: Something better than nothing
Something better than nothing, it's giving up
We all need to do something
Try keep the truth from showing up:
Amy's POV
"Ah ha!" Janet smiled happily.
"What?" I asked, eagerly leaning forward.
"I found Gia."
"Where?"
"She is actually living with Rico, which is probably why she seems to have disappeared from all the public records."
"Doing pretty good on the computer stuff," I nodded impressed with her.
"Yeah, Scud showed me some stuff when we were...before, I mean. Now I understand it all better. Also helps that Max and Dominique won't let me near any of the real action right now," she looked real let down, fiddling with the hem of her skirt.
"Why does it mean so much to you, Janet?" I asked, sitting on the wide desk. She sighed deeply, glancing around, even though we both knew the other two were off attempting to tale Katia and Asha.
"My dad was a cop. And it was his life back in Ohio. He was a real good cop, nice to everyone, in it to help people, not just be an ass like a lot of the cops. He always wanted my brother Johnny to go into the academy. It was just never his thing though, he was a lot like you," she looked up at me smiling. "He went to Julliard, lives in New York City, and is struggling to make a living, but he loves it." I smile back at her, thinking of my own choices with Lucy, we don't really have to struggle, but we aren't exactly living the high life either.
"So your father wanted you to do this?"
"No," she paused for a moment. "He died when I was a senior. Getting accepted into this program was like, a sign. I mean I never even thought of doing this. You know me, I was a shoplifter. After dad though. It just seemed like this was my way to make him proud."
"I'm sure he's proud," I rubbed her arm gently. "If for no other reason then you work harder than any of us at this."
"Thanks. Do you miss it?"
"No," I paused thinking about it. "And yes. I mean, I wouldn't give up Lucy for anything. I miss you all though, I miss the fun we had before everything became all complicated. When it was just the four of us, doing stakeouts, and catching bad guys."
"Yeah," she nodded looking wistful, "good times."
"Yeah," I smiled, thinking back over things. The ringing phone brought us both out of our thoughts, and she jumped for it, checking the caller ID."
"Scud," she informed me before answering it on speaker. "Hello?"
"Janet?"
"And Amy, what's up?"
"Did you find any of our friends?"
"Got them all."
"You are a God," Janet turned red at the praise. "What are the addresses?" Janet read off the address's we had found quickly, explaining Rico and Gia were together now.
"Weird," Scud muttered. "Okay thanks, were checking in with them.
"Can I talk to Lucy?" I asked.
"Sure," I heard the phone switching hands, and picked up the portable phone on our end, walking away from Janet out onto the balcony.
"Hey baby, what's up?" Lucy asked.
"Just wanted to hear your voice."
"Funny, most of them time you're trying to get me to shut up," she teased.
"Did everything go alright with that Billy guy?"
"Yeah, kid's a total geek if you know him. And if he's had a crush on you since the sandbox days."
"You're being careful?" I asked; worry filling my voice, even though I was trying to hide it. Obviously she heard it, cause she spoke much softer.
"Always. I love you."
"I love you," I answered. "See you tonight?"
"I gotta go to this club, Luna's, with Asha and Katia, around eleven" she answered regretfully. "Sorry, business you know."
"I like you in the boat rental business better," I answered. "Less time spent in dance clubs with attractive women."
"Sorry babe."
"It's okay, I trust you."
"Love you Amy, bye."
"Bye," I stepped back into the cool apartment, putting the phone back on the cradle. And lowering myself into a chair next to Janet.
"They're meeting up with Asha later," I told her.
"Better tell Max," she quickly brought the com unit up on the computer. "Janet to Max, over."
"Max here." Came the terse reply.
"Diamond connection at Luna's, eleven o'clock."
"Good, both of you be ready, we're going in for surveillance."
"Check."
"Out," Max ended the conversation, and Janet leant back, smiling at me.
"Sounds like old times."
"Sure does," I smiled back, actually starting to get a little excited.
Lucy's POV
Finding Thomas Lenk proved to be a little more trouble than I expected. Apparently he owed my father some money I didn't know about, and figured I was coming to collect. He was just about to get in his car when I tapped him on the shoulder. Guy took one look at me and took off running.
"What the hell?" I asked Scud as we both pounded after him. He was fucking fast for a forty year old. Not that that's old, but when you're in your twenties one likes to think it's not hard to keep up.
"Guess not everyone's as happy to see little Miss Diamond as Billy was."
"This guy doesn't owe you a 'Star War's' DVD does he?" I asked pointedly, which shut Scud up pretty fast. Up ahead Thomas glanced back, turning into an alley. "Come back," I yelled, starting to get frustrated. "I just want to talk." Did he just laugh at that?
"Dead end," Scud said through heavy breaths.
"Huh?" I asked, I could barely make out what he said. He pointed, Stopping to rest, hands on his knees. I kept running glancing ahead to see that just past Thomas was a solid brick wall. He apparently hadn't known the area; he stopped short, looking around wildly for an escape route.
"Fuck!" He yelled, kicking a nearby dumpster. I ran up quickly still fucking pissed off about having to run, and shoved him back into the wall. We both stood there for a second catching our breath.
"Why," I took a deep breath, "are you running?"
"Fine, here's the thing I don't have the money."
"What?" I asked, confused. "What money?"
"What?" He asked, looking just as confused. "That isn't why you're here? The money I owed your father?"
"Well, it'd be nice to have it, but no. We need some weapons."
"Big ones," Scud added, stepping up behind me, I glanced back to see him using his hands to show Thomas just how big, I smiled, turning back to Thomas.
"Can you help us with that?"
"How much can you pay?" He asked with a greasy smile, I took the opportunity to knock him to the wall again, crushing his neck with my arm.
"I don't know, how much did you say you owed my father?"
"I think we can make a deal," he wheezed out, forcing another smile. I returned the smile, letting him breath again. "You're a good man Thomas." I grabbed him by the back of his shirt, turning to lead him back to our cars. "Scud!"
"Yeah?" Scud answered.
"Call up June, ask her how much our friend Thomas owed dad."
"Yeah," Scud flipped open the phone, chatting up Janet as we walked, Thomas talking in my ear the whole time.
"It's really not too much Luce. Boy do you look just like your mother, I know she died when you were young, but trust me, I remember her, she was a looker, couldn't walk into a room without heads turning. I always liked her, and she liked me a lot," I shot him a look. "I mean, nothing carnal or anything," he back pedaled. "All clean, friendship, your dad was there. Nothing immoral. So, seriously, I didn't owe him much money, just a little gambling debt." Scud slapped the phone shut, I looked at him expectantly.
"Two point five mil. How the hell do you loose that much gambling?" He asked looking at Thomas, who shrugged.
"High stakes games?"
"Here's what we need," I handed him his part of the shopping list. "We'll call it even."
"Hey this lot isn't even worth two million," he spoke without thinking, his eyes lighting up.
"Well, in that case," I started.
"But, you know, finders fee's and all that," he quickly amended. "A couple of these things are pretty hard to get right now; we should end up about even."
"Right," I nodded, knowing I was taking a loss but not really caring. "You've got four days."
"Four?" He started to complain, both me and Scud glared. "Should be good," he nodded quickly. "You'll let me know where you want them."
"I'll call tonight."
"Yeah, good." He quickly got into his car and pulled away. I watched until he was gone, then sat heavily on the curb, sighing.
"How you doing?" Scud asked, sitting next to me, and putting a consoling arm around me.
"This isn't me anymore, Scud. The imposing threatening manner, scaring people into doing what I want."
"Lucy, this never was you. That's part of why Asha dumped you," I glared at him, but he continued on. "You're a good person. Yeah sure you spent the majority of your life stealing from the, well stealing from everyone. But that was taking art, money, diamonds. You were never selling kids drugs, or selling insane Slovakian women giant weapons. Sure, you tried to sink Australia."
"They deserved that," I defended.
"Jury's still out on that," he answered patting my back. "The point is, Asha's ruthless, you're a decent person."
"You got a pretty screwed sense of decency when you can say someone who tried to sink a country is decent," I said with a smile.
"It's a comparative thing," he smiled, standing, and pulling me up. "You've got a good heart Lucy. Just ask Amy, she wouldn't be with you otherwise."
"Thanks," I smiled, feeling a lot better about everything.
"Welcome. Now," he clapped his hands together. "Let's go threaten Rico and Gia."
"Lucy, baby," Rico came smiling out of the modest house, taking my face in his hands and kissing both cheeks.
"Hi Rico," I answered smiling at Gia who came out behind him, watching the greeting from the steps.
"Lucy, it's so good to see you again, eh? It's been too long since you came by. But I had heard you were living clean, why are you back with us?"
"Hey Lucy," Gia pulled me into a hug as we passed her. "And Scud, how have you been?"
"No complaints," Scud shrugged. We all went quickly into the living room, where nachos, sandwiches, beer and lemonade had been set out.
"We figured you'd be hungry," Gia explained, sinking onto the sofa next to Rico, who wrapped an arm around her.
"She figured, you know me, never thinking about that."
"Thanks Gia," I sat grabbing a beer and a sandwich, ham.
"Yeah," Scud also grabbed a beer, and started to attack the nachos.
"Hand an old man a beer would you?" Rico asked, and Scud had handed it to be before I could. "Now Lucy, explain to us why you're back? Did something happen with that girl of yours? Deb was her name right?"
"Amy, honey, her name was Amy. She was one of the Debs."
"Oh yeah, one of the Deb's, plaid skirted do gooders," Rico mumbled, then seemed to remember he was talking about my girlfriend. "But this one was nice? Treated you well? Did you break up?"
"She is nice, and we haven't," I glanced at Scud, who nodded for me to continue. "We haven't broken up."
"Oh, bringing her to our side are you? Well good for you," Rico toasted me with his beer.
"No, actually I am working with her and the Deb's, to clear our names."
"Are you busting uncle Rico?" Rico asked, looking genuinely hurt.
"No," I answered quickly. "Any deals I do with you are under immunity. You'd be considered to be helping the Deb's too."
"Well, I don't know if I want to do that either," Rico answered somewhat angrily.
"Hear her out baby," Gia patted his hand, and looked at me expectantly. "Who are they after?"
"Asha Tyler."
"That bitch who broke your heart?" Now Rico was angry. "She was here last week trying to deal with me. I had Gia punch her in the face. Thought I would deal with her after what she did to you?" He laughed in a real 'like that would ever happen' way.
"She wanted some pretty heavy weapons," Gia frowned. "What has she got up her sleeve?"
"She's working for Katia Novak."
"She killed Michal Novak!" Rico cried out. "She is worse than Asha. Some women they just don't think. Am I right Scud?" Scud, who had a mouthful of nachos, only nodded, pointing back at Rico.
"The Deb's are trying to shut them down?" Gia asked, leaning forward. "They must have some big plans if it was worth hooking up with you. And they are offering all kinds of immunity?"
"Anyone who works with me on this is completely off record. The only people who know where you are, and that you are involved are Amy's old team. But they did get your address off the Deb's database."
"This house is clean," Rico assured me. "We keep the business as far away from us now as we can. There's plenty of up and comers willing to do the dirty work to make a name for themselves."
"We just take the profit." Gia added.
"Good plan," I nodded. "So you think you can help us?"
"Of course sweetie," Gia answered for both of them. "What do you need?" I handed over the remainder of the list.
"We're not sure where it needs to be yet, but we will let you know."
"Sure," Rico looked over the list. "This is what Asha wanted before, she will be angry I am dealing with you." His smile showed just how much that was not bugging him
"Alright Scud, we have to go," I stood up. "Thanks so much for the food."
"No problem," Gia answered. They walked us to the door, Gia pulling me and Scud in for a motherly hug. "You children watch out for yourselves, those girls are bad news."
"Don't we know that," Scud nodded. "Barely got away the last time." I elbowed him in the ribs. Rico shook hands with Scud.
"Take care of this little girl, Scud. She is the precious jewel in many lives."
"I will sir," Scud nodded solemnly. "Promised her father that years ago."
"And you," Rico pulled me into a tight hug. "You do this to clear you and your girlfriend, and then you never look back, you hear me? This life is too hard on people. You're father would be so proud to see you happy."
"Thanks," I kissed his cheek, and patting his cheek. "You two take care of yourselves," I smiled one last time at both of them, then followed Scud to the car.
Time to meet with the real evil in this town. I hadn't seen Asha in Los Angeles for a while, but she always seemed to fit in so well when she was here. She embodies all the virtues of the city. Greed, lust, violence... just to name a few.
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