14, Staggering

"Your mother's dick is bigger than yours... OWWW!!!" Trent Murdock could barely speak. He felt electricity rage through his wrecked body. He was hanging upside down, naked. Every part of of him hurt, but he was still laughing on the inside with his defiance. He was too weak to say it, but he thought, "your mom's back hair is thicker than yours too." He lamented that he was too weak to mutter the insult.

The ruthless drug dealer named Tiberon was also exhausted. He'd been torturing special agent Trent Murdock for twenty four straight hours without a break. His thick Spanish accent rang in Murdock's ears. "You are the most impressive man I've ever met. Most men die after an hour. But don't worry. Your heart will stop beating like all the rest."

Murdock didn't have the energy to smile, but he wanted to reply, "My heart is preserved and pickled from a decade of hard drinking." The twenty nine year old special agent resigned himself that he'd be defiant until his last breath, which might be soon.

Four bad men entered the warehouse. One of them was Tiberon's number one captain. He spoke to his boss in Spanish. "The gringo is still alive? Want me to shoot him?"

"No," replied Tiberon. "I'm going to go get something to eat, then come back here and shock him until his body catches on fire. If he dies before I get back, leave him here for me to piss on his corpse."

Murdock was hanging on by a thread. Tiberon looked at his prisoner and spoke in English. "I'm leaving. I'll be back to finish you after lunch."

Murdock's eyes were closed, but he opened them slowly. "Oh, sorry, I was reminiscing about fucking your sister." He closed his eyes again and lost consciousness.

Tiberon shook his head in awe of this prisoner. In all of his years torturing people, no one had been as obstinate or belligerent as this gringo. He was impressed, but he was also hungry. He walked to the back of the warehouse and exited through a creaky door.

Twenty blocks away, four American military secret agents stumbled down a sidewalk. They were all very, very drunk from partying in a bar all night. A short white woman holding an airplane case containing a fully loaded automatic rifle addressed the group.

"I would kill a man for a burrito right now," slurred agent Death. She smelled of rum and her hair was matted down from sweat and dust.

"I'd pay for one instead of murdering someone, but only because I believe whole heartedly in trading an agreed upon medium of exchange for goods and services," answered her friend and fellow secret agent Dale O'Connor.

"Just say it, you’re trying to buy a prostitute, Doc," special agent Bradley McVandalay drunkenly joked.

"If no one is getting hurt, then what consenting adults want to do with their time and money is none of my business," O'Connor replied. His speech was also slurred, but he walked gracefully, damn near as if he were a ballerina on a mid day stroll.

"How libertarian of you, my drunk friend," said Sergeant Schuman.

O'Connor giggled. "Well Sarge, it takes one to know one."

"Being libertarian? Or a drunk?"

"Both," O'Connor chuckled.

"You’re an idiot, Doc." Schuman was walking gingerly alongside the other three, clearly in a lot of pain, but she couldn't stop smiling. She'd participated in an underground bare knuckles boxing ring two nights before. In all her years of boxing, she'd never been defeated until that night. The man who defeated her had now become the object of her obsession. She muttered to no one in particular, "I wish I would've gotten his name..."

"No! You don't! Stop it!" Agent Death was passionate, trying to be the voice of reason. She was starting to feel nauseous.

"Death, you should've seen him. He was just so sexy."

Death tried to be patient but her guts were rumbling. "Dammit sarge, getting your face beat in by a man is NOT sexy, even if it's in a fucking boxing ring. I don't care about you and Doc's shit about being consenting adults! You shouldn't be fist fighting men!"

The smile never left Schuman's face. "Oh Death, you'll fall in love someday too, I promise."

None of them were aware of their surroundings as a large windowless white van pulled up on the street just behind the agents. It crept slowly along the road, keeping perfect pace with the staggering drunks.

"Prostitution is the oldest known paid profession in human history, and women can buy sex too, dammit. Just buy a man for a night, don't beat his ass," muttered agent Death. She hiccuped, laughed, then hiccuped again. "Fuck, I've got the drunk hiccups, boys. This aint good."

"Then I'm cutting you off," said O'Connor. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a fifth of rum. He took a swallow straight without cringing.

"Pass the happiness, fucker!" McVandalay took the bottle and enjoyed a sip, but cringed and shook his head violently from side to side as the poison slipped down his throat. "I don't know how you drink as much as you do and not get sick, Doc."

"I've won awards."

"The hell you have, brother," coughed agent Death.

The passenger side window of the van rolled down slowly as the agents staggered onward. The driver kept pace with the Americans perfectly. They still didn't notice.

"Hey Death, where's the weirdest place you've ever had sex?" O'Connor asked.

"Texas." She stopped to set down the gun case and lunged over to the curb. Agent Death bent over and put her hands on her knees, then started spitting into the gutter, as if she was going to possibly vomit. The men stopped to wait for her, and that's when they noticed the white van in the road.

"I'll be damned," muttered McVandalay to himself.

"Hi Bradley," a chipper voice said from the van. "It looks like you four could use some hydration!" Pilot Porter was always in a good mood. Her smile beamed across the steering wheel and seemed to energize both O'Connor and McVandalay. "I've got some bottles of water in here if any of you are thirsty!"

Agent Death looked up, shook her head in disbelief and stood up. "I'd take you up on that, Porter." She wiped the spit from the sides of her mouth and breathed in deeply. Her intoxication made her lose balance but she didn't fall over.

Porter pulled the van over to the side of the road and jumped out. She cheerfully handed bottles of water to her friends. "Rice texted and said you four were gonna go find Murdock. The others are apparently too drunk to join you?"

"Lorenz put in a good shift but cashed in around midnight. Miller tapped out at sunrise. Rice, Blacktide and Blitz were still bullshitting with Dirt at the cantina when we left."

Porter looked intrigued. "Who's Dirt?"

The nausea and hiccups had passed. The bottle of water seemed to bring Death back to life a little. "He's bald, middle aged, and we can't tell if he's gay or not."

"Ok, that still doesn't answer my question, Death."

"Oh, yeah, sorry. He's ex military, living here in Columbia, and he's been doing his own personal recon on a few different drug rings with a group of local scoundrels. His intel has helped us a lot, actually, and he got Blacktide out of a shootout. Nice dude, and if he’s not gay, he’s probably bi."

O'Connor shrugged, "not that there's anything wrong with that."

"His shoes are too damn nice for a straight man," Schuman added.

Porter was just now noticing Schuman's face. "Jesus Sarge, you look like hell!"

"I met the man I'm going to marry!"

The whole crew started groaning in protest when McVandalay spoke up. "I'm gonna go buy us a round of tacos from that food truck over there before we get Murdock. You guys jump in the van, I'll be right back."

McVandalay could hear Schuman explaining her night of underground boxing fights to Porter as he crossed the street to the food truck. There were half a dozen people lined up, clearly excited for this particular eatery. McVandalay took his place at the back of the line as three men walked up and cut right to the front of the line. A few people tried to complain but two of the men were clearly thugs and violently pushed the protesters down to the ground with little effort. McVandalay crinkled his nose at the aggression and gracefully walked up to the biggest of the two.

"Hey dude, your shoe's untied." In the blink of an eye, he grabbed the man by the shirt and head butted him hard in the nose. The man collapsed in pain. The second thug reached for a gun in his pant line but McVandalay was on top of him before he could raise it. With one jab the thug fell with a hard thud. The third man turned around and McVandalays jaw dropped, then he grinned.

"Hey asshole, you're coming with me."

The secret agent threw a fast jab at the man's jaw and knocked him unconscious. He casually walked over to each thug and kicked them hard to break a few of their ribs. He took their hand guns and cell phones. As if he were picking a dandelion from a street crack, he hoisted at the third and smallest passed out dude over his shoulder, nodded at the onlookers casually and walked across the street to the van as if this were an everyday occurance.

Death looked annoyed. "What in the fuck is going on, McV?"

"Did anyone order a drug king pin? Cuz that's what I got from the food truck." He flopped an unconscious Tiberon down hard on the available bench seat of the van as the team gasped.

"Lunch can wait, I guess," Schuman joked.

"Let's get Murdock, then get lunch," Porter suggested. She fired up the van and typed in the coordinates of Murdocks wrist watch to locate him. They headed off towards the warehouse with the passed out drug king pin in their midst.

In the distance, three bad men marveled at a naked gringo who hung upside down, bleeding from every pore of his body, and wondered how he could still be alive, not knowing that their own lives were coming to a brutal closure soon.