Title: Pickets

Part 7

Author: AlyshebaFan

Rating: K+


Stockwell always provided the accommodations, where the men went, and this time the place was a doozy – a fleabag motel just outside some little town Murdock had never heard of. He could have sworn he saw cockroaches picketing in protest to the poor sanitary conditions. Murdock and Face were sequestered in what had, at some far distant time in the past, been called the April in Paris Suite. "Yeah, April in Paris. Bathrooms – Calcutta in July," Frankie grumbled.

After hauling a still-sleeping B.A. onto a bed in one of the two rooms they would be using and taking a couple of pain-killers, Murdock and Face went in search of something to eat. The finally came across a miserable place that had, at one time, been a Dairy Queen but was now called The Moo-Cow Malt Shop. Murdock ordered a cheeseburger and fries, and muttered that it was easily the most uninspired burger he had ever eaten. He began attempting to build a log cabin with his French fries, but they were too soggy and floppy to be useful in that endeavor. He gave up and gazed out the window, bored. It was boiling hot outside, so that the blacktop road looked hazy in the sunlight, and the smell of melting tar irritated everyone.

Face was getting alarmed. Murdock bored was Murdock looking for something to alleviate the boredom. He was like a crow – far too smart for common things, and liable to get himself into trouble in his quest to find entertainment. He was using the paper liner of their tray to make an airplane (after having completed the kiddie puzzle and the connect-the-dots, resulting in a vaguely demonic-looking clown, which made Murdock flinch with alarm when he recognized what he'd drawn). Face watched, fascinated, as his friend transformed ordinary paper into a graceful, perfectly aerodynamic glider. He aimed it and, before Face could stop him, let it sail smoothly onto the table of two surly looking men several tables away. The men looked at them, annoyed.

"Play in your own yard, Murdock," Face said, sotto voce.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" one of the men asked Murdock.

"Oh, you'd need a whole encyclopedia of modern psychology to answer that question," Murdock answered in his laziest Southern drawl. He tugged the brim of his cap down a little lower. "Did you know that your head looks like a spider attacking a boiled egg?"

Silence.

Boiled-Egghead got up and stalked over to their table, hands on his hips.

Face grimaced and prepared himself for a fight. He'd have to step in, most likely, to protect Murdock. Then again, Murdock had a unique way of defending himself when the odds were clearly against him. Face remembered an incident in Saigon, when the pilot had been set upon by five huge, angry Marines that Murdock had insulted by saying they looked like the southern ends of a herd of northbound donkeys. Instead of countering their attack with aggression, he had thrown himself onto his back, began paddling his arms and legs in the air and screaming at the top of his lungs, sounding a great deal like a siren. The effect had been spectacular – the Marines had backed away, alarmed, and finally left the bar as a disconcerted body, unable to handle that kind of strategy. Murdock had hopped back to his feet, ordered another beer, and resumed eating peanuts, as if nothing had happened.

"Uh…he…uh…" Face began. The larger man stood and stalked over to their table. Face put on his best smile, but Murdock shrugged, apparently completely unconcerned. "Listen, it's…he's…crazy." Murdock's eyebrow lifted. Face looked chagrined and took another tack. "Uh…he has a condition where, sometimes, he just blurts out things…"

Murdock rolled his eyes. "Yeah, like the truth, for instance. That's why I could never be a politician. One minute, you're kissing a baby, the next you're telling the mother that you'll be happy to get a banana for her monkey."

Face leaned toward him and hissed, "Are you trying to get us both killed?"

"Oh, please, this guy is about as threatening as a French mime." Murdock took a sip of his Coke and winced. "Terrible. All carbon, no syrup. Yech."

Boiled-Egghead finally realized that attacking a clearly crazy person was not useful, or maybe he just decided it would do nothing to improve his reputation. He finally stalked away and sat down with his friend. Murdock sat back in his seat and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He watched as Face tried to pull himself back together. The conman shook his head, adding this to his ever-growing list of things he would never understand about Captain H.M. Murdock. He had attempted, at least twice, to get Murdock to really tell him if he was actually crazy, or if it really was all just an act. Sometimes, Face was absolutely certain he was completely unbalanced, but that whole notion would get thrown out the window when Murdock was say or do something completely rational.

Today was not that day, though. Face had resolved, lately, to get Murdock good and drunk and con him into spilling his entire story. He had no doubt it would be fascinating.

"Hey…are you okay?" Face finally asked him. Murdock reached for Face's tray liner, but Face slapped his hand away. "No way!"

"I'm okay," Murdock shrugged.

"What was that all about, then?"

"I dunno. An urge, I guess. Lookin' for adventure…whatever comes my way… By the way…" Murdock scratched the back of his neck, a sign that Face knew very well – the pilot was uneasy. "How long are we gonna be here? Did Hannibal ever say?"

"Couple days, I think."

"Oh. That's…that's good." Murdock squinted out at the torturous sunlight. "I was thinkin'…I was thinkin' that maybe I'd go pay a visit to the VA. I…uh…I have some friends down there that I'd like to see."

"Oh?" Face noted Murdock's guarded expression, but couldn't put a finger on what was going on in his friend's head. He ran through the list of Murdock's past dalliances that he knew about – the list was not long, which had always seemed odd to Face – and wondered… "Wanting to pay a visit to a pretty little nurse down there?"

"No, no…" Murdock shook his head, refusing to meet his eye. "Just a friend, Faceman. Just a…uh…friend."

"But I'm guessing it's a woman. Somebody who could be more than just a friend, maybe?" Face grinned. "That's good. You deserve a little…you know…extra-curricular activity, buddy."

"It's not that. It…er…it's just…it's not that." He rubbed his face, and Face was disturbed to see him looking so uneasy. "N-Nothing happened," he said, with a pleading gesture, clearly hoping his friend would drop it.

"Oh! The thing that didn't happen but should have happened. It almost happened, but it couldn't happen because it shouldn't have happened…'cause it would have ruined everything?" He grinned. Face wondered what she looked like – Murdock, he knew, had excellent taste in women. He always seemed to go for the classy ones with brains, rather than the bimbos. In fact, the pilot seemed to have great distaste for bimbos, and was quite old-fashioned. At times, Face had to admit that he envied Murdock a little in that regard. Even more, Face knew that that pretty little nurse back in Nam always left Murdock's quarters with a big smile on her face…

"Uh…what kind of desserts do they have here?" Murdock hopped out of the booth and headed to the counter, to peruse the menu. Face shrugged. He wanted a look at this girl, just the same. He sat back in his seat and picked up a newspaper and began reading the sports pages. He was only vaguely aware of the two men leaving the restaurant, after having ordered another cheeseburger combo. Only boredom made Face look up and watch them get into a white van and drive away, heading north. He went back to an article about a local sheep rancher who had trained his sheep to form into large letters on the sides of hills. One such strategic grouping had formed 'Will You Marry Me?' for a young man proposing to his girlfriend. "That'd take a lot of sheep," he muttered. "And lots of time on your hands." When Murdock returned, he handed the paper to him and pointed at the article.

"Yeah, but could he do that with chickens? Ever try to herd chickens?" Murdock shook his head. "Or cats. Damn near impossible."

"Could it be done with horses?" Face asked him, curious.

"Yeah. You can train a horse to do almost anything 'cept drive a car."

"No opposable thumbs would make driving somewhat difficult," Face conceded.

"Very true. Of course, I once attempted to get a conman to bet on the right horse in a certain race, and he refused and lost fifty bucks. Foolish, foolish man." Murdock grinned at him, and Face was relieved to see things getting back to normal. Murdock wasn't bored any more. All was right with the world, or at least until Murdock saw something shiny.


Bridget wished they'd at least let her take a shower. She knew she was starting to not smell so great. Being locked up all day, inside a warehouse, was hardly conducive to good hygiene. She was allowed to use the tiny bathroom at the far end of the building when she needed to, but only under close supervision. Fortunately, they didn't insist on going in there with her, as she barely fit in the room by herself. She had searched the closet-sized bathroom for anything she could use as a weapon, but it was just a sink and a toilet, a roll of tissue and some hand soap. Not even a plunger.

Boredom had set in, after three days. She was to the point of thinking of words that started with certain letters of the alphabet. She was heavy into the D's now. Danger. Death. Dastardly. Demonic. Dark. Deadly…Deviant. She cursed her photographic memory – she had started reading dictionaries as a child, memorizing words and their meanings, and then encyclopedias. Her mother had once told her to try out for Jeopardy! but Bridget hadn't had time and Alex Trebek just irritated the hell out of her.

Oh, such cheery words, she thought. But she had little else to do with her time, which stretched out before her, like an endless road. A blue-ribbon highway, like the roads in Texas, that went on forever. That imagery depressed her, of course. She was going to be stuck somewhere, with no one out there having a clue where she was or what had happened to her. By now, her superiors at the VA would be wondering what had happened to her, as she was almost anal about being on time every day, and doing her work efficiently and with great diligence, often working overtime trying to help her patients overcome their problems. She had become well-liked in the VA psych ward, for her genuine concern for their well-being. Even the most disturbed patients had calmed down in her presence, and would even talk to her. But they weren't likely to realize that she was really missing until it was too late to do anything about it. She would be long gone before the police were alerted.

The Boss had come by, as planned, on her first day in the warehouse. He was a swarthy little man with a wart on his right cheek, only he bore little resemblance to John-Boy from The Waltons. Instead, he looked more like Che Guevara, only more disgusting and amoral, if that were possible. He had sleazed over to her, looked her over carefully with beady little black eyes and told Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee that they had picked just the right girl – she was perfect. He had leered at her for a few minutes before leaving.

Listening to the three men talk, from inside her cabinet, Bridget surmised that she was, indeed, being prepped for transport somewhere south of the border, perhaps to South America. She recalled having gone to Rio for Carnival a few years ago, and frankly had not been impressed – all the noise and stink and people routinely driving their cars into hotel lobbies had not been her idea of a great time, even at eighteen and her wildest. Of course, she had also not enjoyed a trip to Austria, where littering was punishable by death. Right now, she just wanted to be home. In her own bed, with the air conditioning on full blast, watching Johnny Carson.

Tears filled Bridget's eyes as she thought about her parents, for about the millionth time since she'd been abducted. She wasn't entirely sure she was going to get out of this, much less survive it. Generations of Southern pride, tradition and determination weren't going to help her escape from a sad fate.

Depressing.

Bridget let her tears fall then. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing that could be done. She was going to have to endure…and learn Spanish.


"That was too easy," B.A. said, taking a drink of milk and wiping his upper lip. "Stockwell could have rescued that guy with a toy gun and some wire clippers, all by himself."

"Well, the job's done and that's one more the record," Hannibal pointed out. "Just a few more to go and we're free." He sat back in the booth at the Moo Cow and lit his cigar. Face, sitting beside him, nodded in agreement. Murdock was trying to suck the contents of a chocolate milkshake through a straw, but the concoction was too thick and he was getting a little breathless. Frankie was connecting the dots on the kiddie puzzle of a tray liner, and looked alarmed when he saw the resulting clown.

"My God! Straight out of a Stephen King novel, man." He balled up the paper and threw it toward a trash can, but missed.

"Dr Pierce probably would have preferred not being covered with vegetable oil," Murdock pointed out. "I still don't quite get that part of the plan."

"It was a diversion," Hannibal nodded. "And it worked. Those slimeballs holding him for ransom didn't expect that. It's always the element of surprise, Murdock. Never underestimate it."

"Yeah…yeah, right." Murdock gave up on the straw and tried drinking the milkshake straight from the cup. He immediately got an ice cream headache. "Oh…by the way…I was thinkin' that before we headed back, I'd head down to L.A. for a few hours…visit a friend."

"Yeah," Face grinned. "An old buddy…he and Murdock played a lot of hoops together, right?"

Murdock glared at Face and drummed his fingers on the table. "Anyhow…can I borrow the car?"

"Sure. We'll lounge around at the roach motel." It was hard to tell if Hannibal was being sarcastic or not. But he was not one to begrudge Murdock having a life, much less friends outside the team. "Maybe we can test the pool water for diseases. There's probably a whole new strain of syphilis in there."

Stepping outside into the scorching sunlight, Murdock blinked and rubbed his forehead. But his heart was pounding. All he had dreamed about, or even thought about, for the past several hours was just getting a glimpse of Bridget Monroe. He doubted he'd even have the nerve to speak to her, but at least he'd be able to see her. Know she was all right, and doing well, and then he'd go his miserable way and get her out of his system for good.

"God, I'm such a friggin' masochist," Murdock muttered.

"A what?" B.A. asked, almost knocking into him, blinded by the sun. Murdock reeled a little from the impact but regained his balance and positioned himself so that his back was to the light. What, was this town a few miles closer to the sun?

"Masochist," Murdock answered grouchily. "A person who enjoys maltreatment."

B.A.'s expression was blank, so Murdock took another stab at it. "A masochist begs the sadist to beat him, but the sadist refuses."

"And you…enjoy being beaten?"

Murdock's shoulders sagged in defeat. B.A. was a good guy, if a little on the grumpy side, but he was not a deeply intellectual person, much less well-educated. "Not exactly. No." He turned and headed toward the car, squinting and hoping he could get to it before passing out in the heat. "I much prefer self-flagellation, thank you."