The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 39

um, sorry, this got complicated...  so to make this part work, i needed to add a bit to the last chapter…  so just in case anyone didn't see, now, ellie asks joe if they have couriers in america, and joe says yes, so Ellie decides to be one.  That’s all!

Ellie knocked. “Hey,” she shouted, and knocked again.

A young man opened the door, but only a few inches. He was standing back from the doorway, well inside the house, looking out at Ellie suspiciously. The way he was standing, and only opening the door a little, meant the door was probably on a chain or a bolt, Ellie thought. Either that, or he had it wedged against his foot, so Ellie couldn’t crash against it and knock it open.

Ellie assumed this was Mark.

Mark was smart enough not to just open the door and let Ellie drag him out, but he wasn’t so smart that he’d looked outside properly, far enough outside to see Sameh standing there, too. He was smart, Ellie thought, and he was probably also greedy, which was what she was going to use against him. She assumed he was greedy, because she assumed everyone was greedy, and usually it turned out they were.

“Yeah?” Mark said, looking at Ellie.

Ellie took out her tablet, and looked at the screen. It was switched off, blank, but Mark couldn’t see that.

“Are you Mark?” Ellie said.

“Who’s asking?”

“I’ve got a delivery,” she said, talking quickly, trying not to give Mark too much time to think. “It’s in the car,” she said. “It’s heavy so you might need to help me.”

“What is it?” Mark said.

“How would I know? A box.”

“But it’s for me?”

Ellie held up her tablet. “That’s what this says, yep.”

“And who sent this package?”

“I don’t know. Some guy. Who wants it delivered to you.”

Mark seemed suspicious. “Who?” he said.

Ellie hesitated for a moment, looking at Mark. She hesitated as long as she hoped someone would when thinking about breaking a company policy for a difficult customer. Then she shrugged, and looked at her tablet, and said, “Um, John.”

John, because it was a common name here.

“John who?” Mark said.

“I don’t know,” Ellie said. “John. Some guy called John. It’s on the forms. I’ll show you if you give a shit.”

Mark kept looking at her, as if he was waiting for her to do that.

“The packing slip’s in the car,” Ellie said, and sighed. “For fuck’s sake. With the box. The box I told you about, which is heavy. So I need you to help. So come on and help me.”

Mark kept looking at Ellie, thinking. She looked like a low-end casual courier, she hoped. She was in local clothes, clothes from Joe’s bag, and she didn’t have any obvious tactical gear on. She was still wearing her comm earpiece, which he might be able to see, but lots of people wore comm earpieces for their phones. Hers might just be so she could talk to her courier firm as she drove.

Ellie stood there for a moment, letting Mark look at her, then she started putting a little more pressure on him. She looked around. She looked at her tablet as if checking the time.

“Come on,” she said. “I don’t have all day.”

“Can’t you bring it here?”

“It’s heavy.”

“How heavy?”

“Very fucking heavy. So come and help.”

Mark looked at her some more. Ellie waited. She didn’t want to be too insistent, not suspiciously insistent. She just wanted to seem like she was in a hurry.

“Someone sent me something?” Mark said. He seemed to be having trouble with that idea.

“Yep. In the car. It’s heavy. Like I said.”

Mark seemed unsure. Perhaps he had some debt, and expected collectors to service it. Perhaps he was active enough in his militia that he actually expected the debt authority to be looking for him. Either way, he was turning out to be harder to get outside than Ellie had expected, so Ellie tried another trick.

“Oh wait,” Ellie said suddenly. “Shit. You are Mark, right?”

“I’m Mark.”

“And you live here?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Aren’t you expecting me, then?” Ellie said, trying to look confused. “You should be expecting me. Someone from the office was meant to have called.”

Ellie reached up, and touched her actual comm, and looked at her tablet as if she was about to make a call.

Mark was supposed to stop her there, to interrupt and say no, he’d come out and get the box. That was where his greed was meant to make him get stupid, but it didn’t actually happen.

He just stood there, looking at her, unsure.

He was irritatingly suspicious, Ellie thought. Or perhaps he was just honest.

Ellie thought quickly. She needed to try something else.