The Mailman

by Bentley Little

  Stockley'sface was rough and leathery, with blunt Broderick Crawford features, and he always seemed to be sweating, no matter what the temperature. In his lower right desk drawer, the editor kept a box ofrisque fortune cookies he ordered directly from some company in New York. He bought the fortune cookies because he loved them and said he didn't want to have to pay for a whole meal just to get one, but he also enjoyed giving the cookies to unsuspecting visitors and watching the reactions on their faces as they read their usually obscene fortunes. He particularly liked giving the cookies to bashful young women and prim old ladies.

  "Well, what do you think?" Doug asked.

  "You going to blame the mailman for poisoning dogs, too?"

  Doug slumped in his seat. "You don't believe me."

  "I didn't say that."

  Doug looked up at him hopefully.

  The editor broke open another fortune cookie. "Have you gone to the police with any of this?"

  "Well, I told them about the letters to shut off my phone, water, and electricity. I even gave them copies. But I haven't told them anything else."

  "Maybe you should go to them."Stockley raised his hand. "I'm not saying I

  believe you, but if you're right, this is definitely a matter for the police."

  "I don't know if I'm right either. That's why I came to you. If I walk into the police station and tell them what I just told you, they'll probably think I'm crazy."

  The editor chuckled. "You didn't want publicity, so you came to a newspaper. That's a good one." Doug started to protest, butStockley cut him off. "I understand. I know what you're trying to do, but the problem is that a newspaper deals with facts. If a story doesn't have the five Ws, I don't print it. I could do a feature on you, let you put forth your ideas, but everything would be attributed to you, and I don't think that's what you want."

  "Actually, I'm not really looking for an article, although I think people probably do need to be warned. What I really came in for was confirmation. I mean, you know what goes on in this town. If someone stubs his toe or catches a cold, you're aware of it. I just thought that if anyone had noticed something unusual lately, it would be you. Am I right?"

  Stockleywas silent, chewing.

  "Just tell me what, if anything, is going on. What have you heard?"

  The editor's gaze was troubled. "The relationship between a journalist and his source is very sacred," he said finally. "It's analogous to a lawyer/client relationship, a doctor/patient relationship, a priest/confessor relationship. I could pussyfoot around this, but I'll be honest. Yes, I have heard some talk.

  Nothing specific, nothing like what you've told me, and nothing that anyone would admit to if questioned, but other people have noticed odd things occurring lately. And I think they'll notice even more after Bernie Roger's suicide. I should remain neutral, objective, and impartial, but I'll tell you the truth.

  Yes, I think something strange is going on around here. And I think it's centered around the mailman."

  Doug felt relief flood through him. He hadn't realized how good it would feel to have an ally, to hear someone, a third party, say that he was not crazy, that he was actually on to something. At the same time, it made everything that much more frightening. If all of this was true, the mailman was at the very least dangerously unbalanced and deranged.

  Stockleywas right. He should go to the police and tell them everything.

  The editor opened a drawer, drawing out a stack of mail. "Newspapers always get a lot of mail. A lot of weird mail. We get put on every crackpot mailing list imaginable. Nazis want us to give them free publicity, communists want us to cover their causes, religious fanatics want us to explain to people how the anti-Christ has infiltrated the government. For two weeks -- the two weeks after Ronda died -- we got nothing but good mail, like you said.

  Subscriptions were up, letters of praise rolled in, even the chronic cranks stopped harassing us. That was weird enough in itself. Then, a few days ago, we began to get these." He picked up the top letter from his pile. "Here, read this."

  Doug took the letter and quickly read it over. It described in detail the sexual torture and mutilation of someone named Cindy Howell. He grimaced. The description was so grisly and so disgusting that he could not finish reading it.

  "Who is Cindy Howell?" he asked.

  "My daughter,"Stockley replied.

  Doug looked immediately up.

  "She's fine. Nothing's happened to her. She lives in Chicago, and I called her right away. I called the Chicago police and told them, sent a photocopy of the letter to them, in fact. They're keeping a surveillance on her house as a favor."

  "I didn't know you had a daughter."

  "That's because I never told anyone in town. She was from my first marriage, and I never told anyone about that, either."

  "How do you think the mailman found out?"

  "I'm not sure it is the mailman. Read the postmark. It's from Chicago. It could be from enemies I made there or from some crazy who's after my daughter.

  Or it could just be a harmless threat from some crank. Notice that it's written in the past tense. These are all thingsthat're supposed to have happened already."

  "But you said you thought the mailman was --"

  "I don't know. I'm not sure of anything." He hefted the pile of letters.

  "These are all similar. They're postmarked from cities all over the country and involve people I've known throughout my life. They're not all sexually explicit like that one, but they're all equally sick. They could all be part of some organized effort to harass me, although I can't see a reason why; or they could all be part of some outrageously unlikely coincidence. I'm inclined to believe you about the mailman because I've noticed the same pattern in my mail as you have. And because other people have hinted about it to me as well. I don't know exactly what's going on here, but it does seem to be centered around the mail and it does seem to have started after this John Smith took over."

  "Will you come with me to the police, then? They'll believe both of us."

  "Believe us? Believe that one man sorts through and readdresses mail, writes forged letters to people all over town, well-researched letters at that, is responsible for two suicides as well as God knows what else? I'm not sure I believe it. I think that the mailman is somehow involved in this, but I don't know what the connection is. We're edging into _Twilight Zone_ territory here."

  "You think I should tell the police what I know?"

  "What you know?"

  "What I think, then."

  "I don't know how much good it will do at this point, without any proof "

  "I have the letters from the creek."

  "That's true." The editor leaned back in his chair. "Yes," he said. "I think you should talk to the police. I won't go with you, because my credibility's not my own, it's tied to the paper's as well, and that is something I will not jeopardize. You know Mike Trenton?"

  "He was in my class several years ago."

  "He's a good kid, and a good cop. Talk to him. He has an open mind. He might listen. Stay away fromCatfield ."

  "Mike Trenton. Can I tell him about your letters?"

  Stockleynodded. "Tell him." He sighed and leaned forward, withdrawing another fortune cookie from his desk. "I shouldn't be getting involved in this.

  I'm supposed to report stories, not be part of them, but to be honest you've scared the hell out of me."

  Doug smiled wanly. "I've been scaring the hell out of myself for a week."

  "It's time to do something about it," the editor said. He bit into his fortune cookie.

  Doug sat on the lowNaugahyde couch in the waiting room of the police station. Behind the counter, uniformed clerks and officers answered phones and completed paperwork. He felt old. Three of the five employees in the office had been his students at one time or another. That wasn't unusual. In a town as small as Willis, he was always running into ex-students. But seeing ex-students in positions of authority, their young faces hardened int
o adulthood, made him feel hopelessly old.

  Mike Trenton emerged from one of the back rooms, smiling broadly. His hair was shorter than it had been in high school, but aside from that, he had hardly changed at all. His face was still openly honest, naive, and even in his dark blue uniform, he seemed young. "Long time no see, Mr.Albin ."

  "Call me Doug."

  "Doug." He shook his head. "It feels weird calling a teacher by his first name." He chuckled. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"

  Doug glanced around the crowded office. "It's kind of busy in here. Is there someplace we can talk that's more private?"

  "If this is about your case, you'd have to talk to Lt. Shipley. He's trying to track down those letters --"

  "Well, it's related to that, but not exactly." He motioned with his head toward the hall. "Can we talk in your office or something?"

  "I don't have an office, but I suppose we can use the interrogation room."

  He waved to one of the clerks. "I'll be in the exam room," he announced.

  The clerk nodded, and the two of them passed through a small security gate and into the hall. Doug followed Mike into the interrogation room, a small cubicle with barely enough room for two chairs and a table.

  Now that he was here, Doug did not know where to begin. The chronology he had developed, the arguments he had worked out in his mind, withered in the just-the-facts environment of the police station. He had no proof, not really, only some strange occurrences and tentative connections. Connections that, it was obvious now, required great leaps of faith. The confidence he had felt while talking toStockley in the newspaper office had vanished entirely. He had not been expecting to get from the police the type of reception the editor had given his ideas, but he still had not been prepared for the lack of belief he now knew would greet his story. He had been stupid to come here at all.

  Still, as he looked across the bare table at Mike Trenton, be saw not cynicism and disinterest in the young officer's eyes but an open willingness to hear him out.

  This had better be good.

  He started at the beginning, with Ronda's unlikely suicide and his initial impression of the new mailman at the funeral. He had an impulse to speed his story up, to relate it in the shorthand manner in which he'd seen witnesses talk on television, but he forced himself to take his time, to carefully go over every small detail, every emotional impression, believing that it would lend verisimilitude to his theory.

  Mike stopped him before he was halfway through. "I'm sorry, Mr.Albin . No offense, but this has been a pretty hectic week around here. This isn't a big city police department. We have twelve cops working in two shifts. There's been a series of dog poisonings, a suicide we're still investigating, and the usual fights in the cowboy bars. We're seriously undermanned at the moment. I know we've been having a lot of trouble with the mail, but to be honest, you should be talking to Howard Crowell --"

  "Look, you may think I'm crazy --"

  "I don't think you're crazy, Mr.Albin ."

  "Doug."

  "Doug."

  "I don't know exactly what's going on around here, but it seems to me that John Smith, if that is his real name, has the ability to . . . to somehow channel the mail in the way he wants it to go. He can separate letters from bills, good letters from bad. He can redirect a letter from its intended recipient to the person the letter is about. We got a note from Howard the other day that was supposed to be for Ellen Ronda. But the envelope was addressed to us. And this has happened to other people."

  "So you're saying that Mr. Smith somehow opens all these envelopes, reads all these letters, and redirects them as some sort of perverse practical joke?"

  "I don't know what I'm saying."

  "Assuming that he would want to, do you know how long it would take for one man to do such a thing, even in a town this small?"

  "I'm not sure he sleeps. Hell, I'm not sure he's even human."

  "You lost me, Mr.Albin . I respect you and all, and I admit that strange things have been happening to the mail lately, but this sounds a little off the deep end."

  Doug smiled wryly. "You haven't heard it all. I also think he's connected with Bernie Rogers' death and Bob Ronda's."

  "This is a joke, right?"

  "No joke. Just hear me out." He went on to explain his discovery at the creek and the increasingly bizarre nature of the mail both he and the newspaper had been receiving.

  Mike frowned. "How come Ben didn't tell me this himself?"

  "He didn't even want me to tell you."

  "So what about Ronda and Rogers?"

  Doug explained their connections to the post office and the unlikely nature of their suicides.

  "We have been wondering how Rogers tied that rope," Mike admitted.

  "So, what was written on the note pinned to Bernie's chest?"

  The policeman shook his head. "Sorry. Confidential."

  "But you don't think I'm totally crazy?"

  Mike looked at him silently for a moment. "No, I don't," he said finally.

  "God knows why, but I don't. I don't entirely believe you, but I don't disbelieve you either."

  "Good enough for now. I know there's no proof against the mailman. There's no way you can haul him in. Yet. But I just want you to keep your eyes and ears open. Be on the lookout. Just be prepared."

  The young officer shook his head, grinning ruefully. "If anyone else finds out about this, I'm dead meat. But okay."

  Doug stood up, pushing his chair back. He looked at the policeman curiously. "You got something, didn't you?" he asked. "In the mail?"

  Mike stared up at him, then nodded slowly.

  "I could tell. You dropped that cop routine pretty fast and hopped aboard the bandwagon, no questions asked."

  "I got a letter from my fiancй in Phoenix, telling me she wanted to break up. I called her, but her phone was out of service. So I took a sick day and drove down to ASU. She'd never sent me the letter. Her phone had been left off the hook accidentally on the day I tried to call." He scratched his nose. "Maybe I'm just looking for an easy excuse, but I think there might be something to what you say. I think there's something going on with the mailman. I still don't entirely believe you, and I hope we're not turning Mr. Smith into a scapegoat for our problems, but I'll keep a watch out."

  "That's all I ask. I'll let you know if anything comes up."

  "And we'll let you know if anything happens with your water and power and phone letters."

  Doug thanked Mike and returned down the hall. The young policeman let him through the security gate into the lobby, and walking out to the car, Doug felt better than he had in quite a while. It was nice to be able to share some of the burden.

  He got in the Bronco and took off.

  On the way home, he passed the mailman, unloading mail from the box in front of Circle K, sorting the envelopes, carefully putting some into his plastic tray, shoving the others into a brown paper sack.

  He waved as Doug drove by.

  17

  The next day the mail was normal. It had still been delivered at some odd hour before they woke up, but the mail itself was neither unnaturally good nor unnaturally bad. There was a subscription notice from _Newsweek_, a Visa bill, some junk mail. Nothing out of the ordinary, though that itself was out of the ordinary.

  Doug tried to callStockley at the paper, but the secretary said he was not taking any calls. He told her to give the editor his name, and after a great deal of convincing she agreed to do so, but when she came back on the line, she informed him that it was paste-up day and that the editor refused to be interrupted by anyone. She said he'd call Doug back when he got the opportunity.

  The mail was normal the next day as well, and Doug began to think that maybe he had jumped to conclusions, that he had overreacted, that he had been wrong. Tritia said nothing, but he could tell that she was thinking the same thing, and he could tell that she was relieved.

  The next morning the mailbox was filled with letters. Doug went out to the
mailbox before breakfast, while Billy was still asleep and Trish was watering her garden. There were ten envelopes all together, and the sheer bulk of them in the mailbox was somehow ominously threatening. Glancing quickly at their faces, he saw that few of the envelopes bore familiar addresses, and he stuffed them down the back of his pants, letting his shirt hang over the top half of the stack. Inside the house, he tore up the envelopes one by one, without looking at their contents, shoving the pieces in an empty milk carton in the garbage.

  Trish walked in just as he closed the top of the carton. "Any mail?" she asked, wiping her wet hands on her jeans.

  "None," he lied.

  The next day there were no letters at all, nor any the day after that. It was almost as if he was being punished for tearing up the mail when it had arrived, as if he had rejected an offering and was to receive no more as punishment.

  But that was crazy thinking.

  Still, the absence of mail was somehow just as perturbing as its presence, and it made him feel strangely on edge. He had probably seen too many movies and read too many books, but he could not help ascribing a malevolent intent to this temporary respite. It felt to him like the calm before the storm, and he kept waiting for the storm to hit. He tried to finish the first wall of the storage shed, but he could not seem to concentrate and he gave it up after only an hour's work.

  At the store that afternoon, he noticed that many of the people with whom he came in contact seemed tense and testy. Todd Gold, owner of the deli next door toBayless , did not even acknowledge his greeting. When Doug waved and called out "Hi," Gold turned curtly away and retreated into his store.

  But he told Trish none of this. She seemed to be much happier since the mail had stopped coming, and though this out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality was not typical for her, was indeed entirely out of character, he did not want to drag her into what might simply be his own delusion. After all, perhaps there had been nothing strange going on, nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps his imagination had overreacted to a bizarre series of seemingly interconnected occurrences that had really had nothing to do with one another.