The Hostage Situation

"But I don't want to wear a polkadot dress!" Gary said.

“Look, you’re the only one of us with an even remotely feminine shape,” Arturo pointed out. “Which means you’re the only one who can pull this off.”

Gary folded his arms. “What about Helga?”

“I repeat: you’re the only one of us with an even remotely feminine shape.”

“I heard that!” Helga shouted from across the room. She menacingly brandished the bowie knife that she had just minutes ago been using to not so much shave, but scrape, the hair off her legs.

“Anyway, that’s not what I meant,” Gary said. “I don’t mind working undercover, but don’t we have any women’s clothes that are less… ridiculous-looking?” He eyeballed the curly blonde wig hatefully.

“It’s all I could get my hands on in short notice,” Arturo said. “Now go on out there and get yourself kidnapped.”

Gary grumbled through the entire process of completing his costume and heading out of the group’s mobile base.

When he was gone, Arturo strolled over to Helga and held out his hand. “I told you I could get him to wear it,” he said. “Now pay up.”

Helga surrendered a crisp ten-dollar bill to the team leader.

***

Gary—now Gloria—woke up with a bitter taste in his mouth. He recognized immediately that he had been drugged. The fact that he knew the feeling so well made him wonder if he should reconsider his career choice, but now was not the time for serious contemplation.

His knee was shackled to the floor, and he could hear the muffled whimpers of two other women. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could make them out, chained to the wall and gagged. Fortunately, he had swallowed a tracer, and the rest of the team should be here any minute.

Yep. Any minute now, guys. No need for dramatic timing tonight.

The door opened, and it wasn’t one of his teammates. A huge, burley wall of a man stepped in, and Gary recognized him immediately as the bartender. Well, that was a twist.

He walked over to Gary and wrapped his sausage fingers around Gary’s neck. Gary pulled out a tiny pistol and shot the bartender in the face point-blank. The man clutched his mutilated face (no big loss) and fell to the ground.

And then the team burst in through the front and back door.

“Down here!” Gary called, though it was unnecessary with the bartender’s screaming already acting as a beacon. “Oh shut up you big baby.”

He managed to stretch enough to deliver a kick to his kidnapper’s testicals, even though that didn’t help the screaming.

After the police had arrived and the ambulances carried off the bartender’s other two victims, Arturo, Helga, Gary and the rest of the squad shared a pot of coffee amongst themselves and congratulated each other on a job well done.

“One thing I don’t get,” Arturo said. “Is how you managed to sneak that mini-pistol in with you.”

“Well, see, the thing is…” Gary blushed.

“Oh come on, spit it out,” Joel demanded. “Where’d you hide it?”

“I’d rather not say.”

Arturo stood. “Well as the team leader, I expect you to tell me. Whisper it into my ear if you have to.”

“Fine,” Gary said with a grumble, and then he cupped a hand over his commander’s ear and whispered a few words.

Arturo’s jaw dropped open in shock. “You stuffed the what into where!?”