Chapter Five

I checked my watch. Eleven pm. I stretched. I thought it might be Wednesday. We had traveled nearly 2,000 miles across the country. I picked up the map book. It was dog-eared. The cover had torn off when we had left it on the hood of the moving van on route 470. I took my penlight out of the glove compartment and checked our route. We were in New Mexico, and I was running ragged. I had never been this close to wanting to strangle Vinnie before. I had no idea how Lucille had tolerated him for as long as she did. We have been on the road for three days straight, stopping at rest areas, sleeping at truck stops and eating at all night diners. Vinnie wouldn't stop singing along with the radio, and telling dirty jokes. It was literally driving me insane. I wanted out of the van so bad, I was willing to hook up with a traveling circus if it would get me away from him. What the hell was I thinking? My stomach had never felt this horrible, my brain was fried, and my hair was a rat's nest. I hadn't had a good night's sleep since we left Trenton.

Ranger's words came back to me. He had asked me if this idea to move to Scottsdale was temporary insanity. Yes! It had been. I already was trying to figure out how long it would take me to get back home with the promised bus ticket. I leaned back in the seat staring up at the ceiling of the van. Let's see. I would get on the bus, be back in a week, have no apartment, and no job. People would say,"Hey, didn't you move to Arizona?" Then I would have to tell them I couldn't tolerate my cousin. And then, well then, they would look at me like I was an idiot. Worse than that, No Joe. I would die sad and lonely. An old maid. Agh. I thunked my head against the dashboard. Get a grip, Stephanie.

I glanced in the rear view mirror. I instantly regretted it. Vinnie was up against the truck and a bad dye-job hooker was on her knees doing the crotch bop with him. Could this get much worse? I tried hard not to throw up, the image was still burning in my head, even when I closed my eyes. I looked over at the drivers side, the keys were still in the ignition. I slid over and turned the key. I put the van in gear and started rolling away. I checked the rear-view mirror again. Vinnie was trying to run after the van, pulling up his pants and screaming obscenities at me. The hooker was standing where the truck had been, arms crossed, looking upset. He tried to pull his pants up and run at the same time, but he fell over. I stopped long enough for him to get into the truck. I took off with his door still open.

"What the hell, Stephanie!"

"I swear to God, Vinnie. If you ever do that in front of me again, I will leave you there."

We drove into Scottsdale the next day. The air conditioner in the van was on full, and it wasn't cutting it. The afternoon was just beginning, and the temperature was rising. We had gotten through New Mexico and Arizona before the sun came up. It had been warm at 3am. But this was beyond what I considered hot. We drove down streets lined with newer cars and trucks, that seemed to me should have melted where they sat. All windows open just a little so that the heat of the car had somewhere to go. The stores and shops were clearly tourist driven. According the map, we were in Old Town. Decorated like the old west with trading posts, Indian jewelry shops, and clothing stores meant to attract seasonal shoppers. We moved through town, driving down Drinkwater. I thought that was a perfect name, and exactly what I wanted. Water. I was lacking moisture. My mouth felt like the desert itself. I had already finished off all the water we had.

We drove through downtown, went up 5th avenue. Shops turned into stores and mini malls. I searched the map for 4th street, finally I found it. We drove through looking for the building. I did not see any people. I had an idea that most sane people stayed indoors till the sun went down. I think I was getting a sunburn through the glass of the window, and I moved away from it . We both looked out at the building that would house us and "Vincent Plum Bail Bonds." It was placed on the end of a long row of strip businesses attached together with common walls. A concrete sidewalk and a wood awning shaded the front of the building from some of the sun's damaging heat. Vinnie was right about the Laundromat being next door. The check cashing place was three doors down. Next door was vacant. There was a few cars in the parking lot. Mostly for the laundromat and the liquor store on the opposite corner. This was not a big business area. I took a deep breath. No one was out to get me here. This was a great incentive . We parked curbside, and Vinnie used a key and opened up the door. If this was going to be my next phase in life, I needed to make the best of it.

Between Vinnie and I, we had the entire office set up and ready for doing business in two weeks flat. This was a resort town. Golf was big here. Most of the bond business would be low. Coming mostly from rich golf pros and executives that had too much to drink and drove home drunk. There were ten other bond agencies in Scottsdale. All were older. They had been in business for over twenty years. People would go to them before they would come to us.

It was a lot different from Trenton. Trenton was a big town with a lot of heritage. Families never left. People who grew up there, for the most part, stuck around. Grandparents were close to parents, who were close to their kids. Close knit. A community. Chambersburg was definitely on that level. Scottsdale was a city that was new. I doubted there were nosy neighbors and phone tree action here. People who lived here, usually came from somewhere else. There would be some who grew up and grew old in this town, but it was about two percent of the overall population and maybe a quarter of a percent that got in any kind of trouble. I tried not to concentrate on the facts, and instead did what I needed to do to get myself a license to apprehend in the state of Arizona. Vinnie had just ordered the new sign that was going to be placed outside above the door. For now, we had a canvas sign that had been pre-ordered before we arrived.

"Vincent Plum Bail Bonds" was now in business. Arizona doesn't have many bail bondsmen and enforcement laws to obey. Bail recovery agents have to submit a set of fingerprints, have a criminal background check on record at the police department, and be identified in a report filed by a licensed bail bonds agent. Vinnie. No training or licenses required. Except for your gun. They also suggest you register with the Department of Insurance. They also suggest you take a police tactical training course. Vinnie refused, but I signed up. I could use the training.

October was fast approaching. I was getting ready to go check out the Scottsdale mall. Camilla Jones was my FTA. She worked at Carl Stratton's Hair Salon. It was located on the second floor. The bond was small, but we couldn't be out money right now. I have had some luck with mall apprehensions. Some bad luck and a little good luck. What's good about being at the mall is that if you can't find who you're looking for, you can always go shopping. I was hoping this would go down smoothly. A hair stylist. What could go wrong? I picked up a magazine from the table next to the receptionist desk. A girl of about 15 was filing her well manicured nails and trying to look busy. There were five stylists, all with clients. My hair was pretty fried out from the sun, I felt I had a believable excuse to want to see Camilla Jones.

"Can I help you?" she said smartly. Checking out her latest text message as she spoke.

"I would like to get my hair trimmed. Maybe do something different with it."

"Hum.." She eyed my hair. "What happened to it?"

My hand lifted to my head. I had it up in a pony tail. I looked in the mirror, It was completely in frazzle mode. If I didn't get it some help soon, I may have to shave my head and start over. She flipped through the appointment calendar on the computer.

"We can put you with Sharon now, if you would like. She is free until after three. Sharon's great. She does all my extensions." I looked at her hair. I hadn't even noticed she had extensions.

"How long is your hair without the extensions?" I said

"Well, my hair is actually cut just above my ears. I like to keep it super short so I can add hair and make it as long as I want."

Her hair was a combination of light blond,hot pink and black.

"I love all the colors."

"Yeah, my boyfriend," She paused trying to collect a thought. "Well, he said that I should have my hair in three shades. He said If I wanted to ever be anyone , I had to have statement hair."

"What about Miss Jones?" I said. "I have heard so many great things about her. Does she do extensions too?"

"Camilla? Um.. "

Just as she said that, the woman who Camilla was working on, jumped out of her chair.

"What are you trying to do? Kill me with those scissors? You just about cut my ear off."

Camilla was trying to calm the woman down. "I'm so sorry! I have been under a lot of pressure lately. My hand just slipped."

The receptionist ran over to the woman but it was too late. She stormed out of the salon. "You better believe I am reporting this on Yelp!"

The receptionist looked at me. "Well, I think she is available now."

There was no way I was letting her scalp me. I walked over to Camilla Jones and gave her my card, and handcuffed her. She was still in shock over the almost scalping, so she didn't put up much of a fight.

"Its my boyfriend." She said, as we walked to the Jeep. "He is the reason I got arrested, He called the cops on me after he said I stabbed him with my scissors. Honestly, I just got nervous. He was telling me how he wanted his hair cut. I just got out of cosmetology school, this is my first job. I was practicing on him." She said. "When he yelled at me , I accidentally stabbed him. It could happen to anyone, really."

"So why didn't you go to court?"

"I didn't want to go to jail. They probe you for drugs and stuff. I couldn't face the humility."

"Maybe he will come to his senses and drop the charges."

"You think so? Maybe after he gets out of the hospital, I will ask him."

"Yikes."

I would need to remember not to ever let her cut my hair.

We motored over to the Scottsdale Police Department. My cell phone rang. The number came up restricted. Not many people had restricted numbers anymore. It was Ranger.

"Yo." I said casually.

"I can't protect you in Arizona."

"I never asked you to."

"I have an outstanding weapons charge in Nevada and Arizona. My lawyers are working on it.

"Okay, so it's like a no fly zone for you?"

I could sense him smile on the other end of the phone.

"I have one man in Scottsdale. Kyle Reese. He can help, you if you get into trouble. He can also give you some self-defense classes if you feel like you need them. I will have the office send you the cell phone number to your email address. He's already is aware you're in Scottsdale."

"Who is he, again?"

"He and I have worked together before. He's trustworthy on a professional level."

"On a professional level?"

"On a professional level, yes. Very trustworthy. With you, no."

"What's that suppose to mean?"

"Babe."

Ranger hung up. What the hell was that?

Our first high bond case came in two weeks later. Both of us knew instantly that Thomas Garvey would not show up for his court case. His girlfriend walked in with two little kids in tow. She had a black eye, and was missing some teeth. Her hand was bandaged up and she was limping. As far as I knew, that meant only one thing. While she talked to Vinnie about how to go about getting her boyfriend out of jail, I looked up Thomas Garvey. He was listed as a flight risk. His bond was high. The court was assuming that he could easily run. Bail was set at three hundred thousand big ones. His record had shown that he was arrested for domestic abuse, and it had happened five times before. No shock there. When the police arrived, he barricaded himself in the house with the girl and her kids. It took a team of eight to get him out. When they arrested him, they found he was high on PCP. Thomas Garvey wasn't from Arizona. He was from Minnesota. He had only his girlfriend as a tie to the area. I thought it was a really risky. Vinnie and I were not exactly ready to pick up a client such as this. Vinnie bonded him out anyway. He said sometimes you needed to take chances. Plus he felt between us, we could pick him up if we needed too. I was not as confident on that one as he was.

I signed up for self-defense at a local business that held the classes once a week in an upstairs loft of a book store. The first day, I broke the instructors nose. I decided if I could get him with an elbow, there was not a lot he could teach me. It was getting close to Thomas Garvey's court case. I started keeping an eye on him. The more I watched his movements; Girlfriends house, the golf range, the gym, the gun range, the gym and back to the girlfriends house; the more I wanted a better gun. He just seemed dangerous. I bought a Sig Sauer P229. I had asked some of the nicer cops at the police station what they suggested. I got the same answer from all of them. The Sig Sauer was the first choice for law enforcement. I don't really know how well they thought I could do this job, but when I kept bringing in FTA's, they started talking to me. I went to the shooting range once a week to get more comfortable with the gun. No one had my back out here, and I wanted to remember that.

I bought a Jeep CJ-7 with four wheel drive and a V-8. I wanted something that would move me through the desert when I needed to go off-road, chasing someone. It was black, and it was cool. I mostly wanted it so I could drive around with the top off. This time, I had the truck checked out by a local mechanic before I bought it. It was old, but it was solid.

We started getting more clients after an ad in the Scottsdale paper came out, or it could be because Vinnie went to all the strip clubs and handed out his card. We were a favorite of porn stars, strippers and hookers. One thing about those girls, they needed to work. They were low risk bonds. I worked the computer and did the paperwork for Vinnie. He was mostly scouting for new clients, in other words, he was hanging out at the strip clubs. Vincent rented a house near the Scottsdale mall. It was a one story styled for withstanding the heat of the desert. and had a red tile roof top and a 2 car garage. The front was pretty, but it was sparse. It had a small front yard and a cactus rock garden with a slightly larger back yard. A small patio and a Jacuzzi sat by the back window. I decided to let Vinnie have the house, I would stay with the apartment. It was cheaper, and I liked the roof. You could see almost all Scottsdale from that vantage point.

I missed Jersey. New places are great, but it's not home. I joined a gym, then after two weeks, decided I hated the gym and canceled the membership. I tried Yoga. I couldn't find my calm center. I finally called Ranger's man, Kyle Reese. I thought maybe he could give me some tactical instruction. He had a studio downtown. He asked that I meet him after classes were over. While I waited, I went next door to a coffee-house. They had doughnuts, so I bought three. They had Boston Cream. I had to remember where this place was.

Kyle Reese was a bad ass. I watched him take down every one of his students. He was teaching a class on technical take-downs. All the men looked like they could hold their own. I sat on one of the chairs and ate my doughnut and watched him . He was about six foot two. Probably in his late 30's. You could tell his students had a huge amount of respect for him. On all the walls of most dojo's I had been in, were trophies, ribbons, pictures, and awards. This one had none of those things. Just a sign outside stating his business, " Place of the Way" with a list of classes available.

Next to his office door there was one picture. I walked over, and looked at it. It was an 8x10 of a squad of men. I picked him out. He was standing beside the squad, and he had on a different color uniform. I also picked out a few faces I had seen before. Tank. And Hal. Not only them, Ranger. There he was, second from the right, standing at attention. He was younger, and looked scarier than he did now. All the men looked like trouble. I took another bite of my doughnut and for some reason; I wanted a copy of this picture. I looked around for a copier. Most offices had them. Kyle was standing behind me.

"You must be Stephanie. No one else would even consider swiping that picture off my wall."

I smiled and shook his hand. Trying to swallow my doughnut.

"Ranger told me some things about you," He said smiling.

He had my attention. "What did he say?"

"He said you could use my help. You were undisciplined, you ate poorly, you hated guns, and you couldn't hold your liquor, but that I would like you anyways."

I took the last piece of doughnut and ate it. Then wiped my hands on my jeans.

"Oh yeah? That's what he said, huh?"

"He also said you were a good judge of character; you had a knack for finding people, that you could hold your own when it came to taking people down and I could trust you." His eyebrows rose. "He also said you were off-limits."

"He said that, did he?" I had heard him say that before, It was a pet peeve of mine. It really pissed me off.

He smiled. "I don't listen to Ranger much. But I do owe him. It is because of me that he can't come to Arizona."

Finding someone who has known Ranger for a while, and talked about it? This might be the start of a great friendship.

Kyle wanted me to start coming to the studio twice a week. He said he could teach me how to subdue people quicker and not have to rely on guns as much. Using my body as a weapon could be just as effective, especially in an up-close situation. Of course he suggested I dump my bad food and dessert habits. They would slow me down.

I called Ranger.

"I understand you think I am undisciplined, and that I can't hold my liquor."

"Kyle was being kind. I also said you were stubborn, hard-headed, and you were a pain the ass."

"Just to be clear. You told him I was off-limits, too."

"I asked him to help you, not hand him a snack."

I would seriously need to think about that last remark.

I didn't know how Vinnie did it, but he was getting clients. Most of the cases we were getting were pretty easy. We were a small agency, and according to one woman, "she didn't want any of her husband's golf buddies to find out she had been arrested for drunk driving, so she came to us." When she didn't show up for court, I found her at the mall under a hair dryer. After promising she wouldn't go to jail for a first offense, I brought her in. She told her friends about us, and we ended up with a lot a business from word of mouth.

I felt like I was getting better at apprehension. Although, how hard was it to apprehend a drunk hooker, a sleeping drug dealer, or a paraplegic? It still gave me confidence. Kyle Reece started training me on take down, and better ways to apprehend people. So far I didn't need these skills, but if I did, I would have them.

The paper came in on Thomas Garvey. It meant it was time to step up to the plate and do our job. He hadn't shown up for court. Vinnie was sweating, and not from the heat. Both of us knew he would skip. We had monitored him, and we had both staked out his girlfriends place on several occasions. This would be our first real take down in Scottsdale. I was nervous. I went to the gun range more often and I spent more time training with Kyle. We had been to Karen Arnold's house. She had moved out a week before. No one in the neighborhood had seen Mr. Garvey. I worked on the computers trying to find leads with the search programs we had. Nothing was showing up for him.

Garvey drove silver BMW. Karen Arnold had put up a set of eight thousand dollar golf clubs as part of collateral for the bond. I checked the clubs, sure enough, the tag on the bag said it had belonged to Garvey. It also gave an address he did not have on file. I showed the tag to Vinnie. 1012 Country Club Way. As far as we knew, Garvey didn't have a job, or a residence at this address.

It's the best lead we had for him. I drove through town, searching for the address. It was not on my GPS. I decided to drive to the largest of the many golf clubs and ask around. When I drove through the gates, there was a booth with a guard. He asked me for my ID and what I needed. I told him who I was, and that I was looking for 1012 Country Club Way. He gave me a map of the resort. He pointed it out. "It's the main road through the resort. 1012 is the biggest building. It is where all the caddie's hang out, and store their clubs. He gave me a guest pass, and sent me through the gate with directions. He said there would be someone to meet me at the clubhouse. I called Vinnie and asked him to meet me.

Trent Holden was my man. He was waving furiously as I drove up to the building. "Welcome!" he said with a positively polite voice. What can I help you with today?"

"I am looking for a man who may work here. His name is Thomas Garvey."

"Why, sure. He works here. He is one of the caddie's we have available at Hacienda Country Club. Very sought after by all the pro golfers that come to play. Are you looking to take lessons?"

"Not exactly. You see, Trent. I need to find Mr. Garvey because he missed a court date, and we really need to get him back to make another appointment."

"Oh, that silly thing. Well Tommy told us it was all just a misunderstanding, and he had taken care of it. He even let us know that the clubs we put up for the bond, would be returned this coming Friday."

"He did?" Boy, they were in for a big surprise.

"Well, If you could just point me in his general direction, I will need to speak with him about this."

A man matching Thomas's description walked out of the door of the building. I saw him, and he froze. The moment I took a step towards him, he took off for the golf carts. He jumped into the first one in a row of bright red carts and drove by us at what I am assuming was "high speed" in golf cart language. Or in laymen's terms , 20 miles per hour. He pointed a gun at me as he drove away towards the greens.

"Well, I think that's him, but where is he going?" Trent said.

I took off running. Golf carts are not that fast, but I was breathing hard trying to catch up. Garvey tried to turn and shoot, but he dropped the gun. I ran up alongside and grabbed Garvey by his shirt and pulled him out of the cart with all my weight, which is not a whole hell of a lot compared to his two hundred and twenty five pound frame. We rolled together on the pavement and into the pond with a cascading waterfall. The water fowl did not appreciate the disruption. Ducks flapped their wings and flew away, loudly quacking their disapproval. I held on tight to him as he struggled to get away. He punched me and I kicked him between the legs. He doubled over and I was able to handcuff him and drag him out of the water still holding himself. I had an audience of three security guards and Vinnie.

"Geez,Stephanie. Is that one of your only moves? He may never talk right again."