gage and Kelly, you guys are hereby ordered to stop the practical joke war right now and make sure the phantom goes into retirement permanently! Clear?" Johnny and Chet both very meekly nodded in agreement.
"All right. Now that we've got that settled, why don't you two get started on latrine cleaning duty, which you two clowns are going to share for the rest of the month!" Hank told Johnny and Chet. "The rest of you, join me in the hose room, please." The rest of the crew quietly followed Hank over to the hose room, except for Roy, who lagged behind the others. Johnny disgustedly said to Chet,
"Are you satisfied now, Chet?"
"Me? You're the one that screwed up and booby trapped the wrong person!" Chet protested.
"But I wouldn't have done it in the first place if you hadn't been playing tricks on me all the time!"
"Will you two kids knock it off!" Roy hissed at them. "Cap's liable to blow another fuse and make life miserable for the rest of us, too, if you don't shut up and get to work! Now get to it!" Johnny and Chet watched Roy walk away, shaking his head in disgust.
"I'll get the mop and bucket," Johnny offered, turning to walk over to the utility room.
"Oh, I suppose you're going to stick me with the first round of toilet scrubbing duty, Gage!" Chet complained. Johnny turned around, glared at Chet and scolded,
"Don't worry, Chet! We're both going to get more than enough of it over the next couple weeks! Quit whining and come on!" Chet reluctantly followed Johnny to the utility room and sighed as he commented,
"Oh well...it was fun while it lasted!"