Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money. I'm just playing.
Trial no.3
Ranger was sitting at his desk reviewing figures for a prospective client when a tap at the door took his attention from the page.
"Enter."
Stephanie poked her head round the door. "Good time?"
"Always. What can I do for you?"
She crossed the large office, her feet silent on the thick carpet. She walked round to his side of the desk and leaned over to press a soft kiss to his cheek.
He looked at her quizzically. "Not that you ever need a reason to kiss me, but was that for something in particular?"
"That was because when I drove Connie back here last night she was laughing, not crying."
He reached out a hand and pulled her into his lap.
"She did well," he said quietly.
"Better than well. Don't think I don't know that Hector had instructions to leave her on her own."
"Developing ESP?"
"Standard RangeMan skill, plus Hector may have mentioned a few things when I chatted with him earlier."
He lifted an eyebrow. Hector had told him all about it. "I think the term you're looking for is interrogated."
"Tomato, tomahto. Anyway, ask him how she dealt with her admirer. I think he's a little bit in love with her after seeing that one. Manny got roped in to do some translating and he wants to meet her now, too. I might have competition to go and pick up the files tomorrow."
"You know, I'm not sure if this qualifies as good for morale or distracting my men from their work."
"You should have thought about that before you came up with your diabolical plan, Mr Manoso. And now, Herbie Grant has a date with a jail cell. His neighbor thinks she saw him this morning, so with any luck I'm going to ruin his afternoon."
"Take Tank."
"Hal already volunteered. Said he had a bet with Lester that he wouldn't get hurt. Any objections?"
"Just don't stun him again. It takes two men to pick him up afterwards."
"Promise." She planted a smacking kiss on his other cheek, slid off his lap and left the room.
He watched her until she was out of view then turned back to his column of figures, shifting in his seat and readjusting his pants before picking up his pen again.
o0o0o0o0o
A prickling feeling on the back of her neck woke Connie from her doze in front of the TV. She looked up and jumped when she saw Ranger sitting in the other armchair regarding her silently.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, dry-mouthed.
"Next job," he answered.
"Now? It's past midnight."
"In three days. You report to RangeMan at 09:00 tomorrow for training. Lester will be waiting for you."
"But I can't-"
"Vinnie already has help arranged," he cut in. "I visited him first tonight. Dress in pants and sneakers and be on time."
She took a deep breath and nodded.
o0o0o0o0o
Half an hour later, Ranger carried out his third break-in of the night. He slipped quietly into the sleeper's bedroom and crouched down until his face was level with hers.
"Babe," he said softly.
Stephanie opened her eyes sleepily. "Ranger? S'up?"
"Needed to talk to you."
She mumbled something which ended in 'morning'.
"More fun this way."
"Hmmn?"
"Connie's coming into RangeMan at nine tomorrow. She's going to need some training for the next job. Thought you might like to train with her."
" 'K." Her eyes were starting to close again.
He watched her fall back to sleep, then leaned in and kissed her tenderly on the lips. "Goodnight."
She watched him leave the room through slitted eyes, then finally fell asleep for real.
o0o0o0o0o
Stephanie woke in the morning to the smell of coffee. She threw off her covers and followed the smell to the kitchen, where she found the coffee, a foil packet of something that smelled equally good, and Ranger.
"Don't for a minute think that I'm complaining, since you brought food, but what are you doing here?" she asked as she investigated the packet. "And more importantly, what's in here?"
"I wasn't sure you'd remember our conversation from last night so I'm here to take you to the office after breakfast, and this is breakfast. Pancakes from Ella."
"Only you could call that a conversation, but yeah, I remember you being here. Now be a good control freak and pour the coffee while I remember exactly why I love Ella."
She pulled some plates from the cabinet and took the pancakes over to the table.
"So what am I supposed to be doing with Connie today?" she asked around a mouthful of pancake.
"B and E 101."
She nearly choked. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. Now try to chew those pancakes instead of inhaling them and we'll head out. You're working with Lester today."
o0o0o0o0o
Connie and Stephanie met Lester at RangeMan and followed him to a large room down in the basement next to the gun range. They looked around curiously. There were assorted windows and doors in frames propped up against the walls, various locked cabinets, and even a desk standing in the middle of the room. They all had locks fitted to them.
Lester pulled two pouches out of his pocket and threw one each to Connie and Stephanie. "Okay ladies, listen up. These contain various items that you are going to practice using today. They are all legal to buy, and in theory you can have them in your possession, but do not ever get picked up by the cops carrying them."
"What happens if we do?" Stephanie asked.
"You get hauled to the station so fast that your feet don't touch the ground. And in your case, Bombshell, you also get shouted at by your ex-boyfriend, which will make you miserable, and when you get miserable, Ranger gets miserable, and when Ranger gets miserable he then makes everybody else's life hell. So, as a personal favor to me, don't."
They carefully examined the contents of the pouches.
Connie held up a diamond ring. "What's this for?" She looked over and saw Stephanie examining a similar ring.
"I wanted to declare my undying love and devotion to you. Both of you." He laughed at their matching glares. "What? Am I losing my touch?"
"Lester." Stephanie said warningly.
"Okay, seriously, they're your tool of last resort. If you need to get in through a window and you can't work the lock, use them to cut the glass. They're the last resort because they leave a calling card, and if you have any skills at all, the idea is to get in and out again without anyone knowing. Also, you can't exactly pass the holes off as accidental damage. On the plus side, they aren't an obvious B and E tool, so you can carry them in the open more easily."
He went on to explain the rest of the items and their uses, before they started to practice on the items in the rooms. Lester watched them for an hour and answered any questions that they had, then left them to it.
o0o0o0o0o
By eleven, Connie's fingers were sore and her eyes were watering. Stephanie seemed to be faring a little better, so she sat back and watched her for a while.
"How come you don't do all this already?" Connie asked.
"I threw my first set of lock picks out because I couldn't get the hang of it, then I always found other ways to do it. Breaking the glass and claiming it was an accident usually seems to work for me." Stephanie didn't look up from the lock she was working on as she answered.
Suddenly Stephanie crowed with triumph as the door that she was working on swung open. "Got it!"
Connie sighed and started working on her cabinet lock again.
o0o0o0o0o
At 12.30 Lester collected them from their basement dungeon and took them up to the break room for lunch. Stephanie seemed to know all of the Rangemen personally and Connie watched her calling greetings to assorted dangerous-looking men in black all the way along their route. They all called back and a few literally picked her up and swung her through the air like a toddler as she squealed and laughed. She was known as Bombshell to nearly all of them and didn't seem to mind at all, although Connie distinctly remembered a few rants about her Bombshell Bounty Hunter tag when she first came to the attention of the press. She seemed to be a part of the place, and the air of testosterone-laden menace that otherwise pervaded the air seemed to dissipate a little when she was around.
o0o0o0o0o
They collected sandwiches from the refrigerator in the break room and sat down at a table.
Connie had just taken a bite of her turkey sandwich when an unfamiliar Rangeman sat down opposite and grinned at her. He had light olive skin and dark hair cut very short, and he was acting like he knew her. She glanced quickly over her shoulder to see if he was smiling at someone else. Stephanie was chatting animatedly to Lester about something and didn't notice the new arrival.
He stuck a hand out. "Zero. You're Connie, right?"
She nodded cautiously.
"If I say surveillance position three does that help?"
Realization dawned. "You were the other voice on the radio. You called Lester an asshole." She looked around guiltily but Lester wasn't listening. She shook the offered hand. "Nice to put a face to the voice."
"It's good to see you here at mission control. You did well at Domino's."
She cringed. "I made a fool of myself."
"Are you kidding? Hector told me what you did to King Kong's little brother. I always admire creative use of weaponry in the field. So what are you doing today?"
"Lock picking 101 in the basement."
"We just set that up. Good luck with it. And now, unfortunately there are ten boring monitors waiting for me to stare at them for another two hours. Have fun this afternoon." He got up and left, grabbing another cup of coffee to take back with him.
o0o0o0o0o
The afternoon consisted of more lock picking. Connie and Stephanie both got more confident, until they had tackled most of the cabinets and about half of the doors. The windows were still difficult, and they had only beaten around half of the locks by 5 when Lester came back to get them.
"Ranger says come back tomorrow at 9 again if you haven't both opened everything in the room."
It looked like they had another day of sore fingers ahead of them.
Day 2
Lester didn't stop them for lunch today, and they were concentrating so hard that they never noticed lunch-time come and go. By 4.30 they had managed to open the last of the cabinets, another two doors apiece and Connie had managed some of the simpler windows too. Stephanie, though, had become increasing clumsy and distracted, and had stopped seriously trying at least an hour before.
"What's the matter?" Connie asked.
"Had enough. How long are we supposed to sit here like good little trainee housebreakers anyway?"
There was an edge to her voice, and Connie looked at her appraisingly. "Your hands are shaking."
"Tired." Stephanie's short response was followed by a long yawn.
"Up late?"
"No! I'm just tired. What's with all the questions?"
"Humor me. What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
"A boston creme and a soda."
Connnie started to laugh.
"What?" Stephanie asked irritably.
"Sugar withdrawal much?"
"This can't be sugar withdrawal. I gave up sugar before and I remember what that was like. I nearly killed Joe."
"Really?" Connie asked interestedly. "That one never made it onto the grapevine. What did you do, hit him with a blunt object or something?"
"No! I was just really-" Stephanie realized what she was about to say and flushed. "Never mind."
"Well, trust me on this, your blood sugar is dropping. Come on, we're getting out of here."
Connie went to the door and pulled the handle. The door didn't open. She tried it a few more times, just in case the door fairy was running late today, and still nothing happened. "I think we're locked in."
"What? Let me try." Stephanie tried the handle as well, with no better result. "Shit!"
"Now what?" Connie asked.
"Why the hell would we be locked in? Does he expect us to sit in here all night just picking locks? Just picking… Oh, you low-down, sneaky, conniving son of a BITCH!" She shrieked the last as she sprang to her feet and started looking around for cameras. She kept up the diatribe as she paced the room.
"I know you can see me, Ranger, and I hope you can hear me as well, because I'm promising you right now that when I find you, you are DEAD! I am going to kick your ass into the middle of next week, and don't even THINK that I won't find you, no matter how far into the wind you go. You'd better find a third world country to send yourself to, because so help me God I am going to kill you and I am going to bring my grandma to HELP! ASSHOLE!"
Connie just watched, not wanting to get in the way of a Stephanie running on a combination of rage and sugar withdrawal. Ranger could forget the job, this qualified as punishment all on its own.
After a couple of minutes she decided that the best thing to do would be to start on the door lock and get them both out of there as soon as possible. The imminent threat of Hurricane Stephanie concentrated her mind wonderfully, and in less than five minutes she heard a soft click and the door swung into the room.
Stephanie was still prowling the room looking for the camera.
"Steph… Steph!" Connie indicated the open door.
Stephanie turned, and as soon as she saw the open door she stormed through it and was gone.
Connie followed at a slower pace. By the time she got out there was no sign of Stephanie at all, so she climbed the stairs and headed for the control room.
o0o0o0o0o
Connie wandered into the control room, where Tank, Lester and Hector were looking at the closed door to Ranger's office, open-mouthed.
"Tank, have you seen Steph?"
"Hell, yes. She just walked in there and started screaming at Ranger."
"She going to be okay in there?"
"If it was anyone else I'd be calling the ambulance right now, but since it's Bombshell, probably."
"Shouldn't you go in and check?" she prompted.
"Fuck, no. Do I look suicidal?"
"Coward."
"Where he's concerned, you're not wrong."
"Well I'm going in there then," Connie said, and she took a step towards the door.
"NO!" All three men spoke at the same time, and Tank put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
"Bombshell will be okay. Anyone else would not be. Just go and get something to eat in the break room and sit tight. One of us will watch the office just in case."
o0o0o0o0o
Connie found the break room and saw Hal already standing at the refrigerator.
"Hey, Connie. You've got a choice of tuna, chicken or roasted vegetables."
She was still distracted by the situation with Stephanie. "What? Oh, tuna."
Hal pulled out a tuna sandwich for her, added an apple, a banana and a cup of coffee, then brought it all over to one of the tables for her. "Sit."
"I can't… I shouldn't… what about Steph?"
"She's okay."
"But how do you know? Someone needs to check."
"I was with him when Stiva took her. Trust me, she's in no danger. But she's the only one I can say that for if she's pissed him off, so please, come and sit down and eat something. We've been waiting for you two to get out and find us for hours but you didn't even start trying until twenty minutes ago. Anyway, if something was going to happen, it would have happened by now."
"Sure?"
"Positive."
o0o0o0o0o
Stephanie was screaming by the time she had both feet inside Ranger's office. "You son of a bitch, I can't believe you did that to me! How dare you lock us in like that! What, did you think it was funny, watching us work out that we were trapped?" She slammed the door behind her and marched over to where he had risen from his desk to meet her.
"Just giving you some incentive, Babe."
"You can't do that! You can't fuck with people like that!"
"If I think it's what you need, watch me."
"Bastard!" She swung at him. It was a wild, untargeted blow with no force behind it, and he caught her wrist in his hand and held it effortlessly.
"Don't," he said flatly.
She tugged her arm back, but he continued to hold her wrist.
"Let me go."
"You gonna try and hit me again?"
"Please." Her voice shook, and he dropped her wrist immediately.
"Christ, Steph, what's the matter with you? I wanted you to try to work under pressure, not lose it completely."
Tears sprang to her eyes and she started to shake.
"Fuck." In a second he was next to her and scooped her up into his arms.
She continued to tremble. "I don't know what's wrong."
"I do." He carried her out of the room and took her up to his apartment, where he settled her on the couch then called Ella to bring some scrambled eggs and toast. That done, he pulled a yoghurt from the refrigerator and brought it over to her. He handed her a spoon. "Eat."
She ate it obediently while he watched her. When Ella knocked at the door he got up to answer it and brought the eggs and toast over to Stephanie on a tray. He cut the toast, scooped some egg onto it and held it to her mouth. "Now this."
"I'm not a child."
"Thinking that you can live on sugar alone is something children do. Now eat."
She took the bite, chewed and swallowed it. She made a face. "Wholewheat?"
He sighed with exasperation. "You just proved that you're going to try to take me with you when you finally kill yourself. Just eat it." He cut another bite and held it out to her, then another, until it was all gone. Then he handed her a glass of orange juice mixed with water. "Feel better?"
"Yes," she mumbled quietly.
His cell went off.
"Yo… She's fine… Good call."
He ended the call. "Hal convinced Connie that I wouldn't kill you and took her home." He paused. "Stay here tonight."
She sucked her breath in sharply.
"Don't worry, I won't be here; I have a building to clear. Ella will bring you more proper food, which I expect you to eat, and I'll see you in the morning."
"I can't. There's things I need at home."
"Ella will deal with it. Just tell her what you need."
"I'm not sick," she protested. "I'll be fine."
"Please."
She gave in. "Okay."
o0o0o0o0o
She slept peacefully in the big bed in the quiet calm of the seventh floor apartment, and if she thought she felt the bed dip in the middle of the night and a warm presence curl around her, well she was alone when she woke in the morning. Maybe she dreamed it.
o0o0o0o0o
In the morning she retrieved one of her spare uniforms from the closet and showered and dressed quickly. When she came out of the bathroom she found breakfast waiting for her in the kitchen. Ella was a better sneak than any of the Rangemen. She wasn't sure how she felt about oatmeal, but there was a jug of cream and a small bowl of brown sugar with it that made it tolerable, and it was warm and filling.
She went down to the control room afterwards and found Ranger already in his office on the fifth floor. She went in and closed the door and leaned on it.
"More locks today?"
"No, you're done. Connie has enough now to do the job tomorrow night."
"Why did you lock us in?"
"It was an experiment. You two are the first ones that have learned in the safety of the building, so we needed to re-create a high-pressure environment. It worked with Connie; thanks in part to you, she opened that door in three minutes flat. You, on the other hand… well, that's the last time I lock up a pre-menstrual woman without putting on Kevlar first."
"You don't know that," she objected.
"Telling me I'm wrong, Babe?"
"Asshole," she said without heat.
Ranger sat in the Cayenne outside Connie's house. Most of her neighbors' lights were already out and the light shining through her living room window was the only one visible on the street at this late hour. He got out of the vehicle and eased up to the window. When he looked through he could see Connie sitting on the couch wearing black pants and a black sweatshirt. The TV was on but she wasn't watching it and she looked restless and ill at ease. Good.
He moved over to the door and in a matter of seconds he had let himself in. Three minutes was good for a beginner, but nothing compared to him. To be safe, you needed to use no more time than using a key would have taken.
He stepped forward and filled the living room doorway. She jumped with shock when she saw him and he noted her look of fear with grim satisfaction. "It's time."
She nodded mutely and followed him out.
o0o0o0o0o
They pulled up on the street outside a small, dilapidated house. It was set well back from the road in a large fenced lot, and the front and sides were completely surrounded by an overgrown yard. The lot itself was in an isolated position with no neighboring houses within view.
The overall effect was sinister, and Connie shivered as she looked at the darkened house.
Ranger threw her a familiar pouch, which she managed to catch despite her shaking hands.
"Get into the house without leaving traces if at all possible. You are looking for stock certificates to the value of approximately $100,000, which you should secure and remove. Start with the office if there is one, then widen the search if you need to. Do not trash the place. You should leave little or no evidence of your presence behind afterwards."
"Am I recovering something that's been stolen?" she asked quietly.
"You don't need to know the reasons. Just do it."
She nodded and got out of the Cayenne.
She decided to start by circling the house and checking for any obvious weak points. That was the first problem straight away. The yard was so overgrown that she half expected to find Sleeping Beauty in there along with the stock certificates, but she needed to get off the street where she wasn't so visible.
She found the gate and gave it a hard push. It didn't move. The wood was damp and swollen, and thoroughly stuck. With a muttered curse she shoved her pouch into a pocket, wedged her foot into a space between two timbers and started to climb.
The timbers started to wobble alarmingly as she neared the top of the six foot high gate. She squeaked and held tight, trying not to lose her balance. Eventually she risked leaning forward and throwing a leg over the top of the gate, then stopped with one leg either side wondering what to do next.
Finally, she steeled herself and brought the other leg over the gate to join the first. She scrabbled to find a toehold further down the gate, but the rotting timber finally gave way and the piece that she was holding snapped, dumping her unceremoniously on her ass inside the lot.
She hit the ground with a strangled, "Fuck!" and sat there for a moment, winded. She mentally ran through a body checklist: arms not broken, check; legs not broken, check; ass broken, possibly; pride damaged, hell yes.
She hauled herself to her feet, wincing as a pain shot through her ass. She'd be borrowing Stephanie's tube of arnica cream again tomorrow, or maybe she should invest in her own.
She hobbled down the overgrown path in the darkness. Suddenly there was an unearthly shriek somewhere in the overgrown jungle and she froze. She could hardly breathe, and her heart felt like it might beat its way out of her chest. Something rustled in the shrubs to her right and she thought her heart might stop outright.
Gradually her eyes got used to the darkness and she saw a red fox making its way across the yard. It took a couple of minutes for her lungs to finally agree that they might actually work again and she stood for a few moments trying to let her breathing settle.
She made it to the house without any further shocks and checked the front door. Two locks, a latch and a deadlock. The latch would be easy enough, but the deadlock might take her hours. She decided to move round to the rear of the house and check out the other door.
Brambles had grown right up to both side walls of the house, and there was only a narrow gap available to squeeze through. She seriously wished that she had thought about a hat, or at least about braiding her hair tight to her head, before tonight.
"Bastard. I bet he picked this house deliberately."
She lost several chunks of hair to the carnivorous bushes and her sweatshirt was torn in three places before she finally made it through and onto a patio at the back. She looked around cautiously. The rear seemed to be equally secluded. If she was lucky she might even manage not to be arrested tonight.
The back door was a much better prospect, although she could hardly see without the benefit of the street lights at the front. There was one simple lock, and the door moved a little when she tried the knob. She pulled her pouch out and settled down to work.
o0o0o0o0o
It took her about twenty minutes in the dark, but eventually the lock opened and Connie sneaked into the kitchen. There was a strong smell of rotting vegetables. She stepped into something soft with a squelch and pulled her foot back quickly. "Ick! Eeew!"
The rotting vegetable smell was suddenly stronger, and she thought that she might have found the source the hard way. Her sneakers were going straight in the trash when she got home.
There was a rustle in the corner of the room and she turned her head quickly, but she couldn't see anything in the dark. "Oh God, not rats. Please don't let there be rats."
She pulled her penlight from the pouch. Lester had cautioned her against using the light except in dire emergencies. "Trust me, Lester, this is an emergency. Rats definitely qualify as an emergency," she murmured. She took a tentative step forward and something scuttled over the top of her foot.
o0o0o0o0o
Tank and Hal were sitting in a RangeMan SUV just out of sight when they heard a blood curdling scream in the house.
Hal was out of the SUV in an instant. He was about to climb the gate when Woody's voice came over the radio.
"Stand down, Hal. I have her on the monitors and she's okay."
"Then what the fuck was that scream about?"
"A rat just ran over her foot in the kitchen."
Hal cursed. "Are you sure we can't interfere?"
"You heard the orders as well as I did. No interference unless she's in danger or about to get arrested. The only danger she's in right now is of peeing in her pants."
Hal got back into the SUV. He glared at Tank. "You could have given me a chance to get to her before calling the control room."
Tank shrugged. "The man gave us orders. I'll have enough trouble explaining how you traded places with Woody so you could come tonight."
o0o0o0o0o
Logically, Connie knew perfectly well that she was in no danger from a single rat. They were scavengers, not predators of man. However, that didn't change the absolute, primal terror of feeling something run over her foot in the dark. Man hasn't evolved that far from his cave dwelling ancestors.
When she had recovered from the bowel-loosening panic she stalked over to the wall and slapped the light switch on. No sense in worrying about staying below the radar after that scream. Bright, yellow light flooded the room and, suddenly braver in the light, she looked around.
The floor was littered with rotting potatoes, carrots and tomatoes, liberally interspersed with rat droppings. There was a ragged hole at the edge of the room and dirty grease smears ran along the bottom of the walls. A pair of bright, beady eyes regarded her from behind a dusty dresser where the rat had fled.
"How long did it take you to set this up for me, you bastard?"
She spun and stalked through the door leading to the rest of the house. She found the office and quickly checked all the papers lying on top of the desk. No stock certificates. She tried the desk drawer. It was locked.
She could pick the lock. She should pick the lock. Instead she gave the top of the desk a hard slam with her hand and yanked at the drawer at the same time. The drawer popped open, revealing a small bundle of stock certificates.
"You learn some things being around Vinnie this long. And I am not a pervert."
She grabbed the certificates and walked out again, leaving the room lights blazing.
o0o0o0o0o
Hal was watching the house when the front door slammed open with a crash and Connie emerged. Her hair looked like a bird's nest, her sweats were torn in several places, one of her sneakers was dripping with rotten tomato and she was bristling with anger. He got out of the SUV and pushed the stuck gate open for her.
She stalked past him and scanned the street for the Cayenne. "Where is he? I'm gonna shove these up his ass sideways."
He slung one arm round her shoulders and steered her towards the SUV. "Wrong. You're going to come with me and Tank is going to drop us at the nearest bar. It's my turn to buy you a drink."
The anger left her face and she sagged. "That sounds wonderful. We're stopping at my house for a change of clothes on the way, though."
o0o0o0o0o
"What I don' get … what I don' get, right, is how he gets away with his shit. Where does he ge' off with the whole 'big-bad-wolf, oooh-I'm-so-scary' gig?"
Connie took a long pull at her beer. "I mean, you'd think that the cops would be all over him li' a fuckin' rash, but nooo, he's all Mr 'I'm-above-the-law'. Morelli would love to kick his ass for poaching, but it's like he's fuckin' untouchable!"
She swayed a little unsteadily on her stool. "And then there's you guys. Great, big, scary private army and nobody bats an eyelid! I tell you, Trenton is like… is like … the Twilight Zone, and…"
Connie slowly slumped sideways until her head was resting on Hal's shoulder. "How does he pick you guys out, anyway? I mean, does he place an ad in Soldier of Fortune, saying 'Wanted – private army. Must be hot and look good in black'?"
She started to slide down his front as she tried to look up at him. "You know, you are soooo hot, and you're nice. You should come work for Vinnie. Actually, no, scrap that, 'cause then everyone would think you're a perv too."
She jumped up and turned to face the room at large, and announced in a loud voice, "I am NOT a pervert!"
The elderly man sitting on the other side of her at the bar stood up too and joined her. "Neither am I! Silk panties just feel good against the skin. Everyone should be allowed to wear silk panties!"
She peered owlishly at him, swaying gently. "No. You, my friend, might actually be a pervert. Tell me, do you know Vinnie?"
And with that she keeled over backwards into Hal's waiting arms.
He scooped her up and turned to the bartender. "Can you call a cab for me, please?"
o0o0o0o0o
Connie woke up in the morning in her own bed. Her shirt and pants were still on but her shoes and socks had been removed, and her mouth felt like the bottom of a birdcage. There was a note on her bedside cabinet.
I'll take the stock certificates into RangeMan with me tomorrow. You did great.
H