Ebb Tide Ch. 04b

"You look good," he lead off the conversation.

"I wised up remarkably since we last met. You look older. You were always better looking."

"Ha," he laughed. "Your choice in ladies was always esoteric." His remark caused Jo to arch an eyebrow my way.

"He has no idea what he's talking about," I looked her way – we were in a booth together – Jo on the outside. "Back when we were teenagers, I would never bring a girlfriend around this guy."

"That's unkind," he chortled.

"Not only were you better looking, better dressed and better educated, you had a better car ... while I didn't have a car at all," I reminded him.

"Miss, V is not so shallow," Kristoff glowed warmly at Jo. "I'm particularly honored to meet anyone he considers to be a friend."

"Vardan says you haven't even talked to him in fifteen years," Jo countered.

"He saved a life before he was ever a paramedic. And he came storming in to save my ass before either of us put on a uniform, Miss Jo. Certain characteristics people exhibit in their youth are eternal."

How fucking poetic of him. Jo looked my way. I shrugged. She accepted my shrug. Kristoff laughed.

"You two must be a laugh riot on Twitter," he snorted. "Do you communicate with single keystrokes?"

"We are telepathic," Jo responded, so smoothly I had to double-check my internal monologue to make sure I was indeed alone.

Reagan made it two steps through the door before she made out Jo at my side and the fact I had company (whose back was to her) in the booth across from us. She stutter-stepped. Jo caught her arrival and then let her eyes flow over the room and other possible means of egress and exit – in case this was an ambush. Kristoff, being a jet fighter pilot, had highly developed situational perception and picked up on Jo's eye movements, so looked over his shoulder.

He turned and looked at me with a 'you fuck-nut' expression on his face. That was okay. 'Him' looking at me meant he missed the reaction on Reagan's countenance when she realized Kristoff was barely a meter away from Jo, the Killer. I got the reaction I wanted. Reagan came our way.

"Hi," she addressed the table. Kristoff scooted over.

"Hey, Reagan," Kristoff replied. "I think this is Vance's fault. This is Jo, who he's trying to pander as his Croatian, ex-Spec Ops girlfriend. Vance," he looked back at me, "you nut-sack." Nut-sack ~ fuck-nut ... basically the same thing.

"Jo ... Vance. Kristoff," Reagan meandered through the introductions. "Vance?" to me again as she sat down next to Kristoff.

"Yeah ... I'm about to gut Lloyd Pharris like a pig on the public stage within a week's time and he's then going to go after everyone I care, or have ever cared, about. On that tiny list are some rather deadly people, people I can protect and Kristoff here. Sorry Kristoff," I began. "The only thing you (Kristoff) can do is get assigned to a base on foreign soil, and even that might not be safe enough ... or start dating Reagan again. Or, if that doesn't pan out, date Jo here."

Reagan grunted as if I'd stabbed her. Kristoff soaked in the emotions of the two women sitting with us; Reagan's partially masked fear and Jo's blank stare.

"You bastard," Reagan whispered.

"Reagan, do you believe if someone did me a serious favor, like keeping me out of jail, no matter how long ago, I wouldn't repay that favor?" I inquired. She didn't answer.

"Kristoff, have you ever done me a favor which kept me out of prison, or at least free of some severe legal consequences?" I looked to him.

"Dude that was sixteen years ago," he muttered, "and I never expected you to pay it back. It wasn't really your fault." As in my employer didn't give me any W-2's, so I didn't file any tax returns and then I got 'randomly' audited.

"What did you do?" Reagan turned on Kristoff. He didn't get it.

"Remember when V got audited by the IRS? They were going to drop some severe fines on him he couldn't pay, so I paid them for him," he told her. Reagan looked from him, to me, to him and finally to me again.

"Oh shit," she murmured. "This is not good."

"I figure Mr. Rogers will dig that up eventually," I prodded her along.

"Did you take the money out of a public account?" Reagan futilely asked Kristoff.

"Public account? Yeah. What other kind of account would I have? At seventeen."

"Was it in the exact amount?"

"Yes."

"Oh shit."

"Am I to understand Mr. Pharris is going to kill Lt. Colonel Declan as a retributive action against Vardan?" Jo inquired politely.

"Excuse me? Mr. Pharris – Lloyd – Ford's dad is going to try to kill me?" Kristoff was taking this both well (i.e. calmly) and seriously. He already knew Lloyd was a megalomaniacal, highly-vindictive, petty tyrant. So 'him' tripping over the (legal) line into having people 'offed' wasn't as farfetched as it might have appeared to some people.

"V – Vance, walk away," Reagan reached across the table and grabbed my hand. Her voice was urgent – pleading. "I'll pay you whatever you want to just leave town. Take Dabney and go."

"I won't leave G behind and you know he won't let her leave, Reagan," I responded.

"We shouldn't be discussing this," Jo reminded Reagan. "Here."

"Actually, if someone is going to kill me over a favor I did V sixteen years ago, I'd like to hear about it," Kristoff shook his head.

"No. Jo is right. Not here," Reagan agreed.

"Where then?" Kristoff glowered.

"Let Jo pick the place," I suggested. Everyone was looking at me and thinking 'why Jo?' ~ even Jo. The answer for Jo was easy. If she did this, she was helping me against Lloyd. In the long game, I would need as many as possible of the Vice Lords at least ambivalent to my intentions of destroying one of them. If I casually dispatched Lloyd, I could expect their retribution as a matter of group prestige.

"On the second date you get to pick the location," she tossed the grenade back in my lap.

"Your gun range?" I volleyed.

"Yours would be better," she countered, then looked to Reagan and Kristoff.

"Does this place have a name?" Kristoff asked first.

"Green Valley Range in Henderson off Cassia Way," I told him – them.

"Reagan?" he looked her way.

"Okay," she agreed reluctantly.

"That still doesn't address the main problem – you two need to be seen somewhere in public fast," I pressed.

"I know the precise location," Reagan nodded. "Kristoff, do you want to go to an underground sporting event with me tonight?"

"A date? Last time ..."

"Please," she almost begged. That impressed upon Kristoff someone might really kill him for simply being a decent individual, plus somehow Reagan (or Jo) would provide some level of social armor.

"Okay," he nodded. "Please note: if this place gets raided, it will reflect badly on my career," he attempted levity.

"I understand," Reagan softened (toward him). To me, "You need to show up too. Someone wants to meet you, you probably won't enjoy it, so I feel this partially compensates for what you did here this morning. Are we clear?"

"Another annoying individual entering my life – check," I sighed. "How about breakfast?"

I had never had someone I considered to be a girlfriend before Dabney. Growing up I had a group of buddies, but only one Best Bud – Eric Uno – and when he got killed, I left the rest behind to join the Navy. There I found a new group of people to build my life around: the service-men and –women whose unit I was assigned to. I knew them, their health records, birthdays and, as time progressed, familial details.

Why? Service-folk didn't like going to a psychiatrist over what they consider 'petty shit'. And since they have virtually no mental healthcare experience, they make poor choices where their mental health was concerned. As a hospital corpsman, I was always with my 'guys', so I was someone they could talk to about their problems. Not knowing much initially, I studied and learned. It wasn't like I would never send someone to the Base 'shrink', but if I did, I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing by them when doing so.

So I learned about guys, girls and relationships. I learned about homosexuality and child-rearing. I learned about messy break-ups, obsessive fascinations and the price of unfaithfulness. I learned about the strengths and failings of human nature. I learned love and hate make people ignore the obvious and embrace the stupid. People could be brilliant, driven and hyper-competent, yet make blindingly obvious mistakes when emotions came into play.

I was making a serious mistake staying in Las Vegas. I wasn't ready to explore the emotions keeping me here. Jo's emotional content was more trouble than I should be entertaining, yet here I was, engaging her in a positive context. Kristoff and Reagan were one of the best couples I'd ever met. They complimented each other perfectly ... if you cut away the peripherals of their careers ...

Jo and I started with the Chili Queso dip. Reagan and Kristoff went for the Ultimate Nachos. For breakfast, Reagan and I went for the boneless wings while Kristoff and Jo went 'Old School'. When I went to sample one of Jo's 'Blazin ®' wings, I thought she was going to pin my hand to the table with her boot knife.

"Jo, you don't date much, do you?" Kristoff chuckled. As a rule, combat pilots didn't scare easy either.

"Here you go," I offered Jo one of my Bourbon Honey Mustard.

"If I had wanted one of those, I would have ordered it," Jo scowled to me. Then, to Kristoff, "Vardan is my first date in a very long time. My previous dates never left much of an impression."

"Jo, why did you ask Vance out?" Reagan said in an accusatory manner.

"He drew a gun on me."

"You go, Dog," Kristoff smirked at me. "Does that happen to you a lot?" to Jo.

"Yes. But I normally kill people who do that."

"And making Vance go out on a date with you is a fate worse than death?" Reagan zinged.

"Yes." Jo was unflappable.

"Not so," I reached out and around so my arm was around Jo's shoulder. Now my chicken wing was coming at her from the other side. I felt the barrel of one of her custom .50 handguns pressing against my ribs. A remotely normal woman would have simply said 'no'. Not Jo. She'd gone straight to escalation of threat of deadly force. Not to be outdone, I flicked the wing up, over her head and caught it in my teeth with a mighty chomp.

I devoured the offending food item while making deep, meaningful eye contact with Jo. Nothing. The gun was still there.

"You owe me a chicken wing," she enlightened me. FFS! (For Fuck Sakes!)

"Hey," Reagan got Kristoff's attention with a sultry purr. He couldn't see Jo's firearm, but knew something was happening out of sight. He looked her way. She was tantalizing him with one of her Lemon Pepper wings.

He bit into the proffered gift, chewed it up, took another bite and another and finished up by licking her fingers. Kristoff probably thought he was being an example for Jo on proper 'guy-girl' date etiquette. I already knew Jo didn't care for normalcy. I looked around for our waitress, flagged her and, using hand signals, ordered Jo another round of 'Blazin ®' wings. The gun went away.

"His other girlfriends are better looking," Reagan snipped. Both Kristoff and I wondered at the motivation and wisdom of her statement.

"Seriously?" he asked me for clarification.

"I don't rate women on looks, but on utility," was my honest retort.

"Fearless," Kristoff noted ... my moronic honesty.

"Oh really?" Reagan tilted her head slightly. "How much utility do you find in Ms. Norquist ~ the former Mrs. Pharris and Dabney Curtiss ~ the former call girl? I can almost understand TC ~ the Internal Affairs Detective with the LVMPD. I'm not sure the other cop wants to screw you yet."

This was one of the key reasons I needed to aim Reagan at Kristoff. I didn't need another woman ranking the ladies in my life. The four I had were four too many in my opinion.

"What? You and G?" Kristoff choked.

"Not way back then," I reassured him. "Wild circumstance found me buying the house opposite the duplex she was being tossed out of, so I offered her a place to stay. While picking her up from work, I ran across one of my old gang's baby sister – Dabney."

"Curtiss ..." Kristoff interrupted. "Sammi Curtiss' little sister?"

I nodded.

"She's not so little anymore," Reagan added.

"Yeah. Her pimp made an issue of her wanting to change careers, so she moved in with me until things get sorted out. She and G get the bed. I sleep on a cot in the common room."

"The cop?"

"The LO(l)E's (LOcal law Enforcement) were harassing G. I took exception. They took exception to my exception. And Internal Affairs got involved after a Sheriff's Deputy planted some meth in my car and stayed involved when I beat up two detectives and an Assistant Sheriff ... who all richly deserved it."

"Before, or after, you lost your job as a paramedic?" Kristoff wondered.

"In the midst of."

"And that is why – after fifteen years – I knew V was still basically the same guy I knew in High School," Kristoff grinned at Jo. "In the midst of a feud with the LVMPD, he still ran across an urban battlefield to save police lives in the same way he came charging across the parking lot of the In-N-Out Burger all those years ago."

"Where we got our asses kicked," I reminded him.

"We got away without being beaten into the pavement," he winked. "And we should have been. Four hombres versus two rich boys and you. Ford ran... you could have, but you didn't." I had no good answer for that.

"I wasn't too bright back then," I shrugged.

"Wait!" Reagan perked up. "Doesn't that mean you were paying Vance back for saving your ass ..." she hoped. It was wrong to hope.

"He didn't go running into the fight out of any sense of obligation," Jo corrected her. "It is simply what friends do. It is not a matter of balancing accounts."

"But they weren't friends back then," Reagan insisted. "He was the Pharris' pool boy." She wasn't fooling anybody, not even herself. Reagan didn't understand what qualified a person as someone I cared for, yet Kristoff had undoubtedly entered that sphere seventeen years ago.

Mind you, Lloyd Pharris might kill my mother, father, brother, sister and her whole family to get at me, too. The problem was my utter lack of communication with any of them over the past fifteen years when there should have been some contact – being my family after all. I hadn't been in touch with Kristoff Declan either, yet he had been a person I chose to hang out with, not family. Plus, he had selflessly done me a favor ... which was something I wouldn't forget.

People in my line of work tended to recall people who did us favors. Conversely, we weren't overly vengeance-minded. If you screwed with us once, and weren't going to be a repeat problem, so be it. We got on with our lives. Only if you were persistent in your assholery did we eliminate you ~ proactively making our futures easier because you were a persistent ass.

If you did us a favor, we kept an eye and ear out. Why? People who did us a favor once were likely to do so again. Doing things to help them out was again proactively making our futures easier. We'd trained in the past for what we might need, worked in the present with whatever we had and planned for the future factoring in everything the past and present taught us – ALWAYS.

It wasn't a 'if you didn't think like that, you ended up dead' sort of thing. No ... if you didn't think like that, you didn't qualify to engage in our occupation. No one in our line of work would want to team up with someone who wasn't generally like us. A high level of competence was expected and thus assured.

...

Maybe I missed that aspect of my 'old life' and I was relapsing because I secretly was uncomfortable being around that vast sea of Humanity who were accustomed to mediocrity, if not downright stupidity, on a daily basis. Looking at the people at the table with me ... the #2 most directly lethal woman in the city on my left, across from me an elite jet fighter pilot (even with an Air Force Academy ring, Kristoff being a Lt. Colonel in only 11 years of service was very impressive) and next to him the chief assistant to the crime lord of the vice trade in Las Vegas, Circe.

Dabney? G? I was already starting to train them both physically. Both were exceedingly gifted in the looks department. I was in the process of elevating G financially and socially into a position where she could be a 'doer' and not a victim. Trixie and Soledad, the cops, both were well above par too.

Absent a team, had I created one of my own? G – Logistics core. Dabney – public relations (recruit). Jo – I'd follow her through a door any day. The cops were already established intelligence operatives. Reagan – a new 'Ms. Gray' aka pipeline into the real goings on in the Vegas Underworld.

Well shit ... I had.

My ruminations were disturbed by my phone alerting me someone was trying to call me. I checked. It was a payphone. That meant it was important.

"Hey."

"Did you do something last night?" It was Soledad.

"Such as?"

"Anything to do with a certain insanely rich hotel guest getting the shit kicked out of him, his staff and his bodyguards?" she was caught between pissed and amused.

"No comment. I find it disturbing a random crime happens and the first person you think to blame is me," I bantered.

"Rumor has it his bodyguards were former elite French paratroopers."

"Perhaps they were approached by a lone German tourist looking for the water closet and hurt themselves in the rush to surrender," I tossed a useless bit of poor humor out there.

"No. Someone beat and shot the shit out of them," she kept being a cop.

"And I would care – why?"

"A whole lot of people are upset, Dipshit," she didn't sound angry.

"Was anyone killed?"

"No."

"See. That doesn't sound like me. I kill people wherever I go. Just ask your Coroner-Medical Examiner's Office."

"Yeah ... it sounds like the perp had a partner too ..."

"I also don't have any friends. We both know that."

"Yeah ... that's the damn truth. Well, watch your ass. This might get nasty."

"Sure and don't call me from that payphone ever again. Get a pre-paid phone you paid for in cash from a store you never frequent like any other sane conspirator."

"Gee thanks. Bye," and she hung up. By the way the two women at the table were looking at me and not asking, Kristoff felt compelled to.

"What did you do last night?"

"Went on a date to the gun range. There I met a nice girl who was here in Vegas for a tech expo. I took her back to my place and had a three-way. Speaking of which, I need to go back in about twenty minutes and take her back to the Convention Center so she can rejoin her compadres and regale them about her 'Vegas Experience'."

(She had BETTER NOT regale them with what really happened if she wanted to keep breathing, damn it.)

"You took a date to the gun range ...," Kristoff's mischievous eyes danced from me to Jo.

"That would be the former call-girl," Reagan pumped in.

"... then picked up a second girl?" he continued. Well, I had just said that. "And she's back at your place right now?" Kristoff kept grinning. I didn't feel a response was necessary. "With the former call-girl?" Again, why did I bother talking at all? "And you know about this?" he aimed at Jo.

"I've met her," Jo remained dispassionate.

"Is Ms. Norquist – G in bed with them as well?" Reagan kept getting revenge for this breakfast ambush.

"Where else would she sleep? It is hers and Dabney's bed," I stated deadpan.

"Because you sleep in the living room?" Kristoff smirked.

"Yes. I prefer to sleep alone."

"Would you sleep with me?" Jo asked. WTF?

"We'll see ..."