Minor Thrill Issues

Chapter Twenty Four

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 02:17:00 +0000

Alex stood holding the painting Victor had been trying to make off with, catching his breath, while Mr. Expedient made quick work of handcuffing Victor, who was still dazed and compliant from his whirlwind introduction to Mr. Expedient’s fist.

Alex watched for a moment, before he said, “Are you a cop?”

Mr. Expedient laughed once, and said, “What? No.”

“What’s with the handcuffs then?” Alex said.

“Well, I find that they’re very useful for keeping people put when they’d rather not stay put,” Mr. Expedient said.

“You’re not going to tie him up like Megan did?” Alex said.

“Between you and me,” Mr. Expedient said. “I think Megan just like tying people up.”

“Oh,” Alex said.

Victor came around a little more, and groggily said, “Hey! What’s going on?”

“You battered my fist with your face,” Mr. Expedient said, “which apparently tired you out, so I assisted you to the ground here so you could rest.”

“Oh, OK,” Victor said. “Thanks.”

Alex sensed an opportunity, so he said, “Hey Victor, why did you want this painting so badly?”

“Well, to trade it, of course,” Victor said.

“What do you want to trade it for?” Alex said. “Who are you going to trade with?”

“The blonde that runs the coffee shop. Tamamra,” Victor said, and paused. He didn’t seem particularly eager to keep talking.

Tamamra? Just how hard of a hit did he just take? Alex thought.

“What does Tamara have that you want, Victor?” Alex said. He spoke in low tones, hoping that if Victor was dazed enough, he’d trust Alex and simply answer rather than try to keep his secret.

Victor giggled, and said, “Just an interesting little thing. But it’s secret. I’m not telling you.”

“OK. Why do you think she’d be willing to trade for this painting?” Alex said.

“It used to belong to her family. She wants it back,” Victor said. He seemed like he was getting more alert, and was starting to look suspiciously at Alex and Mr. Expedient.

She wants it back, Alex thought. He remembered the odd little confrontation Victor had instigated with her at the Bump and Grind. Alex wondered if he had offered it to her then, and if that was what had set her off.

“Sleeping Beauty is coming around again,” Mr. Expedient said to Alex. “We’d better get him into the car before he causes a ruckus and things get tricky.”

In the excitement of catching Victor, and trying to pry information out of him, Alex had entirely forgotten that Victor probably had a small entourage with him, to protect him from exactly the sort of thing that was happening to him right then.

“Right!” Alex said. He’d be perfectly OK with it if things did not get any trickier than they already were.

He gathered up the various paintings, and struggled a bit carrying them over to the Bentley that Mr. Expedient had conveniently parked nearby.

The trunk opened itself automatically as Alex approached it. He called “Thank you,” over his shoulder to Mr. Expedient, and set to work loading the paintings into the trunk in such a way that none of them would get banged up too badly as they drove. Mr. Expediently had thoughtfully stashed a handful of blankets to wrap each of them in. There were enough blankets left that Alex was even able to pad the empty space in the trunk a bit, so the art wouldn’t get jostled around too much.

Moments later, Mr. Expedient came up behind him, carrying a noticeably cranky Victor Steel. Alex noticed he’d blindfolded Victor at some point.

“Any second here he’s going to get ugly,” Mr. Expedient said as he loaded Victor into the back of the Bentley.

Once Victor was securely in the back seat, Mr. Expedient said to Alex, “You’re going to have to ride up front with me this time.”

“Do we need to be worried about his flunkies coming after us? They’re going to notice he hasn’t come out of the building sooner or later.”

“I guess we’re just going to have to try to be discreet,” Mr. Expedient said.

“We’re going to try to be discreet. In a Bentley?” Alex said.

“You saw the other cars that turned up for this event. The Bentley fits right in, here. Try not to worry so much, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Expedient said.

Victor started up the minute Alex and Mr. Expedient got into the car.

“What’s going on? Let me go! You’ve got no right to handcuff me and stuff me into your car against my will,” Victor said.

Alex said, “You’ll have to excuse my driver. I’ve told him again and again that he doesn’t need to punch people and abduct them, but he just keeps doing it anyway.”

Victor piped down then.

Alex said to Mr. Expedient, quietly, “So, why are we bringing him with us again?”

Mr. Expedient smiled, and pulled his jacket open slightly, exposing to Alex the coupon for The Sizzler stuffed into his breast pocket.

Alex laughed despite himself, and said, “I love you crazy fuckers.”

The drove away, apparently unnoticed by Victor’s goons (to Alex’s relief). Alex was impressed, once more, by the incredible level of opulence the interior of the Bentley provided. He settled in and enjoyed the ride, since there wasn’t much else he could do at the moment. Victor was still being quiet, apart from the occasional exclamation of “Let me go!” or, “Come on guys, just drop me off here. It’s fine.”

As they approached the neighborhood Mr. Darcy’s office was in, Alex noticed Mr. Expedient checking to make sure Victor’s blindfold was still in place.

They stopped in front of Mr. Darcy’s office, and Mr. Expedient pressed a button that caused the trunk to open.

“You can make it from here on your own, can’t you?” he said to Alex. “I’ve got a bit of a drive ahead, and time is wasting.”

“Sure, I can handle it,” Alex said.

He got out of the Bentley, wondered briefly if he’d get to ride in it again, and unloaded the art from the trunk. He closed the lid, and patted the car twice, then gathered up the paintings as well as he could and made his way in to Mr. Darcy’s office.

Alex was very glad to find that the elevators were working. A few minutes later, and he was in Mr. Darcy’s front office.

“What on Earth have you got there, Mr. Minor?” Megan said.

Alex hurried over to the coffee table, and set down the paintings, relieved that he was done carrying them. For now, at any rate.

“Art,” Alex said. “Is Mr. Darcy in?”

“Well, of course he is,” Megan said. “He’ll be out in just a moment, I’m sure.”

Almost on cue, Mr. Darcy appeared in the doorway of his office.

“Mr. Minor!” he said. “Did you get the painting? I trust everything went as planned.”

“I got the painting,” Alex said. “Though, I don’t know if it went strictly to plan. I kind of accidentally bought several other paintings…”

Mr. Darcy raised an eyebrow.

“Also,” Alex continued, “Victor Steel showed up, and tried to outbid me on the painting, then he tried stealing it. Luckily, the driver and I were able to intercept him before he got away.”

Mr. Darcy thought for a moment, then said, “Excellent that you were able to recover the painting, our client will be thrilled. Interesting that Victor Steel was so interested in it, though. But we’ll discuss that in a moment. How many other paintings did you buy, exactly?”

Ales said, “Four.”

“I see,” Mr. Darcy said. “I do believe I told you to try not to win any other auctions. How much did they cost?”

Alex wasn’t exactly sure. He’d been so wrapped up in the thrill of the auction process that he’d barely paid attention to the numbers. So he made a guess.

“I think it was about twenty thousand dollars,” Alex said.

“Ah. Well, that’s not so bad. I’m sure we’ll be able to return them to their rightful owners now, and with anything, those owners will offer a small reward for their return,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex realized he must have looked surprised at this when Mr. Darcy said, “Well, I told you in our first meeting that we are the good guys. Now, tell me about Victor Steel.”

Alex told Mr. Darcy what Victor had said about trading the painting for some object of interest that Tamara owned.

“Interesting. What a small world,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex was wondering what that meant, when Mr. Darcy said, “I don’t think it will hurt anything to tell you that our client is Tamara Anderson, ultimately.”

To say that Alex was surprised would be an understatement. Before he thought better of it, he said, “She paid for this? I wouldn’t have thought she would have this kind of money.”

“She doesn’t,” Mr. Darcy said. “She does, however, have a very generous benefactor looking after her. You need to understand, though, that Mr. Ares would prefer that she not know about his intervention. I know that you frequent her coffee shop, so mum’s the word.”

“Mr. Ares? The guy that looks like a professional wrestler?” Alex said.

Mr. Darcy seemed shocked, which was possibly the first time Alex had ever seen him that way.

“Have you met Mr. Ares too?” Mr. Darcy said.

“Well, in passing,” Alex said.

“Ah. Well, then, a word of advice for you – stay well out of his way. He doesn’t tolerate frustration well, and he’s quite easily frustrated,” Mr. Darcy said. “Anyway, that brings us to the matter of your remuneration for this job.”

He pulled a thick envelope out of his desk, and slid it over to Alex. “There’s two hundred thousand dollars in there. Forgive me for giving you another word of advice so soon after the last: invest one hundred or so of those dollars in a fireproof box tonight.”

Alex couldn’t believe it. He’d lost most of his money in a fire, and had just come out ahead again and it hadn’t even been a week.

“Wow, thanks! OK, I will,” he said.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Mr. Darcy said. “You’ve proven you’re worth every penny, even with a few missteps here and there. “

Mr. Darcy settled back in his chair, and cleared his throat. He opened a drawer in his desk, and pulled out another manila folder.

“Now then, Mr. Minor, are you ready for the details for your next assignment?”

The End!

For those of you who might be interested, my final word count for this NaNoWriMo was 50,390, which puts my daily average word count at 2,015.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put some ice on my fingertips and relax for a bit. ;)

Chapter Twenty Three

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 02:09:00 +0000

The bidding on most of the art, and in particular on the pieces that Alex had accidentally won, had started around one or two hundred dollars. The auctioneer had started, of course, at a significantly higher price, generally around one thousand dollars. When no one would bite, he’d lower the price bit by bit until somebody in the crowd made the first bid.

Then the bidding would become fast and furious up until the final few bids which, due to his love of a thrill, Alex couldn’t resist pushing a little higher. He’d been betting the other bidders would be willing to go higher, and had been completely wrong.

On this painting, the bidding started the second the auctioneer gave the starting price of five thousand dollars. There was a smattering of applause, as well as several shocked laughs. However, the bids continued, and quickly.

Alex noticed that Victor stayed close by, watching the auction with an expression of polite disinterest. Alex wondered, very briefly, what Victor was up to, and how it was that Alex hadn’t noticed him sooner.

Alex admitted to himself then that he had not, actually, been paying attention or looking for Victor. That probably had something to do with it.

Anyways, the auction was continuing, and showing no signs of slowing. They passed fifteen thousand dollars in the blink of an eye. Any time the bidding slowed slightly, a new group of bidders jumped into the fray.

Alex found the entire thing incredibly exciting. He felt his pulse quickening, and his face was getting hot. He realized he was probably perspiring quite a bit as well.

Twenty five thousand dollars came and went. Then thirty thousand.

The auctioneer kept his patter going, never missing a syllable despite the constant new bids.

Alex noticed Victor stifling a yawn, but still watching the action. For his part, Alex wondered if people actually appreciated the painting, or if it was just valuable because it was valuable and that’s why they were bidding. Personally, he wouldn’t want the thing hanging in his house.

At fifty thousand dollars, the bidding began to slow down, and but it continued with a new bid here and there as someone reached a point where they just had to bid.

When it reached sixty three thousand dollars, it seemed to Alex like it might be coming to a close. The auctioneer was doing his best to coax a few more bids out of the crowd. Alex decided it was time to bid.

He put up his bidding card, and got a whole new charge of adrenaline as the auctioneer pointed at him and exclaimed, “Sixty four thousand dollars! Do I have sixty five thousand?”

Things slowed down again, and people were craning their necks around to see who the new bidder was. The auctioneer was slowing down, and Alex was beginning to get very excited about winning the painting he was actually there to buy. The auctioneer tried heckling a couple of the other bidders into bidding again, and had reached “going twice!” when Alex noticed Victor’s hand shoot up.

“Sixty five thousand dollars!” the auctioneer shouted, and continued his patter. There was a gasp from the crowd, and people looked around again to see who was bidding now.

Alex immediately put his card up, followed promptly by Victor. The price continued climbing quickly. Seventy thousand, seventy five thousand, eighty.

At one hundred thousand, to Alex’s astonishment and annoyance, another bidder joined in. The bidding war continued between the three of them, Alex unwilling to give up on what he was there to buy, and Victor Steel apparently simply unwilling to let Alex win no matter the cost.

At one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the third bidder bowed out.

Alex made a bid for one hundred ninety seven thousand dollars, and thought he was going to win again. Perhaps he had outlasted Victor. Once more, he thrilled at the possibility, enjoying the sensation of the adrenaline coursing through his body. He wished the auctioneer would just hurry up and yell “Sold!” already.

He heard, “going twice” again, and held his breath.

Victor bid.

“Son of a bitch!” Alex thought he’d muttered. The crowd around him tittered with slightly uncomfortable laughter. They were, after all, there buying illegal art, and even criminals with a taste for fine art sometimes have a tendency towards violence.

Victor looked over at Alex and winked.

The bastard is just toying with me, Alex thought. He knew that Mr. Darcy had provided him with deep pockets, but he wasn’t certain exactly where his limit was. He had no idea what Victor’s limit might be either.

The bidding continued anew, with the rest of the crowd openly watching Alex and Victor as they bid against each other. Two hundred twenty thousand dollars, two hundred thirty, two hundred fifty.

Alex bid for every price the auctioneer called, and Victor did the same.

The thrill had already passed, and now bidding had become a matter of flat out not letting Victor win.

Alex surprised himself by shouting “Three Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars!”

Conversation erupted around him, and Alex began getting a lot of smiles from the people in his immediate area. Victor scowled.

“Three hundred seventy five thousand dollars!” Victor called out.

Alex immediately called “Four hundred!” and hoped like hell that he actually had that kind of money in escrow. He wasn’t sure what happened when you couldn’t pay for stolen art you’d bought at an underground auction, but he was fairly confident that it wouldn’t be good.

He saw Victor take a breath, ready to call out another bid and Alex was fighting down a strong urge to simply punch him, when there was suddenly a commotion in the back of the room, and someone shouted, “Police, run!”

Pandemonium erupted, as the crowd attempted to flee the room through the doors they’d come in through. Alex was momentarily bewildered before he regained his composure. He noticed Victor was no longer standing anywhere near him.

Alex figured that he’d bought the paintings he’d won fair and square, and that he’d also won the painting he was there to get by default, since the bidding was interrupted and he’d been the last person to bid. As such, he rushed to the front of the room, opposite the direction everyone else was running, to collect the paintings he’d bought.

He was mildly astonished that no one was around trying to protect the art. He quickly grabbed the other paintings he’d bought, after some quick shuffling to get them out from behind the other art that had been auctioned off that night.

Alex noticed Victor then. He was grabbing the painting that was, by all rights, Alex’s painting, from the easel it was on. He saw Alex looking, and hurried off, struggling somewhat with the bulky, ornate frame.

Alex hoped he wasn’t ruining anything priceless and stacked the paintings he’d bought, then hugged them to himself and chased after Victor.

It was one of the clumsier and slower high speed chases to ever take place.

Victor spun to push a side door no one was using open with his butt, and scooted through backwards, trying not to bang the frame on the way through. Alex got to the same door as it was closing, and kicked it open again, since his hands were full of art.

He hurried through the door, and emerged in an unfamiliar hallway. Alex saw Victor halfway down the hall already, half walking, half jogging, still grappling with the painting and occasionally bouncing a shoulder off the wall as he missed his footing.

Alex hustled, as well as he could, after him. The paintings were starting to get heavy already, and the frames had surprisingly sharp edges that were digging into his arms. He was, for a moment, glad he wasn’t also carrying the painting that Victor was doing his best to make off with at the moment.

He chased after Victor, kind of half-galloping as he struggled with the paintings he was carrying. It seemed he was, at least, gaining on Victor, who had reached the end of the hall and turned right. Alex redoubled his efforts, got a better grip on the art he was carrying, and was able to manage an actual jog down the hall.

Someone came out of an adjoining doorway, and Alex shouted “Art coming through!”

The person who had stepped into his path stumbled back out of it just in time, avoiding an uncomfortable and probably expensive collision.

Alex reached the corner and turned right to continue chasing after Victor. He got there just in time to see another door at the end of the hallway shutting.

“Shit,” Alex hissed, and hurried down the hall to catch up.

He had to contort himself and struggle a bit against the heavy door in order to get through it, and Alex found himself in a stairwell. Victor wasn’t in sight, but Alex could hear him hurrying either up or down the stairs. Alex looked up between the railings, and didn’t see anything. He looked down then, and was beginning to worry that Victor was going to be out of the stairwell before he knew which way to go when he saw a bit of gaudy, gilt frame poke over the railing below him.

Alex started to hurry down the stairs after him. As he was doing so, he realized that he really wasn’t sure how far down this staircase might go. He knew he’d gone up some stairs to get in to the building, but he didn’t have to go up any others on the way into the room where the auction had been. So he had to be fairly close to the ground already.

He also knew that a lot of these old warehouses had two, even three sub-basements.

Alex had no idea what he was going to do if he found he’d trapped Victor in a sub-basement. He also had no idea if Victor was armed, but he did know that he himself was not.

He heard a door bang open beneath him, and Victor muttering curses.

Alex jumped the last few stairs to the next landing, and immediately regretted that decision as the paintings he was carrying tried to escape his grip.

He wondered if maybe he should just set them down and come back for them, but then worried about what might happen to them while he was gone.

He reached the bottom of the stairwell, and breathed a sigh of relief that there weren’t multiple sub-basements to chase Victor through. He struggled with the door as well, and got through just in time to see Victor ducking through a door on the far side of the building.

Alex was getting winded, and his feet were screaming at him for trying to run in patent leather ballet flats. His arms were on fire from grappling with the art as he ran.

He got through the doorway, and discovered he was in a stairwell again. He heard Victor stomping up the stairs ahead of him.

“You know what? Fuck you, Victor,” Alex said.

Luckily for Alex, Victor was getting worn out as well. Alex came around the corner for the last flight of stairs, no more than twelve feet behind Victor, and saw him struggled with the door and just barely get through it as Alex reached the top of the stairs.

Alex caught the closing door with his foot and shoved it open again, twisting through the doorway, and then began gaining on Victor in the hallway they were in.

Victor reached the end of the hallway first. There was a door to one side with a lighted “Exit” sign over it, and he pushed through it, back-first again.

What happened next occurred so quickly that Alex wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself. And he wouldn’t have seen if he hadn’t been intensely focused on Victor.

Victor backed his way through the door, which appeared to open into an alleyway, and had just turned and taken the first step to run when, as quick as lighting, a fist, followed by an arm wrapped in a black chauffeur's jacket, appeared from somewhere just ahead of him. The fist connected abruptly with Victor’s face, knocking him back against the door again. He slumped down to the ground, dazed.

Alex reached the doorway, and was amazed and relieved to see that the fist he’d just seen was connected to none other than Mr. Expedient.

The driver reached down and plucked the painting from Victor’s hands easily.

“I assume that you were here for this?” the driver said to Alex.

“Um, yes. Um. Wow. How did you…” Alex started to say, when the driver interrupted him.

“I did tell you I would be here when you were ready, I believe,“ the driver said.

It took Alex a second to come up with a response, but he finally said, “Well, yeah, you did, but how did you know I’d be ready? And coming through this door?”

The driver half-smiled, and said, “Who do you think shouted Police into a room full of wealthy petty criminals? And there are only so many ways out of this building, it wasn’t hard to figure out where you’d be exiting. It did take you a little longer than I expected, though. I got a little worried I’d picked the wrong door. Why didn’t you put down the art you’re carrying?”

Chapter Twenty Two

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 02:19:00 +0000

Alex was a little surprised when Mr. Expedient came into Mr. Darcy’s office. Alex had been hanging out reading a magazine and waiting for time to pass so he could head over to the auction.

“Hello, Mr. Minor,” he said.

“Hi there,” Alex said. “What are you up to today?”

Mr. Darcy answered for him.

“He’ll be driving you over to the auction, of course,” Mr. Darcy said. “You don’t think a newly wealthy stolen art collector is going to drive himself, do you? Particularly not in a Cutlass Ciera.”

“I guess I hadn’t thought about it,” Alex said. Which was true.

“Are you ready to leave, Mr. Minor?” the driver said.

“Sure, why not?” Alex said. He set down his magazine, and said, “Do I look OK?”

“You look perfect, Mr. Minor. Good luck at the auction,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex went with the driver. Parked at the curb was a car Alex hadn’t seen before. It was huge, silver, and somehow ostentatious and stuffy at the same time.

“Is that a Rolls Royce?” Alex said.

“It’s a Bentley, actually,” Mr. Expedient said. “It doesn’t perform nearly as well as my Lincoln, though I haven’t had the time to tune it like I have with the Lincoln. But then, the Lincoln doesn’t scream money like this one. Anyway, hop in the back. We’ve got to get you over to the auction.”

Alex got in, and suddenly understood what luxury really meant. Up until then, the nicest car he’d been in was a friends BMW 325i from the mid-1990’s. He’d thought that was a pretty spectacular car.

But this car was spectacular. Alex had not realized a car could have truly plush carpets. Or real wood trim. Or leather so soft it felt like the seat was caressing him rather than just giving him a place to sit.

Mr. Expedient started the car, and they rolled away from the curb. It felt like they were floating.

OK, I think I’m going to have to get one of these, one day, Alex thought to himself.

Alex was enjoying the ride so much that he was a little disappointed when they arrived at the address where the auction was being held. They were in the warehouse district, and the building they pulled up in front of had a well-worn sign on it that said Space For Lease.

This is where a bunch of rich collectors are having an art auction? Alex thought.

Mr. Expedient came around the car, and opened the door for Alex. Alex got out, and as he looked up and down the street he noticed there were a lot of other luxurious cars parked, with drivers sitting behind the wheel.

“I’ll be here when you’re ready, Mr. Minor,” the driver said, then he got back behind the wheel again, and pulled away from the curb.

Alex pulled the invitation that Mr. Darcy had given him out of the inner pocket of his jacket, and walked up the stairs and in the front door of the building.

Just inside, there was an enormous man with a shaved head, a full beard, and a serious expression on his face. He was also wearing a tuxedo, which really only emphasized that the man looked like he could bench press a school bus, or two if he was pissed off.

“Good evening,” the giant said. “Can I see your invitation, please?”

Alex said, “Of course,” and handed it to him.

Alex hadn’t really taken a look at the invitation, just slipped it in to his jacket, still in its envelope. The ogre in a dinner jacket removed it from the envelope, and Alex saw that it was actually an engraved invitation, with a holographic sticker and a QR code.

The doorman examined it, looked at the holographic sticker and then took a picture of the QR code with his phone. Alex felt himself beginning to sweat as he waited to see if the invitation was going to check out.

After about thirty excruciating seconds, the doorman said, “Welcome, Mr. Minor. Please go down the hall to your left, someone there will guide you the rest of the way.”

He handed Alex the invitation back, and sat down on a chair nearby to wait for the next guest.

Alex walked the way he was directed, and noticed that the building he was in had lots of old, ornate details that stuck out in juxtaposition with cheap, modern remodeling. There was ornate carved crown molding, abruptly interrupted with new, bright white drywall, and caulk sealing the joint between the drywall and the molding.

At the end of the hall, there were a pair of beautiful women in slinky black dresses. They both smiled at him automatically, and as he reached them, one said, “Right this way.”

She slipped her arm around his, and led him through a maze of hallways, chatting pleasantly about the weather and pointing out some of the interesting historical details about the building.

Alex was glad she was talking, because he was entirely tongue-tied. He was also, he realized, getting very warm and he hoped he wasn’t perspiring so much that it was obvious.

I never realized a tuxedo would be so insulating, Alex thought. Jeez, I’m taking this thing the next time I go hiking in the fall. I’ll be toasty warm on the trail and dressed to kill at the same time.

When they reached the room the auction was apparently in, there was another giant in a tuxedo that barely contained him. He opened the door for Alex, and the woman who had led Alex through the building let go of his arm and wished him luck at the auction.

Well, here goes, Alex thought as we walked into the room where the auction was being held.

For some reason, he briefly thought of the stories he’d heard about the police rounding up criminals by sending them all a letter that said they’d won a boat, and that they could collect their prize on a certain date at a certain place, and then just wait for them to show up.

He hoped he wasn’t walking in to a trap.

Inside the room, Alex was struck by two things. One was that there were a hell of a lot of people in there in formal clothing. At a guess, Alex would have said there were are least two hundred people present. The second thing he noticed was that there was a heck of a lot of art on display around the room, on easels and small pedestals. There were even some statues that were large enough to not need a pedestal. Those were just on dollies. Alex wondered how the heck the person who bought what looked like a seven foot tall marble statue of a Greek god was going to get that thing out to their car at the end of the auction.

A man carrying a silver tray walked up to Alex and offered him a glass of champagne. Alex took it, and walked around the room, examining the different pieces of art. He really had no idea what he was looking at, apart from stolen art, but there were certain pieces that he liked and others that he didn’t. He noticed that many of the pieces he didn’t like were the ones that had large crowds around them, chatting excitedly. Alex wondered if that meant he had bad taste, or if it meant that everyone else had bad taste.

The painting he was there to buy was surrounded by velvet ropes, and there was a very big crowd around it. Alex joined them, partly to look and see what the painting really looked like, and also just to see what everyone else was saying.

He was struck by how small the painting was. Given how much action was going on with people being tormented and fleeing and so on, Alex would have expected quite a large canvas. Instead, it was maybe two feet tall by three feet wide. It had a gold frame that Alex thought went well beyond ornamental and straight to gaudy. Oh well, he wasn’t buying it for his own collection, so he supposed he wouldn’t judge it.

Another thing that struck Alex was just how completely ordinary everyone there was. Obviously, they were all quite wealthy, or they wouldn’t be there. Apart from that, however, they were gathered in little clumps, having excruciatingly normal, gossipy, boring conversations. Apparently, wearing a tuxedo didn’t automatically make people classy, or even well-mannered. Yet another way Hollywood had lied to him.

The bidding on the first piece of art began before long, and Alex discovered something he hadn’t known about himself: he loved auctions. The bidding and conclusion of the second lot confirmed it for him. The banter of the auctioneer, the competition, the energy of the crowd, all of them worked together and made Alex extremely excited.

After a while, one of the items he had liked came up. Mr. Darcy had told him to bid on a few items, so it wouldn’t look like he was there only for the one painting. Alex figured this painting, an odd little still life with an aquamarine blue vase, was as good as any to bid on and lose.

Several lots had been sold already, so Alex thought he had a pretty good handle on how the auctions worked. It seemed best to wait and let someone else bid first, and then jump in. So that’s what he did.

He got a jolt of adrenaline he couldn’t believe when he held up his bidding card and the auctioneer pointed at him, and the price went up. The people around him began to watch and see if he’d bid more, and gave encouraging smiles. After that it went back and forth in a blur and before he realized it he had bought an odd little still life featuring an aquamarine blue vase. For five thousand dollars.

Fuck.

The people around him congratulated him on his win. Alex did his best to accept their congratulations cordially, but inside he was worried about the five thousand dollar stolen painting he’d just bought on a whim.

OK, lesson learned, Alex thought. Now I know what it’s like, I’ll keep cool on the others.

He’d accidentally won two more auctions, and had just won a third when he heard a familiar, and not particularly comforting, voice next to him.

“Congratulations, Mr. Minor,” Victor Steel said. “I didn’t realize that you were a collector yourself.”

Alex had no idea what to say for a second. Even though he knew he should have been prepared for some kind of hitch in the plan, he hadn’t been expecting Victor Steel to be the hitch.

“Well, of course,” Alex said. “I love art.”

“I’d assumed that, given what I know about your line of work,” Victor said. Alex thought he detected a hint of sarcasm in Victor’s voice. “But all the same, I wouldn’t have expected to find you at this auction.”

“Hmm,” Alex grunted as ambiguously as he could manage. He figured the best thing he could do was shut up and wait to see what Victor was up to, and try and do damage control (or run) once he found out.

“You really must tell me about your employer some time,” Victor said. “I’m dying to find out what other kinds of projects you’ve been taking on, since you seem to have given up on the bicycle courier gig.”

Alex knew better than to take the bait.

He said, “Well, you know, it’s very entrepreneurial. Synergizing social media, that kind of thing.”

“Fascinating,” Victor said. “I’m in a very similar business. I suspect we could partner and really get some synergy going. I’m always looking for new blue water strategies and ways to monetize channels that haven’t been capitalized yet.”

It took every ounce of self-control Alex had to not say, “Huh?”

Instead, he said, “We’ll have to discuss it some time.”

Alex was relieved that the bidding was about to start again, so he’d be able to excuse himself from the conversation.

Then he realized it was the piece that he was there to buy. He felt another little surge of adrenaline.

Victor looked at him, and said, “Will you be bidding on this one too? Good luck, if you are.”

Chapter Twenty One

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 05:13:00 +0000

Alex woke up the following morning on Megan’s couch, under a scratchy army surplus blanket, to discover Malcolm laying down, but alert, staring at him.

“Well, good morning Malcolm,” Alex said. He did his best not to give away his many, many concerns about what Malcolm might do next. He wasn’t sure if cats were like dogs and could smell fear, but he wasn’t eager to find out.

He wondered for a moment if actually it was dogs that could smell fear, or cats, or, like, bears.

After a couple of seconds, Malcolm looked away, apparently disinterested now.

“Good morning, Mr. Minor,” Megan said, then, as she walked into the room. “I see that Malcolm has already greeted you today.”

Malcolm got up from where he was, and rubbed up against Megan’s leg.

“He has, he’s quite the charmer,” Alex said.

Megan went into the kitchen, and Alex heard her start to make coffee. She said, “Go ahead and get yourself cleaned up. I’m done and ready to go whenever you are.”

When Alex came out of the bathroom, freshly showered, even if he was wearing the same clothes as the day before, he found an insulated mug of coffee and an open box of donuts waiting for him in the kitchen.

“I figured since you just watched the little bit of stuff you had in the farm house go up in flames, you could probably use a donut. Don’t get used to it,” Megan said.

“Thanks,” Alex said.

“So, did you have any clothes left back at your apartment? Do we need to run over there?” Megan said.

“I don’t really have anything left there that I could wear in decent company. There’s probably a pair of sweatpants and a Steve Urkel t-shirt, and that’s about it. I grabbed everything good the last time I was there,” Alex said.

“So you need clothes,” Megan said. “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, we get paid pretty well and you’ve been working a fair amount. You didn’t have all of the cash in the house, did you?”

Alex hung his head.

“All of it?” Megan said.

“Well, I’ve got about two thousand in the bank. I hear financial institutions look at you kind of funny when you start making enormous cash deposits, so I’ve been trying to deposit it a little bit at a time,” Alex said.

“How much did you lose?” Megan said, then, “Wait, don’t tell me, that’s none of my business. Anyway, you need clothes, and you’re light on funds for now. No problem, we’ll get you sorted out. For now, let’s get in to the office. Sounds like you need to get back to work as soon as possible.”

As the two of them walked out to Megan’s car, she took out her phone and called someone. Alex heard her say, “Alex needs new clothes,” a pause, “All of them, I think.”

She asked him what his measurements were, and repeated them to whoever she was talking to on the phone. Another pause, and she said, “Well, as soon as you can manage. OK, thanks.”

Megan turned to Alex after she got off of the phone, and said, “We’ll have your clothes problem sorted out shortly.”

“Wow, thanks,” Alex said. “How much am I going to be spending, though?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Megan said. “Mr. Darcy will just take it out of your next payment.”

When they arrived at the office, Mr. Darcy’s door was shut. Megan told Alex to just take a seat and get comfortable, then sat down behind her desk and started to work on her computer.

An hour had passed, and Alex was just about ready to nod off in his chair when Mr. Darcy’s door opened.

“Mr. Minor,” he said. “Come in, I’ve got some work for you.”

Alex followed Mr. Darcy into his office, and sat down in his usual chair. Mr. Darcy’s desk already had a folder on it, which he pushed over to Alex. Alex took it and opened it up. There was an address, and a photo of a painting in a gold frame. The painting was kind of grotesque, in Alex’s opinion – people fleeing and being tormented by a variety of other-worldly creatures.

“Do you know much about art, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy asked him.

“I can’t say that I do,” Alex said. “I know what I like, I guess, but that’s about it.”

“In your spare time, I think you’ll find it’s worth your while to learn more about it. There is fascinating history attached to much of it, and of course, fascinating stories and theories about the art itself. But that’s beside the point. This particular painting was stolen some time ago, and was considered lost and gone forever. It recently came to light that not only is it still in wonderful condition, but that there is going to be an underground auction of a variety of art acquired through less than legal means, and this particular painting is going to be the grand finale,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Wow, I didn’t realize there could be such a thing. I’d always thought stolen art changed hands in back room deals between rich criminals,” Alex said.

“A lot of it does,” Mr. Darcy said, “However, there are also a lot of rich collectors who are, shall we say, bored by the typical art deal and are looking for a thrill. This is going to be a very exclusive event, the guest list has been thoroughly and carefully vetted, and the amounts of money that are going to be thrown around will be huge.”

“Cool,” Alex said. “So do you want me to find a way to grab the painting and sneak it out of there?”

Mr. Darcy laughed.

“No, Mr. Minor. I don’t think you’re going to be able to sneak this painting out of a room full of art thieves. You have a great many useful talents, but cat burglary isn’t one of them,” he said.

Alex was tempted to argue, because damn it, he was so stealthy, but Mr. Darcy continued.

“What I want you to do, Mr. Minor, is go to the auction and purchase that painting,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex wasn’t certain that he hear Mr. Darcy correctly.

“I beg your pardon?” he said.

“I want you to go, and keep bidding until you’ve won the painting. I’d suggest also bidding on some of the other art, but do your best not to win those items,” Mr. Darcy said.

“This painting is the centerpiece of the whole show? Aren’t people going to be a little curious about who I am? Especially when I outbid all of them on that one painting? The main event, in fact?” Alex said.

“Incredibly curious, I’m sure. On the other hand, if anyone asks, tell them your company just IPO’d. You’re in the tech industry, and you have a brilliant business matching people who want to sell t-shirts with people who want to buy t-shirts. Use the words “Social media” and “Synergize” and “Crowd-source” liberally, and everyone will believe you, don’t worry,” Mr. Darcy said.

“I don’t even know what those words mean,” Alex said.

“They won’t either. I told you not to worry about it,” Mr. Darcy said.

“OK, what’s this company called?” Alex said.

“UberShirt,” Mr. Darcy said. “Dot com.”

“UberShirt. Synergize. Got it,” Alex said. “My next question is, how am I going to pay for this? Doesn’t art go for millions?”

“It can, though you understand this is all stolen art. It will be difficult for the new owners to get rid of it again if they want to sell it, and that fact is going to keep the prices a bit lower than you might expect. Anyway, the payment details have all been arranged. Interestingly enough, most of the people attending this event aren’t looking for the kind of thrill that is showing up to a party hosted by a bunch of people known to be criminals, with a briefcase full of cash. There is a bookkeeper who has already been paid who keeping everyone’s money safe for a small fee. Call it an escrow. Anyway, funding won’t be an issue. You will be completely covered however much you have to spend, I assure you,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex’s mind reeled a bit. “Who the heck is our client?”

“The rightful owner of the painting, who has the desire and the means to get it back safely whatever the cost. So let’s make sure it does get back safely,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex shrugged and said, “OK. When is this auction?”

“Tonight. Wear a tuxedo, by the way,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex paused for a second, trying to wrap his head around that for a second before he said, “I don’t have a tuxedo. I don’t even have a clean t-shirt at the moment.”

“Well, if you need a t-shirt, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of them in stock at UberShirt. As for a tuxedo, you have one now,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex wondered what that meant, as Mr. Darcy picked up his desk phone, pressed a button, and said, “Ms. Megan, would you please send Mr. Bleckley in.”

Moments later, an impeccably dressed man with perfectly coiffed silver hair hurried in to Mr. Darcy’s office. He was pulling a rolling rack of some sort behind him, with several suit bags hanging from it. Another man, younger, followed him pushing a cart with what looked like two sewing machines on it.

“Mr. Minor, this is Mr. Bleckley and his assistant. They’ll be fitting your tuxedo for you today,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Mr. Bleckley said. “Please step over here and we’ll get started right away.”

Mr. Bleckley’s assistant had produced a small platform from the lower shelf of the cart he’d been pushing, which he set up on the floor in the middle of Mr. Darcy’s office.

“Please step up here, Mr. Minor,” he said.

Alex did, and the two tailors immediately set to work measuring him. Alex had no idea one could have his measurements taken so quickly, but they were done measuring him scant seconds after they’d begun.

Mr. Bleckley stood back for a second, and said, “Please just stand normally.”

Alex did his best to stand normally, whatever that meant. Mr. Bleckley nodded, and went over to the rack. He opened one of the bags, and pulled out a navy blue tuxedo and a white shirt. He handed the shirt to Alex first.

“Try this on, please,” Mr. Bleckley said.

Alex did, and Mr. Bleckley immediately handed him the tuxedo pants. “And these, if you will,” he said.

Mr. Bleckley and his assistant got to work around right away, marking, measuring, tucking and pinning things. A few minutes later, Mr. Bleckley’s assistant brought Alex the jacket for the Tuxedo. Alex tried it on, and they got to work again.

All told, it took the two of them about fifteen minutes to get him measured and fitted before they set to work altering the tux, right there in Mr. Darcy’s office. It was so fast, it took a moment for Alex to consider how strange it was to be getting fitted for a tuxedo while Mr. Darcy sat ten feet away, apparently reviewing documents and making notes.

Alex couldn’t believe it when about twenty minutes after that, they asked him to try everything on again. They made a few more measurements, and stuck a couple of pins in, then had him change again and wait while they finished up.

When they were done, Alex couldn’t believe he’d been fitted for a tuxedo, and had it altered, within two hours of even finding out he was going to need one.

“You understand, of course, this isn’t our best work, due to the rush” Mr. Bleckley said apologetically as he held up a long mirror for Alex to inspect their work.

Alex couldn’t believe how good he looked. He felt like James Bond.

Mr. Darcy took a glance and Alex and said, “It will be perfect, thank you Mr. Bleckley. He needs to look like a young businessman with more money than taste. The kind of man who wouldn’t know how a tuxedo is supposed to fit. This will be perfect. I’ve seen your work, and I know what you can do normally.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think it looks pretty damn good,” Alex said.

Mr. Bleckley raised an eyebrow, and Mr. Darcy said, “Perfect.”

Chapter Twenty

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 02:34:00 +0000

Alex discovered that it can be very difficult to get a paranoid person to tell you what, exactly, the person harassing them is after if the paranoid person doesn’t think they can trust you.

He had already asked Tamara what Victor had whispered that made her so upset. She side-stepped the question, and started in again on how she just wanted to be left alone.

Alex, not being one to take a hint, asked her then what it was that Victor wanted, and what had been on the slip of paper he’d given to her.

Tamara snorted, and said, “As if I’d tell you. The last thing I need is one more person trying to get their hands on what isn’t theirs.”

Alex said, “Well, is there anything I can do to help?”

“If you can get this asshole off of my back, that’d be a big help. Otherwise, I’m not sure what you can do. Anyway, I’ve got work to do. See you around,” Tamara said.

She walked away, into the back room. Alex wondered if there was going to be another session of cursing and throwing of kitchen implements back there, but all he could hear were the sounds of someone washing dishes.

After ten minutes or so, he left the Bump and Grind. He was somewhat concerned for Tamara. He didn’t really know much about her, but he did know that Victor Steel was bad news. After thinking for a couple of minutes, he had to admit to himself that it was likely he would side with anyone who was against Victor Steel. And Tamara definitely seemed like she was crazy, but she didn’t seem like a particularly bad person.

Alex didn’t want to see Victor taking advantage of her.

He was deep enough in thought that he didn’t notice the three bicyclists hanging out right next to the Cutlass until it was too late.

“Hello again, Mr. Minor,” Victor Steel said. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Spectacular,” Alex said. He was relieved that Victor and the other two were on bicycles instead of in, say, a large, fast automobile. It would be hard to bring him anywhere against his will on a bicycle.

Unless they’re armed and force me to drive them in my car, a little voice inside his head said.

Victor took a sip of his coffee, and said, “She really does make a good cup of coffee. It’s too bad she doesn’t want me coming in to the Bump and Grind again. I know a lot of coffee lovers who would be thrilled to have a new place to go in this part of town. Oh well.”

“It is a shame, but then, who would want their coffee shop overrun with friends of yours?” Alex said.

Victor laughed, and said, “You have such a sharp wit, Mr. Minor. Well, I hope you have a fantastic day. I’m sure I’ll be bumping into you again soon.”

He turned and began to walk his bicycle down the sidewalk, away from Alex. His two flunkies followed behind him.

“Hey, hang on a second!” Alex said.

Victor paused, and turned back to see what Alex wanted.

“Yes, Mr. Minor?” he said. He sounded bored.

“What is it that you want to buy from Tamara?” Alex said.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Victor said.

“It’s not, I’m just curious really. I’m wondering what a lonely coffee shop owner could have that’s so interesting or valuable that a wealthy man would make a special trip, in costume no less, to try and convince her to sell it to him, and apparently even resort to threats to get it,” Alex said.

Victor’s eyebrows shot up for a moment, then he relaxed again.

“Threats?” He said. “What threats? I merely made a proposition to her, and she chose to react poorly to it.”

“I’ve heard that women often react badly to being propositioned by strange men,” Alex said.

“A business proposition, Mr. Minor,” Victor said.

“Oh, of course. So what did you propose?” Alex said.

“Just that I could take an item off of her hands that has been causing her a lot of problems, and that I’d be willing to pay her quite well for it. But that if she decided she’d rather keep being hassled everywhere she went by other collectors, then that was her decision. I don’t really care to tell you any more than that,” Victor said. “Have a nice day.”

“So there’s more than one of you bothering her constantly? No wonder she’s so edgy. What is it that you all are so interested in?” Alex said.

“I’m still not going to tell you, Mr. Minor. I’d hate for her to get home one day and discover that you had recovered it,” Victor said. “Anyway, I have other things to do today than stand here and chat with you about things that don’t concern you. Good bye.”

He turned and resumed walking away.

Alex watched the three of them walk their bicycles down the sidewalk for a moment, then hopped in the Cutlass. As he started it, he wondered if he needed to be concerned about more bugs/tracking devices, since those three had apparently been standing there by his car for some time. He decided, however, that they probably hadn’t had enough time to bug it. And based on the fact that they’d been wearing spandex, and didn’t have any luggage on their bikes that they could have stashed such equipment in, the chances of there being even a new tracking device on the car were pretty slim.

He was probably good to go. Alex decided that he’d stop at a bookstore on the way back to the farm house. He was frustrated that he hadn’t been able to get any information out of Tamara or Victor that would make it easier for him to help Tamara. Chances were good he was going to need a distraction, or he’d be up all night trying to figure out what the connection was, and what he might be able to do about it.

Finding a bookstore ended up being a little trickier than he was expecting, but he was finally able to find a Barnes & Noble on his way route back to the farm house. It would do. He picked up a couple of magazines, a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (he’d always meant to read them, but never found the time) and a random Stephen King novel, just in case the other stuff didn’t work out.

As Alex was driving back to the farm house, he noticed a tower of black smoke on the horizon ahead of him. Wow, I hope no one got hurt, he thought, and didn’t think much more of it. As he got closer to the farm house, he realized that the fire must be awfully close to where he was headed. He hoped the roads he needed were still open.

He got a little anxious when he turned on to the road that eventually led to the farm house. The column of smoke was directly ahead of him, somewhere. He briefly worried that the farm house had caught fire somehow, but then dismissed the idea as impossible. House fires happened to other people following lightning strikes and smoking in bed. People don’t just get home to discover their house is on fire.

Whatever was on fire must be close to the farm house, though. The column of smoke kept getting bigger as he got closer to it.

Alex was quite dismayed when he came around the last curve blocking the farm house from view and discovered the farm house was engulfed in flames.

“Well, shit,” Alex said.

There were a couple of firetrucks on the scene, and one of the firefighters directed Alex to stop well before he reached the driveway. Alex rolled down his window to talk to the firefighter.

“I live there, what happened?” Alex said. He hadn’t realized quite how freaked out he was until he heard his own voice shaking. He’d been in there all week, after all. Was it good luck, or bad luck, that the house burst into flames during the one time he wasn’t there?

“We don’t know yet,” the firefighter said. “Lucky for you, someone who drove by saw the flames and called us. We managed to catch it before it caught any of the outbuildings on fire. I don’t think there’s going to be much left of your house, though, I’m sorry to say. Have you got someone you can call?”

Alex had to stop and think for a second. Then he said, “Yeah, I think so.”

He wondered how Mr. Darcy would react to the news that the safe house had mysteriously caught on fire while Alex was in Minneapolis and had, by the way, bumped into Victor Steel while he was there.

He really hoped Mr. Darcy was a good sport. Alex dug his phone out of his pocket, and tried calling Mr. Darcy.

“Mr. Minor!” Mr. Darcy said when he answered the phone. “How has the pastoral life been treating you?”

Alex swallowed, and said, “Well, it’s been treating me pretty well. There’s been kind of a problem, though.”

“Oh? What’s that?” Mr. Darcy said.

“Well, I’d been out of the house, and I just got back to find it on fire,” Alex said.

There was silence on the other end of the line.

Alex continued, “The firefighter I talked to said that they’d caught it in time, and that the outbuildings are all OK.”

The silence continued.

“So, what would you like me to do?” Alex said, finally.

When Mr. Darcy spoke, he said, “What had you left the house to do?”

Alex considered lying, and saying he’d been grocery shopping. However, the lack of a receipt and groceries in the Cutlass would make that an easy lie to disprove.

A receipt. Shit. All of my cash was in the house, Alex thought then.

He decided he might as well tell the truth.

“I got bored and decided to go into town to get coffee and see if I might bump into an old friend of mine,” Alex said.

“I see,” Mr. Darcy said. “Did anything strange happen while you were in town?”

“Well,” Alex said. He thought, I’m so fired, and continued, “I bumped into Victor Steel at the coffee shop. He was apparently there to try and convince the owner to sell him something for his collection. She told him to get out of the shop.”

There was silence on the other end of the line again. Then Mr. Darcy sighed.

“I know I don’t need to lecture you about the fact that you were in hiding in the country for a reason. That said, since we don’t know the circumstances of the fire yet, perhaps it was extremely lucky that you had decided to go into town,” he said.

He continued, “I’d like to tell you to just go back to your apartment, but on the off chance the fire at the farm house wasn’t an accident, I’m concerned I’d be sending you into a trap.”

Silence again.

After a couple of minutes, Mr. Darcy resumed speaking.

“Come in to the office, if you would. We’ll get you set up with a place to stay for the next couple of nights, anyway, until we can find a better solution,” Mr. Darcy said.

“OK, thanks,” Alex said.

“Of course, Mr. Minor. We don’t leave our people in the cold. Good bye,” Mr. Darcy said, and ended the call.

Alex was deeply relieved that he hadn’t just been chewed out and fired. Of course, he realized, he wasn’t entirely in the clear yet, but considering that a few other jobs had fired him for nothing more than falling asleep at work, he realized he was awfully lucky to not be getting fired for letting the organization’s house burn down on his watch.

Alex started the Cutlass again, made a u-turn, and started driving in to Minneapolis again. He hoped he wouldn’t have to buy gas on the way. His wallet was suddenly very light.

When Alex arrived at Mr. Darcy’s office, Megan was sitting at her desk, looking calm and professional as always. She looked up at him as he walked in the door, sat back in her chair, and crossed her arms.

“So, it sounds like you’re going to be crashing at my place for a couple of nights,” she said. “I hope you didn’t bring any more adventure along with you.”

Chapter Nineteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:09:00 +0000

Alex was bored. It was nearly midnight on a Thursday night. He’d been in the farm house for about a week, waiting for some kind of word from Mr. Darcy, waiting for something to do. He’d watched every DVD in the collection he cared to watch. He’d watched Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right and Jeopardy, marveling more than a little that game shows that had been on TV when he was a kid were still on the air.

In the depths of his boredom, he fondly remembered the very brief run of the game show You Don’t Know Jack, hosted by Paul Reubens.

The fact that he’d remembered it was a sign to Alex that it was time to get the hell out of the house before he lost what was left of his mind. Even if it was just to go buy a book, he needed to go do something, somewhere, in a place that had other people around.

He decided that the following morning, he would go find something to do that wasn’t watching more TV, for a little while at least.

The next morning, he got up early, and decided that the thing to do was to head over to the Bump & Grind and see if Marlboro was around. It had been a while since he’d seen Marlboro, since he wasn’t doing much work as a bicycle messenger at the moment. And coffee was always a good thing. Plus Alex figured the drive would do him good. He could cruise into Minneapolis with the windows open and some loud music on the radio and get outside of his own head for a little while.

With that decision made, he hopped into the Cutlass and started driving. About the time he got onto a highway was when he remembered an important thing: he lived in the country, and was driving in to downtown Minneapolis on a weekday morning.

Alex did his best to relax and enjoy the drive, because even sitting in rush hour traffic was better than another morning spent watching Sesame Street again.

Relaxed or not, it took Alex about an hour to get to the Bump and Grind. By the time he walked in, Marlboro was, presumably, long gone. Since he was there, though, he figured he might as well get some coffee and hang out for a little bit.

Alex was a little surprised when he realized he was happy to see Tamara was working behind the counter. If you’d asked him, he’d have guessed he was happy because it meant she had decided not to run from her problems. Really, though, he had no idea why he was happy to see her, he just was.

On the other hand, Tamara didn’t seem particularly thrilled, or dismayed, to see him.

“Yeah, so? What are you having?” Tamara said

“Just a medium drip coffee will be great, thanks,” Alex said.

“Medium drip, right. You want room for cream in that?” Tamara said.

“No, just black is fine,” Alex said.

Tamara gave him his coffee and wandered into the back room. Alex took his coffee and found a place to sit and watch the other people in the coffee shop. As he sat and drank his coffee, he began to understand what Marlboro had meant about wannabe couriers hanging out. One by one the real couriers left to go take care of their first deliveries for the day. Eventually there were just a lot of bored looking folks with courier bags hanging out, drinking coffee, and playing with their phones if they weren’t telling someone about how awesome it had been riding their fixie in the alley cat the weekend before.

Alex wondered what, exactly, an alley cat was. He guessed it was some kind of race, wondered if it might be something he was interested in, and then noticed that most of the people talking about them were not the kind of people he really wanted to hang around with on a regular basis.

Like Mr. Darcy had said, he was a man of action. These guys seemed to all be bored bullshit artists.

Speaking of bored, Alex was already starting to get bored again. He needed some work, and he needed it soon.

Just then a couple of familiar looking guys walked in to the Bump and Grind. Alex couldn’t quite place them, but he was certain that he’d seen them before.

Then Victor Steel walked in behind them. Alex realized the two men with him were two of the goons that had grabbed him at the airport. He hadn’t recognized them, he realized, because they were wearing brightly colored spandex and helmets.

Alex hoped they wouldn’t notice him sitting by himself in the corner of the coffee shop.

He watched as Victor stopped just inside the door, also clad in bright spandex cycling clothes, and took a slow look around the coffee shop. Alex did his best to be inconspicuous, and failed again.

Victor arched an eyebrow at Alex, and cracked a half smile. Alex wondered if he should bolt, although he wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of there if they decided they really wanted to talk to him. Then he decided that he would just make up the plan as he went, and got up to leave.

Trying his best to be casual, but quick, since the two goons with Victor hadn’t noticed him yet, Alex started walking towards the nearest exit. He did his best not to look at the trio of super hero costumed cyclists as he walked.

Which was probably a mistake. He was nearly at the door when a sweaty goon in spandex stepped in front of him.

“Well, hello Mr. Minor,” he said. Alex wasn’t sure if this was Paul or Brandon, but he worried it was bad news for him all the same. They were the two that got too much enjoyment out of knocking people out.

“Hey,” Alex said. He glanced to see if he could get out the other door, and noticed that there was another one of Victor’s goons blocking that door. Shit, he thought.

“Mr. Minor, what a surprise to see you here,” Victor said from behind him.

Alex turned around, and saw Victor standing about six feet away from him. His henchman was much closer to Alex.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting to see you either, Mr. Steel,” Alex said. “Do you come here often?”

“Not particularly often, no. Actually, I can’t say I’ve ever been here before, but it’s a nice day and I thought the boys and I might get out for a quick bike ride. There’s nothing like a bike ride for getting energized and getting the creative juices flowing, wouldn’t you agree?” Victor said.

Alex said, “Sure, why not. I’m not sure I believe you, though. That spandex looks brand new. When’s the last time you were even on a bike, before today?”

Victor smirked, and said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with taking up a new activity, is there? How have you been, by the way? Any more travel in your immediate future?”

“As if I’d tell you,” Alex said.

“Oh, of course. You wouldn’t want to give away your business secrets and such. I’m sure you’d hate for anyone to catch wind that you’re on your way to recover something from them. That would take all the fun out of it for you, wouldn’t it?” Victor said.

“No,” Alex said. “It’s mostly just that I don’t really like talking to you very much, Mr. Steel.”

“Ah, well, I’ve made a friend out of an enemy several times before, Mr. Minor. I won’t be surprised if the two of us become famous friends, with a bit of time. There’s just something I like about you,” Victor said.

“Hey,” Tamara said in a raised voice, “Are you three bike wienies going to order something soon? Because if not, you need to get out. If you want a place where you can just go hang out for free all day, try the public library.”

Victor smiled at Alex and gestured to the two men who were with him. They walked away from the doors to the counter, and started ordering their coffees.

Victor said to Alex, “Excuse me, I have a bit of business I need to attend to.”

He turned around and walked over to the counter with the other two, and waiting his turn to order.

The bit about “having a bit of business” to attend to was odd enough that Alex decided to stick around for a minute and see what was going to happen. If he had to, he could intervene, or at least be a helpful witness.

He watched as the three of them finished ordering their coffees, and as they waited for Tamara to make them. Alex noticed that Paul and Brandon, or whatever their names were, had just ordered drip coffees, while Victor had ordered something complicated that involved words like macchiato, which had earned him an eye roll from Tamara.

When they had their coffees in hand, they turned away from the counter, as if to go and find a seat. Victor turned back, however, and spoke.

“Oh, Tamara, there was one other thing,” he said.

Tamara gave Victor a wary look, and said, “Oh, what’s that?”

Victor took a slip of paper from his wallet, and slid it across the counter towards Tamara.

“I’m something of a collector, and I’ve heard that you might have a few items that I’d be interested in adding to my collection. Perhaps we can come to some sort of agreement about a price for them?” Victor said.

Alex was suddenly very interested in what was going on in the Bump and Grind, even more than he had been when he’d been more worried about getting out of there without being hit with a tranquilizer dart or another stiff right hook.

Tamara gave Victor a very suspicious look, and picked up the slip of paper from the counter. She glanced at it, and Alex saw her eyes flash wide open for a second, before she composed herself again. Victor saw it too.

“No idea what any of this stuff is,” Tamara said. “I guess you heard wrong.”

Victor smiled widely, and said, “Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you then. I hope you have a nice day.”

He turned to walk away, and then, one more time, turned back to Tamara.

“Oh, there is one more thing,” he said.

Tamara looked exasperated, and said, “What?”

Alex saw Victor lean close, and whisper something to Tamara. He wasn’t able to hear what Victor said, but he saw Tamara’s eyes go wide again, and her face turned bright red.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Tamara said. “You and your two Power Ranger buddies can just leave and don’t come back. You’re not welcome at the Bump and Grind! Is that clear?”

“Of course,” Victor said. “It’s perfectly clear. But please do consider my offer. My phone number is on the slip of paper I gave you. Call any time, I’m really very eager to make a deal with you. Have a nice day.”

Victor passed Alex as he was walking out. He said, “I hope you have a nice day too, Mr. Minor. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

Then he winked.

Alex watched as the three of them left, wondering what the hell had just happened, and what exactly that wink had meant.

He went over to the counter, where Tamara was standing and apparently lost in thought, staring out the door after Victor. It looked like she was talking to herself a bit; she was moving her lips, but no sound was coming out.

“Hey, are you OK? What did he do?” Alex said.

Tamara looked at Alex, blinked, and said, “You see? This is why I have to keep moving all the time. I just can’t get away from these fuckers. There’s always someone, and they just won’t leave me alone.”

Chapter Eighteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 02:16:00 +0000

Alex woke up that morning around nine o’clock. He was extremely groggy, and could easily have slept more, but at the same time he felt very strongly that he should be awake and moving already. He noticed that he was still sitting upright, and hadn’t even touched the blanket or the pillow Megan had put out for him.

He also noticed that Malcolm was sitting on the coffee table, staring intently at him.

“Good morning, Malcolm,” Alex said. He wasn’t quite sure how to act suitably non-intrusive around an attack cat, but he did his best.

Megan came into the room then, dressed and ready for the day.

“Good morning, Mr. Minor,” she said. “I hope you slept well.”

Alex said, “Good morning. Thanks. Did you get enough rest?”

“Oh yes. I can function on way less sleep than how much I got last night, if I have to. Besides, I’ve got a coffee pot. Would you like some?” Megan said.

“Yes, thank you,” Alex said.

“I’ll pour it in an insulated mug, we’re going to go straight in to the office today. I’ve got work to do, and we still need to get your car situation figured out. Do you want to wash your face before we go?”

Alex was still trying to wake up. He scratched the side of his head, and said, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

He paused, and then asked her, “Will Malcolm be OK with that? He seems to like me right where I am.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him. If he was going to do something to you, he’d have done it already. I wouldn’t stick my hands in his face, though, if I were you. There’s no need to tempt him,” Megan said.

Alex heard her pouring coffee. He got off the couch, slowly, keeping an eye on Malcolm to see how he would react. Malcolm continued watching him, but didn’t move a muscle.

He turned and started walking to find the bathroom and wash up a little bit. When he reached the hallway, he heard a quiet rushing sound, and little footsteps. He put it together that Malcolm was running up behind him just as the cat rushed past his leg. Alex was relieved that he just ran past. Malcolm stopped at the bathroom door, turned, sat, and resumed watching Alex.

Alex washed up, and tried to shake off his sleepiness, without much success. He was going to have to take advantage of whatever naps he could manage today, or else go to bed very early.

Malcolm walked along with him as he returned to the kitchen, where Megan was sipping her coffee and flipping through a copy of War and Peace.

“A little bit of light morning reading?” Alex said when he noticed the massive book on the counter in front of Megan.

“Exactly,” Megan said. “Are you ready to go, Mr. Minor?”

“As ready as I’ll be,” Alex said. He smiled half-heartedly.

“Well then, let’s roll,” Megan said.

They arrived at Mr. Darcy’s office after a fairly quick drive. Alex was surprised when, once again, Mr. Darcy came out of his office to greet them as they walked in.

“Good morning, Ms. Megan, Mr. Minor,” He said. “Quite the evening you had last night.

“It was a little more excitement than I usually like on a weeknight,” Megan said.

Alex nodded in agreement.

“Yes, odd hours are one of the hazards of our industry. Anyway, come into my office and sit down, please,” Mr. Darcy said.

For just a second, Alex was afraid he was going to get fired again. For nearly leading Victor’s goons straight to the office, or for letting himself get kidnapped while he was, apparently, carrying Pandora’s box.

They sat down, and Mr. Darcy said, “I’m very relieved that you took some precautions to make it a little more difficult for Victor Steel to find us, Mr. Minor. I’d love to find you another car to use, but for the moment the Cutlass is the only one I’ve got free. Our friend from Expedient Car Service will be along shortly to help you find and remove any tracking devices Victor Steel had installed. Then you’ll be able to use it to get around until we can find another, less known car for you. Or until you purchase your own car to drive. Granted, I won’t blame you if you don’t want to buy a car right away. It’s easier to stay incognito when your car doesn’t give you away everywhere you go.”

He continued, “But speaking of our friend from Expedient Car Service, he gave me some details about the three men who were waiting for you in your apartment, Ms. Megan. I admit, I’d been expecting hear that Victor Steel had somehow traced you as well. However, our friend informed me that they were only too willing to answer his questions about what they were doing and who they were working for. It turns out they were affiliated with the gentleman you recently encountered in Hawaii, Ms. Megan.”

“What gentleman is that?” Alex asked before he could stop himself.

“No one of interest to you, yet, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said. “Although he was key in an assignment Ms. Megan recently had, and I’d say he’s not particularly happy about how that all turned out.”

“Are they going to be more trouble?” Alex asked next.

“No, I wouldn’t think so. I expect they’ll spread the word to their compatriots about their experiences last night, and that’ll make it harder to find volunteers to try again,” Mr. Darcy said.

“So what’s next, then?” Alex said.

“Business as usual, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said. “Ms. Megan already has her assignments, and like we discussed last night, you’ll be laying low until I’ve got another assignment for you.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door to Mr. Darcy’s office. He looked up, and said, “Ah! Come in, we’ve been expecting you.”

Alex turned to see who they’d been expecting. It was none other than Mr. Expedient. He was looking a little tired this morning, but seemed ready to keep moving.

“How did the coupons for Der Wienerschnitzel go over?” Alex asked him.

The driver smiled slightly, and said, “They were suitably baffled, and unenthused.”

“Der Wienerschnitzel? I thought it was going to be coupons for The Sizzler,” Megan said. She sounded somewhat disappointed.

“Usually it is,” the driver said. “But this time I got my hands on some coupons for half off of chili dogs, and I had to use them. They were even less valuable than the Sizzler coupons.”

“I suppose,” Megan said. “Next time let’s stick to our usual plan though, OK?”

“Fine, fine,” the driver said.

Mr. Darcy cleared his throat, and addressed the driver.

”I’d like you to take Mr. Minor back over to the Cutlass, and remove any tracking devices or bugs that you might find,” he said.

“Sure thing,” the driver said. He turned to Alex, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Alex said. He polished off the rest of the coffee in his mug, and then said to Megan, “I’ll leave this on your desk for you, unless you’d like me to wash it and bring it back for you.”

Megan said, “Leaving it on my desk will be fine. Given how things have been working out for you lately, I’d be a little worried about sending a defenseless mug out into the cruel world with you.”

Alex laughed, and said, “OK, I’ll leave it on your desk. Thanks for the coffee.”

He and the driver were about to leave Mr. Darcy’s office when something occurred to Alex.

“Hang on a second, “ Alex said. “What if Victor’s goons are still there watching the car? It’s not going to do too much for us to conspicuously show up and start working on the car in broad day light if we’re just going to be watched and followed from there.”

Mr. Darcy smiled, and said, “Victor Steel isn’t the only one with people who can act as observers. I’ve had a few of my own people over there, keeping an eye on the Cutlass, the men who were watching it, and everyone else coming and going in that neighborhood. Victor’s men left around eight o’clock this morning, and no one has been back. Our people have checked the neighborhood over thoroughly, and there’s no one there that isn’t supposed to be. And the people who are supposed to be there really aren’t interested in the Cutlass. I’d say you’re pretty safe.”

“OK, cool,” Alex said. “I guess that’s good enough for me.”

He and the driver actually left then. As they passed by, Alex did leave the mug Megan had loaned him on her desk. It seemed awfully important to be true to his word and maintain good relationships with his co-workers after all.

Especially when one of them apparently owns a murder cat.

Mr. Expedient’s car was out in front of the building. He and Alex got in, and Alex directed him to where he’d left the Cutlass the night before.

In the neighborhood where it was parked, Alex noticed a worker apparently changing the bulb in a street lamp. There was also someone in an orange vest with what looked like a metal detector, sweeping it back and forth near the curb, and occasionally marking a spot on the ground with bright orange spray paint.

The driver cruised through the neighborhood once. He pointed discretely and said in a low voice, “Friendly,” as he drove past the worker changing the street lamp, and again as they passed the other worker with the metal detector.

The two of them drove around the block again, and then parked behind the Cutlass.

“Let’s get this car sorted out,” the driver said.

He and Alex got out of the car, and the driver went around to the trunk. He pulled out a tool box and a person sized piece of carpet, and carried them over to the Cutlass.

He started at the back of the car, laying the piece of carpet down on the street, partly under the car and then climbing under the car with a flash light. He slowly examined the under carriage of the car, and Alex heard him mutter, “Ah ha!”

Alex saw him reach up somewhere behind the body of the car, tug slightly, and a few seconds later he dropped a black bundle that looked like a pager that had been shrink-wrapped together with six D cell batteries.

“That’s one,” the driver said. He climbed a little further under the car.

“Should we disable this?” Alex said, looking at it. He felt very weird seeing it just laying there on the street, and knowing for certain that he’d been tracked.

“Nah,” the driver said, “we’ll just leave it here for them to wonder about. Or one of the folks that live in the neighborhood will take an interest in it. Depending on how that goes, it might make things real interesting for the folks who put it on the car.”

Alex heard him mutter, “There you are,” and another device landed on the street next to the first. This one was a little bit smaller.

The driver crawled out from under the car, and moved the carpet to the driver’s side door. “I’d sure appreciate it if you would stand here over me and make sure I don’t get run over,” he said.

He looked around under the car with his flash light, and then said, “Nothing here.”

He moved to the front of the car, and found something right away, just at the bottom of the radiator.

“That one was probably a decoy, just in case you were stupid enough to think they’d only use one. Though, they’ve done almost as half-assed a job of hiding this stuff as Lo-Jack installers do…” he said.

After a quick peek under the passenger side of the car, he said, “OK, have you got the keys? Let’s open this car up and see what they’ve hidden inside.”

Alex handed him the keys, and Mr. Expedient opened the car up and started crawling all over the interior of the car, poking into cracks with a long screwdriver, removing panels, and peering under and behind everything that he could.

When he was done, he held a finger up to his lips, and showed Alex a handful of little circuit boards. One by one, he popped the hearing aid batteries out of the circuits, and then tossed the boards on the ground.

“Microphones,” he said. “Not much power though, so either someone would have to be right here listening to you, or they’ve hooked up a recorder somewhere in the car.”

Alex felt a little sick. All this over a beat up old spearhead?

The driver popped the trunk and the hood open. He went to the trunk first, and laughed sarcastically.

“Jeez, they weren’t even trying,” he said. Alex saw he had pulled up the carpet in the trunk, and sitting there plain as day was a familiar looking circuit board, with a couple of wires attaching it to what looked like an MP3 player. The driver cut the wires, handed the MP3 player to Alex, and dropped the circuit board on the ground next to the other devices. Once he was satisfied there wasn’t anything else hidden in the trunk, he closed it and went back to the front of the car.

He found one more device hidden in the engine compartment. After he’d thoroughly checked in every nook, behind every panel, and each cover, he shut the hood of the Cutlass and starting closing up his tool box.

“Well,” he said, “the car is clean again. I don’t know who you pissed off, but they are either really interested in you, or they want you to think that they are. Do they seem like the sort that would go through all this trouble just to give you a scare?”

Alex thought about it for a minute. On the one hand, he couldn’t think of any reasons why Victor Steel wouldn’t do something just to screw with him. He seemed fairly eccentric. On the other hand, he didn’t seem like the kind of eccentric who wasted his time with unnecessary things, either.

“I’m guessing they’re really interested in me,” Alex said. “Thanks for getting all of this crap out of the car for me. I wouldn’t have even known where to look.”

“Yeah, I figured that. If you’d known where to look, I wouldn’t be here cleaning your car for you. Anyway, don’t worry about it, it’s all part of the job. On the other hand, I’d start being a lot more wary of my surroundings, if I were you. And if things start feeling funny while you’re working, bail. You can always try again another time, if you don’t get it right the first time.”

“OK, thanks, that’s good advice,” Alex said. He decided not to say, I’m already way ahead of you on both of those points.

“Say,” Alex said, “are you ever going to tell me your name?”

“Why? Do you need to know it, Mr. Minor?” the driver said. “You were already calling me Mr. Expedient. Stick with that. Have a good one, I’ll see you around.”

With that, he got into his own car, and drove off with a wave.

“Man, I work with some weird people,” Alex said to himself.

He got back into the Cutlass, looked around to see if there was anyone or anything suspicious about, and started driving back to the farm house for a bit of rest.

Chapter Seventeen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 02:10:00 +0000

Megan was wearing fuzzy flannel pajamas with a pattern of sheep jumping over the moon and, Alex noticed as he got his seat belt put on, pink bunny slippers.

“It’d be great if you could start needing to be rescued at more convenient times, Mr. Minor,” Megan said.

“Sorry to wake you, Megan,” Alex said.

“It’s nothing,” Megan said. “Anyway, I guess I need to praise you on your improving stealth. Parking well away from the office and then not getting noticed when you went back to the car is a good start. It doesn’t even seem like you’re being chased this time around.”

She put the Camaro in drive, and they took off, taking the back streets and giving the spot where Alex had left the Cutlass a wide berth.

Alex was completely exhausted, and didn’t care to try for a repeat of the last conversation he’d had with Megan, so he kept his mouth shut as they drove.

After several minutes, Megan said, “So, there’s no way in hell I’m driving all the way out to the farm house and back tonight. And I’m not all that interested in spending the night there just so I can hustle back here to civilization again tomorrow morning with all the other rush hour casualties. So we’re going back to my place, and you’re sleeping on the couch.”

“You can just bring me to a hotel, you don’t have to…” Alex started to say, before Megan interrupted him.

“Right, and then I’ll have to pick you up again tomorrow. Nope, I’m not doing that. You’re staying on the couch,” Megan said. “I’ve got a horribly scratchy army surplus blanket just for people who need a couch to crash on in the middle of the night.”

“OK, then thanks,” Alex said. “An army blanket doesn’t bother me.”

“That’s good,” Megan said. “Because the cat probably will. He doesn’t take kindly to strangers.”

“You know, I really don’t mind a hotel. It seems like I’m really intruding…” Alex said.

“Nonsense. Anyway, just try not to act like prey and Malcolm will probably leave you alone,” Megan said.

“Your cat is named Malcolm?” Alex said.

“As long as you don’t piss him off. Because if you do, he’ll insist on being called Mr. Cuddlestorm,” Megan said. “Between you and me, he’s a touch eccentric.”

“Well, OK, in that case I’ll do my best to stay in his good graces. And I won’t act tasty.”

“Good plan,” Megan said.

A few minutes later they arrived at Megan’s apartment. Alex checked his watch and was shocked to see that it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. He’d been up for a long time.

Megan put her key in the door, turned it, and said, “Something’s not right,” just before opening the door.

“What’s wrong?” Alex said. He was exhausted, but every new development was giving him another surge of adrenaline.

Just then the door opened with some force, and hands in a pair of black leather gloves reached out of the darkness and grabbed Megan, pulling her inside.

Alex’s adrenaline kicked in once again, and he had just enough time to wonder how many times that can happen in a day before it stops having an impact before rushing through the door to help her. Someone standing to the side, that Alex hadn’t seen, grabbed him as well.

As Alex struggled against whoever was holding him, he heard the sounds of another altercation in the room, and realized that after every meaty thump, it was a man’s voice grunting in pain. Alex heard somebody fall, and seconds later the lights came on.

Megan was walking away from the lightswitch, back towards the man on the floor, who was struggling to his feet again. She kicked him, hard, in the gut and he fell back to the floor.

Alex heard whoever was holding his arms hiss when the lights came on, and realized that they’d been standing in the dark for who knows how long. His assailant was probably temporarily blinded.

Alex took the opportunity and flung his head back as hard as he could. He immediately regretted that move when he connected with the face of the man holding him. However, he had apparently managed to connect with his assailant’s nose, and there had been an oddly satisfying crunch when it happened. It made the pain in Alex’s head seem a little more worth it.

Alex took a step backwards, pushing against the person holding him, and then stomped down and back as hard as he could with his left foot. The hands holding his arms loosened, and Alex took the opportunity to break free. He spun around, grabbed the man who had been holding him by the hair, and drove his head into the door several times.

It made a huge racket, and answering thumps on the wall came from the neighboring apartments. The man he’d been fighting slumped down to the floor.

Alex turned to try and help Megan, and instead found her hog-tying the man she’d been fighting. She seemed to be using a little more force than was strictly necessary, and Alex thought he heard her mutter something along the lines of “fucking guy getting his blood all over my slippers.”

Just then, there was a terrible wailing noise from the kitchen, followed by a hiss, and a panicked, “Jesus Christ!”

A third man came staggering into the room from the kitchen, apparently entirely preoccupied with something on his chest.

“Get it off of me, get it off of me!” he shouted.

Alex realized there was a cat clinging to the man, and the cat was apparently doing his worst to the intruder.

As the man staggered around the room, he tripped over a footstool and fell backwards. The back of his head connected solidly with the coffee table. The coffee table emerged the victor in that fight.

Malcolm sat on the now unconscious man’s chest, and began purring.

“Good job, Malcolm. Who’s a good kitty? Yes you are,” Megan said.

Alex had been watching Malcolm and the man in the kitchen struggle, and hadn’t noticed Megan was already right next to him, tying up the man who had attacked him.

“When did you get over here?” Alex said, surprised. She’s like a freakin’ ninja, he thought.

“Ages ago,” Megan said, with a grunt as she tightened a knot. “Unlike some people, I’m very stealthy.”

“I guess,” Alex muttered to himself.

Megan stood up, and walked over to the man Malcolm was still sitting on. She gave Malcolm a few pets, and then said, “OK, Malcolm, let me tie him up now.”

To Alex’s amazement, Malcolm stood up and moved to the coffee table.

“Does he always do what you tell him to?” Alex said.

“He does if he feels like it. He’s usually very cooperative, though,” Megan said.

She finished tying a knot, and said, “There!”

“Should we check to see if there’s anyone else hiding here in your apartment?” Alex said.

Megan raised an eyebrow, and said, “We can if you like, but if someone else was here Malcolm would have flushed them out already.”

“OK,” Alex said. He looked at the three intruders tied up on the floor, and said, “So what now? Do we call the police?”

“What are they going to do?” Megan said. “They were in here of all places. The only people who would come in here have people with deep pockets backing them up. The police will ultimately just let them go, only we’ll have to deal with a bunch of annoying questions before they do. No, we’ve got people who can deal with this kind of thing. We’ve got a guy who will take them just across the border into South Dakota and leave them on the side of the road with a stern warning and a coupon for The Sizzler.”

“Do they have The Sizzler in South Dakota?” Alex said. Then he wondered if Minnesota even had The Sizzler. He couldn’t remember ever seeing one, or even an ad for one.

“I’m pretty sure the closest one is in Idaho, actually,” Megan said. She had her phone out and was in the middle of sending somebody a text message.

“So, I have to ask, why give them a coupon for The Sizzler?” Alex said.

“Because fuck them, that’s why,” Megan said.

“Fair enough,” Alex said. It was tough to argue with logic like that.

After a couple of minutes of silence, while Megan gave Malcolm a few kitty treats, Alex said, “Have you got any idea who these guys are?”

“Not really,” Megan said. “Do you recognize any of them?”

Alex took another good look at the three of them. They were all wearing dark suits, and black leather gloves, and he was fairly confident he hadn’t ever seen them before.

“I can’t say that I do. Should we go through their pockets and look for some ID or something along those lines?” Alex said.

“Do you really think it’s likely they’re carrying anything that would identify them?” Megan said. She pulled back one of their jackets to show where the label should be. It had been neatly cut out.

“People actually do that?” Alex said. “I thought that was just Hollywood bullshit.”

“It is, but some people seem to enjoy living up to Hollywood bullshit. Did you know that a lot of the current mafia culture actually comes from mob movies, instead of the other way around? Anyway, these guys aren’t going to have any convenient business cards to let us know who sent them.”

Alex thought about that for a second, and then said, “OK. Are you worried they might come back though? Next time you might walk in to find six guys in suits waiting for you.”

“Well, I can dare to dream,” Megan said. Then she half-smiled and said, “None of these guys are going to come back to get their asses handed to them again by a woman in bunny slippers and her cat, Mr. Minor.”

There was a subdued knock at the front door then. Megan opened it, and Alex recognized the driver from Expedient Car Service. He had two other men with him, that Alex didn’t recognize.

“Megan, Mr. Minor,” the Driver said. “So, the usual deal for these three?”

“If you don’t mind,” Megan said.

“I don’t mind at all. Though, it would be great if you could help us carry these three out to the cars, Mr. Minor,” the driver said.

Alex was caught off guard, and said, “Of course,” before he thought about it. As such, he ended up carrying the feet of one of the men, while the driver carried him by the shoulders. Alex was glad Megan had tied them all up – it made carrying them much easier.

Outside, there were three identical cars parked in a line. If they weren’t lined up that way, they’d be entirely non-descript. No one would even give them a second glance.

As Alex and the driver loaded the man they were carrying into the back seat of one of the cars, Alex said, “Are you really going to take them across the state border into South Dakota, and give them coupons for The Sizzler?”

The driver cracked a grin, and said, “Well, that’s what we usually do. This time, though, I’ve got coupons for half off a chili dog at Der Wienerschnitzel. Between the three of them, they ought to save about a buck fifty, once they find one of their restaurants.”

They made another trip for the third man, and then Alex went back inside while the driver and his associates drove off, presumably towards South Dakota.

Back inside, Alex saw that Megan had put a pillow and a folded up army surplus blanket on the couch, as well as a can of beer on the coffee table.

“I thought you’ve probably earned a beer today, though I won’t be insulted if you just go to sleep before you drink it. The white remote control on the table will shut the lights off for you. Good night, Mr. Minor,” Megan said.

“Wow, thanks,” Alex said. “Good night.”

Alex sat down on the couch, and had just barely managed to think about reaching for the beer before he fell fast asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 02:20:00 +0000

Alex was mildly surprised that Mr. Darcy answered the phone. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and he’d half expected he would just have to leave a voice mail and talk to Mr. Darcy first thing during normal business hours. Also, so far as Alex knew, he only had Mr. Darcy’s office number. Did that guy ever go home?

He wanted to ask, but figured that he’d probably just get another evasive answer. Anyway, there were more urgent matters at hand.

“So Victor had you brought back to his home? That’s unusual,” Mr. Darcy said. “And he examined the artifact that was in the parcel and then gave it back to you? Well, that’s a bit of good luck for us, I suppose.”

“Yes, he said it didn’t suit his collection,” Alex said.

“Interesting,” Mr. Darcy said. “So he’s either an ignorant collector of things that tickle his fancy, or else he knew exactly what he was looking at and wanted nothing to do with it. In which case, he’s no fool.”

“Yeah, about that,” Alex started to say. Two of the people he’d encountered while dealing with this delivery had wanted to get the odd little box far away from them. And John McElroy had said something about secrets. What kind of secrets could a small decorated box contain?

Before he could ask the question he wanted answered, however, Mr. Darcy interrupted him.

“Come straight over to the office, please. I’ll take the parcel off of your hands tonight,” Mr. Darcy said. “Please take extra care, I wouldn’t want you to have any more misadventures this evening.”

Alex ended the call, put the keys in the ignition and started the Cutlass. This time it came right to life after cranking for just a second or so. Alex, being mindful of how much power there was on tap directly under his right foot, backed out of the parking space a little more gingerly than was probably necessary. But, like Mr. Darcy had said, he didn’t want to have any more misadventures today.

As he drove towards Mr. Darcy’s office, he was acutely aware of the fact that Victor and his crew knew which car he was driving. He kept a keen eye on his mirrors, checking to see if he was being followed. Just before he arrived, really, just a couple of blocks away from the office, it occurred to Alex that Victor’s goons may have put some kind of tracking device on his car. If so, he could be leading them straight to Mr. Darcy’s office. And so far as Alex was aware, Victor didn’t know about Mr. Darcy. And he’d been unusually willing, at least with the gift of hindsight, to just let Alex leave despite not giving him any information, or anything else of value.

Alex drove right past the office, and continued on for a few blocks before maneuvering his way back into a little residential area. He parked there, and walked the rest of the way back to the office. Better safe than sorry, he figured.

It took him longer than he’d expected to get back to the office. Alex realized he must have parked closed to a mile away. That was OK, but it meant he was going to have a long walk back to the car again.

Alex was amazed at how dead this part of town was at two in the morning. It was a little unsettling.

He arrived at Mr. Darcy’s office unharmed. When he walked in through the front door, Mr. Darcy came out to greet him.

“Good evening, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said. He checked his watch then, and said, “Well, I may as well say good morning instead. Come in, come in.”

He led Alex back into his office, and offered him some coffee. Alex gratefully accepted the offer. It had been a very long day, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to stay awake unassisted.

Alex set his bag down on the floor in front of him. He pulled out the cardboard box, its tamper-evident tape quite clearly tampered with, and handed it to Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Darcy immediately opened the box and removed the artifact inside. He unwrapped the silk covering the decorated box, quickly inspected the box and the silk, then wrapped the silk back around the box, and put it back in the cardboard box Alex had received it in. He put the whole thing in a drawer in his desk, which he then locked.

Alex noticed Mr. Darcy had seemed unusually nervous handling the box.

“So, what’s the deal with that box, Mr. Darcy? The guy I picked it up from didn’t seem to want anything to do with it. Victor Steel was clearly glad to be rid of it. And you don’t seem particularly glad to have it here either,” Alex said.

Mr. Darcy sat back in his chair and looked at Alex for a moment. It seemed like he was evaluating him.

Finally, he said, “Mr. Minor, are you familiar with the legend of Pandora’s box?”

Alex blinked once or twice, wondering where this conversation was going, and said, “Yeah. It had sickness and plagues and stuff in it, right?”

“It contained all the evils of the world,” Mr. Darcy said, “until it was opened and they were released, except for the spirit of hope, who remained inside.”

“Hope is an evil?”

“Yes, don’t you think so? Nothing extends suffering quite as well as hope,” Mr. Darcy said. He chuckled slightly.

“I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Alex said. “Why did hope stay in the box?”

“Well, scholars and philosophers and know it alls have been arguing over that for ages. And your guess is as good as mine on this one,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Oh,” Alex said. “OK, so what does that legend have to do with the box I picked up today?”

“Mr. Minor, this is Pandora’s box,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex paused for a second, and looked at Mr. Darcy carefully. Then he said, “Yeah, right.”

Mr. Darcy shrugged.

“So, all of the evils of the world were crammed into that little box? And the spirit of hope is still in there?” Alex said.

“Yes and, forgive the turn of phrase, but, I hope so,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Forgive me for saying it, but that box seems a little small to have held all the evils of the world,” Alex said.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? My business isn’t to have late night debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it’s to sort out problems for my clients. This particular client wanted this particular box, which just so happens to be none other than Pandora’s box,” Mr. Darcy said.

“OK,” Alex said. “So who’s the client?”

“Mr. Minor, you’ve already been kidnapped twice by people who were presumably after exactly that kind of information. Are you sure you really want to have an answer you need to keep secret?” Mr. Darcy said.

“Hmm,” Alex said. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way. OK. So what’s next?”

Mr. Darcy smiled, and he said, “I know this is going to be tough for a man of action such as yourself, but I’m going to need you to lay low at the farmhouse until I have another out of town assignment for you. It seems like Victor Steel has taken a keen interest in you, and I’d prefer if you didn’t lead him around to all of our connections.”

He then reached into his drawer and pulled out a rather thick envelope, and handed it to Alex. It was stuffed with hundred dollar bills.

“How much is in here?” Alex asked, shocked. It was more than he’d received for recovering the spearhead, for sure.

“One hundred thousand dollars, plus an extra one hundred dollars for your per diem expenses while you were in Albuquerque,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Who the hell is this client, and was this box really worth this much money?” Alex said.

“I don’t think you know how dangerous the assignment you were just on really was, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said. “As to how much the box is worth, well, it’s beyond priceless. And our client is a person of considerable means, with a considerable interest in keeping the box out of harms way.”

“Wow,” Alex said. He realized that at the moment, from his last three assignments, he’d earned enough money to pay for a small but decent house, in cash.

He had a funny thought then. “How many more legendary items are floating around out there, being collected by mysterious people with unusually large bank rolls to fund their collections?”

“Just about all of them, I’d say,” Mr. Darcy said.

“So the holy grail is sitting on some guy’s bookshelf somewhere?”

“Well, presumably the person who possesses it at the moment is keeping it in a fire safe, but basically, yes,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Excalibur?”

“Most recently purchased by a tinpot dictator of a tiny nation for an obscene amount of money from its previous caretaker, and so on and so on going back to Arthurian times,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Is your whole business dealing in antiquities and legends?” Alex asked.

Mr. Darcy laughed, “Not at all. You’ve just had a couple of coincidental tasks dealing with them.”

Alex was still trying to wrap his head around the experiences he’d had in the last twenty four hours or so. He’d gone to Albuquerque, picked up a weird old box that was apparently a legend in its own right, bumped into a crazy coffee shop owner, nearly gotten into a fight with a pro-wrestler, kidnapped and knocked out twice, and then given a very heavy envelope full of cash.

He was pretty impressed with himself for having managed to grow up and become completely awesome.

Alex had reached the street he where he had parked the Cutlass, and was looking forward to getting back to the farm house and getting some rest.

It was still very quiet, which made the fact that there was a black Cadillac parked and idling behind the Cutlass extremely obvious.

So he had been tracked.

Alex turned around and walked away as casually as he could manage, hoping that he wasn’t drawing any attention to himself. There really wasn’t anyone else about, so if the person or people in the Cadillac happened to look, he’d be seen for sure.

As soon as he could, he got back off of the street he was on, and ran to put another corner or two between him and the Cadillac. When he stopped, he looked around and listened as closely as he could for the sound of a car, or people on foot following him.

It seemed like he’d gotten away unnoticed this time.

Now he had to figure out what the heck to do. Someone was sitting there right behind the Cutlass, so until they went away, he wasn’t going to be able to go back to the car. And once he was there, he was going to have to try and figure out where they’d put a tracking device, and remove it, before he tried driving anywhere else. He figured that his chances of finding that tracking device were pretty slim in the dark, considering that he didn’t know where to look or what it would even look like.

He could try to find a hotel, but he might be in for a long walk. He hadn’t noticed any on his walk to or from the car the first time.

Alex realized he was going to have to try calling Mr. Darcy again.

“Damn it,” Alex muttered. He really hated having to ask for another ride, especially since it meant it was very likely that someone was going to have to be woken up and sent to pick him up.

On the other hand, walking around on the street for the rest of the night, carrying one hundred thousand dollars in cash didn’t seem like the best plan. Getting robbed would be bad, but even getting noticed by the police would be unlikely to turn out well. Most of the time, the kind of people carrying thousands and thousands of dollars in cash and the kind of people the police are particularly interested in.

With a sigh, Alex pulled out his phone and tried calling Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Darcy answered on the second right.

“Mr. Minor,” he said. “Let me guess, there was someone waiting for you at the Cutlass and you need a ride.”

“Wow, how did you know?” Alex said.

“It was a safe guess,” Mr. Darcy said. “I’m sure it occurred to you as well that it was very odd for Victor Steel to just let you leave once he had you right there in his house. I’m sure he knew you’d be delivering the box shortly, and he wanted to know where you were bringing it. I hope you parked a good distance away from here. I’ve just gotten this place the way I like it, I’d rather not have to move again for a while.”

“Yes, I parked about a mile away,” Alex said. “I had thought it was a possibility that I’d be tracked, but I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

“Well, all is well, Mr. Minor. Tell me where you are, and someone will be along to pick you up shortly,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex told him roughly where he was, and then tried to relax as he waited.

About fifteen minutes later, a powder blue Camaro rolled to a stop in front of him.

Chapter Fifteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 00:27:00 +0000

Alex made it to the airport with time to spare, so once he was checked in and through security, he found a restaurant and sat down for some lunch and a drink. The place was called Queso Quieres. Alex’s Spanish was pretty rusty, but he didn’t think that was a particularly authentic name, or even proper grammar.

Well, he figured, maybe it’s authentic New Mexican.

Alex ordered a margarita and burrito, and this time when the server asked if he wanted red or green, he picked red, based on what happened at breakfast. He didn’t want to eat a bunch more super hot food right before getting on an airplane, and if green had been hot, then red must be the right choice.

Naturally, he was wrong.

At least this time, he had a margarita to help him cool off again. The margarita tasted like it had been poured by a bartender that had personally opened the can him or herself. Oh well.

Alex finished his lunch, declined another margarita, and made his way to the gate for his flight. His timing was pretty good, and he’d only had to wait a few minutes before they started boarding. Alex found himself back in the same seat he’d had on the flight down. He hoped that he’d have a different passenger sitting next to him for this flight. He was still a little exhausted from the previous seat-mate.

The flight attendant brought him a glass of whiskey, and Alex settled back into his seat and tried to relax. What a weird morning it had been so far. Alex sipped his whiskey and closed his eye while he waited for the boarding process to finish.

Someone sat down next to him, and Alex opened his eyes to see who it was.

He was relieved that it wasn’t Julia Child again. He was quite surprised to discover that it was Tamara sitting next to him, however. She didn’t seem particularly thrilled to see him, but when he thought about it, she never really had seemed thrilled to see him, so he figured he didn’t need to worry about it.

“Hello,” Alex said. He laid his head back and closed his eyes again.

“Hey,” Tamara mumbled. She got situated, and Alex heard her sigh heavily. She asked the flight attendant for a ginger ale.

Alex had been hoping he’d be able to nap on the plane, but he didn’t have any such luck. Meanwhile, Tamara kept making little irritated noises next to him. When they’d been served their meal (surprisingly cold turkey sandwiches on pretzel buns), Alex tried to converse with Tamara a bit.

“I’m kind of surprised to see you, I figured you’d already moved down to Albuquerque, since you were shopping for restaurant equipment this morning,” Alex said. “Was this just a scouting mission?”

Tamara muttered something, then said, “I’m not particularly surprised to see you. I was actually getting ready to equip a new coffee shop. I was supposed to sign a lease this afternoon, but then I bumped into you and Ares on the same day and I realized that there is just no getting away. No matter where I go, I’m not going to be left alone. The past refuses to stay where it belongs.”

Alex really had no idea what that was supposed to mean or how to reply to it, exactly.

He said, “So, you’re just going to keep toughing it out in Minneapolis, then?”

“Sure,” Tamara said.

“Well, I think that’s a good decision. Don’t let the bastards get you down, you know?” Alex said.

Tamara gave him a cold look that let him know exactly how highly she regarded his opinion, and turned back to her sandwich.

The flight arrived in Minneapolis again at roughly eight o’clock. Alex figured he’d call Mr. Darcy once he was back in the Cutlass and see whether he should drop off the box he’d picked up tonight, or wait until the next day.

Alex was eager to get off of the plane and out of the airport. When the aircraft door had opened, Tamara half-muttered “See you around,” to him and hustled off of the plane.

As eager as he was to disembark, he was also not eager to potentially bump into Tamara a few more times on the way out of the airport, so he took his time gathering his things. By the time he got off the plane, he couldn’t see Tamara anywhere in the terminal.

He’d made it to the Cutlass and was digging in his pockets for the keys when he heard someone close by say, “Mr. Minor!”

Alex turned to see who was addressing him, and was met with a hard right hook to the jaw.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he came around again, but he quickly became aware that he was in the back seat of a large car, and that there was someone sitting on either side of him.

Someone said, “Well, look who’s waking up again.”

“I told you we should have just hit him with a tranquilizer dart,” another voice said. “You do realize that there isn’t really that much skill involved in punching someone who isn’t expecting it, don’t you? You’re not a knock out artist, you’re a guy who likes punching people.”

“Well, I’d like to argue with you,” said the first voice again, “but the fact is, I really do like punching people.”

Alex decided it was probably in the best interest of himself and his face to not seem too coherent yet. So, rather than look around and ask questions like “Who are you?” and “Where are you taking me?” and “Seriously, couldn’t you have used the tranquilizer?” he did his best to seem groggy and incoherent.

A third voice said, “He’s not a very good actor, is he?”

Oh shit, Alex thought, just before getting punched again.

When he came around again, Alex discovered he was in what looked like a dining room. He realized his hands were tied, but there was nothing stopping him from standing up. He tried to stand, felt the world get all wobbly and wrong, and promptly sat down again.

He saw his bag on the table in front of him. It had been emptied, and its contents were neatly arranged on the table as well. At a glance, it looked like everything was still there.

After a bit longer, Alex heard a door open, and someone walked into the room behind him. The door clicked shut again, and Victor Steel walked past him, around the table, and sat down on the chair across from him.

“Good evening, Mr. Minor,” Victor said. “Did you have a nice trip?”

Alex didn’t say anything in response.

Victor kept talking. “I’m sorry about Paul hitting you. I have very specifically told him to knock it off on several occasions. Between him and Brandon wanting to shoot everyone with tranquilizer darts, it’s amazing I can ever get anyone to cooperate with me. I tell them again and again that we’re all business men and the violence really isn’t necessary, and then they bring in yet another unconscious person.”

He looked at Alex, curious, then and said, “Why are you keeping your hands behind your back?”

Alex rolled his eyes and said, “Because they’re tied there.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake. I really do have to apologize. I just asked them to meet you and give you a ride here,” Victor said.

He walked around the table to where Alex was, and paused for a second.

“I understand that you probably really want to hit me in retaliation, and you’re justified in feeling that way. I’d appreciate it if you don’t, however,” Victor said.

He untied Alex’s hands quickly, and commented, “I do have to give Paul a little credit. He knows how to tie a knot that is secure and easily undone at the same time.”

Alex really did want to hit Victor, and make a break for it, but he assumed that somewhere close by there were four or five guys, one of whom apparently had a supply of tranquilizer darts. He decided to stay still, pay attention, see what information he might gather, and bolt when the opportunity presented itself.

He hoped an opportunity would present itself shortly.

Victor walked back to his place on the other side of the table, coiling the rope as he went. He set the rope down on the table next to Alex’s belongings, sat down, and looked directly at Alex.

“Now then, Mr. Minor, perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell me where my spearhead is,” Victor said.

“I really don’t know,” Alex said. “And as I understand it, it’s not your spearhead.”

Victor looked mildly annoyed, and said, “OK, who did you give it to?”

“My employer,” Alex said.

“What does your employer want with it?” Victor said.

Alex wondered if perhaps now would be the best time to stop talking. So far, he hadn’t actually given away any information. On the other hand, it wasn’t like he really had much information to give away. He didn’t know a damn thing, at least as it related to the spearhead Victor was all excited about.

“Just to get it back to its rightful owner,“ Alex said.

“I see,” Victor said. He sat quietly for a moment, then he picked up the parcel that Alex was delivering from the table and examined it.

“Hmm, someone wants to be sure this isn’t opened before it gets to its destination,” he commented. “I wonder what’s inside that’s so interesting that it needs to be hand-delivered and wrapped with tamper evident tape.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not for you,” Alex said. He didn’t think that was likely to keep Victor from messing with it, but he had to say it anyway.

Victor smiled slightly at Alex, and produced something from the pocket of his jacket. What he was holding became obvious to Alex when there was a sharp clicking sound, and a flash of polished steel, and whatever it was resolved itself into a knife.

“Well, let’s have a little peek anyway,” Victor said.

He sliced deliberately and carefully through the tape holding the box shut. Alex squirmed slightly, but tried to catch himself before it was obvious. He felt like a kid whose bully was going through his stuff in front of him, and he didn’t want to give Victor the satisfaction of making him uncomfortable.

Victor opened the box, and pulled out something that was wrapped in silk. He raised an eyebrow, and set the box he’d opened to one side. He set the contents of the box on the table in front of himself, and contemplated them for a moment, before carefully unwrapping the silk cloth.

When the object was unwrapped enough to see what it was, Alex noticed that Victor suddenly seemed very uncomfortable, for a moment. He composed himself so quickly that it would have been easy to miss if Alex hadn’t been paying attention.

Victor let the edges of the silk fall away, and there in the middle of a large square of fabric was a box, colored a deep rust brown. Alex couldn’t tell if it was metal, or ceramic. It was covered with ornamental engravings, and quite beautiful. It was also, at least to Alex’s untrained eye, apparently very, very old.

Alex wondered briefly if he’d somehow entered an unknown, high-adrenaline world of antique collectors when he took this job.

Victor examined the box a little longer, with an impassive expression, before speaking.

He said, “This is very interesting. It’s a good thing for you and your employer it doesn’t suit my collection. Otherwise I might be inclined to keep it in exchange for the spearhead you’ve stolen from me.”

“Recovered from you,” Alex said.

Victor gave him a sharp glance, then smiled ever so slightly. He wrapped up the box in its silk cloth again, and carefully placed it back in the cardboard box it had been in.

“Well, I’m afraid there’s evidence the box has been tampered with now, but in all honesty, I’m not particularly concerned about it,” Victor said. “Gather your things, I’ll have someone give you a ride back to your car.”

He smiled at Alex and said, “And this time I’ll send you with someone who won’t immediately knock you out. Call it a favor, from me to you.”

Victor was true to his word, Alex was relieved to discover. Once Alex had his bag packed again, a man came and led him to a car. As they walked, Alex realized that they were in Victor’s house. He recognized the foyer as they passed through it.

Victor’s employee drove Alex to the airport without a word, and stopped the car right next to the Cutlass. Alex made a mental note to tell Mr. Darcy that the Cutlass had apparently been identified.

Alex got out of the car, and the driver sped away the second Alex had shut the door again.

“Jerk,” Alex muttered to himself.

He dug in his pockets for his keys, again, and got into the Cutlass. He also dug out his phone, and called Mr. Darcy. He wasn’t excited about the conversation he was about to have.

He also wondered what the hell the box he was carrying was.

Chapter Fourteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 23:05:00 +0000

Although Alex had really only been working for Mr. Darcy for a matter of days, he’d already gotten accustomed to the taciturn nature of the people he worked with. By and large, he was being kept in the dark by everyone he had encountered. So far his attempts at small talk had been rebuffed, and he was starting to recognize the pattern, even if he wasn’t quite used to it yet.

It was, therefore, quite a shock when Julia Child turned to him once she was settled in and had her pre-takeoff drink (a Bloody Mary) in hand and began chatting with him about, well, everything.

By the time they’d taken off, Alex was fairly sure he’d already heard Julia Child’s entire life story, but she was just getting warmed up. Over the course of the next four hours, he also learned the life story of everyone Julia Child knew. The sheer volume of superfluous information coming out of his neighbor’s mouth was mind-blowing after the recent absence of anything except exactly what he needed to know at a given moment.

He wasn’t sure if he was enjoying it or wished she’d stop, but it didn’t really matter because she was having a hell of a good time telling him the minutest details of the day to day lives of her friends, family and co-workers.

Alex wanted to try and prompt her to start talking about Mr. Darcy, and how she knew him, but he wasn’t able to get a word in edge-wise. She did, at one point, ask him what he thought about the roast beef they’d been served and how he liked the garlic bread, but he didn’t actually get a chance to answer before she continued chatting.

About three quarters of the way through the flight, Alex dug into his bag and pulled out the thumb drive he was supposed to give her. He waited for his opportunity to say something, but it never presented itself.

He finally just set the thumb drive on the tray table next to her and waited to see what happened.

What happened was that she said, “Well, finally,” picked up the thumb drive and put it in her pocket without missing a beat while launching right back into her story about the nice blind gentleman who ran the cafeteria at her office and how it said a lot about the honesty of people in general that he was able to do business in cash and not get ripped off.

Alex was very, very glad to get off the plane in Albuquerque. When the airplane door was opened, Julia Child said, “Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you. Have a nice time in Albuquerque,” and was out of her seat and out the door so quickly the flight attendant didn’t even have a chance to say “buh-bye” to her.

For his part, as he disembarked, he dug out the folder Mr. Darcy had given him and learned that they’d rented him a car and booked a hotel room for him at the Rio Grande Inn, which was apparently in the Old Town area of Albuquerque.

He went to the Budget Car Rental counter, and was mildly thrilled to discover that there was a Cadillac reserved for him. He’d been expecting something more along the lines of a Chevy Sonic.

Once he was in the car, he plugged the address for the hotel into his phone, and was surprised that it was about fifteen minutes away from the airport. Alex guessed that it must put him closer to the person he was going to be making the pickup from. He was relieved that it looked like it would be an easy drive, though. It had been a long day.

The following morning, Alex woke up at six o’clock, and went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. He figured, since he was in the Southwest, he should really try to take advantage of the local fare, so he ordered a breakfast burrito, and was promptly stumped when the server asked “Red or Green?”

The server explained that he had his choice of red or green chili sauce on the burrito. Alex didn’t want to seem too ignorant, so rather than asking for a recommendation, he just figured that green was probably less hot and ordered that.

It turned out he was wrong.

Having cleared out his sinuses and worked up a good sweat, after breakfast he went back up to his room to review the details of his assignment and get moving.

According to the information in the folder that Mr. Darcy had given him, Alex was supposed to go to a restaurant supply company that wasn’t too far away, talk to a John the owner, and get a small parcel from him. There were no details on what it was. Alex wondered what the heck a restaurant supply company would have that would be of interest to Mr. Darcy, or one of his clients, and then figured that it was probably a front like that furniture company had been. Or, maybe someone just really wanted an esoteric bit of cooking equipment.

His return flight to Minneapolis was at three o’clock, and it was currently just about eight o’clock in the morning. Alex gathered up his things, and left the keys to the room on the dresser. After a quick check to make sure he hadn’t mistakenly left any of his stuff behind, he left the hotel room and went out to the Cadillac.

Alex was shocked at how cool outside it was. He’d been expecting Albuquerque to be much warmer, but it couldn’t have been much more than sixty five degrees Fahrenheit. He hustled to the car to get out of the wind, since he was only in a t-shirt, and tended to run cold.

Not surprisingly, it was more comfortable in the Cadillac. Alex started the car, and drove over to the restaurant supply store.

J. McElroy Equipment Sales was only a couple of miles away, and Alex didn’t even need to get on the highway to get there. He arrived in about the right area quickly. The store was in an industrial area, and was surprisingly hard to spot from the road. Alex had to loop around the block a couple of times before he finally saw a sign with the right address. There was a tiny sign indicating that J. McElroy Equipment Sales was one of the businesses in an entirely non-descript grey building.

Alex pulled into the parking lot, and had to drive around the far side of the building to find the entrance for the restaurant supply company. There was a large garage door right next to the main entrance.

He parked the Cadillac, and walked inside. Alex had never been in a restaurant supply store before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. He imagined rows of gleaming, stainless steel equipment and well organized shelves stacked with economy-sized cookware and comically large egg whisks.

Well, there were some comically sized egg whisks, and plenty of other very large pots, pans, and just about everything else. “Well organized” and “gleaming” weren’t words he would choose to describe the inventory at J. McElroy Equipment Sales. Instead, “Piled haphazardly” and “Basically clean, but well-battered” were more accurate.

“Good morning! What are you looking for?” said a gruff voice from somewhere in the back of the room. Alex had to look around, but finally spotted a man who was probably in his late sixties, wearing a white t-shirt, dark brown chinos, and yellow suspenders.

“Good morning!” Alex said. “I’m here to see John, the owner.”

“He’s not in yet, but he shouldn’t be too long. You can just hang out here and wait for him, if you like.”

“Great, thanks,” Alex said.

He started to wander around the store, checking out equipment that he’d never seen before, and much of which he could only guess at the purpose of. He was inspecting the selection of pots and pans when he noticed how inexpensive everything was. Twelve dollars for a skillet that looked like it could be used for home defense and then immediately used to cook an omelet. Four dollars for a cookie sheet that looked like it would out live him no matter how many frozen pizzas he made.

Alex made a note to go to a restaurant supply store first the next time he needed anything for his kitchen.

He noticed another customer out of the corner of his eye, and had a quick glance over. She was blonde, and seemed both nervous and annoyed. She was looking at espresso machines. Alex went back to shopping twelve packs of salt and pepper shakers when he realized there was something awfully familiar about the blonde woman. He looked again, and couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Alex walked around into the next row and kept checking stuff out. He had picked up a gadget he couldn’t figure out the purpose of when he realized who the woman in the store reminded him of: the owner of the Bump and Grind.

As discretely as he could manage, he peeked over the rack that was now between him and the blonde, and took another look.

Apparently she’d noticed. She wheeled on him and said, “What? What? Is there something I can help you with?”

The employee in the back of the store was watching them now.

“Sorry,” Alex said. “It’s just… Do you own a coffee shop in Minneapolis? Are you Tamara?”

She went white for a second, then looked more closely at Alex.

“How do you know who I am?” Tamara said. “Are you following me?”

“What? No!” Alex said. “It’s just a coincidence. I’ve been in your coffee shop before is all.”

Tamara looked at him closely.

“I don’t believe in coincidences any more,” she said. Then, ”You’re the bike weenie that hangs out with James. You haven’t been into my shop for a while. Is being a courier not for you? And, hang on, what are you doing here?”

It took Alex a second, again, to remember that Marlboro’s real name was James. He said, “Yep, that’s me. I’m still working as a courier, I’ve just got another job I’m working on the side. Well, I guess being a courier is my side job, really. Anyway, I’ve been busy with my other job, so I haven’t been working the messenger job much lately. I’m here for work… What are you doing here, though? Are you relocating again?”

Tamara looked at him sharply. “How do you know I’ve relocated before? And what’s your other job?”

Jeez she’s suspicious, Alex thought. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t noticed her in the first place, and tried to come up with a way to exit the conversation.

“Marlb, uh, James mentioned that you’ve had some other…” Here he got another sharp look from Tamara. “I mean, another coffee shop. I think he said it was in Wisconsin somewhere.”

And before he could catch himself, he said, “Are you coming to New Mexico to escape the cold?”

So much for getting out of this conversation, big mouth, Alex thought.

“Yeah, something like that,” Tamara said, and turned back to the espresso machines.

Oh thank God, Alex thought. He had been worried the game of twenty extremely paranoid and defensive questions was going to continue.

He heard some conversation in the back of the store, and after a minute or so, another man who looked like he was in his sixties came over to him and said, “Are you Alex?”

“Yes, that’s me. Are you Mr. McElroy?” Alex said.

“You’re saying that wrong, but nevermind. Call me John. Anyway, come in to my office in the back, I’ll have you on your way again in just a minute,” John said.

He led Alex past a bunch of mixers and other equipment that looked like it could really mess a person up if they weren’t careful in to the back of the store. John’s office had what must have been an army surplus steel desk, a massive antique safe, and a bunch of posters and calendars with photos of restaurant equipment on them. One of the posters had a “continuous feed food processor” on it that looked to Alex more like some kind of high tech mortar than something that had a place in the kitchen. A huge Hobart logo was under the photo.

John opened the safe, and took out a rectangular cardboard box that was about five inches by three inches, and maybe another three inches deep. He handed it to Alex, who was surprised by how heavy it was. Alex noticed it was thoroughly wrapped with “Tamper Evident” tape.

“There you go,” John said. “I’m glad to have it off my hands.”

That particular statement made Alex a little nervous about what he was holding. “Why’s that? What is it?”

John looked at Alex carefully, and said, “It’s secret, is what it is. So if you don’t know what it is then you aren’t supposed to know, and if I were you I’d be glad to continue not knowing.”

Naturally, Alex immediately wanted to know what was in the forbidden mystery box, and he wanted to know really, really bad. He wasn’t sure how to get past the “Tamper Evident” tape without, well, leaving evidence, though. So, he decided he’d just have to half-hope that Mr. Darcy would be willing to clue him in once he’d gotten back to Minneapolis tonight.

What he said to John was, “OK, well, thank you. I hope you have a great day!”

Alex left John’s office, and out through the store. He noticed Tamara was no where to be seen, and wondered if he’d inadvertently scared her off. He felt a little bad and hoped that he hadn’t.

He had just stepped outside when he heard arguing nearby. He turned to look, and saw Tamara and a man who looked like he must be a professional wrestler nearby. Tamara looked freaked out. Alex didn’t think about it, just hurried over to help.

“Hey! Back off, man,” Alex said. As he got closer, he appreciated a little more just how intimidating this guy was. He towered over Alex, for one thing, and was dressed head to toe in black leather. He had long, curly hair, and a closely shaved beard. He looked like he was made out of pure muscle and malice. It was a little late to mind his own business now, though. He’d managed to get both the attention of both Tamara and the wrestler.

“Or you’ll do what?” the wrestler looking guy said, and glared at Alex. It seemed like he’d gotten taller, somehow.

Alex did his best to meet his glare, and said, “I don’t know yet, but it probably won’t be nice.”

The wrestler stared at him a second longer, then started laughing.

“You know what, I like you,” he said. “Whatever, I’m out of here anyway. I just happened to be coming out of the shop next door when she came over and got in my face about following her around and never letting her have a moment’s peace. As if. So long.”

He walked away and got into what looked like a station wagon from the nineteen sixties, painted flat black. After he’d driven away, Alex turned to Tamara.

“Are you OK?” he said.

“Yeah,” Tamara said. She wiped her eyes. “I’m fine. I just wish these assholes would stop turning up everywhere I go. I just want to be left alone, for fuck’s sake.”

“Who was that guy?” Alex said.

“Ares, the god of war,” Tamara said.

Wow, she really is crazy, Alex thought. He was fairly confident that gods of war didn’t hang around in industrial parks.

“Oh, I see,” Alex said. “So is he the reason you keep moving?”

“Not just him, but yeah. Everywhere I go they turn up again. I just want to do my own thing and be left alone to do it, and not have to bump into these same assholes practically every time I step outside,” Tamara said. “Anyway, thanks for trying to help. You’re incredibly lucky that he didn’t kill you. Have a good day.”

She walked away and got into her own car. Seconds later she drove away

Alex was thoroughly baffled by that entire exchange. He checked the time, and realized he might as well get over to the airport. So much for seeing any of Albuquerque while he was here.

Chapter Thirteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 02:25:00 +0000

Alex had just finished stuffing a couple of pairs of underwear, a couple of pairs of socks, and a clean t-shirt into his bag. He grabbed his toothbrush and a comb, threw them together in a zip lock bag, and jammed them in with his other stuff as well.

Mr. Darcy had told him on the phone to get his things together for an overnight trip. He was going to be flying to Albuquerque for a drop off and a pick up as well. So far, that was all Alex knew. He was supposed to get over to Mr. Darcy’s office as quickly as he could. His flight left tonight.

Alex hoped that the car outside would actually start. He wondered how long it had been sitting there in that shed without being run.

He was fairly confident that he had packed everything he needed, and he figured that if he hadn’t, Albuquerque was relatively civilized and he’d be able to find whatever he was missing there.

Alex slung the bag over his shoulder, found the keys for the car, locked up the house and headed for the garage.

The interior of the Cutlass wasn’t in the best shape – it looked like a car that had been driven regularly since 1985. He turned the key, and waited several seconds as the engine cranked. He really hoped it would start.

After about six seconds of cranking, the engine turned over and started running. The engine’s idle had a strange, loping quality, and Alex wondered how far the car would actually get. There was also a high-pitched whine coming from under the hood that couldn’t be good.

He put it in gear, and it lurched forward with more force than he was expecting. He rolled it out of the garage, slowly, then put it in park and shut the garage door. He noticed the whining sound was even noisier outside of the car.

Back in the car, Alex stepped firmly on the brake, and put it back in gear. This time the Cutlass didn’t lurch forward quite so forcefully. He let go of the brake and rolled down the driveway.

Alex noticed the ride seemed a little rough for a Cutlass, but figured it might have something to do with being roughly thirty years old. When he got down to the street, he checked for traffic and stepped on the gas like he would with any other average four door sedan from the 80’s.

What happened is that the Cutlass suddenly came to life, a roaring, snarling beast clawing viciously at the pavement as Alex frantically spun the steering wheel to the left. He had no idea how, but the tires didn’t slip a bit, they just grabbed on to the road and launched the car as if that’s the way a Cutlass Ciera was normally driven. In a matter of seconds he was pushing sixty miles per hour. His brain and his right foot finally started communicating again then, and he let off the gas.

“Whoa,” Alex said. He checked his rear-view mirror, and looked around to see if anyone, especially any police, had witnessed that little adventure. At the moment, it looked like he had the road to himself.

He reached a stop sign a couple of miles down the road, and came to a complete stop. Alex listened to the car again, and thought about where he’d heard that kind of off-kilter idle before. Family cars, generally speaking, ran smoothly unless something was way out of whack.

Then he remembered a buddy of his who had been way into drag racing. He’d installed a really hot cam in the V-8 of his Mustang. That was what the Cutlass sounded like. That didn’t account for the whine, though.

Alex took a quick look around, didn’t see any approaching cars, put the Cutlass in Park again, popped the hood release, and got out to see what was hiding under there. He opened the hood, and his jaw dropped.

So far as he knew, Cutlass Cieras were front wheel drive cars. Alex wasn’t sure what he was looking at, exactly, but he did know that there was no way this car was front wheel drive. Also, he wasn’t exactly sure how they’d managed to cram a supercharged v-8 under the hood, but apparently they had. He realized that he might just be looking at the ultimate sleeper.

More importantly, he might just be driving the ultimate sleeper.

Alex slammed the hood shut and jogged back to hop in the car again. He put his seat belt on, put the car in Drive, and did a quick check for police. It looked like the coast was still clear.

He smiled widely and stomped on the gas pedal.

Once again, the tires did not spin, but clung tightly to the road. The Cutlass launched forward violently as the engine roared, forcing Alex back into the driver’s seat. The front of the car lifted slightly, and all of a sudden Alex realized he was going to need to pay attention and drive this car, as it edged slightly towards the side of the road. The speedometer blew past sixty miles per hour and kept climbing without slowing down. Alex gripped the steering wheel tightly and gave it the slightest input to keep the car pointed in the right direction, and not run off the road.

At one hundred and ten miles per hour, he lost his nerve and let off the gas. The Cutlass had still been accelerating hard, and it felt like he’d dropped an anchor when he let off the gas.

So apparently Megan hadn’t been kidding about the car. He realized he was going to have to be careful and behave himself while driving this car.

And probably keep a close eye on the fuel gauge.

Alex drove as responsibly as he could manage for the rest of the trip to Mr. Darcy’s office. When he arrived, he parked on the street just in front of the entrance to the building. As he walked in, he looked back at the car again, and marveled at the fact that it looked absolutely bone-stock, at least to his eyes. An expert in 1980’s Oldsmobile models might be able to spot something changed or out of place, but he sure couldn’t. It just looked like a piece of shit winter beater car.

I love this job, Alex thought.

When he walked into Mr. Darcy’s office, Megan was busy writing something. She glanced up at him.

“Hello, Mr. Minor. You can go right in, Mr. Darcy is expecting you,” Megan said.

“Thanks, Megan,” Alex said. He walked past her desk and into Mr. Darcy’s office.

“Mr. Minor, excellent timing!” Mr. Darcy said. “I hope the farm house is treating you well. I’m sorry we had to stash you out there so far from the action, but better safe than sorry until we find out just how much of a threat Victor Steel cares to be.”

Alex thought that “cares to be” was an odd choice of words, but didn’t say anything about it. “It’s fine, and the house is great so far, thanks.”

Mr. Darcy’s eyes twinkled a bit. “What do you think of the Cutlass?”

Alex smiled and said, “It’s a heck of a car.”

Mr. Darcy chuckled and said, “Yes it is. If that car can’t outrun something, then it can’t be outrun.”

He continued, “Anyway, Mr. Minor, I have another assignment for you, and time is limited.”

Mr. Darcy pushed a pair of airline tickets across his desk to Alex and glanced at the clock. “It’s four o’clock now, and your flight leaves at eight. You’ll be flying to Albuquerque to pick up a small parcel and bring it back. I’ve got the details for you in this folder. You’ll also be delivering something.”

He took a thumb drive out of his pocket and handed it to Alex as well.

“A Ms. Julia Child will be sitting next to you on the plane. At some point during your flight, make sure she gets this,” Mr. Darcy said.

“It’s not the Julia Child, is it?” Alex said.

“Well, I’m sure if you asked her, she would tell you that she is the Julia Child. But no, the Julia Child that you’re thinking of passed away some time ago now, don’t you remember?” Mr. Darcy said.

“I guess it slipped my mind,” Alex said. He put the thumb drive in a zipped pocket in his bag, and picked up the tickets and folder that Mr. Darcy had given him. “See you in a couple of days.”

“Take care, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex left Mr. Darcy’s office, gave Megan a polite goodbye, and hurried down to the Cutlass again. He hadn’t been to Albuquerque before, and he was excited to go check it out. He hoped he’d have a little time to check out the town while he was there.

The drive to the airport was uneventful, though parking was a bit more of an ordeal than he’d expected. It turned out that maneuvering a wildly over-powered Cutlass in a parking ramp was a bit of a challenge. He managed to avoid crashing it into anything, however.

Alex hadn’t looked at the tickets Mr. Darcy had given him, and he was taken by surprise when the agent asked him if he knew where the first class lounge was. This trip was going to be full of firsts for him, it seemed.

He was amazed at how fast getting through security was as a first class passenger – it was almost as good as back in the days when he didn’t have to more or less strip naked in order to get on a plane.

It only took him a few minutes to find the lounge from there, where he settled in to a comfortable chair and was absolutely thrilled to be offered a drink shortly afterwards.

He promptly fell asleep.

Alex woke up just in time to realize that his plane was going to start boarding any minute, so he gathered his things and hustled over to his terminal. He arrived just in time, and didn’t have to wait at all to get on the plane. Sixty seconds later, he was in his seat and the flight attendant was asking him if he’d like something to drink before take off.

He asked for a glass of scotch, and settled in to his seat. He suspected that he could get used to this.

A couple of minutes later, a petite blonde woman in high heels and dark-washed blue jeans sat down next to him and said, “Hello!”

Alex greeted her, and waited to follow her lead for conversation. He wasn’t quite expecting what he got.

Chapter Twelve

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 02:20:00 +0000

Alex had locked up the pole barn again, and was walking back to the house to wait for whoever was coming to meet him when he heard the gravel in the driveway crunching under tires.

He had just reached the garage as the car in the driveway came to a stop. It was a grey Lincoln MKZ. Pretty non-descript. The driver got out, and Alex recognized him as the chauffeur who had driven him home from the first meeting with Mr. Darcy.

“I thought you didn’t work for Mr. Darcy,” Alex said, by way of greeting.

“And I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Minor,” the driver said.

Alex half-laughed, and said, “OK, have it your way. So do you need a pit stop, or should we get rolling?”

“Let’s roll,” the driver said.

Alex watched the landscape as they drove back towards the Minneapolis side of town. It had been dark out when he and Megan had driven through the night before, so he was curious to see what his surroundings were like.

He quickly realized that his surroundings were mostly corn fields.

Once they were back on the freeway, there wasn’t really much to look at, so Alex tried to start up a conversation with the driver.

“So, since you don’t work for Mr. Darcy, what company are you working for?” Alex said.

“I’m an entrepreneur,” the driver said.

“Cool, so you run a car service? What’s it called?” Alex said.

“Expedient Car Service,” the driver said.

“Catchy,” Alex said. The driver didn’t reply.

“OK,” Alex said slowly. “So what’s your name?”

The driver didn’t answer. Alex considered repeating the question, a little louder, just in case the driver hadn’t heard him. He decided against it.

“That’s cool. I’ll just call you Mr. Expedient,” Alex said. “Tell me, Mr. Expedient, does Mr. Darcy send a lot of business your way? Are you the only driver, or have you got a staff of Mini Expedients?”

The driver still didn’t answer.

“OK, you don’t want to talk. That’s fine, I’ll shut up,” Alex said. He rode along, silently, the rest of the way back to his apartment.

They rolled through the parking lot, checking for suspicious cars or people, before parking close to an entrance and hurrying inside.

Alex was slightly dismayed that the door to his apartment was unlocked, but on the other hand it was also a relief. He didn’t have his key with him, so getting in again would have been challenging if the door had been locked.

Inside, it looked like everything was exactly where it had been left the other night. Alex picked his bag up off the floor, and stuffed everything that should have been in it, including his most recent earnings, back in to the main compartment.

Mr. Expedient stayed close as Alex gathered his things. One Alex had finished re-packing his bag, he went in to his bedroom, and began grabbing an assortment of clothing and stuffing it into a suitcase.

Alex was focused on figuring out what he really needed to have with him at the house out in the middle of nowhere, and was startled when he heard sort of a meaty smack behind him, followed by the sound of a body crumpling to the floor.

He spun around, fists up, fearful that he was about to get abducted again, or worse. What he saw was Mr. Expedient straightening his jacket calmly. Nearby, one of Victors henchmen from the other night laid sprawled out on the floor.

“Sit tight,” Mr. Expedient said to Alex, and he walked out of the room to inspect the rest of the apartment. Alex heard the front door being locked, and a second later there was a surprised grunt and another thump as somebody hit the floor.

Alex hoped his downstairs neighbors weren’t home at the moment, in the back of his mind. At the same time, he rushed out to see what had happened.

What he found was the driver standing over the other one of Victor’s goons.

“Have you got everything you need, Mr. Minor? We should probably get moving,” Mr. Expedient said. He didn’t even sound winded.

Note to self, absolutely do not fuck with the driver guy, Alex thought. He said, “Yeah, let me grab my suitcase and we can roll.”

Minutes later they were back in the Lincoln, driving away from Alex’s apartment again. Alex wondered when and if he was going to be able to go back to get the rest of his stuff, or just move back into his apartment again. He wasn’t too keen on coming home to find a couple of well-hidden thugs laying in wait for him. He tried to put it out of his mind, since he couldn’t do much about it at the moment anyway, and turned his attention to the driver.

“What is it that you really do, Mr. Expedient?” Alex said.

“I drive,” he said.

Alex was quiet for a moment, then said, “You know, I wish someone would give me a straight answer one of these days. The constant ambiguity is driving me nuts.”

It occurred to him then that he was missing work at the courier service, too, and also that he’d left both of his bicycles behind at the apartment.

On the upside, he had a pretty hefty bundle of cash in his bag, so finding a replacement bicycle probably wouldn’t be too difficult.

As they drove, Alex noticed that Mr. Expedient’s driving had gotten a lot more erratic. He was making dramatic, rapid lane changes across several lanes, speeding up, and slowing down at odd times. He swung a U turn for no apparent reason, and Alex finally had to say something.

“What the hell are you doing? You’re driving like a coked-up spider monkey,” Alex said.

“I’m checking to see if we’re being followed,” Mr. Expedient said. He checked the mirrors, and turned off of the street they were driving on.

A moment later, he said, “And we are.”

Alex wondered what, exactly, he’d actually recovered from Victor Steel. This all seemed like a lot of bother over an antique spearhead.

“Buckle up for safety,” Mr. Expedient said.

“Huh?” Alex said. He began to say, “I am already buckled up,” but only got as far as “I am,” before Mr. Expedient made a hard right turn without slowing down, and hit the gas hard. A block later he made another hard turn, to the left this time, followed by another sharp right.

The street they were on was wide and clear for now, and Mr. Expedient didn’t spare the accelerator. Alex took a glance at the speedometer and saw that they already hit sixty miles per hour, on a back street, and that they were still accelerating.

Before long, they braked hard, and made a sharp left. After a couple of blocks, they went right again. Mr. Expedient didn’t slow down a bit, but he glanced into the rear view mirror again, and said, “That should have gotten rid of that guy. We can’t outrun cell phones, though. It’s time to swap cars.”

After another mile or so, they pulled into a strip mall that had a mechanic’s shop. The garage doors were all open, and Mr. Expedient pulled right into one of the stalls. He shut off the car and left the keys in one of the cup holders.

“This is where we’re swapping cars?” Alex said.

“Yep,” Mr. Expedient said. “Come on.”

They got out of the Lincoln, and one of the mechanics looked up from what he was doing and said to Mr. Expedient, “Hey, we’ll have that fixed up for you right away!”

“Great, thanks.”

He led Alex out through the back door of the shop, to another car. The one was a white Honda Accord. Mr. Expedient hopped in the car, and flipped down the visor. The keys dropped into his waiting hand.

Alex hopped in and fastened his seatbelt, then said, “So what’s going to happen to the Lincoln? How are they going to hide it?”

“No one will see that car again, don’t worry about it,” Mr. Expedient said.

“I love this job,” Alex said to himself.

For the rest of the drive back to the farmhouse, Mr. Expedient drove somewhat erratically, until he was certain that they were no longer being followed.

Alex had given up on trying to make conversation, so he just looked out the window as they drove, and wondered what he was going to do with himself in a farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere until this all blew over. He imagined that mowing the lawn might be fun once a week. What to do with the rest of his time? Sitting and watching DVDs wasn’t really his style, and if he was supposed to be laying low then he probably shouldn’t go out shopping in order to buy things that would be fun.

Oh well. He’d be able to find something to do, he was sure. There was, after all, a pole barn full of things he wasn’t supposed to mess with, and one of those things was a bulldozer. That had to be at least one day’s worth of fun right there.

Mr. Expedient dropped him off back at the farm house. Alex got out of the car, and dropped his bag and his suitcase on the steps leading up to the side door of the house.

He turned back to Mr. Expedient and said, “Do you want some coffee or something before you go? You must be due for a break.”

“I’m good, thanks. Have a good day, Mr. Minor,” he said. He got back in the car and drove back down the driveway.

It was kind of a relief, really. Sitting and having coffee with some guy who won’t talk in a quiet farmhouse sounded like a real drag. He could have silent coffee by himself just as easily, and with fewer dishes to wash afterwards.

Alex brought his things inside and settled in on the couch for nap, since it didn’t seem like he was going to have much else to do.

He’d just started to doze off when his phone rang.

Chapter Eleven

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 02:20:00 +0000

Alex had been sitting the shadows, watching every car that came by with great interest for fear that it might be Victor or more of his goons, when a powder blue Camaro rolled to a stop directly in front of him. The driver’s side window rolled down.

A woman’s voice said, “You’re not hidden very well, Mr. Minor. I saw you from two blocks away.”

Alex didn’t recognize the driver at first. Then he realized it was because he hadn’t seen her with her hair down before. Mr. Darcy had sent Megan to pick him up. And she looked a little annoyed.

“I’m hidden fine, and from here I could see who was coming. Anyway, you knew where to look already,” Alex said as he got up and brushed himself off.

He walked over to the passenger side of Megan’s Camaro, and heard the door unlock. Alex got in the car, and said, “Thanks for coming to get me. I didn’t have anywhere else to turn.”

“People in Mr. Darcy’s organization rarely do. It’s part of what qualifies them for the job,” Megan said. “Anyway, let’s get you to the safe house. I had to drop what I was doing to come get you, and I was in the middle of making dinner.”

“Sorry,” Alex said.

“Forget about it,” Megan said.

Alex paid attention to where they were going, and realized that Megan was driving him East, towards Saint Paul. They rode in silence for quite a while, until Alex couldn’t take the quiet any more.

“So if not having anyone else to turn to is one of the qualifications for working for Mr. Darcy, does that mean you don’t have anyone either?” Alex said.

Megan sighed, and said, “That’s really none of your business.”

“OK,” Alex said. “Just trying to be friendly. I guess that’s probably not the best topic, though.”

Megan said nothing.

“So what do you do for Mr. Darcy? I mean, besides sitting in the front office and greeting visitors,” Alex said.

“Mr. Minor, I think you’re going to find that all of the people working for Mr. Darcy value their privacy. I’m not at liberty to discuss what I do, any more than you should be discussing what you do with me. People who know what we’re doing are the reason we need safe houses. But, just so we’re crystal clear, I do much more than act as a receptionist,” Megan said.

“OK, sorry, I hear you,” Alex said.

They rode in silence a little further before he had to try again.

“So, Megan, do you like toast?”

Megan snorted, and laughed despite herself.

“I admire your persistence, Mr. Minor,” she said.

“You know, I feel weird calling you Megan, when you refer to me as Mr. Minor. I don’t even know your last name. You really can call me Alex,” Alex said.

“Megan is my last name. You can call me Ms. Megan if you like, but that just sounds like you’re being cutesy,” Megan said.

“Well, hang on, if Megan is your last name, what’s your first name?” Alex said.

“It’s Melissa, but I want you to call me Megan, thank you,” Megan said.

Alex mused to himself, “Melissa Megan. Hmm. That makes you Missy Megan.”

Alex couldn’t be sure, but it certainly seemed like the temperature in the car suddenly dropped about thirty degrees.

He continued, a little more quickly, “So, I see why you’d prefer being referred to by your last name only. No problem, Megan.”

After a few miles, Alex realized they were well out of St. Paul now, and still headed east. Before long they were in farm country, and the streetlights became few and far between.

“So, where are we going, exactly?” Alex said.

“To one of our safe houses, like I said. You’re going to hang out here in the middle of nowhere until we’ve figured out how much of a threat Victor Steel is likely to remain for you. Mr. Darcy admires your nerve, and you’re doing an excellent job of proving that you can handle the job. Even if you really suck at being stealthy,” Megan said.

“Did Mr. Darcy actually say that I suck at being stealthy?” Alex said.

“No, but that doesn’t make it less true,” Megan said. “Anyway, we don’t need you getting kidnapped, again, and possibly not being returned in the same condition you were found in. So you’re going to lay low for a bit.”

Before too much longer, they arrived at a driveway that wasn’t much more than two gravelly ruts about the width of a car that ran between the trees in a thickly wooded piece of property. Megan slowed way, way down, and eased her Camaro onto the driveway at maybe five miles per hour.

“I hate this frickin’ driveway,” Megan muttered. Alex was mildly shocked by her sudden lack of professional demeanor.

He realized why she hated the driveway so much a couple of seconds later, when something that sounded a lot like a big rock scraped its way along the bottom of the car as they drove over it. They also hit several bone-jarring bumps.

“My Camaro isn’t made for country living,” Megan said. She winced as the bottom scraped against something else that sounded hard and likely to damage paint.

They reached the house, which was fairly compact, and painted white with black trim. There was a disconnected garage a short walk from the house, a smaller shed nearby, and a pole barn a couple hundred feet away. Alex noticed a large stack of firewood, a propane tank, and an enormous satellite dish parked in the yard behind the house. It looked like the safe house had all the comforts of home, and then some.

He and Megan walked up to the side door, and Megan produced a key ring from her purse. She unlocked the door, and they walked inside.

The side door, apparently, opened into the kitchen. There was a gas range and oven, a big refrigerator, a deep freezer, and an incredible array of cooking implements stashed and hung from various shelves, cubbies, and hooks.

“Let me give you the dime tour,” Megan said. She gestured to the cabinets. “Just about every kind of dry or canned good you could need is stashed in the cupboards. I think there’s enough in there for a few people to survive an entire winter in relative comfort, though they’d probably be a little tired of canned food by the time spring came around, even if Chef Boyardee does make a mean ravioli. There’s meat in the deep freezer. The fridge should have a decent supply of butter and cheese, apples, and sturdy vegetables. There ought to be plenty of frozen veggies in the freezer up top, along with some hot pockets and frozen dinners. The tap water comes from a well, and tastes fine.”

She led him into the next room then, which turned out to be the living room. There was a couch and a pretty big TV, along with a selection of DVDs. Megan pointed at a little box with a few blinking lights on it.

“That’s your wifi, if you need it. The password is stuck underneath it. If you do use it, please don’t be an idiot and go out on the internet to tell everyone where you are.”

Megan pointed at a nearby door, “That’s the bathroom.”

She turned slightly and pointed at the other door, “And that’s your bedroom.”

Alex pointed at the other two doors in the room. He said, “How about those?”

“The one is a coat closet, and the other is officially a bedroom, but we’ve just got stuff stored in there right now,” Megan said.

She led him back into the kitchen and opened a drawer. From it, she took out another key ring.

“There’s a car in the garage you can use if you need it. Just don’t forget that you’re here laying low, OK? And be careful driving the car, it’s been souped way up, and it’ll surprise the hell out of you if you’re not careful.”

Megan stopped talking for a minute, and appeared to be checking off items on her fingers.

“OK, I think that’s it. Stay in, be good. We’ll arrange to get your things from your apartment tomorrow,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to get home and eat.”

As she was walking out the door, she turned back and said, “Oh, if you decide to explore the pole barn… Try not to mess with anything in there. Good night, Mr. Minor.”

“OK, whatever you say,” Alex said. “Good night, Megan.”

Alex suddenly realized he was entirely exhausted. He decided to go find out if this well-equipped house was also equipped with a fresh toothbrush and toothpaste for him.

He was delighted to discover that it was.

Alex didn’t sleep particularly well that night. He figured it was due to a combination of being in a strange house, which had strange new noises (there had been coyotes howling the night before, for Pete’s sake), on top of the sheer craziness of the day he’d just had.

Around six o’clock in the morning, he realized that he just wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep, so he might as well get up. He climbed out of bed, and wandered into the kitchen to make some coffee and see what there might be for him to make for breakfast.

He was thrilled to discover a fresh package of coffee, several cans of corned beef hash, and fresh eggs in the fridge.

After he’d eaten, and cleaned up the kitchen again, Alex realized he had nothing but time to kill until he heard from somebody about getting his stuff from his apartment.

It occurred to him that he sure hoped no one had wandered in and helped themselves to his bicycles, or the huge envelope of cash that had been tossed on to the floor. He knew he hadn’t locked the door behind them when Victor and his goons dragged him out of his apartment.

Well, he decided, there’s nothing I can do about it now if someone did go into my apartment and steal stuff. For now, I should just find a way to keep busy.

So, Alex grabbed the key ring that had the house key, and a few other keys that he was willing to bet were for the garage, shed, and pole barn, and went outside to discover what it was that he wasn’t supposed to mess with.

Since it was the closest, Alex went to the garage first to see what was waiting for him in there. He got a bit giddy as he imagined a Corvette, or maybe an old Dodge Challenger, or perhaps an Old 442. Or maybe it was something classy, like a classic Rolls Royce, or an old Mercedes.

Alex tried keys until he found one that fit the lock, and opened the garage.

He was a little disappointed when he saw the car was a brownish Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera from the early 1980’s.

Souped up, right. I bet it can almost get out of its own way now, if there’s a good tailwind, Alex thought.

He shut the door again, and wandered over to the shed. He wasn’t sure what to expect inside, but figured it was probably a few lawnmowers, rakes, and other kinds of yard equipment. Maybe a punching bag, or something.

What he found was a well-equipped communications center. There was a computer, what looked like some kind of radio setup, a Morse code key, a couple of phones, and a bunch of other things he didn’t recognize. Oh, and a wall calendar that had a picture of a pinup girl holding a big wrench.

He really had no idea what to do with any of that stuff, so he shut the door, and made sure it was locked again, then wandered over to the pole barn.

He unlocked the entrance, stepped inside, and found the light switch. As the lights came on, he realized there was so much in there it was kind of hard to take it all in.

There were a couple of boats, a tractor, a bunch of snow blowers, an airplane, motorcycles, snowmobiles, an old military Jeep, a bulldozer…

Alex paused for a second, and looked again. An airplane?

Sitting there quietly, almost unobtrusively, was a bright yellow airplane, with a black lightning bolt painted down the side.

Alex was about to investigate the pole barn a little further when his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and answered.

“Mr. Minor, an associate is on his way to pick you up to go and recover some of the things you can’t live without. He should be there very shortly,” said Mr. Darcy.

Chapter Ten

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 02:12:00 +0000

Victor Steel stood up from the couch, and said, “Have you met my associates?”

Alex had no idea where the two refrigerator sized men who were now flanking him had been hiding, but was more concerned about what the two refrigerator sized men had in store for him and how he might avoid whatever it might be because, honestly, he really didn’t want to know.

The giant on his left grabbed Alex and held him tightly. Alex struggled, but the man’s grip was like iron and he quickly realized he wasn’t going to be able to slip away from him. The other giant grabbed Alex’s bag, and rifled through it. He started pulling things out one at a time and casually tossing them aside. One of the things he tossed aside, to Alex’s great relief, was his envelope full of cash.

Alex wondered if it might be possible to start getting paid by direct deposit. It seemed a little less risky. He made a mental note to bring it up to Mr. Darcy the next time he saw him.

The man searching Alex’s bag pulled out Alex’s wallet, and opened it rather than tossing it aside.

He pulled out Alex’s driver’s license and read the name aloud, “Alex D. Minor. Hmm. What does the D stand for?”

“Danger,” Alex said.

The behemoth holding him gave him a little shake, which was really more of a big, sharp, shake. Alex thought he’d felt his brain rattle a little.

“OK, it’s David, it stands for David. Have a sense of humor,” Alex said.

“You’ll have to excuse my friends,” Victor said. “I didn’t hire them for their rapid wit and skillful banter.”

“Clearly,” Alex said. He received another shake, and stopped talking.

The man who’d been digging through Alex’s bag finished his search, and dropped Alex’s bag on the floor along with everything he’d pulled out of it.

“It’s not in here,” he said to Victor.

Victor was clearly not pleased with the news.

“So, Alex Minor, I’m afraid you’ve put me in a rough spot. I’d been hoping I’d be able to just catch you earlier and resolve the matter then, but it turns out you’re quite skilled at evasive bicycle maneuvers. Since you gave me the slip, I drove back home and decided I’d better check to see what might have gone missing while you were visiting. I have to thank you for knocking over one of the statues near my trophy room. If I hadn’t heard it, I might have had to spend the whole evening going through the house looking for missing items. As it was, I was able to head straight to the trophy room,” Victor said.

He continued, “Well, you can imagine my relief when I saw that the guns were all still right where I left them. They’re quite valuable, you know. I didn’t think you’d taken them, anyway, though. It’s hard to stuff a hunting rifle into a backpack. So I checked my display cases, and wouldn’t you know one of the treasures of my collection had mysteriously vanished.”

“Well, in many respects, it would have been much easier if you had stolen a rifle, or some of my art. I could have just called the police then,” Victor said. “But this spearhead… well, the police don’t really have much knowledge of antiquities, and even if they did recover it, it would be in their evidence locker until the end of your trial. So, instead, I put the word out that I was looking for a man on a slightly worn looking green bicycle, wearing a t-shirt, cargo shorts and a backpack. It didn’t take long for some of my associates to spot you and trail you back to your apartment. And now here we are,” Victor said, and smiled.

It wasn’t a particularly reassuring or friendly smile, and Alex was suddenly a little worried that he would have been better off if he had been stopped by the police. Still, worried or not, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Is it really that the police don’t have much knowledge of antiquities, or is it that they would have a little too much knowledge of that particular item, seeing how it was stolen and all?” Alex said.

“I think there’s more to this thief than meets the eyes,” Victor said to his henchmen.

“I’m not a thief, I’m a repo man. All I did was take back something that wasn’t yours,” Alex said.

“Ah, of course, repo men, the thin, scummy, line between order and chaos,” Victor said. “So, where is my spearhead, Alex Minor?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said.

Victor looked bored.

“OK, if that’s the way you want to play,” he said. “Hit him.”

The goon who had been digging through Alex’s bag struck instantly, punching Alex deep in the gut. Alex groaned and wanted to double over, but he was being held up by the other goon.

“I promise you these two won’t get tired,” Victor said. “Now let’s try again. Where is my spearhead, Alex?”

“I have no idea,” Alex said.

“It just vanished out of your bag then? It fell out, silently, while you were riding today?” Victor said.

“Sure, something like that,” Alex said.

“Hit him again,” Victor said.

The air rushed out of Alex as the goon punched him as second time.

“I’m really not into this whole violence thing, you know, Alex,” Victor said. “And I know my associates would rather be at home relaxing than here in your, frankly, not very nice apartment. So, maybe we’ll start with a different question. Who hired you to take my spearhead?”

“I can’t seem to remember,” Alex said. A small part of him was wondering how far he could push things, and was making a persuasive argument for finding out. A different part of him wondered if Mr. Darcy actually deserved this kind of loyalty. He clung to the hope that Mr. Darcy had been telling the truth when he’d said that they were the good guys.

Alex hadn’t been prepared to get punched in the face, and was surprised by the realization that you really can see stars if you get hit hard enough. He would have fallen if not for the linebacker holding him up.

“You know, I think our friend Alex is a little too comfortable here in his apartment to talk about this reasonably. Maybe we should go somewhere else where we can talk,” Victor said, then paused for a moment.

“And besides, who knows who might be listening in to our private conversation? Perhaps we need to go somewhere where we’re less likely to be overheard,” he continued, and gave Alex a meaningful look.

“Bring him along,” Victor said, and walked out of Alex’s apartment.

Alex was fairly certain that where ever he was going to be taken, it wasn’t a place he wanted to go. Something about the way Victor had emphasized the word overheard made him very uncomfortable.

Victor led the way out of the apartment, followed by one of the giants. The giant holding Alex dragged him along, bringing up the rear.

Think, think, think, I’ve got to get out of this somehow, Alex thought. He hoped that he might bump into a neighbor on the way out. One that would be concerned about an apparent abduction taking place right in front of him.

There’s no way I can overpower this guy. I can’t even work up a good kick to the shins, Alex thought. And if I try, there’s another one right in front of me who’s just as big and at least as mean.

He hoped an opportunity of some sort would present itself.

The four of them walked out of Alex’s apartment complex, and they started leading Alex towards a black Cadillac that looked awfully familiar. Alex’s heart started pounding, and he could feel adrenaline surging through his body.

What do I do, what do I do? He thought.

At that moment, he heard someone yell, “Oh shit! Heads up over there!”

Alex looked around just in time to see a bright red Frisbee flying right towards his face. He turned to try and avoid it, still firmly in the grip of one of the giants. Apparently, he moved just enough to get out of the way of the Frisbee.

The giant holding him wasn’t quite so lucky, and caught it smack in the nose. His grip on Alex loosened just enough, and a jumped-up-on-adrenaline Alex took his opportunity, broke free, and ran like Hell.

He ran without paying particularly close attention to where he was going, and just kept running until he was certain that no one was behind him any longer. Alex wasn’t sure when he’d lost Victor and his flunkies, but he was certain that he wanted as much distance between himself and those three as he could manage.

When he finally stopped running, he was entirely winded. Sucking in huge breaths, trying to get his heart rate back down again, he looked around to see if he was still being pursued. So far as he could tell, he was alone again.

He also realized that he didn’t have his wallet on him, and that he wasn’t going to be able to go back to his apartment any time soon. If Victor was willing to take him prisoner to get a freaking antique back, he was probably also willing to keep Alex’s apartment under surveillance.

Alex checked his pockets and was very relieved to find that he did have his cell phone in one of his pockets.

But who could he call? He didn’t want to get Marlboro wrapped up in this mess by mistake. He hadn’t talked to his sister in nearly a year, and he wasn’t sure if she’d even answer the phone once she saw it was him calling.

He paced around slightly, still trying to catch his breath. Alex took in his surroundings a bit, and began to recognize the neighborhood he was in. He realized he’d run a solid mile, maybe a little more.

He saw headlights in the distance, and ducked into the shadows of some nearby bushes. A couple of minutes later, the car passed. It was a little green hatchback, nothing to worry about. Probably.

He sat down on the ground and thought a little more before realizing there was really only one person he could call: Mr. Darcy.

Alex had never actually called Mr. Darcy directly. He was a little apprehensive about doing so. He was also concerned that he only had an office number for Mr. Darcy, and that it was well past office hours by now.

On the other hand, he suspected that Mr. Darcy probably didn’t hold too closely to standard business hours.

After going back and forth about it a little longer, Alex realized that he really didn’t have a choice. He could call Mr. Darcy or wait for Victor (or some of Victor’s associates) to find him.

Hoping that someone would answer, Alex turned on his phone and found Mr. Darcy’s name in his contacts. He hit the Call button, and listened as the phone rang.

After three rings, Alex heard the line connect, and Mr. Darcy’s voice.

“Good evening Mr. Minor, what can I do for you?” Mr. Darcy said.

“I seem to have gotten into some trouble. Victor Steel and his goons were waiting for me in my apartment when I got home tonight, and they tried to kidnap me. I managed to get away, but now I’m a mile or so from home, without my wallet or any of my other things. I don’t dare go back to my apartment.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Alex hoped he hadn’t stepped over a line he wasn’t aware of. He was also mildly concerned that this would mean the end of his employment with Mr. Darcy.

Just when it was getting to be too much to bear, Mr. Darcy spoke again.

“I’ve got someone driving your way already, just tell me where you are exactly and they’ll be there momentarily. You’ll recognize their car, because it’s a powder blue Camaro with mag wheels,” Mr. Darcy said.

Chapter Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 23:39:00 +0000

It wasn’t until he was inside the house that it occurred to him that he really hoped Victor didn’t have a dog. He didn’t hear any barking yet, though, so he figured he was probably in the clear.

The foyer in Victor’s mansion was spectacular, complete with marble floors, and a grand staircase. There were two crystal chandeliers, and several works of art in gold frames. There was also a suit of armor, complete with sword and shield.

Well, I guess it’s better to have a suit of armor and not need it, than to need one and not have it, Alex thought. He was acutely aware that he was not supposed to be there in Victor’s house. He was fairly sure the police wouldn’t be happy to see him if they were called, and weren’t likely to believe that he was an antique spearhead repo man.

According to the documents he’d been given, the trophy room was somewhere on the second floor. He looked around to see if perhaps there was another, somewhat less grand, staircase available. Sneaking up a grand staircase would be pretty impossible, and Alex very much felt he needed to be sneaky now that he was inside.

There were no other obvious ways to get upstairs, of course. Alex wished that the side or cellar door had been open instead. He took a step towards the stairs, and nearly had a heart attack when he heard his heel click loudly on marble floor.

Nice sneaking, asshole, Alex thought to himself. He stepped as lightly as he could manage the rest of the way across the hall, and was grateful that the staircase itself, at least, was carpeted.

He felt jumpy, hyper-alert even, as he climbed the stairs. Alex wasn’t certain if the silence in the house was comforting or unnerving. Either way, it was its own presence.

At the top of the stairs, he had his choice of directions, he could go down a hallway to the left or one to the right. He had no idea which was the way to the trophy room; that detail hadn’t been in the folder Mr. Darcy had provided.

Alex peered in each direction, but doing so really didn’t give him any information. With a shrug, he decided that “left” was as good of a direction to start with as any. He turned and started walking, tiptoeing really, down the hall to the left. There were more paintings hung on the wood-paneled walls, one every couple of feet, and little sculptures and plants placed on their own tables here and there as well.

Peeking inside the first door that he came to, conveniently left open, Alex saw a bedroom that was tastefully decorated and looked as if no one had ever gone in there since the interior decorator left, except to dust it once a week.

The next room had a collection of musical instruments in it. Alex wondered if Victor could actually play all of them, or if they were just more collectibles. No spearheads in that room.

At the end of the hallway was a pair of ornate French doors. These ones were closed.

Hoping desperately that he wasn’t going to open the door and find someone waiting for him on the other side, Alex reached for the door handle, turned it, and opened the door.

It creaked slightly as it opened, and Alex’s adrenaline level shot up dramatically. He was primed to either run like hell, or punch out an elephant if need be.

Mellow, mellow, everything is cool, stay mellow, Alex thought as he tried to keep himself from freaking out.

There was no one in the room, which was clearly Victor’s bedroom. There was an enormous, four-poster bed, draped with dark purple velvet blankets and curtains, edged with gold. Alex suspected that sleeping in that bed would give a person a good idea of what it’s like being a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey.

There weren’t any obvious trophies in the bedroom though, so he shut the door as quickly and quietly as he could, and tiptoed back down the hall. When he got back to the staircase, he took a quick peek around the corner to make sure there wasn’t anyone there waiting for him, or waiting to be surprised by him. It looked like he still had the place to himself, however.

Alex hustled as quickly across the top of the stairwell as he could managed, and ducked down the opposite hall.

It was decorated similarly to the previous hallway, but didn’t have as many doorways. The first door he reached was for the library. There was a desk and some very comfortable looking leather chairs in there, along with the dark wooden bookshelves that were packed with leather bound books as well as, Alex noticed, a collection of cheap paperback books somewhat hidden on a low shelf in the far corner. Not a trophy to be seen.

There was only one door left on the second floor, so if that wasn’t a trophy room, Alex was going to be extremely annoyed with the information he’d been provided.

Alex peered through the doorway, and saw a room that looked like Ernest Hemingway and Ted Nugent had worked together to build a space where they’d feel comfortable hanging out. There were animal heads mounted on the walls. There was a zebra skin upholstered ottoman. There were more leather chairs, and a bear skin rug (of course). There were also several impressive looking racks of rifles and shotguns, with gorgeous wooden stocks. And, most importantly, there were a couple of glass curio cabinets chock full of small, interesting things.

“I guess this would be the trophy room,” Alex mumbled to himself.

He walked into the room and wondered if Victor had actually killed all of the animals mounted and stuffed around the room, or if he just collected hunting trophies. It seemed like an incredible number for just one person to have hunted.

On the other hand, wealthy people tend to be free to use their time how they choose, he thought.

One of the curio cabinets appeared to be full of antique laboratory equipment, microscopes and such, and other similar items.

The other cabinet, however, had spearheads in it. Actually, it was chock full of spearheads, arrowheads, bayonets, and other pointy things that had a right end and a wrong end. There must have been close to two hundred things in the cabinet, and enough of them looked the same that Alex was stumped as to which was the right one.

It was tempting, for the sake of getting out of there quickly, to just sweep an armful of spearheads in to his bag and make a break for it, but that would be stealing, and he was there to recover a particular item, not to make off with some rich guy’s collection.

Alex was really glad he’d brought the picture he had of the spearhead he was looking for. He dug it out of his bag, and started comparing them, one by one, to the image of what he was looking for.

He’d gotten about halfway through the case, when he heard water rushing through plumbing. Someone, somewhere, in the house had flushed a toilet.

Shit, shit, shit, Alex thought. It was time to get the hell out of there. Well, it was past time to get out of there. He wasn’t eager to continue testing his cat burglar skills.

He kept looking for the right spearhead, hurried. There was one that seemed about right. The engravings looked about right. It seemed kind of beat up, though. Alex took a deep breath, hoped he had picked the right piece, opened the curio cabinet, grabbed the spearhead, stuffed it into his bag and silently thanked God that the cabinet hadn’t been locked.

He hurried out of the trophy room and down the hall again as quickly and quietly as he could managed. He hoped, desperately, that whoever was in the house wasn’t directly downstairs, and that his footsteps weren’t giving him away.

His footsteps hadn’t given him away, but knocking a little marble statuette off of its table onto the floor probably did. It hit the floor with a loud THUMP, and Alex’s heart leapt up into his throat. He picked it up quickly, stuck it back where he thought it belonged, and did his best to keep from running down the hall.

At the top of the staircase, he took a quick look to see if anyone was there. It looked like he was OK, so far. Alex hustled down the stairs, crazily wondering if he should have taken the opportunity to slide down the bannister (because when was he going to get another chance, after all?), and had managed to tip toe halfway across the foyer towards the front door when he heard someone behind him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing in here?” the someone behind him said.

Alex stopped in his tracks, and turned to see who had caught him. It was, (Of course, Alex thought) none other than Victor Steel. He didn’t seem very happy to see Alex.

Trying to think quickly, Alex seized on the first idea that came to mind.

“Howdy! Um, I’m awfully sorry, I’m looking for a place to host my wedding, and I thought this was one of the mansions for rent. When I realized it was actually someone’s home I turned around to get out of here right away. Sorry, I’m really embarrassed and I didn’t mean to invade your privacy,” Alex said and hoped that Victor would buy it.

“Well, you were wrong. And even those places don’t want you to just walk in off the street without an appointment… Wait a minute. Didn’t you ride your bicycle past my house yesterday? Were you casing my house?” Victor said.

His tone of voice became more authoritative and demanding.

“What’s in your bag? I should have known something was up, but I wasn’t expecting something so… obvious,” Victor said.

Alex knew he was caught, and wasn’t yet certain just how bad the situation was. However, if Victor found the spearhead in his bag, chances were he’d be going to jail.

Or to the morgue… A little voice in Alex’s head whispered.

Thinking fast, Alex said the first thing that came to mind, “Um, well, the thing about that is, uh… Bye!”

Alex turned and ran for the front door. He threw it open, ran through and slammed it shut behind him. He heard Victor cursing behind him. Alex was down the steps and next to his bicycle again in seconds. He made a running start, jumped on to his rolling bike, and started pedaling as fast as he could.

Shit, shit, shit, Alex thought again. At least I don’t have a license plate that can be tracked, but I guess I’m identifiable enough if a cop manages to spot me. Gotta move, gotta move…

He was pedaling fast down the street away from Victor’s house when he heard the sound of a car bottoming out not too far behind him. He ventured a look over his shoulder, and saw an enormous, black Cadillac that had apparently just pulled out of Victor’s driveway, and was now rapidly closing the distance between them.

Not good, not good, not good, Alex thought. He pedaled as hard as he could, but he knew there was no way he’d be able to outrun that car on the street.

He hoped there wouldn’t be any fences in his way, and made a hard right turn, leapt the curb, and pedaled his way through somebody’s front yard, past the house, and through the back. He was relieved to see that there was not a fence separating the yards, and continued pedaling hard through the yard of the house directly behind the first.

As he reached the street again, he looked to the left, and saw the black Cadillac stopped in the intersection nearby, waiting to see where he would emerge. It was Victor behind the wheel, Alex could see the daylight reflecting off of Victor’s head. Alex shot across the street and into the next yard.

Whether he was in good shape or not, Alex knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep riding this hard for long, especially through people’s yards on a road bike. What’s more, there was a good chance that Victor would be screeching to a halt to wait for him at the next street. He decided his best bet was to double back and then change direction.

He realized then there was a man with a can of beer standing on the lawn about ten feet away from him, looking at him.

“Um. Hi,” Alex said.

“Get off my lawn!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Alex said.

He turned his bicycle around and rode back to the street he’d just been on. He took a look and was relieved to see that Victor’s Cadillac wasn’t in sight.

He rode down the street a ways, trying to decide which direction would be the best way to go. At this point, he no longer had any idea where Victor might be. If Victor had tried to head him off, however, he’d be pointed the same direction Alex was riding in now.

Alex braked hard and turned around. He hoped he was right, and pedaled hard to get up to speed again. When he got to the intersection, he looked right, and was relieved that Victor’s Cadillac wasn’t there. A quick glance left, no Cadillac, and Alex rode across the street. He continued zig zagging through the streets for several blocks, taking advantage of alleys when he could, before settling down and riding at a more reasonable pace.

After a mile or so, Alex was confident that he’d gotten away from Victor. He stayed alert, and tried to ride without drawing any attention to himself, though he wasn’t exactly sure if he was doing a particularly good job at it.

After several more miles, he was sure he wasn’t being followed any longer. He started to ride towards Mr. Darcy’s office.

Alex was still on high alert, but he was also starting to feel fantastic. What a complete rush that had been. He was having a hard time remembering the last time he’d had quite so much fun, in fact.

Before long, he arrived at Mr. Darcy’s office. Megan greeted him as she had each time before, but Alex didn’t have to wait long before Mr. Darcy came out of his office and invited him in.

“You’ve recovered the spearhead?” Mr. Darcy said. He seemed very pleased.

“Yes, I’ve got it here in my bag, “ Alex said. He fumbled a bit getting his bag open, but the produced the spearhead and set it on the leather writing pad on Mr. Darcy’s desk. He then really, really hoped he’d grabbed the right spearhead.

Mr. Darcy took one look at it and said, “Excellent! Our client will be thrilled to have this returned.”

Mr. Darcy took the spearhead and put it in his desk, then removed an envelope and handed it to Alex.

“Excellent work, Mr. Minor. You’ve earned this,” he said.

Alex took the envelope, and could feel that it was full of cash. He realized he was now holding more cash than he’d ever earned in a year, much less two days.

“Who, exactly, is our client?” Alex asked. He was a bit worried about who might have so much money to throw around for an antique weapon that was, frankly, pretty beat up.

“As I told you, Mr. Minor, someone with the necessary means, who very much wanted his artifact back. You’re going to need to trust me. As I told you in our first meeting, we are the good guys,” Mr. Darcy said.

He looked at Alex as if he was checking to make sure that the matter was now closed.

“Suits me, just curious,” Alex said.

Shortly after, Alex was back on his bicycle again, riding home. It didn’t take him long to reach his apartment, and he wasn’t feeling the least bit tired, even though the sun was starting to set and he’d been on the move all day long.

This job is completely awesome, Alex thought. I can’t believe that today just happened, and that I got paid for it.

He arrived back at his apartment complex, hopped off his bicycle, and let himself in. He checked his mail, and sorted through it quickly before heading up to his apartment.

He opened the door to his apartment, and flipped on the lights, thinking about what to have for dinner that night as he rolled his bicycle inside and leaned it up against the wall. He kicked off his shoes then, and turned around.

Alex was extremely surprised to see Victor Steel sitting on his couch, looking back at him.

“Howdy,” Victor said.

Chapter Eight

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 02:59:00 +0000

Before Alex left Mr. Darcy’s office, he asked, “What’s the deadline for getting this thing back?”

“There’s no deadline, but time is of the essence. If the person currently in possession of the artifact finds out that it has been noticed, and efforts are being made to recover it, it’s extremely likely that it will be hidden away again, and won’t be seen again for another several years,” Mister Darcy said.

“Well, I’ll get started on it right away, then,” Alex said.

He put the folder that Mr. Darcy had handed him in his bag, and left.

Alex had noticed a small park that wasn’t too far away on one of his deliveries. He rode over there, and found a picnic table to sit at and go over the information Mr. Darcy had given him. It was a beautiful day, without a cloud in the sky, and it felt great to be outside.

He opened the manila folder, and began to look through the various documents inside. The very first thing he was an image of the spearhead. It was a drawing, actually. Alex was hardly an expert on antiquities, but he guessed that the spearhead was probably a couple of thousand years old, or at least meant to look like it was. It was triangular and had ornate, if somewhat imprecise, engravings. According to the notes, it was roughly ten inches long.

Looking further through the folder, Alex learned that it had been spotted in the trophy room of a wealthy collector. He lived in one of the old mansions in the Washburn - Fair Oaks district in Minneapolis. According to the notes, the collector’s name was Victor Steel.

“Well there’s a comic book villain name if there ever was one,” Alex muttered to himself.

Whoever the person who had spotted it had been, they reported that Victor Steel’s trophy room was on the second floor of his mansion.

Alex wasn’t sure why it had been included, but there was a photo of Victor himself. He even looked like a comic book villain. In the photo he wore a pinstriped suit, and he apparently shaved his head completely. He also wore a goatee, and somehow managed to actually look sinister instead of like a disaffected college student in the 1990’s, or an I.T. guy.

There was a photo of the mansion as well. It looked well kept-up, but less forbidding than he’d expect from a comic book villain. Maybe it was scarier at night, or in bad weather.

How the hell am I going to get into this guy’s mansion, and on to the second floor no less, without breaking in? At the very least he’s going to have a home security system of some sort, Alex thought. And to keep the grounds in nice shape like that probably required a gardener, at least part time.

He decided the best thing to do would be to ride by and scope it out.

It was only a few miles from the park to the address he had for Victor Steel’s house. Alex arrived quickly, and rode through Victor’s neighborhood as casually as he could.

Alex hadn’t actually been through this neighborhood before, and he was amazed by the grand homes. He wondered who actually lived there, and how many of the mansions were home to a single family any more.

He rolled along, doing his best to stare admiringly at each of the homes equally (which wasn’t difficult) before he reached Victor’s address. Just an average bicyclist out for a cruise through a neighborhood full of historic homes, nothing to see here.

Alex was a little surprised when he rolled past one hedge, and found himself nearly face to face with a sinister-looking, bald, goateed man. Victor Steel himself, dressed in faded jeans, chambray shirt and leather work gloves, holding an electric hedge-trimmer.

“Good morning!” Victor said, and gave Alex a cheerful wave. “Nice day for a ride, isn’t it?”

Alex didn’t quite know how to react, and nearly fell off of his bicycle. He got control of himself again and kept rolling. He hoped Victor hadn’t noticed the klutziness, and he said, “Good morning! It is. Wow, you have a gorgeous home!”

“Thank you,” Victor said, and turned back to the bush he’d been trimming.

Well, that didn’t work out exactly as I’d planned it, Alex thought as he continued riding through the neighborhood. Bumping into Victor had jangled his nerves enough that now it actually was taking effort to admire the other homes and keep ride slowly, as opposed to pedaling like mad to get out of there.

Bumping into Victor also meant he hadn’t been able to get a decent look at the house to see how he might be able to get in. He assumed, however, that Victor had gotten a good enough look at him to be able to recognize him again if he kept riding through the neighborhood on his bicycle. He was going to have to come up with a different plan.

Alex rode back to his apartment to think, and come up with a plan.

The following morning, he called in to the courier office and said he needed the day off. The night before, he’d decided that rather than try being stealthy, he’d just go and act like he had every reason to be there. If anyone bothered him, he’d play dumb.

He left his apartment at around eight o’clock in the morning, figuring that Victor would be off to work and out of the way by the time he got there. He briefly considered taking the Mustang, and then decided that a beat-up old Mustang parked in front of a mansion was a lot more likely to draw curiosity than a bicycle.

The morning was cool and crisp, perfect for a bit of reconnaissance and, perhaps, recovery.

When Alex reached Victor’s neighborhood, he slowed down again, and looked at the houses again as if he was trying to find a particular address (which he was, though he’d already found it the day before). When he got to Victor’s mansion, he just pedaled up the driveway as if he had some reason for being there besides sneaking inside and finding a spearhead that apparently didn’t actually belong to Victor.

Alex leaned his bicycle up against the side of the house, and walked towards the back of the house. There was a big garage, but it wasn’t connected to the main house. There was a privacy fence around a good part of the backyard, which enclosed the back of the house. He didn’t care to try hopping the fence if he didn’t have to, so he walked back towards the front of the house.

The neighborhood seemed quiet, and there weren’t any obvious indications that anyone was home, so when he reached the side door, he tried opening it. It was locked, however.

There was also an entrance to the cellar, but it was locked too.

Alex walked around the front of the house, and up onto the front porch. He felt extremely conspicuous. He reached out to try the front door, without much hope.

To his complete surprise, the door opened easily. Without thinking about it too much, Alex stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

Chapter Seven

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sat, 08 Nov 2014 03:57:00 +0000

For having been fired from one job, getting hired as a bicycle courier without being in shape for the job, nearly having his bike stolen, becoming associated with a string of people whose hobby seemed to be “being mysterious”, getting kidnapped and being given huge amounts of cash, all within two weeks, Alex was feeling pretty good.

In fact, he realized as he rolled up to the Bump and Grind to wait for a call from one of his dispatchers, he felt better than he had in ages. That morning he’d woken up excited to find out what was waiting for him later on.

He parked his bicycle and went inside to find Marlboro. What he found was a coffee shop full of people looking at each other uncomfortably and occasionally giving in to nervous laughter.

Marlboro was at a nearby table, doing his best to seem preoccupied with his fingernails.

“Hey Marlboro, what’s going on?” Alex said as he sat down across from him.

At that moment, there was a huge crash from the back of the coffee shop. Then another.

“God damn it, I just want to be left alone to run my coffee shop! Why do these fuckers keep turning up everywhere I go?” someone in back shouted. Alex figured that was probably the owner of the shop.

“Is she OK?” Alex asked Marlboro.

Marlboro shrugged. He said, “As far as I can tell, she is. She’d been in here taking orders and being her usual level of crazy, and then all of a sudden she went in back and started throwing shit around.”

“Wow. What set her off?” Alex said.

“I don’t know. I had been minding my own business. She’ll settle down in a minute,” Marlboro said.

There was another crash, and the sound of something metal bouncing across the floor.

“So this happens regularly?” Alex said.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it happens regularly. It’s happened a couple times before though,” Marlboro said. “She’ll lose steam in a minute and get back to normal.”

Almost on queue, there was another crash, but this one seemed half-hearted in comparison to the others. It sounded more like she’d been holding something and let it drop, as compared to sweeping it off a shelf or throwing it across the room.

“And now I have to clean all this shit up. That’s just great. I’m glad I got out of bed today. It was totally worth it,” the voice in the back room said.

There was some more nervous laughter in the coffee shop, and everyone went back to acting like they hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary had just happened.

“Any idea who the fuckers she was shouting about are?” Alex said to Marlboro.

“Well, I think she’s mad at the gods. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered. I think I told you that already. She seems to think they’ve singled her out and are messing with her,” Marlboro said.

“Any gods in particular?” Alex said.

“Well, not that I can figure. She seems to have a real problem with the Greeks, but I don’t think she’s limiting herself to that pantheon,” Marlboro said. “She’s said some rather unkind things about Thor, too. And apparently there’s a ‘skinny biker bitch’ on her list as well. And some guy named Al.”

“So she’s pretty crazy then,” Alex said.

“Well, that, or the gods really are messing with her. I’d put my money on crazy though.”

“You’ve gathered all this from her freak outs?” Alex said.

“Nah, she just seems to like talking to me, “ Marlboro said. “I must be a good listener, or something.”

Alex’s phone rang then.

“Hey, you got the first call today. Good on ya, man,” Marlboro said.

“Thanks. Catch you later,” Alex said as he stood up and walked outside to answer the call. There was some more commotion from the back of the coffee shop, but it sounded more like picking things up than throwing them around.

Alex was a little surprised that the address for his first call was Mr. Darcy’s. He wondered if that was a good thing or not.

Maybe it’s just to give me the other half of the money, Alex thought. He hoped that he hadn’t somehow screwed things up already. He wasn’t sure if he could really be blamed for getting kidnapped, but then, the people he’d made the delivery to hadn’t seemed particularly thrilled, or concerned about him, after they’d learned what had happened.

“Good morning Mr. Minor,” Megan said as he walked into the office. She smiled at him. “Mr. Darcy will see you in just a minute.”

“Good morning Megan,” Alex said. “Thanks.”

He thought for a moment, and then said, “You know, you can call me Alex. I don’t mind.”

“Thank you,” Megan said. “I prefer to continue addressing you as Mr. Minor, however.”

“Oh. OK,” Alex said. He wasn’t sure how to take that, or what it might mean in terms of his continuing employment. It didn’t seem particularly friendly, though. Oh well, that was her problem, not his.

Mr. Darcy’s door opened then, and Mr. Darcy himself appeared in the doorway. He appeared happy to see Alex.

“Mister Minor!” Mr. Darcy said. “Come in, come in.”

Alex followed him into his office. Mr. Darcy shut the door behind them, and gestured towards the chairs across from his desk.

“Have a seat,” he said, and sat in his own chair behind the desk. “Excellent job yesterday. I hope they didn’t rough you up too much. How are you feeling today?”

Alex thought for a minute about the best way to answer. On the one hand, everyone he’d encountered that was associated with Mr. Darcy had treated him very professionally, bordering on formally. At his previous jobs, he’d have assumed the correct answer to that was “Fine, thank you.”

However, this was a new situation altogether, and dramatically different from any jobs he’d had in the past. He’d been paid an incredible amount of money to deliver an envelope, from a mysterious person at a mysterious organization to another mysterious person in a business that was clearly some sort of front. If he got fired right now, he’d still have more money in the bank than he’d ever had, and he still had a job as a courier to fall back on if he had to.

What’s more, he assumed that Mr. Darcy wasn’t a big fan of bullshit. Alex figured Mr. Darcy was more likely to respect Alex for keeping quiet altogether rather than for giving a polite answer that was less than the whole truth.

So, Alex said, “I’m fucking great! I haven’t felt this good in ages.”

Mr. Darcy smiled broadly.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said. “I was somewhat worried your little adventure yesterday might have scared you off.”

Mr. Darcy opened one of the drawers in his desk, and removed an envelope. He handed it to Alex.

“This is the rest of your payment for your delivery yesterday,” he said.

“Thanks,” Alex said. He tucked the envelope into his bag.

“Well, Mr. Minor, are you ready for another assignment?” Mr. Darcy said.

“Yeah, definitely, what have you got?” Alex said, with a little more obvious enthusiasm than he’d intended to show. Oh well.

“Good,” Mr. Darcy said. “I have something a little different than your last assignment for you this time. Rather than delivering something, you’ll be recovering some property in order to return it to its rightful owner.”

“Recovering? Do you mean like repossession? You want me to steal a car back?”

Mr. Darcy smiled slightly, and said, “No, nothing as mundane as a car. And steal might be strong language. I don’t want you to steal anything, I just want you to use whatever means you see fit to take a particular item back.”

It was Alex’s turn to smile. “OK, whatever language you want to use, I get the idea. What is it that you want me to recover? And where is it?”

Mr. Darcy produced a manila folder from another drawer in his desk, and handed it to Alex.

“You’ll be recovering an artifact of significant historical importance, as well as sentimental value to its owner. It was taken quite some time ago, and came to light by a mere coincidence. All the same, now that its location has come to light, we need to act to recover it before it’s moved again,” he said.

Mr. Darcy continued, “The artifact itself is the head of a spear. Its exact age is something of a secret, but suffice it to say, it is very, very old and you should take the very greatest care with it. All of the relevant information that you need is here in this folder. Images of the artifact, information about where it was last seen, and the challenges you’re likely to face in recovering it.”

Alex said, mainly to himself, “I never thought I’d be involved with recovering antiquities.”

To Mr. Darcy he said, “Is this assignment dangerous?”

“Inherently so,” Mr. Darcy said. “You will need to keep your wits about you, Mr. Minor. The person currently in possession of this artifact would very much like to stay in possession of it, and won’t be happy to see it go.”

“So they won’t be as friendly as the folks I dealt with yesterday, then?” Alex said.

“If they catch you, I should think they’ll be significantly less happy to see you, and much less friendly than the people who made your acquaintance yesterday,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Is this legal?” Alex said.

“Well, taking back your property is certainly legal. Of course, some of the things you might have to do in order to get to that point might not be, strictly speaking, legal. But if you can find a way to recover the artifact without trespassing, or breaking and entering, or speeding for that matter, well, I’d think it’s perfectly legal,” Mr. Darcy said.

“This sounds extremely risky to me, then. I’m not eager to go to jail for stealing a souvenir for someone else. How much will I be getting paid for recovering this artifact?” Alex said.

“Recovering, Mr. Minor, recovering. Your fee is fifty thousand dollars, and you’ll be reimbursed for any expenses you may incur. I do have to ask that you please keep your receipts, though,” Mr. Darcy said. “Will that be sufficient?”

Alex couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. It took him a moment to remember how to speak. Fifty thousand dollars?

“Who on Earth is the client that’s willing to pay that much, plus whatever you’re taking on top of it?” Alex said.

“Someone who very much wants his spearhead back,” Mr. Darcy said. “Do you accept the assignment?”

It took Alex all of two seconds to reply.

“Hell yes!” Alex said.

Chapter Six

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 02:55:00 +0000

The morning following Alex’s introduction to Mr. Darcy, he woke up and immediately wondered if he should even bother leaving the house. Riding his bike today was going to be a miserable, miserable time.

The night before, he’d put his new saddle on his old bike, and replaced the inner tube that had burst. He wasn’t inclined to bring his new bike to work again after the events of the previous afternoon.

He dressed, in a plain t-shirt and a comfortable pair of shorts, ate, and rolled his freshly shined up old bicycle out of his apartment. Outside, he swung a leg over and settled in on the saddle.

Wow, did that hurt.

He’d anticipated that he’d be moving slowly, so he’d left early. As such, he arrived at the Bump and Grind at about the same time as he’d arrived yesterday. Alex recognized a few of the faces outside, but no one paid him any mind. He went inside, and found Marlboro.

“Hey, you came back!” Marlboro said, with a wide smile. “And you’re not dressed like a bike weenie. I guess you liked the work yesterday. Didn’t I tell you? This job rocks! How did your first day go?”

“It was good. Pretty brutal, though. I’m hurting today, I wanted to take a day off already,” Alex said.

“Well, don’t worry about it. You’ll get into shape fast, I promise,” Marlboro said.

Alex didn’t doubt that. Depending on how long he had to keep working as a courier, he expected he was going to get into better shape than he’d been in for a long time. Which was going to be great, except for all the pain and discomfort between right then and when he was finally in killer shape again.

Marlboro’s phone rang then.

“Whoops, sounds like it’s time to ride. See you tomorrow Alex. Don’t work too hard today,” he said.

“Right, same to you. See ya,” Alex said.

Alex’s phone rang a few minutes later. He rode slowly to the first pick up. By the time he reached the address for the second pickup he was feeling pretty good again, and riding at his regular pace. The morning temperature was about sixty five degrees, and it felt great to be out riding in it.

He recognized the address for his third pick up immediately. It was Mr. Darcy’s office.

When he walked in to the office, Megan smiled at him and said, “Good morning, Mr. Minor. The address where this needs to be delivered is on the envelope.”

She handed him a large envelope. It wasn’t particularly heavy. She also handed him a smaller, letter sized envelope. It was fairly thick.

“And this is half of your payment for the delivery. You’ll get the other half after you’ve successfully delivered this message,” she said.

Alex’s curiosity got the best of him, and he peeked in the smaller envelope. It was contained a stack of hundred dollar bills. There had to be at least two thousand dollars there.

“This seems like a lot for making a delivery,” Alex remarked.

“Well, understand that it absolutely, positively, has to arrive as soon as possible,” Megan said. “You should really get moving now.”

“OK, you’ve got it,” Alex said. He stuffed the two envelopes into his bag, and pulled up the address it needed to get to on his phone. It looked like an easy enough delivery, the address was only a couple of miles away.

Well, there’s nothing wrong with a little easy money now and then, Alex thought.

He started riding and wondered what it was that he was delivering. It had to be something pretty interesting if someone was willing to pay that much to have it delivered by hand. Then he thought about Mr. Darcy’s reaction when he’d asked about what was in the envelope he’d delivered the night before, the fact that one of Mr. Darcy’s employee’s had apparently been keeping an eye on him the day before, and the troubling matter that he had witnessed in the bicycle shop. He did his best to put it out of his mind and just focus on making the delivering.

Alex was lost in thought about what kind of a delivery he was really making, and therefore was caught entirely by surprised when a dark blue BMW suddenly lurched forward out an alleyway he hadn’t noticed. It stopped directly in front of him.

He hadn’t even had time to react beyond muttering, “Oh shit,” when he slammed into the side of the car. He’d been moving fast enough that he ended up laying on the hood of the car, dazed. Before he could even react, he’d been grabbed and stuffed into the back of the BMW. Someone wearing a ski mask pulled a bag over Alex’s head, while someone else handcuffed him tightly.

“Don’t resist and you’ll be fine,” someone said to him. Whoever it was sounded bored.

After that, they rode in silence. Alex sat and listened intently for something, anything, that might indicate who he was with or where they were taking him. Not one of the other people in the car so much as cleared their throat while they drove.

Alex did his best to relax. He thought he’d read that kidnappers that do their best to avoid being identified were the least likely to kill you. He hoped that was the truth. And at this point, it didn’t really matter. He was handcuffed, unable to see, and surrounded, it was going to be impossible to get away. At least until they stopped, or gave him some more space.

After some time, they arrived at whatever their destination was. Alex was pulled from the car, and led into a building. Their footsteps echoed, so where ever they were, it was fairly big. And empty.

He heard a key in a lock, and a door opening. The hinges creaked loudly.

Someone led him through the door. They stopped again after a few steps.

“Wait here. Don’t give us any trouble. You’ll be on your way again soon,” someone said to him.

He heard a couple of footsteps, and the door being latched shut and locked. The bag over his head didn’t block out all of the light, so he noticed that the room had gotten pitch black the moment the door was shut.

A couple of seconds later, he heard a click and the room lit up again. Someone had apparently turned a light on for him.

Or it’s so they can keep an eye on me, he thought.

His hands had been cuffed in front of him, so he reached up and pulled off the bag covering his head. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the light again.

He looked around, and found himself in what looked to be a storage room. The walls were bare, red brick. The light was just a bulb on the ceiling, protected by a cage. The floor was concrete, and there was no furniture in the room with him. The door looked like it was made of steel.

Well, I guess this probably explains why they were willing to pay me so much to deliver an envelope, he thought. I wonder how long they’re going to keep me in here, and if I’m going to find out what they want.

He realized then, without much surprise, that his bag was gone.

Well, there went my big payday, Alex thought. He decided one of the first things he was going to do, when this was over, was invest in a money belt.

At least an hour passed. His wrists and hands ached from being cuffed. He heard footsteps outside the door, then a key in the lock. The door cracked open slightly, not enough for him to see who was on the other side.

The same bored voice from the car said, “The key for the handcuffs is in your bag. You can leave whenever you like.”

The person who was at the door shut it again for a moment, and the lights went out in the room, plunging Alex back into darkness. A couple of moments later and the door opened, and Alex saw the silhouette of his bag being thrown into the room. It landed just a few steps from him. Then the door was slammed shut again, and he was in the dark once more.

“Hey, come on! How am I supposed to find the key in the dark?” Alex shouted at the door. There was no reply.

He noticed, however, that there also had been no indication that the door was locked again. He walked towards where he thought the door was, and realized he had misjudged the distance when he walked into the walk. He felt along the wall until he came across the door. A little more fumbling and he found the doorknob, and turned it.

The door opened easily, letting light back into the room. Alex stepped through the door, still handcuffed, and looked around.

It looked to him like he was in an old, abandoned warehouse. There was no sign of the people who had kidnapped him. His bicycle was leaning against the far wall, though. From where he stood, it didn’t look too much worse for wear.

He turned back to the room he’d been in, and noticed the light switch next to the door. He flipped it on, and was relieved to see the light come on in the room he’d been in.

Minutes later, he’d freed himself from the cuffs, and took stock of what was in his bag.

To his surprised, everything was still in there. The envelope with his money, and the envelope he was supposed to deliver.

“Well, what the fuck was that about then?” Alex wondered aloud.

He wasn’t sure if he should still make the delivery. What if he was followed? What if the recipient thought that he was making it up and trying to pull a scam?

Alex debated calling Mr. Darcy before realizing there were two problems with that. One was that he didn’t actually have a phone number for Mr. Darcy, or Megan. And the other was that Mr. Darcy apparently paid people to keep his existence a secret. What if the kidnappers were trying to smoke out Mr. Darcy?

He decided the best thing to do was to make the delivery, and tell the recipient what had happened. He checked over his bicycle, discovered it was pretty much fine except for a couple of new scratches, and started riding to finish the delivery.

When he arrived at the address on the envelope, he discovered it was a very modern looking storefront. “MidCentMod – New and Consignment Furniture” was the name painted on the window. He walked inside, and was greeted by a salesperson.

“Hi there, what can I do for you?” he said. He was all smiles.

“I have a delivery for Ms. Smith,” Alex said.

“Oh, great, I can take that for you. Do I need to sign anything?”

“No, uh, something strange happened while I was on my way here though,” Alex said.

The salesperson’s face fell. “What kind of strange?”

“Well, some guys grabbed me and locked me in a room for an hour or so, then cut me loose with no explanation,” Alex said.

The salesperson looked completely serious now.

“Hang on. I’m going to go get Ms. Smith. Stay right there,” he said.

Alex had expected to be kept waiting, but the salesman and a woman he assumed was Ms. Smith came out of the back room mere moments later.

“I understand you were kidnapped on your way here,” Ms. Smith said. She had dark hair, cut short, and was wearing a tailored grey wool jacket and skirt, along with tall, black boots. “Let me see the envelope, please.”

“Of course,” Alex said. He pulled the envelope out of his back and handed it over to Ms. Smith.

She took it, and flipped it over. She took a quick glance at the sealed flap.

“It’s been tampered with,” she said. To the salesman, she said, “Get our friend on the phone please.”

To Alex she said, “Thank you for telling us about your misadventure on the way here. I hope you weren’t too terribly inconvenienced.”

Then she walked away.

“What the hell?” Alex muttered to himself. He wondered if all of his assignments from Mr. Darcy would be like this.

Chapter Five

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 03:01:00 +0000

Alex sat quietly and thought about Mr. Darcy’s offer for several minutes. The rational part of him screamed that now would be an excellent time to get out of a strange situation before things went from mildly uncomfortable to really, spectacularly bad. The rest of him wanted to know what, exactly, a “troubleshooter” did.

It sounded like it was right up his alley.

He had questions for Mr. Darcy, though. Alex cleared his through, and shifted in his chair. Mr. Darcy, who had waited patiently as Alex thought, looked at him expectantly.

“I have some questions,” Alex said.

“Of course you do. And I may have answers for you. Ask,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Is the work dangerous?” Alex said.

“Of course. Extremely,” Mr. Darcy said.

A small part of Alex became very excited at that answer.

“Will I have to hurt people? I gave my service in the military, and I’m not interested in more violence,” Alex said.

“I won’t order you to hurt anyone, if that’s what you mean. There’s always the possibility that you’ll have to defend yourself, but that will be up to you,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex sat quietly and thought some more. He was OK with danger. He was OK with defending himself.

“What is it that you do, exactly?” Alex said.

Mr. Darcy smiled slightly. “I solve problems, Mr. Minor. My organization solves the problems no one else can, or care to, solve. For a fee.”

“How big is this organization?” Alex said. “I can tell you’re not doing too badly from your office, but all I’ve seen so far are you and Megan.”

“And we’re the only ones you’re likely to see, for now. How big is my organization? We are everywhere, Mr. Minor. I told you I have a small army whose sole purpose is to make sure no knows about me. They aren’t the only people on my payroll.”

“OK, how many other people like me do you have working for you, then?” Alex said.

“If you agree to work with me, five. Perhaps you’ll meet the others, again, that depends on you. But that won’t be for a while. And, honestly, I’m looking for people who can work alone,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Are you always this mysterious?”

Mr. Darcy smiled once more, and said “Yes.”

Alex laughed, despite himself.

“OK, so what happens if after I’ve started working for you, I decide I don’t want to work for you anymore? I’m not interested in being a slave to some mysterious organization that gives me the option to either continue working for them or be killed, or imprisoned, or something else that’s less pleasant than a cheap cake and a half-hearted going away party,” Alex said.

“I don’t think you’re actually worried about that, Mr. Minor. And in any case, I don’t think you need to be worried about it, from what I’ve seen, you were made for this job. You won’t be bored, I assure you. And I doubt you’ll find better compensation elsewhere. You will be have a very comfortable lifestyle working with us. But, if you decide that you no longer want to work with us anymore, then I’ll simply ask you to keep your mouth shut about us, and wish you the best in your next endeavor,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex thought about this. He wondered if it was the truth. He wondered if he’d make it out of the office and back home alive if he turned down Mr. Darcy’s job offer.

And he wondered if he’d be blowing it entirely if he walked away. This gig sounded like he was being recruited to be the hero in an action TV show from the 1980s. Who didn’t want to grow up to be MacGyver?

Alex came to a decision then. He still wasn’t sure what exactly he’d gotten himself into this time, but since he was apparently already waist deep in whatever it was, he might as well dive in the rest of the way and find out.

“When do I start?” he said.

Mr. Darcy smiled widely, and said, “You already have.”

He stood and reached across the desk to shake Alex’s hand.

“I’ve taken the liberty of having your bicycle loaded into a car. The driver will bring you home tonight, you must be exhausted after today. Go ahead and continue working at Godspeed Messengers. I’ll be in touch when I have a project for you,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex stood up, and was reminded once again of how incredibly sore he was. His entire body hurt. He really had no idea how he was going to get back on a bicycle and ride more the next day.

Something occurred to him, then.

“Say, Mr. Darcy, what’s in the envelope I delivered for you today?” Alex said.

Mr. Darcy smiled widely, and said, “That is none of your business. Have a good evening, Mr. Minor.”

When Alex walked back into the front office, there was a driver in a black suit, complete with a chauffeur’s hat waiting for him.

“The car is ready for you,” the chauffeur said.

“Have a good evening, Mr. Minor,” Megan said.

“Good night,” Alex said.

Apparently, between his arrival and his departure, the elevator had been repaired.

Thank god, Alex thought.

The driver led him to a black towncar, with dark tinted windows. It looked like the sort of car you’d see dropping executives off at the airport.

“Your bicycle is in the trunk,” the driver said, anticipating Alex’s immediate question.

“Big trunk,” Alex commented.

“You wouldn’t believe,” the driver said. He opened a door for Alex.

Alex climbed into the back of the car. It had an all-leather interior, done in a cream color. Once again, he felt out of place in his sweaty spandex. The driver, however, gave no indication that anything was amiss.

The driver shut the door, and moments later was behind the wheel and they were rolling.

When they were about halfway to Alex’s apartment, something occurred to him.

“Hey, do you mind stopping at my bicycle shop? I need to pick up a couple more inner tubes,” Alex said. And a better saddle while I’m at it, he thought.

The driver nodded, and said, “You’ve got it.”

Alex realized he must have dozed off when, seemingly seconds later, he woke up to the sound of the driver clearing his throat. Apparently they’d reached the bicycle stop, and the driver had already opened the door for Alex.

“Oh, wow, we’re here? Thanks,” Alex said. He climbed out of the back of the car, suppressing a groan, and hobbled in to the bicycle shop. The driver followed him.

Todd spotted Alex immediately. A brief look of worry crossed his face before he smiled his widest salesman smile and came over to greet Alex.

He thinks I’m going to return the bike, Alex thought.

“Hey, how did that new Trek treat you today? It’s a pretty sweet bike, isn’t it?” Todd said.

“Yeah, it’s great. So I came in to get a good, all-day saddle, and a couple more inner tubes,” Alex said.

“Sure thing, I can hook you up. Have you ever had a Brooks saddle? I’ve got a few in stock. Long-distance riders love them, and…”

Alex interrupted him. “It sounds great. I’m sold. I just want to get the saddle and get back home to relax, if you don’t mind.”

Todd’s face fell for a second, but he perked right back up again. “Sure, I bet you’re exhausted. How much riding did you do today?”

“A lot,” Alex said. The exhaustion and odd events of the day were starting to sink in, and he suddenly really didn’t want to talk any more than he had to.

“Cool, cool. I still think you’re living the dream,” Todd said. He kept chattering, but Alex stopped paying attention.

He had followed Todd towards the counter to buy his saddle and inner tubes, and was still lost in thought and exhaustion when he became dimly aware of some kind of ruckus going on a few feet away at one of the other registers.

Another customer was awfully upset with one of the clerks, or so it seemed to Alex. Then he realized that the customer was wearing a hoodie, with the hood up, a hat and huge sunglasses. Oh, and he was holding a gun at eye-level with both hands, pointed at the clerk.

“Hurry up!” the robber shouted.

It occurred to Alex that he ought to do something, and had started to move towards the man with the gun when he saw the driver produce what looked like a black tube, about twelve inches long, from inside his jacket. With a flick of his wrist, it extended into a metal baton.

Almost before Alex could even process what he was seeing, the driver had swung the baton and driven it under the robber’s gun and into his stomach. The robber doubled over, bringing his hands to his stomach. With amazing speed, the driver had already brought the baton back up, and swung it down across the robber’s shoulders.

The robber fell to the floor with a groan. The driver plucked the gun away from him, and handed it to the stunned clerk.

“Looks like you’re a hero,” he said calmly to the clerk. He collapsed the baton again, and tucked it back inside his jacket. He seemed entirely unruffled by the entire experience.

“Ready whenever you are,” he said to Alex.

Todd handed a bag with the saddle and inner tubes to Alex.

“Here you go, man. On the house. Have a good night,” Todd said.

Well, Todd isn’t going to be getting any sleep tonight, Alex thought.

As they were driving back to Alex’s house, curiosity got the better of him, and he had to ask the driver about what had happened at the bicycle shop.

“That was pretty amazing back there in the bicycle shop,” Alex said.

The driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, and said, “I’m sorry, what was amazing?”

“You, and how you handled that situation with the robber,” Alex said. “Are you working for Mr. Darcy too?”

“Working for who? Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re talking about at all. I just drive,” the driver said.

There was something subtle in the way he said it that made it clear to Alex that it would be best if he didn’t ask the driver any more questions about himself. He didn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive.

When they arrived at Alex’s apartment, the driver let him out of the car, then removed his bicycle from the trunk. Alex was able to get a brief look in the trunk, and couldn’t believe how huge it was. He wondered how they were able to disguise a space that big.

“Wow, that really is some trunk,” Alex said.

The driver looked at him with a perfect poker face. “I told you, you wouldn’t believe. Have a good night, Mr. Minor.”

Chapter Four

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 02:25:00 +0000

The woman in the front office had introduced herself as Megan, and told Alex that Mr. Darcy was on a phone call and would be with him in a moment. In the meantime, he could have a seat.

Alex felt a tiny twinge of concern about sitting on someone’s leather furniture after spending the entire day sweating more than he’d sweat in years, but got over it pretty quickly when he noticed, again, how badly his legs hurt.

And his butt. As he sank into the chair, he had to suppress a groan. Apparently his bicycle seat muscles were not in particularly great shape. And as he relaxed into the plush, inviting, chair, he noticed all the other places where he hurt.

How am I supposed to get up and do this again tomorrow? I can spend an hour stretching when I get home and I’m still not going to be able to hobble my ass outside and get on a bike again, Alex thought.

Speaking of his bike, he wondered where exactly he’d left it after he got here. He couldn’t remember what he’d done with it, and he didn’t have a lock for it anymore. He half-suspected that he’d rolled it into the lobby downstairs, and hoped fervently that he had.

Wow, I can’t believe this, Alex thought. Who’d have thought this job would be so exhausted I’d forget where I’d left my bike.

Maybe that was part of the reason Frank had told him to get a bike he wouldn’t mind having stolen. Then he wondered if many other couriers misplaced their bikes on their first day.

He woke up with a start, again, when Megan said, “Mr. Darcy is ready to see you know.”

Alex popped up out of his chair, and immediately regretted moving so quickly. Everything still hurt, maybe even a little more than it had before he’d stopped moving. He wondered again how he was going to get himself home.

“Great! Thanks,” Alex said. He picked up his bag, and knew exactly which muscles he’d used doing it.

Megan gestured towards the door to Mr. Darcy’s office and said, “He’s just through there.”

Alex opened the door and walked through. He barely got inside before stopping again to take it all in. Like the lobby, it was all dark wood, with comfortable looking leather furniture. There was an antique, ornate floor globe in one corner of the office, and bookshelves lined the walls.

He was still looking around when he became aware that someone had shut the door behind him. He assumed it was Megan.

Mr. Darcy sat behind an imposing desk. There was a black leather pad on the desk, a lamp, and a pen set. Otherwise, the desk was empty. Mr. Darcy himself wore a charcoal grey suit. He looked like he was probably in his mid-fifties. He was balding, but his remaining hair was dark and combed back. He had a neatly trimmed beard.

And he was looking at Alex with great interest.

“Hello Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Hello,” Alex said, and walked the rest of the way into the office. He’d started to hand Mr. Darcy the envelope he’d come to deliver when he realized he hadn’t yet told anyone here his name.

“Wait a minute. How do you know my name?” Alex said.

Mr. Darcy calmly leaned forward and plucked the envelope out of Alex’s half-extended hand, and set it down to one side on his desk.

“Trivial details, Mr. Minor,“ Mr. Darcy said. “I know a great deal about you. Everything I need to know, really. Tell me, how have you enjoyed your first day as a bicycle courier?”

Alex was suddenly very concerned about the situation he was in. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected that people in mysterious offices who know his name and claim to know everything they need to about him were probably bad for his health. Or his finances.

“It’s been fine. What, exactly, do you know about me?” Alex said. “And why?”

Mr. Darcy sat back in his chair and smiled slightly, amused. He gestured towards the chairs in front of his desk, and said, “Please have a seat and relax, Mr. Minor. I don’t have any nefarious intentions for you.”

Alex sat down, but did not feel particularly relaxed yet. He had a strong suspicion that he was being set up. Or about to find himself embroiled in some kind of government investigation. Or something else that he’d have to hire a lawyer for.

Mr. Darcy opened one of the drawers in his desk, and reached in. Alex expected him to produce a folder of some sort, but instead he brought out a bottle of Fuji water and set it down in front of Alex.

“Have some water, you must be thirsty,” Mr. Darcy said. “Let me just recap the highlights of what I know about you, to put your mind at ease. I know that you’re ex-military, and you were honorably discharged. You’ve had several jobs since leaving the service, and you’ve been fired from all of them, primarily for sleeping on the job, or otherwise behaving like you weren’t interested in being there. You bought a brand-new, expensive, bicycle after getting hired as a messenger. You’ve done 20 deliveries today, including this one, which means you’ve earned $50 today.”

He continued, “I also know that you chased down a thief who tried to steal your new bicycle, and caught him. Impressive even if you hadn’t been on foot. And it’s interesting that once you’d recovered your bicycle, you lost all interest in bringing the thief to justice, instead getting immediately back to the task at hand – delivering this envelope.”

Mr. Darcy picked up the envelope Alex had delivered, briefly, before setting it back down on the desk again.

Alex’s mouth had gone dry. How could this Mr. Darcy guy know so much about him? He took the bottle of water Mr. Darcy had offered, and took two big swallows before closing the bottle again and setting it back on Mr. Darcy’s desk.

“Have you been following me?” Alex asked. “Why? How did I even get on your radar. I’ve never heard of you before.”

“Of course you haven’t heard of me. I pay a small army of people to make sure that no one has heard of me. And I haven’t been having you followed, although I did have someone watching you from when you arrived to pick up my delivery until you got here.”

Alex interrupted, “So you knew I’d be making this delivery? Did the bike thief work for you?”

Mr. Darcy laughed. “No, that was just some guy who saw an awfully nice bicycle locked to a lamp post. I have to say, however, you handled it admirably.”

“Anyway,” Mr. Darcy said, “You came to my attention because I also have a great many associates watching for people with… certain characteristics. Usually they’ll turn out to be hopeless cases, completely useless to me. They turn out to be stupid, lazy, undependable, cowardly, or otherwise undesirable. But a very, very few are people like you. People who aren’t cut out for ordinary jobs. People who need a lot of excitement. People with guts. Risk takers. People who will follow through on what they’ve started no matter what.”

He continued, “One of your superiors in the Army is an associate of mine. He first told me about you, and so I paid attention to what you’ve been up to. The recruiter at Sanderson Staffing is associate of mine too. He let me know about your boredom with traditional work.”

“OK,” Alex said. “So why are you looking for people with ‘certain characteristics’?”

“Well, so I can hire them, of course,” Mr. Darcy said, and smiled.

Alex’s mind spun. He wondered if this was all a set up. Marlboro was screwing with him, any second a camera crew was going to pop out and Ashton Kutcher was going to say something stupid at him.

“You want to give me a job?” Alex said.

“Yes,” Mr. Darcy said. “I need people who can cope with high pressure and unusual circumstances, who thrive on adrenaline. But I need my thrill junkies to get the job done too. Originally, I just wanted to get you in here to size you up a bit before sending you on your way again. But then someone tried to steal your bike, and from the way you handled that situation, I know everything I need to for now.”

“So, Mr. Minor, would you like to come work for me?”

Alex sat quietly for a moment, thinking about what Mr. Darcy had just told him. On the one hand, it seemed way too good to be true. On the other hand, it still seemed too good to be true.

“What, exactly, are you hiring me to do?” Alex said.

Mr. Darcy smiled again. “Let’s call it troubleshooting, or perhaps problem-solving. I’ll give you the details for a problem, and it’ll be up to you to solve that problem. And, of course, there will be the occasional odd job. Deliveries, things along those lines. You will, of course, be paid well for your services. Unless you’d rather keep earning $50 a day, sweating in traffic dressed like a bike weenie.”

“Solving problems? Odd jobs? Is this some kind of crime syndicate?” Alex asked. He’d been worried he was just going to be blackmailed, but suddenly he was nervous that things might be even worse than that.

“No, Mr. Minor, nothing like that. I assure you, we are the good guys,” Mr. Darcy said.

“So you’re some kind of government organization? Intelligence, or something?” Alex said.

“No, it’s strictly private enterprise. I thought I’d made it clear that we are the good guys, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said. “You won’t have to do anything that goes against your moral code, I assure you.”

Mr. Darcy sat back in his chair, and steepled his fingers.

“Are you interested, Mr. Minor?”

Chapter Three

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 02:19:00 +0000

The night before Alex’s first day as a bicycle courier, Marlboro had called and told him about the coffee shop where the other couriers all gathered in the morning to wait for their first tags for the day.

“Tags?” Alex asked.

“Drops. You know, the first orders,” Marlboro said. “Anyway, the place is a dump, but there’s coffee and other couriers to chat with. Oh, and the wannabe couriers who have a fixed-gear bike and nothing better to do than hang out and idolize deliverymen.”

The following morning, Alex arrived at the Bump and Grind on his shiny new Trek just before eight o’clock. There was already a tangle of bicycles outside, and a variety of people hanging out near them wearing cargo shorts, t-shirts, and huge bags slung across their back. Most of them had a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

He suddenly felt very conspicuous in his coordinated spandex shorts and shirt, but no one seemed to notice him. He didn’t see Marlboro anywhere outside, so he went inside to at least get some coffee, and maybe find Marlboro in there.

Marlboro hadn’t been lying. The place was a dump. There were a couple of couches that had seen much better days, battered tables that had probably been looking rough twenty years earlier, and the walls were covered with graffiti scrawled in pen and marker.

“What the hell are you wearing?” someone said from a nearby table.

Alex looked over and saw Marlboro grinning at him. He was sitting with two other people, who also looked amused.

“I wasn’t sure what to wear, so I made my best guess,” Alex said.

“Cool, whatever. It doesn’t matter, you just look like a bike weenie. Go get some coffee and come hang out with us,” Marlboro said. “Oh, the owner is working the counter today. Sorry. Don’t make any sudden moves.”

Alex wondered what the hell that was supposed to me as he walked up to the counter to order some coffee.

The woman behind the counter was blonde, and was probably pretty when she didn’t look utterly exhausted. At the moment, Alex would have guessed she’d last slept a week ago. Her nametag said, “Tamara.”

Alex smiled and said “Good morning!” to her when he got up to the counter.

Tamara looked him over from head to toe, then went back to whatever it was she was doing.

“Yeah? What can I get you?” she said. No smile.

“Just a drip coffee, I guess,” Alex said. He wondered how, exactly, she’d managed to build an apparently thriving business with that charming personality. If he had to guess, he’d assume this place had already been a popular hangout with the couriers, and they just hadn’t bothered to find a new place when the new owner moved in.

“Drip, right. Anything else?” she said.

“No, that’s it,” Alex said. He paid for his coffee, and brought it back over to the table where Marlboro had been.

Marlboro was still there, but the two others that had been sitting with him had left.

“Where’d your friends go?” Alex said.

“They both got their first dispatches for the day, so they’re off,” Marlboro said.

“Cool. So what’s the deal with the owner here?” Alex said.

Marlboro cracked a grin and said, “She’s just a real charmer isn’t she? As far as I can tell, she’s just nuts. Paranoid. She’s got some crazy stories if you get her talking, but if I were you I’d make it a point not to talk to her about religion. She seems to think the gods have a direct, personal interest in screwing with her. Of course, what do I know? Maybe they do.”

“What’s she doing running a coffee shop?” Alex said.

“She’s run a few, believe it or not. She seems to move around a lot. Her last coffee shop was in Wisconsin, I think.” Marlboro said.

“How do you know all this about her?” Alex said.

“I hang out here a lot. I dunno, I must look trustworthy. Or willing to listen,” Marlboro said.

Marlboro’s phone rang. He looked at the display, and said, “That’s me. Good luck out there today, man.”

He got up and left. Alex stayed put, and worked on finishing his coffee. One by one the crowd at the Bump and Grind dwindled as the other couriers got their first calls for the day.

Alex was starting to worry that he wasn’t going to get a call. He wondered if maybe he’d somehow given them the wrong phone number, or if they just weren’t going to have actually have any work for him. He thought, briefly, about the incredibly expensive bicycle he’d bought on credit, and how he was going to need to pay for it somehow eventually. He hoped he wasn’t going to have to start looking for another job.

He’d been done with his coffee for probably ten minutes, and was thinking he was going to have to go order another one before the owner threw him out for loitering when his phone finally rang.

“Alex?” said the voice on the phone.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Alex said. He worried, briefly, that it was going to be a telemarketer.

“This is Mary with Godspeed Messenger service. Ready for your first drop?”

Relief washed over Alex. He wasn’t going to have to start looking for a new job, yet.

“I sure am. Where am I going?”

Mary gave him the details, and Alex hustled outside to where his bike was locked up. He looked up the address on his phone, commited the nearest cross streets to memory, and started riding.

Ten minutes later he arrived outside the office building that Great American Holding Company was in. He scouted around for a few minutes looking for a place to lock his bike up before giving up and locking it to a street light. Alex hustled inside. He found the building directory and took the elevator to the fifteenth floor.

Great American Holding Company had a surprisingly modern looking lobby. Alex had been expecting a stuffy room with classic, conservative looking furniture. Instead it looked like a room Ikea’s designers would be inspired by.

Alex noticed the receptionist was looking at him and trying her best to contain her amusement.

“Good morning, I’m with Godspeed Messenger service,” Alex said. “What have you got for me?”

“First day?” the receptionist said, with a raised eyebrow.

Alex smiled and said, “Is it that obvious?”

“Well, most of the seasoned couriers don’t dress like bike weenies, is all,” she said. “Anyway, here’s what I have for you.”

She handed him a cardboard box that was bound with webbing straps. It must have weighed close to fifteen pounds.

Alex stuffed it in his bag, and commented, “Wow, heavy, what’s in here?”

“The stuff you’re delivering. Good luck out there today,” the receptionist said, and turned back to her computer.

As Alex rode to the next office, he started to feel pretty good. This was way better than working in an office. He was getting some exercise, it was a nice day, and he was getting to talk to people (even if they all insisted on commenting on his clothes). He could handle this job. Heck, he liked it so far.

That afternoon, close to three o’clock, he’d spent the better part of the day on his bicycle, running up and down stairs, trying to find the right offices and was feeling pretty exhausted, frustrated, and sore.

He was at Diversified Amalgamated Industries, Ltd., trying to make a pick up. The receptionist had told him to take the elevator down to B2 and find the message desk in the mailroom. He’d managed to find the mail room, but had no idea where the message desk was supposed to be. He could hear people hustling around nearby, but didn’t see anyone.

He wandered deeper into the mail room, looking for a sign, or a person who could point him to the right place. After several minutes, he spotted someone hustling by with a cart full of envelopes.

“Hi there, excuse me, where’s the message desk at?” Alex said.

The man he’d stopped looked like he’d been working in the mail room for a long, long time. Grey shirt, grey pants, grey shoes, grey skin. He looked mildly annoyed that Alex was bothering him.

“First day on the job? Come on, I’ll show you,” the grey man said.

He led Alex through a maze of shelving to a remote corner, where there was a dimly lit desk with various envelopes and boxes stacked on top of it.

“Ring the bell, someone will come by to give you whatever it is you’re picking up,” he said, and left Alex there.

There was a black and steel service bell sitting in the middle of the desk. Alex tapped it twice, and stood back. A few minutes later, another annoyed looking employee came out of nowhere.

“Sorry, to leave you hanging. I was on break. New guy, eh? Godspeed Courier?” he said.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “How can you tell I’m new?”

“Well, I noticed you needed help finding the desk, and you’re dressed like a bike weenie.”

“Oh,” Alex said.

The employee handed Alex a manila envelope, and said, “Here you go. You need help finding your way out again?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Alex said.

It turned out he really could have used a hand getting back to the elevator. It took him another five or ten minutes, but he did manage to locate the elevator again and get on his way.

He came out of the building, back on to the sidewalk, just in time to see some guy in jeans and a hoodie climbing onto his bike and starting to ride it away. The lock was laying open on the ground underneath his bicycle.

“Hey!” Alex shouted, and started to run after the bicycle theif.

The thief turned to look back, briefly, and then turned to flee on Alex’s bike. Alex wasn’t about to let his brand new bike, that he was going to have to pay for whether it was stolen or not, get away that easily.

He ran after the rider, who had stood up on the pedals and was straining hard to get the bike moving quickly. Alex, meanwhile, was doing his best to run in shoes that were designed to clip onto the special, high-tech pedals he’d paid so much for. They were rigid, and hard to simply walk in, much less run.

Alex wondered if he’d have better luck if he kicked his shoes off, but he didn’t dare risk giving the thief a bigger head start.

Instead, he hoped he wouldn’t wreck his the clips on the bottom of his expensive new shoes, or sprain an ankle trying to run in ridiculously off-balance shoes, and started to sprint after the thief.

It occurred to Alex that he really should have paid attention to Frank’s advice about getting a bicycle he didn’t mind having stolen. On the other hand, he wasn’t expecting his bike to get stolen on his very first day on the job.

He winced at every clack his shoes made as he ran after the guy stealing his bike. His ankles were starting to burn, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to run for much longer. He pushed harder, giving it his all to catch up to his bike.

The thief was standing on the pedals, and doing his best to get the bike moving faster. He probably would have gotten away, too, if Alex hadn’t sprung for clipless pedals that required special shoes to ride. As it was, he fumbled around and it was all he could do just to keep his feet on the pedals.

Alex got closer, closer. His lungs were burning, his ankles were screaming at him for running on shoes that, apparently, had Weebles attached to the soles under the balls of his feet. He gave a last, massive effort, and was able to reach out and grab the thief’s hoodie, dragging him to a stop.

“Get off my bike, motherfucker!” Alex shouted as he pulled at the thief.

The thief, who wasn’t interested in getting arrested for theft, or getting beat up by some sweaty guy dressed up like a Power Ranger, let go of Alex’s bike, clambered off, shook himself free of Alex’s grip, and started to run. Alex’s bike, unattended, fell to the sidewalk.

“God damn it!” Alex shouted, and hurriedly picked it up and started checking it over for damage. The thief, meanwhile, ducked down an alley and kept running. Alex had already forgotten about him.

His bike was, mercifully, undamaged apart from a couple of scratches on the handlebars from where it had fallen.

Alex took a moment to collect himself, and remember what he was doing, before he got back on his bike. He remembered that he had an envelope in his bag that he needed to deliver. He hoped it wouldn’t be a terribly long ride. He checked the address, and then his current location.

He had to ride another three miles to deliver the envelope. He was very aware of how tired and sore he was.

OK, I can do this, he thought. No problem. Three miles. That’s a walk in the park.

It took him a good, long while to ride those last three miles. He found the building he was delivering too without too much trouble. It was an older brick building. The tiles in the entryway were arranged in an ornate design, with “1920” in the center of an oval.

Alex double-checked the address, and noted that the office he was looking for was on the third floor.

He then noticed that the elevator, which had ornate glass and brass doors, had a discrete, ornate sign hanging on a velvet rope hung between the sides of the door frame, which read, “Out of Order.”

Alex took a deep breath, found the staircase, and started climbing.

The hallway on the third floor looked like something out of an old detective move. Frosted glass, wood framed doors and hand-painted lettering on the glass in each entryway.

Alex found number 310. Unlike the other doors in the hall, this one had no company name painted on, just the number. He opened the door and walked inside.

The office was lavishly furnished, with dark wood paneling and leather furniture. There was a pretty woman sitting behind a massive dark oak desk, looking at him expectantly.

“Hi,” Alex said. He was still trying to catch his breath from the stairs, and wondering how he was going to get himself home tonight. He dug into his bag and pulled out the manila envelope.

“I’ve got a delivery for, uh…” He glanced at the envelope. “For Mr. Darcy.”

"Yes, Mr. Darcy said he was expecting you," the woman behind the desk said.

Chapter Two

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 00:04:00 +0000

Alex wasn’t sure what to expect in an interview for a job as a bicycle courier, but he was expecting more than what he got. The courier company’s office was a tiny, two-room space in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. There were four people in the front office, answering phones, when Alex arrived.

After a couple of minutes, one of them turned and noticed Alex. She had dyed black hair, a variety of facial piercings, and thick horn-rimmed glasses.

“Are you here to see Frank about a job?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m Alex Minor,” he said.

“OK, it’ll be just a second,” she said, then turned and shouted at the door to the back office. “Frank! Fresh meat!”

She then turned back to her desk and resumed making phone calls.

Alex wasn’t quite sure what to make of that little exchange, but figured that this gig promised to be more exciting than working in another office, so he tried not to worry about what kind of a company he was getting himself involved with.

Frank came out of the back office and walked over to Alex. He seemed like he was in a rush. He was wearing battered sneakers, a pair of khaki pants with frayed cuffs and a green shirt with a truly hideous pattern of flying ducks.

“Are you Alex? James’s friend?” Frank said.

It took Alex a second to remember that Marlboro’s real name had been James. He’d always just been “Marlboro” to Alex.

“Yeah, that’s me. He said he thought I’d be a good fit for this job,” Alex said.

“He’s a good courier,” Frank said. “He knows this town inside out. I swear he knows every little alleyway he can fit a bicycle through, and he hasn’t met the business end of a car yet. You take whatever advice he’s willing to give you, and you’ll do all right.”

“Wow, cool,” Alex said. “He and I were in the service together. He was always a good guy.”

“Yeah, right. So, Alex, have you got a bicycle?”

Alex was a little surprised they were still just standing chatting in the front office, and not going back into Frank’s office, or a conference room, or something.

“Yeah, I’ve got a bicycle.”

“Get another one that you don’t mind having stolen, ASAP,” Frank said. “Have you got a cell phone?”

“Yeah, of course,” Alex said.

“Good, is that the number James gave me?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Alex said.

“Good. Have you got a backpack or something?”

At this point, Alex wasn’t sure if he should be concerned or relieved that he wasn’t being any questions that were more or less, “tell me a bit about yourself.” It seemed like he had the job if he wanted it.

“Yeah, I’ve got a bag,” Alex said.

“Good. Look, this isn’t a tough job. Get yourself a map of Minneapolis tonight. One of these four will send you a text tomorrow morning with the address where you’ll be picking up a delivery, as well as the address where it’s going. Ride your bike to the pick up, then ride to deliver whatever it is, then text and let us know you’re ready for another delivery. You get $2.50 per delivery. Any questions?”

“How many deliveries can I expect to make in a day?” Alex said. $2.50 per delivery wasn’t much money.

“Well, that’s going to depend on how much you’re willing to hustle. If you get out there and move fast, we’ll have more deliveries for you. Anything else?”

“I guess not. Sounds pretty doable to me,” Alex said.

“Great. Be up and ready to ride first thing tomorrow morning,” Frank said and walked back to his office.

Alex blinked a couple of times, and wondered if the interview was over or not. He waited a couple of minutes to see if Frank was going to come back with some paperwork or something. After getting a couple of curious glances from the other dispatchers in the front office, he decided that the interview was, in fact, over and that he should probably leave.

Back in the Mustang, he dig through the glove box to see if he still had a decent map of Minneapolis in there. He was relieved to find that he did, and it even had a pretty good detailed map of downtown Minneapolis. One less errand he had to run.

He glanced at the clock. It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, so he had the rest of the day to himself. He figured he’d better make sure his bike was more or less in good shape for riding a lot the following day. The last time he’d had his bicycle out for a ride was a couple of months ago, when he used it to ride to the grocery store for ice cream. The grocery store was about a mile away from his apartment, and it had been a nice day. He hadn’t really felt the need to get his bike out since then, so he hoped the tires still had air in them.

Alex wondered for a fraction of a second if taking a job as a bicycle courier was a wise thing to do, considering how little he actually rode his bike, before dismissing the thought. He’d be able to handle it, no problem. As long as it was more fun than dealing with the boring, petty, day to day bullshit in an office, it’d be just fine.

Back at his apartment, he noticed his bicycle was covered with a fine layer of dust, and the tires were flat. A little voice somewhere in the back of his head sang “you’re going to be in a world of pain tomorrow”, but he didn't pay it any mind.

After a couple of minutes with a rag and a tire pump, his bicycle was as good as new. He was admiring his handiwork when he heard something that made his heart sink. There was a quiet, almost imperceptible, whistling hiss coming from his bicycle. Alex leaned over, and confirmed what he was afraid of: the front tire had a leak. He was going to need to run to the bicycle shop and get a new inner tube.

Then he discovered the back tire wasn’t holding air either. Make that two inner tubes. So much for a low-key day. On the other hand, that was great news. Nothing was worse than a low-key day. In Alex’s opinion, being low-key was for when you were sick. Or dead. He’d tried taking it easy one weekend, shortly after he’d gotten out of the military, and just about went crazy from the boredom by lunchtime on Saturday. Somehow he’d wound up in an airplane strapped to a parachute instructor less than two hours later.

Which was much, much better than being bored.

There was a bicycle store conveniently close to his apartment. They were part of a chain of stores, and had used advertise extensively on the radio with a particularly grating jingle. Alex wandered into the store singing the jingle to himself, and promptly forgot why he’d gone there the second he saw the rows of shiny new bicycles waiting for him inside.

An employee had spotted him and came over to chat within seconds.

“Hi there, what are you looking for today?” the employee said. He was a young guy, maybe a little too eager, with blonde hair and brown eyes. His nametag said “Todd.”

Alex was still distracted by all the shiny new bicycles.

“Hi. I came in, uh, to look at getting a new bike,” Alex said.

“Great, we’ve got plenty of those,” Todd said. “What kind of bike are you thinking of getting?”

“Something fast. And easy to maneuver,” Alex said.

On the one hand, he knew that he was there to buy inner tubes, and that a new bicycle really wasn’t in his budget at the moment. On the other hand, Frank had outright told him that he should get another bike. He vaguely suspected that he’d be able to write off the new bike on his taxes as a business expense or something.

And who knew what else might be wrong with his other bike? It already had flat tires, what other surprises could be waiting to show themselves when he was in the middle of rush hour in downtown Minneapolis with a box of important papers that needed to be delivered to the Swedish Bikini Team or some other high priority client. That would be catastrophic.

Not buying a new bike would, in fact, be a false economy.

“Well, you’re in luck,” Todd said. “I have bikes that are fast, light, and super responsive. Have you got a race coming up?”

A race? What the hell was Todd talking about?

“No, uh, I’m a bicycle courier,” Alex said.

“Oh, wow. You’re living the dream, man. Well, what’s your budget?” Todd said.

Alex hadn’t thought about that at all. A part of him knew that now was the time to say, “You know, really, I’m just here to get some inner tubes,” buy the tubes and get out of there. His available budget for a new bike was approximately $50.

“Well, just show me what you have that’s fast,” Alex said.

An hour later, he left the store with three inner tubes, a can of chain lube, a u-lock, some new shoes for clipless pedals, and a brand new dark grey Trek Madone bicycle.

“You’re going to love this bike,” Todd said as he helped Alex load it into the back of the Mustang. “Be sure to give me a call and let me know how it compares to your old bike for making deliveries. How long have you been a bike courier, anyway?”

“I’m starting tomorrow,” Alex said.

The bike didn’t quite fit in the Mustang, and Alex had to use a bungee cord to keep the hatchback closed. He was glad he had such a short drive back to his place.

“Wow... Well, this bike is going to treat you great. Good luck, man,” Todd said. He went back inside, while Alex got into the Mustang.

Behind the wheel, Alex took a look at the receipt. He’d just put a hell of a lot of money on his credit card, and he realized he was going to be lucky if he was making $100 per day. He wondered if he should swallow his pride, bring the bike back inside, and explain that he’d gotten swept up in the excitement, and couldn’t actually afford this bike. It would be embarrassing for a moment, and Todd might get a little annoyed, but Alex knew that was probably the wisest thing to do.

So, naturally, he started the Mustang and drove home with his sweet new bike. A craftsman is only as good as his tools, after all. Having a proper bicycle like this would make it even easier to make deliveries and earn some cash.

When Alex got back to his apartment, he brought his new bicycle inside, leaned it up against the wall next to his old bicycle, and wondered if he should go ahead and replace the inner tubes on the old bike. He supposed that he should, just so he could have all of his bases covered. Best to have a back up ready.

He’d managed to get the wheels off, and the inner tubes replaced in about half an hour. Once he had the wheels back on his old bike, he attached the tire pump, and started inflating the front tire.

Suddenly, it seemed like it had gotten awfully easy to continue pumping. Alex glanced up at the wheel, and noticed with horror that the inner tube had somehow worked its way between the tire and the wheel, and a bulge was growing in the exposed inner tube.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Alex muttered quickly. He lunged forward to try and get the nozzle off of the stem and start deflating the tire, just in time for the inner tube to burst. It was a loud as a firecracker when it popped, and Alex fell over backwards in surprise.

One of his neighbors started pounding on the wall.

Alex sat, shocked, for a minute. He couldn’t quite believe that had happened. Then he started laughing.

He hadn’t even started his new job yet, and it was already more fun than the last one.

Chapter One

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Alex woke up with a start. Someone had tapped him on the shoulder. He hadn’t even realized he’d been asleep. It took him a second to get his bearings and remember where he was. Looking around quickly to assess the situation, he saw a computer, a legal pad, a stack of printed documents, and walls covered with grey-brown beige fabric.

He was at work. And apparently he’d fallen asleep again.

Missy, one of the other administrative assistants he worked with, stood next to him. She was wearing a red cardigan and black slacks today. She also had her arms crossed, and was looking at him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

Yep, she wants me, he thought.

“Leslie wants to see you in her office, Alex,” Missy said.

“OK, I’ll go in and chat with her after I’ve finished this, uh…” Alex trailed off. He did his best to remember what the hell had he been working on before he’d, apparently, fallen asleep. Again. He decided he was going to need to get a coffee maker to just keep here in his cubicle.

“Leslie was pretty insistent that she needs to talk to you right now,” Missy said. “You should probably just go before she gets annoyed.”

Leslie did have a tendency to get a little cranky if things weren’t going exactly her way. Alex grabbed his legal pad and a pen, and stood up. He noticed that Missy had a doubtful look on her face, and wondered what kind of unpleasant project he was going to get today. The week before, he’d had to move all the files from one set of filing cabinets to another on the other side of the office.

It seemed like the kind of task he’d have been assigned in boot camp as a disciplinary measure, only with less camaraderie and more soul-crushing boredom.

He didn’t have high hopes that the next assignment would be much more fun than the last.

Alex walked into Leslie’s office. Her office décor was an odd cross between saccharine-sweet pictures of kittens and drawings of children with overly large eyes looking innocent and weirdly melancholy, and preserved animal skeletons and decorated skulls.

“Hey Leslie, what’s up?” Alex said.

Leslie glanced up and him, and said, “Hey Alex, close the door behind you.”

Uh oh, Alex thought. He closed the door, and sat down across from Leslie.

Leslie produced some papers from a folder on her desk and slid the over to Alex.

“Alex, I’m sorry to tell you that your services are no longer required by Temro Professional Services. Please gather your personal belongings and leave immediately,” Leslie said.

Damn it, Alex thought. Again?

“Is this because I fell asleep? Look, I’ll get a coffee maker and it won’t happen again. I can…” Alex said before Leslie interrupted him.

“Alex, you fall asleep every day. The records I have from I.T. show that you’ve been spending the better part of your days playing online video games. We’re not paying you to get better at Angry Birds. Look, I like you, Alex. Have you considered that maybe working in an office is not the right path for you? You might be better suited to something a little more active.”

Alex didn’t know quite what to say to that. In the last year, he’d already been fired from two other office gigs, and three factories, and he wasn’t sure if his temp agency was going to be willing to keep placing him for much longer.

Leslie continued, “Maybe you’ll be happier doing something in a service industry, or learning a trade. Have you thought about construction, or landscaping? Or maybe you could work in a restaurant. I don’t know, but to be honest, you don’t seem like you’re cut out for office work.”

After a long pause, Alex stood up. He scratched his forehead and said, “Thanks, I’ll take that under consideration. Have a good one, Leslie.”

Shit, shit, shit, he thought. I’ve done it again. How many more times am I going to blow it before I find a place where I can manage to avoid getting fired for more than two months?

He got back to his cubicle, took a quick look around and realized that the only personal items he had to gather were his jacket and his backpack. He grabbed them and walked out of the office. The only co-worker he passed on the way out was Missy. He did notice Leslie was keeping an eye on him from the doorway of her office.

“See ya, Missy,” he said as he walked by her.

She glanced at his jacket and backpack, and said, “Have a good night, Alex. See you tomorrow.”

“No you won’t,” Alex said, and gave her a crooked smile.

After he got into his car, a red and black 1993 Ford Mustang 5.0, he noticed that it wasn’t even lunch time yet. He wished Leslie would have fired him the night before so he could have slept in instead of getting dressed and coming into work just to get fired before lunch.

He sat for a few minutes, trying to think of something to do with the rest of the day. It was just after ten o’clock in the morning, so his favorite restaurants would just be barely opening. Of course, now that he was unemployed, again, going out and spending money at a restaurant might not be the best plan.

Everything else he could think of doing involved spending money too. Eventually, he decided going home and calling the temp agency to see if they had any other work for him was probably the best course of action.

It took a little cranking, as usual, but the Mustang started after a few seconds, coming to life with its characteristic rumble. Alex put it in gear, and was about to start driving when he realized that if he had to go in to the temp agency today, he might as well not head home yet. He shut down the Mustang and dug his phone out of this pocket.

He called his temp agency, and the receptionist answered on the second ring.

“Good morning, Sanderson Staffing Solutions, how can I help you?” the voice on the other end of the line said.

“Good morning, this is Alex Minor. Is Jake available?”

“One moment, I’ll transfer you over to him,” the receptionist said. After a fraction of a second, awful, distorted, hold music started playing.

I wonder if hold music was devised as punishment for interrupting people who don’t particularly want to talk, Alex thought. I wonder if Jake is going to answer, for that matter. When is he going to give up and tell me I’m on my own for my job hunt?

He only had to tolerate a minute or two of a hold-music rendition of Canon In D so distorted it sounded almost like it was intentional before Jake came on the line.

“Hi Alex, what can I do for you?”

“Hey Jake, I’m looking for a job,” Alex said.

“Wow, already? What did you do this time?”

Alex didn’t think their relationship was close enough for that kind of humor, personally. But he needed another job, and Jake hadn’t let him down in the past.

“I didn’t do anything, Jake.”

“Well, that explains it then. You do know you’re supposed to, like, do stuff at work, right?” Jake said.

Alex felt his blood pressure increase a bit, and it was just about all he could do to avoid telling Jake that he could take his sarcasm and shove it.

“Ha ha, Jake,” Alex said. “I guess this company just wasn’t a good fit for me.”

“I think this is the sixth company that has brought you on and discovered you’re not a good fit, Alex. You’ve got to understand that every time I send you out and you get canned, the reputation of my agency gets damaged a little more. Companies aren’t going to deal with me if I keep sending them people they have to fire after two months.”

“Aw, come on, I’ve just had a run of bad luck,” Alex said.

“Sorry Alex, I don’t have anything for you right now. If something comes up that I think you’ll be a good fit for, I’ll give you a call,” Jake said.

After Alex had ended the call, he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths.

OK, OK, this is just a little speedbump. No big deal. I’ll find another temp agency. Someone will have a job for me, no problem. I’ll be working again in two weeks, he thought.

The only problem was that he didn’t believe himself. He was in a rough spot. There weren’t a whole lot of jobs he was immediately qualified for when his skills and experience mainly consisted of: can use Microsoft Word, and spot an IED from fifty yards away.

At the moment he had his choice of menial office and factory jobs, all of which bored him so badly that he spent most of his time at work trying to keep himself entertained. And he’d already been fired from six of those jobs. It was getting hard explain why his employment contracts kept being ended early.

Alex sighed, muttered, “shit,” and started the Mustang again.

He needed to either get completely drunk, or go work out. After debating the merits of both options, he decided that working out was the best bet. The chief benefits were that lifting weights was free, and he was much less likely to find himself incapacitated and bored, but unable to do anything about it, if he worked out. When he drank, he usually ended up bored out of his mind. And boredom was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

With that decision made, Alex put the Mustang in gear, and drove home.

By the following Friday night, Alex had worked out to exhaustion every day, cleaned his apartment completely, and taken care of all the errands he’d been meaning to get to.

On Saturday morning, he got up and found himself in need of something to do. He decided that maybe he was due for a camping trip. Fresh air and hiking would probably do him good, and he had nothing but time at the moment. He had a list of a few things he needed to replace or just stock up on for his camping kit, and decided that it was good of a day as any to cruise over to an army surplus store and see what they might have for him.

Alex hadn’t been to Patriot Surplus before, but the familiar musty smell of surplus store put him at ease immediately. The employee working behind the counter, a young blonde man who was maybe twenty years old, barely looked at him as he walked in and mumbled a half-hearted, “Hello,” before going back to reading his copy of Soldier of Fortune.

Yep, this place was OK. Alex was pretty confident they’d have what he needed.

He was wandering the aisles, examining the odd bag or bit of cooking equipment, when he saw a familiar face. Alex broke into a smile. It was a military buddy of his, one he hadn’t seen for quite a while.

“Hey, Marlboro, how ya been?” Alex said to a man with tightly cropped hair and a bushy mustache who was digging through a bin of brightly colored 550 paracord.

Marlboro turned, and smiled widely as he recognized Alex. He reached out and shook Alex’s hand with a bone-crushing grip.

“Hey Alex! Good to see you. I’m doing good. I haven’t seen you in a couple years, what are you up to now?”

“Yeah, it’s been a while. I’m not up to much, just lost my job last week and I figured I might go camping before I start the job hunt all over again.”

Marlboro’s face fell.

“Shit, man, sorry to hear that. What have you been doing for work?”

“Office stuff, mostly.”

“Fax machine monkey, huh? I had one of those jobs. I think I lasted a whole week before I told off my boss and quit,” Marlboro said. “Sitting at a desk is just too boring, I don’t know how you do it.”

“Well, I haven’t been too good at it. Not sure why, but I just can’t seem to do the work. It’s not like it’s hard.”

“Sounds like you’re bored, man. I get it. You’re a man of action like me, not an office worker. You need a different line of work. I’ve been working as a bicycle courier lately, it’s been great! It’s all action all the time. Lots of exercise, lots of excitement, and I’ve managed to score a few dates with the receptionists I’ve met in the line of duty.”

“Wow, that sounds like a blast. How’s the pay?” Alex said.

“It’s OK. Not great at first, but once you start making a lot of deliveries in a day it adds up,” Marlboro said. “Oh, hey, I can probably hook you up with a gig if you want. There’s a fair amount of turnover. Some people can’t handle playing in traffic all day everyday. Give me your number, I’ll give it to my boss and tell him you’re all right.”

Well, I don’t have much to lose, Alex thought. If it sucks, I can quit. And it can’t be much worse than taking another shitty job doing robot work in an office.

He gave Marlboro his contact info, and hoped he’d be able to get back to work quickly. He figured there couldn’t be too much to it, he’d just have to learn his way around the city. Piece of cake.

Welcome!

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 01:11:00 +0000

Hi there. This is where I'll be blogging this year's National Novel Writing Month novel.

This year's novel follows the adventures of Alex Minor, a one-man A-Team, whose need for the next adrenaline rush forces him into one insane adventure after another.

The fun begins November 1.

There's a handy link on the upper right side of the page for you to subscribe so you don't miss any of the action. Or, to make it even easier, click here to subscribe now!

In case you can't wait to get started, here are some handy links to my previous NaNo efforts:

The Perky Reaper - Death takes an apprentice, it doesn't quite work out.
Winking At Death - Death has to track down a soul that has figured out how to hide from her before things go really wrong.
Rogues Gallery - Another novel following the adventures of everybody's favorite unemployed biker deities
Immortals - When Death becomes too depressed to get out of bed and do her job, people stop dying. Chaos and creation erupt as humanity's fear of death vanishes. Accountants become daredevils. Repressed geniuses unleash their great works. And certain gods get pissed off by mankind's newfound cheekiness and refusal to die when properly killed. Our favorite unemployed biker deities return to restore the natural order until Death cheers up enough to resume her work.
Charlatan - When a small demon becomes his constant companion, a crooked travelling revival preacher discovers he is damned to a hell he never believed in. Two old friends - who happen to be unemployed, largely forgotten deities - try to help him save his soul.
Apotheosis - The Divine Duo have to save the day from a deity-murdering madman
Holy Rollers - Two gods need to return something that doesn't belong to them. Otherwise, all hell might break loose.