Ode to a Duck- Day of Mourning Part 2

Blame Suze for the continuation and Tracy for putting the idea in my head in the first place. Personally, I hope they someday inspire yet more chaotically evil thoughts.

Nope, I don't own any of these characters, I am just mutilating them for my own twisted amusement.

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Some days it just don't pay to get out of bed, Ranger reflected as he made his way into Vinnie's. The world was just too damn bright today, and not even his Raybans could dim it down to tolerable levels. Tequila could exact some vicious revenge.

His head was throbbing, his entire body was sore, and he was in one of the worst moods he'd been in outside of a combat situation gone FUBAR. Fuck. He felt like his life was officially FUBAR just now. His ex and his prospective girlfriend were now happily shacked up and no man in the universe had a chance, least of all him.

He took off the sunglasses as he stepped into the blessed darkness of the office. Apparently he wasn't the only one who had decided to dim the lights a little today. Connie was working at her desk, but Lula was sprawled across the couch with something covering her eyes.

"Ladies," he said quietly by way of greeting.

"Unngh. Keep it down, Batman,' Lula moaned. "It be loud enough in here wit' those damn keys a clacking."

"Rough night, Lula?" he asked. Some part of him was glad he wasn't the only one who'd gone on a drinking binge on a Wednesday night. Well, Tank and Morelli had been in on it too, but they both had their reasons. Tank had been hoping for a date with Jeanne Ellen, and Morelli had just had to take the news that his fiancee was dumping him for a bounty hunter. A female bounty hunter, 'Ranger-ette' being Morelli's term for her.

They'd counseled him not to let Jeanne hear him call her that; neither Tank nor Ranger being sure that she wouldn't kill a cop, not even one with Family ties.

Lula had removed her compress to glare up at him.

"Fuckin' A, rough night."

"Problems?"

"What the fuck you think, Batman?" Lula snarled. Ranger glared meaningfully at her and waited for the cringe. She didn't, she just glared back.

"Don't give me that look. Don't scare me none. I already gone to hell, might as well send me to that third world country. Better than livin' round this place."

Ranger frowned and looked at Connie, wondering what had happened while he and the guys were drinking Shorty out of his bar.

"You didn't hear about Stephanie?" Connie's eyebrows were raised in disbelief.

"I-" he looked back a Lula. No, his piece of news wouldn't have incited this, surely. "What about Steph?"

"She's moving in with JEANNE ELLEN!" Lula wailed. "That skanky slut of yours," she added accusingly. Ranger took a cautious step back, realizing that it was entirely possible she might be armed, at least with a stun gun.

"I heard about that," he told them. Lula's glare intensified.

"God damned Cat Woman, taking my woman. I oughtta bust a cap in yo' ass for training her."

This time Ranger's step back was more in the lines of reeling from shock than self preservation. "Your w-" he couldn't say. Christ. Maybe he was still drunk, or passed out and dreaming. That had to be it.

"Damn skippy! She up and left me for that skank!"

"She was with Morelli?" Ranger suggested, more for his own sanity than for calming down the large, angry female in front of him.

"Morelli?" Connie laughed. "Hon, he was a cover! She was too scared to come out, what with her Burg family and all."

"I was patient, I didn't want to pressure her none," Lula sniffled. "She got enough o' that from you stupid men. Damned if maybe you wasn't right after all. No pressure and she went and found that Jeanne Ellen skank the other week down at Venus…" Lula trailed off in a sudden fit of tears.

Connie grabbed the box of tissues off the desk and produced a box of chocolate donuts from somewhere before dashing across the room to her friend's side. "Maybe you better go, Ranger. The files are on my desk."

"Is Vinnie in?"

"Yeah. Go on."

Ranger left the two females to bond, and please God nothing more. He wasn't sure he could take it if every female he knew around her really started turning up gay. Connie gay would just be too much.

Vinnie was sitting at his desk, staring mournfully at a picture he held in his hands, and Ranger could see the man had been crying. Christ. What kind of acid was God on this week?

He cleared his throat to get the little weasel's attention. Vinnie raised a hand and waved a little in a 'go on' motion, but his eyes never left the picture.

"Vinnie, about that job you wanted us to-" he stopped as Vinnie broke down into a sob.

"She was so young!"

"Excuse me?"

"We used to go swimming every day. You couldn't hardly get her out of that pool, you know?" Vinnie wiped away his tears and touched the picture reverently. "She was so little and tiny… Why do they have to grow up so fast?"

Ranger frowned, knowing Vinnie didn't have kids. That was a good thing for the species, probably, but it didn't explain this conversation.

"One day you're helping them learn to walk and the next day they're off flying to god knows where and you can't…" he swallowed hard, and grabbed a tissue out of the box beside him. "I'm gonna kill that old bastard," he muttered.

Ranger let him have few moments to collect himself before he tried again. "I'm here about that job you wanted done…"

"Oh. The job. Nevermind. It wasn't necessary after all," Vinnie sighed and put the picture back on his desk. "But there's another one. I think you might even enjoy yourselves with this one…" he scrounged through the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a large manilla folder and a couple envelopes and held them out.

Ranger stepped over and took the items, catching a glimpse of the picture as he did so. Harry the Hammer and a couple goons in hunting gear, showing off the ducks they'd apparently been hunting. He looked from it to Vinnie and raised an eyebrow.

Vinnie's eyes narrowed dangerously.

Ranger looked down at the folder and envelopes in his hands. He didn't want to know. He really didn't. "I'll let you know about the job by the end of the week."

He walked around Vinnie's desk and headed for the back door. No way was he going through the front again.

"Lula still in mourning?" Vinnie asked before he made it out. Ranger looked back at the man's ferret-like features, curled into their usual smug expression.

"Yeah." And she ain't the only one, he added silently.

He opened the door and ambled back around to the parking lot. Maybe it was time for a change of pace, this place was getting too weird for him. Maybe it was time to go to Miami for a while. He didn't want to be around when Trenton got to hosting a gay pride festival…

'I didn't want to pressure her none..'

Lula and Stephanie? Stephanie was with…

Ranger stopped in his tracks, frozen in the horror of dawning realization.

Stephanie and Lula.

'He was a cover…'

Ranger pulled out his cell phone. If he had to live with this, so did Morelli.

"Yo. I think you need to drop by Vinnie's. Oh, yeah, it's important… You need to ask Lula…"