The afternoon came and found Murdock and Jean still in bed. Since that morning they'd gotten up, dressed, had lunch, counted through their winnings from the previous night once again, and after ordering up some champagne and helping themselves to a couple drinks, made their way back to the bed again. This time it was made and they lay on top of the covers both on their sides, Murdock pressed up against Jean, she was asleep but he was still awake and enjoying every minute as he used one hand to stroke through the back of her hair and kept the other pressed against Jean's stomach. He smiled to himself as he tried to imagine what it would be like once they were married, and once…he grinned and tightened his hold against her abdomen, once there was a little baby in that stomach…he knew he was jumping the gun but it was a fun thing to think about.
"Murdock," Jean groaned as she started to wake up, though she didn't open her eyes.
"Yah?" he asked.
She moved her stomach against him and asked him, "What're you doing?"
"Oh," he pulled his hand back, "Just thinking…"
"About what?" she asked as she turned over slightly.
"Well for one, about once we get back home, trying to fatten you up a little," Murdock said, "I'm like Columbo, I don't like my women too thin, I'd never have it."
"Oh, you'd rather have me like the time Hannibal kept touching my stomach and told the whole hospital I was pregnant?" she asked as she opened her eyes and looked back to him.
"Well," he said as he ruffled through her hair playfully, and then pulled it back, "You need to quit washing your hair so much, it's getting dry."
"I wash it once a week whether it needs it or not," she replied, "Now what were you saying about fattening me up?"
He smiled at her and said as he wrapped his arms around her waist, "I don't want you skinny, I like you nice and soft."
"Ha-ha," she replied, "Believe me, this wasn't my idea of a good look either…if I'd known I'd be spending half my time at that work camp, and the other half running around playing G.I. Joe for some sadistic director, I would've bailed out of both projects."
Murdock smiled as he hugged her tighter and pulled her back against him and added, "Also been thinking about once you and I are married, when we have a child of our own."
She looked back to him and said, "That's a long time away, Murdock."
"Oh I know that," he replied, "Still like thinking about it."
"One thing about it, I definitely got to get a different line of work before that happens, something safer," Jean said.
"You know I'd have enough to take care of both of you," Murdock told her.
"I know, but I don't want you doing that," Jean said as she pulled his hands off of her and pulled herself over to the edge of the bed.
"Well, got any ideas?" Murdock asked.
She looked back to him sheepishly and asked him, "Would you think I was crazy if I said I'm considering switch to writing scripts?"
"Nah, I think that's great," he said, "Got to be better than the stuff you been reading to audition with."
"I doubt I'll get far with it," Jean replied, "For all the scripts I've read I still haven't gotten the hang of the formatting: int., ext., cut to, closeup, so and so's POV, so I figured first I'd start with the basic storyline and whatever dialogue particularly sticks out, and then fine tune it as a screenplay."
Murdock shrugged and said, "Could work…you got any ideas currently?"
She laughed dryly and said, "Yeah, I got one idea I'm working on," and inch by inch she scooted away from him on the bed and moved to their luggage, "I brought it with me so I could keep it fresh, so when we get back I wouldn't forget and could start work on it again."
Murdock was practically bouncing on the mattress as he saw her take a few stapled pages out of her suitcase and hand them to him.
"I had an idea," she said, "You know how people are writing books set a couple years from now, when it's the 100th anniversary of the Jack the Ripper murders? They make it that 100 years later there's someone else butchering women the same way he did, well…I thought I'd try setting it a few more years ahead, to 1992, centennial anniversary of Lizzie Borden killing her parents, and have somebody doing a copycat murder."
"Hmmm," Murdock said as he skimmed over the pages at first, "Interesting concept."
"Yeah, but so far the writing hasn't gotten anywhere," Jean said.
Murdock nodded as he noted handwritten notes in between the margins, most of them questions. "Looks like something Columbo would do," he noted, and read over some of the questions, " 'Why didn't anybody hear anything?' and, 'Assuming Lizzie was innocent, how could the real murderer get away unnoticed?' Well, they're good questions."
"You ever read about that case?" Jean asked him.
"Briefly, in school," he said, "About 100 years ago."
"Whole thing always struck me as a bit weird," Jean told him, "Some people have theories…there had been a man spending the night in the house before the murders…he left in the morning, maybe he came back…others say there was a police cab on the street that day…a lot of them seem to be dead ends. I was 13 when I first read about it, saw the pictures…" she shook her head, "Her face scared the hell out of me when I first saw her, she looked possessed…"
Murdock put the papers down and said to her, assuming, "But you think she did it."
"Definitely," Jean said, "No doubt about it. Prosecutors don't have to supply a motive, but juries do tend to love them, and they help the case make sense. You can not hatchet 2 people to death with something like 11 and 19 blows without it being personal, and the stepmother got the most blows, that was definitely personal, and what's the first thing the big scary woman says when the police come? 'She's not my mother, my mother died years ago'. Personal indeed."
Murdock tried reading over the other margin notes but after a while they looked like doctor's handwriting, and even he could only decipher that so much. "What's the rest of this?" he asked.
"Well I got the idea to do this script after a particular question hit me," Jean told him, "If somebody today were to axe two people to death in their private home, it would be easy to get away with. Nobody would hear anything, you'd have the privacy of the bathroom to wash up in, easy come, easy go…but 100 years ago you'd hear more than you would now, think about it, no TV, no radio, no cars, nothing to block out the noise…and it was August, hottest month of the year, no air conditioning or window fans either, you couldn't not have the windows open…and the maid was right outside in the yard talking to the neighbor the whole time…how could they not have heard anything? I still haven't come up with an answer for that one yet."
"Good question though," Murdock agreed.
Jean pointed to another note, "And that one…that family lived poorly because the father was cheap…no bathroom, no indoor plumbing…everybody always said Lizzie couldn't have done it because she didn't have any blood on her or her clothing, so alright, assuming she didn't do it, how could anybody leave without being covered in blood? And there were people all around that street, how could nobody see anything? Also consider there were only 2 ways somebody else could've gotten away, either they walked off, or they got a horse cab, either way somebody would see something if somebody caked in blood walked away from the house, there was a doctor right across the street from them."
Murdock looked at her with an impressed smirk on his face and he told her, "You're in the wrong business, darling, you shouldn't be in movies, you should be a detective."
She laughed, "Oh yeah I can just see that, me in an old raincoat everywhere I go 'oh, there's just one more thing, oh, I got one more question for ya'."
They both fell back against the pillows laughing, and Murdock said, "Boy they need to get some new detective shows on TV."
"They have them," Jean said, "Miami Vice, Magnum P.I."
"No-no-no, those are action shows," Murdock told her, "They're really not about crimes at all, they're all about the high speed chases and the shootouts and the big fights."
"Kind of like a cartoon," Jean said.
Murdock laughed, "With all their violence? Good luck getting that one approved by the parent groups, though I'm sure plenty of kids are watching those programs regardless."
Jean laughed in response and then sighed as she leaned against him, "This is nice…I wish we could stay here."
He kissed her and replied, "I do too, darling…we'll come back here again, whenever we get some down time again…I get the feeling this is just the calm before the storm, I'm sure once we get back home we'll hit the ground running."
Jean pressed her head against his chest and told him, "It'll be the same way when we're married…"
"No, no," he shook his head, "I'll get something figured out…gonna get enough time squared away we can get married and then go off together alone, two weeks on a honeymoon with no interruptions, and where nobody can find us."
Jean laughed and said, "If that ever happens it'll be a wonder if we ever leave the room."
Murdock put one arm around her and said, "I told Hannibal we'd be back by tomorrow morning, we could stay here the rest of the day."
"And do what?" Jean asked, "You don't think people would be watching if we went back to the casino after last night's haul?"
"Well…we could always stay here," he told her, "I'll tell ya, Jean…it don't matter much to me what we do when we're together…I'd be perfectly content to just stay here in bed with you like this for the rest of our lives…"
Jean smiled but shook her head, "That's not you, Murdock, you can't stay out of the sky."
"Well it's not you either but it's still nice while it lasts," he replied. He reached over with one hand and smoothed back some of her bangs and added, "Besides, things and people do change…so I wouldn't say 'never' just yet."
Jean put her hands on her stomach and said, "All the changing in the world never undoes the past…what if we did have a child, what could it possibly be like with us as its parents?"
"It would be just fine," Murdock told her as he slipped his arm around her waist.
Jean seemed to be deep in thought about something for a minute before responding, "Maybe if we got a surrogate."
"A what?" Murdock asked.
She looked to him and said, "You know, when they find a second woman to have the baby and then it's adopted out to the couple to pretend its their own."
"Now that's just cruel," Murdock told her.
"That depends on why they do it," Jean replied.
"Uh," Murdock tapped her on the shoulder and asked her, "Who's the father when a surrogate mother has the baby?"
Jean just looked at him, her eyebrows raised and a hint of a smirk on her face. Murdock grimaced and said, "Now that's just disgusting, that's…that's infidelity by proxy, or something, I'm sure of it."
Jean just laughed at him in response.
Out of nowhere Murdock wrapped both arms around her waist and pulled her tighter against him and asked her, "What would you say if I said let's get married here tonight?"
Jean tilted her head back to look at him and replied, "With the honeymoon you've got in mind? You couldn't swing that much leave time and you know it."
Murdock shrugged, "Maybe not, but we could make it official tonight, go back, do it again for show and for everybody else's benefit, and then take off for 2 weeks in the middle of nowhere."
"Murdock, I am not honeymooning in Montana," Jean told him.
"Ha-ha," he remarked, "We could pull it off, Jean, you know that, people from all over the country come to Vegas all the time to get married."
"And then they go to Reno to get divorced," Jean added, "I don't think it'd be a good idea."
Murdock shrugged again and said tiredly, "Alright…whatever you want to do."
She looked up at him and said, "This just doesn't feel like the right time to be jumping into marriage again…I'd be the first one screaming to elope but I think we owe it to Hannibal to let them be present for it this time."
Murdock smiled and rocked back with her and said, "You're a good'un, darling, always so considerate of the others."
"Suppose it's only right after all the stuff I pulled with them in the beginning," she responded.
That night Murdock had returned to the casino, he and Jean had checked out of their hotel room and were going to fly back to Los Angeles tonight, but first he decided to poke his head in for a few minutes for a little more fun before it was time to leave. As usual the place was crowded and every table was packed with people looking to get rich quick on one lucky game. He didn't know why they called New York the city that never sleeps, it seemed to him that Las Vegas had its own insomniac corner on the market.
He took a step back, turned on his heel and just about collided with a young woman, he started to apologize and found himself momentarily tripping over his tongue. The woman was very young, possibly early to mid 20s and looked like a showgirl in training, she had long blonde hair and was dressed in a very short glittering blue 2-piece outfit, and very high heels he also noted before bringing his eyes up again.
"Excuse me," he said sheepishly.
"No problem," she said, and then her eyes lit up, "Aren't you the man who hit it big at the roulette table last night?"
"Oh I guess I could be," he said.
She smiled at him and said, "Everybody's been talking about you."
"Oh yeah?" he asked with a little amusement, "Have they been talking about my wife too?"
The woman's smile disappeared almost completely, "You're married?"
"Oh yes," he said with a big smile.
The woman nodded slightly and said, "Congratulations," and was on her way.
Murdock watched her go and said, making his face twitch to imitate that of an old lady's, "She's a good girl," and nodded to himself.
It wasn't long before he encountered another woman at the casino who knew him by his reputation as the big winner from the night before. This one was a slightly older looking brunette who was dressed in a black low cut halter top and looked like she definitely had a receipt for how it fit her so well. As she tried chatting it up with him, Murdock happened to glance down and noticed that he wasn't wearing his silver band…that must've been what was going on, or so he thought.
When he saw an opportunity arise, he said to the woman, "I really don't plan to stick around long tonight to try again, I was just looking for my wife."
"Oh really?" the woman asked without even blinking, "You been married long?"
Hmmm, Murdock could tell this one was going to be a little harder to deal with. As far as she knew, he was married and it wasn't deterring her one bit from trying to sink her hooks into him. He decided to try upping the ante and seeing if it had any effect on her.
"Oh sure, must be about 10 years now, we got three cute little kids with their grandparents at home back in Baltimore," he said, sticking his arm out to emphasize around how tall the children were.
"Well isn't that nice?" the woman asked as she put a hand on the front of his T-shirt and slowly it made its way up to his chest, "Must be nice getting away from it all for the time being."
"Well not quite everything," Murdock reminded her, "My wife is still here with me."
"Hmmm," the woman said as she gave him a mischievous cat's smirk and wink and said, "And what's your wife like?"
Oh boy this was getting too weird even for him. Murdock was almost sure even if he wasn't currently attached to a woman, that he wouldn't be too hot on the attention he was getting from this one either. His Decker bell wasn't going off, but he was still getting a bad vibe from her. Somehow he was getting the feeling that this woman wouldn't be opposed to all three of them going upstairs together. He decided to put all his chips in and go for broke before Jean actually showed up. With a charming smile and a pleasant tone he told the woman, "Oh she's a real darling…course if she caught us together like this she'd probably rip your arm off and beat you to death with it."
As if a snake had lunged out to bite her, the woman took her hand off his chest and instead reached up and straightened his jacket collar and said, "Sorry to trouble you, sir," and she too strolled off.
Murdock took a step back and felt his shirt where she'd touched him, as if he was trying to contain a dangerous insect that had landed on him, and with a little enthusiasm he said to himself in a poor imitation of an Irish priest, "There may be hope for that one too."
He decided he'd stuck around long enough and would be leaving now, he picked up his suitcase and headed for the exit. He'd managed to get out to the curb and tried hailing a taxi when he felt a gun pressed against the back of his head.
"Don't move," a low raspy voice said to him.
Ah ha, he knew something was up, go figure it couldn't be something more original than a stickup job.
"Hand over the suitcase," the man told him.
Murdock shrugged and held it back so the other man could grab it. "Go ahead," he said, "But I don't think you want it."
"Shut up," a second man said as he took the grip.
"Okay," Murdock said as he grabbed the sky.
Behind him, one of the thugs opened the heavy suitcase, but instead of finding the money in it they found Jean's video camera and the pages for her screenplay.
"What the hell is this?" the second man asked.
"I told you you wouldn't want it," Murdock said innocently.
Just as he involuntarily flinched and closed his eyes as he waited for the gunshot, he heard a very familiar and unwanted voice call out, "Freeze! Drop your weapons!"
Oh no.
"Cops!?" the first man asked as he and his partner dropped their guns and reached for the sky.
"United States Army," Decker said as he and Crane stepped out from the shadows at the corner of the block.
Murdock heard somebody running to him from the other side and he turned and saw who it was, "Jean!"
"Murdock," Decker noted as he was able to see the holdup victim in the light now.
"Decker!" Jean exclaimed in disbelief.
Of course it would make too much sense to explain to Decker that the rest of the A-Team weren't with them, and it would make too much sense for him to actually listen and believe it, so Jean and Murdock took off running with the colonel and the captain behind them. They ran from one side of the street to the other and about knocked down a dozen other people in the process. Murdock and Jean disappeared into a casino and Decker and Crane followed after them, the four of them ran through the casino and not a single person looked up from the tables to even notice. Murdock grabbed Jean and led her out of the main room and into another room behind a closed door, Decker and Crane followed and a bunch of screaming ensued as they realized they'd run into the showgirls' dressing room, and a few seconds later the two men in green were thrown out of the room.
Meanwhile Murdock and Jean managed to make an emergency exit out of a window and ran back towards the street just as a taxi pulled up. Murdock gave the driver the directions to get them out of there and they managed to do so just before Decker and Crane exited the casino.
"What the hell are they doing here?" Jean asked Murdock.
"Who knows?" he replied, "Maybe he got another false tip about Hannibal working out here as a stunt man."
They reached the airport where Murdock had left the plane, and with specific instructions for it to be refueled and in tiptop running shape before they left. With their meager luggage in hand, they ran up the steps and had a few words with the people who had seen to everything in getting it ready for the sky once again. Then the stairs were removed, the door was shut, Murdock got the plane started and in a few minutes they were homeward bound.
"What a night," Jean said.
"What a weekend," he corrected.
"Well, I better make sure our cargo got on unharmed," Jean said as she undid her seat belt.
Murdock waited for her to return and a few minutes later she came back to the cockpit with a large Styrofoam cooler that had been taped shut and had a white fog escaping from the cracks in the lid.
"Dry ice, nice touch," Murdock said.
"Well, we had to make it look convincing, didn't we?" Jean asked as she took out a knife and cut through the tape, "Who's going to think of looking for 25 grand in a cooler that's supposed to be carrying 20 pounds of coconut shrimp."
"What'd you weigh it down with though?" Murdock asked.
Jean balanced the cooler on her lap and tilted it to show Murdock her new dumbbells in with the cash, which in and of itself hardly even weighed one pound put together.
Murdock smirked and said, "I like how you think."
"You should," she replied, "It was your idea to switch the money out of the suitcase."
Murdock laughed and told Jean, "Alright, we got a little time before we get back home so while we're up here, I'm going to start teaching you how to fly one of these babies, should the need to know it ever arise."
Jean closed up the cooler and said, "Oh come on, Murdock."
"No no, I'm serious, I already got you flying choppers, I can get you flying this bird as well…it'll just be like before, a little maneuvering here and there, one night and the next, you'll do fine, I'm sure of it."
"One of us had better be," Jean commented.
"Decker was out in Vegas?" Hannibal asked as he paced around Jean and Murdock's bedroom when they'd gotten back that night and had him come over to hear the news.
"And I doubt he was there to check out the Strip," Jean told him, "They were both as usual in their alien clothes."
"What?" Murdock turned to her.
Jean looked at him annoyed and said, "Little green men."
"Oh!" Murdock replied.
Hannibal checked his watch and noted, "With the way Decker has Crane drive, it shouldn't take them any time to get back to Los Angeles. I wonder what they're up to?"
"Where's he going to start looking though?" Jean asked, "It's almost midnight."
"Good point, he may wait until tomorrow to start the hunt again," Hannibal said.
Murdock's choice of response was to throw his head back and howl like a beagle.
"He's got a point," Jean told him.
Hannibal scratched the back of his head and said, "He'll probably start at the studio first, as usual…"
"Of course," Jean said, "The man's not very original."
Hannibal looked at the two of them seated on the bed and noted they both looked about ready to drop and he assured them, "I doubt he'll be making any house calls here tonight, why don't you two go on to bed? You look beat."
"I have a good excuse for that," Jean told him with a sarcastic smirk on her face, "I haven't been sleeping well again…I had another dream being back in that freezer last night." She half closed her eyes and scratched her scalp, "Keep going over that night's events starting from when they smashed their way in…" she snapped her eyes open and turned to Murdock and jabbed him in the back of the head and kept saying, "Hey" to get his attention. Finally Murdock turned to her to see what it was she wanted and she asked him, "Hey, who was that idiot on TV that said as long as you were in your own home, there wasn't anything to be afraid of?"
"I don't know, I suffer from intermittent memory loss," Murdock replied.
Jean rolled her eyes and huffed. Hannibal chuckled watching them both, then he went over to the bed, and taking them both by surprise he leaned over and kissed them both and told them, "We'll figure out what Decker's up to tomorrow, until then…goodnight."
"See ya, Hannibal," Jean waved him off as he left the bedroom and showed himself the way out.
After he had gone, Jean picked up a pair of tongs and used them to fish into the cooler with and remove the bag they'd placed the money in and take it out of the dry ice that was still taking its sweet time to melt.
"$25,000, only question that remains is what're we going to do with it?" Jean asked him as she dropped the bag on the bed near him.
"Well I got one idea what we can do with it," Murdock said as he grinned like a naughty little boy.
"Yeah, but the idea is we still want to be able to spend it after rolling through it," Jean pointed out.
Murdock playfully scowled at her, then laughed and embraced her.
"I say first thing we do tomorrow is go out and restock the freezer," Jean told him, "We got one roast in that big chest freezer dying all over again from loneliness."
"Good idea," Murdock nodded, "And tomorrow night we're going to eat like royalty."
"What, caviar and champagne?" Jean asked cynically.
"No, big T-bone sticks three inches thick, big slab of ribs barbecued on the grill outside."
Jean nodded, "It's a plan, I like the way you think."
"Hannibal," Jean said to the Colonel the next day as she paced around his bedroom, "I think you guys need to look into the trucks that deliver for those generic grocery chains again."
"What's going on now?" he asked.
"We were finally able to go out and pick up some food to restock the freezer and the refrigerator," Jean said, "First time in a couple of months really…only surprise surprise," she shook her head, "Half the shelves are empty again, apparently they have been for a few weeks again."
Hannibal looked at the two of them and asked, knowing pretty well how meagerly the two of them had been eating lately since they were trying to recover from the sudden expenses they'd wound up having to pay over the last few months, "Were you…"
"We were able to get enough stuff to run on, we got about 30 pounds of meat in the freezer," Jean answered, "That's not the problem…the problem is there are a lot of people who for about a month haven't been able to get a lot of staples: butter, bread, eggs, baking mixes, canned vegetables, cereal, canned meat, soup, pasta, it's all very slim pickings, they're only able to restock each time to about one fourth of the inventory they're supposed to have. Now last time you said it was just because the trucks were old and the coolers weren't working…nobody at the store is saying what's going on, but I don't buy that that's what's happening again."
Hannibal thought about what she said and nodded then shook his head, "Neither do I." He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Alright…we'll go see if we can find out what it's all about."
"Hannibal," Jean said to him, "It might be more than that…I've also noticed that this time a lot of the brand name food is gone too, at first I figured," she shrugged her shoulders, "That's what everybody buys, it's always in short supply because it's very popular, but what if their trucks suddenly aren't coming through either, what does that mean?"
"We'll have to look into it and find out," he answered, "Come on, we'll go get B.A. and Face and pay the warehouse another visit."
Hannibal left the room first, Murdock started to follow after but Jean grabbed him by his jacket and jerked him back.
"Yes?" he asked her.
"I just had a thought," Jean told him, "You know this would be the smartest move a terrorist ever made."
"What?" Murdock asked.
"No I mean it, instead of hijacking planes and trains and blowing them up, and taking people hostage, if they want to terrorize this country their best bet would be to commandeer the food supplies so there aren't any…that or let them make delivery, but intercept the cargo and contaminate it or poison it somewhere between points A and B…but think about it, if something happens to all the food in the stores, the only people who are going to be left alive are the farmers, the ones who grow their own…"
Murdock looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face as he seemed to consider that thought, then dismissed it and told her, "Maybe I was wrong the first time, maybe you should stick with writing, you could come up with some good political thrillers."
Jean lightly punched him in the shoulder and they followed after Hannibal.
