Shelter from The Storm

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a/n For those of you who may not know "Sex Wax" is a real product, it is put on surf/snowboards/ hockey sticks to, ah, enhance perormance. LOL.

Zoe is four.

Sex Wax —Yum!

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[Ranger]

I sat in my public, not top secret conference room and listened to my lawyer and my employee Zachary Castedos discuss Castedos's recent arrest.

Zack was on Rangeman business at the time and he was trying hard to justify everything as part of the job. He's a big beefy ex-Marine who is usually assigned to personal protection clients. And yes, he is good. But the other night he maybe got carried away a little.

Now he said huffily, ''I do my job! Just like I am ordered. No one I am assigned to guard has ever complained about lack of service from me."

I maintained a neutral attitude and tried to go along for the ride.

Adam Keller, our criminal attorney, looked over his files once again. My half-brother Anthony was sitting further down the conference table, just hanging out, showing his support for Castedos who was an old friend from, uh, back in the day.

Keller said, "Just so we're clear, you stole a car, shot a bouncer, and had sex with two women?"

Anthony grinned. It did sound like the set-up for a bad bar joke, but...

Zachary frowned. "The women were afterward. I hope they are not complaining?"

"No. However..." said Keller.

Zach interrupted again. "It really didn't go as bad as it could have."

"A girl is dead, Zack," intoned Keller. So serious.

Zack said, "I didn't say it went perfectly. And she wasn't a girl, she was a whacko. She thought just because she had a gig as a club bouncer she had a right to stalk any celebrity she took a fancy to. Our client had an OOP [order of protection] on her but, no—she held him at gunpoint and kidnapped him. In my Rangeman Explorer!"

I stifled a sigh.

Zachary added, "And I only borrowed that car. I didn't steal it. I had to chase them—my priority has to be the client."

"Your priority—and yours, Ranger —should be to obey the law." Keller leveled stern looks at me and my employee both.

Fuck that.

When the grab went down last night, Zach took a set of keys from the parking valet kid and he took off after the woman and our client . In someone's new Lexus, go figure. Totally justified.

I stared Keller into submission. He paled and buried his nose in the file. "It was raining and the woman panicked," read Keller from the police report.

"She didn't panic, she was a freakin' psycho, Adam!" yelled Zack. "The woman rolled my Explorer down an embankment in the rain. Smashed into the overpass abutment. I was following and she crawled out of the wreck and tried to shoot me! What the hell was I supposed to do, let her kill me and our client?"

Not the client. Please.

Keller made a note and nodded."Self-defense and defense of a third party in a life or death situation. I'll run it by the DA."

Yes, our client survived. And he was grateful. He told the arresting officers that the female stalker had both a knife and a handgun. And these were indeed found at the scene. But the state troopers arrested Zach anyway, mostly for the stolen car.

"The GTA we'll call exigent circumstances." [grand theft auto]

"Sounds good." I glanced at my watch. 3 PM. I could hear a tiny high voice in the hall. I stood, said, "Time's up, Keller. Fix this fast."

He stood too and was saying, "Yes, okay," when my daughter Zoë appeared on the scene.

"Daddydaddydaddy!"

"Hey, baby."

''Hi, Zacky! Hi, Mr. Keller. Hi, Uncle Anthony!"

My employees and Anthony said hello, but instead of leaving they all watched Zoë, like the curtain was going up on the best show in town.

Yeah. Well. She's cute.

I looked around. "Where's Killer?" Killer is her little dog.

"Oooh, Daddy! Killer was ever so bored today!"

"Yeah?"

"And his tummy hurt."

"Why?" asked Keller.

"Uncle Anthony left a tin of sex wax in the sofa cushions and Killer ate ALL."

We all grimaced.

"Even the jar?" I asked.

"No, he just licked it clean. That's how I knew what it was called. Daddy! What's sex wax?"

Lucky for me that question isn't as difficult as it sounds.

But Anthony stepped up to answer anyway. "It's like you know, surfboard sticky wax, Zee. So you don't fall off? You've seen us use it on our boards."

Zoë nodded. "Why's it called sex wax?"

"No clue."

I interrupted to ask. "So where is the dog?'

"He said he needed a walk, he said he was gonna walk over to Gramma Ellen's house and lie on the sofa with Grandpa til his tummy stopped hurting."

"You let him out alone! !" Anthony sounded upset.

I said, "Baby, he's a little dog, he can't go out alone."

Shrug. "Tell him that. "

For once I was speechless; a megabucks show quality pug is not a creature that should roam the streets unattended. The dog is utterly defenseless and gentle, though smart. Pugs aren't intended for hot urban late September days either; they are designed to loll on silk cushions in front of air conditioning vents.

"Excuse me, Ranger." Vince knocked politely on the side of the open door. "That dude Mooner? He came by just now? Brought back Ms Zoë's dog."

Vince leaned into the room and set the fat little pug down on my charcoal grey plush broadloom carpet. When a pug is happy their ears are perked, and their little donut tails are held erect. Poor Killer looked sweaty and sad, his eyes bulged ominously and his little pink tongue was hanging out.

Vince stood there hopelessly brushing cream-colored hairs off his black uniform.

''Killy!'' Zoë ran over and hugged the dog. Anthony sighed and stood up, "Zee, c'mon. Look at the poor guy. He's dying of thirst."

"We have to get him drinkies! Should he have Kool-Aid?"

"Yes. No. Water, not Kool-Aid." Anthony scooped up the dog —he loves dogs especially the family pugs —and he grabbed Zoë's hand. They left, but I could hear Anthony, unusually stern, lecturing Zoë about not letting her doggy out in hot weather."Or like ever, Zee. He needs supervision, he's just little. What were you thinking?"

Keller watched them leave."That Moon guy recognized the dog?"

My man Vince looked up from his t-shirt front and nodded. "He's a good guy."

"Oh, right. Mooner? —he's the good drug dealer kid?" Keller turned to me. "Your wife's friend?"

"We don't think of him as a drug dealer, Adam. We try to think of Mooner as, uh, Steph's somewhat mentally challenged childhood friend."

"Right."

I looked at Vince and Zack and Keller, all standing there bemused and fascinated by life in the Manoso ménage. "Don't you guys have work to do? Get going."

And like Killer, the men hit the road.

the end of the story/ series tbc

WHY IS IT CALLED SEX WAX?

from Wikipedia:

''In the beginning, Zog [Hertzog, I forget his real first name] asked friend and artist, Hank Pitcher, to design a label for the new surf wax. Not one to shy away from controversy, Hank came up with a visually intriguing logo bearing the name "Sex Wax". Hank liked the name because it sounded phonetically cool. Zog liked it because it was attention-grabbing, absurd, and a great spoof on Madison Avenue's not so subtle attempts to use sex to sell a product.''