ORIGINS, Murdock
“I got seven phone numbers at that bar, then ended up rocking a Russian girl last night. I did it for America.”
Nineteen year old Dale O’Connor ignored his best friend as he said, “Murdock, just for once, I want to steal something really, really valuable from one of these Wall Street assholes.”
Trent Murdock continued his story without addressing O’Connor. “She didn’t speak a word of English. It was like the cold war all over again. I was in a fight for my life. Freedom prevailed, as it always does.”
The two men were talking to each other but may as well have been talking to imaginary friends. As they walked, neither man looked at the other. “These Wall Street fucks are evil. They’re worse than the drug dealers we’ve been killing.”
“I’d call the Russian girl back today, but I don’t wanna smell like stale vodka for awhile. Maybe I’ll call that acrobat chick.”
“Seriously, Wall Street is guilty of the world’s heroine and opium trade. We should burn this whole block.”
“The acrobat chick had great teeth, and obviously she’s flexible. She speaks English to boot. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.”
O’Connor lifted a small flask filled with Jameson to his lips and took a drink of the delicious nectar, then handed it to his friend. “In fact, that’s what I want to do for your birthday. I hate these white collar thieves who steal from regular folk while they wear their expensive suits and ties. I hate them. Hate. With a capital H, Murdock. Let’s steal something from them for a change.”
Trent Murdock took a pull of whiskey from the flask as he stared up at the seventy five story building of a stock exchange trading company. “I’ don’t know, Doc,” said Murdock. “Seems like a bad use of our time. I’ve got seven phone numbers to call.” He handed the flask back to O’Connor and added, “Besides, there’s a plethora of scum bags and sex traffickers we could kill while we’re here. This town has no shortage of assholes who need to be dead.”
The two men had been vigilantes since they were ten years old. For the last nine years, the two of them had hunted down and executed bad men. They’d never held a job, paid taxes, or voted. They subsisted on stolen money from these bad men, and every weapon and explosive they’d ever used was also stolen. The whiskey warmed Murdocks belly and made his head feel happy. “You know what, you’re right, Doc. Let’s pull a heist. Ever since Dane Cook’s comedy albums, I’ve always wanted to do that.” O’Connor lifted the flask full of delicious Irish whisky to his lips as Murdock continued, “that fucker really is funny. I’m in.”
O’Connor dryly said, “that’s the spirit.”
Murdock finally made eye contact with his best friend and without concern in his voice he casually asked, “Do you ever think you’ll quit drinking?”
O’Connor said matter of factly, “yeah, when I’m over Harvey.”
The two men took cover into a jewish deli as heavy rain drops started falling from the sky. Later that night, Murdock reeked of corned beef as he looked up at the same Wall Street building from earlier in the day. “I dunno, I simply think that Cameron Diaz was WAY hotter in The Mask than some of her movies that followed.” Murdock jumped up and started climbing up the side of the windows of the large sky scraper using powerful suction cups attached to his hands and knees.
O’Connor followed suit as he said, “I agree with you. She looked like an actual woman, not just an emaciated skinny Hollywood floozie.”
Murdock was a much faster climber because O’Connor had to stop every few floors to take a drink from his small flask of Jameson. After twenty minutes of climbing and a few minutes of waiting for O’Connor to catch up, both men found purchase on a small railing that jutted from the edifice several hundred feet above the street. Murdock spoke loudly over the blowing winds, “this floor looks good enough. Here goes.”
Murdock sang as O’Connor covered his ears. His voice was so bad that after about five seconds, all the cars on the streets below went dead as their batteries were drained of all life. His voice also made the window crack. A few moments later, the whole thing imploded with a very boomy FUCKY! The two men crawled inside and continued talking about important things. “Seriously, I felt like the director could’ve done with less cheesy orchestral music when Rose had to let go of Jack’s frozen body and let it sink to the deep. Total overuse of emotional violins.”
O’Connor laughed loudly in protest as he as he walked to an office door and picked the lock. “Are you shitting me, Murdock? I cried like an asshole! That was true love! The cold Atlantic is violent and without mercy.” An alarm went off as O’Connor entered the office but he paid no mind. He turned on a computer and inserted a floppy disk into its disk drive. “I’m going to download eight megabytes of information onto this thing. We’ll see what we can dig up.”
A voice from the shadows yelled, “FREEZE! Put your hands up!”
O’Connor continued to talk to Murdock as if the voice had never said anything. “James Cameron really earned that Grammy.”
“FREEZE I SAID!” yelled the voice.
Murdock walked towards O’Connor and ignored the sound too. “It’s not grammy, you fucking dumb shit, it’s an Emmy! Hurry up. I’m getting thirsty.”
“FUCKING FREEZE YOU ASSHOLES!,” yelled the voice.
Without speaking Murdock and O’Connor dropped at the same moment to their knees while simultaneously grabbing heavy objects from a desk nearby. In a twisting fluid motion, they’d thrown the objects in the direction of the yelling voice. A red stapler obviously found it’s target as the sound of hand gun bouncing on the floor was followed by the loud thud of a body collapsing. O’Connor said, “shit. I knew that. Grammy. I’m a little drunk, not gonna lie.”
Murdock walked over to the shadows to investigate as he said, “I still don’t know what Tony awards are for though. Porn, maybe?” He kneeled down and looked at the man he’d just knocked cold. “O’Connor, this isn’t a guard. This guy looks like a thief.”
O’Connor said, “maybe he’s got the same idea as us?”
“Yeah, but he’s an amateur. What do you think?”
“I say we let him get captured, then break him out.” They frisked the unconscious man and removed a pager, wallet and another handgun from the man. O’Connor retrieved the floppy disk from the computer and pocketed it.
“Time to split, Doc,” said Murdock.
The two men walked to the edge of the broken window and jumped out. They spread their arms out like birds as state of the art parachutes filled with wind to slow their fall. They looked like pitch black eagles. On the ground, the beeper went off. The two men walked to a payphone and called the number.
“Did you get it?” asked a voice on the other line.
“That depends. You’re not talking to your guy,” said Murdock. “So whatever it was that he was supposed to get, I think we might have messed up his night.”
“Dammit!” cried the voice from the other end of the line, “you’re interfering with a top secret mission! Who is this?”
Murdock grinned as he said, “jeezus, buy a guy a drink first before you rough him up.” The other line was silent for a minute, then said, “you’re the fella who nailed the Baltimore drug house, aren’t you?”
Murdock’s eyes got huge as he said, “Now what gives you that idea?” The voice was right, but Murdock was more intrigued than anything.
The voice on the other line said, “because the only living witness was an old lady who lived a block away and said that the guy who did it was a brash, cocky bastard.”
“There’s plenty of peacocks in the world, pal.”
“She also said she could smell the whiskey on the man from where she stood a block away.”
Murdock laughed as he said, “guilty as charged, pal. Now do you mind telling me what in the fuck is going on?”
The voice on the other end said, “jump in the van and let’s chat face to face. I might have a job for you.”
The van pulled up to the pay phone ten seconds later and the door slid open. A man in a long trench coat jumped out and said, “I’m Speck. Short for spectacular.” O’Connor walked out and Speck could smell the whiskey on him. “Ah,” Speck said. “You’re a duo. My intel isn’t clear on you two, apparently.”
Murdock and O’Connor should’ve been scared, but they were intrigued and excited without knowing why. “Yup,” said Murdock, “we are pretty much a dynamic duo. No homo, of course.”
“Of course,” said Speck. “Jump in. We need to talk about your first mission.”
O’Connor said, “and what will that be?”
Speck climbed into the side of the unmarked van as he said, “first, you’re giving me the floppy disk of information you got from that computer. Then, you’re going to help me break my agent out of jail that you just knocked out. He’s the incompetent nephew of one of the brass higher up the food chain, but don’t worry. I never liked the prick and he didn’t deserve the job to begin with. I couldn’t get rid of him before, but with this excellent turn of events, he’ll never work for us again after this failure.” Speck smiled a nefarious grin. “This couldn’t have turned out better, cuz you two are meant for this life. I can tell.”
“Fair enough,” said both men as they climbed trustingly into the van. “Got any candy for us kids, mister?” asked Murdock as the door slid shut. In the distance, freaked out security guards were handcuffing an unconscious spy and muttering to each other how they didn’t get paid enough to put up with this kind of shit.