Trader of secrets

Chapter Twenty-Three

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in my underwear as Joselyn tries to clean the burn on my lower leg with a damp washcloth from the bathroom as Harry looks on.

“Two days, a lot of money, and a long trip, and we’ve got squat,” I tell them.

Harry is sitting in a chair in the corner. “How do we know the drawer was even the right one? I mean, just because the letters line up with a note you found in Costa Rica…”

“Puerto Rico,” I tell him. “Waters of Death, same address as on the note, and the only thing in that room that matches it is… Ow, that hurts!”

“Don’t be a wuss,” she says.

“Easy for you to say. It’s not your leg.”

“A few more inches, and it wouldn’t have been yours anymore either,” she says. “That bike did a pretty good job on you. Didn’t your mother ever tell you to look both ways?”

“Problem was I was looking the wrong way on a one-way street. Yeah, that’s clean enough,” I tell her. “Here, let me have the towel.”

“You should put something on that,” she says. “There’s a pharmacy across the street.”

“I’ll get something later.”

“You want to lose your leg, it’s up to you,” she says. “You sleep in the other bed tonight. I don’t want that bloody stump next to me.”

“It’s not bloody.”

“Look at the towel,” says Harry.

“Well, OK, so there’s a little blood. But it’s no stump.”

“Give it time,” says Joselyn.

“Listen, both of you, just leave me alone. I’ve got to think.”

“About what?” she asks.

“About that drawer and what might have been in it.”

“Yeah, well, good luck on that,” says Joselyn.

“We had her in our grasp,” says Harry.

“We never got that close to her,” I tell him.

“Of course not. Sherlock here thought it would be a good idea to let her get just a little farther ahead of us,” says Harry. “Then suddenly she and her bag take a ride on a rocket bike.”

“OK, so I screwed up.”

“Well, there you go. Admission,” says Joselyn. “The first step in every idiot’s recovery.”

“God, but you’re cruel,” I tell her.

“You’re not the one who got left behind in the dark room.”

“I thought you would be safer there.”

“Always thinking of me,” she says.

“I did leave a flashlight.”

“What can I say? Thank you. And if any words of mine ever cause you any real pain, would you like me to tell you how to ease the agony?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Just stand up and run your lower leg into the side of a bed.”

Harry doubles over in laughter from his chair.

“OK, OK. I get it. You’re angry.”

“Not at all,” she says. “If I was angry, you would know it. This is my reaction to a minor annoyance.”

“God help me.”

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t,” she says.

“In the meantime, we’re back where we started,” says Harry.

“Not entirely,” says Joselyn.

“What do you mean?” I look at her.

“While you two were jousting with motorcycles and buses down on the street, I was busy doing a little research.”

“On what?” I ask.

“I figured that if the drawer was empty, I may as well take the label.”

“You mean WOD?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why?” says Harry.

“Because I didn’t have anything to write with,” she tells him. “And my memory is not that good.”

Harry looks a little baffled.

“The label had more than just the three letters printed on it,” I tell him. “There was the name of a company, TSCC Limited.”

“We assume the company rented the office space and in turn rented out the boxes to their clients,” says Joselyn. “There were also some telephone numbers, contact information for TSCC printed on the labels.”

“Ahh,” says Harry.

“So I suppose we can start there in the morning,” I tell her. “See if we can get a lead on Liquida by going through the company.”

“But that’s not all,” says Joselyn. “That’s what was on the front of the label. On the back were some numbers.” She stands up and reaches into her pocket. “By the way, I’ve got your keys and your flashlight.” She hands them to me and then unfolds a small piece of paper. It’s the label that was on the drawer. She shows it to me.

Sure enough, on the back are the numbers “00088” printed in the same font as the three letters on the face of the label, only smaller.

“And that’s not all.”

“What else?” says Harry.

“I checked some of the other labels on the other drawers. Every one of the labels I checked had numbers printed on the reverse side, all of them with five digits, and all starting with zeros.”

“What do you make of it?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I thought the two of you might have some ideas.”

“You know what it sounds like to me,” says Harry. “The place is nothing but an old-fashioned drop.”

“What do you mean?” says Joselyn.

“I thought it was something that went out with high button shoes,” he says. “The numbers rackets used them back in the 1920s to collect cash and receipts from their street runners. Drop it all in the box, and a bagman would go around and clean out the boxes and take it all to the central counting house. That way only one guy knew where the counting house was. Concept is simple. It’s just a way of keeping the world at a distance,” says Harry. “The OSS put a twist on it during the war. They realized you didn’t need a box. Anything could be a drop-the underside of a table in a public restaurant would do if you had some tape. You stick a message there, and as long as the people you’re working with know which table is being used, they can collect it and nobody ever has to meet. They drop some colored chalk on the sidewalk out in front of the restaurant and crush it underfoot, white to let people know that the drop was loaded and pink to let the world know the message was received; you didn’t even have to know who the people were you were working with.”

“What happens if the other side finds out about the drop?” says Joselyn.

Harry arches an eyebrow. “In the case of the OSS, you got trapped, tortured, and when they couldn’t get anything more out of you, you probably got hung with a piece of piano wire.”

“So what you’re saying is that Liquida is a throwback to another age,” says Joselyn.

“In a word,” says Harry. “He’s using a war surplus filing cabinet to collect his mail. The problem is he has it, and we don’t.”

“But you notice he didn’t come and get it himself,” I say.

“That would defeat the whole purpose of the drop box,” says Harry.

“And you can bet that the people sending mail to him, the ones hiring him, they’ve never been near that box either. Let me see the label again,” says Joselyn.

I hand it to her.

“TSCC. What do you think it stands for?” she says.

“We could Google it. But if Liquida is typical of their clientele, I doubt they’re advertising on the Internet. More likely to be word of mouth,” says Harry.

“Let me see,” I look over Joselyn’s shoulder. “We could call the number. It’s after hours. Maybe they’ve got a tape.”

A quick consensus that we have nothing to lose finds me with the receiver to the room phone in my hand. I dial for an outside line, a local number, and punch in the eight digits.

I take up the pen and pad by the nightstand and listen for a few seconds as I make a note. “Trident Storage, Courier and Communications,” I tell them.

“That sorta covers the field,” says Harry.

“Sounds like they will forward your mail if you want it,” says Joselyn.

“Except that woman didn’t look like any kind of courier I’ve ever seen,” I tell her.

“This is a different kind of courier service,” says Harry.

“Did they mention any office hours on the tape?” she asks.

“No. Just push number one if you’re calling to have your mail forwarded. Number two if you want to make arrangements to rent a box and three if you want to cancel service.”

“Which makes you wonder if they actually have an office,” says Harry.

“I think we’ve seen the office,” I tell him.

“So where does that leave us?” Joselyn looks at the two of us.