Bad,
bad day.
The words circled
relentlessly around and around in Vin Tanner’s brain. They mocked him cruelly,
poked fun at his misery, annoyed the hell out ofhim,
and made his life even worse by constantly remind him that he had just barely
survived a bad, bad day.
When the half-hearted clicks
of his Jeep’s alternator interspersed themselves between each repetition of
‘bad, bad day’, Vin sensed the beginnings of a really
good song.
Bad, bad
day.
Click-click!
Bad, bad
day.
Click-click!
Vin wanted to scream or shoot something;
he could go back to the weapons locker and grab his M24- he had enough people
who’d pissed him off earlier that day to track down and kill, so hauling
himself all the way down to the lockup wouldn’t be a waste of time. Justifiable
homicide, he told himself.
Instead of going to the
weapons locker or screaming, Tanner rested his forehead against the steering
wheel and listened intently to his pulse pounding in
his temple. The steady, deep throbbing provided a good bassline
to the song forming in his skull as he reflexively kept turning the key in the
Jeep’s ignition.
Bad, bad
day. (THUD.) Click-click! (THUD-THUD) Bad, bad
day. (THUD.)
Vin almost started drumming his fingers
on his thighs, working his way up to a really good four-piece band, but got
interrupted by Ezra Standish materializing at his elbow.
Ezra had been having a bad
day of his own; despite his vow to get home unmolested and hide in peace, he
found himself drawn to Vin’s side as the sharpshooter
cursed softly and violently. Standish watched dispassionately as Vin shot backwards in his seat, his head cracking against
the less-than-forgiving headrest. Tanner grimaced and buried his face in his
hands; something very much like a muffled cry of suffering emerged from the
closed doors of the sharpshooter’s palms. Standish almost asked what was the
matter, but weighed the odds of getting shot for making the inquiry and instead
asked, “May I offer you a ride home?”
Vin’s fingers slid down his face, allowing
strangely haggard blue eyes to regard the undercover agent. For a moment, Vin too seemed to weigh something and he finally said,
“Wouldn’t want ta put you out any, Ezra. I already
owe you for those two tires that got stolen an’ that chrome fender someone backed
into.”
“Yes, well, I will of course
hold you to your promise of restitution, however likely it may be that the
sanctified dead will rise from their graves before you make good on your
vows... But let us put that behind us for now and get you back to Purgatorio,”
Ezra said, crossing his arms over his chest and doing a fairly creditable
impersonation of
All fight and objection had
left the sharpshooter; Tanner nodded mutely and climbed out of his Jeep, giving
it a disapproving kick on the rear bumper- the Jeep remained uncowed by its owner’s disapproval. He trailed Ezra over to
his Jag, managing a grin when Standish scowled at the sight of Cuervo’s pawprints on the
polished metal.
“Hey, you can see where he
laid down,” Vin said, leaning over to inspect the
hood. “See? His pawprints circle around one spot- he laid down there, then got back up a while later and just
jumped off. Probably heard you comin’ and decided to
scram.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tracker,
sir,” snorted Ezra. “I take it this means your black mood is slowly starting to
lift? May I inquire after your day without fear of a potentially painful
reprisal?”
“Not
hardly,” scowled
Vin. “This is the kind of day you gotta forget, or go
crazy. Let’ get goin’.” With that, he buckled his
seatbelt and leaned back into the well-upholstered passenger sea, closing his
eyes. “Lead on, MacDuff,” he murmured.
“Most certainly,” Ezra said,
and turned the key in the ignition. The Jag rumbled to life and a split second
later, the throbbing of the engine was joined by the exultant howling of a
singer and a screeching, ecstatic electric guitar:
“SHE’S MY SWEET LITTLE THING, SHE’S MY PRIDE AND JOY...”
“Good
“Sorry, sorry,” Ezra
apologized hastily, hand reaching for the stereo console to turn down the
volume, remove the CD from the player, and insert a new one. He cursed his
forgetfulness- where had his mind been this morning? A CD of Chopin’s nocturnes
sat neatly in its case in the Jag’s glove compartment, ready just in case
someone would be riding in the car with him, and Ezra had to go and forget
about it.
“No, wait- I like Stevie Ray
Vaughan,” Vin said, reaching out to forestall Ezra’s
hand.
“You do?” asked Ezra, face
completely blank.
“Yeah,” Vin
affirmed, and then inflicted the agent with another one of his patented probing
stares. “Damn, Ez, you look surprised. I’m the one who should be surprised.
Hell, I thought you didn’t like anyone that hadn’t been dead for at least a
hundred years.”
“Like many things, Mr.
Tanner, that is an image I cultivate with great care. As Mr. Vaughan, God rest
his soul, has been dead for quite a few years, he technically counts as an
artist whom I can enjoy. And I must confess, I have always had a weakness for
blues electric guitar- this particular compact disc features both Mr. Vaughan
and Albert King.”
“Oh, that Sessions CD?”
asked Vin excitedly. “I been lookin’ for this one. Buck has it, says it’s pretty good,
so I’d like to hear it for myself.”
“Rest assured, Mr. Tanner,
it is an excellent concert. One that...” Ezra paused, considering Vin and
electric guitars and the fact that no one outside of Vin knew anything about
Ezra liking blues guitar- or any kind of blues at all- “... one that I would
enjoy listening to with you on the journey back to your apartment.”
Tanner mulled this over and
finally said, “Well, in that case, there’s only one thing we gotta do.”
“And what is that, Mr.
Tanner?”
“Decide who gets to play
Stevie Ray an’ who gets to play Albert. I think I should be Stevie.”
“Whyever would you think that, Mr. Tanner?”
He got an expressive roll of
the eyes from Vin and an irritated, “’Cause he’s from
Texas, too, Ez. Geez.”
“Yes... yes, you could
probably play Mr. Vaughan on the next VH1 Rockumentary,
or maybe the next made-for-TV movie CBS decides to do. I’m sure if you bleached
your hair and worked on your fingerpicking, you would
make a most redoubtable TV version of Stevie Ray.” Ezra bit back a snicker.
“Very well... you get to be Stevie Ray. Shall we?”
“We shall.”
Ezra reinserted the CD and
cranked the volume up, flipped it to Track Two.
“What is that fast thang you were doin’? That rap thang?” Ezra/Albert asked and snapped his fingers. “Boy, that had a heckuva groove to
it.”
“This thing called ‘Pride
and Joy,” Vin/Stevie answered.
“’Pride
and Joy’? Gimme some of
that!”
The drums, bass, and keys
kicked up as Ezra put the Jag in reverse and backed out of the parking space. Vin deftly took up the lead electric and began to sing,
loudly and unabashedly:
“WELL YOU’VE HEARD ABOUT
LOVIN’...”
Ezra screeched out into
traffic, whipping past the surprised pedestrians at the corner. Once he got out
on the straightaway he worked in a sharp, arpeggioed
fill, expertly steering the Jag with his knees and grimacing ecstatically as
his air guitar skipped up and down the scale.
“SHE’S A SWEET LITTLE
THING...” sang Vin.
“SHE’S MY PRIDE AND JOY,”
responded Ezra, breaking role and earning a quick scowl from Vin.
“SHE’S MY SWEET LIL’ BABY,
I’M HER LITTLE LOVER BOY...” Vin pounded into the
first guitar solo, fingers effortlessly working up and down six invisible
strings, an intent frown on his face. The relentless beat of the drums and keys
behind the vocals and guitars drowned out his headache, and for the first time
all day, he felt really, really good.
A glance over at Ezra
confirmed the same thing, and from behind his sunglasses, Ezra caught his
friend’s grin. He answered it with one of his own and shouted above the music:
“OUR SECRET, MR. TANNER?”
“YOU GOT IT, EZ!” bellowed Vin in response before returning to his guitar.
THE END