“All right,” I said reluctantly. “I guess that won’t be so hard.”
Ruby looked at his watch. “Call me at the office and let me know how things went. And I’ll meet you here at six. Check?”
“Check,” I said.
This time, the trip to 76th Street wasn’t nearly so depressing. It was a simple enough assignment; all I had to do was burn a letter. I liked fires.
I walked up the street to the apartment house, whistling nonchalantly. To this day, I can’t explain the cockeyed confidence which made me believe that a white handkerchief was an impenetrable disguise. Even if I had suspected that the two burly types lingering in the doorway of Dorothy’s building were officers of the law, I think I would have merely gulped hard and kept on going, secure in the belief that I was unrecognizable. Only let me tell you what I was wearing. A pink sports shirt with a picture of a hula dancer on the back. A leather belt with a nickle-plated buckle the size of a cantaloupe. A pair of bleached denim pants, and orange shoes. Orange. They had been tan to begin with, but my shoe polish went rancid or something, and they turned orange.
It never occurred to me that the postman would take any action, and describe my outfit to the Law. After all, what was one Fresh Air Fund letter, more or less? But when I went up the elevator to Dorothy’s apartment, the two big guys went with me. When I found the key under the mat, they stood at the end of the hallway and acted indifferent. When I entered the apartment, and found Ruby’s letter on the coffee table, I was smugly certain my troubles were over.
Just to make doubly certain that I had the right letter this time (and because I was so curious), I opened the envelope and took a look at the contents.
The letter wasn’t very long, but neither is a stick of dynamite.
Dear Dorothy, it said, I saw you with that ugly four-eyed boyfriend of yours, and you can have him. Please send me back my ring on account of our engagement is off. If you can get it off your finger, which I doubt, since you’ve been getting pretty fat lately. You look lousy. And it was signed, Yours Sincerely, Ruby Martinson.
I chuckled to myself, and was about to leave when I saw them standing in the doorway.
“You live here, son?” one of them said. He had a nose like a piece of modeling clay.
“Who, me?” I said. “No, my friend lives here. She wanted me to get something for her. A letter.”
“A letter, huh?” the second one grunted, looking at his buddy sideways. “You got quite a thing about letters, don’t you, kid?”
“What’s that?” I said, starting to shake.
The first one took out a wallet the size of a club. For a minute, I thought he was going to sock me with it, but he was only flashing his identification. “I’m Lieutenant Jakes,” he said. “This is Lieutenant Cochran.”
“Hello there,” I said. I started to grin. That’s my worst symptom when I’m nervous. I grin so hard my jaw hurts. “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “I was just doing my friend a favor. You could call and ask her.”
“We just might do that,” Jakes said. “Only there’s something else we wanted to talk to you about. Were you in the building this morning?”
“Me?” I said, grinning and shaking.
“Mr. Finchley, the postman who works this building, he got attacked this morning. Somebody snatched a letter from him. You know anything about that?”
“Me?” I said.
“Is that all you can say?” Cochran growled. “Did you take that letter? The postman described you and that outfit you got on to a T, so no use acting coy.”
I was about to say “Me?” again, but I figured he must have meant Me. My legs went rubbery and my eyes blurred. I held up Ruby’s letter and tried to croak out an explanation.
“Wait a minute,” I said, “wait. I had a reason, a very good reason!”
“You know what the penalty for mail theft is?” both of them asked, seemed like both of them.
“I know, I know,” I squealed. “But I had to do it. So help me! I was looking for this letter — this letter’s poisoned—”
That stopped them. They stepped back from the envelope I was waving in my hand, as if it were a hand grenade.
“What are you giving us?” Jakes said gruffly. “What do you mean, poisoned?”
“It is, it is!” I shrieked. “That’s why I was trying to get it from the postman, so he shouldn’t get infected. My friend sent it to his girl friend from some chemical laboratory. A test tube got spilled on it — it’s full of deadly germs—”
They looked at each other, and I could see they were uncertain about what to do next. That made three of us.
Then Cochran twisted his mouth sourly. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Then how come you’re touching it, kid?”
“I was going to burn it!” I shouted wildly. “I’m immune to this kind of thing, I’ve had shots!”
“It’s a nutty story,” Jakes muttered. “But who knows? Maybe we better check on it.”
“Please,” I stammered, “call Dorothy. The girl who lives here. She’ll tell you it’s true. She’ll prove it.”
“We’ll do better than that. We’ll take you and that letter into our lab. Then we’ll get this thing straightened out.”
“No!” I yelled. “You can’t do that! I have to burn it—”
“Come on,” Jakes said.
He jerked his thumb at me, and failing to think of anything else to say, I preceded them out. It was at times like these that I wished (a) to have Ruby’s power of invention, or (b) to have never met Ruby at all.
I thought there would be a prowl car in the street, but there wasn’t. Instead, they prodded me into a nondescript gray Buick. I was put in the back with my diseased letter, and Cochran sat beside me, well away from me and it. The officer named Jakes drove, but I don’t think he was happy having me behind him. I felt like Typhoid Mary.
I thought this lab would be in a precinct house, but it wasn’t; it was located in a quiet brownstone house on East 48th Street. As they led me into the place, I kept pleading with them to call Dorothy. I didn’t mention anything about Ruby Martinson; some crazy sense of honor kept me from dragging his name into the mess. I guess I figured that once he was in the hands of the Law, his whole Criminal Career might be exposed.
The fellow in the lab was named Fusco. He listened to their story with interest, looked queerly at me with Ruby’s letter in my hot little hand, and then beckoned us into an inner office.
Fusco was one of these kindly white-haired types; he didn’t look like a cop or an F.B.I. man at all. He listened calmly to my own version of what had happened, and asked if I knew what kind of virulent germ Ruby had spilled on the letter. I said I didn’t know, but that I thought Ruby had said that its victims turned blue. He then examined my face, my throat, my pulse, and took my temperature.
“Well,” he said, “if you’ve caught anything, there’s no sign of it. But maybe we’d better see that letter.”
I held it behind my back. “We have to burn it,” I said. “I was told to burn it.”
Fusco smiled gently. “I’d like to take a look at it under the microscope.”
“No!” I yelled. “You can’t do that! I mean, you might catch it yourself—”
He took a pair of forceps out of a drawer, and held them toward me. With a sinking feeling, I let him take the letter.
When Fusco disappeared into a back room, I looked at my captors and wondered what my mother would say when she learned that I was going to jail. I began thinking about prison life. I hoped she wouldn’t mail me a lot of cakes and cookies and stuff like that. I mean, I wouldn’t want the other prisoners to think I was a sissy.
Five minutes later, Fusco reappeared. There was no letter in his hand, and he was looking grave. I shut my eyes and waited for the worst.