Time to go undercover

With the gym closed, Kat and Usha were struggling to pick up their lives. Which meant they weren't in a hurry to drop everything and help Rick out. It took the offer of several massages each... which they wouldn't have to use themselves but could give to their clients... to persuade them to help out. But Rick needed the help. One man, acting alone, would be spotted if he tried to find out where Black Hat operated.

At least they were low-tech enough that they actually used a P.O. box. If Rick had put together a scheme like this, he would have used an offshore bank and digital transfers or maybe even some blockchain currency to keep things undercover.

The Mesquite post office on Gus Thomasson Road was in a strip shopping center and was certainly a mediocre place for a stakeout. Cars came and went as eBay vendors dropped off their packages and people without fixed addresses came in to check their P.O. boxes.

Rick got around that by parking a mile a way and hiking in, complete with blanket and sign and a mirror. Considering the wear and tear on his few clothes, he didn't have to do much to disguise himself as what he was, a homeless person. The sign truthfully proclaimed he was a U.S. Army veteran who'd lost his home. He set up camp outside the post office, leaning against the wall with his sign on display.

A couple of teenage girls looked at him with pity and disgust. A pair of similarly aged boys loudly discussed what losers homeless people must be. A mom with three kids slipped a dollar into his box which he felt guilty about accepting but couldn't turn down without blowing his cover. Pickings, however, were slim.

After a couple of hours, a Post Office cop came out and harassed him.

Rick simply shrugged. He didn't think it was illegal to lean against the wall of a post office location. He wasn't harassing anyone, just sitting there. If it made some people uncomfortable to think there were homeless people in their community, maybe they should consider doing something to help the homeless rather than trying to force them to go to other neighborhoods.

Eventually the P.O. cop gave up and went back inside.

And nobody came to check the Black Hat P.O. box.

Well, hell. Another wasted day.

Except it wasn't over. While the post office closed at five, the PO boxes were open 24 hours. He was about to call Jan and ask if she and Eliza could spell Usha and Kat when a large black Cadillac Escalade pulled into the parking lot.

A massively huge white guy of about forty, with a shaved head, a fat belly and arms that looked like they were about to split the cheap suit he wore hopped out of the SUV and headed for the door.

Rick took a quick snap of the license plate then turned his attention to the mirror.

Sure enough, the man lingered in the PO box area for a few minutes until he was alone, then headed for the box number indicated in Dan's e-mail.

"Black Escalade, tinted windows so I can't see whether there's a passenger," Rick reported to Usha who was scheduled to be first to follow. Kat, can you pick me up and drop me off at my car?

Three minutes later, the big guy emerged from the post office and fired up his car. Now, if they could just follow him without being spotted. Rick was hopeful. Modern tracking algorithms could probably pick up followers through pattern recognition no matter how they swapped around the cars and drivers. But people who trusted in modern pattern recognition would also probably have trusted in bitcoin and anonymous funds transfer. He hoped.