Day One
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a/n: so...Lester won the poll by by a landslide! Who knew so many readers love this guy who has, what? two sentences in a single book and is never mentioned again? Amazing the power of fan fics.
BTW if you voted for Manny, fear not, his story is written and will appear soon, proably next week.
Chapter Seven ~ Lester Santos's First Day on the Job
This is excerpted from a real newspaper article, published in the UK :
'Penis' Confiscated by Police
Jason Hadlow is upfront about his predicament. "They're holding my penis hostage,"the U.K. shopkeeper complains to QMI Agency, after local police hauled away a 1.2 metre,hand-carved stone phallus he had displayed in his front window.
The sandstone male-modelled thingy was sitting among a tranquil display of garden fixtures, when police in the community near the English town of Bedale, in North Yorkshire, swooped in. They grabbed the not-so-private part and fined Hadlow for "displaying an item liable to cause harassment, alarm and distress."
"To one side was a statue of Venus with her boobies right there, and nearby was Hercules…and (he was) pretty much hanging out in the open," recalls Hadlow of the recent raid. "But they couldn't help themselves, and just went straight for my willy."
Unless the shop owner pays a fine he's not getting the Indonesian good luck symbol back. To help free the impounded organ, Hadlow has set up a Facebook campaign dubbed "Free Willy."
[Hadlow said,] "It's going to be sadly missed — both staff and customers loved it."
or maybe it happened in Trenton NJ...?
... ... ... ... ...
Lester
Stephanie slid further down into the black leather seats of our Rangeman Explorer. Her face was deep pink heading to beet red and she was alternating biting her thumbnail and her lower lip.
Despite wanting to laugh, I felt myself stirring. What? Stephanie Plum: all hot and bothered, the lip biting thing...I'm a tough guy but I'm not-brain-dead. I mean, hormonally dead. I mean...oh shit, you know what I meant. I didn't mean my brain was located in my dick. Although...
Speaking of dicks—
...
Ranger
Earlier this morning I looked across the breakfast table at sleepy, morning sex tousled Stephanie and asked her what she had on deck for the day.
Steph poked a finger at the stack of FTA files next to her plate and said, "I'm gonna stake out this guy's shop. Should be an easy pickup. He's not violent or anything, just stupid."
"Do you need back-up?" Lula and Tank were out of town for a few days. Their romance had heated up considerably after Lula found a good allergy doc. Armed with high dose Claritin, Tank's feline menagerie didn't bother Lula and Tank had regained his appeal in her eyes.
Whatever. The point is, I was short of my own backup man and so was Steph. But I had meetings all morning, so..."What's the exact charge?" I asked.
"Ah. Um." First pink blush creeping up her throat. Interesting. Won't meet my eyes. "Hadlow, Jason; Caucasian, age 39. No priors...Picked up for LLB," read Steph from the file.
"LLB?"
"Lewd and lascivious behavior, public indecency."
"He's a flasher?"
"No, um...no. And he had a fine to pay but he refused, jumped bail. Word is he's back at his art and decor for the garden shop almost every day. So, I'll just do some stakeout thing, see if he turns up."
So far I wasn't at all sure what the guy did, just that Stephanie was too embarrassed to tell me in exact words. You'd think after the night we just had—and this morning...plus our shower just now—well. But you never know. And backup is essential, I don't care how routine a pickup seems, shit can happen. I said, "I have meetings, babe. Take Lester, okay."
"Nooooo!" Her face got pinker.
"You and Les have a problem?" I asked.
"Nooooo! But..."
"I'll tell Les to meet you in the garage, in say..." I glanced at her hair. "An hour? Two?"
"I'll get him on his cell when I'm ready."
"Do not leave without him."
She gave me a universal finger gesture, I'll think of it as a cute little finger wave, right?
... ... ...
Lester
And so here we are...
The newly trendy downtown area of Trenton (is that an oxymoron, or what?) was quiet at oh nine hundred when we parked at the curb. Steph ate her third donut and we both sipped coffee.
''So. Lester.''
Uh oh...
''Yeah, Steph?''
"Hector was telling me the other day about his first day on the job at Rangeman..."
I glanced at her, careful to hide my amazement.
''And?''
''Well, I guess maybe it got lost in the uh, translation?'' She frowned a little. Stephanie Plum looks adorable even when she frowns. Or pouts. Maybe especially when she pouts. Man, those lips... I made a show of adjusting something in my cargo pockets.
I suavely said, "Oh."
"So what about you? What was your first day at Rangeman like?"
We sat in silence while I thought about her question.
Finally: ''Well, Lester? C'mon. Entertain me, I'm dying of boredom here!"
Surely she realized I'd known the boss, the man currently known as Ranger, since birth. My birth that is. Ranger is two years older than me. Ranger probably snuck into my nursery and slipped a toy gun into my crib... I can't remember meeting Ranger, but maybe that counts as my first day?
That isn't what she was asking though, was it?
''WELL!'' Jersey girl shriek. I hid my cringe.
"I'd tell you, beautiful...but then I'd have to kill you." Or Ranger would kill me.
''Idiot. You're a riot, Les.'' Steph folded her arms over her breasts, I mean chest and pouted some more. Cute.
I shrugged, we sat.
All still quiet at ten and ten-thirty but around eleven hundred, just when Steph was majorly squirming her way to begging for a bathroom break, a commotion broke out. We heard it first: FREE WILLY! FREE WILLY!, then a ragtag band of sixties-era-ish protesters marched into view. Maybe a dozen citizens exercising their right to protest. Free Willy, Free Willy!
I said, "You see Hadlow?"
"No."
I wondered why these people were protesting the fate of what I assumed was a whale—that's what Willy is, right? I asked Steph, "Is this about that whale in Florida, the one who killed his trainer? I don't think its name was Willy though."
Steph turned her pink cheeked face to me and said, "No, Les. Geez. Look at the signs!"
"I did, they say Free Willy."
"No, the shape of the posters, the shape of the signs. Look at all familiar?"
"Oh."
The group was carrying signs shaped like big, colorful penises. The artwork wasn't great, that's why I missed it at first. But, yeah—dick signs. Huh.
On closer inspection I could see that the protestors wore t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase Free Willy and a silk screened photo, clearer than the signs, definitely a big, upright dick.
Steph said, "Yes, oh. Jason Hadlow was arrested for having a 5 foot penis in his store window! A—willy, Lester! A dick! The guy has a 5 foot dick!"
"Really."
"Hadlow is British, they call them their willies."
"Hmmmm. Five feet?"
She said, "It was a garden statue! Not his...willy.''
"Okay..."
"He refused to pay because he said that other statue, see there—the naked guy with the world on his shoulders?"
"Un huh. Atlas," I said.
"The file said Hercules...?"
"I don't think..."
"What-ever!" she interrupted. "So, his dick is right there too. But the police weren't bothered by his dick," snorted Steph. "Because it was a little dick...it was, um, tasteful."
"Tasteful."
She giggled. "So Jason refused to pay, he said it was hypocritical to arrest him because he had a giant penis. In the window I mean."
"But Atlas's little dick is okay?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Well you know what they say, beautiful."
"What?"
"Size matters."
"You should know...There's my skip! C'mon!"
the end