"You know damn well what it is."Hobie looked at him. "The mailman."

Doug leaned back in his chair. "I just wanted to hear you say it."

Hobielicked his lips, ran a hand through his already tousled hair. "I've been getting letters from my brother," he said.

"You never told me you had a brother."

"He was killed in Vietnam when he was nineteen."Hobie took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was filled with an uncharacteristic bitterness. "He was only nineteen years old. Richard Nixon's going to burn in hell for that one. He'll join Lyndon Johnson, who's already down there." He looked at Doug. "But the point is, these are letters Dan wrote when he was over there. Letters we never got. Letters that somehow got lost."

Doug didn't know what to say. He cleared his throat. "They might not be real letters," he said. "We've been getting . . . fake letters, letters supposedly from friends but written by the mailman himself. I don't know how he does it or why he does it, but --"

"They're real. They're from Dan."Hobie stared silently out at the trees, as if watching something. Doug followed his friend's gaze, but could see nothing there. When he turned back, he saw thatHobie was on the verge of tears. "I don't know where the mailman found those letters, but they're in Dan's handwriting and they have things in them that only he could know. The only thing is . . . I mean, I'm not a religious guy, you know? But I keep wondering if maybe those letters were supposed to be lost, if we weren't supposed to get them because . . ." He shook his head, wiping his eyes. "I'm learning things about my brother that I didn't want to know. He's a completely different person than I thought he was, than my parents thought he was. Maybe he changed in Vietnam, or maybe . . ." He looked at Doug. "You know, I wish I'd never seen those letters, but now that I got them, now that I'm getting them, I have to keep reading. It's like I don't want to know, but I have to know. Does that make any sense to you?"

Doug nodded. "How many have you gotten?"

"I get one a day."Hobie attempted a halfhearted smile. "Or one a night.

They come at night."

The two of them were silent for a moment.

"The mailman's responsible forStockley ," Doug said quietly. "I don't know what he did or why or how he did it, but he did it. He drove him to murder. He somehow got him to go into that bank and start shooting. It sounds crazy, I know. But it's true."

Hobiesaid nothing.

"I'm not sure if Bernie Rogers killed himself, but I do know that if he did, he was pushed into it. The same goes for Ronda." He reached over and put his hand onHobie's shoulder. The gesture felt strange, uncomfortable, but not unnatural. He realized that, in all the years he had known him, this was the first time he had ever touched his friend. "I'm worried about you," he said. "I want you to be careful. I don't know what's happening here, but it seems like the mailman's picking on you for some reason, that --"

"That what? I'll be next?"Hobie snorted derisively, and for a moment he seemed like his old self. "You think I'd actually kill myself? Shit. You got another think coming."

Doug smiled. "I'm glad to hear you say that."

"I'll admit, this thing's got me a little worked up, but I'm still playing with a full deck here. I'm not about to let a little mail drive me over the edge."

"Okay."

"But wegotta do something about that fucker, you know?"Hobie's voice was serious, intense. He looked directly into Doug's eyes, and what Doug saw there as he looked back frightened him. He glanced quickly away.

"You're with me on this, right? I mean, you're the one who first found out about him."

"Yes," Doug said. "But. . ."

"But what?"

"Just don't do anything stupid, okay? We'll get him, but just don't do anything dangerous. Be careful."

Hobiestood up. "I have to go. I have to get back to the pool."

"The pool's closed today," Doug reminded him gently.

"Yeah,"Hobie said. He shook his head absentmindedly as he walked across the porch and down the steps. "I been forgetting a lot of things lately."

"Be careful," Doug said again as his friend got into the truck. Tritia came out on the porch and stood next to him, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

Both of them waved asHobie backed up and swung onto the road.

Hobiedid not wave back.

24.

Doug and Tritia walked out to the mailbox together.

It was strange how such a benign object, an inanimate hunk of hollow metal, could within such a short time have taken onsuoh a malevolent, threatening quality. They walked across the crunching gravel slowly, solemnly, with trepidation, as if approaching a gallows or guillotine. They said nothing, not speaking, almost afraid to speak.

The morning was overcast, unusual for late June, and Doug wondered if perhaps the rains would come early this year. The thought disturbed him somehow.

It was not unheard of, not even that unusual, but the fact that all of this strangeness was accompanied by a shift in traditional weather patterns gave the entire situation a broader, more cosmic quality. Ordinarily, he would have dismissed such an obviously ludicrous idea, but these were not ordinary times.

Both Trish and Billy had been withdrawn and uncommunicative the past few days, Billy downright sullen, and he suspected that each of them had seen something, though neither would admit it.

That was scary, Doug thought. They had always been a close family, had always shared everything, but now they were drifting apart, becoming more private, more closed with one another. And he didn't know what to do about it.

They reached the mailbox. As if it was a ritual they had performed before or an act they had practiced and worked out ahead of time, Doug opened the box and Tritia withdrew the envelopes.

There were two of them, one for each.

Tritia looked at him questioningly, handing him his envelope.

In answer, Doug tore it open. The envelope was empty.

Tritia 'sface was pinched, tense, as she opened hers. There was a letter inside and she took it out, unfolding it. She scanned the page, face blank, unreadable, then looked up at him. "Who," she asked, "is Michelle?"

Doug was puzzled. "Michelle?"

She handed him the letter and he read it over. Halfway down the page, he knew the Michelle to whom she was referring. Michelle Brunner, an old girlfriend from college, the only woman besides Tritia with whom he'd ever had what could be legitimately termed a sexual relationship. He frowned as he continued reading. The letter made it sound as though he and Michelle had been carrying on a hot and heavy affair for years, seeing each other whenever they could, though in reality he had not seen her since his Junior year in college, two semesters before he'd met Tritia .

"It's fake," he said, folding the letter.

"Who's Michelle?"

"Michelle Brunner. I told you about her. The crazy one?"

"The slut?"

Doug smiled wanly. "That's her."

"She still writes to you?"

"You know who wrote this," he said, his smile fading. "And it wasn't Michelle."

She nodded tiredly. "So what are we going to do? This is just getting worse."

"We've got to put a stop to this. After breakfast, I'm going to talk to Howard. And if I can't get him to do anything, I'm going to call the main post office in Phoenix. I don't know why I didn't do it before. I should have called them the first thing. I should have sent them samples of the letters we found in the creek --"

"They never would've got there."

"That's true."

"And how are you going to tell them everything? You think they'll believe you? They'll just think you're some paranoid crank."

"No, I won't tell them everything. But I'll tell them about the mail delivery. At the very least, they'll transfer the mailman somewhere else."

"And if he won't go?"

The question hung, unanswered, between them.

"Come on," Doug said. "Let's go have breakfast."

The line in front of the post office was long, the patrons irate. Doug walked slowly across the parking lot. The people in line looked different than usual. Shabbier, seedier. They were dressed not in the nice clothes they usually wore when going into town but in older dirtier garb -- painting clothes, work pants, torn undershirts. There was grease on the arms and faces of some of the men, and few of the women had bothered to comb their hair or take it out of rollers. One old woman was wearing a bathrobe and slippers.

Even from here, Doug could hear the menacing tone of the crowd's conversational buzz. The people in line were not chatting of the news, sports, or weather, not catching up on local gossip. They were not even sharing complaints or grievances. They were venting their anger, telling and retelling the same events in order to keep that anger fueled, speaking of canceled insurance, threatened lawsuits for nonpayment of bills, problems caused by the mail.

Instead of standing outside of the post office in line, Doug walked through the second of the double doors into the building. He looked around.

Things had changed since the last time he'd been here. The place seemed darker, dirtier. The blinds over the windows were drawn, and one of the recessed bars of fluorescent light had burned out. The swamp cooler was off again, and the room was sweltering, the humidprestorm air augmented by the sour odor of mingled sweat and breath. The posters on the walls were different as well, he noticed.

The Love stamp poster that had hung forever on the wall above the forms table had been replaced by a poster for a new fifty-cent commemorative guillotine stamp. The poster, white against a black background, depicted a large wooden guillotine, metal blade gleaming as hordes of vicious-looking people crowded around it. On the side wall, where Howard had traditionally hung advertisements for upcoming stamps featuring famous people, was a large poster of an Adolf Hitler stamp and, next to that, a stamp featuring the demented visage of Charles Manson.

At the counter was the mailman, red hair practically glowing in the dim room.

The hair was prickling at the back of Doug's neck, but he refused to let the mailman see his fear. He walked up to the front counter. "I want to talk to Howard," he said as forcefully as he could.

The mailman eyed him coldly. "I'm helping someone else right now. If you'll just wait your turn in line --"

"Just tell me whether or not Howard's here."

"You'll have to wait your turn."

"Yeah," several people echoed.

"He's not here," a man in line said. "I heard Mr. Smith tell someone else he's not here."

Doug turned to look at the owner of the voice. It was a person he did not know, a small timid man sandwiched between a scowling woman and a blank-faced teenager. The man was obviously not used to speaking up or speaking out. He had the naturally apologetic features of the perpetually frightened, but there was determination in his face, anger in his eyes, and at that moment he looked to Doug almost heroic. Someone else was willing to fight back against the tyranny of the mailman.

"Thank you," Doug said.

The small man grinned. "No problem."

The mailman was already helping the customer in line, pretending as though nothing had happened. Doug walked out the door and back outside. He crossed the small parking lot, taking his keys out of his pocket. He would go to Howard's house and catch up with him there. It was obvious to him now that, like the rest of them, the postmaster was afraid of his underling, but maybe he'd be able to talk Howard into taking some action. Something sure as hell had to be done.

He opened the door of the car and got in. He hadn't noticed it from the outside, but his windshield, he saw now, was covered with spit. Saliva dripped from several spots on the glass. He looked over at the line outside the building, trying to determine who had done it, but no one glanced in his direction at all.

He turned on the wiper/washer and backed out of the parking lot, pulling onto the street. He headed toward Howard's.

The postmaster lived on a low hill in one of the nicer sections of town.

His house was in what passed for a subdivision in Willis, and was not far from the post office. Unlike the area in whichHobie lived, the single-story homes on Howard's street were all well kept up and well taken care of.

Doug parked the car on the street in front of the white clapboard house.

He turned off the ignition. There was no sign of Howard's car, but that meant nothing. It could very well be parked in the garage.

He got out of the car and headed up the front walk. The grass, he noticed, was yellowish brown, not green like the lawns in front of the other houses. Not a good sign. Like many older people, Howard had always been a fanatic about maintaining his yard.

He stepped onto the front stoop and rang the bell, listening for the ring.

Nothing. He knocked on the door instead. He waited for a few moments, then pounded again. "Howard!" he called, "are you home?"

There was no sound from within the house, and after three more tries and five more minutes he stepped off the stoop and moved over to the large living room windows. The curtains were closed, but they were sheer and he figured he'd be able to see something inside. No such luck. Through the material he could see nothing. The interior of the house was much too dark and monochromatic for individual elements to be differentiated. He moved around the side of the house to the dining-room window, then to the kitchen, then around to the back bedroom, hoping at least that a drape would be parted, open wide enough for him to see inside, but the curtains were all firmly and carefully shut. He tried the back door, but it was locked.

"Howard!" he called, knocking.

No answer.

There were other houses flanking Howard's, but their owners were either inside or at work, and the entire neighborhood seemed empty and abandoned. It gave Doug the creeps. He felt as though he was in one of those movies where the sun flared or some other pseudo-scientific catastrophe had occurred and he was the last man on earth, left alone to wander through the perfectly preserved artifacts of an otherwise untouched world.

A dog barked a few houses away, and Doug jumped. Jesus, he was getting skittish.

"Howard!" he called again.

No answer.

Either the postmaster wasn't here, or he was so sick he couldn't answer the door, or he was hiding.

No matter what, he would give the front door one more try, and if he didn't get an answer, he would call the post office in Phoenix. He walked back around to the front of the house and was about to knock on the front door one last time when he saw a white envelope on the brown straw mat at his feet. It had not been there before. Of that he was certain.

He picked up the envelope. His name was on the front, written in a shaky, childish scrawl. He tore the envelope open and pulled out the piece of paper inside. On it were written two words in that same shaky hand: _Stay Away_ He pounded on the door. "Howard!" he called. "Let me in. I know what's happening. Howard!"

But the door remained stubbornly closed, the curtains unmoving, and for all of his effort he heard no sound from inside the house.

He got the number of the main branch of the post office from Directory Assistance and dialed from the bedroom. He closed the door with his foot. Billy was in the kitchen with Tritia , helping her to make bread, and he didn't want the boy to hear the conversation. A woman's voice came on the line. "United States Postal Service Information, how may I direct your call?"

"I want to complain about one of your mailmen."