I am shamelessly using the characters below from JE's creation. I'm not clever enough to come up with them on my own.
Jenny (JenRar) you are the single reason this story has any flow to it at all. Thank for your work as the beta.
Chapter 4 – Coming Clean…in a manner of speaking
Ranger's POV
I wondered how high the paperwork was going to be in Tank's office by the time I finally got back in Trenton. I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance I'd never make it back there, but I wasn't as groggy this morning, so I was attempting to see if the Power of Positive Thinking was really a bunch of crap or not. Besides, thinking about the miserable look Tank was no doubt sporting at the moment definitely made me feel better about my current state of inactivity. It wasn't like he was out on the streets, either. I guess misery really did love company.
That thought made me laugh, but I quickly stopped myself because my ribs hurt like a son of a bitch every time I jostled them or took a deep breath. I'd been through this routine enough to know that a broken leg or arm was nothing compared to shattered ribs. It would be weeks before a big draw of air didn't start the sensation of a fire in my chest.
Before I could launch back into the black hole of worrying over what would happen if I never felt the pain my legs had to be in, the phone in my hand began to vibrate. Without thinking, I lifted it to my ear and answered. There were only a handful of people who could get a call through at the moment, and as bored as I was, I'd gladly speak to any of them.
"Ranger?" came Stephanie's uncertain voice.
"Were you expecting someone else to answer?" I couldn't help but joke with her.
"No, I just needed to be sure you were there before I started talking. I know you're on a mission, and I wasn't sure if this was a good time for me to distract you," she worried.
"I wouldn't answer if it was a bad time, Babe," I tried to reassure her. In truth, based on my current schedule, there was no such thing as a bad time to hear from her.
There was a sound that resembled one of her frustrated sighs.
"Everything okay?"
"No," she instantly blurted out, putting me on edge. Then she shifted her answer. "Well, yes."
"You want a minute to see which answer's going to win?" I didn't usually tease her like this, but I was so damn glad to hear from her that I couldn't help it.
"The truth is, I've done something stupid, and I don't want any of the guys to know about it, but I don't know any other way to get out of the mess I'm in," she offered as an explanation, proving she'd learned a thing or two from me about using words but not offering very much in the way of definite meaning.
"You're going to have to try again, and this time, actually tell me what's wrong," I suggested, hoping she'd tell me the whole story.
A deep breath rattled across the phone, and I knew she was stealing herself to spill the story. "I have some things I need to do today, but I can't get into my bathroom."
There were so many questions that sentence brought up, but I didn't want to push her too much. "Why don't you call the superintendant of your building?"
"Dillon is on vacation this week, and the number he gave us to call is for an answering service that said someone would call me back in forty-eight hours. I can't wait two days to get into my bathroom," she explained, getting a little louder at the end of the sentence.
"Why not just go to your parents' house and use theirs?" I was struggling to keep the humor I was feeling out of my voice.
"I can't do that!" she insisted. "There are things in mine that I have to have in order to fix my hair. Plus, I'd have to admit why I couldn't use my own, and my mother would have a field day if I told her I was locked out."
"How did the door get locked?"
She growled, obviously frustrated. "I don't know!" I waited, and she spoke more quietly when she finally explained, "I was mad last night when I got home and banged the door open, which made it hit the wall. I'm guessing the lock engaged then. After I got ready for bed, I was still pissed so I slammed the door shut, just to vent a little. It wasn't until I tried to use it this morning that I realized the door was locked and I couldn't get in."
"You locked yourself out of your own bathroom," I summed up, amazed at the situations she managed to get herself into.
"Yes, and I've only got a limited window to get back in there before it becomes a true emergency," she confessed, sounding so small and alone. I hated hearing her sound like that.
"Do you have a hair pin?" I offered, hoping I could talk her through this on the phone. It would have been simpler to have her call Tank to have someone come over, but I liked the fact that she still considered me capable of helping her in any situation, and quite frankly, it felt damned good to feel useful at the moment.
I heard some banging around and then another sigh. "No, all my hair stuff is locked up in the bathroom. I'm stuck out here, aren't I?"
"Not necessarily. How about a paperclip, needle, or thin ice pick?" My mind was scrambling to come up with what she might have on hand that would work in this case.
"I'm not exactly Martha Stewart here, Ranger," she reminded me, basically ruling out an ice pick or needle. Before I could come up with anything else, she made a happy sound and added, "But I do have a paperclip on a file from Connie."
"Unfold it so that it's straight instead of curvy," I instructed, shutting my eyes and picturing what I needed her to do. It was so easy to visualize her standing in her apartment. I'd bet her eyes her squinted and her bottom lip was between her teeth as she concentrated on making the clip as straight as possible.
I waited, not wanting to rush this for any reason. Finally, she announced she had finished that, so I told her, "Hold the door knob to the bathroom with your left hand, and stick the end of the paperclip into the hole in the knob with your right."
There was a pause before she said, "Nothing's happening."
"Push harder," I told her, wondering why I'd never tried to teach her how to pick a lock before.
"Still nothing." She sounded disappointed, but I wasn't ready to call in backup yet.
"Take it out, and fold the clip in half so that the two ends are side by side," I instructed, hoping by doubling the surface pressing on the lock, she'd have more force to push the mechanism and release it.
"Okay," she said finally, letting me know when she had that much finished. "Do I stick it in again?"
"You're killing me with the innuendo of that sentence, Babe..." I didn't know why I was making jokes with her. I usually had better control over what I said around her. "Yes, try doing it again. When you feel it hit something, push against that, and you'll feel the lock pop out on the other side."
A quick breath across the receiver told me she'd done it. "It worked! I'm in." She sounded so genuinely happy. "Ummm..."
"What?" I couldn't figure out why she went from celebratory to awkward all of a sudden.
"Well, I can get in my bathroom now," she said as though speaking to a priest in the confessional.
"I thought that was the point."
"It was, but I can get in, and I really need to get in," she finally explained the problem enough for me to understand.
"Relax, Babe," I said gently, trying to let her know I understood. "I know you need to go. Thanks for calling."
"Wait... Shouldn't I be thanking you?" she questioned. "You're the one that helped me."
"I could debate that, but we'll call it tie this time," I told her before deciding to surprise her by saying, "Bye, Steph."
I hit end on the phone, knowing that despite her many less-than-traditional characteristics, there was still a very modest part of her personality that wouldn't have allowed her to go to the bathroom if I was on the phone. I shook my head and marveled at all the contradictions contained in that small package.
"I'd love to see more of that expression on your face," came the familiar and slightly-rough voice of Henderson.
Despite the fact that I didn't usually share personal details, my mouth opened on its own and said, "I got a particularly amusing phone call this morning."
"Whoever it was, you should set them on speed dial," she advised, not really sounding like she was joking. "It's been almost a week of you with one bleak expression on your face – even when you were sleeping. It was nice to finally see something different."
Despite my initial slip, I was back in control and not willing to disclose any more details. Stephanie was my own paradise to get lost in, and speaking of her to anyone would take away the one thing I was holding most dear in my mind.
Henderson paused a few seconds, and then her expression moved to one that I definitely recognized. My first drill instructor had one just like it when he was about to demand we do something that he knew we wouldn't like.
"This morning, you're going to have a new visitor. It's a friend of mine named Johnson, who is going to begin some respiratory therapy with you. It's going to hurt like hell with your ribs in the shape they're in, but the amount of time you're spending on your back makes you susceptible to pneumonia, so we need to get your lungs cleared out and active. Obviously, she'll talk to you about letting the level of pain you can handle guide what you do. But I'm going to expect to hear from her that you made an attempt to cooperate." She spoke clearly, but there was an implied threat in her voice that amused me.
"You're used to having your orders obeyed, aren't you?" I wasn't insulting her; I was stating a fact as I saw it.
Her eyes narrowed, and I patiently waited for her to respond. "Actually, I'm fluent in seven languages and twelve different dialects so that I can speak in whatever way will bring about the desired outcome for each patient."
"Which one did you use on me?" I asked, hearing the tinge of sarcasm in her words and wondering if she'd take it all the way to a punch line.
After a pause, she deadpanned, "For people used to being in charge and having their every word clung to and obeyed, I pull out my knowledge of asshole with a touch of intimidation."
"Well-played," I complimented her, using all my skill to keep from grinning at her.
We stared at each other for a few minutes, but she broke first, and the left side of her lips began to quiver, obviously wanting to smile. "You're a piece of work," she accused before leaving me alone once more.
Unfortunately, I didn't stay in isolation for long because a woman with short hair that seemed to be standing up in all different directions moved into my field of vision. There was a name tag high on the left side of her chest that said Johnson, letting me know this was the therapist Henderson had warned me about.
"Manoso, I'm here to make your life easier," she said, as though everything we were about to do was going to be simple and pain free.
I raised an eyebrow at her and replied, "That's funny... I thought what you were going to have me do was going to hurt like hell and make me feel like the bomb was going off on my chest again."
She tilted her head to the side, like she was considering my words. "Well...I'm going to do that, too. But in the end, you'll be glad I was here."
"I'll have to hold off judgment on that until you're done," I replied, wondering why in the hell I was talking. This was dangerously close to chatting, and I didn't chat. Hell, why didn't I just turn on the television and find a daytime soap opera to watch next?
"That's more generous than most people are," she bit back, "so I suppose I should thank you."
After that, she slipped into all-business mode. Most of what she asked me to do wasn't a surprise. I blew in tubes, I took breaths and held them in before doing a slow release, and I spoke at various volumes. Just as Henderson had predicted, it all hurt, but I was still hardwired as a soldier, so giving up wasn't an option. I boxed up the signals in my brain that said this hurt, and accepted them as true but unimportant so that I could do whatever was asked of me.
When Johnson held up her hands announcing we were finished, I was shocked. It felt like we'd been working for a while, and because I actually had something to do, time didn't feel like it was standing still. When she packed up her gear and turned to leave, I asked, "You coming back tomorrow?"
"Yep; daily visits from me until you can sit up at a bare minimum. After that, we'll see what you need and find a way to meet it," she replied, mirroring the no-nonsense mannerism of the charge nurse I respected so much.
I waited until she was at the doorway to say, "Thanks."
"Told you I was going to make your life easier," she reminded me of her opening comment.
"I wouldn't exactly call that easy," I replied, still feeling the aching burn.
"Depends on how you define it," she countered. "But for the last hour, you've had a purpose besides just wasting away in that bed, so for the time I've been here, you haven't dwelt on anything but what we've been doing. For a guy like you, I'd bet that was a lot easier than doing nothing."
She didn't wait for me to respond before walking out the door. There was nothing for me to add anyway; she was exactly right.
By the time I'd been moved through the halls of the hospital to have an MRI done and then settled back in my room, I was thinking I might have to stoop to hitting the pain pump so take the edge off how I was feeling. While I was contemplating what to do, I moved my hand around on the mattress to be sure I had the phone accessible.
If I took some pain meds, they might make me cloudy enough to disclose more than I wanted to if Stephanie called me. Of course, I was basically saying I thought Stephanie would call again, and since we'd just spoken eight hours earlier, I had no reason to think she would pick up the phone soon. I hadn't put this much premeditation into my actions since I was in junior high, wondering if I should respond to a note from the girl I was majorly crushing on.
Henderson came in and did her efficient review of my vitals, made a note in my chart, and then asked if she could get me anything before leaving for the day.
"How strong are the pain meds hooked up to the pump?" I asked, not committing myself to using it.
"It's morphine," she replied, "and based on your size and injury, the allowable dosage is pretty high. Why?"
I grimaced, knowing that morphine had never been a friend of mine. Too much of it acted like truth serum in my system. I was glad I'd asked so I could avoid making a huge mistake.
Of course, Henderson noticed my expression and suggested, "I can get you something a little less intense to try to take the edge off. You'd still have to tolerate some discomfort, but it wouldn't knock you out the way morphine does."
During the second I paused to consider her request, she must have assumed I had agreed because her shoes squeaked out of the room. I shut my eyes and followed the sound of her returning, lifting my right hand to stop her. "I didn't agree to take anything."
"I'm leaving in five minutes," she countered. "You'll either take this from me, who you know isn't bullshitting you, or you can wait until you're really suffering and then risk that my replacement decides to override your wishes and give you something much stronger."
So this was what it felt like to be one of the guys at RangeMan. I'd been handing out commands long enough that I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have all your options taken away from you by someone that you actually wanted to follow. I let my hand fall and nodded my assent.
"Twenty minutes, and you should feel better," she said after pitching the needle in the biohazard container on the wall. "Moving you around for the tests this afternoon on top of your morning with Johnson was probably a bit much. There is an anti-inflammatory in your bag, but it isn't going to do much for pain. I'll leave a note in your chart that they can repeat this dose every four hours, so you may have someone checking in to see if you need it."
After she finished, she turned and walked away before I could thank her. I don't know that I would have said anything, but I still wondered if she moved out quickly to keep me from having to come up with something appropriate to say.
It didn't take long before I felt my muscles relax and warmth spread through my body. Despite the medication she'd given me not being morphine, it felt similar. I was pleased to note that I didn't necessarily feel like sleeping, so I was soothed by the idea that it was milder than what I would have gotten from the pump.
In order to keep my mind occupied, I began working through the staff at RangeMan and coming up with a new partner rotation, trying to figure out a way to reassign everybody without allowing any of the long-standing staff to partner up with someone they'd worked with before. Surprisingly, it was a much more challenging project than I thought it would be.
I had almost succeeded when my phone buzzed. "Yo," I resorted to my standard greeting without checking to see who was on the line.
"Hey, Ranger. It's Stephanie," came the voice I most loved to hear.
"You don't have to tell me it's you," I pointed out. "There's no way I'd mistake your voice."
"You sound different," she blurted out in that manner that could catch you off guard and put you at ease at the same time. "Are you all right?"
"Me?" I questioned to be sure who she was referring to. "Yeah, I'm good." At least, I was good at the moment with her talking to me.
"Have you been drinking?" Again with the direct questioning. It was like she'd taken a class from my Abuela Rosa in how to get someone to confess to an indiscretion without using violence.
"No. I rarely drink, and even when I do, it wouldn't be to excess if I was away from home," I pointed out.
"Things must be going well with your mission if you're this relaxed." She nearly giggled at the end.
"I don't think I would say everything has gone well, but at the moment, I am relaxed." I frowned, wondering why I was sharing so much with her. I'd completely lose the "man of mystery" title if I didn't shut up. Knowing the best way to keep from blurting out anything else would be to get her talking, I turned the table on her and asked, "Is everything okay with you?"
"Yeah, I'm good. I'm just on a stakeout, and I was getting bored so I thought I'd take a chance that you'd be able to chat for a while to keep me company," she explained.
"I don't usually chat," I reminded her, feeling like that was a safe admission.
"Couldn't you make an exception for me?" she pushed.
"Babe, you are an exception to just about every rule I have," I blurted out.
"Oh…well…I'm sorry to bother you." She sounded upset, and since I had no idea what had happened, the idea of her getting off the phone with things unsettled wasn't sitting well with me.
"Wait, why are you upset? And why do you think you're bothering me?" I asked.
"You said I made you break the rules," she pointed out. "I know how you feel about living by your rules, so I figured that was a bad thing."
I laughed a little at her comment, as though anything about her in my life was a bad thing. She'd done more good for me just by association than all the Army shrinks I'd been forced to blab to after each mission. "Babe, everything about you is a good thing to me. Now, relax and talk to me. Who are you looking for?"
There was a long enough pause that I wondered if she'd hung up. Knowing her, she was probably trying to analyze what I'd just said. I was having trouble remembering exactly what words I'd used or I'd have been doing the same thing. "You still with me?" I finally gave up and prompted her to speak once more.
"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah..." The way she stumbled told me I'd been right about what she'd been thinking about. "I'm trying to figure out if Joey Malone is still keeping office hours at the Hot Wax car wash on Fourth Street."
"That's not the best part of town," I reminded her. It wasn't Stark, but it was on the opposite side from the 'Burg.
"True, but I'm in a RangeMan vehicle, so I figure I'm covered," she explained, giving me an explanation I couldn't really argue with.
"If he's there, what are you going to do?" I didn't like the idea of her charging in to try to take down a minor mob player in the middle of an X-rated car wash.
"I'm going to wait until he leaves and then go talk to one of the girls to see when she thinks he'll come again. Whenever she suggests I come back, I'll see if I can talk one of the guys to coming here with me and providing a little backup."
That was a damn solid plan. "Proud of you, Babe."
She made a soft humming sound that was probably more an unconscious response to my praise than a message she'd intended to project. "I like to hear that."
"What else do you like to hear?" I asked, feeling my face smile. It felt odd, which either meant the drugs were much stronger than I'd first thought or I hadn't used those muscles in far too long.
There was a pause, so I waited, not wanting to rush this conversation and have it end sooner. Finally, she answered, "I like to hear the sound of an ice cream truck, the high-pitched scream of people riding a roller coaster, the crashing of the waves at Point Pleasant, and the really contented purring noise a cat makes when you're petting it and they're about to go to sleep in your lap."
"You like lots of things," I commented, not letting her know how much I loved answers like that. She told me so much about herself and probably didn't realize it.
"I like talking to you on the phone like this, too," she added, apparently encouraged by my comment enough to add to her list.
Before I could say anything in response, she made an undignified sound, prompting me to ask what happened.
"I wasn't paying attention, and the tiramisu I was eating fell off my fork and onto the seat of your vehicle."
I laughed, despite the discomfort it produced in my chest.
"Are you laughing at me?" She was obviously trying to sound outraged, but the smile on her face was big enough I could hear it through the phone.
"Only because if something like that happened, at least it occurred in a good place," I told her, wondering if she'd pick up on the joke.
"Why is a stakeout a good place to lose some of my favorite dessert and get a RangeMan car dirty?" She obviously didn't see where my mind had gone.
"When you're done working, you can take it right into the car wash," I pointed out.
She was quiet a moment and then confessed, "I don't know if they get the cars very clean. It has to be hard to scrub hubcaps with those barely-there uniforms creeping up on you." It took her about two seconds before she busted out laughing at her attempt to play innocent with me.
"Oh, I think I see Malone," she got serious and reported. "I should probably go so I don't get so distracted that I miss it when he leaves."
"Be safe, Babe," I told her before hanging up and having the image of Steph in one of the X-rated car wash uniforms. That wasn't exactly my scene, but I could commit to having my whole fleet of vehicles serviced there if it meant getting to see Stephanie dealing with a creeping uniform.
Stephanie's POV
I hung up the phone with Ranger and smiled. Despite what he said, something was definitely different. He wasn't slurring his words, and he said he hadn't been drinking, but he sounded too relaxed to just be hanging out, waiting for the next moment to save the world. Not that I was complaining, because he was certainly a lot more forthcoming. Of course, my less-than-perfect timing forced me to get off the phone so that I couldn't really take advantage of his looser lips.
I put my binoculars up to my eyes and then realized in the dark, you can't really see much through them. I wondered how the spies in movies were able to keep track of people in the dark. Maybe the next time I talked to Ranger, I could get him to explain that to me. Hopefully, it wouldn't be one of those secrets he'd have to end my life after telling me.
When Malone came out, I noticed he'd only been in there for thirty minutes. I was confused about why he'd gone if that was all the time he needed to finish whatever he was doing in there. He didn't even drive through, so it wasn't like he'd gotten his car cleaned.
Despite patience not really being one of my strong suits, I waited as patiently as possible, and seven minutes after he left the parking lot, I'd exhausted my ability to stay in the car any longer. Inside the Hot Wax was nothing like I'd expected. There was the smell of cleaner and sweet air freshener. I was greeted by two women with bodies that I knew I'd never have – not even if I let Bobby get his hands on me. There was a large window that provided a view of the car wash bay, which didn't have any vehicles in it, so there were girls in the scraps of cloth I believed they considered their uniforms just sitting around talking.
It only took five minutes to get the goods on Malone, and I left feeling like I was finally getting a handle on this bounty hunting business. I'd come up with a plan, worked it smoothly, and if all went well, after borrowing Vince for a little back up, by tomorrow night at this time, I'd have my biggest skip back in the system.
I wasn't sure if it was working at the RangeMan office this morning or the head-to-toe black I was wearing, but when I stepped out of the car wash, I felt like I belonged at RangeMan.
At least, I did until I felt something hard and cold being shoved into my back.
"Miss Plum, since you ignored my first message, I'm going to have to try again."
