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Vincent Vega loved to smoke.
As a matter of fact — and as his colleagues could very well attest — there was little more that Vincent Vega enjoyed more than taking a long, deep, self-satisfying drag from someone else’s pack.
Burgers, actually. I lied about what I said before. Vincent Vega loved hamburgers. He loved hamburgers more than he loved smoking cigarettes from someone else’s pack.
Upon reflection, however, it simply couldn’t be overstated just how much Vincent Vega loved heroin. Once in a blue moon, you had best believe that Vincent Vega was using that prized lighter of his — the same one that he used to light cigarettes, in fact — to melt down some gloriously, heavenly, deliciously potent heroin. Only a spoonful.
Ah, good grief and alas, what Vincent Vega would do for just a small hit of heroin here and now. Yet rather than settle nicely into someone else’s futon, smoking someone else’s cigarettes, and sampling someone else’s heroin, the great Vincent Vega was doing a grand total of zero of those things. Vincent Vega was poking the man in front of him with the business end of his semi-automatic pistol, in something that might be classified as an intimidation tactic.
However, Jules was less than impressed with the situation in front of him. Here was a man who was tied to a chair, sitting bound before himself and his cigarette-smoking, hamburger-eating, heroin-injecting colleague Vincent Vega. The man refused to talk, and in a city-wide industry where knowledge was worth just as much, if not more than money, that meant you’d better have a good fucking reason for staying quiet. But Jules was no fool. He was a business partner to Vincent, not a proper interrogator. If you needed some business conducted, and maybe a head or two blown off the shoulders , you called someone like him, or someone like Vincent Vega, who loved eating heroin and smoking hamburgers. If you needed something cleaned up? That was when you called The Wolf, the legend himself who valued coffee and conversation above even mankind’s most debasing pleasures, like hamburgers or something stupid like that.
And now, Jules was in the uncomfortable position of having to play The Waiting Game — his least favorite game, his colleagues would attest — because sometime in the next five minutes, The Wolf was going to come straight through the door and help everyone in this room make heads or tails of what’s going on, what’s going to happen, and when, and why. He was inwardly thankful to be in Marsellus Wallace’s good graces. He sure as hell didn’t mind killing some downright unrighteous motherfuckers, and if he got paid for talking big game and packing it, too? Well, that was all the sweeter. Sweeter than heroin.
“Not like The Wolf to be late like this,” Vincent mumbled, sucking in air through his teeth and shaking his head. “You think it’s gonna be a problem?”
“No,” was Jules’s immediate answer, “he’s probably hit a bit of traffic, or… somethin’ came up.”
“Something came up? For The Wolf?” Vincent frowned. He glanced over to the tied man sitting in front of them, the man who refused to give up the information that both Vincent and Jules’s boss, the great Marsellus Wallace, oh-so desperately sought. Neither Vincent nor Jules were appropriately tasked for an interrogation, and they knew this well. Too many heads blown off, one might be inclined to say.
“Let’s just hope he gets here soon,” Vincent complained, pulling back the slide of his pistol to admire the brass held within. “The sooner we wrap this up, the sooner I can go to the bathroom.”
“Vincent why the FUCK do you always have to—”
Everyone could hear it. Just then… footsteps. Footsteps steadily approaching, then stopping, right in front of the still-closed door to the room they were situated in. Jules furrows his brow. He almost wanted to reach out and open the door himself; the suspense was killing him. Nobody says a word.
And then… the doorknob turned. Slowly. Too slowly.
Vincent kept his pistol near. Jules too, had his hand hovering above the waistband of his trousers, where his own desert eagle was tucked away ready to blast away at some muthafuckas.
The door opened. And woe, this was not a Caucasian man with a pencil mustache. There was no black bow tie, or white button-up shirt, or slicked-back hair. This was… a woman, it would have seemed. One that Jules knew very well, though it was apt to say that Vincent was beyond confused at what he was presently looking at, in the small space of the interrogation room.
“Who the hell is this?” Vincent immediately asked. He looked to his partner Jules, half-expecting to see the other man hold up his gun and demand this stranger identify herself. To his surprise, however, Jules looked downright excited all of a sudden, and much more animated than he had been before.
“Oh, shit! What the fuck?!” Jules bent and shook his fists, as if he couldn’t contain his excitement. “Fuckin’ TEXAS?”
“Yo.” Texas nodded in greeting to Jules, and she nodded at Vincent, too. Standing in front of the two men was none other than Texas, one of Marsellus Wallace’s retired transporters. Vincent had only heard the nickname before, but to see the woman herself in the flesh… He didn’t know what to say.
“Shiiiiiiiit, they got you back in California now?” Jules asked the sword-wielding woman. Texas could only shrug her shoulders, utterly nonplussed with the situation at hand.
“I was in the neighborhood,” she deigned to say, “and Marsellus called me up to help out here.”
“Wait wait wait.” Vincent raised his hands. “What about The Wolf?”
“The Wolf, erm…” Texas rubbed the back of her neck. “Lost in translation.”
“No shit…” Jules was absolutely flabbergasted.
“Mm. So, they sent in a wolf. Me, specifically.” As if on cue, her wolf ears waggle. Vincent had certainly been wondering about those things perched on top of the woman’s head.
“Uhh… Texas?” Vincent returned his gun to its holster, and he cleared his throat. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I heard you were one of Los Angeles’s finest,” he told her.
“Ah, well…” Texas smiled wryly. “Marsellus likes to boast.”
“How’s Lungmen?” Jules had to ask.
“It’s not as bad as California,” Texas said with a nod.
“Yeah, no shit…”
“Is that a fucking sword?” asked Vincent.
“I left the other one in the car,” said Texas.
That’s when Vincent decides to turn directly to Jules, now. “What the hell is going on here.”
“The interrogation, motherfucker!” Texas and Jules say at the same time, before high-fiving. Vincent could only shake his head slowly.
“Speaking of which, is this the guy?” Texas approached the man still tied to a chair, who up until now had refused to so much as open his mouth. He was battered and bruised, which could only have been the work of Jules and Vincent. Still, evidently he’d refused to budge.
“We tried everything,” Vincent told Texas, who held her own chin and nodded in understanding. Vincent stared openly at the wolf girl’s tail as it swayed back and forth, perhaps contemplatively. “We, uh…” He blinked. “We almost broke his damned kneecaps. We tried burning him with cigarettes.”
“My cigarettes,” Jules mumbled, “needy muthafucka.”
“We tried to pull out his teeth with pliers. We got a couple of ‘em,” Vincent mentioned, offhandedly, “but he didn’t say shit. He’s a tough motherfucker, ain’t he?”
“All men have their weaknesses,” said Texas, narrowing her gaze at their victim.
“We should just cripple the muthafucka,” Jules suggested. “Give ‘em some of that fourth-floor balcony type shit, like with Marsellus and Tony Rocky Horror.”
Vincent cracked a smile. “You sayin’ we should rub his feet?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Boys, hush.” Texas raised her hand to silence the gentlemen. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh yeah?” Vincent snickered. “What’s worse than breaking a man’s kneecaps, pulling out his teeth, and beating him to an inch of his life?”
Texas bent forward, putting her hand on the bound man’s shoulder. He refused to look her in the eye — and it was to his benefit. Texas looked downright evil as she stared straight at the man, the act of which alone prompted Jules to smile knowingly to himself.
“Check this shit out, Vincent,” said the afro-wearing soul brother, “she’s gonna do some voodoo-ass fuckin’ magic-type shit. Just watch and learn, playboy.”
“I don’t need to use my Arts,” Texas assured the man who had long ago taken over her station.
“Oh shit?” Jules raised an eyebrow.
“Mm.”
Texas gripped the man’s shoulder tightly, and she pointed straight at him with her free hand. And then, in a booming voice that surprised even Vincent and Jules, she lay down a devastating threat.
“Tell us what we want to know, or we’ll make you play Genshin Impact.”
“NO!!!” Suddenly verbal, and as if he’d received a shock to his system, the man bound to the chair began to cry and thrash with a heretofore unseen violence and fervor. “NO NO NO!!! ANYTHING BUT THAT! GOD, PLEASE NO!!!”
“Hmph.” Texas smirked. “Nothing personnel, kid. But it gets ‘em every time.”
“Mother FUCKER!” Jules took a step back in fright. The largest, darkest man in the room was quaking in his boots. If he took out his gun now, he would surely shoot himself in the testicles.
“I-I’ll talk, I’ll talk!!” The tied man was hyperventilating now, as if someone was out to get him. “Just don’t make me play that boring fucking game again!!”
“Well then?” Texas raised an eyebrow. The man gulped with such difficulty, it was as if he was trying to swallow all of the air in the room.
“I’ll say it…” He sighed, resigning himself to the fate of this world. “I’ll tell you what Victoria’s Secret is…”
“Let’s fucking gooooo!” Jules pumped his fist. “In the mutha-FUCKIN’-money baby!”
“What???” Vincent raised a shaking finger. “W—no, I thought—?”
“All in a day’s work. You listen to these boys,” Texas gestured to both Vincent and Jules, “or else I will make you start a new game.”
The man nodded, extremely quickly. He was sweating bullets. Vincent was even picking them up off the ground to save them for later.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad. Usually I have to take out my phone and everything…” Texas stood up straight, and she adjusted her tie. “Will that be all, Vincent?”
“Maaaaan, you’re one bad muthafucka, Tex!”
“Yeah I know,” said Texas.
“You’re the illest bitch we’ve ever had in the business!”
“Yeah I know that already,” Texas told him.
“You have wolf ears and a tail,” Vincent decided to finally say.
“Yeah I knew about that ever since I was born,” said Texas. She turned to leave outright, much to Jules’s amusement.
“Shit, Texas, are you gonna be in Los Angeles any longer?”
“Oh, definitely.” She turned back and nodded, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I don’t get very many chances to say the N-word, so I’d better make it last.”
“Atta girl! And what the fuck is up with you, huh! You don’t show a brotha love or nothin’ like that?! Dap me up again!”
“Awwww shit. You right.”
Just then, Texas and Jules high-fived one more time, clapping their hands together and doing some kind of arcane twirl — a secret handshake; a testament to a bond that crossed all barriers.
“Let’s have drinks later. I have to hit the road,” said Texas.
“Already?” Vincent crossed his arms. “Where are you off to?”
“I need to teach Bruce Willis how to use a sword,” said Texas.
“Oh okay.” He paused. “Hey, you want a smoke? Jules, give her a smoke.”
Texas shook her head. “Thanks, but I quit a while ago.”
“Yeah? How do you deal with the shakes?”
“I eat Pocky and have outrageous amounts of lesbian sex,” said Texas.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” Texas nodded solemnly, as if no one else could do what she does on the daily. “Anyway… see you both later.”
Just like that, Texas left. As quickly as she had come, she had gone away. Like dust in the wind.
“Wow,” said Vincent, “that bitch is ice cold.”
“Yeah, they don’t fuck around up in Lungmen,” said Jules, nodding knowingly. “Man, I oughta go pay Emperor a visit. Guy’s a beast, a real hardcore-ass motherfucker.”
“Lungmen, huh…” Vincent pursed his lips, and he rubbed his chin as if deep in thought. “Shit, I wonder what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Lungmen…”