Free Shafted by Mandasue Heller

you, and I told you we’d be back in a month if you didn’t make the first payment on the instalment plan.’
    ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,’ Larry protested, struggling to remember what he’d done last night , never mind a month ago.
    On the other side of the door Flood rolled his eyes at his partner, and said, ‘Told you he was too pissed to take in what we said last time. He hasn’t got a fucking clue who we are.’
    ‘Boot it in,’ Pete Baron grunted, cracking his knuckles loudly. ‘I can’t be doing with going through all that shit again. Whatever you say, it just goes in one ear and straight out the other. I hate fucking alkies!’
    Amused by his younger colleague’s lack of patience and compassion – qualities he would eventually have to acquire and embrace if he hoped to survive in this stressful line of work – Flood grinned and shook his head.
    ‘I wouldn’t go applying to work with the Samaritans any time soon, Bazza. You’re a right unsympathetic little bastard.’
    ‘And you’re a right soft twat,’ Baron shot back with a grin of his own, knowing full well that, polite and professional as Flood might be on the job, he was more than a match for any man if push came to shove.
    Giving Logan one last chance to get his head around the facts before they were forced to call in the law to help them execute the warrant, Flood gave another little rap on the door, and said,‘Come on, Mr Logan – the courts don’t pass these things on to us unless they’ve already given you ample opportunity to sort it out with them first. Now, I told you we’d be back, and we are, so why don’t you just let us get on with it, eh?’
    ‘I’ve called the police,’ Larry lied, shaking furiously, because he’d heard them talking quietly between themselves and was convinced that they were planning to rush him. ‘They’ll be here any minute.’
    ‘Fine by me,’ Flood replied calmly, his jacket making a swishing sound on the wood as he leaned against the door. ‘Makes it easier for us in the long run.’
    Confused by Flood’s lack of concern, Larry narrowed his eyes. Either the man was calling his bluff, or he genuinely wasn’t bothered if the police came. And, given that he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave, it was probably the latter, which meant that he probably was who he’d said he was. But Larry still couldn’t remember them calling round before.
    Just then, a door on the opposite side of the communal corridor opened. Larry panicked when he heard his neighbour – a well-known TV chef with a habit of gossiping about his fellow celebrities on his weekly show – asking the bailiffs if everything was all right. Scrabbling to open the door before they blurted out the shameful nature of their visit, he waved Flood and Baron inside.
    Gazing up at them when the door was shut he panicked all over again, because both men were absolutely huge and looked like thugs in their leather jackets and with their close-cropped hair. Now that he could see them, he did vaguely recognise them, but he still didn’t remember speaking to them, or coming to any sort of payment arrangements with them.
    ‘Glad you’ve decided to cooperate,’ Flood said, his polite tone at odds with his brutish appearance. ‘Never like having to force entry. But you haven’t got kids, if I remember right, so this shouldn’t be too difficult.’
    Resigned to getting this over and done with now that they were actually inside, Larry said, ‘I’m not being awkward, but have you got any ID? Only you can’t be too careful these days, can you?’
    Reaching into his pocket, Flood took out his official badge and showed it to him. Peering at it for a moment, Larry nodded. Then, blushing when he saw Flood’s gaze dip to the wet patch on the crotch of his jeans, he excused himself and rushed to his bedroom to change.
    Exchanging a smirk with Baron, Flood sauntered over to a heap of newspapers and unopened letters lying behind