Chapter Three

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.