PLAYING WITH FIRE: Chapter 3:
Thank you for your reviews. I really appreciate them. They inspire me to write more. Not making any money, just borrowing JE's characters and playing with them. Any mistakes are mine.
...
"Okay. I'd better get going so you can read the good stuff. Then I'll go up to six."
"The good stuff? Is there something else I need to know? I prefer actions over reading, Babe." Tank coughed. "TMI!"
As Stephanie giggled leaving Tank to elaborate, Ranger couldn't help feel the warm glow in her wake. Tonight was going to be fun.
...
Thinking Outside the Box
Normality settled over the Control Room once again as it resumed its routine of efficiency and that working ethic above reproach. Everyone had a job to do and for the next half hour the atmosphere was of industrious work sounds. The usual light conversations and communication prevailed and merged with the productive tone of the fifth floor: the hum of computers, printers and keyboards; the general buzz of phone conversations; the movement and familiar sounds of drawers, staplers, rolling of the desk chairs, people moving around the cubicles and the distant sounds of the Break Room. Efficiency abounded.
Occasionally a few groans and light expletives briefly interrupted the tone but not enough to distract. That was the norm, especially from those who were doing searches and chasing down leads and cross referencing.
But there was a new sound, a humming that included intermittent groans and 'Damnits', and … head banging. Yes. The men all knew from where these sounds came … the cubicle with the consistent light yet animated verbalising, the cubicle with the occasional head banging … the one with the curly-haired brunette. This was not a first time happening, this was an everyday occurrence. The men, her Merry Men, were quite familiar with her expressiveness and knew that she was getting closer to her objective. They admired her tenacity and smiled indulgently when she groaned as she hit another dead end. Her sounds of frustration were not part of their repertoire and it amused them how she continually vocalised, sometimes urging the computer to go faster in its search processes, giving it encouragement and praise as it processed her directives.
"Damnit!"
"Oh yes."
"Shit!"
"OK, this could work …"
"Come on baby. Be good to me …"
"Oh yeah, oh yeah …"
"Ooh, this is good … "
"Tsk!" followed by a frustrated growl or a groan of exasperation and sometimes the head banging on her desk.
She was oblivious to her surroundings, so engrossed and deeply involved with the search this time, and unaware of the Merry Men's grins and chuckles. But no one interrupted her thought processes. This was precious. As lethal as they could be by their sheer size, strength and military demeanour, Stephanie was a force to be reckoned with. Her curiosity and prying and that almost obstinate determination, came up trumps so many times. Let's face it … she liked to snoop.
She was indomitable.
Dogged.
Diligent.
Instinctive.
Intuitive.
That incredible memory and lateral thinking.
All these served her well.
This particular search, the 'doozy one' as she had told Tank, had been attempted a number of times. Rodriguez begged Tank to let Stephanie put her fresh eyes, a new perspective on this file, in the hope that she could make sense of it. They were all familiar with this skip but somehow he had eluded them.
Stephanie was unaware of the history so her tactics ran an alternative course to how they had proceeded. Her uncanny ability to use local knowledge, tapping information from the community and making connections using her contacts was a huge advantage. To this knowledge they were not privy, even with their street contacts and snitches. Her personal history and experience often came in to play. Sometimes they thought she could make a good genealogist and had considered her intuition and unorthodox skills worthy of profiling. Since not all their skips were local, her deductive and detective skills led her along different tangents, with success.
To the men now it was obvious she was onto something. Dead ends and false trails only made her more resolute. But she was persistent and when her instincts showed she was closing in, she became a tenacious hunter, such was her determination. This particular search had her so fixated given that initially she was silent and totally absorbed. It was evident when that changed as Stephanie became more verbal, first with quiet mutterings and then the sighs, an intermittent squeal and then the fidgeting suddenly stopped.
As her tone changed they knew she was really making a discovery as she began to hum happily. The air around her seemed to echo her excitement. They were always aware. For a while she was quiet and they resumed their focus in their stations upon their various tasks. That, however, was short-lived.
She suddenly leapt into the air causing her chair to topple behind her with a resounding crash as she shrieked, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" almost worthy of the scene from "When Harry Met Sally". She'd thrown her arms triumphantly into the air with each 'Yes'.
Instantaneously all guns were drawn and office doors flew open with weapons aimed in her direction. Stephanie, however, was oblivious to their immediate reflex responses.
"Gotcha, you bastard!" And she proceeded to do a joyful victory dance with, "Oh yeah! Oh Yeah! Oh yeah!", whilst stirring her happy pot. Slowly weapons were re-holstered in their various repositories.
Shaking their heads and grinning they found her reactions quite energising and uplifting, almost like a panacea to the monotony that often came with doing searches. Because of that, search and research shifts had regular rotations to relieve the strain. Regular breaks and rehydration were encouraged and expected, and of course, mandatory gym time, gun range and weapon maintenance gave them the recharge needed. Search days were alternated with fieldwork, client background checks, service calls, installations and protection services. Variety relieved any monotony and thus was a buffer against complacency.
Grabbing her USB flash drive, she skipped to the printer, dancing impatiently on the spot as she made multiple copies of her obviously fruitful report and started a "Watch Me Whip/Nae Nae" dance much to the delight of her Merry Men. And watch her they did. Bobby, Lester, Ram and Vince joined in. Between 'Watch me Yule and Superman' she beamed as the printer completed its task and sighed with a delighted and smug cocky grin, still bouncing with irrepressible excitement. Pride emanated from her and everyone rolled with it. Her eyes positively sparkled as she clutched the undisclosed information close to her heart.
She strode confidently up to Tank who was still leaning in his doorway, his arms folded across his massive chest, his expression now blank as he looked down at her. He had already texted the core team including the main stakeholders involved, to meet in the conference room. It was obvious this had to be shared immediately. The fifth floor was buzzing again and then calmed back to focus on their respective tasks and duties.
"You have something to show for all that … performance, Missy?" He may have had his patented Rangeman blank face on but she could tell his eyes were smiling.
"Ooh, yeah. I told you it was a doozy. I think Rodriguez is a bit happy. Shall we proceed to the conference room, Sir?"
"By all means. Lead the way Little Girl.
...
Ranger observed her as she walked into the conference room with absolute confidence looking like the cat that ate the canary. Hal pulled out a chair for her between him and Hector. She handed each of the men an individual copy of the dossier. Setting up her computer with the flash drive, she stood and took the lead.
It was patently obvious that this mystery was smashed right open and all the men waited for her to lay it on them.
"Gentlemen, she nodded acknowledging each one in a business-like manner. Alexander Sechs is about to be revealed. He was a bit tricky but I hunted him down. I now understand where you lost his trail." She paused and waited for them to take that in.
"Let's say, you were barking up the wrong tree," she responded to their questioning looks with a cryptic reply.
"He was flying under the radar so to speak, unintentionally."
"Remember the firebomb in my old apartment? Just before Ramirez, that freakin' homicidal maniac, trashed my recently cleaned place?" with nods of acknowledgment that they were following her train of thought.
"Yeah. I remember that firebomb. You have all the fun," smiled Cal.
"Your car also got firebombed, if I recall," remarked Tank.
"Yeah. That was gasoline inside my Honda and Maxine's Mom tossed her cigarette butt and that's how my Honda went up to car heaven."
A little humming to the tune of "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen, had Stephanie glaring at Lester. Ignoring him, she went on.
"Well, one of my neighbours has a nephew who had helped me solve these cryptic messages in one of my FTA cases. He played in a rock band, a transvestite rock band called The Lovelies. He was a cross dresser, and he was great at crosswords so he was able to help solve these cryptic messages that Maxine was sending to her cheating boyfriend, Eddie Kuntz. Anyway, Salvatore Sweet, aka Sally Sweet, had a lead singer in the band called Sugar. Sugar was his roommate. He liked to dress up too and was very fond of Marilyn Monroe and all. He, Sugar, was the one who firebombed my apartment and splashed the gasoline inside my Honda because he was jealous or something. He thought I had a thing going for Sally but he was just helping me with the cryptic messages. I think Sugar was a sandwich short of a picnic but he scared the hell out of me."
"He's the one who tried to attack you, wasn't he, with a knife?" asked Hal.
"Yeah. That's the one." And she shuddered at the memory.
"So Babe, what does this have to do with Alexander Sechs?" Ranger inquired encouragingly.
"Yes. Well. This is where you guys lost him. He, Sechs, was also a singer and, when Sugar was having a hissy fit, he often came in as a substitute. Sugar didn't like that either and tried to get rid of him. He, Sugar, must have had a knife fetish." She looked directly at Hector and grinned with a little shrug of her shoulders.
"But of course, not as skilled and proficient as our Hector. Thankfully." Nods of agreement circled the conference table.
"Alexander Sechs … aka Alex … Lex and … Lexie. Let me clarify further and enlighten you gentlemen … Sexy Lexie." She paused to let that juicy bit of information sink in.
"Alexander was also a cross dresser and his stage name was a play on words. Sechs, a euphemism for sex which he then extended to sexy and since he often went under the name of Lex Sechs, he penned Sexy Lexie. 'She' … was a redhead singer, known for her 666 private number plate SL 666. 'Her' costume was a little devil number."
"Dayam, Bomber. That is freakin' amazing, awesome, in fact."
"Oh, jeez!" Lester held his head in his hands, sighing and shaking his head.
Tank burst out laughing as did Cal and Hal. They understood his despair.
"Oh. Let me guess. You tried your Lester charm on 'her' and …?"
"You could say he was saved by the bell. A call came in about a break in and we were closest to the scene of the crime," explained Bobby with a chuckle. "He talked about her all the way to the break in." More laughter.
"Yes. She was a looker alright," as she flipped the photos up on the big screen. "With her green eyes, that red hair and that sexy costume, 'she' was hard to miss. Sugar took exception as Sally was keen on her performance and ability to draw a bigger crowd and that 'she' was less volatile than Sugar. As you may recall, Sugar was dangerous, and I'd say crazy. Yes, definitely crazy. Sugar apparently slashed Lexie's costume, with a knife and made threats."
"So, I was talking to Sally some weeks ago, before the Ramirez debacle, and he happened to mention Sexy Lexie was now their regular lead since Sugar was incarcerated. They were quite the success and he was happy. But I digress.
I happened to be playing a little app on my phone, you see, for a little break. It's about cats, a Japanese style game. One of the cats was called Lexie and BAM! That's when I remembered Sexy Lexie! I remembered the unusual name Sechs and how he chose his pen name. It all just fell into place. And that's when I made the final connection. So you see, while you were busy looking for a man, Alexander Sechs was staying in character as Sexy Lexie." Stephanie flipped the second photo up beside Sexy Lexie. The likeness was remarkable and as a woman, he was certainly stunning.
"That's uncanny. There's no way that we would have chanced upon that information. You are incredible, Babe." Ranger was very pleased and proud of her.
"So where is he or she hiding out?" Lester asked warily.
"With Sally, last I heard. Hang on." Steph checked her cell phone as a message chirped in. Recognising the designated cricket chirp she had created for Sally especially, she looked up and beamed. "Confirmation. He is still Sally's roommate."
...
Stephanie took the elevator from the sixth floor up to seven. As she approached Ranger's apartment, she noticed the door was slightly open.
"Ranger?" she called cautiously as she stepped inside the dark apartment. She knew he was there. She could smell his Bulgari but this was weird. The door suddenly closed and she could hear the locks tumble as if by their own volition.
TBC