Alan Cook - Run into Trouble

“I’ll survive. I don’t want anything to happen to your mother. Unfortunately, it’s not a long-term solution. Either of us could twist an ankle at any time and not be able to run at all.” Drake was silent for a minute. “One way to keep my mind off my body is to see what we can deduce. For example, the letter is full of grammatical and spelling errors. It was written by somebody whose English isn’t great. A foreigner.”

“Be careful how you speak about us foreigners. Or, it could be somebody who wants us to think he’s a foreigner. Did you notice the incongruity? Even with all the errors, the typing itself is perfect.”

“No typos except the spelling errors, which are consistent. No cross-outs. No evidence that the typist even used that white liquid they use to cover errors. An experienced typist did it, but not necessarily one who knows proper English. And it looks like it’s been typed on a good typewriter, like an IBM Selectric.”

“You mean the one with the bouncing ball?”

“Right. Most business offices use them.”

“He knew where my mum lives.”

“He knows a lot about you. He’s got connections, whoever he is. He knows where we’re staying. This is not a fly-by-night operation.”

“What about fingerprints?”

“Well, yours and mine are all over the letter. Mine are on the envelope, and I even took notes on it. We didn’t exactly follow good evidence procedure. There may be others, but we can’t go to the police.”

“What did you find out about the messenger?”

“Not much. Not even sex.”

“Like yes or no?”

“Like boy or girl. Whoever it was was apparently young-and nimble. Got away before the desk clerk could note any identifying characteristics.”

Drake and Melody decided that if they were going to find out anything, they needed to get better acquainted with the other people associated with Running California. When they arrived at the motel-courtesy of Peaches, who met them, noted their time when they finished the run, and drove them to the motel, all without saying more than five words-the first people they saw were Tom Batson and his running partner, Jerry Kidd.

Drake invited them to have dinner with Melody and him. They accepted and agreed to meet after Drake had his appointment with a chiropractor. Thirty minutes later Drake returned to the lobby, having showered and changed his clothes. He was able to move a little better-he was becoming slightly less stiff. By the time they finished the run, he might be in the kind of shape he should be in right now-if it didn’t kill him before then. Peaches, his driver, was sitting in the lobby reading a magazine about martial arts.

They walked out to the company car. Drake sat in the passenger side of the front seat. In a nod to the warm weather, Peaches was wearing a summer-weight suit with the jacket on to hide his gun, Drake was sure. Although not as tall as Drake, he was broader, with a bull neck and large head topped with short, dark hair. Drake decided to see if he could get Peaches to talk.

In a conversational tone he asked, “How long have you worked for Giganticorp?”

Peaches made a turn onto the street in front of the motel and glanced at Drake. “Long enough.”

That wasn’t a promising start. “Are you stationed in San Jose?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“How many employees does Giganticorp have there?”

Peaches looked at Drake as if he thought Drake were trying to pry company secrets from him. Was Giganticorp so private that they didn’t even release employment figures? What could he ask Peaches that wouldn’t be considered confidential? He wanted to ask his real name, but that would sound like an interrogation.

“I guess Giganticorp is a good company to work for.”

When Peaches didn’t say anything at first, Drake wondered whether he had used up his quota of words for the day.

Finally, he said, “It’s a job. Better than some, worse than others, but it keeps beer in the cooler.”

Encouraged that Peaches had uttered more than one sentence at a time, Drake was going to try to keep the conversation going, but at that moment they arrived at the chiropractor’s office. When Peaches drove him back to the motel an hour later, he had retreated into his shell and only grunted in response to Drake’s questions.

“Fred tried to call my mum at noon, but there was still no answer. That would have been eight o’clock at night her time. She should have been home.”

Melody and Drake were waiting in the motel lobby for Tom and Jerry, the runners they were going to have dinner with.

“Did you try again from here?”

“It was too late. I don’t want to call her in the middle of the night there. It would scare her to death. When I was working for the agency, although she didn’t know exactly what I was doing, she suspected enough that she said what she feared most was that call in the middle of the night because something had happened to me.”

Tom and Jerry appeared in the lobby, two runners cut from the same mold: medium height, skinny frame. They wore their hair down over their ears, but not long enough for them to be mistaken for hippies. More like the Beatles. Tom’s was red and Jerry’s was brown. It flopped when they ran.

“Do you want to go to an Italian place?” Tom asked. “Italian food’s good for carbohydrates.”

“There’s one about two blocks from here.” Jerry looked at Drake. “Do you think you can walk that far?”

“I don’t have my cane with me, but I think I can make it.” Drake used an old man’s voice. “If not, you can carry me.” He exaggerated a hobble as they started along the street. Young whippersnappers.

“Congratulations on being in first place.” Melody was trying to direct attention away from Drake.

Fred had posted a typed listing of the teams on a bulletin board in the motel and written down the time of each team so far. Drake and Melody were so far behind that they didn’t even try to figure out how far.

“Thanks,” Tom said. “But we’re only about five minutes ahead of three or four other teams. Not exactly a comfortable lead with so far to go. We’ve had to learn to pace ourselves. A couple of teams tried to break away today, but they ran out of steam and we caught them.”

Jerry nodded. “They underestimate the difficulty of running on sand. It slows you down and takes a lot of energy, something they don’t account for. They think they can run as fast on sand as pavement.”

“I was in the race when you won Boston,” Drake said to Tom. “I was a few hills behind you, however.”

“So was everybody else.” Jerry grinned at his teammate. “He blew them away.”

“Jerry ran under two-thirty in that race,” Tom said.

They were clearly the team to beat. They reached the small restaurant and were seated immediately at a square table for four with a red and white checked plastic tablecloth. It was noisy and friendly. Drake ordered a bottle of beer. Melody had iced tea. Tom and Jerry split a carafe of red wine. Each team had been issued two credit cards for food and incidental expenses.

“How did you two become teammates in this race?” Melody asked.

Tom looked surprised. “I was invited to enter and pick my partner. Jerry and I train together in Redding, so it was a natural. What about you?”

Evasion time. Drake signaled Melody with his eyes. “We didn’t pick each other. Giganticorp picked for us. I guess that’s why we’re in last place.”

Tom looked from one of them to the other. “Didn’t you know each other before?”

How much had Fred let slip? “Only casually. We’d run into each other a few times.”

Jerry laughed. “Run into each other. That’s good. So the beanstalk boys picked you. We call Fred and Peaches and the others the beanstalk boys. Giganticorp-giant-‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ Get it? You two must have been chosen to add color. A girl and a war hero.”