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waved back.
    He claimed that the first rays of the morning sun energized him better than a cup of coffee and taking a double dose of old man vitamins.
    I figured neither morning routine could be that good for him, but hey, what did I know? I’m just a college dropout, waiting tables at the ET Landing.
    After taking my first couple of orders of the morning, I sent them back to the kitchen’s computer and then pulled Lavern aside.
    “What’s up?” Lavern asked, as her eyes continued scanning her tables, so that she wouldn’t miss a tip when someone got up to leave.
    It wasn’t unusual for customers to swipe our tips while passing recently vacated tables.
    “Do you know anything about some kind of government agency called the FIA?” I wasn’t really sure why I was asking Lavern, but she worked a lot so I assumed she must hear a lot of talk from people who came through.
    “Hmm … isn’t it Federal and have something to do with food and drugs?” she asked, still distracted by her tables.
    “I don’t think so. That’s the FDA.”
    Lavern shrugged. “I don’t have any idea, but you know the feds. They are constantly coming up with a letter agency to pound at us.”
    “You haven’t heard anyone around here talking about something like that?” I persisted.
    Half groaning - half sighing, she finally decided to give me her full attention. “What do you take me for, Kat Parker? Do you seriously think I eavesdrop on our patrons?”
    “Pretty much.” I nodded.
    “Fine then,” she came back, her face twisting into a sour scowl. That was Lavern’s way of admitting to something she normally wouldn’t admit to. “I’ve heard a few people talk about some kind of space alien police force. It might have had those fed sounding letters to it.”
    “Really?”
    “Well you know me. I try to brush all that craziness off, but every once in a while I’ll listen in. It helps pass the time.”
    “What did they say about it?”
    “Just that they enforced rules for some Intergalactic alien planet group, or something along those lines.” She shrugged.
    I wanted to grill her some more, but then I saw her red lips twisting real funny like. When Lavern got that expression on her face, it meant something was up, and whatever that something was, it probably wouldn’t be too pleasant.
    “Don’t look now but the Martians have landed … in your section,” she added, nodding her head in the direction of my work section.
    Stepping around her, I chanced a look.
    As soon as I saw him, I felt my stomach tighten, and my breakfast churning, ready to come back up.
    There was Dick Head Reyes, sitting alone at a booth meant for eight, in a show of his typical narcissistic behavior.
    Looking at him now, I couldn’t imagine what I could have been thinking to go out with him in the first place. He loved dressing like a cowboy, but really, the closest he’d ever come to a real cow was the double cheeseburgers he ordered at the Burger Bar. He had no chin to speak of, and his milky blue eyes bulged out like some kind of insect eyes.
    I had to have been certifiable to even consider going out with him, let alone getting into a relationship.
    But in my own defense, I had no idea just how sick in the head he really was until the day I decided to leave. He’d actually called the police on me and told them some story about me plotting to kill him in an effort to get me thrown in jail. That was his revenge for daring to leave him.
    Unfortunately for him, he was the one who stockpiled guns, and the only weapon I had on me was a handbag with a concealed cell phone in it.
    In the two years since I’d left, he’d dragged me into court countless times with frivolous lawsuits, trying to run me broke. It was working. These days I barely had two cents to rub together, but my attorney was getting rich. The last lawsuit had been so ridiculous, the judge actually threatened to find him in contempt if he ever brought something so stupid into court