The Bag Phone: Low Tech Tracking in a High Stakes Serve - Case File #022

Before GPS and smartphones, process serving was a game of quarters, paper maps, and pure imagination.

It’s late 1988, and I'm staring down a "rush" subpoena with no apartment number, no vehicle description, and a deadline that could sink a defendant’s case. With the clock ticking and the Washington, DC rush hour traffic working against me, I had to get creative.

In this episode, we revisit the era of the "Bag Phone"—a $2,500 piece of cutting-edge tech that was more prestige than utility. You’ll hear how I borrowed my boss's prized Motorola bag phone, turned an apartment hallway into a high-stakes game of "Hot or Cold," and used a ringing phone to smoke out a subject who didn't want what I had to offer.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• The Beltway Battle: Navigating the nightmare of Tyson’s Corner traffic in the 1980s.
• The Pay Phone Vigil: Why every process server in the 80s carried a console full of quarters.
• The Bag Phone Gambit: How I used a 10-pound mobile phone to identify a target through a closed door.
• Creating Stress: The psychological tactic of the "simultaneous ring and knock" to force a service.

Author’s Reflection: This is a story on patience. From memorizing ADC map books to waiting by pay phones at strip shopping centers, find out what it took to be a "Behavioral Detective" before the world was at our fingertips.

Question for the Listeners: How would you have found Apartment 206 without a cell phone? Would you have the patience to wait by a pay phone for a call back?

New episodes of the Behavioral Detective Podcast drop every Wednesday and Sunday. Wednesdays are for Cal Brink Files fiction. Sundays are for true(ish) stories of my investigator and process server past. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:13

Today's episode is from the Process Server Chronicles, a collection of my experiences and what I learned in my time as a private investigator and Process Server. Truish stories, but the names are changed or redacted, and some details are changed to protect privacy and reduce liability. Thank you for the feedback I've been receiving. The Bag Phone. Case file number 022. Never answer the phone. There was a time when mobile phones were not ubiquitous. Late 1988, I had a rush delivery subpoena for a man the defendant's attorney needed in court the next afternoon. If he doesn't show, the defendant may be sunk. That was made very clear to me when I accepted the work at 3 45 PM. The service would be in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. If you were from the Washington, D.C. area in the 1980s, you knew that a trip between Gaithersburg, where I lived, and Bethesda, where I was picking up the subpoena, was no small feat at 4 p.m. And to go from Bethesda to Tyson's Corner over the Potomac at rush hour was another hour's commitment, depending on the mood of the Beltway traffic god that particular day. The address I was given for the subject's residence was, as I discovered, an apartment building. One of four like-kind buildings, each with twenty-four apartments, eight on each floor. There was no apartment number given on the subpoena. I checked the mailboxes. Except for apartment numbers, most of the mailboxes were blank or unreadable. Only three or four had names on the slots. Most name slots were blank. I knocked on a couple of doors, but no one knew who my subject was or where he lived. With no description of the subject or his car and no apartment number, I questioned whether or not I was going to be able to make this happen. But the importance to the defendant's case had been emphasized twice. After stewing in my black 1987 Ford Escort for about 10 minutes and knocking on a couple of more doors, I finally decided to leave and go in search of a payphone. I kept a console full of quarters for just this kind of occasion. I found a payphone about a mile away in a strip shopping center located between the giant grocery store and a locally owned clothing shop. It was now 6 p.m., but I figured the attorney may still be in the office. He was of no help other than to give me the subject's home phone number and to repeat a stern warning. He can't know you're coming. I waited by the payphone for about 15 minutes while the attorney contacted his client, got a description of the man, and called me back. Neither the attorney nor the client had any information on the subject's car. Whatever you do, you have to serve him. Those were the attorney's last words as he hung up the phone. Then it hit me. I dropped another quarter in the payphone and dialed my boss's pager. Then I waited by the payphone. At times like this, I wish I smoked, because at least then I'd have something to do. Another five or six minutes passed before the payphone rang. I assumed the call was from my boss, so I started right in. Hey, that fancy new bag phone you have? Can I use it? I'm on it right now. Pretty handy. I'm headed to a dinner party in Cabin John. Why do you want it? He was direct, as usual. I had the impression he'd love hauling that heavy bag phone into dinner with him just in case there was an important decision he'd have to make in front of the dinner party. After explaining my idea, he said, I like it. You got a pen? I'll give you the address of where I'm going. When I had the address and was back in my car, I opened up my Montgomery County ADC map book, found the address, and left Tyson's corner for Cabin John on the Maryland side of the Potomac. I met him at the party where, of course, he had the phone with him in the house. After he made a show of giving me a quick tutoring session on how to use the phone, I returned to the apartment. The time was now 6 35 p.m. With the subpoena and the bag phone in hand, I decided to start on the top floor of the building and work my way down. There I was with the phone on the ground and dialing a number from a handwritten piece of paper. I hit the call button, picked up the bag, and started walking. I repeated the call back procedure several times as I walked up and down the hall, listening for any phones that were ringing in the apartments as I walked by. I walked all three floors of the apartment building, but to no avail. Sure, I heard a phone ring in one apartment, but my calling phone never made the connection. When I returned to my car, I made my notes and listened to music for about an hour before I could take it no longer. I had to use a restroom. I made a return trip to the strip shopping center, including a quick stop at a fast food restaurant for a meal, before I headed back to the apartment. Due to the makeup of the apartment and the parking lots, there were two ways in and out. I parked where I had been, and even though I had been gone less than 30 minutes, there were now several new cars in the lot. The time was now 8.25 p.m. I headed back into the apartments. This time I started on the first floor and repeated the call sequences to see what phones may be ringing. Nothing. On to the second floor. About halfway down, I heard a phone ringing. I hung up my phone and the ringing stopped. Had I heard footsteps? After waiting about another 30 seconds, I dialed back. The ringing started again from apartment 206. I decided to create distress. While the phone was starting its third ring, I began knocking on the door. I heard a curse word inside, followed by just a minute. The same man's voice, I had heard curse in the apartment, and came on the phone to say, Hello! I hung up, set the phone on the floor to the left of the door, and waited. The door swung open. Yes? The description matched. The phone number matched. I have a subpoena for you, I stated. What if I don't want it? He defiantly asked. I responded, then I drop it on the floor. Either way, you've been served. You decide. He reached out, snapped the papers out of my hand, and walked away while slamming the door. Followed by another curse word. I made a mental note of the time, 8:37 p.m., and then I left to deliver the bag phone back to the dinner party. My boss had his moment when he directed me to tell the story in front of the hosts and their guests. I was their evening's entertainment. They had questions, I had stories. I counted that time on my billing at rush service rates. Well, that's today's story, but I also have a few author's notes for you. This true story takes place in 1988. No cell phones, no GPS, no social media. Information isn't yet sitting on the other side of your fingertips. That bag phone? It was a Motorola that is pictured and it is remarkably close to what I had access to back in those days, followed by those big brick phones. If you can't see the picture because you're listening, if you go to ProcessServerCronicles.com, you can find the article and see the bag phone. This phone cost about $2,500 in 1988. It was heavy and awkward, and you paid for usage by the minute. The ADC map. Man, I miss paper maps. I took great pride in looking at a map, memorizing the route, and then arriving without having to reference the map again. I would imagine most of you prefer GPS. Quarters. Yes, I consider quarters technology because we had to have them at all times to check in on payphones when we were out in the field. And the last technology that seems to have gone by the wayside is imagination and patience. Human technology, if you will. It seems a different lifetime that I would stand near a payphone for minutes on end waiting for someone to call me. What else did you notice about this story? How would you have handled this situation? Or what technologies triggered a reaction in you? If you're over 40, you may remember a lot of these things. If you're under 40, what fascinates you about those times and the way we had to behave differently? Because, well, information wasn't just everywhere. Now that's that's it for today. If this is your first time here, go back and start at case file one. Trust me, it's worth the trip. On Sundays, we drop truish stories from the Process Server Chronicles. On Wednesdays, we drop fiction from the Cal Brink case files, and they're both waiting for you over at Process Server Chronicles.com. And coming this fall, notice of assignment, Cal Brink's first novella, a real estate investment purchase gone bad. I'm Chris Lengquist, thank you for listening, and remember, keep checking your rear view mirror.