"It seems I don't have a choice," Lance said, laying the two contracts neatly on the table. 'But this is the best choice."
He paused for a moment, then asked, 'So when do I start?"
Alberto didn't ask him to start right away. Instead, he asked about his current job. "What are you going to do about your job at the bakery?"
"It's only twenty dollars. I'll manage,"
Alberto opened the drawer and took out a roll of money from it. He pulled out twenty bills and handed them to Lance. "This is forty dollars. It's for your expenses for the next few days. I hope this forty dollars will make me feel that I'm spending it well!"
Lance took the money. "I promise you'll feel that you're getting your money's worth."
"Go see Fortis. He'll give you some gadgets that you can use when you collect debts."
"Get to work, and I look forward to hearing good news from you!"
Lance stood up, straightened his clothes, and then turned to leave.
Alberto had already spoken to Fodis, in fact.
So when he arrived in the lobby, Fodis was already waiting for him.
He led Lance to a small house next to the parking lot in the backyard, "What kind of weapon are you used to using?"
"Bats, daggers, or hunting knives?"
"But I don't recommend you use lethal weapons right away. If you accidentally kill our valued client, the boss will have your hide."
"Unless you can make up for his losses!" With that, Fodis pushed open the door. From the outside, the small room didn't seem to be anything special.
But once inside, you'll find that piles of weapons are hanging everywhere.
Bats, daggers, hunting knives, steel pipes, steel rods, almost everywhere.
"Do you have guns?"
Fodis's expression of "open your eyes, country bumpkin!" didn't quite come out, and it became a little awkward.
"The hot weapons are in Stoner's place. You'll meet him later, but not now."
"Without the boss's permission, you can't get guns from the company for the time being. Of course, it's your business to buy them yourself."
"So choose a weapon first, I recommend this one!"
He took off a bat printed with red, blue and white stripes, swung it a few times, and handed it to Lance, "A genuine bat from the Golden Harbor Yacht Club. I like their games, they will definitely win the championship this season!"
It can be seen that he is a baseball fan. Then he handed the bat to Lance, "You learn how to attack first, and then consider more threatening weapons."
"Our job is to help people who need money to get through a difficult time, and then after they get through it, let them pay us back the money that belongs to us. We never take the initiative to hurt anyone. Do you understand what I mean?"
Fodis repeated his instructions, and then left the "weapons room" with Lance. He then said, "Go choose a car. We can't let you and your friends work for us while running..."
Lance's eyes also lit up a little. No one doesn't like driving, and he immediately looked at the high-end luxury cars that shined in the sunlight.
But unfortunately, Fortis twisted his body in a different direction and pointed at the few cars that looked worn and dirty parked in the alley behind them, saying, "This is what you should choose."
He scratched his head, and his scalp felt inexplicably hot. "For the love of God, are these cars still drivable?"
"Why not?", Fudis walked over to one of the cars and grabbed the door handle and gave it a gentle pull. With a click, the entire door fell off.
He quickly held the door that was about to topple over and shouted, "Jamie, why is the door of a car here falling off?"
A middle-aged man wearing denim overalls and covered in stains walked out of what looked like a warehouse next to him.
He was smoking a cigarette and looked a little impatient. "That car was just delivered. You have a few good ones next to it, but you had to pick the one that's broken!"
"Is this our new partner?"
Foddy clapped his hands and released the door. 'Not exactly, but I believe we'll be working together for a while."
He introduced Lance, 'This is Jamie. If you watch racing, you must know the Supersonic team. He's the second mechanic."
"But then something unpleasant happened, so he now works for the boss."
Jamie shrugged, "I owe him a favor, so I'm working for him to pay it off." He paused for a moment, selected a key from the row hanging on the wall next to him, and threw it to Lance, "Go try out your new car, the brown one, I've specially tuned it."
Many people who owe money actually can't pay it back, and they really don't have the money. In order to reduce losses, the company will get their cars back.
Luxury cars can be leased or resold, and all the other cars that can be handed over to used car dealers are sold.
If they can't be sold, they are kept here, because they will always be useful.
Lance started the car a little unsteadily. What made him feel a little uncomfortable was that the car had a hand throttle.
It was an old car, god knows how many years old, and the accelerator was on the right side of the steering wheel, which was increased or decreased by pulling back.
It had a gauge, and the pulled-out accelerator bar could be hung on the gauge to ensure that it would always give fuel – let's call it an accelerator bar, Lance didn't know what to call this guy either.
But he had to admit that this might be the first car to have a cruise control function...
After a brief trial and error period, he got the hang of it. Even though it was a manual accelerator, once you got used to it, it wasn't really that inconvenient.
Lance put the bat in the trunk, then said goodbye to Fordis and Jamie, and drove off.
The two of them exchanged a few words before going about their own business.
Driving down the road, Lance was a little nervous at first, but after a while, he finally got used to the traffic of the era.
As long as he didn't go over 30 miles per hour, the car drove quite smoothly.
He drove straight to the bridge not far from the docks, where Erwin and the others were living.
He deliberately stopped at a shop, spent two dollars, bought ten boxes of cigarettes and a box of matches.
It was 40 minutes later when he arrived under the bridge.
The honking of the horn made a few heads poke out of the culvert under the bridge. Erwin looked incredulously at Lance standing by the car.
He was smoking, slightly bent over, and his right hand was by the steering wheel in the driver's seat.
"My God, where did you get the car?", the friends quickly came running out.
They smelled a little peculiar, summer, long without bathing and changing clothes, but it was not their fault.
There are no good washing facilities here, even though there is a river nearby.
The domestic sewage and treated industrial wastewater in Jin'gang City are discharged into the sea, so the water in the river is black and stinks.
In winter, the stench is not so pungent, and in summer, the smell of the sea can cover it up a bit. Despite the fact that some people have repeatedly reported these conditions to the city hall, the old masters only focus on the contrast of economic growth, not whether the river stinks or not.
The young people, who hadn't bathed or changed clothes in a few days and were prone to sweating, smelled like death!
They stood by the car, stroking the real classic, as Lance handed them some cigarettes.
"Mr. Corti, the gentleman we borrowed money from, has offered us a new job,"
"If we can help him recover two debts that belong to him, then our debt to him will be written off and we'll even get something out of it."
He patted the car. "This is the transportation he gave us first. This time I need four people with me. Who's first?"
Irwin immediately stood next to Lance. 'I'm going."
Ethan also patted his chest. 'I'm going too. I owe you."
Mello was about to speak, but Lance stopped him. "You stay. You're older and calmer in emergencies than the others."
"In any case, if something happens, try to buy as much time as you can. We'll be back soon."
He casually pointed at two people in the crowd and told them to get in the car.
Ethan sat in the passenger seat. As he got in, he could clearly feel the car sink downward.
Lance asked curiously, "How much do you weigh?"
He was a little embarrassed and said, "One hundred and eighty pounds, but I've lost some weight."
Elvin couldn't help laughing in the back seat, "Don't listen to him, that scale only goes up to 180 pounds!"
Ethan was a little annoyed, "Damn it, if you don't say anything, no one will think you're dumb!"
After the car started moving, the bantering gradually died down. They all rolled down the windows and enjoyed the actually not very comfortable, hot and dry wind blowing in.
The first guy who owed Alberto money was named Candela, an insurance company employee who had borrowed a thousand dollars from Alberto and was due to pay it back.
He had been stalling and was rumored to be planning to run away.
"Are we going to beat him up?"
Ethan asked, as they got closer to their destination.
Lance answered without looking back while driving, "It depends on whether he cooperates with us..."