HE SAW THEM WHEN HE EMERGED FROM THE warehouse at the end of his shift. They were beyond the chain-link fencing, leaning up against a car Flip recognized. After a moment he placed one of the figures: Emilio, dressed in knee-length shorts and a t-shirt to go with the warm afternoon.
Emilio waved to Flip and Flip looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but everyone was saying good-bye, splitting up, going to their cars. Then Emilio motioned Flip to come over.
Alfredo hadn’t come out of the warehouse yet. Flip checked over his shoulder once and then half-jogged to the fence line, where Emilio met him. “Hey, esé,” Emilio said. “What’s up?”
“What do you want?” Flip asked.
Emilio put his hands up. “Hey, don’t come at me like that, bro. I’m not trying to get up in your shit.”
Flip glanced back toward the warehouse. Cars and trucks were easing their way out of the gate, one after another, but there was still no Alfredo. He imagined Alfredo coming out at any moment, spotting them together, and then the questions he would ask. “It’s not a good time,” Flip said.
“I understand, I understand. José just sent me out to have a look at your place of business, you know? Check in on you.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Wrong? No. But José was talking about you. He wanted to know what kind of a place you worked.”
“I don’t know why. José tells me do something, I do it.”
“I got to go,” Flip said.
“See you around.”
Flip left the fence and hurried back toward Alfredo’s truck. They were the last ones left in the parking area. Alfredo stepped out and locked the door behind him. The big truck docks were sealed, the warehouse closed tight. He met Flip at the truck. “Ready?” he said.
“Yeah.”
They got in the truck together and as they pulled out, Flip saw Emilio and his nameless friend get into Emilio’s car. When they turned Flip looked in the side mirror to see if Emilio was following them, but he didn’t see anything.
He saw no sign of them when they headed south toward downtown. Flip gave Alfredo the address of the Parole and Probation office and they found it easily; it was in the County Court Building and next to the El Paso County Jail. It cost two dollars to park.
“You want me to come in with you?” Alfredo asked.
“What? No, you don’t have to do that.”
“Your parole officer might like to talk to your boss.”
“I’ll ask him. Maybe next time.”
“Okay. I’ll be right here.”
Flip left Alfredo with the truck and went around the building to get in through the front. The police manned a metal detector and an x-ray machine at the entrance and Flip had to empty his pockets. There wasn’t much to put in the plastic tray.
He followed the signs to where he needed to go and found himself in a large room lined with rows of plastic seats, facing two glassed-in desks with little metal grilles to talk through. The women behind the glass looked bored. Flip didn’t know which one to go to, so he chose the woman on the right.
“I’m here to see my PO, Mr. Rubio,” Flip said through the grille.
“Sign the clipboard and have a seat.”
Flip did what he was told. The chairs were slick and uncomfortable. Four more men waited, raggedly spaced along the rows, scrupulously avoiding looking at one another. Flip knew they had all done time; prison taught a man to keep himself to himself.
Nearly an hour passed. From time to time a door by the windows would open and a man would come out, check the clipboard and call a name. More people came in and signed up without having to be told. Flip waited.
At last the man called his name and Flip came over. “Are you Mr. Rubio?” he asked the man.
“No. Follow me.”
They went back into the area beyond the windows, where lots of little offices clustered together in a honeycomb. The man led him to a door that looked no different from any of the others – there was no nametag, no number – and rapped on the frame. “Felipe Morales,” the man said.
“Okay,” came a voice from inside.
“Here you go,” the man told Flip.
The office was barely large enough for a desk and another plastic chair just like the ones from outside. Rubio was a short, round man with a brush-like mustache and thinning hair cut military-short. His tie was loosened and he wore short sleeves. “Come in and have a seat, Mr. Morales.”
Flip wedged himself into the chair between wall and desk. He had nowhere to put his elbows, so he sat with his arms extended out in front of him, tucked between his knees.
“The first thing we’re going to do is get you fingerprinted, but let’s get some basics down beforehand. Address and that kind of thing.”
The question and answer session was short. Rubio asked for Flip’s home address, his telephone numbers and for the license plate number of his car, if he had one. After that he took Flip down the hall to a room where a big machine with a glass plate on the top squatted, humming, beside a computer monitor.
His fingerprints were taken by rolling his fingers across the glass plate so the machine could pick them up. They displayed on the computer monitor. The whole process happened without ink. Rubio had some trouble with Flip’s right ring finger, but they got through it and went back to Rubio’s office.
The man had photographs tacked to a cloth-covered cork board on the wall. None of them were of children, like Flip would expect, but all of dogs. Sometimes Rubio was in the picture with them, sometimes the dogs were alone. One dog was a pit bull, the other a German Shepherd.
Rubio noticed him looking. “My dogs,” he said. “They’re my babies. You like dogs?”
“They’re okay. I don’t have one.”
“You should get one. Pet ownership is a good way to practice responsibility.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, maybe not. It’s not for everyone.”
Rubio then asked questions about Flip’s work. He got his supervisor’s name, the address of the warehouse, the telephone number there. Flip didn’t tell him that his supervisor was his mother’s boyfriend. Maybe that would work against him. “I’ll be calling to check up on you,” Rubio told Flip. “So if you start missing work, I’ll know.”
“I understand.”
“Now for the rest. You’ll find I’m a pretty relaxed guy and I won’t come down on you for little things. You stay out a little late or you take a sick day… these things happen. But part of the terms of your parole is that you stay clear of bars and clubs and you don’t have any contact with felons. You’re not allowed to possess a firearm. You have to submit to random drug testing and home inspections. If you fail a test, or if you violate your terms, I will put you back where you came from. I’ll do it in a heartbeat. You get me?”
“I get you.”
“All right, then. Let’s get the drug test over with so you can go home.” Rubio got a plastic jar and a sealing bag out of the deepest drawer at his desk. He handed the jar over. “There’s a temperature strip on the side, so if it’s not warm piss, I’ll know. Bathrooms are down the hall.”
Flip left the office and took the jar with him.