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Harrison "Harry" Harold McGlade (fatalautonomy) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-09-27 15:53:00

Who: Ana Lucia Cortez and Harry McGlade
What: Ana’s moving into her new place, bumps into a neighbor
When: September 16th, 2013
Where Condo building in Newport Beach
Rating: PG
Status: Complete!


Ana Lucia Cortez was never one for much in terms of possessions. She’d left New York City with the clothes on her back and a suitcase with what she was willing to take with her, which were mostly clothes, a few family pictures, and small enough items that could fit into said suitcase. And of course her gun. Not the service weapon, she’d left the NYPD to pursue this mission of hers; no she had her own. Everything else she’d given away, sold off on Craiglist, or left at the curb for the hobos to steal.

After all, she was in a hurry to track a killer.

But she’d been here in Ocean County for weeks now, and the lead she’d been given by Liam Pace’s dealer had led her in circles. No one in the area seemed to know the guy, and Ana had come close to trekking on the turf belonging to the local law enforcement’s narcotics and gang units, being warned by an undercover cop to steer clear, but that he’d keep an ear to the ground for her.

Now Ana was moving out of her hotel room and into the airy condominium building in Newport Beach, where the majority of her daytime work - serving as a bodyguard for a rich little daddy’s girl, primarily took her. Her slender, sinewy frame was clad in shorts and a dark blue tank top that showed off the tan that only enhanced her naturally golden brown skin tone, with her dark wavy hair pulled back in a harsh ponytail as if it were regulation to do so for moving into a new place. Her feet were starting to hurt standing in the wedge sandals she was in and Ana was regretting not having just put on flip flops. Oh wait, she didn't’ have any. Right. Another thing on the list of random crap she had yet to pick up.

“Hey, careful with that. It’s brand new.” she said to the delivery men who were moving her brand new large screen television in. It was still in the box, but they’d managed to make it slip off of the dolly as they got out of the elevator. Ana rolled her eyes and trailed them as they headed towards her door down the hall. She’d been moving things in all day it seemed: a bed, couch, dining table, shelving units, entertainment stand. It was weird having to buy things all over again from scratch and having it come in like a parade. She stood and watched the men as they wheeled it towards her door, hands on hips.

Harry McGlade exited his own condo with a hum on his lips - as well as a burrito. He blinked when there were some people in the hallway moving stuff into the condo next door. There was also a rather formidable looking woman directing them, and Harry winced. “Listen to the lady. She looks like she could hit you.”

Ana turned around at the voice, her brow furrowing at the already nosy neighbor. He was almost middle aged, a bit disheveled, with a burrito in one hand and the beginnings of what looked like a wiseass smirk on his face.

“Believe me, I’m tempted.” she muttered to him, her features relaxing until she gave the next group of men a sideways glare as they bumped into the wall with the next dolly. She needed someone to bitch to, the long day was getting to her, and she had an evening of trailing Little Miss Club Hopper ahead of her. But the money was good, and if daddy wanted his little girl to have a gun wielding ex-cop guardian angel, Ana was willing to oblige. For now.

She glanced at her neighbor’s proximity and realized she was next door. “Sorry for all the noise,” she shrugged.

“It’s no problem, I was about to go to the morgue anyway.” Harry didn’t seem to realize how odd that sounded, or if he did, he didn’t care much. Nibbling on his burrito, he waited for the men to continue wrestling the television inside.

That earned a raised eyebrow from Ana Lucia. “Morgue? You a coroner?” Because he sure as hell didn’t look like a detective. She glanced to make sure the TV was inside and then watched the next dolly with another box get wheeled in.

“No, but my best friend is.” Harry shrugged. “I’m a PI, sometimes my contacts hang out there.” She certainly was brusque.

Okay. Great. One of those guys. She tried not to roll her eyes. She was (or at least used to be) a real cop who had known real detectives and PI’s tended to irk her a little. But Ana tried not to write the guy off right away and so extended a hand. Got to be the friendly neighbor and all. And besides, maybe if she was desperate enough, he could help her with her search for her partner’s killer.

“Ah. Well I’m Ana Lucia, former NYPD. Now hired bodyguard for those with silver spoons.” the sarcasm at the end of that was unmistakable but she was being friendly nonetheless. She was tired of coming ‘home’ and watching TV with what little time she had to herself; she needed to start making friends.

He shook her hand after transferring his burrito to his other hand as to not smear ground beef on her. “Harry McGlade. Used to be Irvine PD, but I’ve since retired.” He got a high profile collar in his youth, and then he’d been called upon to do a lot of consulting for buddy cop movies. But he knew that this woman wouldn’t care about that, so he didn’t say anything about it.

“Why not apply to be a cop here if you hate being a bodyguard so much?”

The idea was tempting, but then Ana would be bound by rules and regulations in her hunt for her partner’s killer. And that just wouldn’t do. “Don’t hate it exactly, it just has its days.” She tried not to give in to the urge to wipe her hand on her shorts; transferring that sort of food to shake a hand? Gross. And was that even a real burrito or one of those crap microwave ones, her hispanic heritage suddenly kicking in and wondering.

“I might apply sometime later,” she then added, “Just gotta take care of some personal business first.” She held up a finger, pausing the conversation as one of the young men was rushing out of the apartment back to the elevator. “¡Oye! Que todo?” she asked him. He nodded and answered with a quick, “Si.” Ana Lucia dug into her pocket and procured some money, a tip. He smiled and nodded, jogging to the elevator. The others came with the two dollies and she did the same, though gave them a little less considering the dropsies they had. She had opted not to pay for services to set the TV up for her, it would give her something to do instead.

She turned back to Harry. “Now I just gotta set this crap up.” She jerked her head towards her apartment. “So, you workin’ a case I take it?” The cop in her was curious.

“I try to always work a case. Missing persons, nothing huge.” He shrugged a little, figuring she’d know that he wanted to go to the morgue to nag a cop about using their missing persons’ database.

Her brow furrowed. Shrugging off missing persons like that? Granted half the time you never found them, or they were at a cousin’s place, or more dire of all, it was a worst case scenario. But ‘nothing huge’?

“And what would you consider huge?” she countered, hand on hip and tilting her head to the side. Brown eyes were studying him, measuring up what kind of cop he once was.

“Well, this is more of a family reuniting thing. It’s huge for them, but I doubt anyone’s dead. Anything time critical is huge.” Harry shrugged. “Obviously, missing persons, by the time it hits my hands, someone’s already DOA. Finding who did it, that’s huge.”

Ana nodded, understanding. "Well uh, enjoy the morgue," cop sarcasm, of course. "And next time, get a real one of those." She pointed at the partially eaten burrito in his hand. "That hurts my soul. There's an awesome food truck I know that makes the real deal." And she offered him a friendly smirk.

“Well, this is three days old. I hate wasting food.” He smiled and nodded, tipping an invisible hat to her. “But yeah, maybe I’ll swing by and bring you something after hanging out with the peoplesicles. Cooking after you move sucks ass.”

Ana Lucia looked horrified. “You…” The look of disgust on her face was unmistakable as her nose scrunched and her brow furrowed to form an incredulous stare. “Okay that’s it,” And she rushed to her new apartment, grabbed her purse, shut the door firmly and power strode New Yorker style back up to Harry. “You’re throwing that crap out and we’re gettin’ real food. Cuz now you’re just pissin’ my ancestors off. Let’s go.” And she jerked her head towards the elevator, clearly not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

Harry blinked. “Huh, I’ve never had someone quite as tall as you boss me around while clothed and me not paying for it.” But he shrugged, following her. He was too laid back to let anything really ever ruffle his feathers.

For her part, Ana desperately tried not to have a mental picture of that. She smirked at him instead and did a little eye roll as they stepped into the elevator. "Yeah, well, don't expect anything." She hit the button for the lobby. When they hit the parking, she realized that if heading to the morgue was Harry's plan she'd be leaving him without a ride back if she dropped him off. "My car or yours?"

“I don’t. And I can drive you.” He didn’t mind dropping her back off once they were done eating. He was a nice enough guy, just gross. “Where are we headed, anyway?”

"Thanks. Truck’s called Poco Mexico. Taco truck few blocks from here," she said, following Harry to his car. She gave him the cross streets. "Should be slower by now so probably won't be a line. The Al Pastor burrito is frickin' amazing, and can last you three days without being gross." She teased wryly. Ana made it a habit to drop by every Tuesday and Friday when she could. The cooking reminded her of her mother's.

Harry nodded. He usually didn’t drive this way, so it made sense that he didn’t know the truck. He drove like he was being chased by the cops, and they made it to the truck in less time than most people would’ve taken to cross the city.

Pulling into a spot near the truck, he hopped out, glad that they were there because his stomach was starting to rumble.

For her part, Ana Lucia tried not to look too terrified. She was a tough girl, but trying to speed in NYC was like trying to run a marathon in drying cement. The Fast and the Furious school of driving was not on her resume.

She got out of the car, grateful for the cessation of Harry’s driving, and not looking forward to the return trip with a full belly. As they approached the truck, the woman who ran it spotted Ana Lucia and grinned, waving and calling to her in Spanish.

“Ana! Es muy bueno verte! ¿Cómo estás? Veo que trajiste un amigo!” said the woman ecstatically.

“Yes, I did.” Ana answered in English, for Harry’s sake. “This is Harry. Harry, this is Maria.”

Harry waved, answering right back in Spanish. “
He looked back over at Ana and shrugged. “High school. I suck, but I try.”

That got him raised eyebrows and a rather impressed look from Ana Lucia and Maria. “Hey that wasn’t half bad.” And she smirked teasingly. “Gringo.”

Ana placed her order for two tacos and a Colombiana soda. She was finding she was pretty hungry after all this moving. Maria tried to make it on the house for Ana bringing a new customer but Ana wasn’t having it and kindly insisted on giving her the money. They gossipped for a little while Ana munched before turning back to Harry while Maria tended to a new customer that walked up. “So?” She said between bites of the savory ground beef.

“I’m probably the whitest gringo alive, it’s true.” He ordered the same, and Harry paid for two extra tacos to take home.

By the time Ana spoke to him again, Harry had already inhaled one of the tacos and half of the soda. “I think I’m going to pay off her mortgage, I’ll be here every day.”

Ana laughed. “See? Great spot. So no more of those...whatever the hell that was you were eating. She cooks with all home made stuff, including the tortillas. Well, sometimes, when she’s not crunched for time. Otherwise it’s Goya.” She winked conspiratorially.

Ana Lucia didn’t realize it but she was eating her tacos nearly as quickly as Harry. By the time she was just sipping on her soda she realized. “Damn, guess yelling at people makes ya’ hungry.” And she laughed at herself. “So, Harry. Before you were a PI you were Irvine PD, huh?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I was the lucky asshole who found the Irvine Ripper. I retired after that, figuring I’d do movie consultations and be a rich asshole, but I missed solving cases too much. So I opened up PI shop.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin before following suit with his fingers.

Ana Lucia stared at him a moment, startled. “You…you were the one that found the Irvine Ripper?” She didn’t mean to make it sound like this middle aged guy wasn’t capable of it, but her old partner had been positively glued to the case when it’d been all over the news and talked Ana’s ear off about it and how the world needed more lucky bastards like the guy who’d caught the Ripper. “Shit. My partner, he used to tell me all about that case and the lucky bastard who caught him. Didn’t realize it was you. What are the odds.” She huffed a laugh. “You get a lot of consultations I bet? You write a book too?” Now she was smirking.

“Yeah, pulled him over on a traffic violation. Needed to meet my quota.” Harry laughed as he leaned back to polish off his soda. “Didn’t write a book, books don’t really pay much. Had a TV movie about me, and I’ve helped on a lot of movies. Don’t know, I thought having a lot of money would help and fix my life and I’d be happy and ride around on ponies.” Clearly, that hadn’t been the case. “It was why I opened up my PI gig - I didn’t want to go back to the force because I left like a dick, but I couldn’t stop the itch.”

Ana nodded, understanding. She was starting to feel that itch to, that need to hit the streets and make a difference one case at a time. She'd only been off the force a couple months but it felt like eternity. Her vendetta had hit a roadblock too with all the leads going cold, which sucked.

"I getcha," she replied, before draining the rest of her soda. She stood up straight and positioned herself like a basketball player ready to make a three point shot from halfcourt - the recycling can was across from them. "I'm startin' to feel it too, but I can't go back, not yet." She released the can and it sailed in a neat arc in perfect alignment to the can; Ana had a very good eye. Except the wind kicked up at the last moment and the little gust pushed the can off course and it went clattering to the ground. "Dammit." She growled and walked over, bending down and plucking the thing from the asphalt and dropping it in proper. Somewhere between the point of bending down to get her trash and throwing it out she’d heard a whistle, one of those appreciative ones she didn’t appreciate. You’ve got to be kidding me. I just met the guy, and he’s gonna do that? Ana turned around, gave Harry a dirty look and said, “Seriously?” and would have torn him a new one in two languages had it not been for the realization that it was the guy standing a few feet behind him, sipping at a Coke. The stranger in a suit was practically grinning at her in a wolfish manner. Ana Lucia rolled her eyes.

Harry rolled his eyes too. “Seriously? Has that ever worked for you? Come on, you can’t be lechy to a lady until at least the third date, guy, and even then, she’ll probably slap you. Take it from me. That one’s too much woman for either of us.” Harry waved at the guy, then moved his jacket to reveal his piece. He had a concealed carry licence and everything, and he wasn’t threatening the dude, per se. But the suit took the hint and walked, and Harry moved to clean up.

“I’ll buy next time,” he grinned. “Got any pico in my teeth?”

Well, damn. Ana was grinning by now, completely amused as to how that had played out. She walked up to Harry and with a knowing smirk pulled aside part of her tiny jacket to show him her piece. She didn't have her carry and conceal license yet, it was still in the works. But it was good enough for her.

"You're fine," she meant his teeth, then said with a teasing grin, "and you're right; I am too much woman for you." She started heading for the car, waving goodbye to Maria before turning around and saying to him, "Oh and I'm driving, I'd like to not lose my lunch all over your car." She motioned for him to toss her the keys.

He sighed, tossing her his keys. “You just have to work up to it, if you’d let me drive you’d get used to going a respectable speed.” He still ran his finger over his front teeth, just to be sure.

She laughed, walking backwards as they continued the conversation. "You call that respectable? If I was a cat I'd've lost six of my nine lives back there. Where you learn to drive, watching the Fast and Furious movies?" She turned around at the car and unlocked it, pulling the driver's side door open and then waiting for Harry to catch up. "Sure hope you got one of those handy police "friends and family" cards in case you ever get pulled over." They had them in NYC, a little credit card sized thing that former NYPD tended to pass out to close friends and such. Supposedly one could flash it to a cop when pulled over, like it was some sort of "get out of jail free" card.

He just shrugged. “I just don’t get caught.” Or he just paid the tickets. It wasn’t like he didn’t get paid a lot from residuals for his film consultations. He climbed into the car and crossed his legs, preparing for an hour long trek back to their condos.

She shot him a look of “Seriously?” and shook her head as she got into the driver’s seat and buckled up. She wanted to adjust the seat a bit as she was a little taller than him, but knowing better than to mess with a man’s car, Ana made the best of it and started it up. Pulling out, she drove at a decent clip, about ten miles per hour faster than the speed limit just to show Harry that East Coasters didn’t drive slow. But she also didn’t want to get pulled over and possibly outed that she had a concealed weapon with no permit yet. You never knew with cops, all she needed was to run into one with a bad day that thought they were big stuff.

“It’s a nice ride,” Ana said as they turned into the home stretch at the parking lot to their condo building. She parked and unbuckled. “And thanks, for letting me take the wheel.”

“Of course. Thank you for squiring me home, Morgan Freeman. Ugh, that means I’m Jessica Tandy.” Harry wrinkled his nose. “Bleh.”

Ana Lucia laughed as they both got out of the car. "Yeah, well in that case I'll go off to narrate something and you can go back to being Vin Diesel." Heading around the car and back towards the building she called, "Have fun with your peopsicles!"