Chapter 23
The honeymoon between Jessie and their baby was over.
She scrambled out of bed five minutes before the alarm went off, rushed down the hall, and Kit heard her noisily retching into the commode. It might have concerned Kit to hear his wife throwing up if he didn't know she was pregnant, for that was the first time she'd done it. Much to Jessie's discontent, morning sickness was not going to pass her by.
At least she was ready for it. Docter MacNair had explained the phenomenon to them thoroughly at her last exam, how it was inconsistent in when it struck and how long it would make her nauseous, and that it did not, as the name might suggest, occur only in the morning. The doctor had given Jessie a series of useful tips if she was struck with the condition, and from the sound of it, Jessie would start following those helpful hints today; eat small meals, avoid hot rooms, eat soda crackers or salty potato chips to settle her stomach enough for a meal if she felt queasy, take short naps, and avoid laying down after a meal.
But, Doctor Mac had been almost dead on with her prediction, Kit noted. She said that morning sickness tended to begin showing up during the sixth week of pregnancy, and the March 5 day showing on the calendar near the bed showed that Jessie was about halfway through her sixth week. Doctor MacNair said that Jessie conceived somewhere between January 26 and January 28, an actual estimate of January 27 with a little margin for error, and that put March 5 three days into her sixth week of pregnancy. That calendar, the Countdown Calendar as Jessie called it, was segmented by weeks of pregnancy and indications and other features that Doc Mac told them to expect. He knew that Jessie had already, rather morosely, scribbled start getting fat on the May page. That was the month that Doctor Mac said that Jessie would start showing visible signs of her pregnancy obvious to the casual observer, her "baby bump."
Though she was modest, Jessie was still proud of her sexy physique, and the thought of getting fat was not the greatest thought in the world to her. But, it was what she called her "happy sacrifice," and she could always get her figure back after the delivery.
Outside of this morning sickness, things were going swimmingly with Jessie's pregnancy. She was almost disgustingly healthy, as Doctor Mac put it, and their baby was perfectly healthy inside her. Her pregnancy was progressing in an almost textbook manner, and Doctor Mac joked that their baby shared its parents' love of routine and preparation, habits ingrained in his job as a researcher and her preparation to become an English teacher. "You're giving birth to a banker," she teased them.
In the two weeks since they'd gone to see Jessie's family, there had been quite a bit going on in their lives. Kit and Jessie had sat down and talked with Rick and Martha about investing in the magazine, and Kit had found that nearly 90% of what he put in the business plan he'd drawn up for the magazine was also in Rick's plan. Over dinner, Rick and Kit drew up a contract which would let Kit buy into the magazine as a part owner, and receive a percentage of the profits in return for a $15,000 investment which he'd pay in installments, as the CDs he'd bought matured and he could cash them out. He did begin with a $5,000 initial payment, taken out their crisis reserves, which would be replaced as the CDs holding that money locked up matured. That $5,000 would help the magazine afford expanding their pages per issue for those critical three weeks between the increase and securing enough advertising to pay for it, as that meant it cost more per unit to have the magazine published. For those three weeks, Kit's money would literally be paying everyone's salaries… including his own.
A touch ironic, that.
That salary would include the photographer. Rick had already put the ads out in the paper, Monster, and other online sites, as well as telling the Job Placement Services office at U.T. what he was looking for in case any recent graduates were looking for a job. Rick already had a lot of experience dealing with U.T., for he'd finally arranged the intern deal with them to replace Sheila. Starting with the summer semester, the office would have two unpaid interns, changing every semester, who would be learning about journalism from inside a magazine. Rick had only wanted one at first, but the school convinced him to take on two, since the university was having trouble finding enough intern positions for its journalism school. The journalism school took Lone Star a hell of a lot more seriously now than they did just six months ago, for the magazine had evolved from a quaint little Friday student rag to a magazine that put out real news and had some unique and innovative features. It said a lot for the magazine's credibility that the school of journalism actually lobbied Rick to take on two interns rather than one.
And that was just one of the busy aspects of friends involved with their daily lives. Lupe had been running around like a maniac for over a month, because a virtual army of construction workers had descended on the far side of the new pool. Kit was astounded at how fast they moved. When they first arrived, the combined companies knocked down every building left on the block and ripped up their foundations, working 24 hours a day despite Lupe's assurances they'd only be working 10 hours a day, while the pool builders finished pouring the concrete and let it cure. They couldn't run heavy machinery around the pool area as the concrete cured. Despite working around the clock, though, the denizens of Westwood really didn't mind all that much. They didn't do any loud work after sunset, mainly just cleaning up and laying out their planned construction, and the worst complaints Lupe had to deal with were the lights they used after dark to illuminate the job site. After about a week, after an inspector had signed off that the pool cement had cured properly and the pool builders could start on the deck, diving boards, and slides, the three companies broke up to begin their individual tasks. In the week since they started their individual assignments, there was already significant visual signs of progress. The foundation of the first duplex row and the first apartment building had been laid out, and work had already begun on them. The third company, building the large community center that would anchor the pool, had started excavating so it could lay the pipes that would go into the foundation. Inspectors and workers from the water service, city sewer authority, power company, cable company, phone company, and gas company were already on site, coordinating with the contractors to set up the utilities the buildings would use. The old Westwood was all electric, but the new Westwood would offer natural gas hookups for kitchen stoves and kitchen stoves only. Dryers and air conditioning units would still only be electric. Gas would also be hooked up to the community center, though, running its heat during the winter and supplying gas for the large kitchen that would be in the building.
The utilities were taking advantage of the construction, too. Lupe had already contracted with the phone company to allow them to build a major repeater station in the basement of the community center, acting as a hub for their DSL service, which would give any DSL users in the complex very high speed; the further from a repeater one was, the worse DSL was. Being literally in the same complex as the repeater would give all the complex fast and reliable DSL. The cable company decided to use the complex as a hub as well, already planning to run a new heavy bandwidth trunk line to the complex to radiate out to the surrounding neighborhood as part of their broadband upgrade project in Austin. The fringe benefit for allowing them to do that for Westwood was a dedicated low-population trunk feeding off that major line, which would give cable modem users in the complex blazing speed with virtually no slowdown during peak use hours. Be it DSL or cable, the complex would have some screaming fast internet. The power company was already starting work on the surrounding power lines to prepare for the increased demand on the block, and the water company was also looking at installing a larger main to service the new apartments.
Kit gave Lupe his fifteen minutes of fame. He did a story on the new complex and interviewed Lupe professionally, then Rick ran it in last week's issue, along with Kit's interview of Lamar Smith. They put in some architect's sketches of what the new Westwood would look like, and the article talked about the number of units there would be, what services the new complex would offer, and highlighted its proximity to U.T. and the fact that the AMTA had agreed to start a shuttle from the complex to the school once the complex was finished, which would give students a special reduced fare bus ride to campus and back with arrivals and departures every 20 minutes from 7am to 9pm Monday through Friday, 7am to 5pm every half hour on Saturday, and special service directly to and from the stadium on home game days.
Kit had promised Lupe space in the magazine, and the complex was of interest to students of U.T. since it was being built aimed at housing them, so the article more than deserved to run in the magazine. And maybe it would help Lupe fill up with signed leases to show the bank when they started doubting the sanity of giving him so much money to get the complex built so fast.
Allison had faded into the background of their lives over the weeks, but still reared her head indirectly. Sheila and Allison were almost inseparable, and as a result they didn't see Sheila quite as often. She came over only about once a week and still came to poker, but going out with Allison now took up most of her time. The two of them were the anchor of a brand new Party Pack made up of Sheila, Allison, and members of the sorority, mainly Danielle, the other Jessie, Sandy, and Lisa. Much as he expected, Allison had been integrated into Sheila's circle of friends, and Sheila had told him that she got along very well with the sorority girls. They had no idea just who she was–well, Sandy did because she'd seen the picture of Allison giving Kit a lap dance, but she kept it secret from the others–and treated her well, if being just a bit jealous of her. Allison was drop dead gorgeous, and femmes sometimes couldn't help but feel a little threatened by another femme who was so much prettier than they were. But, Allison gelled well with Sheila, and Kit was sure she'd be just fine. Sheila would teach her how to have fun again, something that she'd forgotten in the years she'd been a stripper and prostitute.
But her impact on his life was still front and center. The article had attracted huge attention, and Rick had received four requests to reprint it from other magazines, as well as continued emails coming in about it. Sheila kept Allison informed, joked with her that she was a rock star now. Kit had also received another visit from the Austin Police, trying to get him to reveal anything about the article. Their last visit was them nearly begging just to have him answer if he met the femme in Austin or some other city, just so they'd know if they could retire the matter, but Kit would not budge. He would not answer any question, for if he answered just one question, they would try to make him answer another, then another, and so on and so on. He kept Allison's identity an absolute secret, and there were only four furs who know that secret outside of him and Allison. Jessie, Sheila, Sandy, and Mike were the only ones who knew, for Sandy had heard him talk about Allison and seen the picture of her, and Mike had been there when he asked her all those questions and wasn't drunk enough to forget it. He pieced it together after he happened across Allison's picture while going through old photos, but he agreed along with his family and Sandy that it had to be kept an absolute secret. He even deleted all his copies of Allison's pictures he had from the bachelor party.
Kit sat up in bed, arched his back until it popped, then swung his legs out. Today was a big day for him, for his medical certification had expired without him realizing it, nearly two weeks ago. He'd literally flown to Cincinnati with four days left on his eligibility, and since he'd not left the FAA a forwarding address, they'd had no way to send him a reminder to renew his medical certification until Vil registered his plane in his name. The expiration warning had arrived last week, a week after his medical certification expired, and he'd had scheduled this exam to get it back. He wouldn't have any penalty for it, he just had to either visit the FAA office at Bergstrom or fax in a copy of the certification to them, and they'd send him his new license. The license part of his license didn't expire for eight more years, only his medical clearance had to be renewed. Today, he had an exam scheduled to get his medical certificate for his pilot's license, which would grant him another year of flight status.
And it would be a war. Kit's injuries had caused him a huge hassle last year, for the doctor examining had deferred him, put his flight status on suspension so the FAA could examine his physical health and determine if he was flight worthy. His doctor had given him six hours worth of tests and exercises to prove his back wouldn't prevent him from flying safely, then he sent it all to the FAA for their determination… and that took two months. He'd gone for his physical in late December, got deferred and went back for the follow-up tests in early January, and it was late February when the FAA finally approved him and sent him his license. He knew that this doctor as well would question the condition of his back, but this time he was armed with all the tests and results of his last physical to show the doctor that he'd already been thoroughly examined, and passed by the FAA. He knew he'd still be facing an exhaustive examination, but he was positive he wouldn't get deferred this time. It would just take all day.
A fun way to spend his day off.
Jessie came back into the bedroom and sat on the bed by him, smacking her chops with an unpleasant expression. "I need to brush my teeth," she complained. "I'd kiss you, my handsome fox, but you do not want to do that right now."
He laughed. "I'll dare the Godzilla breath," he said, leaning over and giving her a quick peck on the lips. "Better now?"
"Mmm," she nodded, putting her paw on her lower stomach gingerly. "I don't think our baby liked that lasagna we had last night. And I was hoping I wouldn't get morning sickness," she complained, flopping back on the bed. "I hope it doesn't last long. Doctor Mac said it could last a few days, or a whole month."
"Well, let's wait and see. Just keep her tips in mind."
"Yeah, I'll go buy some Lays after class, some of those little lunch size bags, and carry them around with me. She said they were the best thing to squash my nausea while I'm at school."
"If you leave a few minutes early, you can swing by Circle K and pick up a couple of those little grab bags," he told her.
"That's a good idea. Let me get into the shower, then," she said, standing up. She started forward, but Kit grabbed her by her longhaired tail and stopped her. "Turn around," he ordered, making a circling motion with his finger. She laughed and complied, turning to face him, and he gave her a thorough visual inspection. "Nothing yet," he reported.
She laughed, striking a little pose for him, which was really sexy since she was nude. "So, I'm still your supermodel?" she teased.
"You always will be, even when you're about to deliver," he answered. "Now go hop in the shower, I'll start breakfast."
"No thanks," she said, making a face. "I'll leave a little early and grab something at school, I'm not in the mood to eat right now."
"Okay. But take your vitamins, and I'll start the tea."
"Make me some Earl Gray," she said, turning and heading for the bathroom. Kit put on a pair of shorts and wandered into the kitchen and got the water for the tea going. He turned off the alarm and went out for the paper, and found the door opening behind him. Sheila came in wearing her workout shorts and a tank top despite the thirty degree morning. The weather the last week or so had been really wild. It would be in the 30s in the morning but rise up to the 70s during the day. That was usual, the crew told him, the precursor to the hot Austin summer. Spring came early in Texas.
"Kit," she called. "You ready?"
"Do I look ready?" he countered. "Let me get the tea going, you want some?" he asked.
"Sure!" she said, closing the door. "She in the shower?"
"Yeah."
"She coming?"
"She has school today, and she says you cheat."
Sheila laughed. "She just doesn't have the guts to play racquetball with me," Sheila teased. "She spends half her time running away from the ball. Where's your bag?"
"In the den," he said. "But we can't play a full set, I have that physical at eight thirty."
"No problem, Rick always bitches when I come in late anyway," she laughed. "Oh, I do have something to show you, though. I got the new Iphone!"
"Such a lemming," he teased.
"It's awesome," she countered. "It can do so much!"
"I'll keep my Blackberry, thanks," he said, pouring water into teacups. "Come get it."
She bounded into the kitchen and took the cup of steaming water, then went to the cupboard where he kept tea. He'd finally broke down and started having Connecticut Tea Company tea shipped to him, buying direct from their website, so they finally had decent tea. The only problem was that he had to order large boxes, so it was rather pricey. He had bought regular tea, a box of Earl Gray since both he and Jessie liked to drink it from time to time, and a gift box filled with a variety of flavored and herbal teas to satisfy Jessie's curiosity and occasional taste for something new, but Sheila went for the regular tea. "Get me a regular too, please," he said as he finished pouring the water. One of the things he liked about it was he bought loose leaf tea, which came in little packets, rather than tea bags. He'd always favored loose leaf tea over bags, it just tasted better. Jessie had to get used to the idea of that, but she rather liked it after she learned how not to drink too much of the loose leaf.
"What's Jessie drinking?"
"Earl Gray," he answered.
"She been trying out the flavor box?"
He nodded as she handed him a packet. "Tries a different flavor every night."
"I need to order another box," she noted to herself. "I'm down to my last week's worth."
Jessie came into the kitchen wearing a robe, and took the tea Kit had prepared for her with a grateful nod. "Hey Sheila, come to take him for racquetball?"
"Yeah. You gonna come play soon?"
"When you stop hitting the ball at me on purpose," she accused.
Sheila laughed. "Then never," she winked.
"I'll make you a deal. I'll play racquetball with you tomorrow if you play tennis with me on Saturday."
"You drive a hard bargain," she accused.
"Well, Kit's too good, I can never beat him," Jessie complained. "He makes me run all over the court!"
"Well, we do play for the exercise," Kit noted calmly, which made Sheila laugh.
"You make it Thursday afternoon, you have a deal."
"That's fine, just remember I don't get out 'til after five."
"Just wait for golf season," Sheila grinned. "I already joined a country club, and they open for the season on Saturday," she said eagerly.
"I didn't know you play golf," Jessie said with surprise.
"I love it. Kit, not so much."
"I don't mind golf, but swinging the club makes my back ache after a while," he said mildly. "So I don't play very much."
"See? But I'll need a partner, and hey, you said you'd try almost any sport once. So, wanna play golf with me?"
"Sure, I'll try it," Jessie said with a nod. "Is there some place I can rent or borrow some clubs?"
"We're about the same size, we'll see how you do with mine," Sheila told her.
"You're gonna let a whiffer use your driver? You're brave," Kit noted, which made Sheila laugh and Jessie give him a flinty look.
"Oh, since I have both of you here, I wanted to ask something," she said. "Kit, would you do me a huge favor?"
"What?"
"Can you fly me, Allison, and Danielle out to South Padre Island on Friday morning, then come get us Sunday evening? I'll pay for the gas," she offered.
"I guess I can. Did you ask Rick for Friday off?"
She nodded. "I'm gonna work next Saturday to make up for it. So that's all set."
"Well, I can manage it, as long as I pass my physical today," he chuckled.
"How long will that take to get your license back?" Jessie asked.
"Back? You lost it?" Sheila asked.
"My medical certificate expired," he explained to her. "And it'll take all of one day to get my license back. I get my physical certificate, make a phone call and fax it to the FAA, or take it to the satellite office they have at Bergstrom, and I'm legal again. If I go to Bergstrom, I'll walk out with a temporary license 'til my new license gets here by mail. If I fax it in, they'll mail it to me, and fax me a temporary license like I'd get if I go to Bergstrom."
"Oh, cool beans," Sheila said. "So, it's a go?"
"I'd be happy to take you," he said with a nod.
Sheila gave him a huge grin. "You're the best, cousin!" she said excitedly.
After racquetball, he was there on time at the office of Doctor Enrique Valguerro, an FAA-approved flight surgeon who had his practice about two miles from Bergstrom. Doctor Valguerro was a pilot himself, and had been in the Air Force, stationed at Bergstrom back when it was an Air Force base. He moved back to Austin after he left the military, and he came highly recommended on the airfields around Austin as a doctor who knew. Valguerro was a plump brown-furred chinchilla, looking like he could be Sandy's uncle, and he did indeed know. He'd administered this examination many times, so he knew exactly what he was doing, and gave Kit the only complication he was expecting. When he reviewed Kit's medical records, he made note of the screws in his back, and also his passing medical examination and official FAA documentation showing that the FAA was aware of his past accident, but had cleared him to fly after his last exam, after a thorough check of his back. "I see they deferred you last time, but you passed the subsequent physical, and you have all your waiver documentation right here. Have the screws caused any problems since your last certification physical?"
"None," he said. "I still have full range of motion and it doesn't hurt at all when I fly, even when I'm doing G maneuvers to scare my passengers."
Valguerro laughed. "You're lucky you brought these records, or I'd have to file for deferral for you again. But, I'm afraid I'll have to make you do some pretty extensive exercises and tests so I'm sure you're still in flight condition, my friend. That's something I have to check thoroughly before I sign off on you. I hope you understand."
"Completely, and I don't mind at all," he said with a nod. "I've been through this before, as you saw when you checked over my records. My last doctor did a six hour exam and a bunch of tests on my back to send in with the rest of my records when I filed for my waiver. I had to wait two months for the FAA to look over my case and approve me," he grunted.
"Well, your last doctor was doing his job," Valguerro said with an approving nod. "And I doubt it'll take that long this time. You got passed last time, and I won't have to defer you again since you have all your waiver paperwork. So, after I make sure your back is still in flying shape, you'll be good to go."
Then came the tests he knew were coming. He went through X-rays of his back, a very thorough physical inspection and examination of his entire spine and musculature and tissues surrounding his spine, and then he did nearly an hour's worth of range of motion exercises and pressure tests simulating G forces Valguerro demanded without any trouble. The doctor put him through every possible test he could think of to make absolutely sure Kit's back was capable of the stresses of flight. After all that, he was back on the exam table, and Valguerro continued the examination, moving on to the normal parts of the exam. "So, what are you flying these days?" he asked.
"I lucked out and got my paws on a Cessna four hundred," he said.
Valguerro whistled. "I had a fractional on one when it was a Columbia, before Cessna bought them out, and it was a sweet plane," he said. "I'm flying a Centurion now. I wanted something pressurized."
"Nice," Kit told him. "Fractional?"
"Nah, I own the whole thing," he grinned. "You rated on twin engines?"
Kit nodded. "I don't have seaplane, rotor, or any jet ratings, but I have about everything else… Cat two and three, IFR, high altitude. I'll have to get those some day," he chuckled. "I was trying to get my first jet rating before the accident."
"I never bothered trying for one. Why did you want it?"
"Before these screws were in my back, I wanted to fly fighters for the military," he said. "So I was trying to get rated on a jet while I was in ROTC, so they'd see I had jet experience."
"Ah, I understand, amigo," he said, patting Kit on the shoulder compassionately. "Which one were you doing?"
"Citation CJ-2," he answered.
"All those ratings at such a young age? That had to be pricey."
"Eleven thousand dollars was the final price tag. I was on scholarship, and I finished flight school before the accident. It paid for most of my commercial license. The expensive part for me was renting planes after I got my license to keep logging hours to pad my application to Air Force flight school, and I was also starting on that Citation jet rating right before the accident. I'd done about half of the ground training and flown my first jet the day before it happened. That was very expensive," he grunted. "Renting a jet to log hours is almost ridiculously expensive. It was like four hundred bucks a day."
"Well, that's quite an accomplishment for such a young pilot."
"No, it just took money," he said calmly, which made Valguerro laugh. "I got my commercial and my extras in a year in a one forty-one program through the University of Massachusetts. It was one of those comprehensive programs that rated us for both single and multi props as a commercial license, Cat two and three, IFR, high altitude, the whole shebang, so when I graduated, I had to take both single and multi tests, then do two check flights for the first test. Then we had to do it all over again for our IFR ratings on both types, then do it again for the commercial test. God, that took a lot of studying, because I was taking fifteen credit hours a semester on top of that. It was like working two jobs," he chuckled.
"Well, you got through it. So you didn't rock much in flight school?" he asked, using an old Air Force term that they also used in ROTC. To rock meant to fail.
"I was paying very close attention," Kit chuckled. "The scholarship would be withdrawn if I went under a three point zero GPA, and my flight school was through my scholarship, so I couldn't fail any major section or it would be withdrawn."
"That's motivation," Doctor Valguerro said with a nod. "I rocked way too much when I got my license," he laughed. "It took me a year to get my standard pilot's license. But, I was doing it on base, so it was way cheaper than it would've cost me elsewhere. But, after I had it, I moved to flight medicine, and I've never regretted it."
After another three hours of exhaustive tests of his vision, hearing, reflexes, general physical health, even a psychological evaluation, Valguerro had Kit dress as he went over some lab results. "You're good to go, my friend. I'll sign off on you, so you're back on flight status."
"Thanks, Doctor," Kit said with a smile. "I'm glad of that, I'm taking my cousin to South Padre on Friday, so I kinda need my license."
Valguerro laughed. "Finish dressing, I'll fill out the forms for you."
After six hours of being examined, Kit got his completed form, and then went to the FAA office on the grounds of Bergstrom International Airport, in a building not far from the smaller south terminal. He sat around waiting for an hour, finally got a clerk, then sat and waited as the short, thin male marten clerk reviewed his license history, inspected the certificate issued by Doctor Valguerro, then called Valguerro to personally confirm Kit had passed his physical because of Kit's previous deferral on his physical from last year, due to his prior injuries. "I have to ask," the marten said with a slightly shy look, "you're that Kit Vulpan, right?"
Kit smiled. "Afraid so. You won't hold that against me, will you?"
The marten laughed. "Why should I? A co-worker pointed me to an article you wrote, and I thought it was pretty good. Let me print out your temporary license. You know the drill with the real one?"
"Yeah, I'll get it in the mail about a week before it expires."
He laughed again. "That's about right," he admitted, turning to his keyboard.
At four o'clock, he walked out of the FAA office on Bergstrom holding his temporary pilot's license, which would expire on March 6, 2009. He had a full year before he went through another six hour physical, but he would to back to Doctor Valguerro when that time came, since he already knew about Kit's back and wouldn't be so hard on him next time.
He also noticed that there was a flight school there at the airport.
He called Jessie as he walked back to his truck. "Hey baby," he said. "I'm done. Need anything before I come home?"
"Now? What took so long?" she demanded as the sounds of dishes clinking chimed in the background.
"My back," he said simply. "The doctor had to make absolutely sure my back doesn't disqualify me. I told you this would take all day," he noted.
"Yeah, you did," she agreed. "Well, you can swing by IGB or Wal-Mart and pick up some nutmeg, I'm almost out. And you can buy me some of those little bags of potato chips, I haven't done that yet."
"Will do," he promised. "Any nausea today?"
"A little, right after lunch, but thank God I didn't throw up," she said with relief. "Nothing is more humiliating than kneeling in a public bathroom and having everyone listen to you barf."
Kit laughed. "Anything else?"
"Grape juice?"
"Don't ask, silly femme, demand. I don't respond to wishy-washy little girls."
"Then get grape juice, you little jerk," she retorted playfully. "And keep an eye over your shoulder when you get home!"
Kit laughed lightly. "Always do, pretty kitty, always do."
Kit bought what Jessie wanted, and gave her a loving kiss when he got home. He put his paw on her belly, almost reflexively, and she laughed and responded with her pattern "not yet, my handsome fox."
"Someday I'm gonna feel him kick."
"Someday you might feel her kick," she said with a giggle. "After she starts making me fat."
"You won't be fat, you'll be pregnant," he told her, wrapping his arms around her from behind and rocking her gently from side to side. "And you'll be beautiful."
"So you say now, when I'm still skinny," she giggled, reaching behind his head and patting him on his damaged ear.
"To be fat, you have to have fat in here, not a baby," he teased, kissing her on the side of her neck as he patted her flat belly with his dark-mittened paw. "Now stop being silly, my pretty kitty."
"I'm not being silly! I'm making sure my male will still love me when I'm fat and ugly."
He laughed lightly. "You will never be either of those," he told her. "You're a gorgeous cat, love, but it wasn't your face or body I fell in love with. What's in here is what I love the most," he said, tapping her just under her ear. "The body and face are just window dressing. Gorgeous window dressing, but still window dressing."
She giggled, and leaned against him. "I need to record that so I can play it back at you when I'm fat."
"Be my guest."
After dinner, Kit relaxed with Jessie on the couch, practicing guitar while she wrote part of her paper about flying. She asked him all kinds of questions, how long it took him, what kinds of licenses there were, and so on. Kit explained pilot's licenses to her, and the various ratings for different kinds of planes, and the levels of licenses. "So, if I wanted a license, what would I have to do?" she asked, looking at him and ready to type on her laptop. He explained the way that worked too, how one could go to flight school or take private instruction, and explained the difference between a program for a standard license and a program for a commercial license, a part-141, like the one he'd taken.
"That's the best way to do it," Kit told her. "When I graduated from flight school, I had my commercial license and I was rated for two classes of aircraft, single engine prop and multi-engine prop. It took about a year, but it also cost over twelve thousand dollars. If I'd have done a standard license, I could have graduated in four months or so and did it for about six thousand dollars, but I wouldn't have even a quarter of the privileges I have with a commercial license. My commercial license lets me land at almost any airport, because I know air commercial traffic control procedures and I can fly by instruments alone. Those are skills that standard pilots aren't required to have."
"Okay, so, how does having a license make life different for you compared to other furs?"
She was serious about this, he realized. She was approaching it like a reporter, and she'd seen how he did his prep work enough to know what to ask to get the information she wanted. "Well, I guess it's a matter of freedom," he said. "I can fly a plane, which lets me go much further than someone in a car. In the same time it takes someone to drive to San Antonio, I could fly to Dallas or Brownsville. It's not a cheap thing to do, but it's an option. But most pilots don't fly so they can go places faster, they fly because they enjoy flying." He chuckled, strumming his guitar. "And you got a taste of how it makes things different, love. How many of your classmates can fly home to visit their parents on the weekend?"
She giggled. "Yeah, I guess so," she said. "Thanks love."
"When's that paper due?"
"Next month, but why wait?" She glanced at him. "Do you have any plans for my spring break?"
He laughed. "Love, I'm still so far in the hole on time off I'll be making it up to the magazine for ten years," he told her. "But, I did have a couple of ideas. We haven't gone out on a date for a couple of weeks, you know."
She gave him a shy yet loving smile. "Where do you want to go?"
"I was thinking of dinner in New Orleans," he said with a smile. "And a night in a French Quarter hotel, then a ride in a riverboat after we explore the Quarter."
She gave him a bright smile. "I'd love to," she said. "Can we afford it?"
"A dinner, a night in a hotel, and a riverboat ride? Of course we can," he told her. "I can land at Lakefront Airport there in New Orleans, so we can take a cab into the city easily or rent a car."
"I'd love to go," she said with a smile.
"I'd love to take you. I have to start looking at other airports, though. Driving up to Georgetown kinda sucks, but I guess I have to go where I can find hangar space for the plane. Leaving it outside tied down to the flight line isn't the best thing in the world for it. I want to get hangar space so we can store it out of the weather, and hangar space is always in demand." He gave her a sly little look. "They have a flight school at Bergstrom, you know."
"Really?" She said with a smile. "Have you been looking at flight schools for me, love?"
"A little," he winked. "I noticed the signs for it when I was at the FAA office getting my license renewed. I'll look into it for you."
"I'd love to, but didn't you say that flight training was expensive?"
"If you want to learn, pretty kitty, I'll find a way to pay for it. It's just that simple."
"I'll think about it," she said. "But the baby comes first. Maybe after I deliver I'll think about it, but I'd rather not have something like that on top of school with me being pregnant."
"Love, there's no time limit," he chuckled. "We have plenty of time for you to decide."
Jessie wasn't too keen on the idea of starting flight school while pregnant, but Kit could understand her position. She was in school, and she was pregnant. She had a lot more important things on her mind right now, and flight school did take some concentration and devotion.
He did, however, thoroughly research every flight school in the Austin area. There were six of them, and he finally settled on the Austin Aerial Instruction Academy, which was based in the general aviation section of Bergstrom. They were almost exactly like his own old flight school in that they offered all levels of flight instruction, from standard to flight instructor, and they also offered ratings on multi-engine and instrument flight rules. They had a 141 program which would graduate someone with a commercial license in 10 months, and what was most important, all of their flight school trainer planes were late models with impeccable maintenance records. Their oldest plane was a 2002 Cessna 172. Three of their trainers had Garmins, and they also had a Beech for people who wanted to earn a twin engine rating. The only difference between their flight school and Kit's was that Kit's school included a twin engine rating with their commercial program, where it was an optional choice for AAIA's commercial program, and cost extra money to get if one took it.
What he looked around for himself was a flight school that offered training for rating on jet aircraft. Despite what he told Avery back at his wedding, he really wouldn't mind getting a jet rating now that he was in a position to be able to use it. Renting a jet would be cheaper for the magazine than flying 8 furs to the same place, but only so long as Kit could fly it, and for that he'd need a rating on the specific kind of jet he rented. Having a commercial license and his multi engine rating opened the door to getting a jet rating, which was specific to the type of jet he intended to fly. His multi-engine rating and his authorizations in most aspects of jet flight would let him rate to a jet, which required training in that particular class of jet, like Citations. Getting rated in a Citation would let him fly Citation class jets, which was what he'd been doing right before the accident, trying to earn a rating on a Citation CJ-2. Some pilots also pursued the authorizations entailed in jet flight at the same time while rating to a jet, like complex aircraft and high-altitude operations, since one could cover those things during training for the jet. It could take as little as a couple of weeks or as long as a few months, it depended entirely on how much money he had to afford renting a jet to complete the rating.
He knew it would be hard, and expensive. To get a rating that mattered, he needed to find someone willing to rent him a jet to fly, then rate on that jet. He'd also need a second pilot, since most jets required two pilots on board… but, if he could find all of those things, then it would be viable. If they got a small enough jet that only required one pilot, like a 6-seat Citation, and he was rated on it, they could rent a jet and fly it and save money over flying 6 furs commercial. It would cost about $2,000 in rent and jet fuel for a two day trip in a CJ-1, where it would be about the same cost to fly 6 furs on airlines, with the added bonus of having total control of when they left and when they arrived.
Sure, it wasn't exactly cost-efficient or really that useful to go to all that trouble to maybe fly a jet for the magazine once, but it was more about finally getting that holy grail of pilot ratings, a rating on a jet. Finding an excuse to do it was justifying itself in his mind.
He did dream about it while flying Sheila, Allison, and Danielle down to Brownsville on Friday. Kit was reading the newest issue of the magazine, seeing it in print rather than on computers, while the autopilot kept them on course, trying to tune out the excited babbling of Sheila and Danielle, where Allison comported herself with her usual quiet reserve. They were only twenty minutes from Brownsville's airport, the closest airfield to South Padre Island, but Sheila already had hotel reservations and a rental car that was supposed to be waiting for them at the terminal at 9:00am sharp. Kit had agreed to take them, but only in the morning, so he didn't miss work. He had enough time to get back home and even relax a little while. He still wasn't sure why they were going now, since Danielle and Allison were missing a day of class; U.T.'s spring break started a week from today… but then again, maybe that was why they were going now. Next weekend it would be crowded, where this weekend they had the beach to themselves.
Wow. Wow. Barry had interviewed State Senator Chris Rivers as part of the election special, and–wow. What a fantastic interview! Barry took it to Rivers, but not in a confrontational manner. Much as Kit did, he asked hard, difficult questions, but also gave Rivers a chance to display his strengths, state his platform, and try to woo people to vote for him. He'd ask a very tough question challenging his views, then turn around and ask a supportive question that aligned with Rivers' platform. It ran five pages, and was the lead article. Next week, they would release their first expanded issue, going for a target of 38 pages.
But the TCAS woke him up. It gave an audio warning of a nearby plane, and Kit knocked it off autopilot and checked the MFD; there was another private plane coming at him from an angle, but a good mile under him. Kit was cruising at 11,000 feet, but that plane was at 6,000 feet. Kit bumped his auxiliary radio over to the accepted pilot chatter frequency for Texas pilots and called the plane. A femme answered, and he chatted with her for a few minutes before saying goodbye when Brownsville air traffic control called him on the primary radio, still tuned to traffic control frequency. "Belt up, femmes," Kit called over the intercom as he answered the controller, descending to enter a holding pattern around the airport. "We have to sit in a holding pattern for a little bit," he said.
"Are we gonna run late? That car's supposed to be waiting for us," Sheila warned.
"Call them, we're close enough to the ground for you to get a signal," Kit answered. "But I don't think we'll be waiting long. I don't see much traffic around us," he noted, looking at the planes on the MFD.
They were in holding for only ten minutes, and he landed only five minutes later than expected, and rather happily; Brownsville wasn't going to charge him a landing fee. He taxied up to a temporary parking area by their terminal, giving the girls access to their terminal through a concourse door, then powered down. "Alright, girls, you can get out," he said as he set the parking brakes and disabled all flight controls and control surfaces. "Remember to stay next to the plane and walk straight to the door when you're ready." There was no reason to go through postflight since he was going to start the engine back up as soon as they unloaded. Kit got out and opened the cargo door, and then started pulling out the three small suitcases they brought. "Remember, right here, Monday, six o'clock," he told them. "I'll call you before I start out, Sheila."
"Thanks a million, cousin!" Sheila said, hugging him.
"Yeah, thanks, Kit, you saved us a ton of money and time!" Danielle added, giving him a hug of her own.
"Don't let Jessie see you do that, or she'll shave the fur off your tail," Kit told her, which made her laugh. "Have fun, Allison," he said, taking her paw, rather formally.
"I'll make sure she does," Sheila grinned. "Let's go find our car, femmes! It's still a half hour to the island, and we have beer to drink and guys to lay!"
Danielle's cheeks ruffled up as she gave Kit an apologetic look, which only made Kit laugh and shoo her along, then he started out for the terminal so he could pay the landing fee for the airport.
What he thought would be a nice quiet solo flight back turned into anything but. Vil called him while he was sitting on the taxiway, waiting for a commuter plane to cross through the intersection so he could get to the runway. He ignored her until he was in the air, when he could put it on autopilot and get the phone out. He hooked up the hands-free headset for it and pulled his aircraft headset off one ear to put the Bluetooth in his ear. When she answered, he heard her gasp. "Where the hell are you, and what's all that noise?" she asked.
"I'm flying back from Brownsville, I just dropped Sheila and some friends off there for the weekend. What did you need?"
"I don't need anything so badly I'll listen to that droning," she told him. "Call me when you're back on the ground."
He did so when he got back to Georgetown, talking to her as he tied down the plane in a rapidly warming morning. "Alright, I'm on the ground, now what did you need?"
"I got news for you, bro," she told him. "I made a deal with a commuter airline at Bergstrom for your plane. They'll give you some hangar space in their hangar down there until we can get a permanent hangar. I'm going to give you a number for their hangar manager down there, and she'll tell you about it. Remember, though, this is just temporary, bro. They have some empty space in one of their maintenance hangars because the plane that usually takes it is assigned somewhere else, but she'll be happy to rent you that spot until the plane comes back in four months. The plane's in Europe somewhere right now."
"That sounds good, sis, thank you," he said as he tugged on the guide line securing the tail of the plane. "Cause it sucks having to tie this thing down every time I'm done."
"Hey, that's one of the things I'm here for," she chuckled. "That and trying to spoil you rotten, that is."
"Keep trying," Kit chuckled, "though you've certainly started tempting me because of this plane."
"Oh? I'm starting to taint that purity, eh?" she giggled. "And just how did I manage this miracle?" "I'm not sure I should tell you. It just gives you a new angle of attack to use against me, after all. Why should I give you ammunition?"
"Humor me."
"Well, alright, I guess. I've been pondering getting a jet rating," he told her. "If there's ever a time Rick wants to take most of the office somewhere, we'd all have to take commercial flights. It would be cheaper if I could fly us, but flying eight people would take either a multi-engine prop or a jet, and, well, jets are faster and more comfortable. If I could fly us, we'd save money renting a jet over flying six or seven furs commercial. The only drawback to that is that most jets that can hold eight or more require two pilots to be on board, by law, and there's the fact that I'd have to rate on a specific model of jet, so there would have to be that particular jet available for charter when we went to go rent it. Getting an eight seater would require an extra pilot, but there are some six seat jets that can be flown with just one pilot. It really wouldn't be cost effective to rent a jet big enough to fly the whole magazine, but a six-seat jet flown by just me would actually be cheaper to rent, since we wouldn't have to hire a second pilot. It's not really all that important, but I was working on a jet rating before I was hit by the car, and, well, you know. It's something I never got to finish, and something I'd always wanted to do."
"Hmm. What does it take to get this rating thing?"
"That depends entirely on the jet," he answered. "There's no generic rating for jets, Vil, it's specific to the jet I want to fly. So, I'd have to know what jet I could charter and train to fly that particular jet."
"Let me make some calls, bro," she offered.
"No, I'll do it myself," he said, a bit warningly.
"Bro, I can help with this, and I promise I won't throw money around. I'll just ask around and see if there's anyone around Austin willing to let you tag along on flights they're already taking so you can log hours at the controls. Doesn't that help you get your rating? It's what you did when you got your license."
"It's not quite that easy, sis. I'd have to do ground training on the jet, be officially working for the rating to fly the jet. And the pilot that was with me would have to be a flight instructor certified to train me for that jet rating. Those aren't exactly easy to find outside of the professional flight schools or the aircraft builders."
"I'll keep that in mind. But, if I can find you something like that, will you take it?"
"Well," he said hesitantly, considering it. "If you promise not to just rent the jet, I guess I will. It would be really nice to be able to sit in the co-pilot's chair of a jet on a flight."
"I'm glad you will. You've denied yourself what you rightly deserve for a long time, bro. If I can help you get something you want, even if it's something you don't need, well, you know I'm gonna meddle. And after all, your birthday is coming up at the end of the month, and I have to get you a good present," she said with a little chuckle. "I know how hard you worked to get your pilot's license. I'd love to help you keep going with your flight training."
"I appreciate your concern, sis, but I can do without the manipulation."
She laughed. "I'm glad you're using your gift."
"I love it, sis. Thank you again."
"How does it handle? What's it like to fly in it?"
"Why don't you come down and take a joy ride with me?"
She laughed. "Give up my private jet with my personal bedroom to come down and fly in a little single engine propeller plane? Sure!" she said brightly. "I'll have to clear some space on my calendar, though."
"We'd love to see you, sis," he said. "It's been months since you've been here."
"Since the wedding," she affirmed. "Okay, so, while I'm doing this, you look into that ground training you said you need, see where you can get it. With luck, I'll find someone able to do me a favor by the time you're done."
"Remember, no cheating."
"I'll do my best to hold to that, or at least cover it up so you can't tell I was cheating," she giggled. "I'll look over my schedule and find a good few days to come see you. Hmm, Jessie's spring break is next week, right?"
"A week from today is when it starts, then she doesn't have to be back until the following Monday."
"Let's see if I can wrangle a day or two somewhere in there, so me and her can spend some quality time together."
"She'd love to see you."
"I'd hope so," she chuckled. "Alright, let me go juggle my schedule some, baby bro. I'll call you back when I have something solid."
"Alright."
"I'll text you the name and number of that fur about the hangar. She can give you all the details."
"I was just about to make note that you haven't given me his number," he chuckled.
Kit wasn't sure how to feel about Vil meddling. On one hand, he wasn't asking her for money, he was asking her to use her influence and power to secure a favor for him. That, though, went paw in paw with that money, for her money gave her that power. Vil had incredible power as the CEO of the Vulpan businesses; he had no doubt that she could effectively bully the President of the United States. But, he'd also have to admit, that power was useless unless it was used, and at least he wasn't asking for anything outrageous. He didn't want her to arrange any special favors, he just wanted her to look around and see if she could find him a jet that would let him tag along when they went on a flight.
Kit called the hangar after he got home. The fur he had to talk to was named Alice Darrow, and he found her to be a pretty laid-back and friendly young femme. She was the hangar manager for Avia Commuter and Charter Airlines, which had seven offices; Austin, Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Baltimore, St. Louis, and they'd just opened a new office in London flying commuter and charter flights between London and European cities. The office here had originally been based in Houston, but they'd moved the home office to Austin when Bergstrom was built because they got their paws on a brand new hangar that had a hell of a lot more office space than their Houston hangar. There was enough traffic for them to keep a flight operation here in Austin, enough for two planes, but they had their main maintenance facility here as well, having moved that from Houston because they had much more room. "The space was originally for a Lear four fifty, so I'm sure your plane will fit in it," she told him. "What have you got?"
"A Cessna four hundred," he answered.
"Oh, nice, and that'll more than fit," she chuckled. "The spot's in the back of the hangar, but you'll have no trouble at all moving in and out, it's a big hangar. I'll give you a clicker that'll open the hangar door if you fly in after hours."
"Sounds good."
"We have an AVGas pump right inside, and we only have one turboprop that uses it," she said temptingly.
He laughed. "Yes, I'll buy my gas from you, if you take Transport."
"Of course we do," she said with a giggle. "Now, were you told that this isn't permanent?"
"Yeah, my sister said I can have the spot for four months."
"Yeah. Our plane's coming back after the London office takes delivery of a new eight fifty that's scheduled for delivery four months from now."
Kit whistled. "Expensive."
"Worth it, our London expansion is really busy," she said. "The new tunnel dropped off charter travel to Paris, but there's lots of other European cities, and London's a big arrival point for business. The eight fifty's gonna do commuter routes from London to other cities. Our number crunchers say the plane will pay itself off in five years."
"Sounds like it was a good investment, then."
"I certainly hope so," she laughed. "I'd prefer you come to park the plane when I'm here. Can you bring it here today?"
"Well, if my friend is home, I think we could get it done before I have to go to work," he said, looking at the clock.
"Well, you have my number, call me if you can."
"Sure."
Lupe was indeed home, and he was willing to give Kit a hand. Lupe drove with him as he went up to Georgetown, telling Alice he was on his way on the phone on the way up, and he parked his truck behind his plane at the airport. "Now, you know where to go?"
"Yeah, brah, the backside of the airport. You have to go down one seventy-one to get there. Avia, right?"
"Yup," he said, getting out of his truck and giving Lupe the key. "Do not burn out my clutch," he warned.
Lupe laughed. "I know how to drive a stick, brah," he assured him.
"I should be there waiting for you," Kit told him, which made Lupe laugh.
"You better be. If you got beat somewhere by a car, you'd have to hand in your license in shame."
"Oh, it can definitely happen, Lupe," he said. "If they stick me in a holding pattern, you might get there before I can land."
"Well, let's hope it don't happen."
Kit took off for the second time that day for a five minute flight from Georgetown to Austin. He barely managed to get over a thousand feet before he was descending again, being guided down by a controller at Bergstrom. Bergstrom had two full-length runways for jets and two smaller runways to the southeast of them for small planes, and that was where Kit was sent to land. He relied on an airport layout graphic he brought up on his laptop computer, sitting in the copilot's seat, to guide himself to the Avia hangar, and he called Alice from inside the plane as he was taxiing down a long line of hangars. "I'm on the ground and coming to the hangar," he told her.
"Okay, park outside and I'll show you around before you taxi in."
Alice was a small collie, short and thin, but she was bouncy. She explained the procedures they used in the hangar while they walked down the clearly marked center line, showing him how the hangar was divided into four quadrants for the four planes that would be parked there. The two planes in the front of the hangar were both Citation business jets, the little CJ1 models, the six seater versions, obviously in for maintenance. The front two bays were their maintenance bays, while the back of the hangar looked to house two planes. The plane in the back on the left was a Cessna 421, an eight passenger turboprop, which was the one permanently assigned to Austin, while the back right area, cordoned off with yellow paint on the floor, was empty. There was an open garage door on the left side of the hangar, between the Citation and the 421, probably for maintenance trucks or clients, and there were doors that looked like they went to offices behind the empty area that would be his parking spot, which was in the back of the hangar on the right side. "Okay, this is yours for four months," she told him, pointing to the empty marked area in the back right of the hangar. "Everything inside the paint. The AV pump is right there, and the hoses should easily reach your plane. Just log how many gallons you pump and we'll bill you for it," she assured him. "You're free to taxi in and out without getting a tow since your plane is so small, just warn everyone before you do it. I'll give you a remote for the hangar and garage door so you don't have to get in and out to open it, it's an auto-open one. We own the six tie down spots outside the hangar too, so if you can't get the doors open for some reason, tie down out there, so you won't have to pay to park."
"Can I drive into the hangar?"
"Sure, we let clients do it all the time. That's what that garage door over there is for," she said, pointing to the open double-sized garage door. "The clicker I'll give you opens that door too. Just drive down the middle between the red lines, stay out of the plane areas. I'll even let you park your car in your plane spot, since your plane's so small."
"Wow, thanks a lot, that's nice of you."
"No sweat," she shrugged. "You're paying rent, after all, so may as well let you get your money's worth," she winked. "Let's go up to the office so you can sign the contract."
Lupe was waiting in the lobby when he came in from the back. He waved to Kit, and gave Alice a curious, assessing look he saved for femmes that caught his interest. Kit had to chuckle; Lupe would lay the moves on her when they were done. After Kit read and signed the four month lease agreement, he went back out and taxied his plane into the hangar. He had no trouble at all getting it to his area, which was entirely too big for his plane, so much room he could easily turn the plane around with his Pathfinder parked inside the yellow lines within the spot. Alice and Lupe were talking near the door leading to the offices as Kit got out of his plane and locked it up, then he greeted one of the Avia workers who wandered over to admire his plane. They chatted a minute, until a stern look from Alice sent him scurrying back to the 421 and what he was doing. But her entire demeanor changed when she turned to talk to Lupe again, becoming all demure and coy. Kit saw that she was interested in Lupe, and was already playing the game with him.
Kit had to stand there and listen to them exchange goofy lines, then exchanged phone numbers, then Lupe finally asked her out. "So, how does dinner and a movie sound?" he asked her.
"Well, I think I could go for that," she said with an appealing little smile, looking up at him. Lupe wasn't very tall, but at least he was taller than her. "How about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow's fine with me," Lupe grinned.
"Lupe, I have to go to work," he reminded him.
"Oh. Oh, yeah. Sure. Gotta go, babe. I'll call ya."
"You'd better," she said with a smile, which made Lupe chuckle.
"Damn, she's cute," Lupe said as they walked to his truck, the garage door opener-like control in Kit's paw. Lupe had parked in the lot outside the side of the hangar facing the public, which was covered in white stone and had the Avia logo painted in blue over the glass doors.
"She's a smart one, Lupe, be careful."
"We'll see," Lupe grinned.
"And remember she's in control of the space I'm renting for my plane," Kit added. "You piss her off and get me evicted, we're gonna have words."
Lupe gave him a look, then laughed delightedly. "Then somebody'd better take a dive during poker on Sunday," he grinned.
"Ohh, it sounds like someone doesn't want rummage rights through our leftovers."
Lupe winced. "That's dirty pool, brah."
"Vulpans go for the throat," Kit noted in a calm voice.
Work turned out to be nearly as exciting as that morning, for when he showed up at one, nearly late, a small ocelot in a dark suit was standing in the main office waiting for him, with several uniformed members of the Austin Police behind her. Two furs he didn't know were in his office, sitting at his desk, going through his computer. She stepped up to him and handed him a two folded sheaves of papers wrapped in blue, and Kit knew what they were.
A search warrant.
"What now?" he sighed.
"We have a search warrant, ordering you to surrender all notes, transcripts, drafts, edits, and or recordings pertaining to an article written about an illegal brothel," the ocelot told him.
"Well, I don't have any of it," he told them. "They were all destroyed as part of my agreement with my source."
The ocelot gave him a dark look. "If you're lying and covering for your source, sir, you can be charged with obstruction of justice if we find anything."
"You're already snooping, go right ahead. You're not going to find what I don't have. I'll guarantee you you won't find anything."
And they didn't. Mike was no fool; because they worked in a magazine, every workstation in the office had a program that eradicated data off of the hard drive by zeroing the disk, causing the hard drive to write blank data over what one wanted deleted from the hard drives, which destroyed it. Kit had that same program on his laptop and home computers, and he had run it there as well. They couldn't use a disk snooper to reconstruct that data, because the hard drive had completely written over all of it, permanently destroying it.
The computer techs in his office were quick to realize that. "He has Data Wiper on his workstation, counsel," the short cat told the ocelot. "If he ran it, we won't recover anything off this computer."
"Like I told you, I destroyed all my notes," Kit said simply. "And I'm not naïve enough to think that just hitting delete on my computer erases it forever." He offered up his laptop as well. "And you'll see I have that program on my laptop too."
The techs took his laptop, started it up, then frowned when it was up and running. "We can check, counsel, but I doubt we're going to find anything."
"Check it."
The DVD he burned did, however, come up. "I see here that you burned word documents to a DVD," the tech said after he worked with his laptop. "Where is this DVD?"
"I've burned quite a few DVDs," he said simply. "What file names?"
When the tech repeated them, Kit knew that those were the research notes because of the dates they were burned to the DVD. They weren't given names that anyone but him would really understand; they didn't say Allison's notes or anything like that, they were listed by the evolution of the article, with names such as base notes or outline or second draft. Since Kit never worked on more than one article at a time, he never felt any need to differentiate; that came when he archived the information. When he archived it, it was bundled under the title of the article then all the individual files were renamed to reflect the archive, since he often changed the titles of articles halfway through writing them.
Besides, using the same names for all his research files always put the same names in his documents list on his shortcut window. After archiving, he just cleared everything out of the files and started over.
"If you can see I've burned DVDs, why don't you keep looking? I burn DVDs of those same files over and over, it's part of my archiving system that keeps things standardized. Since I do the archiving for all the writers, I change the names of their research files to a standard format then burn it. We keep three copies of all our notes and background information. One copy is in our server, another is the backups of the server, and the last is kept on DVDs in hard storage in case of some kind of cataclysm that wipes out all of Mike's backups of our network data." He pointed at the wall. "Two doors down, you'll find our storage room with a few boxes of DVDs, all organized by week. That's our hard storage archive."
"So, you burned a DVD of the information we want?"
"Do I look dumb to you?" Kit asked simply. "I promised my source I would destroy all notes. Why on earth would I burn a DVD of notes I intended to destroy?"
And that was the easy way to avoid answering the question–and maybe get busted for perjury–while giving an indirect answer they'd buy.
Vil didn't raise a fool.
"Then what did you burn on this DVD?"
"That week, I'd say it was Barry's interview with the head of the Austin Election Commission. Either that or background notes on instances of gay hate crimes committed around the U.T. campus. Maybe both. I don't recall exactly."
Kit waited patiently for them to go get the DVD, silently praying that they took him on his word and didn't actually check the DVD to see if its volume number matched the number of the DVD he burned. That would require them to load the DVD, where the DVD they'd go get would have the same week written on it as the DVD he burned. He almost held his breath when they came back, and was silently gleeful when he saw they did not have the DVD with them.
"It's there," the tech told the ocelot. "Right where he said it was. Two DVDs burned that week."
"Did you see what was on them?" the ocelot asked.
"Do you really think he'd leave it out like that?" the tech asked.
"Check."
Kit was again inwardly nervous as the tech went and got the two DVDs he'd burned that week, then checked them one by one. One of them had the same list of files he'd burned to the DVD, matching up exactly. "This is it," the tech said, holding up the DVD. "It's the one about the election commission."
Thank God he was such a creature of habit! And thank God they were just looking at file names! And thank God he didn't just merge everything to one DVD and burn it all together like he usually did! But that week was so wild, so messed up, he'd not done it all together. It was the only week in the box that had more than one DVD for it. That little mistake was saving his ass right now!
"We're done here, counsel," the tech said. "There's nothing here."
"Alright then. If you'd come with us, Mister Vulpan, we'll go check your house and home computers."
Kit didn't entirely like them coming into his house, but when they arrived at his apartment, he showed them to his den and let the techs go after his computers while uniforms searched his house. One of them did come up with a DVD, taken out of the closet, and Kit's cheek fur ruffled a little when he realized just what that DVD was. "Uh, if you're going to look at that one, I'd ask you clear the room of the males," he said quietly to the ocelot. "That one has some pictures on it of my wife that I don't think I'd like seen by anyone but a femme."
She was at least accommodating in that regard. He let her use his laptop to investigate the DVD. After bringing up a text list of files, then seeing they were all picture files, she quietly removed it and gave it back to him. "It clearly has no documents on it," she said.
"Thank you, ma'am," Kit said sincerely, putting it back in the case.
It was a very nervous hour. Kit did in fact have that DVD in the house, but it was hidden in a rather ingenious way; in plain sight. It was in the entertainment center, inside a Pretty Femme DVD movie case. The movie DVD itself was over at Sheila's apartment, and he wanted that DVD where he could get at it quickly and easily but also keep it hidden, so he Lightscribed a copy of the DVD art of Pretty Femme on the DVD, and then put it in the case. The police did go through his entertainment center, but thankfully, they didn't check every single disc in all his DVD and game disc cases. The Pretty Femme box was just shuffled aside after the uniform officer opened it and just glanced inside, saw Pretty Femme printed on the DVD, and then moved on.
They had missed it.
After an hour in his apartment, the techs and police came up empty. The ocelot then handed him another piece of blue-wrapped papers. "This is a subpoena, Mister Vulpan," she told him. "Since there's no notes, you'll have to testify about it in person. Wednesday, March fifteenth, ten o'clock at the courthouse."
"Oh joy," he said blandly.
"We'll take you back to your office, then," she said.
Once he got back, Rick, Savid, Barry and he all congregated in Rick's office, and they talked about it. Kit made it plain that he was not going to give them any answers at all, which was what Rick wanted to hear from him. Rick and Savid basically gave Kit their full support, since they were listed as the editors of the magazine and they'd probably get subpoenaed next, but they were relieved when Kit said he'd talk to Kevin about it. Kevin was his lawyer, so this was his domain. "We should have called him as soon as they started searching, son," Rick told him. "Because I'm not entirely sure that search warrant was entirely legal. Did they cause any trouble?"
"No, they didn't trash our house or anything like that."
"Did they find anything?" Savid asked.
"I destroyed all of it," he said, giving Rick a look that told him he was lying, mainly for Barry and Savid. Rick already knew that he intended to keep one copy of his notes, and that DVD… and it would get moved tomorrow.
It was time to abuse his family's connections just a tiny bit more.
He called Vil as soon as the meeting broke up. He needed her help, but he was also fearful that they were tapping his phone, so he was very careful. "Sis," he said, "can you do me a favor?"
"Well, sure. What is it?"
He was quiet a second, then spoke in a voice that told her that he was deadly, deadly serious. "I just had the Austin police search my office and my house," he told her, "and I got subpoenaed."
"What? Oh, like hell they did!" she said with sudden heat. "I'll–"
"You'll leave it alone," Kit told her. "Let me call Kevin and see what kind of legal options I have before you start going Rambo all over everyone."
She actually laughed. "I have every right to protect my little brother from being harassed," she declared.
"Yeah, well, let me talk to Kevin first. I have the right to protect my sources, so I don't think they can really make me testify. But I want to talk to Kevin first."
"I'll–"
"Vil, don't talk, listen. Let me handle it. But, there is something you can do for me. Is that lawyer you went to school with still here in Austin, the one that used to work as a courier? I'd like to talk to him about it, and I know he's good. I want to talk to him face to face. If they subpoenaed me, well, they may be doing something I've seen done before, so I'd rather not use the phone."
She was silent just a second. "Yes, my lawyer friend is still in Austin," she answered in a tone he knew meant she understood what he was really asking. "I'll call him and have him drop by your office tomorrow morning to talk to you about it."
"Thanks, sis."
"Any time, bro."
Take that, the District Attorney of Travis County. If he trapped Kit into admitting that hard copies of his article notes existed, and he wanted that information, he was going to have to wrestle Vil for it… and Kit rather doubted he had the balls to try.
"Now, let me make a few calls," she said in a grim voice. "They're not gonna push around my little brother," she actually seethed.
"I can take care of myself, and like I said, let me call Kevin before anyone does anything. Let's see where the law is before we start going Vulpan all over people."
She laughed helplessly over the phone. "Going Vulpan! God, is that ever the truth!"
After talking to Vil, he called Kevin. Rick was probably right that they should have called Kevin when the cops were searching, but on the other paw, they left without finding anything. Had they backed him into a corner, odds were he'd have called Kevin to come help. Kevin was startled to hear about it, and was in the office not ten minutes later, reading the copy of the search warrant he was given as well as the subpoena. "Well, this search warrant is legit," he said, turning it over. "I'd have had to argue against anything they found in a hearing after the fact. It's signed by a judge, that's all they really need, and I know that judge's signature. I clerked for him. Since they came up empty, they'll have a hell of a time trying to get another one for the office and your house, but they could try to get one to search your cars, your plane, or your safe deposit box. If they try, call me immediately and don't let them start searching until I get there. But this subpoena, this doesn't sit right with me. I need to go look up some cases, but there's something about it that's not ironclad," he said, looking at it. "I'm almost positive we can get you out of it. Let me go back to the firm and talk to Delores. I may be your attorney, but she's also my boss and always makes me tell her about any work I do for you, to make sure I do it right. She's also very well versed in criminal law. If there's any hole at all in this subpoena, she'll find it, and then we'll quash it. Can I take this back to the firm?"
"It's all yours," Kit told him earnestly. "I take it you're now on retainer?"
He laughed. "Nah, I'll do the research and file the motion for you pro bono, especially since you helped me set up that entertainment center last week. This is no big thing. But, if I have to go argue in a courtroom, that's another matter," he said delicately.
"I don't mind paying, Kev. You are my lawyer. I don't expect you to do this for free."
"I'll do the easy stuff free, at least what I can hide from the other partners but Delores," he grinned. "Delores won't say anything. I can't really hide doing real work if I'm going to the courthouse to argue a motion."
"I told you, no problem, Kev. As far as I'm concerned, you're on retainer right now."
"That'll make Delores happy," he chuckled. "You know, I'm amazed they're doing this."
"What do you mean?"
"Kit, you may be down here, but you're a Vulpan. The DA has to know that if he pisses off your family, they'll destroy him. Someone like Vil could ruin him with a flick of her wrist all the way from Boston."
"Well, I'm outcast from the family and it's basically common knowledge, so I guess he's willing to take the risk."
"If I were the DA, I'd never have the balls to try it," he admitted. "I value my life. But, from what I've heard of the DA in office now, he's one of those crusader types. You know, war against drugs, war against crime, war against indecency. But if he thinks he's big enough to play in the Vulpan's sandbox, he's either really brave or really stupid. It'll be a rude awakening for him the first time he deals with your sister. Anyway, let me take this back and talk to Delores. I'll call you when we have something, either tonight or early tomorrow."
Kit called Vil back and told her what Kevin said. "See, there's no reason for you to come down here and buy out the city in a snit," he told her. "Kevin's pretty sure that the subpoena is flawed, and he's talking to Delores Kittimer about it. They'll let me know more either tonight or tomorrow, but Kevin said the outlook is very good. So just leave this one alone for now, sis. Let's hear what Delores has to say first. Until then, leave it alone."
"Well… alright. I don't like it, but alright."
"You have to let me grow up eventually, big sister," he teased.
She laughed. "I guess I am being a nosy mom," she admitted. "If I start acting like Hannah, you have official permission to smack me on the nose."
The search and subpoena were a surprise, but it also didn't grind the office to a halt. They all had work to do, and a lot of it, since next issue was expanding by 14 pages, from the old target length of 24 pages to the new target length of 38. That was 14 pages of additional information, 14 pages they had to fill with interesting, viable stuff, and not just ads. Rick was absolutely adamant about his ratio of material to ads, and that meant that 79% of those pages had to be filled with articles, pictures, or other features. It was a noticeable increase in work for the four staff writers, for now Lilly and Marty were doing real writing, Barry was doing an extra article, and Kit was doing an extra article on top of his researching duties. Barry's article was about the lack of swimming pools for recreation for students in Austin, and Kit's extra article was about spring break destinations for students either with low money or no car of their own to get around. Kit had to research the data for both of those articles, as well as research for the closing of The Pit for Lilly's article, and the statistics Marty needed for his article about gay hate crimes on the U.T. campus, for there had been just such an incident four days ago that involved the spray painting of an anti-gay slogan on a car parked near campus. It was work for everyone else too, for Savid and Jeffrey had a lot more graphics to design, Sheila wasn't there, so Mike and Denise were running everyone's errands, and Rick had to manage it all. The only ones that didn't have a huge workload increase from the expansion were Denise and Mike, but they did anything and everything they could for everyone else. Mike also spent that time going out to take the photographs they needed for the issue, he did proofreading and formatting for the writers, he volunteered to do some footwork tonight to cover some nightclubs to help Lilly with her The Scene duties, and he also expanded the website by adding a new page where people could submit photos for the new feature they were introducing next week, named Student Snapshots. Denise had taken over for Sheila doing the little things as best she could, often rushing back to her desk to answer the phone, trying to help everyone as much as she could. Rick rewarded her by giving her a piece of Marty's usual duties, letting her pick some of the letters for the mailbag which she had to proofread and edit to fit in the allotted size without changing the meaning of the writer's intent. It was her first real journalism project since working for them, and she was happy to take her shot at it.
It was really busy in the office, with a focus that they didn't often show. They'd all lost time because of the search that disrupted the office, and in a magazine working on a deadline, losing an afternoon was a bad thing. Everyone felt like they were already close to deadline, so there wasn't as much bantering and visiting, but there was a hell of a lot of work. Mike went out for pizza for everyone since nobody wanted to leave for lunch, and Jessie showed up with Sandy, Charlotte, and Sam around four. "Wow, it's so quiet," Jessie noted as Sandy went to Jeffrey's office, and Charlotte stood out in the main office talking with Lilly, who had come out of Rick's office.
"We're kinda busy," Kit told her as Sam and Charlotte wandered in behind his wife, sending Marty's research off to him, then looking at Sam and Charlotte. "Guys, can we have a minute?"
"No hanky-panky at work," Charlotte teased, but the serious look on Kit's face deflated her humor a little. "Uh, sure. We'll wait out in the office."
"What's going on, handsome fox?" Jessie asked.
"They served a search warrant on me this morning and searched the office and our house. And I got subpoenaed."
"What? Why?" she asked, her face aghast.
He explained it to her quickly, then leaned back in his chair. "They didn't find anything, of course. I've been around the block enough times to get past it."
"Did you tell Vil?"
He nodded. "She's going to help, in her own way, but I did talk to Kevin. He said there's nothing we can really do about the search warrant, and not to really worry about it, especially since they came up empty. They can't really ask for another one since they didn't find anything this time, unless they get a warrant for our safe deposit box. But they won't find anything in there either. But, he also thinks the subpoena is illegal, so he's filing a motion to quash it. He said Misses Kittimer is going to let him handle my case, but she'll be watching over him personally to make sure he does it right."
"Well, that does make me feel a little better," Jessie said. "I mean, I love Kev, but he is just starting. Misses Kittimer is a partner, she's got lots of experience."
"I'm sure they'll handle it. Kev said it'd just take a quick brief and a few hours of research, then the hearing to quash the motion. He's not charging us for anything but having to go to court, though, which is really nice of him. Kev knows we're not exactly rich, and I appreciate them not making us dig into our crisis fund."
"They searched our house, didn't they?"
He nodded. "They didn't tear it up, I was watching them. They found our honeymoon DVD, but they didn't see anything on it."
"Oh, thank God!" Jessie said, her cheeks blooming.
"So, that's the big news. They didn't find anything, and they never will. The firm is on the case to defend me against the subpoena, so we're just waiting to hear back from Kevin."
"I'm going to feel weird in our house now, knowing a bunch of strangers went through our stuff," she said, a bit indignantly. "It'll take time for it to feel like it's ours again."
"I know the feeling. Anyway, as far as non-earthshaking news goes," he said, which made her giggle, "I also moved the plane this morning. Vil found me a temporary place to park the plane on Bergstrom that's inside a hangar, renting a spot from a commuter airline that had an extra space in their hangar. But I can only use it for four months, then the plane that occupies that space is going to be back."
"Well, that's better than nothing," she noted.
"Yeah. Lupe took me up to Georgetown and picked me up at Bergstrom, and he already has a date with the hangar manager for the airline," he grunted.
Jessie giggled, obviously starting to feel a little better. "He's such a dog," she said.
"No doubt there, but at least he has enough sense not to go after Sheila."
"You think there's going to be a lot of trouble over the article?"
He shook his head. "I have rock solid constitutional rights," he said. "This is about protecting a source, and they can't do anything about it. They'd never even try this if I worked for the newspaper or a big magazine. They think us little rinky-dink city magazines don't know our rights, so they're trying to intimidate me into giving up my source."
"I hope so."
"I know so," he said confidently.
"Well, let me get my work done, love," she said. "I have some writing to do for Jeffrey."
"So, when's the wedding?" he asked with a grin, referring to her Missy and Cutler strips.
"As if I'd ever tell you," she said primly. She kept the plot evolution of her strips a secret, even from him. "There may not even be a wedding!"
"Suuuure," he teased.
"Just for that, I'll make sure there's not," she teased, turning her back and flicking her tail at him insultingly as she strode from the office.
Jessie went home after about an hour, which Charlotte and Sandy spent in her office with her and Sam spent out in the big office on the phone with Kevin. The four of them were going to a movie tonight, since it was Kit's late night and Kevin wasn't able to go out because he had in the middle of his second trial before Kit dropped this on him, and he didn't like to go out while actively trying his case. Sam certainly understood, and gave him the space he needed so he could give his clients all the attention he deserved. Lilly and Mike left to do their footwork for The Scene, and Rick, Savid, and Jeffrey called it a night around nine. Kit stayed in the office to finish up Lilly's research, then got home around eleven. By doing it tonight, he could leave a little early on Saturday.
He got home to find the lights out everywhere but in the bedroom. He set the alarm and dropped off his attaché by the couch on his way back, and found Jessie laying in bed on her side, wearing a seductive lace teddy that he noticed immediately. "Welcome home, love," she said to him, swishing her tail behind herself sensually. "After all the stress today, I thought you could use a little relaxation therapy."
"What a welcome," he said with an eager smile, which turned into a hurried act of obedience when she crooked her finger at him.
Saturday was just as busy, and a big relief for him. Not a minute after he arrived and unlocked the office a few minutes before nine, a fur in a business suit came into the office and called out. When Kit came out of his office, he introduced himself as an old friend of Vil's and showed him his Vulpan Shipyards ID card and Massachusetts driver's license, which was what Kit wanted to know; this fur was Vil's courier. They talked for about five minutes, then Kit gave him his encrypted DVD. He was gone before anyone else made it into the office.
Mike had come in on his day off to help Lilly compile her club information for The Scene, Marty was in, Barry was in, and Kit, as usual, was in before everyone else. But Kit had finished all the research for everyone else's articles, so he only had to worry about his own article today. He did, though, have some advance research for planned articles in a few weeks dealing with the elections. There was going to be a Democratic debate in Austin in late March at big auditorium in U.T., and they were planning to cover it. Rick had already secured press passes for himself, Kit, Barry, Lilly, Marty, and Mike, and he was currently busting his ass trying to secure at least one interview with at least one candidate. He doubted that he was going to pull off that miracle, for why would a Presidential candidate bother to interview with a magazine that circulated in two mid-sized cities and a small town near them, but he was trying. Rick had spent almost all day yesterday calling campaigns trying to arrange an interview, with no luck.
The day started off rather well. After getting his DVD into Vil's safe paws, Kevin called him back in a conference call with his boss, Delores Kittimer, who was a partner at his firm. "Kit, we can quash your subpoena," Kevin told him right off.
"The subpoena violates precedents Texas law follows called bad faith subpoenas," Delores explained. "If a subpoena serves no purpose other than to try to force a journalist to reveal his source, without any other evidence, then Texas law has followed a precedent that says that's not allowed. I talked to the DA's office, and they have nothing. All they have is the article, no evidence, not even any certainty there was even a crime and if it happened in their jurisdiction if there was, and that's not enough. I'm completely confident we can quash the subpoena."
"Thank God," Kit said with a sigh. "When will it happen?"
"We talked to the judge yesterday afternoon. Since the court date is so close, he'll listen to our motion to quash it when you have to show up to testify, to give the prosecution a chance to present any other evidence first. He'll listen to the motion and then rule then."
"Okay, so I still show up at the courthouse on Wednesday?"
"Yes. We'll be there with you," Delores told him. "Kevin will be chairing the argument."
"And Misses Kittimer will be right there to make sure I do it right," Kevin chuckled.
"That's my job as your boss, Kevin," she chuckled in reply.
"Thank God," Kit sighed. "Thank you, guys, thank you so much."
"We're your attorneys, Kit," Delores said gently. "It's our job and our privilege to be there for you when you need legal representation."
"Well, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate it, especially since you didn't charge me at all."
"Well, what we did before, checking out the subpoena, that was pro bono. But, I'm afraid we'll have to bill you for the court date. Not me, just Kevin," she said quickly. "I'm just going to be there as an observer, on my own time. Kevin will be the only one billing hours."
"I don't mind at all, Misses Kittimer," Kit told her honestly. "Kev said he'd check out the subpoena as a favor, since I did him a favor last week. I never expected you to do it for free if you had to do real work for me, so bill me for whatever real work you had to do. It's only fair."
"I'm glad you feel that way. We'll only bill you for whatever time it takes at the hearing, though. It only took me about two minutes to find the holes in the subpoena and call a friend in the DA's office, and I won't charge for two minutes."
Kit laughed. "Well, I do truly appreciate that, Misses Kittimer," he told her. "I'm not sure I could afford two of your minutes."
She giggled girlishly. "They would be very eventful minutes," she said with feigned seriousness.
Kit called Vil almost immediately after he was off the phone. "Delores said–"
"I know what she said, she told me before she called you," she told him, rather smugly. "I'll give over on this one, bro. I'll let your lawyers handle it, because Delores absolutely promised me she'd kill this subpoena and get them off your back. If she fails, I'm gonna take a huge bite out of her ass. You don't double-cross a Vulpan," she said, a bit vindictively.
"I'm happy to hear that, sis."
"I'll still be watching, though," she warned. "And if Delores fails, I'll take care of it."
"I won't say a word if it does," he promised, "because I promised my source I'd keep her secret, and I'll go to jail before I break that promise. But I'm not too keen on the idea of being thrown in jail," he admitted with a chuckle.
"You leave that to me," she told him. "If they try to send you to jail, call me. I'll step on that DA so fast he won't have time to squeal."
"It's a deal."
Saturday was his flex day, and he often had the luxury to leave early when he got all his work done. But Kit hung around to do some accounting work for Rick, as Rick had taught him his books and often let Kit enter payments and charges to their accounts so long as Kit left a detailed ledger of what he'd done. That put Kit in a position to know the financial health of the magazine better than anyone else. They were going to be in the red for the first expanded issue, but Rick's notes and advertiser database showed him that they'd break even for their second, and show a profit for their third and beyond. Rick had secured more advertisers than he expected for the expansion, and some of them already had print ads designed and ready to go rather than having to get them created. That would get the magazine back into profitability much faster than Rick had planned… though Kit's investment was still a huge benefit. It was literally paying their salaries this week, and would help pay them next week. As he invested more money, it would be capital the magazine could keep in reserve in case of an emergency, and also give them the ability to buy some new equipment if they needed it. Rick, for example, was considering buying a car titled to the magazine, which he could then drive and claim against taxes for both the car and for the gas and other expenditures he paid out for it. In effect, Rick was going to drive a company car, which let him claim every penny of expenses he shelled out for that car against taxes, which he couldn't do with his truck. Kit thought that that was rather clever, and Rick did deserve to get something back for all the hard work he'd put into the magazine. Replacing his 12 year old truck would be suitable reward.
He keyed in a series of expense reports Barry had submitted for little things like batteries and gas for his car when his Blackberry rang. Rick did compensate them for gas but not the other little things, and they were tax deductible as business expenses, for either the magazine and for them. Rick claimed the compensation for gas against the magazine's taxes and kept track of other expenses for the reporters, which would help them when it was time for them to claim the expenses against their taxes. Kit kept every receipt of everything he spent for the magazine, for he fully intended to claim it on his taxes next year. He picked up his phone and saw it was Martha, so he put it to his ear as he finished putting in an expense on the Excel spreadsheet. "Hey Martha, what's up?"
"Kit," Martha said quickly. "You need to come to Austin General."
"What's wrong? What happened?"
"Rick broke his leg," she said quickly. "He was fixing the roof on the barn and fell off."
"Oh my God! Is he okay?"
"He's in surgery right now, dear. His leg was pretty badly broken. The bone was sticking out," she said, then he gave her a second to recover herself. "Can you get down here?"
"I'll be right down. Let me call Jessie and go pick her up, then I'm on the way. Do you need anything?"
"No, dear, no, thank you. Just come down."
"I'm on my way."
"Thank you, Kit."
"Any time, Martha. See you in a few minutes. Bye now."
When Martha hung up, he snatched up his Blackberry and speed dialed Jessie. "Hey, my handsome fox," she said sweetly.
"Love, be ready for me to pick you up, we have to go to the hospital," he told her quickly as he rushed for the door. "Rick broke his leg."
"Oh no! Is he okay?"
"Martha said he had to have surgery, it was a compound fracture. Can you call Mike and have him spread the word?"
"Sure, sure I can. I'll call Vil and tell her too, she'll want to know."
"Okay. I'm setting the alarm right now, so I should be home in about ten minutes or so."
"Alright, I'll be waiting."
Kit drove perhaps a little too fast, and found Jessie standing by their assigned parking space with her phone to her face. She climbed into the Pathfinder quickly when he pulled up without pulling into the space, holding up traffic while she got in, then they hurried off. "No, I don't know, Lilly," Jessie was saying into the phone. "Kit said Martha said Rick was in surgery. I don't know which room. Just get to Austin General, that's where we're all headed, we can meet in the lobby and figure it all out. Okay, let me call Jeffrey, you make the calls and I'll see you at the hospital. Bye-bye." She lowered the phone and scrolled through the numbers on her display. "I've told Mike and Lilly so far," she told him. "Mike said he'd call Barry and Savid, and Lilly said she'd call Denise and Marty."
"Good," Kit said as he turned. "Did you tell Vil yet?"
"No, I'm starting local and working my way out," she said. "Mike was asking me a million questions I couldn't answer."
"We should call Sheila and let her know too," Kit said. "She can't get back up here 'til I go get her, but she does deserve to know. She works there too, after all."
"Okay, I'll call her next. Jeffrey? It's Jessie."
Kit got them to the hospital in seven minutes, by nearly running a few red lights. He parked in the visitor lot, and Jessie was calling Sheila as they hurried towards the main entrance. Kit called Martha's cell phone to find out where in the hospital she was, and he and Jessie finished at almost the same time. "Sheila asked you to come pick them up tomorrow morning," she said. "They're going to cut their trip short."
"I can do that. Martha's on her way to the third floor from outside, in the waiting room just off the elevator," he told her. "She doesn't know how much longer he's going to be in surgery."
"Okay. I'll call Vil, so I'll see you up there." Austin General was one of the few hospitals that allowed the use of cell phones inside, but only in hospital rooms. They didn't allow anyone to use them in waiting rooms or hallways to keep cell phone users from disturbing other furs, so Jessie already knew that she had to wait outside by the front doors to call Vil from her cell phone.
He met Martha in the third floor waiting room. The tall, slightly plump Great Dane gave him a crushing hug, twinging his back a little bit, and he patted her on the back as she held onto him for a long moment. "It's going to be alright, Martha, it's just a broken leg," he told her assuringly.
"I know, dear, but surgery is surgery," she answered. He pushed out enough to look into her eyes, holding her paws in his own.
"What happened exactly?"
"Well, Rick was working on the barn, fixing a leak up on the roof, when he just slipped. He slid down the roof and right off the edge."
"He should have asked for help," Kit grunted.
"Our next-door neighbor was helping him, dear," she said. "It was just an accident."
"How long has he been in surgery?" he asked.
"He just went in when I called you," she said. "It was the first chance I had to tell anyone."
"I understand, Martha," he said, patting her forearm. "Are you alright?"
"I–it's just frightening, dear," she told him. "I know it's not life threatening, but you didn't see it. It was horrible," she shuddered.
"Well, the docs will get him all patched up, don't you worry."
Jessie came out of the elevator and rushed into Martha's arms, giving her a long, compassionate hug. "It's going to be okay, Martha," she said.
"Thank you, dear," she said.
More and more furs arrived, both ones he knew and ones he didn't. A portly doberman shook his paw and introduced himself as Bill Wilson, who was the fur helping Rick with the roof when he fell. "I tried to catch him, but he just," he said, whistling and sliding his paw over his other quickly. "Was over before I could even reach out." He met a few other of Rick's neighbors, all farmers and ranchers, where Rick lived on a tiny ranch that didn't have any animals or stock. Rick had bought it for a song from an elderly couple who couldn't work it anymore when he moved back to Austin ten years ago, after leaving a job with Newsweek to strike out on his own in the journalism world. Rick was a native son, who had left to work with Newsweek, then had returned because his high-school sweetheart wanted to go back home. Rick had worked at the newspaper a few years, "trading down" as some had accused him, but that was only extra income for him to help raise enough capital to start his own magazine. The waiting room filled up as not just the crew came in, but with other friends. Sam and Kevin hurried in, no doubt told by Jeffrey through Sandy, and the sorority wolf, Charlotte, showed up out of the blue. "We met at the wedding," she said in explanation to Kit. "Rick was really nice. I hope he's okay. Any word?"
"No word yet," Kit told her. "He's been in for about an hour."
After nearly everyone was there, Kit got a text from Vil to have him call her. He went outside and speed dialed her, and she picked up before it even went half a ring. "Bro," she said. "I'm over Ohio right now. I should be there in about three and a half hours. How is he?"
"No word yet," he answered. "He's still in surgery."
"Kit! Kit, he's okay!" Jessie shouted, running out of the front doors towards him. "He's going to a room!"
"Oh thank God," Kit said explosively. "He just got out of surgery," he told Vil. "Pretty kitty said they're moving him to a room. Let me go up and see him, I can call from the hospital room."
"Okay, call me when you get up there."
Holding Jessie's paw, Kit rushed up the stairs with her to the second floor, and down a corridor. They entered a private room filled with furs, and Rick was the center of attention. His lower left leg was wrapped up thick bandages and braces, and his tail also splinted in a brace. "Rick," Kit said thickly, supplanting Savid and taking Kit's paw at his bedside. "How you feeling, friend?"
"Very groggy," he said. "But, they said I'll be fine. Outside of a broken leg and fractured tail, no major damage."
"Thank God," he breathed. "Vil's on her way down. The instant she heard you were injured, she rushed straight to the airport."
"She's such a sweet femme," Martha said with a sniffle.
Kit called Vil to tell her, and Rick spent a moment talking to her on Kit's phone as Martha pulled him aside. "The doctors said there was no major damage, but the way his bones were broken is going to make it hard for him to get around," she told him. "He'll have to be in a wheelchair for a few weeks, they said. He can't put any weight at all on his leg, not even for crutches."
"Well, your house has a big door," he said. "And we can build a ramp to go up the porch steps."
"Kit," Rick called. He and Martha went back to his bedside, and he gave him back his phone, but not to talk to Vil. The call was ended. "Vil said she'll call you when she gets in," he said, then he put his paws out to both him and Savid, who was on his other side. "Kit. Savid. They said I'll be laid up for at least a week, and won't let me go to work. They won't cast my leg until they're sure it won't get infected, so I'm stuck in here for a few days. Then I'll have a couple of weeks in a wheelchair," he grunted. "You two are going to have to hold down the fort for me."
"We can do easily, Rick," Savid told him.
"Savid, you handle the editing for the issue. Marty can help you, and I want you there with him, Kit, so you can learn more about it. Kit, I need you to do the rest of my job. I know you know how. I trained you for it myself," he said with a smile.
"We'll keep the place from exploding for you, Rick," Kit told him.
"I know you can, son. I have all my appointments in my computer, you'll have to go in my place. I know it's gonna make it hard on you, son, doing my job on top of your own, and I'm sorry."
"Rick, we're a team," Lilly said with a tut. "We'll all help pull up the slack. We'll show you we don't need you around," she winked.
"Someone always has to watch you, you naughty femme," Rick teased in reply, which made her laugh.
"I can do a little of my own research for a week," Barry chuckled. "I'd rather do research than go try to wheedle money out of advertisers," he grinned at Kit.
"I don't wheedle," Kit said primly. "I tell them my sister will crush them like a bug if they don't buy space in our magazine. Vulpans prefer coercion and blackmail to weak-position tactics like wheedling," he said, which made everyone laugh.
"It's the tactical use of available assets to gain an advantage against business rivals," Jessie added. "Vil says so."
"She's corrupted my wife," Kit grunted.
"She doesn't look all that corrupted," Charlotte giggled.
"Wait a few months for the corruption to show," Sandy laughed. "She has pure evil growing in her belly!"
"Then you don't need to be at the baby shower, do you Sandy?" Jessie asked, which made Sandy laugh raucously.
The doctors let them visit for nearly an hour, as Rick mainly talked to Kit and Savid about what he wanted them to do while he was laid up, then they were hurried out so the doctors could do a check on him. Rick's neighbors agreed to meet at Rick and Martha's tomorrow to build a temporary ramp that would go up the porch. Jessie and the crew also agreed to come, to turn it into a "ramp raising party," but Kit had to bow out. He was going after Sheila and the others tomorrow. While many of the others went home, promising to come visit tomorrow after the ramp was built, several stayed at the hospital with Martha. Kit and Jessie stayed with her, as did Savid and his wife, an Indian mongoose named Nawa, and Sam and Kevin. Jessie sat with Martha, holding her paw as they waited for the doctors to let them back into his room, as Kit paced the room, going over in his mind how he was going to juggle his schedule to get those appointments done as well as get his normal work done. He had another major project coming up in an interview with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, but Barry was conducting that interview where Kit would be handling the research for him; Kit got the Smith interview, it was Barry's turn to get a major interview under his belt. There was also the Democratic debate that was coming up in a couple of weeks, and there was a hell of a lot of research to do for that, on the candidates, on the school, on the auditorium itself. On top of those major projects, there was an upcoming piece on the college of science's winning of several grants and their story on the debate over building a new sports facility that would house the basketball and volleyball teams, and the opposition by some students and officials because it would take one of the larger student parking lots as well as reduce the amount of sports facilities offered to the students by tearing down the student sports pavilion and replacing it with a much smaller one.
They let them back in his room after about ninety minutes, but Rick wasn't his usual self. They'd given him pain medication, so he was a little groggy and unfocused. He had this huge amalgamation of stitched canvas and chrome buckles around his left leg, a soft cast holding his broken bones in place, which was also elevated in traction, cradled in a sling of canvas held up by sturdy white cords. Sam noted that they were elevating it to reduce swelling when they went back into the room. Martha sat by his bed, patting his paw as he drifted through coherence in a manner Kit knew all too much, having experienced it from the inside more than once. The first couple of doses of a strong pain medication always put a fur out of it. Kit knew he'd be more coherent after the surge of the initial dose faded, which would put him in that "zone" of both coherence and lack of pain. Then the pain would creep back in, slowly, like some kind of insidious invader, until they gave one another dose.
Martha fed Rick some of the mediocre fare offered by hospitals when Vil arrived. She hurried into the room, hugged Jessie, hugged Kit, then sat by Rick's bedside. "Hey, old male," she said with a smile, patting his cheek and muzzle. "This is some way to get me to come down and see you."
He chuckled. "I don't recommend it," he said.
"I talked to the doctors, they said you'll be right back to kicking tail in about six weeks," she smiled. "How did you break it?"
He laughed ruefully. "I fell off my barn's roof," he admitted.
"You have a whole stable of young males working for you you could have made come out and fix your barn," she grinned.
"And most of them have no idea which end of the hammer to hold," he retorted.
"Well, that might be true. I certainly don't know how to swing a hammer," she admitted. "What are you going to do about the magazine?"
"I'll have Savid and Kit mind the shop until I'm back," he said.
"Well, that'll work," she said with a nod. "Now, what were you doing up there?"
Rick again recounted the tale of breaking his leg to Vil, and how Bill and Martha trussed it up waiting for the ambulance to arrive. "I'm just glad my wife and neighbor don't panic," he said. "I told them what to do, and they did it just fine."
"You were supervising your own first aid?" Vil asked.
Rick chuckled. "I was in the army, young femme," he said. "We're trained for basic first aid. I knew what we had to do when I realized how bad my leg was broken, just like how I knew what to do when Kit was shot."
"Well, that training has certainly paid off for you," she smiled. "It saved my brother and helped you in your own hour of need."
"It never hurts to know what to do in an emergency," he said.
"Well, don't you worry yourself one little bit, Rick. I'll make sure this doesn't put you in the poorhouse."
"Well, I do have insurance, Vil," he chuckled.
"Yes, I know, and we need to talk about when you're going to offer health insurance to the magazine," she said, a touch flintily.
"Dear, if I could afford it, I'd gladly do it," he answered honestly.
"Vil, you didn't fly all the way down here to pick a fight," Martha said, a touch sternly. "Or talk business."
"I know I didn't. Guess you just can't take the businessfemme out of me," she chuckled ruefully.
They visited for nearly an hour, until the medication and the weariness of surgery caught up with Rick, and he started dozing off. They broke up then, and Vil took Martha home with Jessie and Kit driving behind them, and Stav driving Martha's car. Rick and Martha owned a small ranch east of Austin, out in the hilly scrub of mesquite trees and browning pastureland. Their small three acre ranch was surrounded by larger ranches and farms, and it was Martha's dreamhouse. Martha had always wanted to live on a small ranch, and Rick had bought it for her, since he'd grown up on a ranch not two miles from where he lived now. Their ranch was small because the former owner was a small horse caretaker, who had a ten stall barn and corral with about two acres of pastureland behind the ranch house for the horses. Rick and Martha used to have three horses, one for each of their sons, but when Rick got so busy with the magazine and the boys moved out, they sold them. Their property was a mirror of its owners. It may have been a small ranch, but it was clean and neat and impeccably maintained. Though the barn behind their two story ranch house now just held their tractor, it was freshly painted, and their ranch house was surrounded by well manicured shrubs and flowers and small trees. Martha was a gardener by hobby, as much as Jessie was a knitter, and her yard was her pride and joy. Five cars pulled up into their driveway, with Vil's rented limo pulling up the rear, and Martha led Kit, Jessie, Bill, Sam, Kevin, and Vil into their house. It was filled with furniture from the 70s, with an earthy, old-fashioned feel, but everything was clean and neat and orderly.
"I'm afraid this ate up my visit," Vil told Kit and Jessie when Martha offered to make coffee for everyone. "I won't be able to make it down next week."
"That's alright, sis," Kit told her. "I'd much rather you be here for Rick than come down just to piddle with us."
"How long can you stay?" Jessie asked.
"I have to leave tomorrow morning," she answered. "I just had to come down and see him."
"We all appreciate it, Vil," Martha told her, coming out of the kitchen and giving her a warm little hug. "I just hope he'll be okay."
"I'm sure he will, hon," Vil told her, patting her on the arm. "We'll make sure of it. Kit and Savid can keep the magazine going, and I'll be watching from Boston to make sure he's healing just fine. And there's plenty of furs here ready to run when you send out a call for help."
"Amen," Bill said.
"That's right, Martha. You call me, and I'm on my way," Sam told her with quiet resolve.
"I'll leave my numbers with you, hon," Kevin told her. "I'm here if you need me."
"Such good kids," Martha said thickly, giving Sam and Kevin a hug.
"Only to good people," Kevin told her with a smile, which made her chuckle and pat him on the arm. "I'm mean to jerks."
"That's something I'd expect Kit to say."
"Well, that's why we're friends. We think alike," Kevin winked.
"Well, I hope you know how to swing a hammer, youngun," Bill told him. "Be here at nine tomorrow and we'll get that ramp up."
"I'll be here, Bill," Kevin told him.
"I'll bring a couple of the girls from the sorority," Sam said. "We'll have enough paws here to get anything done that needs to be done."
"Well, between me, Tom, and Jake, I'm sure we'll have enough. Building a ramp we're just laying over the stairs shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."
"Well, still, Jessie and Charlotte will want to come."
"The other Jessie," Jessie said with a giggle when Bill looked at her. "There's another Jessie at the sorority."
"That's why we call her JD," Sam said, pointing at Jessie. "You guys will need to be fed, and we won't make Martha do all that cooking."
Martha chuckled. "I'm used to cooking for a pack of hungry males. I had three sons and Rick to feed," she told them.
"Yes, but you'll be at the hospital," Sam told her. "If you trust us to build your ramp, we'll take care of it while you take care of Rick. And we'll bring you a nice home cooked meal when we're done."
"Of course I do, dear," Martha told her, patting the skunk on the shoulder fondly. "And I'm sure both of us will appreciate you cooking for us."
They started filtering out after Martha had time to calm down and relax. Kit, Jessie, and Vil were the last ones behind, as Jessie assured Martha she'd have plenty of help and Kit and Vil assured her that Rick and the magazine would be cared for quite lovingly. "We're partners now, after all," Kit smiled.
"You just focus on Rick, hon, let us handle everything else."
"I'll even do the shopping for you," Jessie assured her.
"At least Rick had good timing, he broke his leg right before spring break, which gives Jessie plenty of spare time," Kit winked, which made Martha gasp, then laugh in spite of herself.
"I'm sure he had it all planned out," Martha chuckled.
They kept Martha in good spirits until she was tired, and then Jessie and Vil tucked her into bed. "I'm going to stay here tonight," Jessie told them when they came downstairs. "I want to be here if she needs me.
"I'll have Stav bring your car here," Vil said. "I'll be here tonight, but I'm going to have to go back to Boston in the morning."
"Which hotel are you going to stay at?" Jessie asked.
"I'll stay here tonight, if there's room," she said.
"They only have two spare bedrooms," Jessie said. "There's not enough room for everyone."
"Ah. Well, damn," Vil sighed. "I'll just go down to the Regency, then."
"Stav, Marcus, you can borrow my truck to go pick up Jessie's car," Kit told them. "That should make it easier for you."
"Yes, it will, thank you," Stav said with a nod. "We can stop by the grocery store on the way back to pick up enough food for everyone tomorrow as well."
"And thank you, it's sweet of you to do this for us," Jessie added.
"It's more than our job, it's our privilege," Marcus said with a rare smile. "Often we serve to prevent something bad from happening. It's always a joy to serve to help with something good."
"Now you see why I pay their outrageous salaries," Vil said with a smile.