Marco was halfway through a bowl of cereal when he heard footsteps in the hallway.
Heavy boots, moving slow, stopping at doors. Building manager, probably. Or maintenance, though nothing in his apartment had worked right for months and nobody seemed to care. The AC made grinding noises, the bathroom faucet dripped constantly, and the Murphy bed squeaked every time he rolled over. But complaining about stuff like that required being current on rent, and Marco hadn't been current on anything in weeks.
He finished eating and rinsed the bowl in the sink. The hot water took forever to come on, and when it did, it smelled like rust. Sunset Vista Apartments wasn't much - thin walls, peeling paint, parking lot full of potholes - but it was what he could afford. Or what he used to be able to afford.
The footsteps stopped right outside his door.
Marco waited, spoon still in his hand. Sometimes if you ignored official-looking people, they went away. Bill collectors, process servers, landlords with bad news - half the time they'd just leave whatever paperwork they had and move on to the next door.
Not today.
Three sharp knocks. Then silence.
Marco set the spoon down and counted to ten. Maybe twenty. The footsteps moved on, heading toward the stairs. Good. Crisis postponed.
Then he opened the door and saw the paper taped to the outside.
White paper, folded in half, his name written on the front in ballpoint pen. "Marco Valdez - Unit 2B."
He already knew what it was before he unfolded it. Had been expecting it for two weeks, ever since the landlord stopped returning his calls. Ever since the warning notices stopped coming and the phone calls got shorter and more official-sounding.
Thirty days to pay or get out. Eighteen hundred dollars, plus late fees, plus whatever other charges they could think of.
Marco read it twice, hoping the numbers would change. They didn't.
"Shit."
"Everything okay over there?"
Mrs. Chen was standing in her doorway, holding a dish towel. She was maybe seventy-five, small and neat, with gray hair always pulled back in a bun. She'd lived at Sunset Vista longer than anyone Marco knew, back when the place was newer and the neighborhood was better.
"Yeah, just..." Marco held up the notice. "Landlord stuff."
Mrs. Chen's face softened. She'd probably seen plenty of these notices over the years. Watched plenty of neighbors pack up their stuff and disappear in the middle of the night.
"You want some tea? I just made a pot."
Marco looked at the notice again. The numbers were still the same. Still impossible. "Yeah. Okay."
Mrs. Chen's apartment was exactly the same layout as his, but it felt completely different. Clean dishes in the rack, plants on the windowsill that were actually alive, pictures on the walls of people who looked happy. The kind of place where someone lived instead of just existing.
She handed him a cup of tea and sat down across from him at her small kitchen table. The tea was good - hot and bitter, the kind of thing that made you pay attention.
"How bad is it?" she asked.
"Bad." Marco sipped the tea, felt it burn his tongue a little. "Eighteen hundred, plus fees."
"Hmm." Mrs. Chen nodded like she'd been expecting that number. Maybe she had. The walls in this place were thin enough that she probably heard his phone conversations with the electric company, knew exactly how many bills he was behind on.
"You could call Elena," she said.
"No."
"Marco-"
"I'm not calling Elena." He set the cup down harder than he meant to, heard it clink against the saucer. "She's done bailing me out. Made that pretty clear when she left."
Mrs. Chen nodded again. She'd probably heard some of the fights through those thin walls. Hell, half the building probably had. Marco and Elena trying to keep their voices down, failing, then giving up and just letting everyone hear how badly they were falling apart.
Elena left six months ago, right after Marco put his fist through their bathroom wall. Not because he was mad at her - never at her - but because nothing in his life worked right and he was tired of pretending it did. The garage had let him go two weeks before that, said they were cutting back, but Marco knew it was because he'd been showing up late and smelling like beer. Elena said she couldn't watch him destroy himself anymore, couldn't keep pretending things would get better if she just tried harder.
The divorce papers came three weeks later.
"So what's the plan?" Mrs. Chen asked.
Marco stared into his tea. Saw his reflection in the dark liquid, distorted and wavering. "Working on it."
That was bullshit and they both knew it. Marco had been broke before - after the divorce, after he lost the garage job, after his truck broke down and ate up his savings - but this was different. This was the kind of broke where you started looking at your vehicle and wondering how long you could live in it before someone noticed.
His phone rang, the sound sharp in Mrs. Chen's quiet kitchen.
Unknown number. Local area code.
"Yeah?"
"Marco Valdez?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Got your name from someone. Said you do pickup and delivery work."
Marco sat up straighter. He'd done courier work before, back when he had better credit and could get approved for the apps. Before his license got suspended for unpaid tickets, before the insurance lapsed, before everything went sideways.
"Depends what kind," Marco said.
"Easy stuff. Just need someone reliable. Drive from point A to point B, don't make it complicated."
"What's the pay?"
"Five hundred. Cash."
Marco nearly dropped the phone. Five hundred was more money than he'd made in the past month combined. More than he'd made since Elena left and took half their savings account.
"What's the catch?"
The man on the phone laughed, but it wasn't particularly friendly. "No catch. Just need someone who can follow directions. Someone who keeps things simple."
Simple. That was code for don't ask questions, don't get curious, don't make problems. Marco had heard it before, back when he was doing side work for some of the guys from the garage. The kind of jobs where you showed up, did what you were told, and went home with cash in your pocket.
"When do you need this done?"
"Tomorrow morning. Six AM sharp. You know that old Chevron station on Speedway? The one that's been closed for about a year?"
Marco knew it. Drove past it every day on his way to whatever shit job he could pick up. Boarded windows, weeds growing through cracks in the concrete, gas pumps that looked like tombstones in a cemetery nobody visited.
"I'll be there."
"Good. Bring your own truck. Make sure it runs and the AC works. Going to be a hot one tomorrow."
"How will I know who-"
But the line was already dead.
Marco stared at his phone for a long moment. Five hundred dollars cash for driving somewhere and picking something up. No questions asked, no paperwork, no background checks.
Mrs. Chen was watching him over her teacup. "Work?"
"Maybe."
"What kind of work?"
Marco finished his tea and stood up. The cup felt heavier than it should have, like gravity was pulling everything down harder today.
"The paying kind."
He thanked Mrs. Chen for the tea and went back to his apartment. The eviction notice was still on his counter where he'd left it, still demanded money he didn't have, still gave him thirty days to figure out how to keep a roof over his head.
But five hundred dollars was a start.
Marco had been around long enough to know that when someone paid that kind of money for simple pickup work, it usually wasn't simple. People who dealt in cash and burner phones and abandoned gas stations weren't usually moving legal cargo.
But he'd also been around long enough to know that sometimes you took what you could get. Sometimes the choice wasn't between good and bad - sometimes it was between bad and worse, and you picked bad and hoped you could live with it.
He folded the eviction notice and put it on his nightstand next to his keys and wallet. Tomorrow morning he'd drive to a dead gas station and meet someone who paid cash for no questions. Tonight he'd drink a beer and watch TV and try not to think too hard about what kind of cargo was worth five hundred dollars.
But he already knew he'd show up.
Because the alternative was sleeping in his truck by the end of the month, and Marco had been homeless before. Once was enough.