"Aw, hell..." Vin softly drawled as he froze, his hand on the open truck door.
JD, starting to move around him, bumped into Tanner when the lanky Texan suddenly stopped. Looking around his friend, an expression of horror came to his youthful face. "We're dead," he groaned.
Fierce blue eyes swung around to glare at him. "What do you mean we?"
"Well, ah, you..." he struggled to find a reason for Vin to be involved. "...you're driving and you agreed to it!" he pointed out smugly.
"Only coz you had me over a barrel," Tanner groused. "It's all your fault."
The kid's expression sickened, then suddenly brightened as he proclaimed, "Actually, it's Casey's fault."
"Yer really gonna blame that sweet little girl?" Vin sadly shook his head in unconcealed disgust at JD's self preservation skills.
"Well, he won't kill her!" JD pointed out in desperation. "Us on the other hand..."
"Oh, he won't kill us," The sharpshooter shrugged nonchalantly. "At least not right away... He'll make us suffer first. Then he's gonna kill us," he reiterated firmly.
JD looked closer. "Well, maybe he won't notice?" he stated, his voice hopefully optimistic.
Vin snorted. "Fat chance! JD, it's as obvious as the nose on yer face."
"Maybe if we keep him late at the office it'll be dark when he heads home... Oh, no!" The younger man buried his face in his hands, shaking his head.
Tanner jumped at the strident tone, reaching for his gun as his eyes scanned the area searching for the key to the kid's further distress. "What!? Ya okay?" He grabbed JD's shoulder, forcing the kid to straighten. The young hacker was pale and appeared as if he were going to be physically ill. "Ya okay, Kid?"
JD groaned and bent over again. "Ain't that fancy party tonight? The one he's been talkin' about all week? The one he's takin' Miz Travis to?"
Vin considered just pulling his gun and shooting himself to save Chris the trouble. He eyed the kid, thinking maybe he should just shoot the kid for getting him into this mess to begin with.
"Yeah, black tie and tux, and... and...." he waved a hand at the truck's interior, "this! He is gonna kill us... slowly and painfully….." He knew Larabee had a sadistic streak in him. The older man would take great pleasure in exacting his revenge for something like this.
JD brightened. "Maybe they'll take Mary's car."
Vin shook his head. "Nope. It's in the shop getting new brakes."
Dunne flustered. "Maybe we could con Ez into loanin' Chris the Camero... I mean get real. Who drives a big assed pickup to a fancy black tie wingding anyway?"
The tracker stared at the younger man like he had lost his mind. "You wanna try and con Ezra... The man who's taken connin' to a whole new level?" Tanner couldn't believe the young man had even considered something so absurd. "To top it off, Ez would have to con Chris into it which would probably cost one of us our first born kid."
JD was grasping at straws. "Maybe… maybe we could just wreck the truck?"
"Wreck...?" Vin's voice was now a high pitched squeak, staring at the younger man in disbelief. "Wreck the Ford?" He grabbed the kid's shirt front and shook him. "Did you actually just suggest we wreck Chris' truck? Are ya outta yer friggin' mind? He'd kill us, bury us six foot under and dig us up just so he could kill us again! And that's just if we put a scratch on the damn thing!! And ya wanna total his pride and joy?"
The younger man groaned loudly as he sagged against the door when Tanner released him. "We gotta do something!"
Vin gave him a plaintive look. "I'm open to suggestions here, Kid."
Dunne stared at him hopefully. "We could just leave it and say someone stole it."
"Yeah, then he'll only hang us before he shoots us! Ya ain't much freakin' help, JD." Tanner scrubbed a hand over his scruffy cheeks. "Maybe we could take it ta one of them detailers... Like Ez uses."
Dunne shook his head. "Ya gotta make an appointment, and for a first time visit ya usually have ta take it in the mornin' and leave it all day." The kid ran his hands through his long dark hair. "Okay, how about we use one of those vacuums, like at the car wash?"
"Might work." Vin motioned for him to climb in and made a face as he slid behind the wheel. "Iffen I ever listen to ya again, I hope someone just hits me over the head with a 2x4," he muttered under his breath.
JD gave him a hurtful look as he slid into the passenger seat. "I still say it's all Casey's fault." He groused as the tracker started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
Turning into the first self serve car wash they found, Tanner pulled to a stop next to the R2D2 shaped device and jumped out, hastily brushing himself off. He dug in his jeans for quarters and came up empty handed. He turned to his companion. "JD, ya got any quarters?"
The kid bounced around the side of the truck, digging in a jeans pocket. He withdrew three dimes, two nickels and a slew of pennies. Opening his wallet, Vin shook his head and sighed out loud, glancing toward the sign on the change machine which declared it took tens, fives and ones. "It don't take pennies, JD. Ya got any bills? All I got's a twenty."
JD dug deeper in his pocket and withdrew one severely crumpled dollar bill. "That's all I got. I was gonna stop at the ATM on the way home tonight."
"Great!" Vin long strided to the change machine and fed the bill into the slot. The machine promptly kicked it back out. He poked it in again, and it was again spat out. After six or seven more tries, losing patience, he yelled for JD who trotted up beside him. "Damn thing won't take yer damn dollar!"
"Here..." JD grabbed the bill and quickly seesawed it flatly against the edge. Feeding it into the slot, it promptly kicked out four quarters.
"Shit!" Vin eyed the paltry coins.
"Sign says exact change," JD pointed out as they moved back to the vacuum.
"I can read, JD." Vin eyed the coins staring at the sign again. $1.25. One quarter short. He thought of searching the truck for loose change, but wrinkled his nose at what that would entail. It was a damn ripoff anyway. A buck and a quarter for two minutes. Two minutes wouldn't do a hell of a lot of good. Using the machine would cost them a fortune.
"Why don't we try a different one?" The younger man suggested. "I got my Visa."
"You know where there's one a these damn things that takes credit cards?"
"Hey, we got one of those little hand held dust things at the apartment. We could use it...."
"Well, why didn't ya say so earlier?" Vin bitched as he climbed back into the truck and they headed towards the townhouse shared by Wilmington and Dunne.
The little dust buster was on its last legs from sucking up too many messes made by the two overgrown children. It wheezed loudly as it slowly -- oh so slowly -- sucked up the offending objects from the Ford's velour seats.
Vin eyed it in disgust. "Hell, JD, ya could pluck 'em quicker by hand! Don't know why that man couldn't a got leather seats…" he griped as he suited actions to words. "This is gonna take all damn day! Chris is gonna kill us!"
"What about your vacuum cleaner?" JD suggested after a few minutes of plucking.
"Damnit, JD, I got linoleum floors! What the hell do I need with a vacuum cleaner?"
Dunne frowned, then muttered, "I'll bet Ezra has a damn good one!"
"And Ezra's at the office...With Chris!" Tanner shouted over the noisy machine. "Just keep pluckin'."
Three hours later, Vin stuck his head in Chris's office door and pitched him the Ford keys. "Thanks, Cowboy."
"Yer late," Chris griped, as he snagged the keys outta the air.
"Everything all right?" he questioned as he stood and moved around his desk, eyeing the lanky tracker.
Vin shifted from one foot to the other, "Yeh,...sure,...fine. We… we just got caught in traffic."
"Coulda called..." he held up his hand to stop the excuse he knew by heart. "I know if ya had yer cell phones."
"Well, yeah. Sorry," Vin offered as he turned to leave.
"Hey..." Chris' next words stopped him in his tracks. "Is that dog hair...or are ya cheatin' on Lucy?" He teased stepping closer to pluck several long white strands of Old English Sheepdog/Great Pyrenees dog hair from Tanner's denim shirt.
"Aw...Casey had her dog at JD's place," 'and we had to take it to the vet in your truck,' he mentally added.
"Hope ya didn't leave any of that hair in the truck. Mary's allergic to long haired dogs."
Vin cringed inside as he could just foresee Chris' evening.... long white dog hair they hadn't sucked up clinging to his black tux and Mary sneezing uncontrollably.
Aw, hell.... he might as well start digging his grave now.... Chris was flat out gonna kill 'im!
He glanced at Ezra, sitting at his corner desk reading the Wall Street Journal. The gambler hadn't been undercover in a couple of months. Maybe he needed to practice his conning skills.
'What the hell? JD and Casey could have plenty of kids.'
"Hey Ez, can I talk ta ya for a minute?"
THE END