Bad: Chapter 12

"Call me a relic, call me what you will
Say I'm old-fashioned, say I'm over the hill
Today's music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock 'n' roll
"

- Bob Seger


It had been far too long since he'd been out on the hunt.

As much as Jet enjoyed the intellectual satisfaction that came from being a detective, he never lost the taste for being on the beat. He liked to think of himself as a renaissance man in that way. He enjoyed reading, clipping his bonsai, and smashing skulls.

He cast his eyes down the bar at Spike and Faye. Those two, they were from a different age. Spike was too lazy to learn how to do anything useful with his life and fancied himself the star of his own genre-meshing, kung-fu gangster movie. With Faye, everything was an elaborate game of intrigue that was played to win, and she too had her own delusions of cinematic grandeur.

For Jet, bounty hunting was a man's way of life. No bureaucracy, no bullshit—just the perpetual rough and tumble, the honorable men against the wicked.

Okay, so maybe it was the moderately honorable men against the slightly less honorable, but there was still The Line—the one between the hunter and hunted, and that line was respected. You were either on one side or the other, and everyone knew which side they were on.

It was a place where he always knew he would be valued. In bounty hunting, he was an imposing force. In other aspects of his life, he was often made to play passive roles—to his crew, he was the straight man, left to clean up after his reckless, freewheeling partners. To Elisa, he had been the overprotective boyfriend, spending years afterward wondering what had gone wrong. When everything else in his life failed to satisfy him, he always had this.

It was for all those reasons that he loved his job, no matter how shitty it was at times.

And goddamnit, it could be a lot of fun.


Faye was tapping her boot against the metal support along the bottom of her stool, nodding her head to the music. Spike was turned around backwards, his elbows resting on the bar behind him, his neck slack as he gazed up at the ceiling, a cigarette pursed in his lips. Jet was watching everything around him in the mirrored wall behind the bartender. All three pretended not to notice the entrance of a short man in a white suit with a matching white fedora and cape, flanked on both sides by rather sorry-looking cronies.

Spike looked on, shaking his head. "Look at this asshole."

Faye leaned in and murmured in a low voice, "What's with these guys he's got with him? Seems like their dads got a little friendly with their sisters."

Jet had to admit, they looked very dim and hideous. This territory was not known for its educated and progressive populace, nor was it known for its transparency or sense of justice. A lot of strange things happened in these parts, things that were only known to the locals—lots of crimes that went unreported or uninvestigated. While this was certainly not unusual for a rural, impoverished area such as this, a certain number of events seemed to point back to a slippery, two-bit wiseguy—Landon Aspley. While anyone with half a brain could see this man was an unmitigated idiot, it appeared that he had some influence over the people here—likely due to his ties to much more sophisticated criminal entities. He was holed up in a big mansion across the river that was guarded at all times by townspeople he had hired, but made regular stops at the clubhouses in town to make his collections. He was wanted on suspicions of racketeering and fraud—a cool two million.

"There's a lot of muscle around him. We're a little outmatched."

Spike smirked, his trademark bravado making its scheduled appearance. "Aren't we always?"

"Are you ready for his?" Jet asked quietly.

"I've done it in worse shape before."

Jet's mouth twisted, his expression solemn. Maybe this was a mistake.

"Let's play a game," Faye whispered brightly.

"Ugh," Spike grunted. "Can we have one outing where you don't say that?"

It could have been the shot of Bulleit, the fact that he hadn't been on a real chase in months, or possibly even because he feared what might happened if Spike took this thing head-on as he clearly intended, but Jet found that he was down for a little of Faye's brand of cat-and-mouse.

"Whatcha got in mind?"

"Just follow my lead."

And with that, she hopped down from her stool and began sauntering toward their bounty head.

"She's gonna fuck this up for us," Spike whispered, pursing his lips in disdain. He turned around, not wanting to witness their two million slide from his grasp. "I'm just gonna get wasted and go home."

"Hold on. Just watch."

Faye had already engaged Landon in conversation, sitting on the edge of the heavy wooden table where he was seated, laughing coquettishly. She pointed over to Jet and Spike, Landon following her finger, eyeing them with antipathy. Then she waved her hand, gesturing to Landon's crew. Jet looked on curiously. Spike was silent.

Soon, she was seated at their table, a deck of cards suddenly appearing in her hands which she shuffled with trained clumsiness, smiling girlishly. A cocktail waitress appeared with an unmarked bottle of murky liquid and a half-dozen shot glasses.

Faye splayed the cards slowly across the table, pretending to be a little unsure of her form. Landon, Faye, and each of his cohorts picked a card at the same time, holding it up for the table to see. They all 'ooh-ed' and pointed at one of the big, muscled henchmen. Faye handed him a shot glass, full to the brim of cloudy liquor, which he shot quickly and slammed on the table.

Jet had to turn away to hide the giant grin that came across his face.

"Crafty little wench."

It was a simple, stupidly brilliant trick. Cheat them at high-low, a game of zero skill, get them all liquored up, and watch 'em fall.

Jet turned back just in time to catch round two which Faye purposely lost. She held up her hands, waving them playfully, laughing, allowing Landon to pour her losing shot. She lifted the glass to her lips, and tilted her head back to down her shot, but not before meeting Jet's eyes and winking quickly.

"She's a huge pain in the ass, but she's got it."

"Yeah," Spike said vaguely, his gaze trained on the scene before him.


"I'm drunk. I wanna go home!"

"We gotta wait for the cops."

"Why are they taking so long?"

It had taken about two hours, but Faye's plan had worked like gangbusters. Landon and his crew were tied up and sitting in the middle of the sopping wet barroom floor, all the tables and chairs pushed to the edges of the hall in the scuffle, bottles of liquor emptied on the hardwoods. The staff was cowering behind the bar, still frightened by the sudden and swift outburst of violence. Spike sat, elbows on his knees, head dropped, breathing hard, with his gun held between his legs.

"Yo, Spike. You okay?"

"I'm fine," he said shakily, his hand rubbing his stomach.

Faye was sitting on the floor next to Spike's chair. She patted his leg with a heavy hand. "He'll be fine," she slurred with unconvincing conviction.

She placed a hand against her forehead, and groaned. "I think I'm gonna puke."

"Why'd you get so drunk? You didn't have to," Spike said, irritated.

"I didn't mean to. It was moonshine. I thought I could handle it."

"Why the hell did you order moonshine?"

She thrust her arms out in front of her, "Duh! So they'd get drunk faster."

Spike shook his head, forcing away the sound of her overly loud voice, queasiness overtaking his thoughts. "I think I'm gonna puke, too."

Jet leaned against the bar watching, appreciating the absurd chaos of their present situation. Faye was patting Spike's foot as a means of ineffectual comfort, blinking long slow blinks, trying not to fall asleep. Spike was holding his stomach with both arms, looking like he was about to kick Faye any second, not wanting to be touched.

He loved both of them. He was a silly old fool.


Somehow, they all managed to get back to the ship with minor incident. Only Faye had vomited, but she seemed to cheer up pretty quickly after that, posing comically in the fedora she'd lifted from Landon.

Spike and Faye retired to their rooms, but Jet found he was too wired to sleep. He sat in the darkness, enjoying the couch he rarely got a chance to sit on, smoking a fantastic cigarette.

He tapped the computer's keyboard, waking it from its slumber, the screen taking a moment to warm to its full brightness.

Edward. He had to find Edward. Jet found he was still wounded about her leaving. He hated to think of her all on her own again, wandering Earth, trying to find a father that didn't deserve her. Spike was his best friend, but he realized in time that Edward was his favorite. Her innocence was endearing, and she was smart as a whip despite her oddball tendencies. And unlike the other two, she actually listened to what he had to say.

He opened a command prompt.

Login as: Edward

The computer protested.

Invalid user

He tried more names in rapid succession—RadicalEdward, Ein, Einstein, Tomato, Appledelhi—none of which returned any result.

He sighed deeply and thought for a long moment.

Login as: Francoise

Instantly, a keypad with seemingly unrelated letters appeared on the screen. Jet's eyes went wide.

Bingo.


A/N:

Two quick things: thanks to everyone for your lovely reviews. I read them all and they make me smile.

Secondly, I've gotten a few comments about the level of swearing I use in my writing. I write in the way that is most comfortable for me, and how I hear the characters in my head. It's not liable to get any better. While the series never had much swearing in it, I think of it as existing in the same pantheon as works such as Pulp Fiction or The Sopranos—both mature works of fiction with people who use cursing as a regular form of expression. I don't view the level of vulgarity presented here was gratuitous or out-of-character for the Bebop crew simply because the show was not produced in a way that would allow the use of heavy language. I like to think I've freed them to be as they truly are. ;)