Fourteen

What with having to ditch the car—no one with more brains than a goose drives downtown—I didn’t get to 825 Winter Street until a little past two in the afternoon.

Number 825 was an office building just like the ones on either side. A second-floor window advertised a realtor, a fourth-floor window a podiatrist. The remainder were unadorned. I noted the fifth floor particularly, figuring Suite 505D had to be on five, but it kept its secrets behind filmy curtains.

The lobby was cool and dark, marble-floored. There was no nameplate, no mail slot, for Suite 505D. There was, however, a Suite 500 with a doorbell. I pressed it, got an answering buzz, and entered. I ignored the old cage-elevator and righteously used the steps.

I’m no physical fitness nut, but I do play volleyball, the real kind, three days a week. Afterward, I swim. Today’s match had taken longer than expected and I’d done only ten laps instead of my usual twenty. I took the steps to make up for it. Guilt is the major motivating force in my life.

High-pitched chatter leaked out under the door marked 500. I checked all the doors on five, but there was no 505D. On the pebbled glass window of 500 I read the words “Hemstead Secretarial Services.” I turned the knob and went inside.

The room couldn’t have been more than eight by twelve, but there must have been eight women in it, one at each of the narrow, putty-colored desks, one to each twenty or so phone lines by the look of the complex switchboards. One wall was partitioned off into cubicles containing pieces of mail, brown-wrapped parcels as well as letters and brochures.

Each cubicle was numbered. 501A, B, C, 502A, B, C, and so on. No names.

A few of the women glanced up at me, but nobody seemed to be in charge. There was no receptionist’s counter, no adjoining room. Hemstead, like Lockwood the lawyer, didn’t put up much of a front. A phone rang.

I was still wearing my navy suit. Definitely overdressed for a visit to a mail drop.

“Mail drop” sounds so sinister, far worse than secretarial service. And a lot of people use them for perfectly legit purposes. Say your ex-husband regularly threatens to come by and check up on your morals; you might not want him to have your current address, especially if he outweighs your current beau by a hundred pounds and has a rep for using his fists. While you might choose not to announce your true address in the phone book, you might still wish to communicate with the outside world. So you have your mail sent to 825 Winter Street, Suite five-oh-whatever. Your “suite” is the little cubicle on the wall. When ex-hubby comes by to see who you’re sleeping with, he won’t get far.

Of course, a lot of the shady mail-order crowd use them too. I mean, would you rather send your money order to a post office box or to a street address in a good part of town, a suite number even? Suite conjures up such soothing imagery. Hotel suite. Doctor’s office suite.

Post office box says beware. Red flag. Keep your money.

A woman in her fifties with frizzy brown hair, who’d been glaring around the office with a who’s-going-to-take-care-of-this air, finally walked over to me.

“Can I help you?” she inquired with a martyr’s sigh.

“Uh, I’m looking for Delores Fox,” I said in my best airhead manner. “She still work here?”

“Delores?” The woman knitted her brow in concentration. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a Delores. Not in the past three years anyway.”

“Geez, I was sure she said the fifth floor,” I mumbled. “I dunno. Maybe I got the address wrong.”

“This is 825,” the woman said helpfully.

I pawed through my substitute purse, an old navy leather bag I’ve never liked. “I know I got it in here somewhere. I just can’t find it, and I thought I remembered …”

“Well, I have to get back to—”

“Sure. Sorry I interrupted. Thanks. I’ll find her.” I muttered my way out, grinning while I closed the door behind me.

I could have asked a lot of questions, but people who work for answering services and mail drops are trained not to answer inquiries about the clientele. Instead, I walked myself down Winter Street toward the Common, resisting the impulse to enter Filene’s Basement to shop for shoes.

They rarely carry size 11’s, but when they do, I stock up.

By the time I hit the Public Garden I was taking note of the picnickers lounging near the “Don’t sit on the grass” signs, the popcorn vendors, and balloon hawkers. I stopped and bought a late-lunch hot dog slathered with mustard, and wolfed it down sitting on a park bench.

I tossed a leftover chunk of hot-dog bun to a squirrel with a ragged tail, got up, and dusted crumbs off my suit. The brazen squirrel made a beeline for them.

Why the hell would Dunrobie be using a mail drop? Was he homeless? If so, how the hell could he afford one? Had Lockwood, the lawyer, rented it for him so they could keep in touch?

I strolled back downtown.

On Washington Street, in front of Filene’s, the city allows pushcart merchants to set up shop, hawking homemade jewelry, T-shirts, wind chimes, stained-glass dew-drops. One cart held a cargo of kites. A huge yellow one made me think of my little sister, Paolina. Yellow’s her favorite color, so I bought it immediately. It made a long, skinny package, and the woman running the stand asked if I wanted a mailing tube. She had a stock of them in rainbow colors. I inspected them with growing enthusiasm, and finally chose a large matching yellow one. I let her put the kite inside. Then I selected another mailing tube, an even larger red one.

At the Arch Street post office, I addressed the yellow tube to Paolina, hoping her mother would let her keep the gift. Then I addressed the red mailing tube to Mr. David Dunrobie, 825 Winter Street, Suite 505D, etc., using Lockwood’s Somerville office for the return address. I stood in line to mail them.

The man behind the counter disagreed with my decision to mail the red tube first-class. “This close,” he urged, “you just send it regular parcel post and it’ll get delivered day after tomorrow at the latest.”

“If I send it first-class, will it go with tomorrow’s delivery?”

“Sure,” he said, “but it’ll cost you two-forty instead of eighty-five cents.”

I forked over the money for next-day delivery, feeling pretty damn good about my chances of tracking Davey. The glow lasted me through a Filene’s Basement shoe spree—two pairs, a real haul—and a long walk to the Copley Square T station with frequent stops to stare at homeless men along the way. In Harvard Square, still feeling confident that Dunrobie was in the bag, I checked out the bill at the old Brattle Theater and decided impulsively to treat myself to a replay of To Have and Have Not.

Reality didn’t catch up with me till I got home, hastily unlatched my three front-door locks, and raced into the living room in time to catch the ringing phone.

The voice was a whisper.

“Dee?” I said. “Is that you?”

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God,” the whisper said.

“Dee, where are you?”

“Oh, Carlotta.”

“Where are you, Dee? Is anybody with you?”

“Come to the room, Carlotta. Oh, please come. I should have called the doctor. I should have stayed. I should have stayed.”

I’d been looking forward to a very late dinner. I was glad I’d taken time to eat the hot dog in the park.