86, Useless

“I will make love to you as angels sing their heavenly melodies and the butterflies kiss the sun filled sky with their poetic wings.”  Special agent Trent Murdock was muttering to himself while drooling.  He wiped the spit from the sides of his mouth and continued, “Our bodies will cosmically connect and space aliens will find peace amongst their war filled star battles.”

“You’re fucking useless, you know that, right?”  Special agent Blacktide had been standing beside Murdock and had heard every pathetic word come out of his mouth.  Murdock was not normally shy when it came to talking to women, but currently he was standing thirty feet away from the most gorgeous Latina woman he’d ever seen.

Five blocks away, agents McVandalay and Death had killed a dozen biker thugs belonging to a narcotics gang run by a ruthless leader named El Padre.  Murdock and Blacktide were supposed to be going into all of the cantinas on the riviera boardwalk looking for this notorious leader but they didn’t know what he looked like.  They both assumed that he’d be adorned in a fine suit while adorning other high status symbols, like an expensive watch or fancy hat.  They’d struck out with this particular cantina since it was only occupied by the beautiful woman.

Murdock had lost track of all space and time.  “I would let her spank me like a naughty teenager and then bathe her in rose petals as I gently wept from my butt cheeks being in pain.”

Instead of actually going up to her and chatting, Murdock was muttering total bullshit to himself, and Blacktide had heard enough.  “I’m out of here, and if I find El Padre, I’m not calling you to join in the fun of killing him.”  She threw her hands up in the air.  “Useless.”

Snapping out of his imaginary love making session, Murdock looked over at his friend.  “Lex, how long have you been here?” he asked sheepishly, despite the fact that they’d walked into the cantina together only twenty seconds earlier.

“Fucking useless!” Alexi Blacktide said heatedly again as she turned on her heals and walked out of the cantina.

After seeing the beautiful woman in a long, black, skin tight dress sitting and drinking alone at the bar, Murdock had spaced out that he was out to murder a narco.  He’d instantly forgotten where he was or what he was doing in that exact instant.  As agent Blacktide left the cantina to go find thugs to kill, Murdock had lost all track of reality.  All that existed was the muchacha sitting at the bar.

With an uncharacteristic lack of confidence, Murdock shakily walked up to the bar and sat down next to the beautiful woman.  She was staring at her drink, stirring it slowly with a skinny bar straw.  The woman did not look up at him as the bartender came over and asked in Spanish what he’d like to drink.

“Tequila, por favor,” Murdock said with a terrible American accent.  The bartender smiled, nodded, and walked off to fulfill his order.  Murdock looked over at the woman and said, “What’s a lovely lady like you doing in a bar like this all alone?”

The woman didn’t look up from stirring her drink.  Murdock usually had no shame when it came to hitting on women, but he was all out of sorts with his thoughts.  His hands were sweating and he could feel his heart beating at an unusually fast pace.  “If you want to be left alone, I understand.”

The woman looked up from her drink and stared straight forward at the bottles of booze on the all behind the bar without looking at Murdock.  “You’re American,” she said with a sexy Spanish accent.

In that moment, he realized he’d seen this woman before.  A week earlier, Team Whiskey had started a brawl in a casino in hopes of drawing El Padre out of hiding.  The woman had been drinking at the bar in the casino, but Murdock hadn’t been able to talk with her.  Now was his chance, and he had to think of something clever to say to win her attention.  “Sí,” he said with a smirk.  He silently hated himself for his lack of smoothness.

“I can tell,” is all the woman replied.

“My Spanish is terrible, so please forgive me.”  Murdock threw a few high denomination peso bills on the bar as the bartender set his drink in front of him.  “Grassy ass,” Murdock said with a nod.  He looked at the sexy woman and asked, “What’s on your mind?”

“Americans are ruining my business,” she said coldly without looking at him.

Getting shot down by beautiful women was something Murdock was very accustomed to.  With his expectations disappearing, Murdock could feel his charm return.  “Americans are good at ruining things, but we’re also good at fixing things.  Tell me about your business.”

The woman slowly turned her head to look at Murdock.  She looked him in the eyes, then slowly looked him up and down.  Returning to his eyes, she said, “I’m in the business of selling drugs to Americans.”

Without flinching, Murdock sarcastically said, “Well, we do love our drugs, no doubt about that.”  He reached out his hand and offered a handshake.  “I’m Trent.  May I ask your name?”

The woman looked at his hand, then slowly offered hers.  Murdock noted that she had soft skin and a firm grip.  “Patricia,” she answered.  Her Mexican accent was sexy.

Murdock tried to emulate her accent.  “Pat-tree-see-ah.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.”  She let go of his hand and returned her gaze to her drink.  Murdock tried to be smooth.  “How are Americans ruining your drug business?”

The woman stared at her drink for several seconds before answering, “We call it drugs.”  She gave a small smile and laughed, then added, “You call it pharmaceuticals, but we don’t pretend.  Mexicans call it what it is.  Drugs.”

It took a second to process this information.  Could this sexy woman be a pharmaceutical rep?  He decided to ask, “What is a woman like you doing in a place like this?”

The woman laughed.  “My life, my job, it’s a lot.  It’s nice to get away from the…” she searched her English for the word, then found it, “madness.”

“Madness.  I get it,” Murdock said honestly.

Fifteen minutes of light conversation went by when the bartender came back to ask if either patron wanted another drink.  They were the only three humans in the cantina.  After paying for another round of drinks, Murdock raised his glass to the woman and said, “Cheers to Mexican truth water!”  He took a sip and enjoyed the feeling of swallowing a lit torch down his throat.  The burn gave him courage to ask, “So when you left Guadalajara to move to the city, what did you miss most about back home?”

Patricia was guarded but showing signs that she was enjoying the conversation.  “I missed dee farm.  I loved feeding dee chickens and I always loved to watch them hunt dee bugs.  I hate annoying bugs, don’t you?”

Murdock enjoyed how her Mexican accent rolled off of her tongue.  Her English was almost perfect, and she was easily understandable.  He enjoyed another burning sip of tequila, then said, “Bugs suck.”

“Sí, they do.”

“Do you ever think about going back to that farm?”

“No, ha!” Patricia said with an easy laugh.  Her accent made her even cuter.  “My familee, they think so small.  Like, I wanted to grow more chickens and expand dee farm.  I told papa, we could be dee biggest producer of juevos in Mehee-co, but he laugh at me and say it would be too much work for our family.  I tell him, no, a boss must have people you can trust, but he laugh at me.”

Murdock was pretty good at poker, and he could tell that this woman was hiding a lot of anger.  “Is that when you left?”

“No, I stay unteel I was older, then I come to Mexico City to make something of my life.  I build a huge business with many men who work for me, but now…” Patricia trailed off and looked away.  Her anger was boiling to the surface.  “Now, thees eez a time where I must find my, ah,” she thought for the word and said, “competitors, and I must finish them.”

Obviously Murdock knew about finishing people off since he was a hardened killer of bad men.  “That’s the spirit!” Murdock said.  “I always say, crush your enemies!”

Patricia laughed openly for the first time and Murdock could tell that she needed a good laugh.  “Sí, Trent!  Crush enemies!”  Her face got serene and she said, “I’m going to be biggest business woman in Mexico, very soon, I tell you.”

In that moment, the ringing of a cell phone filled the cantina.  “Is that your phone?” Murdock asked, knowing he didn’t have his phone with him.

“Yes, and I tell my people to only call me eef they have news.  Please excuse me.”  Patricia pulled her phone to her ear and said, “Digame.”

Murdock finished his fire water and raised his glass to get the bartenders attention.  He’d been cleaning a glass and as he turned to look at Murdock, he accidentally dropped the empty glass on the bar.  It broke into several pieces and made a loud shattering noise.  Patricia and Murdock both paused to see the damage, then the woman went back to chatting on her phone.  “No!” she yelled, then she repeated the word three times, “No, No, Noooooo!”

“Ah,” Murdock started to try to say something positive, but he quickly shut the fuck up.

As Murdock listened to Patricia speak in quick, small bursts, he found her fast Mexican Spanish was hypnotizing, despite that she was angry as fuck.  After thirty seconds, Patricia hung up from her call.  She looked at the American and tried her best to hide her anger.  “Meester Trent, I need to go.”

“But the night is so young!” Murdock pleaded, knowing that she was in no mood to play grab ass.  He knew it was probably useless, but he asked, “Will you stay for one more drink?” he asked casually.

Patrica was gracious despite her very obvious anger.  “I’m afraid that my company lost a lot of people tonight who will…” she looked for the words, “not be working with us any longer.”

“I don’t get it,” Murdock said.

“It’s a part of business in Mexico.  Some people are done working for me and I did not expect this.”  Murdock could see her anger growing as she added, “I will personally have to take care of this situation myself.”  She tried to hide her anger and said, “I don’t usually do the dirty work in my organization, but when you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

“Stay with me for one more drink and tell me all about it.  Whaddya say?” Murdock asked in one last ditch effort to try and get laid.

“No gracias, I need to go.  Thank you for talking tonight.  Adios, Trent.”  The woman gave him a smile and quick nod, then moved her sexy frame out the door of the cantina.  She paused right before she left and tossed her phone into the trash, as if she were disgusted by it.  Murdock thought it was a strange thing to do, but even as she angrily walked away, her wonderfully symmetrical body seemed to sway from side to side perfectly.  He was half buzzed and her beauty made him horny as fuck.

Murdock looked up to see the bartender setting a full glass of Mexican fire water in front of him.  Patricia was gone and he now had a triple shot of poison staring at him in the face.  He loved a tequila buzz and even though he knew he’d feel like total dog shit in the morning, he said, “Fuck it,” as he raised the glass to the bartender.

The brown skinned man nodded and said, “Saludos, amigo,” then went back to cleaning glasses with the same dirty, wet rag he’d been cleaning glasses with all night.

The half buzzed American secret agent downed the whole thing.  The liquid burned hotter than a bonfire as it slid down his throat.  The flame pooled in his belly and made his guts gurgle.  “Dammit,” he said, knowing that he’d soon get the squirts.  He looked at the bartender and asked, “El bańo, por favor?”  The bartender pointed to a corner of the bar and Murdock nodded appreciatively.  He walked quickly through the empty cantina to the restroom.  It was filthy and had one toilet stall.  “I deserve this,” he said, closing the stall door behind him.

While the first wave of colon evacuation erupted from his back end, his wrist watch started buzzing.  He looked at the watch screen to see he was getting a group call.  As the first termination of liquid waste came to an end, he exhaled a calming breath.  He clicked on the answer button and said, “Hey gang, what’s up?”

“Murdock!  Your GPS says you’re at the cantina where El Padre just was!”  The voice of computer expert Yen Roar was excited and nervous.  “Did you see him?”

The voice of general Rice barked in, “Report, Murdock!”

At that moment, the second wave of colon evacuation began and the sounds of butt squirts reverberated throughout the bathroom.  Without meaning to, Murdock moaned a miserable, “ugh!”  A few seconds passed by and the sounds stopped.  Murdock then said, “Ah, I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

“Are you shitting?” Roar asked incredulously.

Deciding that honesty was the best route, Murdock answered, “Me and tequila aren’t the best of bed fellows.”

“What the fuck, Murdock!” Rice said furiously.  “Blacktide called us to fill us in that she ditched you cuz you were chasing pussy!  You’re supposed to be out finding and killing Mexico’s number one narco!  Not drinking Mexican laxative water!  Jesus!”

“Now, now, boss, no need to… ugh!” Murdock said as a third wave detonated out of him.  “Arghhhh!”  Murdock yelled in discomfort in the filthy toilet stall.

“Christ on a popsicle stick, Murdock!  You are fucking useless!” Rice said.  “Did you get a good look at El Padre or not!?”

“Boss, El Padre wasn’t in here, unless it’s the bartender, which it can’t be him because, well, he’s a fucking bartender in a shitty cantina!  The only two people in this cantina were me and a really hot woman who left a few minutes ago, so I’m telling you, there was no narco boss in here.  No bikers, no thugs, no women of ill repute, nobody!”  Murdock’s guts felt a little better but he knew he wasn’t done on the toilet.

“Roar, play him the phone call,” Rice said.

“Got it, general.”  Murdock could hear Yen Roar’s fingers typing furiously.  Her clicking noises stopped and she said, “Headquarters intercepted this call three minutes ago from your exact location!”

Roar hit the play button on her computer software and an audio recording of a phone call started its playback.  A man’s low voice said, “Digame.”  Another voice spoke quickly and frantically in Spanish.  “El Padre, tenemos una problema.”  A few seconds later, there was a pause in the conversation and Murdock could hear the distinctive sound of breaking glass in the background.  The voice said more stuff in Spanish, then Murdock heard a man’s low voice say, “No!” After a pause, the voice said, “No, No, Noooooo!”  The second voice said, “Lo siento, El Padre!”  It was the second time the name El Padre was used.

Murdock couldn’t wrap his head around it.  It was a man’s voice he was hearing through his watch speaker, but it was in the exact same cadence as Patricia’s phone call had been.  It was if Murdock was in the Twilight Zone.  He didn’t know why he was saying it, but it came out of his mouth anyway, “No fucking way.”

Rice’s voice brought the conversation back to reality.  “Langley had their software interceptors listening for the key words, El Padre, and they used the GPS on their cell tower espionage software to find that the phone call was literally in the exact cantina that you happen to be taking a dump in right now.  So again, I ask,” Rice paused, then said furiously, “What in the fuck is going on!?”

“Um,” Murdock said to his watch, “I don’t know.  It makes no sense.”

“What makes no sense, god dammit!” Rice barked.

“Well,” Murdock was sheepish.  His pants were around his ankles, his was sitting in a filthy mens room in a seedy cantina, his head was buzzing and his guts were a mess.  “I think…” he couldn’t grasp it, but then stopped fighting his cognitive dissonance.  “El Padre is a woman.”

Yen Roar asked, “Did you just say, a woman?”

“Yup,” Murdock answered.  “And I had no idea, so I let her walk out of the cantina like it was no big deal.”

Roar was completely confused.  “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know how she made her voice sound like a man in that phone call, but it was definitely the phone call I heard.  There was a broken glass, and she said no three times in a row as the last one was like she was in complete disbelief, so, yeah.”  Murdock exhaled a huge sigh.  “El Padre is a woman.”  He lowered his head in defeat.  “Fuck.”

“Well, what can you tell me about her!?” Rice asked heatedly.

“She wanted to be a chicken farmer when she was young.”  Without any warning, Murdocks guts started another round of evacuation.  “Arghhhhh!” he yelled as their volcanic eruption again reverberated throughout the bathroom.  His head was spinning, 

“Jesus, Murdock,” Rice said.  “You are fucking useless!”

In the distance, a sexy woman in a sleek dress got into an armored sedan and sped off to a location where her top enforcers were heavily arming themselves to hopefully seek retribution on a group of Americans who’d killed twelve of their fellow biker thugs.