Chuck was a weeping mess during the ride to the swamps. Murdam kept expecting him to start begging, but he just blubbered. There was some kicking from the trunk, but it concerned Murdam more when the noises stopped.
Murdam had some property on the edges of the swamps outside of VC. If it wasn’t for the drought drying up the mud trough excuse of a road, the convertible wouldn’t have made the trip. There was a half rotted four bedroom house that Murdam rarely entered, a garage, and the workshop. A half dozen old cars and trucks littered the grass outside, a couple of them drivable.
Murdam stopped the convertible along the other vehicles and popped the trunk. He half expected to see his captive leap out. Nothing. Murdam drew back the slide on Chuck’s pistol and made a wide circle to the back of the car, standing a good fifteen feet away from the trunk.
“You can get out of the trunk now.” Murdam assumed he couldn’t understand English, but hoped his bored tone would translate and let him know he wasn’t falling for it. No movement. Murdam fired a round into the raised trunk roof. Chuck shrieked and ducked in his seat. Still nothing.
“Fuck it,” Murdam mumbled and walked to the side of the trunk. He swung the lid up and stepped away. His captive hopped out of the trunk and immediately charged Murdam. He had gotten the helmet off, and shreds of the duct tape were still stuck to his ankles. Murdam held up the pistol casually. “Cut that shit out.”
“Fuck you!” The thickness of the accent suggested this may be the only English he knew. Murdam shrugged and tossed the gun away. The captive still had his hands behind his back. Murdam backed away from a front kick to his head, and slapped off a roundhouse. The man spun, revealing a knife in his handcuffed hands. He leaned back, trying to stab behind him into Murdam’s midsection. Murdam caught his wrists and lifted them straight up. The captive’s feet slipped, and Murdam guided him to the grass face down. Murdam had his arms together behind his back, sitting over his ass. He pushed the cuffed hands towards his head, and felt the arms go soft as they both popped out of their shoulder sockets.
A scream started before it slid into a string of curses in an unknown language. Murdam stood up and went to his workroom. He came back with bolt cutters and a cell phone. The captive was on his feet and kicked wildly, arms flapping loosely behind him. “Fuck you! Fuck you!”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Murdam muttered. He got within kicking range and took a couple of hits in the waist before he grabbed the captive by his hair and threw him to the ground face first. Murdam sat down on his back over his handcuffed hands and dialed a number on phone he brought out. There was no message on the voicemail, just a beep. “Now,” was his only message. Murdam sat on his squirming captive for a couple minutes before his call was returned.
“Yeah,” Murdam answered.
“Hey, fucker, how you been?”
“Any new Asian gang movement in VC?” Murdam asked.
“Fuck, G. You got to learn some people skills.”
“How’s your mother?” Murdam asked.
“Still dead.”
“Your sister still a whore?”
“Ok, ok, I get your point. Nothing new. A little Vietnamese, some minor triad action moving through, but nothing really established.”
“Guy I got in mind ain’t Vietnamese. Sounds kind of like Thai, but I never heard of any Thai action period in America,” said Murdam.
“How the fuck you know what Thai sounds like?’
“I like spicy food. I keep running into these guys and need to know where they’re from. I give you a sample, you can tell me where they’re from?”
“I can try. I’m no linguist, but I’m not some asshole that thinks all chinks are the same.”
“All right,” said Murdam. “Hold on.” He laid the phone down near his captive’s head. He grabbed the chain between the handcuffs and yanked up. Screams, but nothing resembling words. Murdam slipped a hand in the man’s pants and rammed two fingers in his anus. The foreign cussing began again. Murdam let it run a couple minutes, wiped his fingers on the man’s shirt, and picked up the phone.
“Well?”
“Shit, bitch, I ain’t invited to this party?”
“You want an invitation?” joked Murdam.
“I keep forgetting you’re a stone cold… Burmese. That’s my guess. Burmese.”
“That something new in VC?”
“First I’ve heard of them there. They’re not real established, but there are these crazy ass fuckers that fled Burma, have no sense of human life. And some Burmese death squad types that followed. No organization themselves, but they rent out as torpedoes. Can you give me some background?”
“They’ve tried to kill me twice,” said Murdam.
“They do the trick sitting backwards on a scooter?”
“Tried to.”
“Yeah. That’s what old school regimes will do to you. No respect for human life. That poor fucker you got there is just a bullet. Someone else fired the gun. And he wouldn’t tell you if he could.”
“I need to know who sent them after me. Any odds of a translator in the VC?”
“Fuck that. That poor little guy has no idea who hired him, I’ll guarantee. The best he’ll be able to manage is ‘Some white guy’. Don’t suppose you can get a bilingual impression artist?”
“Fine, fine. So these Burmese are moving into VC?” Murdam asked.
“Not until now. My take, this is your classic ‘out of town talent’ gig. Someone wants you dead, and they found someone that doesn’t know your rep to take the job.”
“Any ideas?” Murdam asked.
“Fuck, I want you dead. As far as who is in a position to sic somebody on you in VC? If I wanted to try to off you and keep it untraceable, some Burmese FOBs would be just the ticket. Not that I’d be that lucky.”
“If I died, who would you have to talk to?” Murdam joked.
“You dying would be a sign of the end times, shit. If death dies, I’m out of business.”
“You’ve been no help. Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, Murderman.”
Murdam used the bolt cutters to cut the Achilles tendon on both his captive’s heels. He grabbed the chain of the handcuffs and dragged the thrashing body into the workshop. He thought about snipping off his thumbs, but he might be able to get out of the cuffs. Murdam took some chains and padlocks and secured the Burmese to a worktable.
Murdam came back to the convertible. Chuck was asleep. Murdam unbuckled him and dragged him out of the car. He hit the ground screaming, trying to move his broken limbs, forgetting the hell he had gotten away from in sleep. Murdam grabbed his belt and carried him into the workshop. He bent Chuck over a table and tied his useless arms down over his head.
“See this guy, Chuck?” Murdam motioned to his co-captive. “You were bait. To catch me. This guy was supposed to finish the job. Neither of you assholes know who’s behind it, and that pisses me off.” Murdam clenched his teeth and paced the workshop.
“What are you going to do?” Chuck managed to whimper.
“For now? I’m going to fuck this guy to death. And you’re going to watch. If I catch you closing your eyes, I’ll bite your lids off.”
Murdam pulled the hit man’s pants down to his ankles. He started tugging at his shoes, but his feet threatened to slide away from the bone, and he didn’t have the patience to work the laces. He cut through one pants leg and spread the legs apart. He snipped tendons behind his knees and at the groin. He grabbed the feet and bent the legs around in impossible rag doll angles.
Murdam got his cock out and lubed it up in blood. He locked eyes with Chuck and rammed himself inside the Burmese. The fight was completely gone from the man, and he was beginning to lose consciousness from blood loss. Murdam hooked the crook of one elbow over his jaw, the other over his forehead. He twisted them apart, cracking the jaw out of place. Murdam slid a hand down his throat, playing with the different passages, until he stopped moving.
Murdam zipped himself up and retrieved a bottle of bleach from a cabinet. He splashed some over the bloodstains on his clothes, then tipped the bottle up into the corpse’s anus. Not enough to clean, but enough to destroy DNA.
“You like that shit, Chuck?” Murdam asked as he made is way behind Chuck. His pants slipped down.
“I can do whatever you want,” he began to beg. “I’ve done it before. I’m good at it.”
“I’m sure you are, Chuck.” Something slim and cold slid up his rectum. “What I need for you to do is cum for me.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Sure you can.” A mild electric jolt hit his prostate as Murdam held the tip of Chuck’s limp dick in a vial. There was no erection and no orgasm, but some semen dripped into the vial. Murdam grabbed a fistful of Chuck’s pubes and ripped them out, placing them in a plastic bag. A needle was stuck in his neck.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you remember? This is because of Alicia. You still have to register, don’t you?”
Chuck nodded.
“Good.” Murdam took the bolt cutters and snipped off Chuck’s index fingers. Chuck began begging, offering, crying. Murdam turned him around on his back and took some pictures. He put the camera in his pocket and picked up an axe. The blade went easily through the shattered left elbow. Chuck’s mouth stopped making sense. Murdam took some more pictures before untying Chuck’s remaining arm.
Chuck hit the ground, his one good leg kicking wildly. Murdam cracked the workshop door. He pulled Chuck up and tried to steady him on his feet.
“I’m not a bad guy, Chuck. I’ll give you a running start. But you better not let me catch you. Because when I do, I’m going to do horrible things to you.” Murdam wasn’t figuring on him making two steps outside, but he liked watching him try. He half pushed him through the workshop door. He saw the hole in Chuck’s chest before he heard the crack.
His first thought was that Chuck got off easy. His second was shit, sniper.