He pulled into the parking lot of the post office. The only other vehicle in sight was the mailman's red car, and he parked right next to it. He got out of the Bronco and walked toward the glass double doors. They were being targeted, he and Trish and Billy, though he did not know why. Everything else at least fit together, made a kind of perverse sense. Ronda and Bernie had been killed because they were rivals;Stockley had been done away with to shut him up; the dogs had been murdered because, as everyone knew, mailmen hated dogs.
But no such reasons or rationalizations could be found for the mailman's unceasing harassment of Doug's family and friends. Of course, other people in town were being harassed too, but not as subtly, not as purposefully. Doug knew what was going on, and the mailman knew that he knew and was playing games with him. The horrors were gradually increasing in intensity and proximity, moving in concentric circles toward he and Billy and Trish at the center.
The doors were open and Doug stepped into the post office. The morning chill had not penetrated the inside of the building. The temperature of the stale humid air felt as though it was in the high nineties. He walked up to the front counter, refusing to look at the twisted and repugnant wall posters. The floor felt wet and sticky beneath his feet.
The mailman emerged from the back, smiling. As always, he was wearing his full uniform. As always, his voice was smoothly plastic. "How may I help you, Mr.Albin ?"
"Knock off the shit," Doug said. "We both know why I'm here."
"Why are you here?" The mailman's smile widened.
Doug leaned forward. "Because you're threatening my family. Because you came into my house last night and left us a note."
"What kind of note?"
"You know damn well what kind of note. It said, 'Hi.' "
The mailman chuckled. "That is pretty threatening."
Doug clenched his fist and held it up above the counter. "You can stop the innocent act. There's no one here but me and you, and we both know you broke into my house last night."
"I did no such thing. I was at home all evening with Mr. Crowell." The look on the mailman's face was an obvious parody of bruised innocence.
"And where is Mr. Crowell?"
The mailman grinned. "Unfortunately, he's sick today."
"I want you to stop it," Doug said.
"Stop what?"
"This. Everything. Just get the hell out of Willis, or I swear to God I'll make you get out."
The mailman laughed, and this time there was a harshness under the false nicety. His eyes, hard and blue and dead, bored into Doug's, and his voice, when it came out, had none of its usual calculated blandness. "You can't make me do anything," he said, and his tone made Doug's blood run cold.
Doug backed up a step. He realized that for the first time he was seeing the true face of the mailman, and he had to resist the instinctive impulse to flee. The fact that he had been able to goad the mailman into dropping his cover scared him much more than he ever would have thought. He shouldn't have come here alone. He should have brought Mike or Tim or another cop. But he refused to let the mailman sense his fear. He held his ground. "Why are you harassing my family?" he asked, and his voice came out strong, assured. "Why are you picking on me?"
"Because you know," the mailman said.
"I don't know anything."
"Because you complained."
"A lot of people have complained."
"Because I feel like it," the mailman said, and the random callousness of that admission, the utter lack of reason, struck Doug as the truth. He stared into those cold eyes and saw nothing. No passion, no feeling, nothing. Evil was not hatred, he thought. Evil was this.
The mailman smiled, and his voice was filled with an ugly undercurrent of threatening sexuality. "How's the little woman, little man?"
"You bastard!" Doug struck out at the mailman, but the mailman stepped easily back, avoiding the blow. Doug, thrown off-balance, fell against the counter.
The mailman chuckled, then his usual benign mask fell into place. "I'm sorry, Mr.Albin . The post office is not open yet, but if you'd like to buy a book of stamps --"
"Just leave us alone," Doug said, standing straight.
"It's my job to deliver the mail, and I will continue to perform my duties to the best of my ability."
"Why? No one reads it anyway."
"Everyone reads their mail."
"I don't. I stopped reading it weeks ago."
The mailman stared at him, blinked. "You have to read your mail."
"I don't have to do anything. I take my mail directly from the mailbox to the garbage can, no stops in between."
For the first time, the mailman seemed to Doug at a loss for words. He shook his head as if he didn't understand what Doug was saying. "But you have to read your mail," he repeated.
Doug smiled, realizing he had hit a nerve. "I don't read my man. My wife doesn't read her mail. We don't look at it at all. We don't even look to see who it's from or who it's addressed to. We just throw it away. So just stop wasting your time and leave us alone."
"But you have to read your mail."
Giselle walked into the office from the back.
"Just leave us alone," Doug said to the mailman. He turned and strode out of the building. He was trembling, shaking, as he walked out to the car.
He thought he heard the mailman say something to him as he left, but he didn't hear what it was and wasn't sure he wanted to know.
36
Doug drove through the night shirtless, his hair still uncombed, wearing only his Levi's and a pair of tennis shoes. He had driven this route a thousand times, but now he seemed to be moving in slow motion, the Bronco putting along at a pitifully inadequate speed. He hit the steering wheel as hard as he could, angry at the car and at himself. The horn bleated, and he almost drove into a tree as he turned a corner too sharply. He slowed down as much as he dared, but he had to get moving. He'd already taken far too long. The Bronco bumped onto the pavement as the dirt road ended, and he pressed down on the gas pedal.
He'd been scared a lot lately and he'd thought he'd reached the limit of terror, that he'd been as frightened as he could be, but when he'd picked up the phone from a sound sleep and heardHobie's panicked high-pitched voice screaming of blood and virgins while in the background the static of a police radio crackled, he knew that fear had no limit. It was bottomless, and he just kept sinking deeper and deeper into it.
He saw the police lights from far down the street, a twin red-and-blue pulsing against the trees and houses of the neighborhood. The cars and the ambulance were directly in front ofHobie's house, so he had to park several houses away. He slammed the car door shut and ran down the cracked and dirty sidewalk. A gang ofbathrobed men and women, neighbors, mingled about behind the yellow ribbon used to cordon offHobie's trailer, and he pushed his way through them to reach the driveway.
"Hey!" a policeman yelled at him. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm here to seeHobie ," Doug said.
"I'm sorry," the policeman said, blocking his way. "But you cannot move beyond the barrier."
"I called him,"Hobie yelled from the doorway. "Goddammit! Let him in."
Doug looked over at his friend.Hobie's eyes were wide and wild, his short hair sticking out crazily in irregular clumps. He was wearing only Jockey shorts and a T-shirt, and Doug saw with horror that both were streaked with blood.
"Let him through," Tim Hibbard ordered from behindHobie , and the first policeman motioned Doug under the barrier. Doug ducked under the ribbon and crossed the yard. Sealed plastic containers and boxes marked "Willis Police Department" had been placed next to the walk, and from inside the house came the hissing of radio static, the beeping of electronic instruments, and rough voices ragged with frightened disgust.