Chapter Six

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.