"That's four names we can check off," Antoine said after they came out of Crystals.
Joe walked over to his SUV and Antoine leaned up against his Mustang which was next to Joe's SUV. "I wonder if Peterson asked Alex about Graciano. I wasn't expecting her to know any of the names if she wasn't one of them. I didn't think she would actually know the kid who came up missing."
Antoine crossed his arms, "I wasn't expecting that either, I was hoping to get a little more out of her than we did while shooting pool though."
Joe grinned, "She is a very clever girl."
"Yes," Antoine said, "More than what I expected. Did you see how she looked at me at the table in there?"
"I did." Joe let out a sigh, "I didn't like that look."
"It was like she expected me to jump over the table at her." Antoine said.
"I know."
"She ate half a large pizza. Where did she pack the food away? She got a hollow leg or something?" Antoine asked.
"I have no clue. Must be good metabolism." Joe said. "I'm running by the station and seeing if we have any more hits on the missings."
"Call me if anything good comes in, the runaway was a total bust." Antoine said pushing off from his car and going around to the driver side. "At least we got lucky in talking to her with no lawyer. You knew she was with Santos, is he the wind?"
Joe laughed, "No. You'll know the wind when you see him."
Lester half carried Bobby into the elevator back at RangeMan. Alex stepped inside and before she could hit the floor button Lester asked for the elevator went up.
"What button did you push?" Lester asked.
"I haven't. It just took off." Alex told him.
The elevator opened on the seventh floor, Ranger stopped short, then stepped inside. Lester could see the smug look on his face. Ranger hit the stop button so the elevator wouldn't move. "I need you, Tank has the next three days off." He looked Bobby over, "Damn, he said he was eating and only drinking a little bit. I didn't know he was going to go beyond drunk."
"I'm not drunk." Bobby slurred.
"What do you need me for?" Lester said as he shifted Bobby off his shoulder and pushed him up against the back of the elevator.
"I just got a call, Tommy and Paco reported in, Nelson is in his house. I need three other guys, you, Roy, and Cal."
Lester looked at Ranger, "What am I going to do about Alex? We can't take her into that."
Ranger grabbed the receiver off Lester's arm. "I need you, I need a ferret." He looked at Alex, "come with me."
Alex looked at Lester. Lester nodded to her. She followed Ranger into his apartment. He grabbed the remote to the TV. "Here watch TV." She caught the remote and sat down, she watched as Ranger walked down the hall and opened the door at the far end and went inside.
Ranger stepped into his bedroom, and he could hear the shower going. He looked back at the rumpled sheets and he wiped the satisfied smile off his face before knocking on the bathroom door. He heard the water cut off and then it opened. Stephanie was wrapped in a towel. "I don't think that was four or five hours."
He leaned up against the doorframe, "I'll give you that when I get back." He reached over to her hand and took it and snapped the receiver in place. "Alex is in the living room. I need Lester, so you get to watch her. You ladies have fun." He took the back of her head and kissed her deeply. Stepping back he saw the look she normally gave to glazed donuts and he strode away.
Alex sat in the living room, turning the remote over in her hands. It had too many buttons and she couldn't figure out how to work the thing. Ranger walked by, "Behave."
She watched him leave. Getting up, Alex started looking around. The bedroom was a pull, because she hadn't seen him walk back out with the receiver. After about ten minutes of looking into things she came to the conclusion that there really wasn't much here to tell her about who Ranger was.
Stephanie walked into the living room, Alex spun around and looked her over real well. She had on jeans, dock martins, and a black t-shirt. "Whose clothes are you wearing?" Stephanie asked.
Alex looked down and then back up to Stephanie, "I'll tell you whose clothes I'm wearing, only if you tell me why you had sex with Ranger if you aren't his girlfriend. Last I saw you were still cuffed."
"I'm not cuffed anymore." Stephanie moved over to the couch and picked up the remote and turned on the TV.
"I can see that." Alex went over to a chair and sat down. "So?"
"Where did you get the shoes? The last pair you had were white, those are black."
"Lester, he had to buy them." Alex said.
Stephanie flipped the channels. "Why?"
"How did you end up tossing in the sheets with Ranger?"
Stephanie put the remote down. "You are not going to give that up are you?"
"No. I tell you why I'm not wearing my clothes if you tell me what went down after we left." Alex leaned back in the chair.
Stephanie turned off the TV. "I need Chunky Monkey if I'm going to do this. Let's go."
Alex got up and followed Stephanie out of Ranger's apartment where she grabbed a set of keys. They rode the elevator down and got into the black Porsche Cayenne. Alex slid into the passenger seat. "Bitch'n car."
Stephanie gave a sigh as she heard the engine growl. "It's the shit."
"No. The shit refers to an ultra cool person. Bitch'n refers to cars. You refer to the shit to a car in the ghetto and they'd be all over your ass."
Stephanie looked over to Alex, "I'll file that away. Lula never said anything about that, I thought the shit really meant ultra cool on anything."
"Only people." Alex said as they pulled out from the garage. The car was silent as Stephanie drove. "So you have to go running tomorrow for your punishment?" Alex asked.
"No, that wasn't my punishment." Stephanie groaned. "My punishment hasn't happened. My punishment is talking to the Feds on Monday. Retribution is the running and defense."
Alex snickered. "Bobby said something about retribution."
Stephanie made a left turn and continued driving. "Whose clothes do you have on?"
"Lester's."
"And?"
"And how did you end up in the sheets with Ranger?"
"I don't think your old enough for that." Stephanie said as she made a right turn.
"It's not like I haven't had sex before. Damn, I don't want details, not on the act. I want to know what happened after we left the hotel about three hours ago to you ending up in Ranger's sheets. Because when I saw him, he was pissed as hell that you were giving him a run for his money." Alex turned in her seat and crossed her arms and watched Stephanie as she drove.
"While you were there, I thought my punishment was going to be the running and defense stuff. It didn't turn out that way. Ranger decided I needed to talk the feds after he asked why I decided to run away this time from finding a dead body." Stephanie turned into the parking lot of the Seven-Eleven and stopped the car.
"Why did you run?" Alex asked as they got out of the car. "Whose body did you find?"
"Your mother's body, and we ran because they were shooting at us." Stephanie told her when she shut the door.
Alex looked at Stephanie, "What did she look like?"
"Dead." Stephanie stopped walking to the door and looked back at Alex. Alex had her hands clenched at her side and her breathing was getting faster. Stephanie walked over to her, "She was laying on your bed with your black belt, the one that has your last name on it, inside her mouth."
Alex went past Stephanie, "I need something to drink."
Stephanie followed Alex into the store. Alex headed straight back to the cokes and pulled one out, she went down the chip isle and pulled out Fritos and two cans of large bean dip. Stephanie had gotten four pints of Chunky Monkey and loaded up on tasty cakes. They each paid for their purchases and went back to the Porsche. Alex opened the one-liter of coke and took a drink.
"You know that was a message left for you." Stephanie said as she started the car.
"I know. Will you drive me over there?"
"Why?"
"I'd rather have my own clothes instead of Lester's. I want to check on something." Alex told her.
"What do you want to check on?" Stephanie asked as she pulled out of the lot.
"What happened after you decided to talk to the feds?"
"We back on this again?"
"Yes." Alex said after she opened the bag of Fritos and a can of bean dip.
"Lula and I found out that retribution had to be taken into consideration for what we did to Bobby. Ranger told us normally what happens when someone messes with his employees and I decided that I like my legs whole and not broken. It was decided that Bobby could set up our defense lessons, with you as the go between." Stephanie said.
"I need to see if he left something behind other than her body." Alex said and continued eating the chips and dip.
"Do you know who killed your mother?" Stephanie asked.
"What happened after Bobby got to decide about the lessons?"
Stephanie groaned. "Okay Little Miss twenty questions. Ranger and I discussed our argument we had. We discussed me dragging Lula into it as well. Ranger gave Tank three days off to make up for the time he took Tank away from Lula. He also told Lula that when things came up, he would always make sure Tank would have opportunities to make it up to her. He put them up in a hotel in New York." Stephanie made a right turn and looked over to Alex, "Your turn."
"Scarface did it if my watch is in the apartment." Alex told her and took another long pull from the coke.
"Do you know his name?"
"No."
"Are you sure it's him?" Stephanie asked.
"Ranger gave Tank days off to be with Lula. What happened after that?"
"Ranger and I discussed my break up with Joe Morelli. He wanted to know if this was the last time. He had told me before that if I wasn't in Joe's bed he'd be back in mine. I told him I have a problem with commitment and that it wasn't that easy. He told me it wasn't me. We talked about that." Stephanie looked over to Alex, "Are you sure it's him?"
Alex kept her head down twirling the coke bottle cap in her fingers. "A week ago, or a little more than that. They had a man in the pit with me, I had only been putting them to sleep, I hadn't broken any bones. I didn't want to hurt Mr. Williams, I know his son, his son took lessons at the school. Scarface found out I knew him, after the first fight, he put us in the same room locked up together. Mr. Williams was borrowing money from Shiropolli to keep paying for his son's chemo treatments. He had lost his job and the insurance wasn't covering the treatments anymore. Mr. Williams told me that night that Danny was in remission." Alex wiped the tears that were coming down her cheeks. "I really didn't want to hurt him. I kept telling Mr. Williams I'd put him back to sleep again. He didn't want to hear it." Alex looked out the window.
"What happened after that?" Stephanie asked. She was close to the apartment complex, Stephanie kept driving deciding it would be better to let Alex talk.
"We were put back in the pit for the second time. I still couldn't hurt him, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Mr. Williams never hurt me. He kept telling me Danny only talked about coming back to karate after chemo, that he wanted to get his black belt like me. I couldn't hurt Danny's dad. After I put him asleep for the second time, Scarface took me to the room with Shiropolli. We had argued over Mr. Williams. He told me if I didn't hurt him, then he was going to make sure Scarface hurt me. And if I didn't do it, I wouldn't be fighting anymore. That I would have to work off that fucking bitch's debt double time, in the pit and in Scarface's bed. I didn't want to hurt him, I had too. In the third fight I broke his arm, clean through the skin, I put him to sleep as fast as I could afterward. I hurt him so bad."
Stephanie watched as Alex started curling up in the seat and reached over and took the chips, dip and the coke out of her lap as quickly as she could. She put the top back on the coke and sat it down in one of the drink holders the car had. Stephanie reached over and started rubbing Alex's back.
"It's not your fault, you didn't have a choice." Stephanie told her.
"Yeah I did. I think I chose the wrong one." Alex said as she curled up tighter. "Scarface took us back to the same room again. I had a piece of paper in my pocket and I wrote that I was sorry on it. I put it in Mr. William's shoe. When Scarface came back he had two other men with him. They took Mr. William's out. Scarface came over to me and he was so angry. He said I ruined it for him. I don't remember blacking out, but when I came too I was in a van, I was tied up and gagged. I saw Scarface shoot Mr. Williams in the head. He got back in the van, he told me I was special, that I needed to see what special things he could do. He said he knew how to keep people quiet and I wouldn't ever forget it."
Stephanie kept driving as Alex sobbed. She knew Alex's situation had been bad, she didn't realize how much Alex actually knew, until now. Stephanie drove for a little longer and pulled into the apartment complex.
"You sure you want to do this now?" Stephanie asked her as she stopped the car and turned it off.
Alex sat up and wiped her eyes. "Yes." She took a deep breath and let it out. Alex opened the door and got out.
Stephanie followed her, they reached the apartment and Alex reached over to the bricks by the window sill and pulled out the loose one and took the key out and opened the apartment door. She replaced the key and put the brick back. Alex went straight to her bedroom and stopped looking around. She saw the watch on the dresser.
"It was him."
"How do you know?" Stephanie asked coming up behind her.
"He brought my watch back."