Mac Davies plants himself at coffee counters. Flannel shirted and John Deere cap wearin', he looks like a truck driver or construction worker sipping coffee at a neighborhood diner (pretending to read the Post, but possibly just looking at the headlines). His unkempt, hard workin’ appearance says he likes his coffee steaming, and that he usually opts for pie. Today, he’s removed from his diner counter hangout. Today, he leans contemplatively against the wall of 100 Financial place, pulling deep drags of a cigarette, thumbing his belt loop and squinting into the hot sun. When he stomps his cigarette out with a surprisingly clean Timberland boot, swivels left and steadily follows Jason Wrightwood on his way out of the building, Jason becomes uneasy. Jason does not become uneasy because the flannel shirted follower looks particularly menacing, but because he knows he's in trouble. He's received two calls today; anonymous enemies notifying him that his secret could no longer be considered so. Jason Wrightwood is paranoid. As he flips back his long spring Armani coat, he pulls the blackberry from his belt and tosses it into a waste-can. Without breaking stride, he reaches into the pocket of his well-pressed slacks, extracting the keys to his M500, and hits the double beep that opens the doors. To his relief, the follower does not follow. He crosses the street, lighting a new cigarette, and climbs into the unlocked red Cherokee parked a quarter block down the street. "Not a cop." Wrightwood breathes aloud. For the first time today he feels the pressure in his chest release. "Cops don't drive 15 year old hick-wagons. I bet he parks that thing in front of a trailer in Indiana" he laughs to himself.
What Wrightwood doesn’t know is that the Cherokee is the car of a loyal and adventurous PI - a PI who would plow through trash cans, over curbs and through dog parks to reach an assailant. The Cherokee says this guy means business. This guy is knows what you’re up to. This guy likes mud.
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Prompt: from Dennis Cass Wants You To Be More Awesome
1. Create a P.I.
2. Pick a car for said P.I.
3. Identify what the car says to the people in the fictional detective’s fictional world
4. Identify what the car secretly signals to the reader
Vroom, vroom.
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