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Back THE MAILMAN Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. DEDICATION
  2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
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  10. 8
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  57. 55

Mike walked out to his car, got in, and backed up the drive, and Doug stood on the porch until the policeman’s taillights were gone and the noise of his engine had faded into the sounds of the night.

43

But Doug was wrong. The mailman did disappear. He was gone the next day, and when Doug drove by the post office in the afternoon, it was closed. At the police station, Mike said that Smith Tegarden, the officer assigned to man the speed trap at the edge of town, had seen John Smith’s car heading toward Phoenix.

The next day passed, and the next, and there was still no sign of him.

When the weekend rolled by and Monday arrived with the post office remaining closed, Doug began to relax.

It looked like it was over.

The mailman was gone.

44

The morning dawned clear and cool and sunny, the first August merging of the disparate weather trends that would eventually crystallize into fall. Doug awoke early, showered, shaved, and went out to check the mailbox. He was gratified to find that it was empty.

By the time he’d walked back to the house, Tritia was up and making coffee. There was annoyance on her face as he said “Good morning” to her, and when he repeated the greeting, she refused to respond, unintelligibly grunting some sort of reply.

Doug turned on the television, and the familiar set of the NBC News at Sunrise blinked into existence. There had been no problems with the electricity since the mailman left, and gas, water, and phone services had continued uninterrupted. Life, it seemed, was settling back into normalcy.

Billy was still asleep, but Tritia ordered Doug to wake him and make him come down for breakfast. She was making Spanish omelettes for each of them, using vegetables she had grown in the garden, and she refused to suspend her culinary efforts until Billy graciously decided that it was time for him to awaken. “Get him up now,” she said.

They ate breakfast together, and Tritia announced that this morning they were going to go to the store and do some serious shopping. The cupboards were nearly bare, as were the refrigerator shelves, and she had a stack of coupons whose expiration dates had nearly arrived. She began making out a list of items they needed while Doug washed the dishes and Billy dried.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Ready.”

“I don’t want to go,” Billy said.

“You have to go.”

“Why?”