The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 76

“Someone has to be in charge,” Ellie said, looking around at the militia. “Have an election. Decide who the favourite is. Do whatever. Otherwise I start shooting people.”

They looked at each other, and seemed slightly disbelieving.

“Quick,” Ellie said, and pointed her sidearm at someone at random.

One of the older men, not the person the gun was aimed at, cleared his throat and said, “You’d really shoot someone for not picking who’s in charge?”

“I’d shoot someone because their face annoyed me,” Ellie said, callously and also quite untruthfully. “Pick someone. Now.”

The older man looked at her. “It might as well be me.”

“Good,” Ellie said. “See? Now we’re getting somewhere.”

The older man didn’t answer. He seemed quiet, soft-spoken, as if he wasn’t used to raising his voice and shouting. Ellie thought about shouting, and the few words this man had spoken. His voice seemed familiar to her. It sounded like the voice Ellie had heard across the compound earlier, when she had been shouting that the militia should give up.

“Were you talking to me a moment ago?” she said suddenly.

The man nodded.

“Why didn’t you say so,” Ellie said. “Fuck. Okay, you’re in charge. Do what you need to do to make sure of that.”

The man seemed confused. “Do what I need to do?”

“Yeah, whatever you need to do before you take over, deal with it now. I need to talk to you without distractions, so get rid of any problems now, before we start.”

“Problems?” the man said, still confused.

“Yeah,” Ellie said. “Rivals. Competitors. The guy who’s always fucked you off and you want to get even with now. All of that. Deal with it all, tell me who I need to shoot and I’ll shoot them, and then we can talk.”

The man kept looking at her, shocked.

Ellie was overdoing it a little, pretending to be a little more heartless and hate-filled than she actually was because she wanted him to think she was truly like that, and be scared of her, and do as he was told. She was pretending, and she thought she could pretend it fairly well. She had done this with hajjis often enough before, by calling them hajjis for a start. It seemed to be working again, now, here in Měi-guó, at least well enough that this man was looking at her with dismay, but a kind of resignation. As if he was reconciled to her manner, and just wanted to stop her hurting anyone else, and as if he was perhaps not completely unsurprised that she was a debt recovery operator and a monster, both.

“There’s no-one,” the man said. “There no-one you need to kill.”

“You’re sure?” Ellie said. “I can if you’d like. Anyone you’d like me to.”

“No,” the man said.

Ellie shrugged. “Whatever you like. As long as you’re in charge.”

The man didn’t answer.

“Are you?” Ellie said. “In charge?”

“Apparently.”

“Completely in charge? There’s no doubters, no-one else who’s going to make a fuss?”

The man shook his head.

“You need to be completely sure about that,” Ellie said.

“I’m sure,” the man said. “Not while you’re here, anyway. Not until after you’re gone.”

Ellie nodded. That would do.