Hobiefelt his bowels contract. The fear was strong within him. His palms were sweaty, his hands shaking, and the paper rattled noisily as he held up the letter, but he forced himself to read it:
Bro, Things here are getting pretty hairy. We're out of the cities and into the villages. The damn jungle is really thick, green everywhere as far as you can fucking see. Even the sky's starting to look kind of greenish. We don't know where the VC is or when they're going to attack. It's a tense scene. Everything here makes you jump. We've been waiting on edge for something to .happen just like we were told, but the sergeant decided that the best defense is a good offense and the other day we went out on our own. You can see the pictures. A
guy named Mac took them and developed them. It was a VC village. The men were, all gone, but their wives and daughters were there and you know what they wanted. Lots of good healthy American dick. We couldn't just leave them, though.
They'd be able to tell the others which way we'd gone, so after we were finished with them we silenced them. You can see the pictures.Gotta go. You can tell Dad, but don't tell Mom. I'll write her a letter when I get a chance.
Dan Hobiestared at the letter a long time after he'd finished reading it. It was from Dan. There was no doubt about that. Even after all these years, he still recognized his brother's handwriting. But the hardness, the insensitivity, the casual approach to raping and killing, that was something entirely unlike Dan.
He found himself thinking for some reason of a time when he was eight or nine and he and one of his friends had been pouring salt on a snail, watching it dissolve. Dan had seen them and had burst into tears, crying for the snail and its now fatherless family, and it had taken both their mother and father to console him.
Hobiewanted to cry now, out of sadness for the loss of his brother, which even this tentative connection made once again real and immediate, and out of sadness for the change that had occurred within the boy before he died, a change that neither he nor his parents had ever seen.
What would Dan have been like had he come back?
Hobieput down the letter and scooped up the photographs. His gaze fell upon the eviscerated pubescent. The fear which had receded for a moment returned full-force, and he quickly reached over and turned on the lamp next to the couch,, clicking the switch until the bulb was on the third and highest wattage.
The light successfully evaporated the shadows in the room but could do nothing to dim the shadows stalking him from within.
He'd had enough of this. Doug was right. Something was definitely screwy here, and tomorrow morning he was going to go over to the post office and find out what it was. Find out why he was getting twenty-year-old letters and photographs, and why they were being delivered in the middle of the fucking night. He'd demand that Howard do something, and if the old man didn't want to, well, then, he'd damn well better have his insurance paid up.
Hobiefolded the letter and put it back in the envelope, shoving the pictures in with it. Half of him wanted to crumple up the letter, rip the photos, and throw the whole thing away, but another part of him wanted to save it all, to keep this last memento of Dan, and he put the envelope on the coffee table. He'd think about it later, decide what to do in the morning.
He was about to get up, turn the light off, and go back into the bedroom when he heard the sound of footsteps shuffling outside the door. Fear flared within him, and he sat unmoving, afraid even to breathe. A low metal clanking told him that the mailbox had been opened and closed.
Another letter delivered.
He knew he should jump up and confront the mailman, rush outside and beat the crap out of the scrawnyfaggoty bastard, but he was afraid to so much as acknowledge his presence. He shut his eyes, muscles tense, trembling within, until he heard the sound of retreating footsteps, the purring sound of a fading engine.
He sat there until dawn, afraid to return to bed, afraid to look into the mailbox, afraid to move, and it was only the sound of his alarm ringing at six o'clock that forced him to finally leave the couch.
22
Doug sat in the hard-backed chair, glaring at the police chief. "I saw it!"
"Okay, let's assume that the mailman was dancing in the dark. So what?
It's not against the law to dance. Dancing is considered a legitimate form of self-expression."
"Don't play games with me. There're some weird fucking things going on in this town, and you're giving me thispiddly -ass bullshit."
The chief eyed him coolly. "The law is not 'piddly-ass bullshit,' Mr.
Albin. I am well aware of your opinions on this subject, and I'll be honest and tell you that we are pursuing all avenues in our investigations."
Mike Trenton, next to the chief, stared silently down at the table.
"Don't patronize me with that Jack Webb crap. You know as well as I do that something strange is going on here."
"I don't tell you how to teach; don't you tell me how to do my job." The chief stood up. "I would appreciate it if you would stay out of police business.
We are fully capable of handling --"
" 'Fully capable?' "
"That is all, Mr.Albin ." The chief put his hands on the table and leaned forward. "I've wasted enough of my morning talking to you and listening to your theories. Please do not harass this department again or you'll find yourself charged with obstruction of justice. Do I make myself understood?"
Doug looked across at Mike, but the young cop was still looking down at the table, refusing to meet his gaze. "Perfectly," he said.
Doug spent the rest of the day the way he'd wanted to spend the entire summer -- sitting on the porch, reading. But try as he might, he could not relax and enjoy himself. He knew he had screwed things up royally at the police station, and the knowledge that he might have lent the mailman legitimacy in the eyes of the police gnawed at him. He should have known better. He should have been more cautious, should have at least maintained the appearance of calm rationality. Instead, he had ranted and raved like a fanatic.
He put down his book and stared out at the trees. Was it possible that he was reading into events interpretations that weren't there? That he really was suffering from some sort of obsessive delusion?
No.
He had seen the proof with his own eyes.
A bluebird flitted from tree to tree, searching for food, and he watched it impassively. Many of his fellow teachers, he knew, lived in little academic worlds of their own, completely disassociated from the life around them. He could not do that. It would be nice if he could, but fortunately, or unfortunately, he lived in the real world. He was affected by politics, by economics, by the weather.
By the mailman.
That was one thing he'd learned the past two weeks: how much he was affected by the mail, how much the mail intruded on all aspects of his life.
"Doug!"
He looked up. Trish was standing in the doorway, holding open the screen.
"You want to have lunch on the porch or inside?"
He shrugged noncommittally and picked up the book from his lap.
A moment later, he felt Trish's hand on his arm. "Why don't we go to Sedona for the day, get away from all this? We're both letting it affect us far too much."
He nodded slowly. "You're right."
"It would do us good to get away."
"Yeah. We can go up Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff. They have a real post office there. Maybe I can talk to --"
"No," she said firmly. "I mean, get away from _this_. All this craziness.
It seems like the mail's the only thing we think about or talk about anymore.
Let's just take Billy and go to Sedona and have a nice day's vacation, like we used to. We'll eat, shop, and be typical tourists. How does that sound?"