Run into Trouble (9 page)

***

Drake didn’t have his pants completely off
when the telephone rang. He made the mistake of trying to hop to
the phone with them around his ankles. A spasm in his back caused
him to trip and fall forward. His nose hit the top of the
nightstand, and he roared in pain. He sat on the floor with his
back against the bed, trembling as he waited for the almost
unbearable spears shooting through his nose and back to
subside.

The phone continued to ring. He’d better
answer it. Was he able to talk? He fumbled for the receiver and
picked it up.

“Drake.”

“Are you all right?” Melody’s voice sounded
frantic.

Drake cleared his throat and tried to speak
above a mumble. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just had a little accident.”

“Is somebody there?”

“No.”

“Drake, somebody went through my things
while we were at the show.”

He was now fully alert. “Did they take
anything?”

“No, nothing’s missing.”

“Money? Jewelry?”

“I didn’t leave any money in the room. The
jewelry I have with me is worthless. Nothing was nicked. What about
your room?”

Now he understood what she was driving
at.

“Just a minute.”

Drake set the telephone receiver on the
nightstand and crawled across the threadbare rug on his hands and
knees to his suitcase. His pants were still around his ankles, but
he didn’t know whether he could stand yet, anyway. The suitcase was
sitting on the floor against the wall of the motel room where he
had left it. It took him a few seconds to open the latches because
his hands were still shaking from the pain.

The differences were subtle, but he could
tell that somebody had been in his suitcase. He arranged his
clothes in a certain way from habit, left over from the days when
he never knew who would be spying on him. Whoever had looked inside
the suitcase had taken pains to cover his tracks, but he hadn’t
done quite a good enough job.

Drake crawled back to the phone. “Somebody’s
been in my things.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Wait…”

A click told him that Melody had hung up.
She was only three doors away, so she would be here in a few
seconds. Drake didn’t want her to see him like this. He struggled
to a sitting position on the bed and pulled up his pants. He didn’t
have his fly zipped or his belt buckled when there was a knock on
the door.

“Just a minute.”

He made it to his feet, zipped his fly after
fumbling a bit, and put the tongue of the buckle through the first
hole in the belt. He tried to walk to the door without limping. He
opened the door and saw Melody, clad in a green bathrobe and
barefoot.

“You look terrible.”

Drake realized how contorted his face was
and tried to smile. “That’s become your standard greeting.”

Melody pushed past him into the room. “It
doesn’t look as if you had a spat with anyone. What happened?”

“My own stupidity. I fell and hurt my back
and nose.”

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t think I exacerbated anything.”

“I’ll exacerbate you if you did. Did
anything get taken from your room?”

“Not that I can tell. I have one more place
to look.”

Drake tried to lift the only chair in the
room, thought better of that plan, and ended up dragging the chair
over to the wall by the window. He carefully stood on it, trying
not to let Melody see how much it hurt him to lift his leg. Maybe
he had reinjured his back. He pulled a dime out of his pocket and
unscrewed the screws that secured the ceiling vent. After he
removed the vent, he reached up and pulled down a brown paper
bag.

He handed it to Melody and replaced the
vent. “Don’t touch them, but are the envelope and letter
there?”

Melody looked inside the bag. “Yes, still
here. Do you think that’s what whoever it was was looking for?”

“Wouldn’t doubt it. Maybe they suddenly
realized that we might be able to trace them.”

“We couldn’t get a typewriter match, so it
must be fingerprints. Of course
our
prints are all over
them.”

“We won’t add any more.”

“How can we get them checked for prints
without raising all kinds of alarms?”

“I’ll call Blade. There must be a local
agent who can help us.” Drake went over to the phone.

“Drake, it’s three in the morning in D.C.
Blade isn’t going to be happy to hear from you.”

“So what else is new? At least he’ll
probably be home. Unless he’s sleeping over at his
girlfriend’s.”

Drake got a long distance operator and
called collect so that nobody from the motel could determine what
number he had called. Blade was even grouchier than his usual self,
if that were possible, but he accepted the call and listened as
Drake told him what he needed. He promised to have an agent contact
them the next day. Drake hung up.

“Whoever did this was a pro. Or at least a
semi-pro. No forced entry. Nothing messed up—at least not very
much.”

“If we were normal people, we wouldn’t have
known about it—unless the thief had gotten the letter.”

“I don’t think you should sleep alone.
Whoever it was may come back.”

“Is this your sneaky way of getting me into
bed with you?”

“Melody, I’m serious. I’m also in no
condition to do anything. Maybe we can swap our two rooms for one
with two beds.”

“No.” Melody thought for a moment. “I’m not
afraid. I don’t think anybody is going to risk being identified.
It’s interesting that they know our room numbers. It certainly
looks like an inside job. Which means that they could have taken
the letter when it was on the bus with our luggage.”

“That would prove it’s an inside job. We
would go directly to Casey.”

“Maybe we should, anyway.”

“Not yet. We’d have to talk to him in
person. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him soon.”

“Give me one of your razor blades. If
somebody comes into my room, I’ll give him something to remember me
by.”

Drake went into the bathroom and came back
with the requested blade.

“Be careful.”

“I will. I know how to use this.” Melody
gave him a quick hug. “There’s another reason why I can’t stay in
the same room with you. I might be the one who couldn’t resist; I
might jump your bones.”

She opened the door just wide enough to slip
through the crack and closed it behind her.

CHAPTER 10

The ringing telephone woke an irritated
Drake out of a sound sleep. Why was Melody calling him? They had
agreed that this was their morning to sleep in. The light streaming
through the partially opened curtain told him that it was broad
daylight outside, so it couldn’t be too early. Better answer the
phone. His back gave a twinge as he reached for the receiver, but
it wasn’t as bad as last night.

“Drake.”

“Blade asked me to contact you.”

The voice was resonant, like that of a radio
announcer. Drake uttered something in reply.

“I’ll meet you and Melody this morning at
ten at a coffee shop on PCH. It’s about a mile from your motel.
Here’s the address.”

Not “Can you meet me?” He’d better write
down the address, but he didn’t have pen and paper handy. Drake
asked the man to repeat it. He did, his voice showing impatience.
Then the line went dead before Drake could find out his name and
how they would know him. A typical spy operation. Drake had been
out of the business for too long. He had no desire to return to
it.

***

“PCH?”

“Pacific Coast Highway.”

“I thought I was catching on to American
English, but you Californians have your own brand.”

“So do other sections of the U.S. Just like
your beloved UK. Although I think in the UK it’s more of a class
difference.”

Drake began whistling “Why can’t the English
teach their children how to speak?” from
My Fair Lady
.

Melody grabbed Drake’s arm to keep him from
crossing a street as the light turned red.

“I could make some comments about class in
the U.S. Or ethnic groups. Or what some people call race, although
last time I checked we’re all members of the human race.”

Drake was glad they were walking and not
running. It allowed him to stretch his muscles without abusing
them. The day off would be very helpful to him. He was already
planning to take an afternoon nap. It was another cloudless day of
California summer, and Melody had insisted they put on sunscreen,
just as if they were going to be out running all day. Even with the
sunscreen, their faces and limbs had grown several shades darker
since the start of the race. In Drake’s case, it helped hide the
bruise on his nose. When he looked in the mirror, the image he saw
looked almost like he pictured himself.

Drake spotted the coffee shop, which looked
a lot like small restaurants everywhere. It was far enough from the
motel that they were unlikely to see anybody connected with the
race. They walked in at one minute to ten and looked around. Before
Drake saw anybody who resembled an agent, Melody nudged him. She
directed his gaze to the booth in the corner. A man sat with his
back to the junction of the two walls wearing mirror sunglasses. He
gave an almost imperceptible nod in their direction.

As they made their way to the booth, Drake
spoke under his breath. “Those shades make him look like a
California Highway Patrol officer.”

“No remarks. Remember, he’s doing us a
favor.”

“At least he knows how to keep his back to
the wall—unlike Wild Bill Hickok.”

“Enough.”

They came up to the booth.

Melody extended her hand with a smile.
“Melody.”

He shook her hand briefly. “Slick.”

As Drake shook his hand he wanted to say,
“I’m sure you’re slick, but what’s your name?”

They sat down opposite him. With his
short-sleeved sport shirt he looked like any other tourist except
for the bulging muscles in his arms. Even his iron-colored short
hair contributed to his look of hardness.

A waitress in an ugly brown uniform
immediately bustled up, so Drake ordered coffee and Melody ordered
iced tea. Slick was sucking on a tall glass of Coke through a
straw. After the waitress filled their cups, there was silence for
a minute while Melody put a spoonful of sugar in her glass.

Melody spoke first. “Thanks for helping
us.”

“Blade said you were good people and to do
whatever you asked.”

It was the same mellifluous voice that Drake
had heard on the phone. That was Drake’s cue to open the top of the
brown paper bag he was carrying and show Slick the contents.

“The envelope and note may have fingerprints
on them. Well, we know they have our prints, but they may have
others. We’re hoping you can connect them to people in the
government files.”

Slick opened an attaché case he had on the
seat beside him. He placed the bag in the case and pulled a couple
of items out.

“Since your prints are here, I’m going to
fingerprint you now. I know we’ve got your prints on file, but it’s
always a pain to look them up, especially since they’re not stored
here. This way we can eliminate them from the evidence before we
send it back east.”

Drake wasn’t keen on being fingerprinted,
but as Slick said, their prints were already on file, so it didn’t
make a lot of difference. He and Melody rolled each of their
fingers on the inkpad and left their prints on a card, being
careful not to smudge them. Because they were in a corner booth,
nobody saw what they were doing.

Drake tried to wipe the ink off his fingers
with a napkin. “Please don’t share the contents of the note with
anyone except Blade. You don’t need to do anything about it. We’re
taking care of it.”

Slick raised his eyebrows, as if questioning
their ability to take care of the situation, but he didn’t say
anything. They agreed that Drake would call Blade to get the
results of the fingerprinting. Melody asked how they could get hold
of Slick if they needed to talk to him directly.

Slick gave them each a business card. The
cards were for the Christian Bookstore and gave an address in Los
Angeles.

“Call this number and ask for Slick.”

As he pocketed the card, Drake wondered if
it were somebody’s idea of a joke, but he didn’t ask. It was
obvious that Slick wasn’t one for small talk. Drake and Melody
exchanged looks.

Melody said, “I need to go to the loo and
wash my hands.”

As Drake reached for his wallet, Slick said,
“I’ll take care of it.”

Drake and Melody went to the restrooms. When
they came out, Slick was gone.

***

As the runners filed into his motel room,
Drake inspected them for physical problems. The only times they had
all been together in the past few days were during the morning ride
in the bus to the starting point of the day’s run, and that
situation didn’t lend itself to general conversation. With all of
the Giganticorp employees off for the day, he figured it was a good
time to find out how everyone was doing and ask some other
questions.

Aki appeared to be favoring his cut foot,
but he didn’t grimace in pain. He and Mike had finished yesterday’s
run in last place for the day, but they had finished. The other
runners still looked healthy. Drake had to admit that Giganticorp
had done a good job picking them.

They sat on the bed and on the floor,
chatting and joking. Some stood and leaned against the wall. Drake
offered the only chair to Melody, but she eschewed it, preferring
to stand beside him. He tried to count attendees. He raised his
hand for silence.

“Is everyone here?”

Three of the runners said that their
teammates were with their families for the day. Seventeen out of
twenty were present. Not bad.

“What’s the purpose of this meeting?”

Drake looked at the questioner who was
sitting cross-legged on the rug. “I’m sorry. I still don’t know
everyone’s name.”