The Best American Mystery Stories 2016

by Elizabeth George

  George is no longer simply slipping documents out of and back into their envelopes. Now he is looking into everything, reading through it all, really getting to know Muscovito’s businesses.

  Lots of overlapping bank accounts. Shell financial companies inside shell financial companies, a shiny nautilus of dummy corporations and paperwork, echoes upon echoes in dark empty chambers. George sees some themes and patterns—schemes so complex, so cross-border, that it would be hard for legitimate investors caught in the maze to ever get their money back.

  He studies some of them closely. Tries to follow all the steps. Like a land purchase, 1050 acres of what at first appears to be an Indonesian atoll in the Pacific. With the help of Google Maps and GPS coordinates and a little further investigation, George ascertains that there is no such atoll, no corresponding piece of geography. So the money is being sheltered somehow, to be funneled somewhere else.

  The money for that purchase, George sees, comes partly from a wire transfer out of an account at a bank in Montevideo, Uruguay. George digs further: there is no such bank. So—a transfer from a bank that doesn’t exist to buy land that doesn’t exist. Laundering the money twice, George tentatively concludes. Making it squeaky clean, for some further expenditure.

  On the one hand, he doesn’t follow a lot of it. On the other hand, he follows it enough.

  Then there are the names of the corporations: Parcel 666, Devil’s Bluff Partners, Black Hole Trust. How arrogant.

  No, George can’t follow it very well—hell, that is the idea in a lot of cases—but retyping and altering the terms of the contracts and forging the signatures—that he can do. If the signatures on these “new” contracts look forged, give themselves away, well, that would be even better. Because that would tell Muscovito that his partners are trying to pull a fast one on him—or tell his partners that Muscovito is trying to put one over on them. Either way, it would be an ugly development in any prospective partnership. Courtesy of George.

  An intensive Internet search on Muscovito himself turns up nothing. Which tells George something: Muscovito has managed to scrub himself. When George checks the government databases open to government employees, he finds nothing. No mention of Muscovito.

  He can report Muscovito for mail fraud. With all the documents he’s photographed and copied, everything he’s learned, he can practically present the case himself. But prosecutions take forever. Years, probably. At any point, with the right lawyers, an operator like Muscovito could manage to wiggle out of it and slip away. Plus, after all these opened envelopes and copied documents, George is now guilty of repeated, systematic mail fraud himself. No different from Muscovito, probably, in the blindfolded eyes and impartial scales of the law. He could be charged and prosecuted in the same courtroom. No, reporting the fraud is too risky, and maybe useless. Dealing with the fraud directly is the best, the only course of action—if action is what one wants.

  The neighborhood has always had a rhythm. Men leaving in early morning for the commuter train, then the buses and carpools for school, then the garbage truck, then the household repair vans—plumber, carpenter, electrician, appliances, the store delivery trucks, the dry cleaner’s van. And at half past two in the afternoon, the mailman. Part of the rhythm. Like the phases of the moon or the seasonal shifting of the sun. Ingrained in the nature of the place.

  Squirrels gathering nuts from beneath the shedding oaks, a wild turkey or a fox darting across the lane. The autumn rain pattering on the fallen leaves, the snow’s coating of white silence, the rich warm smell of spring. A primal orderly march, a deep rhythm, that Muscovito has tampered with.

  Or is it bigger than that? Is Muscovito simply guilty of . . . modernity? Personifying an atomized, disconnected age. An age without social connection. An age of complexity. An age that leaves neighborhoods behind. Is George’s tampering with Muscovito and his mail simply, at some level, a rebellion against that age?

  Which leads to a broader philosophical question: in wanting to preserve the world around him, is George the one tampering with the rhythm of things, inserting himself into their natural processes? Is he the one creating change, just as guilty as Muscovito? Overstepping—a highly unfamiliar position for a U.S. postal employee.

  Playing god, or superhero?

  Superman. Batman. Mailman.

  George works on the documents late at night. Lights burning brightly in his little dining room. Spreading them out at his dining room table. Retyping and spell-checking sections of the documents on his old Dell desktop. Downloading font libraries from suppliers around the world to let him match typefaces perfectly. Choosing printing paper that matches the weight and color of the originals, from the wide selection of papers he has purchased for just that purpose. Checking his handiwork with a magnifying glass, to scrutinize the telltale edges of the letters where ink meets page. Getting the appropriate international stamps and markings (which proves easy for a postal employee).

  He has been alone in the little ranch house since Maggie’s passing three years ago. All the retirement magazines recommend a hobby. George’s current activity isn’t what they mean, but it does keep him occupied, after all. Something to do. A craft. Focusing his mental energy. He can only take a day with each document so that Muscovito still receives it in a timely manner. The swift completion of his appointed rounds—with a slight detour.

  It adds up to a primer in white-collar crime. Mail fraud. He is a student of it, cramming assiduously at night.

  Making Muscovito, in a way, his partner in crime. Probably sitting at his own dining room table late at night—or in his locked home office, or wherever—cooking up a scheme for George to slightly, subtly modify.

  Why is he doing this? Why really? Retirement is approaching fast, Maggie is gone, and once he is no longer behind the wheel of the truck, making his way through the neighborhood, he will lose his last connection to the world. He’ll have no focus, nothing to do. So is this a last act, a desperate bid for preserving not a neighborhood’s way of life but his own? The neighborhood of his route is not his own neighborhood, after all. But after thirty-five years, it is his past, his existence, his tie to daily life, and perhaps he is doing everything he can—even something completely crazy—to avoid at all costs the total, annihilating disconnection to come. Is keeping the neighborhood intact really about keeping himself intact? Doing something crazy to head off the aloneness he faces? Doing something uncharacteristically risky, utterly insane, as an alternative to utter quiet, utter resignation, utter loneliness?

  One day, as he delivers Muscovito’s mail, the gate opens. A disembodied voice comes on a speaker built into the gate: “Can you bring the mail in today? I want to ask you something.”

  George’s heart accelerates, pounds as if on cue. Does he know? Does Muscovito know?

  George watches himself, observes it from outside himself: backing the truck out, in a screeching-rubber retreat, hustling the truck down the familiar lane, guilt on plain display, abandoning his bright trusty vehicle in a commuter lot by the highway just as he’s imagined for years, disappearing into a new life. A flash of extreme action, of clear procedure, shooting through his brain.

  But George is George, with a mailman’s temperament and a mailman’s soul, and he drives his bright, cheerful mail truck obediently through Muscovito’s new front gate and up the drive.

  Muscovito is there in the driveway to meet him.

  Squat, thick. Skin pale, almost translucent. Clearly a man who spends an inordinate amount of time in front of computer screens. An ungroomed mop of black hair. Big, fleshy arms folded across his considerable, Buddhistic chest and stomach.

  George rolls the truck to a stop. Takes out the pile of Muscovito’s mail. Holds it out to him with a friendly smile.

  The smile is not returned, making George’s smile hang there, awkward, unacknowledged.

  Muscovito: No greeting. No niceties. Going right to it. “I’ve got a question.”

  George: “Yes, sir?”
r />   Muscovito: “Could anyone be tampering with my mail?”

  George frowns with concern.

  Muscovito: “At any point in the process?”

  George (pausing, considering): “When you say tampering, what do you mean?”

  Muscovito (irritably): “I mean tampering. Opening it somewhere.”

  George (leadenly): “Well, where exactly?”

  Muscovito (irritation rising): “Somewhere! Anywhere! That’s what I want you to tell me.”

  George (shaking his head): “I can’t imagine that happening, sir. That kind of thing is very rare. I’ve been on this route for thirty-five years, haven’t had a problem. But it’s not unheard of. I can file a report if you want.”

  Muscovito (looking somewhat alarmed, shifts on his feet a little, looks out past George to the gate): “No, that’s OK. Just wondering if it’s possible.”

  George: “Well, if you change your mind, I can have it looked into. You let me know.”

  And pulling out of the driveway, a huge exhalation of relief. His relief fills the truck cabin. But he is wistful, philosophical, as well.

  Because the man never imagines that it might be George. Based on the immutable, unchanging, common perception that George—after thirty-five years—knows he can utterly rely upon: not that mailmen are honorable and above reproach, but that mailmen are stupid. Why else would you be just a mailman?

  Presumably Muscovito is calling the various parties. Either accusing them of changing the contracts or apologizing for the bizarre changes in the contracts coming back to them. If he is accusing them, that tone of accusation is undoubtedly not going over very well with his overseas partners. And if he is apologizing, he is raising their anxiety about being involved with such a reckless, untrustworthy party. And if he is apologizing, then they will be doubly irritated when the alterations and forgeries continue. Either way, his partners aren’t going to be happy.

  At the very minimum, it is producing an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust. And phone calls, normally a recommended mechanism for clearing the air, might in this case only heighten that mistrustful atmosphere, hearing the annoyance, frustration, and suspicion in each other’s voices. So go ahead, call away. Talk as smoothly and reasonably as you like to each other. You’re only going to amplify each other’s suspicions and dark alertness that a few weeks ago existed not at all.

  George continues to deliver the mail. Through rain, snow, sleet, and hail. And at night he continues to inspect Muscovito’s mail and make small alterations and amendments. George drives toward some ultimate action, but what action he does not know.

  It turns out he does not know at all.

  On a gray afternoon, George is sliding Muscovito’s mail into the locking box in the stone pillar when the gate opens.

  The disembodied voice comes over the speaker again. “Could you come in the gate for a minute? I’ve got a package to go out that didn’t fit in the box.”

  George hears both the heightened friendliness and interest in the voice and the little edge to it, and he once again imagines throwing the truck into reverse, hitting the accelerator, screeching the tires, exiting the neighborhood one last time, and disappearing into the world. But he doesn’t, of course. He does instead what he knows how to do, what he has done for thirty-five years. He heads in to deliver and pick up the U.S. mail.

  Muscovito is standing in the same place in the driveway, arms crossed.

  “Hi again,” says Muscovito, with a thin smile, eyes steady on George, with evident fresh interest.

  George gives a friendly nod hello. “Where’s the package?”

  Muscovito uncrosses his arms to reveal he’s holding a Walther 9mm. “Right here.” He points it at George, the black muzzle only two feet from George’s chest.

  The slamming into reverse, the screech of tires, is no longer an option.

  George feels himself going dizzy. He blinks hard to keep from passing out.

  “Into the house,” instructs Muscovito.

  Dazed, blank-brained, George steps gingerly out of the truck and walks up the steps and into the house.

  The living room is rococo, ornate. A huge, glittering chandelier, big deep couches, heavy Empire mirrors, bold commanding patterns on the couches and throw pillows, a fanciness and high decoration and vibrancy of color entirely out of character with the gruff, grim Muscovito.

  The furniture is not the most attention-getting feature in the room. That honor goes instead to the two men sitting on a couch and chair in the middle of it. Men several years younger than George or Muscovito. Younger, and tan, and fit, with healthy white teeth and big smiles. And each of them, like Muscovito, holding a weapon.

  “Sit down, mailman,” says one of them, the one with the slicked-back hair, gesturing casually with the gun to a chair opposite them. A mild accent of some sort, unplaceable—Eastern European?

  George sits. His body, his brain, are in a mode they have never experienced—a fog, a haze, in which he can barely process what is going on around him, can barely hear or see—and yet he feels a hyper-alertness to everything. Like being a disembodied observer of your own fate, your own approaching destiny. A destiny approaching fast.

  There is silence for a moment, while the men study him. Then the one with the slicked-back hair says, “It’s illegal to tamper with the U.S. mail.”

  An accent, yes, but clearly fluent and at ease with English.

  George is silent.

  “Of all people, you should know that,” says the second man—a shaved head, a deeper, more curt voice than the first.

  “You can be punished for something like that,” says the first man, circling the gun lazily, almost casually, in his hand.

  There is obviously no one else in the house. Kids away at boarding school. Wife traveling.

  “We’ve been waiting for you, mailman. But not for very long. Your schedule is extremely reliable,” says the one with the shaved head.

  “Our partner, Muscovito, he didn’t think a mailman could be doing this. Never even occurred to him,” says the one with the slicked-back hair, who looks momentarily annoyed—as if personally offended by Muscovito’s provincialism. “You’re about to retire, aren’t you, mailman? Aren’t you, George? Whose Maggie has died? Who now knows our business, inside and out?” He shakes his head of slicked-back hair and pretends to ask the rococo ceiling, “What are we going to do with you, George? What are we going to do?”

  But George knows it is merely a rhetorical question.

  He knows it is the last rhetorical question he will ever hear.

  The last question of any sort.

  ‘Well, we do have an answer, mailman. Here’s what we are going to do.”

  An answer, not a question, thinks George, and the thought cuts bluntly through the thick haze of his terror.

  His world will end with an answer, not a question.

  All obedient, cooperative George can do is watch as the second one, the shaved-head one, grimly, matter-of-factly, with no evident glee but only focus on the task, checks his weapon, levels the gun, and applies the answer.

  He fires a single shot.

  Unerring. Professional. Passionless. Corrective.

  Right where he aims it.

  Right into the brain.

  Right where all the troublesome scheming and illegal solutions and overreaching hubris began.

  Right into Muscovito’s forehead.

  George is paralyzed. He has stopped breathing. He is only eyes. He is panic, terror personified.

  The man with the shaved head silently, immediately, begins attending to Muscovito’s body. Solemnly, like a mortician, folding arms, shifting him. But first, of course, handing Muscovito’s fallen Walther to the man with the slicked-back hair, who watches the proceedings while addressing George.

  “He never fit into the neighborhood, did he, George? Built walls, gates, drove his car with blacked-out windows too fast, never even introduced himself to the neighbors. That’s not how you make yourself welco
me. That’s not how you blend in, is it? You’ve got to ingratiate yourself. Make yourself part of the scenery. You garden. Play some tennis and golf. You host a party or two. Everyone knows that’s how you conduct yourself, right?”

  He shakes his head with pity. “He never even thought that a mailman could be doing all that to the contracts. That’s not a very alert or interested view of life, is it, George? A pretty prejudiced, unenlightened view of the postal service and its employees, don’t you think? You’ve probably observed that view all your life. When the fact is, in our business, the postal service is one of our best friends.”

  The man stops watching the proceedings with Muscovito’s corpse and looks directly at George. Demanding, it seems, that George look directly back at him.

  “We knew it was you. We could tell. So we looked a little further. Did some research. Just like you did, George. And George, you have been utterly reliable.” Smiling for a moment. “Someone to count on through rain, snow, sleet, and hail. And now you’ve studied our businesses, and what you don’t understand, and I’m sure there’s still plenty, we can teach you. You are about to retire, you live alone, you’re healthy and alert and skilled in the subtleties of the mail services. You are ready for the next phase, the next challenge in life, yes? So you are now our partner. And of course you have no choice. If you refuse, Muscovito’s murder will be tied to you, very easily in fact, with your truck in his driveway at the time of death, which Muscovito’s security camera clearly shows on the tape we will take from it shortly. The murder weapon, which will in a moment have your handprints on it, will be sitting for all time in a post office box that you have already requested and paid for with cash and will have mailed the weapon to for safekeeping.”

  “We’ll take care of everything from here, partner,” says the other man, the one with the shaved head. He gestures to Muscovito’s body, already wrapped in plastic sheeting and taped up, a package ready for transportation and disposal. “We’ll load it in the truck for you. We have instructions for where you will dump it. Don’t worry, no one will see. But we’ll be taking photos of you doing it, for our own insurance.”