Chapter 32: RangeMan Standards

Steph’s POV

My return from Atlanta was confusing. Immediately upon arrival, Hal presented me with a list of duties that he claimed needed coverage. My spidey-senses were calling that one false. After four days of mind-numbing monitor duty, I promised him that the next time I sent anyone anywhere, he would know well in advance. I think he was upset about the fact that I sent Manny to NYC and Ram wouldn’t return until Friday. On Friday, I received another bouquet of yellow roses and Ram returned, so Hal was happy again.

Friday morning, I wheel myself down to 5 and run right into Hal. He grins. “Wanna get out for a while?”

You kidding me? I immediately go in search of Hector, to let him know where I’m going. He nods and I meet Hal in the garage.

“Where are we going?” I ask. I don’t really care. I’m getting out of the office.

“Bonds run. I’ll make Vinnie’s last.”

Yes! Finally, a chance to get out and see other people. “I thought you intended to hand this over to Bonds Enforcement.”

“I understand now. If I do the bonds run, I’m guaranteed to get out the building at least once a day.”

We pull up to Vinnie’s an hour later with fresh doughnuts. I’ve already eaten one and Hal is twitching. I walk through the bond’s office door victoriously.

“Doughnuts! Hey! Good grief, you can have the box.”

Lula and Connie run directly at me and grab the box. They tear into it, grabbing the jelly-filled and glazed doughnuts and leaving me two Boston Creams. I sit on the couch with my doughnut and savor the taste. Creamy filling, chocolate glaze, delicious fried dough. Heaven.

“Well, there’s a sound I haven’t missed.” Vinnie, looking more like a ferret than usual.

“Hey, Vinnie. How’s Lucille?” I smile.

Vinnie glares at me. What? Just because I don’t work for you anymore doesn’t mean the blackmail goes away, Vinnie.

“What are you doing here?” Vinnie grumbles. “Don’t you have a security company to run? You know, after abandoning your cousin and leaving him bleeding money?” Melodramatic as always.

“Oh, shut it Vinnie. I had to get a job. Unless you’re paying workman’s comp these days?” The door slams and Lula, Connie, and I laugh. Hal has a tiny smile. The other guy in the room just stares at me.

“Sorry, he’s been a little touchy lately,” Connie winks. I heard about Vinnie’s unhappiness with his new employee. “Steph, this is David Pickens. David, this is our former BEA, Stephanie Plum. She’s Vinnie’s cousin.”

“Nice to meet you.” I receive a nod in reply. I look back at Connie. “So what’s going on here? Anything new?”

Connie reaches into the box for another doughnut. Lula is already working on her third. “Well, there’s not a lot going on. Mooner’s FTA again and Eula.”

“Oh, I’ll pick them up. I miss Mooner. What’s on marathon today?” I reach over to grab the TV Guide when David’s voice cuts me off at the knees.

“No, I think not, Ms. Plum. I’ll pick up my skips. I don’t need your help.”

I sit back, dumbfounded. “Sorry, it’s just . . . they were my regulars. I went to school with Mooner. I’ve known Eula for ages—“

“And I don’t really care about all that. They’re my skips now and I’ll pick them up. Unless you want to talk about letting me handle some of the high bonds, don’t come dipping in my patch.”

The entire office has gone quiet. David picks up his stack of FTAs and leaves.

The rest of the visit is quiet. Everyone is a little surprised by David’s attitude, except Hal. Once in the SUV, Hal passes me his handkerchief. I’m not crying, but I feel hurt.

“Don’t blame him.” Hal is tapping on his phone.

I look at Hal. “What?”

“I don’t blame him.”

“What do you mean, you don’t blame him? That was rude, and mean. I mean, jeez, he acted as if I committed a federal crime saying I’d pick up Mooner.”

“You were threatening his paycheck. What would you have said a few months ago?”

Ouch. Hal is right. I would have been just as mean, especially since most BEAs in the business are a lot faster, smarter and cleaner than me.

“RangeMan SOPs Steph: Never volunteer to pick up a skip you aren’t assigned. You never know which BEA is assigned to that skip, and we like to keep friendly relations with all BEAs in our area.”

Good point. The guys never volunteered to pick my skips up for me. They always offered me assistance. Time to change the subject.

“Why am I in the driver’s seat?” This is a first.

“Driving lessons. Or, driving evaluation. Jase taught you how to spot and evade a tail?” I nod. “Well, we may or may not have a tail back to the building. If so, evade. If not, establish with certainty.”

I grin. OK, this is a great pick-me-up. First, I get to drive. Second, I get to drive. Third, well, you get the idea.

I set off from the bonds office to Haywood. The drive is normally about 10 minutes, but I keep searching for a tail. I didn’t see any black SUVs, but I do see a red one.

I recognize the red one. Time to take defensive maneuvers.

I think back to everything Jase taught me.

“Step one: Establish with certainty that you have a tail. Perform a cleaning sweep.”

I’m fairly certain I know who’s in the red SUV.

”Step 1a: Make a U-Turn. If you really do have a tail, they’ll be forced to make a U-Turn with you.”

U-Turns in this part of Jersey are illegal, well, left hand turns. All turns are done from the right lane, so someone doing a left turn here is either (a) a tourist or (b) Mob. I hit a quick left turn towards Route 1 and the red SUV follows. At this point, Hal looks worried. He’s typing messages on his phone and glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Step 1b: Slow down to a crawl. You’ll piss off everyone around you and they’ll go around you, but your tail will slow down to follow you.”

So far, Jase has not been wrong. The red SUV slows down right along with me and everyone is honking at both of us. Now Hal has picked up the tail and is shaking his head with a small smile. He taps something else on his phone.

“Step 1c: Park, use your mirrors to check to see if they park, then pull out slowly.

I pull into a shopping mall and park, backing in like Jase taught me. The SUV parks down from us. I can see the red hair from here.

Hal smiles. “How did you pick up on Joyce?”

“Is she my test?”

“Nope. I was going to have Junior do it. Now, he’s tailing her watching us both. High entertainment value in this.” Hal chuckles. Great! I picked up on a tail Hal didn’t even see.

“Evasion. Step one: Determine if it’s safer to evade then move to safety or to head straight to safety.”

“I don’t understand that, Jase.”

“Well, in some cases you want to shake your tail, especially if you aren’t headed directly to safety or you don’t want your tail to know where you’re going. Other times, it’s safer to head directly for safety. For example, if you know the person following you has a good idea of where you might be headed, shake ‘em if you can. But if you’re being shot at, get in the left lane and head for safety while calling ahead for backup.”

“Left lane?”

Jase looks at me. “If they shoot the driver, it’s lights out for everyone in the car. Never allow a shooter access to the driver.”

Ah. “Good Point.”

Well, I’m sure my current tail has a good idea of all the places I could go and I doubt she’ll shoot, so we’ll evade.

“Step two: Map out your route in advance. Don’t turn blindly; you’ll only get lost like that. And don’t rely on GPS. They’ll get you turned around fast if you’re not careful. Always have an up-to-date map in the car.”

OK, considering where I could go.

“Step 3a: Hit the highway. You can go faster on highways than you can on surface streets. It’s a misconception that you should hit surface streets. That’s actually stupid. If you’re going to run a tail, you rarely run one solo. The best tails are done with three or more cars, so you can actually get boxed in on surface streets. Best thing to do is get on the highway, travel in the left lane, then, with about ¼ mile to go, cut across all lanes of traffic to an exit. Hard as hell to anticipate that. Once you’ve done it, pull back onto the highway in the opposite direction, go up one exit, and exit the highway again. Anyone still tailing you at this point is sweating bullets that you’ll pull that stunt again.”

I consider what Jase said. It will take too long to hit 295 or the Garden State Parkway, and Route 1 is a traffic nightmare. I’ll stay on Route 1 and use box turns.

“Step 3b: If you can’t make the highway and you’re on a street known for being a traffic nightmare, like most of Atlanta, then start evasive techniques. Make what I call ‘box turns’, or three turns that lead you right back to the original street. If you do that, chances are you’re going to confuse a three-car tail because they’ll have to get off the original street to set up the tail on following streets.”

It’s only Joyce, so this sounds like a winner. I pull out onto Route 1 and head north, towards Princeton. Once there, I turn on my signal as if to turn into QuakerBridge Mall but shoot past it to the jughandle leading across the street. Another right and I zoom toward WalMart and turn into their parking lot, but keep going to the small exit behind it leading back to Route 1 and Trenton. I can see Joyce leaning over her steering wheel. She was stopped by pedestrians in the WalMart parking lot.

Hal is laughing his head off.

“Do I still need to evade Junior?”

“Nah. I think you’ve got it down. Good job.”

I look in the rearview. “Where is Junior?”

“Stuck behind Joyce.” He checks his phone. “Might want to move it. He says she’s gunning for you.”

“Nah. Let’s head back to the bonds office. Whatever she wants, she can’t get this time.”

Hal taps the message into his phone and I head back to the bonds office. We walk back inside and Connie and Lula look up, confused.

“Back so soon?” Connie asks.

“Joyce was tailing me. I figure she’ll either come here or go home, but whatever it is she wants, I want to get it over with now. I’m not going to have her dogging me for weeks.”

Connie and Lula laugh and Hal smirks. We all sit down and get comfortable, waiting for her. Within minutes, the smell of sulfur precedes her through the door.

She walks in, smirking. “Cute. I see the men have finally taught you how to drive.”

I count to 20 in my head. Since I’m not actually responding to her, it throws her. Hector was right.

Lesson from Hector: “Not everything requires a response, Angelita. Sometimes, people are just waiting on your response, just waiting for you to blow up so they feel free to start yelling at you. Example: You and The Cop at any of your incident scenes. You want respect? Don’t engage, especially when dealing with the stubborn, hot-headed men in this company. My silence is scarier than half the things I actually say.”

I realized he had a point. Ranger can scare people merely by looking at them. I don’t know how well I have this skill down, but I can practice it now.

My silence is confusing everyone. Even Vinnie has poked his head out of his office. Junior walks in and takes a seat on my other side.

Joyce sneers. “So I see that they’re really trying to teach you to be a ‘RangeMan’,” she says, with finger quotes. “When do you get the blank face and the muscles? Gonna learn to be competent at your job?”

The other thing Hector taught me? Count to 20 before responding.

Joyce is really confused, and I’m happy. For the first time in my life, Joyce can’t take anything away from me. I have nothing she can steal. Ranger and Joe are both gone, I live at RangeMan, I don’t have a car, and I don’t have a casserole.

“Shame. I’ll let Alan Watkins know that his favorite storyline is going away.”

Alan Watkins is the asshole at the Trenton Gazette that nicknamed me the ‘Bombshell Bounty Hunter,’ and he’s the one that always shows up at my scenes. I wondered how he knew what he did about me. Mystery solved and it explains why most of it was unflattering.

“You know, when I first read the press release that you had been hired by RangeMan, I laughed. You aren’t competent at what you do now, so why bother? Then I realized how great it was. For years, you’ve laughed at me, calling me Vinnie’s pet, but what are you? You’re Ranger’s pet. I might not be the best BEA, but at least I know how to do the job. You? As a Managing Director? Please. Ranger just made that job up so you’d have something to do while your leg healed. And you broke it because you can’t even do the BEA job right.”

Joyce laughs, and I can’t wait for her to finish. I’m going to kill her. I can tell Hal and Junior are ready to break her. She just stands there, looking smug, waiting for me to say something.

“You’re right, Joyce. If Ranger was looking for a job to give me, he didn’t have to make me the Managing Director.” Her smile gets bigger. “I’ve worked for Ranger numerous times in the past four years, doing stuff all over his company. Apparently, I’m the best person in the entire company at research, so he could have just made me the head of the Research Department, but no, he didn’t. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t his decision to name me Managing Director because he’s been off on assignment for weeks. I was named Managing Director by his partners in the business. So, we aren’t the same. You’re still Vinnie’s pet, and I got my job on merit. And I didn’t have to quack for it.”

Joyce stops smiling and waits. When it’s clear I’m not going to say anything else, she shoots me the finger and walks out.

Vinnie shakes his head and walks back into his office. Once he’s gone, Connie and Lula break into hysterical laughter while Hal and Junior squeeze my hands.

---

Hal drives back to Haywood, chuckling every few minutes. When I walk onto 5, every man stands up and cheers. Woody approaches with a bouquet of red roses.

“CO, that was some mighty fine driving. Who taught you that?”

I grin. The flowers are lovely, and the guys really do enjoy giving them to me. “Jase.”

That gets a few boos and Hal smiles. He raises his hand, and the floor gets quiet.

“Men, we are falling down on the job. The CO has had to learn her skills from Danny’s rag tag bunch of misfits. Time for us to step it up. Let’s get a schedule going and turn the CO into a complete baddie. Besides, she just took the Red-Headed Demon down in one statement. You should have heard it.”

“We did,” Benny yells. “Junior had his phone on.” I glare at Junior while the men cheer.

Junior shrugs. “Either you were going to put her in her place or she was going to give us a reason to give her four flats. Either way, it was going to be interesting.”

I consider that and nod. I have 40 big brothers. Hot, sweet, lethal big brothers.

I take my bouquet into my office. The guys have really been sweet about presenting me with flowers, and I hadn’t realized how much I enjoyed receiving them until they started arriving.

The phone rings. “Hello?”

“Steph!”

“Hey Danny! What’s up?”

“A little birdie told me that you managed to evade a life-long enemy on the mean streets of New Jersey.” I can hear the cheer from Atlanta through my phone and I start laughing.

“Hal didn’t even let me get comfortable in my office before he told you!”

“Actually, he texted me while you were evading someone called ‘Joyce’ that Jase had done a good job. You evaded a real tail while searching for the tail he set up. Nice work, CO!”

“Hey Steph?”

“Yes, Jase?”

“How did you ditch her?”

“Box turns on Route 1. It would have been out of the way to hit a highway.”

Jase whistles. “Nice job. Congratulations!”

“Thanks! I owe you one, Jase.” Click.

RangeMan phone manners. I’m putting together the seminar. SOPs will be modified.

I reconsider my decision later when the white roses from Atlanta arrive. Hal brings them to me, looking disgruntled. “I’m only allowing these into my building because they’re for you and they’re flowers.”

I grin and call Ella to bring me a bigger vase. We spend time arranging my flowers and she snaps a picture.

“To commemorate. We’ll put this up outside so the men can see you’ve learned a new skill. Maybe we can get an entire wall filled!”

I like the sound of that.

---

Later that night, I think more about the conversation with Hector. I was a little surprised when he decided to teach me a new skill during my lonely nights in Atlanta.

 Flashback in Italics

Hector sets up a huge mirror in front of me and we sit down.

“Today, Angelita, I will teach you about the blank face.”

This is a wasted lesson, Hector. I’ll never master this.

Hector merely gazes at me, and I realize that he’s turned his own blank face on me.

“What can you tell me about my blank face?”

I study Hector’s face. “Well, it’s not like Ranger’s. You have this scary smile going.” I smile, but Hector doesn’t change facial expression. “You look, I dunno…” I want to say Hector looks like a psychopath, but  . . . I don’t want to open that line of questioning.

Hector’s face relaxes. “I look like a psychopath. I look demented, scary, slightly unstable. If I relax it slightly, I look amused, like I’m humoring you.” I nod. Yes, that’s Hector’s face exactly. “I have two blank faces, based on the situation and the people I’m around. I use one if I intend to intimidate or scare someone. The other is the public face, if I simply need to mask my emotions around others.”

Hector sits me in front of the mirror and begins shuffling a deck of cards. “I will teach you the way Ranger taught me. Pretend we are playing poker. I will deal you hands of cards. Your job is not to give away your hand on your face. This lesson will not be easy at first, but use the mirror to study your face. Make notes about the way your face moves, any tics you have, until you can control them. Understand that you may need to develop two faces, as I have, in order to make this work.”

Hector deals the first hand, but before I can turn the cards over, Hector pins me with a fierce look and covers the cards. “You will master this. This is not going to be a wasted lesson. You will master this because you are a woman in this company. You are a woman in charge of a lot of hot-headed men. You need to control the situation instead of allowing them to control you. You are doing well here in Atlanta, but Miami and Boston are not Atlanta.”

I sigh and pick up the cards. “Hector, I’m not saying that it’s a wasted lesson, well, not really. It’s just that I’m Italian. I can’t help it—“ the rest of my response is cut off by an angry Hector.

“Mierda! Your Italian roots have nothing to do with this. You think I don’t understand what it’s like to have heated blood running through my veins? Stephanie, I’m Latino! Ranger is Latino! Lester is Latino! You have seen nothing of Ranger’s temper, nor Lester’s, but I have. You have seen nothing of my temper; you’ve only heard the rumors. We all have the hot blood of our Latin roots running through our veins, but you must learn to control it!”

Hector takes a deep breath and I’m stunned. Hector hasn’t been this mad at me since the black pillowcase incident, and he never calls me Stephanie unless he’s angry. This feels like another pillowcase. I better listen closely.

“I apologize for speaking so forcefully at you, but I want you to take this lesson seriously,” Hector says quietly. “Not everything requires a response, Angelita. Sometimes, people are just waiting on your response, just waiting for you to blow up so they feel free to start yelling at you. Example: You and The Cop at any of your incident scenes. You want respect? Don’t engage, especially when dealing with the stubborn, hot-headed men in this company. My silence is scarier than half the things I actually say.”

I consider what Hector has said. “Why is this lesson so important to you? Why start teaching me now?”

Hector deals himself a hand and puts his blank face into place. “I knew Atlanta would be a good trip for you. Danny has long been the only XO in the company I like and trust, even with the issues at his branch. For me to trust anyone is a mark of respect that I don’t give lightly. However, you are now headed into the difficult trips with men who will be determined to wait until I’m no longer at your back to attempt to hurt you, to make you cry. You have a very expressive face; they’ll know when they’ve hurt you and they’ll continue to dig. And I know you. I know you will not want to tell me that they’ve hurt you because you fear my response. So I do what I must now in order to prepare you.”

I study the hand in front of me. It’s shit.

“Your hand is clearly shit,” Hector says. I look up in surprise. “Your eyebrows and lips gave it away. Use the mirror, Angelita. Observe your face.”

Hector spends two hours with me, teaching me to read my face. He’s able to determine when I have good hands, OK hands, and really bad hands. By the time the first two hours are over, I’m able to control my eyebrows.

“How long do you think it will take to learn to do this?”

“We’ll practice this daily until you’ve got it down. You have to learn to manage your face.” Hector smiles, then his smile turns devious. “Have you thought of turning your blank face on Ranger?”

Now, there’s a thought. I hate Ranger’s blank face.

“Ranger does not have ESP. You have a very expressive face, and he knows your thought patterns. It’s easy to determine what you’re thinking, and it’s the reason every man in Trenton can read you. Can you imagine what it would be like to make Ranger work for a response from you?” Hector chuckles. “Ranger might actually have to talk. You might get more out of him than ‘Babe’. My brother would not know what to do with himself.”

Of all the things Hector could have said, this is the one to make me interested in learning this skill. Turning a blank face on Ranger? Forcing him to talk? I’d love to try! I turn to Hector.

---

The guys took Hal’s challenge literally. Over the next week, I had more driving lessons with Woody and Benny. Ram got me back into the range. I still don’t like guns, but being down there with Ella and Luis is great.

Luis is a great shot. He enjoys the fun of having a gun to carry and being skilled with it. The first day I returned to the range, Luis wasn’t there. Wild Turkey hunting season had just opened in New Jersey and Luis was excited. Ella told me that, shortly after Ram certified him on a rifle and helped him get his permit, Luis started hunting. Turkey, duck, deer, rabbit, nothing is safe during hunting season.

“I mean, I had to learn how to clean those things, and I finally told him, you kill it, you clean it! I thought that would cut down on the number of animals I would have to deal with, but with the RangeMen to egg him on, it just means they get together for shooting parties! Ram is the worse. They’ll come home with pounds of fresh meat and they look so proud.” Ella shuddered. “Reminds me of a cat we once had. He would bring a fresh mouse to the doorstep and look so proud, as if he were saying, See Mommy, I bring you meat! They look just like that. Cavemen!”

I was imaging this and feeling queasy.

“Um … Ella, what happens to all that meat?”

“Oh, I cook it up in stew and sausage, but I don’t want to see faces. I don’t want to look into the eyes of the poor creature they killed.”

I agreed with that. The next time we were all in the range, I couldn’t concentrate on the target. I was seeing Bambi’s mother on the target.

“You OK, Steph?” Luis asks.

I look at him and start crying. “You killed Bambi’s mother!” I wail and Luis looks confused. I can see Ella cringe, then grin.

Luis takes me by the shoulders and leads me to a chair. Ram moves to join us, but Luis waves him off.

“I may have killed Bambi’s mother, but not for sport.” I sniff and look at Luis, who is very serious. “I do not kill for sport, as so many people do. I kill for food only. I assume Ella has told you about what we do during hunting season.”

I nod. Completely barbaric.

“Then you should know that we only kill what we can eat. And although my beautiful wife hates it, we make sure she never sees faces. We skin and dress our haul while in the field and we package it there too. I do not hold with sport killing, Stephanie. And since I have learned to hunt, I have more respect for the animals I eat. I know what it takes to bring down an animal of that size and weight. I respect the Thanksgiving turkey much more. Tell me, Stephanie, what goes into your meatballs for your meatball sub?”

Uh oh. I don’t like where this is headed.

“Ummm …beef?”

“Anything else?”

“I hope not.”

Luis grins. “Exactly. When my wife makes meatballs, I know exactly what is in them because we buy entire sides of beef and I use my new handy-dandy RangeMan knife skills to cut that cow into steaks and stew meat and bits for her to grind. Ram, come here.”

Ram approaches and sits on my other side.

“Ram, how much meat do you eat on a regular basis?” Luis asks.

I watch Ram consider the question. “Not much. I mean, Special Forces training kinda knocks the meat cravings out of you. A good steak is something to be savored.”

I consider what Ram just said. If that’s true, that explains why Ranger doesn’t eat a lot of meat. I see Ram smile.

“I bet I know what you’re thinking Steph, and you’re right. Ranger training is grueling. Even the best prepared men drop 25-35 pounds off their already prime and fit frames, which is why I never signed up for Ranger school. You learn to operate after skipping meals and being forced to eat well under an appropriate amount. By the time you’re done with Ranger school, you only consider food in relation to the energy it will give you, not enjoyment. That’s why the RangeMan dietary requirements are what they are. What we eat has to be of the highest quality, which is why we’re largely organic and free-range around here.”

“Yeah, but you have to admit, you enjoy hunting.”

Ram grins. “Yes, I do but only because I have a free moving target. Otherwise, I see hunting as fulfilling a basic need, that of nourishment. People who never learn to hunt or camp are dependent on a grocery store, a chain, for nourishment. If Stop and Shop went out of business tomorrow, if every grocery store went out of business tomorrow, I wouldn’t starve. I could still eat. I could hunt my own meat and identify the right plants for nourishment. Besides the self-protection angle, that’s my reason to stay in the range. I could feed myself if something happened.”

Luis nods and I consider their statements. No thanks. Somewhere, I can find a Twinkie or a Tastykake. They’ll survive the apocalypse.