Author's Note: You all are beautiful and so very wonderful people. I've been getting notifications from FFN and Facebook all day indicating that I'm onto something good here and I want to keep going. As last A/N indicated, this is a very anti Burg fic and my treatment of some of its disciples, including Val in the first portion of this chapter, is going to be quite harsh. I've always loved the idea of Steph and Val being actual loving sisters so her being redeemed (even with Kloughn…) is a distinct possibility. Now, it's time for Harley to meet Batman.
Disclaimer: "Honestly, it's not mine!"
"So, why am I here with you again?"
"I have a business meeting with someone I've never met before and I want to have a third party witness in case things go left. Plus, I'm sure that you need a break from Kloughn and according to Grandma, you've got a real gravy addiction going on. This joint has some of the best sausage gravy in town, especially on biscuits."
"I'm sure that Mom's is better."
"Maybe but I still don't want be bothered with her."
"Stepphie, I know you hate her…"
"Is that what she's telling people, now? I don't hate her. I hate the traditions she champions and the way she treats me like garbage for daring to be different. There's a difference, Val and don't call me Stepphie. We're not 7 and 10 anymore."
"Fine…are you sure that you should…I mean, it's a business meeting, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"You don't exactly look dressed for the occasion."
Instead of verbally flaying her for that judgey statement, I merely rested my chin on tented fingers and gave my older sister a look flatter than the salt flats I used to drag race on out West.
"I'm sure a brisk walk would be good for you, Valerie."
Translation: Shut up, order whatever you want, and play your role or waddle home.
She blinked at the implied threat and hid her blushing face behind her Rite on Thyme Diner's menu. As soon as we walked in Truck Stop diner together, we drew attention. Even though Val's supposed to be 4 months pregnant, she looked more like 7. Either she's carrying twins or her gravy addiction has gotten completely out of hand. I'd leave finding out for sure to her Crotch Doc and her general physician. Hopefully, she wouldn't end up with Baby #3 and a case of Type 2 Diabetes but who knew what would happen?
The fact that she had come out in a canary yellow rain slicker and hat along with cherry red galoshes didn't help matters. Underneath the rain gear was a pink paisley maternity jumpsuit and brown pullover cardigan that looked like they had time jumped straight from 1975. Come to think about it, the whole getup may be Helen's. I have to have Grandma check the photo albums to confirm it later. It wouldn't surprise me. Steve had taken everything with him when he ran off with Barely Legal Babysitting Barbie and Val was more open to doing what Helen said. The more a person did what she said, the more love and affection they got from her, including home cooked meals and emergency hand me downs.
Yeah, Val had snagged herself a "nice and respectable" lawyer but Albert Kloughn couldn't represent anyone well in Kangaroo Court, much less the State Court. Money was still very tight for my big sister, which made me even more determined to throw Joe Morelli's sorry FTA ass into the trunk of my cobalt 1968 Dodge charger, affectionately known as Jorge. Unlike every other man that I've dealt with, Jorge never lets me down and when I take him above 80…he has never left me unsatisfied.
In contrast to Weather Girl, I had come in wearing a hooded black leather bomber jacket, dark wash skinny jeans, and my favorite black lace up platform ankle booties. They're 5 and three quarters inches tall and I can sprint in them as easily as I walk in them. What was taking Val aback (and freaking out the mother of an excited brooding tween princess as they ate meatloaf 4 tables over from us) was the graphic tee I had decided to wear today. It was an Adventure Time t-shirt but Finn and Jake had ended up on a very bad acid trip by the looks of things. It was probably all Marceline's fault or maybe Tree Trunks put a little something extra in one of her apple pies.
The swirling neon multicolored paisley pattern took up the whole short sleeved shirt and the pair were clinging to each other in the center of the action, screaming in sheer terror. The whole outfit covered all of my skin but it didn't hide my trim figure, a figure I've maintained through skip chasing, an 80 healthy/20 junk diet thanks to mail order meals (I can't cook worth a damn), and the aerial silk classes I go to 5 nights a week. I took up acrobatics while I was in New Mexico and I still adore it. I'm finally flying and even though there's a distinct risk of breaking my arm again, it's in a controlled environment and I honestly look quite sexy while I'm performing.
As soon as we put the menus back in their caddy, a cheerful waitress with a stiff red beehive and popping a huge wad of sour Bubblicious came to our booth.
"What can I get for ya, ladies?"
"She'll have the #6 Lumberjack plate with extra gravy and do you guys still have the 3 meat manicotti with melted mozzarella?"
"We do."
"Let me have a dinner plate of that with a chicken, beet and spinach side salad, and another pitcher of ice water. Val, do you want anything else?"
"Pound cake."
"Please add 2 slices of pound cake to that, one with the raspberry sauce and one without. Anything else, Val?"
"Pink lemonade."
"Right."
"All righty, I'll be back with your drinks in a jiffy. Enjoy your meals."
"Thank you, ma'am…so, who are you supposed to be meeting with, Stepp…Stephanie?"
"Another bounty hunter. Vinnie gave me Joe Morelli and I'm gonna need all the help I can get."
"You can't believe that Joe actually committed murder!"
"What I believe doesn't matter. What matters is the 50 grand for the girls' college funds."
"Steph, I don't want or need your charity…"
"It's not charity and the 50 grand isn't for you. It's for Mary Alice, Angie, and whoever's kicking you in the bladder right now."
The waitress (Heather) came back with our drinks and I gave a smile of gratitude, one that was readily returned.
"What bounty hunter are you meeting with? Is he dangerous?"
"Connie and Vinnie know him as Ranger and yeah, he's dangerous but I really don't care. He runs the private security firm on Haywood and Vinnie gives him high bond skips on the regular. I'm damned good at what I do but that's the minor leagues. If I'm gonna run with the big dogs and help send Morelli's sorry ass up the river, I need to figure out how to do it without getting dead or maimed for my trouble. Joe Morelli's a punk ass bitch and a manwhore but the people he was monkeying around with "on assignment" are Bad News Bears. If I go off all half cocked and piss them off, they'll kill me without hesitation and probably go after the rest of the family for good measure."
"Why would you put yourself and all of us in so much danger, then?!"
"Keep your voice down. I love my job. I'm good at it, the puzzles make me happy, and the girls need the 50 grand. I'd have given it to them outright but as you said, you don't want or need my charity, especially since I'm as Helen puts it, rolling around in the mud with lowlifes instead of actually doing something a mother could be proud of."
"She just wants what's best of you, Stephanie."
"She wants what's best for her, not me. Never for me. You're the favorite and I'm the reject."
"Stephanie…"
"Helen and Dad prayed for a boy after you. They didn't get their boy. They got stuck with me and I've been paying for their shattered dreams ever since I got here and I started paying with interest after I jumped off of the garage roof trying to fly."
"You have to admit that what you did that morning was crazy…"
"Crazy is as crazy does, Valerie and it doesn't always mean bad."
The puppy like look of confusion on Val's face had me torn between decking her and hugging her. She was like a preschooler, sometimes. She knew things but had on a firm pair of rose tinted glasses. She refused to really think for herself and was all too willing to be guided by others. All they had to do was say that they meant well and cloak it all in the neighborhood traditions we had grown up with and it was a done deal. Me? I always asked why.
When adults said it was because they said so, I always asked why they said so and why it had to be that way. Why couldn't things be different? What was so wrong with being different and a little less than respectable, sometimes? I've been surrounded by 'respectable' cookie cutter people all of my life, I tried to be one, and you know what? Every last one of them's a miserable bitch or bastard. They may hide it under extra wide smiles and dinner promptly on the table at 6PM. They may try to tipple it away, smoke it away, or watch it away through a television sports broadcast blasting but the misery is there if you know how to look for it. There are so many shattered and deferred dreams in the Burg, in neighborhoods just like the Burg all over the country and world.
It's just so damned sad.
I don't want to end up like that.
I still don't know what my life's endgame is going to be but I truly hope that I don't end up like that.
I don't think my heart could take it.
The tinkling of the bells and wind chimes above the diner door broke me out my morose thoughts and I could hear conversations stop. Looking up from my silver and black two toned manicure, I felt my pulse pick up.
Ho-ly Shee-it…
Since when did New Jersey have men that fucking hot walking around?
If they could, my lady bits and my Hungarian Hormones would give this GQ motherfucker a standing ovation of welcome because he is just that fine. No, not fine. Beautiful.
Wow, is he a beautiful man.
The tall and lean man was dressed in black from head to toe. He had on a black windbreaker, a black t-shirt, black military cargo pants, and spit shone black Doc Martin shitkickers that didn't make a sound as he walked down the main aisle of the diner, a small photograph in his hand. His skin was smooth and a rich shade of brown, café au lait, almost. His long and loose dark hair was waving a bit from exposure to the rain and he moved with the smooth and confident grace of an apex predator, a panther. When he stopped at our booth, Val looked like she was about to go and hide under the table. Whether it was out of fright or an overdose of hormones was up in the air. Dark hessonite eyes glanced down at the photograph one last time before meeting my cerulean orbs head on.
"Stephanie Plum?"
"Who wants to know?"
"I do. I'm Ranger Manoso and Connie Rizzoli mentioned that you need my help with a skip."
"Okay, then. I'm Stephanie and that's my sister Valerie Kloughn next to you. As for the skip, I'm still not sure about needing your help but I'd like a consult. Take a load off. Are you hungry? Brunch is on the way."
/
I had heard of Stephanie Plum before today.
I had even seen the picture of her after her divorce court hearing, complete with the sniveling pendejo at her feet. According to local lore, she was the youngest wild child of the Mazur-Plum family. She had jumped off of her garage roof trying to fly at 7 years old. At 19 years old, she had nearly committed vehicular manslaughter to take revenge against the sick pig who stole her virginity on the Tasty Pastry floor when she was 16 and at 25, she had become one of the richest people to come out of Trenton thanks to the aforementioned pendejo.
After her grandfather passed away from congestive heart failure, she had come back home and was a rising star in the Bond Enforcement community. She was known for being tough but fair, even friendly with some of her regular Skips. An attempted bombing of her Mustang gave her the moniker ' the Bombshell Bounty Hunter' and she had actually kicked the incoming Molotov Cocktail back to its wielder, blowing the would be bomber's Jetta sky high, much to her cackling delight. Santos had gleefully showed me the YouTube footage and vowed that if he ever got the chance to meet her, he'd make her his wife or at least his Number One Girl.
He'll have to go through me, first.
Once her sister had thoroughly demolished her biscuits and gravy, she went to go wait in the car. After Valerie was gone, Stephanie pulled an FTA file out of her red knapsack and slid it across the table to me. She had put away an order of Manicotti that would soothe Tank's appetite and was steadily plowing through her salad.
"The skip is Joe Morelli, a suspected dirty cop and murderer. He says he's innocent of all the charges but I call bullshit. He's a Morelli man and they're all crooked woman hating and abusing trash. I'm speaking from personal experience. I want to bring him in but he's sneaky, well protected by his supporters in the Burg and as much as it pisses me off to admit, he's completely out of my league if I'm flying solo. You're the best in the Skip tracing business. You're even better than Les Sebring and RangeMan's legendary for their security systems. I heard about your company all the way in New Mexico and I've yet to hear a bad review."
"You did your homework. I'm impressed. What are you proposing, Babe?"
"An alliance between me and RangeMan to help me bag Morelli and perhaps a mentor/mentee thing between us so I can learn how to roll with the big dogs without getting a chunk taken out of my ass. I'm willing to split the street cred evenly for bagging Morelli but the 50K on his head is going to go towards my nieces' college funds. That's non-negotiable."
"Why don't you just add to it yourself? You're not hurting for money…"
"My family and I disagree about what an acceptable line of work for me is. Val won't take charity because of her pride, not to mention that Kloughn would probably cry for a week over it and Helen would have a coronary if she knew that Val took a cent of 'poor Richard's money from that ungrateful and selfish girl'."
"Helen?"
"My incubator. There has to be love on both ends for a parent/child relationship. She hates me. She wanted a boy or at least another perfect daughter. I'm neither and I've stopped apologizing for being neither so she hates me. She'll never say it out loud but I can put 2 and 2 together and get fish."
"What about your father?"
"What about him? He wanted a boy and as long as he gets his pot roast right at 6PM, he doesn't really care about anything else around him but his sports games, including his children. That's not to say that he hates me or Val but I think he's too stuck in his own head and misery to be a useful man. He's a good man but not very useful. Enough with the sob story. Are you interested in helping me catch Morelli or not?"
"I am."
"Cool. Where and when should I meet up with you?"
"Tomorrow morning at 0900. I'll pick you up at your place."
"You don't even know where I live."
"Babe."
"Right. Here's my number. Text me when you're on the way. Thank you for this, Ranger. I promise that I won't waste your time."
I have a strong feeling that nothing that I do with this woman, clothed or otherwise, could ever be considered a waste of my time.