The Debt Collector (Season 1)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Ophelia. There’s something about her that’s triggering this happy desire to run out and buy ice cream for a girl I just met. Only she’s not just a girl, she’s a collector who’s more shark than girl. And more woman than either. She’s something good. I can feel it.

  She might save me after all.

  I swap my melting ice cream pints for fresh ones from the case, then turn to wave one at the convenience store clerk, so he doesn’t call the police to come get the demented guy by the freezer. I work my way forward through the store, my gaze roaming the dusty shelves of snack foods for anything else Ophelia might want. I grab a bag of cookies that look like they might go with the ice cream, and if they don’t, they’ll make good snacks for later. I’ll have to get some real food soon if I’m going to be feeding two.

  I smile, hands full, all the way to the front. The clerk is a wiry guy with more hair on his face than his head and a dour look that makes me think he has a gun under the register. I should have checked out the neighborhood more before I moved here. While he packs my stuff in a double layer of plastic bagging, I dig out my debit card. It’s the one we’re issued in training, so we can stay off the grid. All our collector salary goes on the card, and purchases with these aren’t supposed to register on the central databases, just on a special, secure server accessible only to the Agency higher ups. Even our psych officers have to request information, and then only if they have to track down one of their errant collectors.

  The clerk swipes my debit card past the check-out scanner and hands it back to me.

  “Thanks, man,” I say.

  He nods a gruff acknowledgment. I swing my groceries in one hand and stuff my debit card in the pocket of my trenchcoat with the other. The cool air outside is a welcome change from the musty smell of the store, and I stride across the darkened street. The sun is setting, turning the urban canyons of my neighborhood into a patchwork of shadows and dying sunlight that’s shifted blood-red through the smog.

  I don’t notice the shadows are moving until three of them melt from the alleyway and surround me—two in front, and when I glance back, another behind. The first time I take a walk in this neighborhood, and I’m about to get mugged for ice cream. Fantastic.

  Maybe I should start carrying a gun. The Agency issued me a license in training for self-defense, but I never thought it wise to actually have one around my apartment. There were too many weekends where I spent my time fighting off personal demons for ready access to a weapon to be a good thing.

  The men are muscular and dressed in rugged workpants and lumpy hoodies that make them look misshapen. Their boots crunch the dirt and broken gravel of the alley. I’m only thirty feet from my apartment door, which is just around the corner at the end of the alley. I might be able to outrun them, but the two bigger ones are between me and my apartment complex. I edge backward, knowing the other one is still behind me. Maybe I can just give them my ice cream and debit card. They won’t recognize the card for what it is; it looks like any other. Maybe they’ll beat me up a bit, but then they’ll move on…

  “There’s nowhere to go, collector,” one in front of me says. “You might as well come with us, peaceful like.”

  Shit. They know who I am. How can that be? My heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest. I grip the plastic bag tighter in my hand. I have to fight them. A quick death in the shadows would be better than an extended torture session while they try to get me to collect for them. And if I fight, I might get lucky and break free long enough to make it back to my apartment. Barricade myself inside. Call the police.

  Shoes scuff behind me. The guy is close. I turn and swing the ice cream as hard as I can. They’re twin rocks at the end of my plastic rope, and they cold-cock the guy. He goes down hard. I’m on him, palm pressed to his forehead, just in case that cracking sound wasn’t his skull actually breaking. A surge of energy pulses into me, a blinding flash that whites out the world for a split-second then brings it roaring back. The man is young, years of potential life ahead of him, and it burns my hand like a branding iron. I hold on as long as I can, a scream wanting to tear out from my throat, then I yank my hand free. My body floods with the energy of a hundred men.

  The other two are on me, but I’m wild with energy. I whirl the ice cream like a club, crashing down on one of them. The other takes a swing at me, but I lean back. He over rotates on the miss, and I take him in the gut like I’m a line-backer and he’s a tackle dummy. I slam him into the graffiti-covered concrete wall. The air whooshes out of his lungs, but he recovers and shoves me away. I stumble backward and fall.

  He pulls a gun from under his black hoodie and points it at me.

  I scramble backward, manage to get my feet under me, and run like hell for the end of the alleyway. I expect a bullet in the back the entire way, but it doesn’t come. I don’t look back until I reach the end and skitter around the corner. The thug with the gun is bent over one of his buddies, helping him up. I don’t hang around wondering why they haven’t shot me yet.

  My hands shake as I fish in my pocket for the swipe key to the complex. My heart is pounding a staccato note that I swear is going to kill me before the thugs can come around the corner and do it. I finally get the key out, only to notice that the door is open, standing ajar an inch.

  Ophelia.

  I yank the door open and sprint up the stairs. Three flights to my level, and I can’t take them fast enough. My legs are full of life energy and panic.

  When I reach the door, it’s already slid open. My apartment is empty. I dash three times into the bedroom and the kitchen, calling Ophelia’s name, before I come to my senses.

  She’s not here.

  I clutch my hair with both hands. Think. The door was open. Did she leave? Did someone take her? Was this all an elaborate setup? Send Lirium out for ice cream and attack him in the alley? That didn’t make any sense, but… I lurch over to the closet, my legs protesting the panic that’s stopped up and held prisoner as I sort out what’s happened. I rip open the closet door. Her trenchcoat is still there.

  If she had set me up, she would have taken her coat with her.

  I wander to the front door in a daze. Belatedly, I remember to close and lock it, just in case the alley thugs are on their way up. I turn and brace my back against it, and that’s when I see the signs.

  The coffee table is slightly askew.

  The thin carpet underneath it has a bunched-up bump that wasn’t there before.

  And finally… a dark smear on the polished wood floor a few feet from the door.

  I slowly step toward it and bend down. On closer inspection, it’s reddish black. Ophelia’s blood is staining my floor.

  Oh no.

  They knew I was a collector. They came looking for me, but they found Ophelia instead. They hurt her, took her, and came for me next… my head is woozy. I brace my right hand against the floor to steady myself, then heave up and flip on the screen in my left palm.

  I punch in the number. A woman’s face appears in my hand.

  “Nine-one-one, please state the nature of your emergency.”

  “A woman has been kidnapped.” My voice shakes. The operator says something in response, but all I can think is that one of the Madam Anastazja’s girls found me. They tipped off one of the east side mobs, and somehow they tracked me down to my new place. Only instead of me paying the price for my guppy stupidity, they took Ophelia. I try to console myself that there’s only a smear of blood. Maybe they didn’t hurt her too badly. But worse is coming, wherever they’ve taken her. Much worse. Only then does it occur to me that I should have called my psych officer before the police.

  Candy is going to kill me.

  “What do you mean?” Anger is turning my words into snarls. “Why aren’t they looking for her?”

  Candy flashes me a dangerous look, and I check myself. She returns to digging through her lacquered black-and-gold handbag. Not long after the police arrived, Candy dragged me away from the crime scene, pre
viously known as my new apartment. At the time, she was all coolness and professionalism, flashing her psych officer badge at the local law enforcement and sweeping me away to her office. I barely had time to snag my box of stuff from the closet. Now it sits at my feet.

  “Of course they’ll try to find her,” Candy says. “I talked to Officer Lamb and gave him temporary access to Ophelia’s file. He has your statement, and he’s going to look for camera footage of the alley, but we can’t even be sure those men were the same ones who took Ophelia.”

  “But they knew I was a collector.” That can’t be a coincidence. It has to be tied to me and my guppy idiocy with Madam A’s sex workers. Not that Candy knows about that.

  “Officer Lamb said that part of town is rife with the Kolek mob,” she says. “They must have seen Ophelia and recognized her as a collector. The building super says he doesn’t know how they got in, but he’s probably on the Kolek payroll. You should count yourself lucky you were in the alley. Officer Lamb will put out a bulletin about Ophelia, and the police will keep an eye out for her. But she’s with the mob now, Lirium. She’s probably already dead.”

  “You don’t know that!” My voice is cracking, and I feel the thin, icy line I’m skating with Candy. I force myself to lean back in the chair and run my bandaged hand over my face. It’s still healing from when I punched the elevator, but my right hand is worse. The life-force I pulled out of the thug in the alley left an angry red burn mark on my palm, a straight-line welt that looks like I got whacked with a ruler made of hot coals. I keep my hand curled and tuck it under my arm, so Candy doesn’t see. When I told the police I got mugged, I didn’t mention that I drained one of the alley attackers. I’m still stunned myself that it happened at all. I’ve never collected under pressure; it’s not supposed to be possible.

  I have so much to teach you. Ophelia’s words haunt me, along with the smear of her blood on my floor. I’m starting to wonder if anything I know about collecting is actually true.

  “What if there’s no video of the alley?” I ask. “You didn’t even give me a chance to give them a description...”

  She’s still rummaging through her purse. “Did you see anything?” she asks, sarcasm in her voice. “Tattoos? Faces? Something other than,” she makes air quote fingers, “‘three guys in hoodies’?”

  The look on my face says it all.

  She shakes her head. “The police will do their job, Lirium. You focus on yours. But don’t hold out hope for something that’s not going to happen. If Ophelia’s lucky, she’s already dead. And if we’re lucky, we’ll find her body sometime soon.”

  I try to calm my breathing. “How long was Ophelia one of your collectors?”

  My words jar her enough to make her look up from her purse. She stares at me with her devil green eyes. “A long time. Why?”

  “Don’t you care at all?” Maybe I should tell Candy what I suspect… that one of Madam Anastazja’s girls tipped them off. It’s a lead, if nothing else. Candy will string me up for being an idiot, but at least we might be able to track down Ophelia before the mob tears her to pieces.

  If they haven’t already.

  “I care about all my collectors.” Candy looks affronted, but it chills me, because it echoes what Ophelia said. Your psych officer always, always has your best interests at heart.

  Candy goes back to digging in her purse, and I give up. Ophelia is probably being tortured at this very moment, and all Candy cares about is finding her lip gloss. She finally pulls what she’s looking for from her purse. It’s a tracker scanner. She curls her dagger fingernails at me, wanting me to come closer.

  I hesitate. Too long. She gives me a look that makes my throat close up. “I want you to go ahead and do your payout tonight. I know you’re torn up about Ophelia—we both are—but you need to put this behind you and move on. Come here. I need to scan your tracker before you meet the payoff.”

  “You… do?” Flitstrom always scans me. Always. A bean counter has to do it. I’m pretty sure that’s the law, but with the crazy mixed-up state in my head, I’m suddenly unsure. “Er, is Flitstrom on vacation?”

  “No.” She glares at me. “But he doesn’t work nights, if he doesn’t have to.” I belatedly scoot my chair closer and lay my arm across her desk, within reach of her nails and the handheld scanner. I keep my fist closed, so she can’t see the branded mark on my palm while she runs the tracker over my arm. “Flitstrom approved me for documenting your transfer from Mrs. Riley, given the unfortunate circumstances we find ourselves in.”

  Unfortunate circumstances? If she’s so concerned about what’s happened, why the sudden urgency for the payout? Something’s not adding up.

  But that thought is lost as Candy coolly looks at the number on her scanner. I have no idea what it is telling her, but my heart starts to pound and a trickle of sweat forms between my shoulder blades. Can she see the mercy hit payout? Or the blinding hot transfer from the thug in the alley? I don’t know how much I collected then, but it could easily be years. There’s no way that wouldn’t show up. Is there?

  “There was extra,” I say quickly. “Mrs. Riley had more than her two weeks left.”

  Candy looks up at me, a small quirk of a smile showing at the corner of her slickly glossed red lips. “Indeed there was. Lucky thing for Mr. Brodsky.”

  My shoulders relax just a fraction. She sees something, but she’s going to let it pass. “Brodsky?” I say as evenly as I can. “Is that the payoff?”

  She slips the tracker back into her purse without answering, then turns her attention to her palm screen. A few razor sharp taps, and she holds it up so I can see. There’s an image of a man with unnaturally youthful skin. He’s obviously a regular payoff—I can tell he’s much older than his features by the wateriness of his blue eyes.

  “Mr. Brodsky is CEO of Brodsky Electronics,” Candy says. “He’s making some extraordinary breakthroughs in cybernetic implants for the disabled.”

  I hold my palm up and touch her hand quickly. It’s cool and clammy, which strikes me as odd. Maybe she’s as affected by Ophelia’s disappearance as I am, but she’s too icy to show it? The image of Brodsky stares at me from my palm screen along with his basic information.

  I look at Candy, uncertain what I’m supposed to do now. Do I pay out Mrs. Riley’s transfer and all the excess I sucked out of the mob henchman? Both transfers are still singing in my body, filling out my bones, and I don’t want to part with any more than I have to. But I’m at Candy’s mercy. She has the scanner.

  “Does Brodsky get the full transfer?” I ask, deciding that’s a safe question. “Or is there another payoff?”

  Again the quirk of a smile. She knows I want to keep it. “Only pay out Mrs. Riley’s calculated two weeks, plus one more. I’ll tell Flitstrom I’m approving you to keep the rest.” I feel the relief seep through me, and for a moment I don’t hate Candy as thoroughly as I usually do. Then she pushes up from her chair and swings around the corner of her desk. She stands way too close to me, forcing me to look up at her.

  “After all,” she says, “you just lost your mentor and you need something to keep you going for a while.” She takes my chin, tilting my head back even further, her nails scraping my neck. “You are going to keep going, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I choke out, feeling her daggers bite into my Adam’s Apple as it passes.

  “No washing out.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She releases me and pats my cheek. “That’s a good boy. Just forget about everything that’s happened today. Keep focused on your job. And I’ll check and see if there are any slots opening up soon in medical needs training.”

  She gives me a smile that feels half-leer, half-crocodile-ready-for-lunch. I’m not sure if I want to throw up or curl into a ball of self-loathing. Either way, I need to get out of Candy’s office. I spin out of my chair, scoop up my box of things, and head for the door.

  “And Lirium…” she says.

  Dre
ad washes through me as I stop, hand poised above the door button.

  “Don’t go back to your apartment. I wouldn’t want you to get swallowed up by the mob, like poor Ophelia. We’ll start fresh with a new place for you. I’ll message you an address. You should have it by the time you’re done paying out.”

  I don’t say anything, just nod, punch the button, and get myself away from her before I do or say something I regret.

  There’s no way I’m going to forget what’s happened today. And I’ll make it to my payout appointment tonight, just like Candy wants. But then I’m going to do something really stupid. Something that, if Candy finds out, will kill any chance I have at medical needs training. And I know I’m going to regret it as soon as the certainty of it settles into my chest.

  I’m going to find Ophelia.

  I double check the address on my palm screen, convinced my psych officer has set me up. This can’t possibly be where I’m supposed to pay out the life force I collected from Mrs. Riley. It’s not just the stink of recently expelled vomit from a junkie passed out in the alley. Or the fact that I’m on the east side of Los Angeles, the low rent district of the metropolitan basin, well past the hour for any legal business. The address Candy gave me points to an industrial warehouse buried deep in the sticky smog that coats everything at ground level. The building’s not even four stories tall. And high potential payoffs like Mr. Brodsky, the CEO of Brodsky Electronics, usually live well above the cancer-inducing air that pools at the impoverished feet of the city.

  I knock on the metal door, shaking loose a few slivers of rust and hoping someone will answer quickly. I want to confirm I’m in the wrong spot and get out. The dull thuds only disturb the junkie, who rolls out of the spot of hazy street light. The building is deathly silent, a monolith of gray, windowless concrete. No sign. No number. My palm GPS says this is it, but something is very, very off. The feeling that someone is watching me itches up my back. I duck my head into the collar of my trenchcoat, glancing down the street, but if someone’s there, the creeping darkness gives them perfect cover.