2019-10-25 - So About Your Bake Sale...

Joey is still parked in his office waiting for the call to come in on the ancient-ass phone line still connected to teh building from 456 B.C. when the building was made. Okay, perhaps not that far ago but '47 might as well be where Joey Kelly was concerned.

The call comes in a short while later. It's from de la Vega's personal phone, rather than his department issued one. "Hey, Kelly. Still got time to talk?"

Joey leans back in his chair and with a simply flicking gesture the door gets the memo and flicks itself closed. Seriously HOW can he not believe in this stuff or find it abnormal is anyone's guess. "Sup, man. Yeah, so Sutton told you about the bake sale and shit? She's bringing extra plates and napkins and shit and is helping with clean up."

" So... here's the deal. I know you have questions and I'm a preface this with even though you a cop I respect you. So, I'm gonna put this out there. You make an appearance couple things gonna happen. Wanna make sure you are aware of that."

"I'm listening," comes the voice from the other end, after a pause of about 3.5 seconds. The sound of vehicles can be heard vaguely in the background. A car horn, the muted crunch of gravel. He must be walking somewhere.

"Well, f'one? ti's going to be very apparent very fast that there's a blind eye on this and if they fuck up it will get pretty real pretty fuckin quick. Or, ya know, they can take that as a warning to play fuckin nice...as much as these things do." There is that

He takes a sip of his coffee and goes on, "The other thing is you expose yourself to people who dunno you know. Maybe that works for you, but maybe it's a risk. As far as people in kinda shit situations? You I can respect and work with and I don't like seeing that become some at risk thing."

"Then they'd better not fuck up," de la Vega replies evenly. It's entirely possible that that's his real objective here; to act as enforcer for this little wink wink nudge nudge agreement Felix has got going on with the GHPD. "Because I guarantee you, Kelly, you'd much rather have me there mitigating the fallout, than let this breach containment and get out of control. I'm not going to fuck with your shit. I'm not going to draw attention to myself. I'm certain you'll keep your boys in line. Si?"

"Hey you know my goal here right? Have enough people left standing so everyone can win long term here. I can't do that when people get sloppy, reckless, and dumb. But..." The sigh comes and the sound of hand rubbing stubble is audible on the receiver. "We've both met this bunch. SO... if someone gets terrifically stupid we take em to the back and we sort out what's gonna happen. This work for you?" There's a pause and he admits, "I ain't a fan of problems but I'm over the fucking goddamn moon about solutions."

"That works for me. I'll see you tonight. Strawberry churros, right?"

"Yeah, baby you know it." He murmurs something about that solves the desert issue. and the phone wobbles and clicks down on the receiver hanging up.