Breaking the Rules
By Katherine
According to my mentor, and one time lover, there was a Bounty Hunter Handbook that all Bounty Hunters were supposed to have read and would explain how to deal with all the awkward situations that they would find themselves in. Unfortunately, my copy appeared to have got lost in the mail so I was forced to improvise when I got into sticky situations. I make up the rules as I go, too.
Admittedly, I have a tendency to get into more 'sticky situations' than most, but I was getting better and better at dealing with them before anyone else got involved. So when I found myself the target of a gun fight during lunch on Thursday, I didn't start to panic, but rather dropped low to the ground and began to work out who was shooting me, where they were shooting me from and exactly how I was going to get out of the mess I was in. I tried to move to a more protected location where I could check my weaponry.
A gun had seemingly jumped into my hand as soon as I heard gunfire, it was a semi-automatic and an older weapon that I was comfortable with. I had my back pressed to a wall and sighted one of the men shooting me. I fired off three shots, and saw him fall. My attention shifted to the next. As far as I could tell, there were only three people trying to kill me, and that was almost safe by comparison to other gunfights that I'd been in.
I found it somewhat humorous that I could be so blasé about a gunfight like this, considering my Smith & Wesson .38 used to spend more time in my cookie jar than in my hands. Of course, it now spends more time in my gun locker than in my hands, but that's because it has been replaced by more powerful and more dangerous guns instead – not because I'm afraid of it anymore. In fact, if someone pointed an S & W at me, I'd probably laugh – it's a sissy gun. Oh, it's still a gun, and hence dangerous, but it's a sissy gun and no longer even worth my time.
Neither of the two men remaining could be easily spotted, but I caught a brief flash of light being reflected and fired off six rounds towards it, hearing a muted groan and then the guy staggered out from behind the car he'd been hiding behind, he started to fire towards me but as he'd become more obvious I put an easy bullet in his stomach and then started to turn my attention to the other man.
He chose that moment to start talking to me, "So, you think you're pretty good, huh?" he demanded, "you think you can take us all down?"
I didn't say anything; he was doing enough talking for the both of us, and my mind was entirely focused on locating him and taking him down. In my experience with psycho's, stalkers and assassins, they only talk when they're nervous and then they had a tendency to lose control of their movements.
"Come out, come out wherever you are!" he called and I almost sniggered at the clichéd line that he used. It reminded me of a crappy movie. I didn't pay any more attention to him but rather took brief stock of my situation and reloaded my weapons.
I'd had more than my share of psycho's chasing me over the last few years and all of them had a similar list of lines that they could pull out in a situation like this. That this guy was even talking made me think that he wasn't professional, that this wasn't his 'day job' as it were and that he wasn't used to a situation like this one.
His talking was advantageous, I realized after barely a moment, to me because it gave me an indication of where he was. The car park did not have the acoustics to encourage an echo, so it was easy for me to work out roughly where he was, and then I began to move my way towards him so that I could find a clear shot. It took me a brief moment to move around to where I could see his feet. But the only way I was going to get a clear shot was if I made a target of myself and I had no real desire to do that. It looked like I had no choice, however, and I prepared to make the leap as the target began to talk again.
"Come on, honey, if you make it worth my while, maybe I won't kill you-"
"Bruce shut the fuck up!" another voice commanded.
I froze, apparently there was a fourth person in this situation. If there was one that I'd not noticed, there could be plenty more. I shifted back to the shadows and decided to wait it out. Hopefully the inexperienced Bruce would get bored and move to a spot from which I could make a shot without too much trouble. The other guy could prove more difficult to take down, but I had no doubt I could do it.
The new player had a controlled calm air about his voice which made me nervous. If he had been here the whole time and I'd not noticed him then I was in trouble – that required more than a modicum of skill. The control evident in his voice reminded me of the way Ranger and the RangeMen guys would act when on a job; there was no room for emotion and there was no room to screw up.
Patience has never been my strong suit. I was always the child who opened the Christmas presents before Christmas day. I was always the one who ate her dessert before her mains. I was impulsive and hated waiting. I got fidgety on surveillance jobs and got bored when I had no skips to take in. I hated waiting for someone with guns to make a move.
Luckily I didn't have to wait long, because about five minutes later Bruce stood up and said, "Fuck this!" and started firing bullets randomly. One ricocheted and clipped my leg, causing it to begin to bleed but it was nothing more than a small flesh wound and the bullet wasn't hydroshock so it didn't leave anything behind.
I didn't wait to hear the rest of his words, but fired off a round and clipped him four times – one in the head and three in the shoulders. He was most definitely dead. I ruthlessly suppressed the regret that blossomed through my heart at the thought, and focused my thoughts upon the mystery man who was still around.
He was clearly more skilled than the three incompetents he was working with, which made me nervous – although not uncontrollably so. Instead I began moving cautiously, trying to keep myself covered at all times and catch a glimpse of him. He wasn't making it easy for me, but then I liked to think the same could be said of me. I didn't waste my breath trying to reason with him; that would have done me about as much good as trying to stop a semi going downhill with my bare hands. Instead I just kept moving and out of sight.
Somewhat luckily, sirens became audible in the distance and several black SUVs pulled up outside the parking lot. I let Tank lead a team through the lot to ensure that the gunman had disappeared before I called him on my cell phone.
"A little busy right now," he said shortly when he answered.
"Is it safe to come out now?" I asked.
"You're here?" he was surprised and his whole posture stiffened.
I stood up and waved, but a bullet slammed into the back of my shoulder. It was lucky that I was wearing Kevlar. I dropped back to the ground cussing a blue streak.
Tank was still trying to talk to me but I disconnected and focused back onto the man who had shot me. I knew he was shooting from the back of the parking lot, he had fired only a single shot and quite accurately which meant that he was most likely a highly-skilled professional. I scowled slightly but then caught sight of him.
He was built; there was no doubt about it – he had a tanned muscular torso, sandy blonde hair and his eyes were differing colours; one a deep blue and the other an emerald green. I took all this in over an instant and then fired off a round, surprised he hadn't seen me.
I stood up after I was sure he was out, hissing out a breath at the pain lancing through my shoulder. Tank was racing towards my, his gun drawn. I glanced at him briefly and then pointed to the four locations where there were bodies. He quickly checked to see which were alive and called for an ambulance. I staggered towards the body of the last man I'd shot and flipped him over, "What's your name?" I demanded.
He just glared at me.
"What the fuck is your name?" I returned his glare, breaking it off after a moment to pat him down and empty his pockets. I grabbed his wallet and pocketed it as the police pulled up. I didn't wait around next to him, but made my way outside the lot and sat down on the ground and put my head in my hands as I took deep breaths and let the shakes run their course.
I was interrupted when a hand landed on my shoulder. I whirled around and stood up in a split second, pulling my gun out and flicking off the safety before I realized who it was. I recognized the man in front of my and flicked the safety back on, putting the gun back where it belonged.
"Have you got a licence for that, Cupcake?" Joe demanded.
I just looked at him like he was stupid, "would I carry it if I didn't?" I asked.
Getting a licence to carry concealed is far from easy, I had discovered, however when one is a bounty hunter and has reasonable connections it becomes slightly easier. Ironically it had been my ex-husband, Dickie Orr who had helped me get my licence and that was only after some serious blackmail. He had been screwing his secretary as well as his second wife and he didn't need another divorce as a result of infidelity. Thus, I had a licence for three of my guns which were good enough as I tended to carry only three at a time.
He didn't reply directly, just raised an eyebrow. I remained silent and kept the breathing thing going on.
"We'll take your statement later," he said, "you can come down to the station tomorrow."
I shrugged my agreement, there was no need to respond verbally. Instead I watched as all four of the men were loaded onto Guernseys and rushed to the hospital where they could be taken care of or declared dead. The police were canvassing the scene and had cordoned it off. RangeMan employees were talking to the cops, surveying the scene.
Tank, however, was talking to three people I didn't recognize. He was standing about a hundred metres away from me and motioning towards me regularly. I watched him for a moment and then shrugged internally, I needed to go home and have a shower.
I stood up, carefully ignoring the pain in my shoulder and took a few shaky steps. Then I straightened up and walked normally, wincing internally each time my shoulder got jolted. As I reached my car, however, Eddie stepped over to me and grabbed it. I hissed out a moan of agony and turned around, moving my shoulder out of his grasp. "What do you want, officer?" I asked politely.
He glanced briefly at his hands, surprised by the blood he saw on them, but then he straightened his spine and began his tirade, "What were you thinking, Plum?" he snapped at me, "You just killed four men!"
I didn't say anything, just stared at him quietly. I saw several of the RangeMan employees step beside me to face him. His face was closed and aggressive, the way it was when he was dealing with a perp; not one of his oldest friends, and I guess that was evidence enough of just how much he had changed.
"You know, Eddie," I said quietly, "I was prepared to give you more than the usual number of chances, as someone I once considered one of my best friends. I was prepared to let you get away with some things that nobody else could have gotten away with, but let me tell you know; this friendship is over." I looked heavily at him, my eyes flinty and cold.
Eddie and I had been friends since I was three. He'd been there to help me pick up the pieces every time something had gone wrong. He was the one who offered me a place to stay after Morelli wrote about me on the wall at the Stadium, and he was the one who paid for my gas after I gunned the Buick over the footpath to run him over. He was the one I turned to when my marriage failed and I saw Joyce and my husband playing hide-the-salami on my dining room table. He was the one who ensured that nobody arrested me when I destroyed Dickie's house a week before the divorce.
In return, I supplied him with donuts and beer when his wife (my cousin) had him on another one of her fanatical diets. I didn't complain (too much) when he placed bets on the next exploding car, or the next time I'd find a dead body. Instead I let him claim his winnings and even gave him some juicy gossip to keep him in supply. He'd married my cousin which simply cemented what we already knew; he was family. Since the Slayer fiasco began, however, it was as though the ties that were once so strong no longer existed. I was, thus, surprised to see a flash of pain in his eyes at my pronouncement.
I ignored him and turned my back on the police. Four people were walking towards me in a diamond formation; three men and a woman. At the back was Tank, looking slightly panicked. The three others were the ones he'd been talking to earlier and I immediately identified them as family – all of them had similar features. The one at the front, I recognized upon closer inspection as Ranger – Henry Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle.
I stared at them in shock, my feet rooted to the ground. How long had he been back in town? As he approached, I could see his face was stormy – and the scary part was that I'd never seen so much emotion in his face at one time before. He grabbed my uninjured shoulder and whirled me around, "What the hell do you think you were doing?" he hissed furiously.
He hadn't changed much in the last eighteen months, the time had been kind to him. His body was as toned and muscular is it used to be, his skin as tanned and his hair just as long. His eyes were as demanding as they used to be – pleading silently for information. He was dressed in the attire I was used to seeing him wear, black combat boots and pants, black jacket hiding god-knows-how-many-weapons. I'd missed him, I'd admit it, but not now and not to him.
I peeled his hand off my shoulder and smiled sweetly at him, "Oh!" I gasped in mock surprise, "Hi, Ranger! I've been great, thanks for asking. How about you? Have you enjoyed Miami? It's great to have you back. Sorry to be rude, but I'm a little pressured at the moment." I turned and walked to my car and pull out my first aid kit, ignoring Rangers stunned gaze and the amused sniggers of the RangeMan crew. The two people with him I didn't know looked as stunned as Ranger did, and I assumed they must be his brother and sister, Mara and Diego.
The first thing I did was strip off my Kevlar and rip the shoulder off my shirt so that I could patch up the more serious of my two bullet wounds. Unfortunately the bullet had been armour-piercing and had broken the skin in my shoulder. On the flip side, I had been wearing reinforced Kevlar which was double-strength armour and thus it hadn't gone particularly far into my shoulder. Instead it was still sticking out of the shoulder and I could easily remove it. I did so, ignoring the wince that came from the onlookers. I threw the bullet to the ground and began to disinfect the wound.
An EMT from the second ambulance ambled over and tried to take over, but I slapped his hand away, "I'm fine," I said brusquely. I have always hated EMTs and I especially hated people touching my injuries. They always took your control away, strapped you to a Guernsey and took you to the hospital, leaving you no choice as to when you could or couldn't leave.
His hands returned again, and again I swatted them away "Miss Plum," he said in mild frustration, "you have been shot!" he spoke as though I was an idiot.
I looked up at him, what was he stating the obvious for? "I am aware of that," I said quietly.
"You need medical care," he continued, treating me like an idiot. His hands reaching back to the wound.
I heard a whispered, "this should be good," from Tank. He had seen me deal with EMTs before and knew exactly how much I hated them.
"Which I am providing myself!" I replied as I selected a piece of Gauze and opened the package.
"Ma'am, you really do need to come down to the hospital," he tried to reason with me. Honestly, you'd think after this long, that they'd have learnt it's impossible to reason with Stephanie Plum.
"I know how to clean up a bullet wound," I said shortly. "I don't need an ape with an overgrown view of his own self-importance to show me! I've done it to myself enough times, so go and make yourself useful! Considering the statistics there is bound to be someone else who needs your help.
"Ma'am, you are seriously injured!" he said.
"Nothing of the sort," I shook my head.
"You should really come to the hospital," he said.
I looked at him as I finished taping the wound. Finally I stood up, and let my pent up anger and frustration seep out a little. "I need to do nothing of the sort!" I snapped, "the last time I was in the hospital, I got an extra bullet wound to go with the one I was being treated for. Then I had to sit through hours of your bureaucratic bullshit as you tried to work out who the fuck shot me and how they got into the hospital!"
"Ma'am, you're in shock!" he continued in his attempt to reason with me, obviously he'd missed the class on observation: I had taped up my wound, I was standing up and arguing with him and there were other people who had a greater need of his help.
"No," I shook my head, "I'm not. I don't have time to go into shock, so just leave me the fuck alone! I've done exactly what you would have done if I'd let you so let me just give myself the diagnosis that a doctor would give. 'Right, Ms. Plum, you look like you're fine. You should take it easy for the next few days and be careful of your shoulder it's likely to be stiff for the next few days." I smirked, "Of course, doctor, I'll take it easy." I rolled my eyes.
Obviously the moron was going to keep going, so I ignored him and turned around and bent down, quickly packing away my first aid kit and ignoring his continued mutterings. He tried to grab my wrist, but I slapped his hand away again – would this guy take a hint? I put the kit back into my car, walked over to Joe and asked sweetly, "are we all finished here, Officer Morelli?"
"Yeah," he sighed, "you need to come to the station to give your statement." He looked at me for a moment and I waited for whatever he was going to say, he shook his head, "he's a professional, Cupcake. Let him do his job."
"There's no need," I said quietly, "I can do it for myself."
At home I gave the bullet wounds a more thorough cleaning and put on a sports bra so that I could leave the shoulder one uncovered. Then I collapsed onto my sofa and let the shakes and the shock take over. When I had told the EMT that I didn't have time to go into shock, I'd only been partially telling the truth. I couldn't afford to go into shock in such a public place. So I suppressed it ruthlessly until I was home and secure and able to let the shakes and the hot and cold flushes take over.
I shivered and sweated and shook uncontrollably for a solid twenty minutes, my mind replaying the incident over and over again. I cried over the lives that I'd taken and the blood that I had spilt.
When I was calm, however, I rose and took a shower before calling into the control room, where Kevin was on duty (again).
"Did you seriously smart off to the boss?!" he demanded as he picked up, "man, I would have loved to see his face!"
"Hey Kev," I smiled, "Anything in about the Slayers General Meeting, yet?" I was hopeful, but far from expectant.
"No, nothing definite," he replied, "loads of speculation though. The four guys you took out today are from the extremists who want you dead, though."
"Who was the one who shot me?" I demanded, "he had skills, not like the others." I thought about it for a minute and then remembered the wallet I had pocketed. I grabbed it and began flicking through it while I listened to Kevin.
"Uhh, actually," Kevin coughed in amusement, "he was one of your skips."
"No, he wasn't," I shook my head.
"Well," Kev was clearly amused, "he's been positively ID'd with fingerprints as Stan Montero, and admitted to having undergone plastic surgery." I pulled out his drivers licence and realized he was being deadly serious and this guy really was my skip.
"You're joking?" I was beyond astonished, "So I made five grand today?" Not to mention the two hundred and fifty dollars in his wallet – although being such a nice girl I might return his wallet to him. And I'd managed to piss Vinnie off; or I would when I got him to fill out the forms. He hated the paperwork that resulted from a death or injury, and that tended to happen a lot around me.
"Congratulations," Kevin acknowledged, "but I still wish I could have see- Oh! Hello Mr. Manoso," Kevin had clearly lowered to phone to talk to Ranger, "Is there something I can do for you, boss?"
"Kevin," Ranger acknowledged, then, "Who are you talking to?"
"Stephanie," Kevin answered, sounding worried, probably being caught gossiping when he was supposed to be working, "Why?"
"Hand me the phone," Ranger commanded, "Babe?"
I didn't say anything for a moment and then inputted quietly, "My name is Stephanie,"
"Are you alright? I didn't realize you were injured." He sounded surprisingly worried, considering I'd not heard from him for eighteen months.
"It was just a Flesh wound," I replied shortly, "nothing new. Put me back to Kevin."
"Babe-"
I hung up. Okay, I'll admit it was more than a little childish, but I was sore and tired and beyond drained. I really didn't appreciate that he couldn't recognize my request to use my name, either. I wondered how he'd react this time. The last time I had hung up on him, he had broken into my apartment and scared the life out of me before extracting a concession not to hang up on him again.
My phone rang barely a minute later. I picked it up, "Stephanie Plum," I answered perkily.
"Babe, will you just-"
"My name is Stephanie," I said coldly, "please use it."
He sighed, "Stephanie," he tried again, his voice sounding tired and as drained as I felt, "can we meet up somewhere? I need to talk to you."
I didn't say anything for a few moments. He was clearly in an impatient mood, because he didn't wait for my reply he just barked out, "Pinos at five."
"Shortys at eight," I countered, surprised at his suggestion of Pinos and unsure how far he was aware of my situation with the Slayers.
"You'd eat at Shortys?" Ranger sounded surprised, "for me?"
I almost sniggered at the arrogance and surprise in his voice, but answered wearily, "I'm not doing it for you."
"Shortys at eight," he confirmed the details and I made a point of hanging up before he could.
