Disclaimer: The characters and their world belong to Janet Evanovich. I'm just playing with them for fun. I've proofread, but all mistakes are my own.
AN: I'd like to thank everyone who's taken the time to read this story, and I'd like to extend a big thank you to everyone who has left a review. This fandom has some great fans. This chapter deals with Stephanie's thoughts as she starts training. In Chapter 3 we'll hear from Morelli and Helen.
Chapter 2
Item 1- Learn some takedown moves that don't involve my knee and someone's family jewels
Three weeks after my Escape went to Car Heaven, my master plan was going well. Well, I was still on step one, but I was working on it. That's what matters right?
I had gone to the self-defense class at the Y that first evening and really hit it off with the instructor. Francine was my Mom's age and reminded me of my Grandmother – if Edna Mazur was a potty-mouthed former Army Sergeant instead of a potty-mouthed retired Burg housewife and wore her hair in a sensible bob instead of pink-tinted sausage curls.
She'd recognized me from the papers and took me aside after class. We'd shared a bucket of chicken and it was…. interesting. I couldn't remember the last time someone asked me what I want wanted, even if it was just out of a self-defense class.
So, I told her. She listened, and next thing I know Francine was offering to trade some one-on-one training for a little help with a somewhat delicate matter. I was cool with the quid-pro-quo. Sometimes all I have is my pride, and I hate being a charity case.
It seems that her former son-in-law, Mike, was not only a lying, scum sucking cheat, but he was forgetful, too. As in he forgot to pay child support and forgot to leave a forwarding address for the courts. It took me a week, but I finally found him holed up in Camden, where I staked out his weekly poker game. As luck would have it, the scum-sucker plays poker with Connie's first cousin, who I recognized from some wedding or another. Sometimes it's good to have friends who are so, er, well-connected.
Jimmy Rosolli may break kneecaps for a living, but he pays his child support on time every month and he can't stand guys who won't. Jimmy assured me the limp won't be permanent and Mike coughed up the back child support. I felt only slightly guilty about the whole thing and no one had to pay extra lawyer's fees, so I called it a win.
So, Francine and I have met every Monday, Thursday and Sunday for training at the gym she owns with her family. I'd been afraid that I'd spend the first couple of months doing karate drills, but Francine believes in a more applied approach, so she enlisted her youngest son's help. Peanut is 6 feet, 3 inches and 250 pounds of solid muscle and is a pretty good stand-in for one of my skips, even though he's smarter and saner than most them. He and Francine have helped me work out counters to just about every situation I've found myself in, especially the really embarrassing ones.
The skip grabs me by the purse strap or hair? We spent two nights on that alone. Skip takes my gun? Francine has promised me that she will tie me up outside of Macy's in my underwear if I let it happen, but we spent a couple of sessions on that, too. We even set up an obstacle course in her kitchen and I spent the evening dodging garbage and thrown vegetables. Hey – it's happened before, way too many times.
I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but even though I'd actively sought the help, I wasn't all the way with the program at first. It was the second night and Peanut had just dropped me to the floor, again.
"What's with the pansy-assed attitude, Plum?" Francine snarled from where she was watching the 'wipe the floor with Stephanie show.' "He's leaving you openings wide enough to drive a tank through for Christ's sake. Why won't you attack?"
"It's too hard, dammit," I whined. "And I don't want to hurt him."
Francine swore and sent Peanut on a break. "Listen, I'm about to go all Army on your ass, so brace yourself," she said as she slapped a bottle of water into my hand. "Do you want to do this job or not?"
"Yes." I'd already thought that through a few days before, right after Morelli called me an embarrassment. I gulped some water and wished for a Boston crème.
"Fair enough." She nodded. "Now for the second question – just how many of these bail jumpers come in all nice and quietly?"
Huh. Pretty good question. "Maybe a quarter, I guess."
She looked thoughtful for a second. "Let me see if I've got this straight. You've got a whole bunch of lawbreakers, and most of them don't think twice about hurting you to avoid going back to jail?" I started to disagree, but she cut me off. "I can see those bruises on your arms, Plum. They'd better be from a skip and not your man or I'll have to send Peanut and Petey after him."
Petey was Peanut's only slightly smaller older brother. I don't know what she fed her kids, but they looked like defensive linemen, even the girls.
"Bet your ass, I do," she agreed when I told her she had a point. Then she went into drill sergeant mode. "It seems to me I'd want to avoid getting hurt if I were you. It's time to shit or get off the pot, so I ask you, what is your problem, Plum?"
I opened my mouth to let her know she was my problem, and Smart Stephanie told me to close it again. Put that way, it was kind of stupid to keep doing the job without being prepared.
"I guess…" It suddenly came to me. "Phyllis Walter's daughter doesn't go around hitting men and putting them in handcuffs." I groaned. "Crap, I've been trying to be nice this whole time." I might be a semi-tough BEA, but waaay down deep I'm still a Burg girl.
She nodded. "Same crap I went through when I joined up. Good girls don't shoot guns and they don't sign up for the Military Police." Francine helped me up off the floor. "There's nothing wrong with being a nice person, Steph, but you just gotta know when to protect yourself. Be prepared for every bail jumper to fight you and you'll be hauling them in right and left before you know it."
It wasn't quite that easy, but once I applied myself, I could see the improvement. After the fourth lesson, when a FTA tried to push me out the door, I managed to kick his legs out from under him and I had him stunned and cuffed before he could grab me again.
After the fifth session, when Monica Selznik tried to grab me by the hair, a move she's been using since Junior High, I got her in a head lock and dropped her. I didn't go in swinging or anything and I still delivered my standard spiel about rescheduling their court date, but I was slowly getting to the point where I could handle it if the skips were feeling uncooperative.
Of course, that same week I rolled in garbage and was outrun by a sweaty, overweight plumber out on bond for a drunk and disorderly. I'd gotten him the next day, after liberally dousing his back patio with some old fryer grease from Cluck in a Bucket. He went down like a ton of bricks. Don't laugh, it worked for Rockford once.
All in all, things were looking up. I'd gotten most of my skips on the first try and it looked like I was going to make rent.
R&S~R&S~R&S
Item 2: Get my gun out of the cookie jar
When I first started bounty hunting for my Cousin Vinnie, Ranger made sure I had handcuffs and a gun, saying that if I was going to do the job, I needed the right tools. That's a philosophy he obviously lives by, judging by the fact that he's never without two guns and a knife and boatload of Kevlar.
Ranger has tried in many subtle and unsubtle ways to keep me armed – he keeps an extra gun for me in his glove box, and I've lost count of the number of tasers and cans of mace I've found in my purse. He may not want a relationship with me, but he cares.
Despite Ranger's efforts, I've spent the last four years relying on luck a lot more than preparation. Since Melvin Brubaker chucked a flaming bottle at my car, I've never gone anywhere without two fully charged tasers. But facts are facts.
I. Really. Hate. My. Gun. Which explains why I'd spent the last twenty minutes parked in front of Sunny's gun shop, staring down at said gun. I had almost psyched myself into going in when someone rapped on the window of my new (to me) Corolla. It had a whole lot of miles on it and some dents, but it was paid for.
I almost jumped out of my skin, but then I looked up into a familiar face. Eddie Gazarra took my lack of screaming as an invitation and folded himself into the passenger seat.
"Hey Steph, how's it going?" He asked, nodding at the revolver in my lap. "I'm going to assume that this creepy staring at your gun thing is part of your self-improvement campaign and that you're not planning on offing yourself."
"Jeez, Eddie, no way." I narrowed my eyes at him as I stuffed the pistol back into my bag. "Who told you about my self-improvement plan?" No one except Francine and Peanut knew, and I didn't think they'd snitch.
He rolled his eyes at me. "No one, but you're seen going into a gym a couple of times, people notice. Then, when you start hauling in skips without a speck of garbage in sight, I notice."
I shot him a level ten Burg death glare. "Jeez, is nothing a secret around here? I suppose you know what color undies I bought at Victoria's Secrets last week."
The tips of Eddie's ears turned pink. "Christ, if that's common knowledge, the guys know better than to tell me." He gave my arm a squeeze. "I'm real proud of you, Steph, and just wanted to let you know that I'm in if you need any help."
Eddie and I have known each other forever, so hearing that he was proud wasn't quite as major as if it were coming from a certain Bad-ass in black, but it still meant a lot.
Normally 'help' is a four letter dirty word in my book. Usually, the only offers I get are out of pity (Ranger), for helping me to get a new job (Morelli and my Mom), or for helping to get and keep a man (Mom).
But again, facts are facts. I needed help. Trading my skills for some self-defense lessons had worked out OK, so maybe….
I shot Eddie a mock-stern look. "OK, but I don't have to do a whole lot of babysitting for your demon kids, do I?"
Eddie laughed and shook his head. "Nah, but I'd really appreciate it if you could watch them for our Anniversary next week."
So we went inside and shot at some targets. Once he convinced me to keep my eyes open, I was hitting the paper men pretty consistently. After a few minutes, Eddie disappeared and came back with a holster.
"You're not a bad shot, you just have to get comfortable carrying around your gun," he said as he helped me strap on the revolver.
I made a face as he had me make some practice draws. "I don't think I'll ever get used to it." I looked over at him. "Hey, you didn't like guns growing up." Unlike the rest of neighborhood boys, Eddie never had an air rifle or played cops and robbers, so his joining the Trenton PD was a surprise back in the day.
"I wanted to help the neighborhood and City benefits aren't bad." Eddie shrugged. "The gun is a tool. If being armed means I can do my job and increases my chances of coming home to my family, I'd strap on a Bazooka."
"Huh." OK, my pal Eddie had a point. I looked thoughtfully down at my gun. "Maybe."
He nodded. "Food for thought, huh? Look, Steph, if you want, I can help you get the permit to carry." He snorted. "I don't know why Joe hasn't helped you, because just pulling the police reports from the last year alone would be grounds for concealed carry."
"I won't say no." I gave Eddie a hug and put my ear protectors back on. "How about another couple of rounds?"
