Run into Trouble

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 attache 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.”

“Phil.”

“And your partner is?”

“Brian.”

The names rang a bell, but the bodies were interchangeable.

“Let’s have each of us give our name and indicate our teammate. I’m Drake and this is Melody.”

“We know who you are.”

General laughter. However, they did as they were told. That helped a little. Drake suspected that he was the only one, with the possible exception of Melody, who didn’t know all the others.

“I thought we’d get together without the beanstalk gang to see how everyone is doing, any complaints, that sort of thing. Anybody want to lead off?”

“This running in sand is for the birds,” Brian said.

“Especially when we have to run through a flock of seagulls,” someone else cut in.

“I’m serious. It’s hard work and slows us down.”

“It slows everybody down equally.”

“Except those who cheat.”

All eyes looked at the speaker who Drake identified as Glen.

Feeling the stares he continued, “I’m not naming names, but several teams have been running on the street when they were supposed to run on the beach.”

“One team got penalized.”

That was common knowledge, because any penalties, in the form of minutes added to their times, were posted along with the rankings. Drake remembered that it was the team of Harrison and Danny.

Harrison stood up. He had black hair, and his body had a darker tan than most. “We weren’t the only ones. Others did it too, but they weren’t caught. Fred showed us a picture someone took of us. We didn’t see the photographer. They have people watching us we don’t know about.”

“Other than Fred, Peaches, and Grace?” Melody asked.

A five-minute discussion ensued, resulting in agreement that Giganticorp had plainclothes people along the route keeping an eye on the runners. Several of the runners thought they knew what a couple of them looked like.

Drake ended the talk by saying, “There’s nothing in the rules that says they can’t do this. They’re trying to make sure we’re abiding by the rules.”

“Speaking of rules, what about the rule that says we have to share a room?” Phil looked at Drake and Melody. “Apparently it doesn’t apply to you two.”

“He thinks you two should be sleeping together.”

Brian winked at Melody while the other runners broke up.

Phil wasn’t laughing. “Melody could room with Grace. Drake could room with…”

“Peaches?”

More laughter.

“We’ll draw straws to see who rooms with Grace.”

“And Melody.”

Drake wanted to keep the meeting from degenerating into a bull session. “Another subject. Has anybody had any security problems? Losing things out of rooms, suitcases, et cetera?”

The room quieted down.

Danny said, “Why do you ask?”

“No special reason. Security can be a problem when you’re traveling, especially in a group as large as this one.”

“We have Peaches to protect us and our things.”

The mention of Peaches seemed to provoke hilarity. Nobody admitted to losing anything or mentioned that their belongings had been disturbed.

Drake had one more question. “Has anybody been approached to…alter your running in any way and either been threatened or promised something?”

When the resulting buzz died down, a man Drake recognized as Winthrop said, “Are you saying that someone is betting on the race?”

“I’m not saying anything. I’m just asking.”

Nobody volunteered any information. Drake didn’t want to make an issue of it.

“I have a complaint about the prize money.”

All eyes looked at Mike, Aki’s teammate.

“There’s only one prize. It’s winner-take-all. What does the team that finishes second get?”

“A case of Rice-A-Roni.”

“An all-expense-paid tour of the California coast.”

“Tom and Jerry aren’t complaining.”

Their lead had increased to over fifteen minutes.

Tom spoke up. “It’s a long race, guys. Anything can happen. You know, we’re taking it one day at a time.”

Cliche city, but it made him a few points. A vigorous discussion ensued. Drake argued that having one prize fostered competition. His argument lost some force, at least for himself, because he and Melody were being paid to run. It was a good thing the other runners didn’t know that. He rationalized it by telling himself that it was an appearance fee, like some elite runners received for entering marathons. Although why he and Melody deserved an appearance fee he didn’t know.

One thing everybody agreed on was that the publicity would help them with their running careers. It was also a great vacation and beat working for a living.