Trooper Station: Sunday Morning

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

It was bad news for Vic Morretti but then again she never got any news that wasn't good. Turns out the morgue had lost Wayne's body and without a body there was no autopsy, no habeas corpus and just no damn progress at all.

Vic sighed and took another belt of rotgut and lit up another smoke. There was no point in it now. None at all. She shooed Ralph away as he started to chase down the leads on the Wayne case.

"Forget it Ralph."

She took a shot and poured herself another.

"It's just Fandom."

Comments

[the_merriest]

It was late in the evening when a prisoner was brought in. One who immediately began making a fuss.

"This here is a violation!" shouted a very grumpy, very handcuffed Ricki. "I have rights! I get a phone call, and a lawyer! You ain't got nothin' on me!"

Except the bit where she'd been arrested red-handed in a gambling den. That might be something, right there.

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

"Stuff it, Ricki," Vic said as she opened up the jail cell. "From now on you'll be counting the days of your sentence instead of Casino chips."

[the_merriest]

"I know important people!" Ricki insisted. "Ones you shouldn't piss off! I better get my phone call now, or heads are gonna roll!"

This wasn't quite the empty threat it sounded like. Reno probably didn't take kindly to people arresting his girl. She had to hope so, anyway.

So as soon as she could actually tell him, he'd straighten it all out. Right? Right.

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

"Here's a quarter and a phone," Vic said flipping a coin at Ricki into the cell. "Call someone who cares."

[the_merriest]

A coin. That was going to help, what with the pay phone sitting twenty feet down the hall.

"Oh, that's a real funny joke, lady," Ricki said. "My turn. It's a knock knock joke, wanna hear it?

'Knock-knock.'
'Who's there?'
'My boyfriend.'
'My boyfriend who?'
'My boyfriend who takes orders from Chicago and don't like talking about his work.'"

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

"You think your mobster boyfriend scares me?" Vic snarked. "Ralph? Bring the pretty lady a phone so she can cry and complain to someone else."

[the_merriest]

"About time," she huffed. And when Ralph finally brought a phone, she insisted on sneering at him, "And take a shower, you big dumb ape, 'cause you reek."

No, he didn't.

She grabbed the phone and dialed out the number she knew best, hoping suddenly that she wasn't, like, interrupting him doing something important. Like something she shouldn't interrupt or whatever.

[raspberryturk]

Ha, like there was anything he couldn't be interrupted from for the sake of his girl. When the phone was answered, it came with the accompanying sound of two gunshots, muffled, clearly from a room over from where the phone itself was.

"Yeah?"

He was a little busy, but apparently not too busy to not give a damn about being busted, here.

[the_merriest]

"Heyyy, baby," she cooed into the receiver. "This ain't a bad time, is it?"

She was winding the phone cord around her fingers nervously.

"I, uh, I wouldn't call, but it's kinda ... a little bit important."

[raspberryturk]

Ah, Ricki. Reno gave a little grin into the receiver at the sound of her voice. Always good to hear.

Well, almost always.

"It's never a bad time, doll. I keep tellin' you that. What's on your mind? What's so important?"

[the_merriest]

"Right, you said I should tell you things, so I'm telling you things," she began. Truly, a good sign. "Like how I was out tonight and I went to a new place in town, you know, I like keepin' busy? And I guess it got raided because the cops are sayin' there was, like, gambling and drinking and all this other stuff there that I totally didn't even know about."

She was only being coy because Vic was listening in. Reno wasn't going to care that she'd gotten wasted and lost a few hundred at cards. At least, she hoped not, anyway.

[raspberryturk]

"I see," Reno said at length, and he'd thank Ricki to not mention anything about the somewhat more muffled sounds of pained howling in the background. "So what you're telling me here is that you were out, minding your own business, when some cop," clearly not one he'd paid off, and he'd have to see about remedying that, "busted in and grabbed you alongside all of the actual criminals?"

[the_merriest]

"That's it exactly," Ricki said, nodding solemnly into the phone receiver. "It's a big mix-up. I don't think people should be allowed to do that. Arrest civic-minded citizens who are just out for an evening's entertainment."

In a much lower voice, she added, "You ain't mad, right? 'Cause you said you wanted me to tell you things an' I did."

If this came back to bite her in the ass, she wouldn't keep him in the loop, next time.

[raspberryturk]

"Nah, baby, I ain't mad," Reno replied. "You did exactly what I told you to do, and I'm glad for that. I can't help you out if I don't know what's what, right?"

It was sound logic.

There was a moment's silence, and then the sound of wood splintering as something knocked a door clean off its hinges.

"And I'll even be able to pick you up," he said, over the sudden rat-a-tat-tat bust of gat fire. "In the morning."

He was a smidgen busy right then.

[the_merriest]

"I'll get a good night's rest here and see you bright and early," she chirped. She knew better than to ask about the background noises, or whine about having to stay the night here; he was Busy, and Busy with things she wasn't supposed to know about.

And maybe her being Bright and Sunny would keep her out of shit with him, because 'getting arrested' wasn't really something she was supposed to get up to in her free time. But mistakes happened, okay???

[raspberryturk]

"Atta girl," Reno replied, encouragingly. "Now, you rest up, babe, and let me deal with lawyers and all that, and tomorrow I'll treat you to somethin' nice for bein' good and callin' me about this, okay?"