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Ray Vecchio
speakscanadian
05 January 2010 @ 03:54 am
IPD [for Vimes]  
It hadn't really been a conscious decision to make enquiries about the IPD but after a month on the island, full-time vacationing was starting to wear a little thin. Not that Ray didn't think he deserved the break; after the year he'd had in Vegas he'd been just about ready to throw in the towel and retire altogether, if only he'd had a good enough reason to.

But now, with the beginning of a new year, Ray realised he already knew who he had to talk to, where he had to go, hell, he'd even patrolled the island a couple of times without even realising it. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. He was a cop by nature, even if he spent a lot of the time complaining about it, and although paperwork wasn't exactly his forte, that duty to serve and protect was still inside him. Even if the island was sincerely lacking in criminals to bust and streets to clean the scum off of.

He was still sleeping in the Crash Room, not having yet sorted out any permanent accommodation for himself, but for some reason he was far more keen on getting involved with the IPD than he was on sorting out his living arrangements. His knuckles rapped out a quick knock on the office door but he didn't wait for a voice before he opened it up and walked right on inside.

"Hi." He pressed his palms together. "I'm looking for a uh, Commander Vimes? Or Sheriff Mars, I don't mind which."
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[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 7th, 2010 08:43 pm (UTC)
Vimes could appreciate a guy who looked for crime before he looked for a permanent bed, a guy who patrolled without realizing that was what he was doing. Vimes was that kind of guy himself, and it was one of the things he'd liked about Vecchio the first time he'd been on the island. He was a kindred soul - or, in other words, a fellow Really Suspicious Bastard.

And it was really bloody jarring to have Vecchio walk into the IPD office and look around as if he didn't recognize the place. He'd known Vecchio was back on the island, sure, but still, it was just weird. Vimes was quickly stubbing out his cigar in a half-hidden saucer behind the desk when the door swung open, though the cloud of smoke surrounding him gave him away. He squinted at the newcomer, and then he grinned. "Yeah, I'd be Commander Vimes. 'bout time you showed up in here."
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 8th, 2010 12:47 am (UTC)
Laughing a little, mostly to be polite, Ray reached across the desk and stuck out his hand.

"Ray Vecchio, sir. I know you know that already," thanks to Shawn Spencer and his easily spilled beans, "but it would feel kind of strange if I didn't introduce myself properly."
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 8th, 2010 07:32 am (UTC)
Vimes scoffed as he took Vecchio's hand. "Look, don't get the wrong idea, I'm all about rank, but gods, don't call me 'sir.' That's just weird coming from you."

He gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk, and then leaned back in his own chair, putting his hands behind his head. "So, how're you settling into our little perfect weather hell? Or is that a stupid question. seein' as you're standing in here?" In his experience, police work didn't exactly attract content people.
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 9th, 2010 12:15 am (UTC)
Ray took the seat gratefully, leant back and felt more at home in there than he had done anywhere else since he'd arrived.

"It's no Chicago, that's for sure," he admitted, hooking a leg over his knee and brushing off invisble lint with a swipe of his palm. More like the armpit of the frozen north if he ignored the fairytale castles and the lack of homicidal men in white. Not that he was complaining about the latter. "I'm not really a winter wonderland kind of guy. Gimme a beach in Miami over that any day."
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 10th, 2010 03:20 am (UTC)
"Oh, right. You haven't been around that long, have you? Don't worry, we'll go back to normal soon enough and then you'll have more sunny beaches than you know what to do with. And then you'll go nuts like the rest of us." Vimes grinned humorlessly. "So, what can I do for you today, Detective?"
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 10th, 2010 04:43 am (UTC)
"I don't s'pose you've got any cases I could help out with?" Ray asked hopefully, which felt weird considering it was usually the other way around in Chicago. Too many cases and too little time. Here, though, he was tired of twiddling his thumbs, and while he'd never geniunely wish for criminals to just pop up out of nowhere, a cop wasn't really a cop without some police work to do.
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 10th, 2010 05:12 am (UTC)
Vimes snorted and spread his hands. "What does it look like to you? We're not exactly swimming in stuff to do. Back home, gods, I could've gotten anything done with the squad we've got here, though don't go telling them I said that, but here were mostly sit around waiting for something to happen." Technically, he and Vecchio had just met, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they already knew each other, which made him talk to him like an old partner. "We've got a guy in jail now, real obnoxious bastard, whose got a couple more months for assault. The last real case was, small gods, I can't even remember-" he went over to the filing cabinet and started flipping through it. "A body showed up on the beach last spring, but that just turned out to be a crazy island thing." He eyed Vecchio. "But if you're crazy enough to want in, we'll probably find something for you to do."
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 10th, 2010 08:49 am (UTC)
It was probably wrong to feel a little disappointment but Ray hid it well. "I'm crazy enough," he nodded, almost immediately, glad that he didn't have to prove his credentials or explain his policing background to Vimes. Explaining about the Mountie and undercover work and Kowalski replacing him wasn't really something that could be achieved anywhere close to briefly. "It's probably a good thing Fraser's not here anymore," he added as a quiet afterthought, a flat smile on his face as he thought of his absent friend. "He could attract the bad, the worse and the ugly wherever he went. A giant red crime magnet."
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 11th, 2010 01:52 am (UTC)
Vimes' expression was wry. "I wish it were that easy. I mean, that I'm gonna go around wishing for bad things to happen. But, y'know." He shrugged. Vecchio was a cop. He understood. "Nah, the problem is, this place is tiny. It's not your Chicago, and it's not my Ankh-Morpork, and it's not even the sheriff's Neptune. Even the stupidest criminal knows he'd get caught eventually in a place like this. You'd have to be crazy to try something." His expression turned grim. "And the ones that do usually are. Stuff might not happen here very often, but when it does, it's weird."
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 11th, 2010 05:27 am (UTC)
Ray's eyebrows rose slightly at the look on Vimes's face. "Yeah? How weird? Weirder than people popping up outta nowhere? People with the same face popping up outta nowhere." Something told him he had a lot to learn about the island if he was even going to try and attempt to protect it and its inhabitants.
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 12th, 2010 08:45 am (UTC)
"Weird differently," Vimes answered. "Weird in the totally crazy psycho kind of way." Of course, as a cop, you saw enough crazy psychos that they weren't so weird at all. But even in Ankh-Morpork, land of the crazies, they hadn't been the norm the way they were here. Your average crime usually had more to do with angry neighbors, or domestic disputes, or drugs. The real nutty ones - like the kind you always got on Tabula Rasa - only showed up once in a while. "We had a wizard back there for a while," he said, jerking his thumb back towards the holding cell. "Guess he was a real piece of work back where he came from. Hell, he was a real piece of work here, too. Rape, kidnapping, assault, the whole shebang. It happened before I got here, but I had to look after the bastard. And then there was the guy that started killing people with a cattle prod - and I didn't even know what a cattle prod looked like before that, let alone that you could kill someone with it - and then there was the crazy-ass ex-vampire kid who didn't realize she was an ex-vampire, so she went around biting people until we stopped her."

He sighed and absently let his pencil roll across the desk. "It's been a long couple've years. You could read the files, if your curiosity's morbid enough."
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 15th, 2010 04:33 am (UTC)
Wizards, ex-vampires... If Ray hadn't already met one himself he might have taken Vimes words with a pinch of salt, but when the evidence was right there in front of him (and looking like Kowalski, of all people), it was impossible to ignore.

"I'd appreciate that, thanks." Maybe after he'd read them he'd feel a little more prepared for when the next crazy Islander arrived. "There seems to be a lotta those," he added after a moment, leaning to the side and resting an elbow on the armrest of the chair. "Ex-vampires. Here." It made a guy wonder what he'd done to deserve joining them.
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 15th, 2010 05:41 am (UTC)
"Gods, tell me about it." Vimes got up and went to the filing cabinet, where he started flipping through reports and pulling out the most significant incidents to show Vecchio. "Don't get me wrong, they're a lot better than then non-ex-vampire kind, even if you include black ribboners. But hell," he shook his head and whistled low, "if you'd told me a few years ago I'd be ending up with so many bloody vampires on my squad after the fight I put up back home about letting them on the Watch..." He trailed off and paused in his search through the files, looking at Vecchio sideways. "Yeah, they've got vampires where I come from. Also wizards, though they're usually too busy fantasizing about their next meal to work on becoming evil overlords."
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 15th, 2010 06:28 am (UTC)
Ray only understood about half the number of words that had just come out of Vimes' mouth. It was a bit like meeting Fraser for the first time, in that respect, if no others.

When Vimes looked at him, he was a little slow at forcing the look of complete disbelief off his face. "Uh, ask me a month ago if magic existed and I'd pretty much think you're a whackjob. Now..." His opinion hadn't actually changed that much; at least it hadn't until this particular conversation. "I guess I'll take your word for it." And keep his reservations to himself.
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 15th, 2010 07:01 am (UTC)
"Magic? Hell. Magic's nothing. You should try stepping into the middle of a race riot between a bunch've trolls, who're about this tall-" he gestured as high above his head as he could reach- "and made of rock, and a bunch've dwarfs, who might not be quite so tall, but who are very happy to cut you off at the knees, if necessary. Don't get me wrong, trolls and dwarfs make good officers, but don't get between 'em on Koom Mountain Day unless you're prepared."

Vimes turned around and dropped a number of files onto the desk. There were the major incidents in the island's crime history, all stashed together - the Voldemort trial, F and the kidnapping of the Pinocchio twins, the Chigurh case, Halloween, the rest of it. "There's a little bit of light reading for you. Should bring you up to speed, more or less."
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 15th, 2010 07:13 am (UTC)
Leaning forward awkwardly, Ray flipped open the top file for a second just to have something to do other than sit and stare at the Commander. What had started off as a pretty normal conversation had somehow turned into trolls and dwarfs and craziness.

Which pretty much summed up most of the conversations he'd had with people so far on the island.

He was reluctant to ask his next question. Giving Vimes a quick look up and down, he sat back and pressed his lips together. "So you're not..." He gestured at him. "Y'know. Are--were you?" And cleared his throat. "Human?"
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 15th, 2010 07:38 am (UTC)
Slowly Vimes looked up, one eyebrow raised. "...yeah, last time I checked, actually." Now there was a question he'd never been asked before. "I mean, I'm a duke, technically, but unless there's something my mother never told me, I've been human my entire life."
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 15th, 2010 05:33 pm (UTC)
It wasn't a question Ray had ever thought he'd ask in his lifetime and the awkwardness showed on his face. He cleared his throat again, shifted in his seat. "Great." Duke? "...Me too."
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 18th, 2010 06:14 am (UTC)
"Yeah, I know. But thanks for the heads up," Vimes said with another arch of his eyebrow. New people. They never stopped being weird, not even when they weren't really new. Especially when they weren't really new.

"Right-" Vimes shuffled through a few papers before he found the one he was looking for- "I'm gonna set you up with a partner and a patrol and all that, 'cause that's how it's done, but I feel a little weird doing that, seeing as you used to run this damn place. I'll probably make you help me and the sheriff fill out paperwork, too, just for old time's sake. Hope that's not too much of a problem?" His expression when he looked up implied that he didn't much care if it was. But that was just a cop thing.
[identity profile] speakscanadian.livejournal.com on January 20th, 2010 06:30 pm (UTC)
"No, sir," Ray nodded in agreement, "that's fi--uh, Vimes. Sorry. Paperwork sounds great." A little paper-pushing couldn't hurt, he figured, and if the island really was as quiet as it seemed, then at least he'd feel like he was contributing something of worth. He reached for the files Vimes had found for him and was more than a little curious as to what exactly he'd find inside. "Is it okay if I take these with me? Bring them back tomorrow?"
[identity profile] sir-samuel.livejournal.com on January 22nd, 2010 07:21 am (UTC)
" 'Commander' will do, if you really feel like tacking on a title," Vimes said wryly, then waved a hand. "Yeah, go ahead. All yours. Have fun. If you want, you could go down to the Times office and take a look at some of the old newspapers, too. Their editor is obnoxiously thorough." He grimaced slightly. "Besides, always good to check out the enemy and all that. Not that I, as a respectful Tabula Rasa citizen would ever call local journalism 'the enemy.' " He flashed a brief, dry smile. "Don't expect me to get any more bloody sentimental than this, but it's good to have you back, Vecchio."