66, Casino

“I’m sorry, I thought this was a casino, not a dog adoption center.”  Special agent Trent Murdock grinned as his nose leaked a few drops of blood from his nostrils.  It throbbed from the punch he’d just taken.  “Because all I see are a bunch of bitches around me.”  He smiled at his own very lame joke.

A tall, large chested thug shook his head in disapproval as he punched Murdock again, this time in the jaw.  The sound of cracking knuckles and bone reverberated around the room.  The thug dropped in pain as Murdock turned his cheek and spat blood droplets and pink saliva on the floor.  Murdock kept grinning, clearly showing that he was having a good time.  “I know you can do better than that, bitch.”  

The thug was on his knees, holding his shattered hand.  He was in immense pain but his disbelief wouldn’t allow him to process the moment.  He’d hit this American’s face as hard as he could, but the American’s jaw was like a brick.  

“Ok, ok, I’ll call you a female dog instead of a bitch.  Maybe you can understand that in English?”  He spoke quietly and slowly, as if the man was dumb.  “Female.  Dog.”  He dug into his brain for the Spanish equivalent.  “Feminino.  Doggo.”  He thought of his friend, Dale O’Connor, who could speak perfect Mexican Spanish.  “Bitcho, bitch!” Murdock said, but he knew it was no use.  He imagined that O’Connor would berate him for using the wrong letter at the end of a word for masculine or feminine.  He looked away from the thugs and muttered to his non-existent friend, “Fuck you, Doc, and your foreign language bullshit, fucker.”

Four other smaller thugs saw their leader on the ground grasping his fist in pain.  They were dumb, and all subordinates to the main thug, so they didn’t know what to do.  Murdock snapped back into being in the moment and saw their confusion and surprise.  “Eleven jaw surgeries and countless fights have given me the perfect human jaw, amigos.  Same goes for my ribs.  If any of you idiots wants to punch me, my only weak spot is my pinky toe, and even then you dumb shits would probably injure yourselves because you’re all bitches.”

None of the men spoke back to him.  All five thugs were wearing three piece suits that fit loosely around their skin.  They were all white guys, but none of them spoke English.  They were the hired muscle at a Mexican casino owned by a well known narcotics dealer.  Currently Murdock was sitting in a conference room with his hands bound together behind his back like handcuffs by a very strong zip tie.  He sat upright in a wooden chair and wiggled his arms to try and see if he could snake his hands free, but the zip tie was perfectly snug and wouldn’t budge.  He shook his head in disgust and tried to give himself a pep talk.  “Come on, Murdock.  Bitches?  That’s all you’ve got for these dumb fucks?  You can do better than that.”  He had no fear about his current situation.  His only fear was that his friends would make fun of him for not having better insults to his captors.  Murdock resolved to be more clever with his insults to the next thug who’d rough him up.

A hand held radio buzzed and a fast talking Mexican spoke on the other end.  One of the subordinate thugs replied and was explaining that their leader was on the ground with a broken hand.  The radio voice gave instructions to get the lead thug out of there and that reinforcements would arrive shortly.  Murdock knew none of this because he didn’t speak Spanish.  He was currently trying to engage a small toothpick blade from his wrist watch communicator.

“Espera!” (Wait!) One of the thugs pointed and yelled at Murdock.  The four remaining thugs helped their boss to his feet and all of them escorted him out of the room.  

Murdock was alone and the room was silent.  “Well that went well,” he said to himself.  He was supposed to be quietly gambling away a million stolen dollars from a well known Mexican narcotics boss, but after being up almost a million dollars at the blackjack tables, the thugs came and escorted him to the back room, knowing that he was counting cards.  Murdock wasn’t necessarily the best gambler, but today his luck was out of sight.  Yes, he’d been counting cards, but he couldn’t seem to miss.  He only lost one in twenty hands, and it was always when he was betting low.  When he bet huge, he won huge, time after time.  His winnings got the attention of security, and when they saw Murdock muttering to himself, they knew he was counting cards.  

“Come on, mother fucker,” Murdock said to the empty room.  He twisted his arms and tweaked his shoulders to try and get at the appropriate button on his secret agent wrist watch, but he couldn’t get the angle right.  “God dammit!” he yelled in frustration.

“Hey Murdock!”  A soft female voice came from the corner of the room and scared the living fuck out of him.

“What!  Who’s there?” he asked with surprise.

“It’s me, Ana.”

“Ana?  What?”

“Look up!  Over at the air vent!”

Special agent master thief Anastasia Boothausen was opening the air vent to the room.  The space seemed way too tiny for a human to sneak through, but somehow her contorted body slithered out of the opening like a snake.  She plopped out of the hole clumsily, but when her feet and hands made contact with the floor, the landing made no sound whatsoever.  She caught herself like a cat and her appendages absorbed her weight gracefully.  Boohausen popped up to her feet just as silently and gave Murdock a big smile.  “Hey, dude!  What’re you doing back here?”

“I’d ask you the same thing!”  Trent Murdock was shocked to see her since he had no idea she was in Mexico, let alone in the same casino.  

“Owens and I are taking a few days off from gathering intel in Mexico City.  We came over here for fun!  Why are you here?”

Murdock felt sheepish with his hands tied behind his back.  “Rice gave me a mission to roll in here, blow a bunch of stolen money from a narco just to piss him off, then join back up with the team in a few days.”  He looked at Boothausen suspiciously.  “Hey, did Rice send you to spy on me or something?”

“Nope!” Boothausen answered honestly.  “Owens and I like to break into places and scope them out, then we compare notes about how we’d rob a place.  It’s a good way to blow off steam and relax.”  She nodded at the the fact that Murdock’s arms were zip tied behind his back.  “You good?  Need any help?”

Sarcastically, Murdock said, “No, I’m good.  I’ve got everything under control.”

Being socially awkward, Boothausen shrugged and missed the sarcasm.  “Oh!  Ok.”  She took a sniff in the air and said, “The guy with the stinky brown shoes is coming back here.  I’d better get back to snooping around.”

“Ah…” Murdock muttered, but in the time it took him to make that sound, she’d jumped back up and pulled her contorted body as quietly as a whisper back into the vent system.  The vent gate got pulled back into the wall perfectly flat as the door to the room opened back up.

Murdock was still processing what he’d just seen when one of the thugs said something in Spanish to the other thug.  There were only two  men from the original five who’d brought the American secret agent into the room earlier.  Murdock looked at their shoes, and sure enough, one was wearing a pair that was obnoxiously brown.  Murdock crinkled his brow, closed his eyes, and sniffed through his nose at full force to see if he could smell something.  His brain registered nothing as one of the thugs said, “Páralo!” (Stop it!).

Sitting subdued with his hands behind his back, he said, “Dude, there’s no need to be rude.  Literally.  You’ve got me tied up with a zip tie, remember?”  Murdock knew the thug didn’t understand a word he was saying so he twisted his body so the thug could see the constraints.  “So yeah, a little courtesy would be appreciated, pal.”

The thug didn’t know what Murdock was saying, but he walked threateningly over to him to try and be intimidating.  The truth was, the thug had never seen his boss get injured, ever, and the strange, large American spooked him.  He didn’t let his fear show, and he puffed his chest at his prisoner.

“Suit yourself!” Murdock said with big eyes.  He offered his jaw to the thug to punch, but nothing happened.  The thug just stood there intimidatingly, but Murdock could see the vein in his neck pop in and out with each pump from his heart.  The thug was nervous.  “Poor little fella,” Murdock said as he relaxed back in his chair.  He tried again to reach the small blade attachment hidden in his watch but it was no use.

A knock on the door was followed by yet another man opening it.  He said something in Spanish, then the two thugs exited the room.  The door shut and it sounded like it locked behind them.  “What in the fuck are those assholes doing?  God dammit,” Murdock swore to himself.   He tried with all of his might to manipulate his large shoulders to twist in a manner to where he could reach his watch, but he knew it was useless.  

“Murdock, is that you?”  For the second time in just a few minutes, a voice from the far side of the room startled him as it called him out by name?

“Who’s there?!” Murdock said a bit too intensely.

“It’s me, Owens!”  The air vent opened up and Owens plopped out.  Just like Boothausen, he landed silently on the ground.  Owens had a huge curious grin on his face and his eyes were excited to see his friend.  “How fun is it to bump into you here, dude?” he asked enthusiastically.

It took Murdock a second to process what was going on, but he didn’t hesitate to lose the opportunity to get help this time.  “Owens!  I kind of pissed some dudes off and I could use a favor.  Can you cut these zip ties that have me bound up?”

“Sure!”  Owens moved swiftly across the room and reached into his pocket.  Murdock couldn’t see what was going on as he twisted his body to offer his arms to his friend, but within a few seconds, the zip ties were torn and he was free from their grip.  “Gotcha!”

“Owens, thank you!”  Murdock stretched out his large arms and cracked his neck from side to side.  “I thought that would be much easier to get out of than it turned out.  You saved my ass, dude.  I owe you one.”

“Don’t mention it!  Hey, are you here on vacation too?” Owens asked innocently.

Murdock loved this question.  Owens didn’t ask why Murdock was tied up in the back room of a Mexican casino.  Bumping into someone from Team Whiskey like this was as normal as a Tuesday stroll in the park.  Murdock grinned and shrugged, “Technically I’m on the clock.  I’m supposed to be losing a shit ton of money right now but instead I’ve won about a million dollars because I’ve been counting cards.”

“Dang, dude.”  Owens spoke plainly, not surprised, nor excited.  “I didn’t know that you could even count, let alone count cards.  That’s awesome.”  Owens wasn’t trying to be insulting.  He was simply stating his opinion as calmly as if he were telling someone about a weather forecast.

“I’m good for a few things, and beating the house at their own math is one of my specialties,” Murdock said as he rubbed his sore wrists.  “Yeah, believe it or not, I’m good at blackjack.  I’m pretty good at poker too, but I’ve never beaten Doc, ever.”  Owens looked confused at this nugget of info as Murdock elaborated, “No one can read Doc’s drunk face.  He doesn’t blink, his bloodshot eyes look like ghosts in a horror movie, he always pushes the pot up to make people nervous and somehow he always has the right cards when he needs them.”

Owens nodded in appreciation.  “I can see that about Doc.  Hey, do you need help getting out of here?  Cuz I can distract anyone guarding this room by fucking with them.  That would be fun.”

On any given day, Murdock would say that he was frightened by any thought that Owens muttered.  Today, he loved it.  He grinned and said, “I’m a million dollars up on the blackjack tables and I left all my chips at my seat.  I’m guessing they’ve confiscated them, but in the off chance they haven’t, I’d like to walk up and collect them, then cash out.  Do you think you can help me with that?”

“Hmmmm,” Owens said as he thought deeply.  Murdock always figured Owens had a brain as shallow as a kiddie pool, so what Owens said next was shocking.  “I found the electrical room a few minutes ago and I looked over the breaker panel.  The builders of this place put in multiple breakers for each part of this casino, but I figured out their system.  I could shut down the power to the back rooms here while leaving the casino lights and machines on.”  He paused and added, “Oh yeah, you should know that Ana is here in the casino too and she’s staking the place out like me.  I wonder if she could figure out a distraction so security couldn’t get to the cashier to stop them from paying you out.”  Owens went into deep revelry.

In all of his years working with this unit of special agents, never before had Murdock been more excited to try and do what they were about to do.  “If you kill the lights, I’ll use my fists to get back to the casino floor.”

Snapping out of his daydream revelry, Owens said quickly, “When you exit this door, go left to the end of the hallway, then take another left until you’re at the end of that hallway.  That door will put you back on the casino floor.  From there, I have no clue what table you were playing at because I didn’t even know you were here, but you’ll figure it out from there.  Good luck!”  Owens then lifted his wrist to his face and started chatting gibberish as he walked back to the air vent.  “Ana, come in.  I want to pull a pop tart, then do a fried egg, all in the next two minutes.  Can you help me?”

As he jumped effortlessly up to the air vent opening and contorted his body to slip into the duct work, Murdock heard Boothausen reply from his watch, “Dammit, Murdock said he had everything under control!  We’re busting him out, aren’t we?”

Owens was replacing the vent cover to the room as Murdock heard him reply, “You knew Murdock was here?  Dang girl, you are good!”  With that, the voice of Owens disappeared.

Goosebumps popped up on Murdock’s skin, and his instincts knew that men were about to walk into the room.  He positioned himself to be able to fist fight whomever entered, and ten seconds later as the door opened, fists flew.  Ten seconds later, eight thugs lay bleeding and unconscious with broken jaws and cracked ribs while Murdock leisurely stepped over them into the hallway.  As if on cue, the lights in the hallway went black.  “It hasn’t even been a minute.  Nice work!” Murdock said to no one.  He turned on his wrist watch light and found his way to the end of the hallway, then turned left and continued quickly.  Voices were yelling randomly in Spanish around him but he didn’t slow down.  Before he knew it, he was back out on the casino floor.

“Gracias, waitress!” he said as he grabbed a bucket of beer from a bar top.  He pulled out all the beers and set them on the bar, then took the bucket full of ice.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out two one hundred dollar casino chips, tossed them on the bar and said, “keep the change!”  

Walking quickly, he stopped at a trash can to dump out the ice.  A minute later he was back to the blackjack table where he’d been sitting with the empty bucket under his arm.  To his complete and utter surprise, all of his chips were still perfectly stacked in front of his empty chair.  “I gotta go, thanks!” Murdock said cheerfully.  He tossed a handful of one hundred dollar chips as a tip for the blackjack dealer.  The man’s eyes got big, not knowing if he should accept the tip or not, and whether he’d get in trouble with his own casino bosses, but by the time he processed what had happened, Murdock had scooped his chips into the wet, empty beer bucket and bailed.

The sensation of his watch buzzing startled him, but he realized it was text message from Boothausen.  “I’ve cut their coms, locked the security doors so staff can’t get on or off the casino floor and I’ve shut off the security cameras to the cashier.  You’re clear.”

Completely impressed, Murdock again said to no one, “Unfuckinreal.”  A minute later, he was at the cashier.  He handed over his bucket of chips and said, “American dollars, please.”  The cashier shook her head to indicate he couldn’t get dollar, so Murdock nodded and said, “Pesos are fine.” A pair of security officers walked by him with ear pieces in, looked at him, nodded, and kept walking.  Murdock wondered how Owens and Boothausen were doing what they were doing cuz it was clearly working.

As the casino cashier put the poker chips into a machine to count them, Murdock walked to a luggage kiosk not far from the cashier. He purchased a medium sized suitcase and when he returned, the cashier had his cash waiting for him. The cashier counted out stacks of cash as a manager watched.  Murdock felt the process was far too slow, but his impatience passed as he scooped up the cash and said, “Gracias!” He stuffed the stacks of green backs unceremoniously into his suitcase, nodded, and headed out.

Ten minutes later, Murdock was driving away in a taxi, completely blown away that his day had gone the way it had gone.  The taxi dropped him off at a cantina, and after Murdock paid the driver, it took off.  Making sure he wasn’t being followed, Murdock ducked into the alley, ran several blocks, then scrambled up and over a very tall concrete block wall to a small residential house.  At the back door, he entered a code next to the door knob and heard it unlock.  Once inside, he breathed a sigh of relief.

As if Owens could somehow magically see that Murdock was safe, his wrist watch rang.  Owens was his typical enthusiastic self.  “Murdock, that was epic!  Sorry it took me so long to get the power cut.  I’m losing my edge in my old age.”

“Ah, dude, are you shitting me?  From the time you slipped out of the room to the time I knocked out those eight dudes coming to beat me up, it couldn’t have been half a minute before the power got cut.  How in the hell did you get there so fast?”

Answering honestly with no bragging or emotion, Owens said simply, “Shitty design by the architects.  I gotta tell you, my favorite part was when we blocked all of their security transmissions while simultaneously locking the door of the office to their chief of security.”

“You’re an animal.”

“I had an ex girlfriend tell me that when I brought home a dead deer once.  I guess I suck at communication,” Owens said with honesty.  “She told me she was a vegan so I assumed that meant she was from Europe.”

“I repeat my sentiment.  You’re an animal.”

“Holy shit, Murdock, are you a vegan?” Owens asked with genuine curiosity.

“Fuck no, dude, what the fuck?  You’ve cooked me steaks at your cabin, remember?”  Murdock shook his head in amazement.

“Come to think of it, I don’t actually know what vegan means.  Anyways, back to the security guy.”  Owens was as A.D.D. as a human could be.  “He’s the nephew of some big narco.  I hear this security guy is a nasty dude, so now that his narco uncle knows that the casino lost a million bucks, there’s a shit storm of bad people pointing fingers at each other.”  Owens couldn’t help it as he laughed, “it’s awesome!”

“Dude,” Murdock said with exasperation, “you and Boothausen are gods among mortals.  I have no clue how you do what you fucking do.  That was insane.”

As if playing it off like it were an everyday occurrence, Owens said, “We’re master thieves.  We can’t help it.  Mischief is in our blood.”

“Mischeif,” Murdock grunted, “is that what you call it?”

“Yup.  Hey, I gotta cut this short.  Ana and I are in a bank vault and we’re trying to see who can open it the fastest from the inside with just a paper clip and a fridge magnet.  She’s beaten me twice in a row but I know I can take her.  Gotta go.”

In the distance, a lot of Mexican bad guys started blaming each other for letting the card counting American go while a very nasty head of security dude plotted finding the gringo wherever he was in the city and killing him.