You needn’t have known much about tailing to know that Roger Steele was being tailed, but for the svelte gray agent, it was all the old tricks, rolled into one. And as a master of all the old tricks, he decided to play a few of his own.
With a jacket over his shoulder, a lung dart in his fangs, and pinstriped sleeves rolled up and ready for action, the Force’s top dog strolled into the least conspicuous locale he could manage: a dive-bar with a jazz club.
As the smoke of his lungs melded with the cafe’s silky haze, those ice-cold eyes scanned for the nearest set of ivories. Luckily for him, an upright electric sat on the stage. Unluckily, it was one of those automated jobs, playing by itself without so much as a drummer.
“Dig, the keys free?” he asked the bartender.
The mustachioed black wolf nodded as he polished another glass. “Shit’s been too lame without the usual scene-stealers, ya dig?”
“Loud and clear,” Roger smiled with a hepcat growl. The gray strolled over to the piano and made his move. There was a flash drive loaded with programmed piano rolls. It was pretty tuneful stuff, they had made a good point of programming for dynamics, but it lacked that sensitive wolven touch.
When the gray agent heard the scurried footsteps compose themselves before walking into the bar, he made a point of pulling out his own flash drive, right where they could see him, and fidgeting with the port. He could hear their grumblings about the ordeal followed by the one melody sweeter than anything he could play. “Give ‘im time. Blow his head off and the whole joint knows.”
And time he took, for the corpulent, colorful tone of the electric piano proved just the rest cure he needed. He ran riffing on minor 7ths and 9ths, rolling out a mellow 12-bar blues shortly thereafter. The warm urbane chords, mixing with the tape-deck chorus of the electric piano made a pool of ease open around his pave-pounding body. The chase was fun, the flash drive data made it worthwhile, but pit stops like these, to savor a night life he so rarely had time for, was the cherry on top. And best of all, he had his pursuers in front row seats.
He spent a solid hour in this open-air meditation, quick with a glance over the shoulder to keep his killers in view. When he had rounded out a downright aquatic take on an old favorite, “Naima,” whose peculiar chords melded with the cranked-up reverb to blissful effect, he took a bow, received a tasteful applause, and strolled off. He waved au revoir to the bartender, who had dug the sound, and sauntered out the door.
With each step down the sidewalk, heading for his sleek black muscle car, a rare tension filled the gray wolf’s gut. It wasn’t stress or worry, but pure suspense. That burning question of if the gambit had paid off. If it didn’t, he’d have to put two holes in the bastards’ heads and be quickly hurried out of the city. But when he heard those scurrying footsteps race back the way they came, away from him, he knew the score. The state-sponsored thugs had run off with a pocket full of jazz standards, and Agent Roger Steele had walked off with the complete timetable of Comm/Ent’s broadcast schedule, viewership figures, cyberspace juncture points and all. Valuable data for a resistance with lots to tell the wolves of Haven. He spent the rest of the night whistling that lonesome melody “Naima” all along the streets, content in the job well done, and curious about the chaos his team could cause…
Nice. Good job, as always.