The first thing he noticed was the heat. It was warm outside, but it was absolutely hellish in here. The air was humid and stagnant; nothing came out of the ceiling vents, and the familiar low whistle of the swamp cooler was absent. The office was crowded anyway, though. Six or seven people stood in line, letters and packages in hand, and he could smell the sickeningly tart odor of women’s perfume and men’s deodorant mixed with the scent of freshly flowing sweat. He glanced toward the counter, but Howard was not there. Instead, the mailman stood behind the front desk, talking in low patient tones to the elderly female customer before him. There was sincerity in his voice and on the expression of his face, but it was a false smarmy sincerity, the superficial interest shown by a salesman to a mark, and Doug found the mailman’s attitude both condescending and offensive.

The mailman was not sweating.

Doug tried to peek behind the paneled partition in back of the mailman to find out if Howard was somewhere in the rear of the post office, but he could not see anything. He was surprised that Howard would let the new man take charge of the front counter, particularly after what the postmaster had revealed to them the other night. He could not remember ever seeing Ronda within the post office unless it was to pick up or drop off a batch of mail, and he had never seen anyone besides Howard working behind the counter.

Somehow that made Doug even angrier.

The old woman accepted the change given to her by the mailman, put it in her purse, and turned to walk away. Doug quickly stepped past the other patrons up to the counter. “Excuse me,” he said shortly. “I’d like to talk to Howard.”

The mailman looked at him, with a hint of a smile playing about his thin lips. “There were other people in line before you, sir. Please wait your turn.” His eyes rested for a second on the soggy letters in Doug’s hand. He said nothing and his eyes betrayed no recognition, but his smile grew broader.

“Could you just call him out here for a moment?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Please wait your turn.”

He was about to argue, but when he turned to look at the people behind him, he saw them gazing at him with impatience. “Fine,” he said. He moved to the rear of the line.

Ten minutes later he finally moved up to the counter. He had been watching the mailman constantly, studying him, looking for a trace of anything out of the ordinary, but aside from his air of natural superiority there seemed to be nothing amiss. The mailman did not look at him once.

The fear and the anger were in about equal portions now.