II.

May, 1999

Blair promised himself that he'd look Eli Joe up when he got out of juvenile detention, but then he'd left high school after only three years, and by the time Eli Joe was released Blair had been so busy with college that it wasn't until he'd flown down to see Naomi in Napa Valley over Thanksgiving that Blair realized that Eli Joe must have turned 18 weeks before. So Blair decided he'd make some calls when he got back to the dorm, but it wasn't easy finding someone via a payphone, especially when you shared it with 30 other guys, and somehow Blair ended up just letting things drop.

Then, years later, his name and face were everywhere, and Eli Joe found him.

So now Joe Vassiconelli was sitting on the sofa wolfing down Ramen noodles - Blair's dinner of choice this week, a reaction to two weeks of Naomi-driven healthful eating. Joe certainly looked like he could use the food - he'd gotten even taller, and hadn't outgrown his youthful lankiness. His face, though - it was ageless, and not in a good way.

Blair had run through 'It's great to see you' and 'I'm sorry the system screwed you' and 'I told them and told them it was all Vin, you had nothing to do with anything,' and Joe'd just stared at him through colorless, deepset eyes. Now, Blair found he had absolutely nothing to say to Eli Joe. Had he ever?

Eli Joe slurped the last of the noodles, then leaned back. "I'm betting you're pretty handy with that computer," he said, nodding toward Blair's laptop on the table.

Blair nodded. "Well, you know, I'm a grad student..." Had been one, at least, but Joe didn't correct him. Joe probably didn't know what a grad student was.

"I was wondering if you could help me find that bastard. Vin Tanner."

"Don't you mean Tanen?"

"No, Damn it!" And now Joe looked almost frightening, like the line between him eating Blair's Ramen noodles and knifing him in the gut wasn't very wide.

"I tried to tell them a million times," Joe continued, a little calmer. "His name's not Tanen, it's Tanner. Someone screwed up when he went into the system when he was seven, before he could read and set them right. They even screwed up his social security card. He never stopped bitching about it. I bet it's why they never caught him in all these years. Lucky bastard."

"Well, I can poke around, see if he's anywhere obvious, but I think it's a pretty good bet he's living under an assumed name..."

"Not Vin Tanner."

"Well then..."

All it took was pulling up Lycos and entering "Vincent Tanner" to find that someone by that name had come in third in a dirtbike race in Denver a few years prior.

"Got to be him!" said Joe, smiling.

Blair doubted it. "Fat lot of good that does us," said Blair.

"It means he's alive. That means I can kill him."

Which was a pretty dumb thing to say in the loft, Blair mused; if his roommate was anywhere near home, he'd have picked that up.

"Excuse me," Blair said, rising and opening the front door a crack. Might as well not risk Jim breaking the poor thing off its hinges. Again.

Sure enough, not 30 seconds later, Jim Ellison flug the door wide, practically brandishing his cane with his left hand, his right hand hovering over his holster. "Sandburg!"

"Right here," said Blair, holding his hands partway up, palms exposed, trying to exude calm. "Um, Jim, this is an old friend of mine, Joe Vassiconelli. Uhm, I've always called him Eli Joe."

Jim limp-stepped into the room, clearly in pain, leaning heavily on the cane. Had the idiot taken the stairs? He'd probably set his leg back a week at least. This was not how you let a bullet wound heal!

"You went to Yale?" Jim kept his eyes on their guest as he made his way over to the remote-controlled rising chair the hospital had arranged. "What year were you?"

"Not that type of Eli," said Blair.

"Jim, I don't often ask things of you..." Blair began, and Jim didn't bother stifling a snort. You want a weekly or a monthly list, Chief? Or we could go all the way to quarterly.

"No, REALLY, Jim," Blair persisted, "how often do I ask you for a favor? I've been wanting to testify against Vin for years, and I think we have a lead here. Let's just see whether it pans out. Then we'll call it in."

"He leaves first," said Jim, nodding toward Vassiconelli. "I'm not taking sides in some feud."

Vassiconelli laughed. "He doesn't know?"

"It never came up," said Blair. "Jim, I want Vin found as much as Eli Joe does. Back in 1982..."

Blair sat in the dining set chair closest to Jim and let his face go slack, which was something Blair just didn't do.

"I can tell him," said Joe, and suddenly Jim didn't dislike him quite so much.

"No, it's okay," said Blair. "It happened in 1982, the summer before I started high school. Someone Eli Joe thought was a friend of his, this kid named Vin Tanner... he lured us to a convenience store, then killed the cashier and made it look like Joe was involved. I'm the only witness, aside from Joe. Joe ended up in juvie until he turned 18."

Jim nodded.

"So bringing him to justice," Blair continued, "This is something I've always wanted, for Eli Joe's sake, and the sake of the poor guy he killed. And, you know, I've always wondered, would Vin ever try to, you know, take care of unfinished business? I've never worried that much about it, just tried to keep my name out of the phone book, off the department web site, that sort of thing. But I'm not exactly a hard guy to find anymore.

"Yeah, now that I know Vin's correct full name, we could do it ourselves without Joe, or just hand it over to the PD, but Eli Joe knows him better than anyone. And I'd just as soon not waste time here."

And who could say no to that?

It didn't take much, once he got involved. Vin Tanner was indeed alive and well, and doing a heck of a lot more than riding a dirt bike.

"Army sharpshooter turned ATF agent," their visitor repeated a couple of times. "Well, shit."

"And he'll finally come to justice," Blair countered each time he said it.

This was the last thing on Vassiconelli's mind, Jim knew. They'd just helped target a man for death. Even if this Tanner deserved it, it wasn't going to be on Jim's conscience. "I'm calling this in now," he said.

"Like hell you are," said Eli Joe, jumping up and blocking Jim's path to the phone. Crazy bastard; like Jim would have to work up a sweat to deal with him.

Eli Joe backed down, though. "Hell with you both," he hissed. "I'm going to get the bastard that ruined my life, and there's not a thing you can do to stop me." And then he was out the door.