“What?” The postman looked at the face of the small package and his confusion deepened. “There must be some mistake...”
Reardon studied the stunned face a moment. No, Alfred L. Kavulich may have been many things, but a criminal he was not. “That’s right,” Reardon said quietly. “Who did you meet since you left the post office who gave you this package?”
“Nobody!” On this score Alfred L. Kavulich was ready to wager his life. “Oh, sure, people along the route give me mail to deliver, it’s out in the van, not in my bag. And it’s got stamps on it; I don’t accept mail without stamps. I’d have to—” He suddenly paused, thinking. Reardon waited. “Hey!” Alfred L. Kavulich suddenly said, convinced. “I know! Yeah! It must have been that guy who bumped into me! I thought he was just a drunk, but a nice guy, because even though he dumped my bag, he helped me pick the stuff up.” He shook his head dolefully. “And all he was trying to do was to save a couple cents stamps!”
Reardon felt the old familiar tingle of being close to something.
“What did he look like?”
“Like a wino,” the postman said, and frowned in an attempt to recall more details. “Yeah, a wino. Drunk. That’s why he bumped into me, is what I figured then. Just to save a couple stamps!”
“But what did he look like, damn it?” Reardon was beginning to lose his patience with Alfred L. Kavulich.
“I’m trying to tell you, he was a drunk, a wino,” the postman said, aggrieved. “Not staggering, but not all that steady, either. And that breath of his! Wow!” He seemed to realize this scarcely constituted a description. “Let me see — he needed a shave — or maybe he had a beard — I don’t remember which. He was a wino, see? You see dozens of them on the street all the time. That’s all I can tell you.”
Stan Lundahl had come up and was watching with a bright eye. The attitude of Detective First Grade Lundahl was that of a curious bystander; from his exaggerated height he stared down at the pile of mail on the counter with the air of a person who had stumbled on a grab bag in the middle of the street, but was polite enough to wait until asked to participate. Reardon motioned him closer.
“Stan. This package was added to the mailbag—”
“I heard.”
“Good. Then try to find out what the man looked like from this... this—” Words failed him. “From this man. Go back to where it happened. Maybe you’ll find a better witness than this... this—” He dropped it. “I want the man who put this package in the mailbag.”
“Right,” Lundahl said, perfectly agreeable. He tucked a match-stick into his mouth in lieu of the cigarettes he had abandoned in his haste to comply with Captain Tower’s order, and turned to the postman. “Let’s go. We’ll talk on the way.”
“But — my mail...!”
“So it’ll be delivered a little late today, is all,” Lundahl said in a kindly tone. “Pretend like it’s Christmas. Or any other day, as far as that goes. Nobody’s going to steal it; this place is fairly honest, as police stations go. Now, where did this all happen? This bumping and dumping and picking up, and all?”
“Just down the street, practically. I was getting out of my van—”
“And what was the wino wearing?”
“I told you. I—” Alfred L. Kavulich suddenly paused. “He was wearing a windbreaker! Yeah. It was green—”
“A nice Christmasy color,” Lundahl said approvingly, and led the way through the heavy glass doors of the Hall to the steps outside, his eyes automatically searching Bryant Street in both directions for a green windbreaker he was sure was far away from there by now.
Saturday — 9:10 A.M.
Harry handled the old car with care, his tiny eyes peering brightly from side to side, almost bird-fashion, to see if anyone might be paying undue attention to the car he was driving. The plates had been muddied over, but that still didn’t mean it was safe to be driving around with it in broad daylight, even if it was going to be abandoned in a few minutes. And to drive it practically in front of the Hall of Justice, yet! Sure, it was a ten-year-old Chevy like thousands of others, and sure, it was black, like thousands more of others, but still, it belonged to a cop, and a cop that every other cop in the state was undoubtedly searching for at the moment. Crazy! Sure, George wasn’t the guy to be afraid of taking chances, but what Harry would have liked to know was, why was it every time George took a chance, it was Harry’s neck that was out?
At Harry’s side the wino leaned back against the worn upholstery, feeling on top of the world. A grimy hand, jammed into the bottom of the windbreaker pocket, firmly clutched two wrinkled twenty-dollar bills. He could hardly believe his good fortune. Forty bucks just to bump into a postman, dump his bag accidentally-on-purpose, and then help him stuff the junk back in! Plus the little package he had added, of course. He glanced over his shoulder at the small driver with the zoot-suit hat and wondered if maybe he could do other little jobs for the tiny man sometimes. Forty bucks bought a lot of juice. As a matter of fact, with forty bucks a guy could take a step up the ladder and maybe get himself some cheap brandy. It didn’t last as long, of course, but it packed a greater wallop, a deeper euphoria. But of course it wouldn’t be smart to be sudden-rich and spend it all at once, either. He sighed. Money brought problems, there was no doubt. The thing to do, obviously, was to get a bottle of muscatel and consider the spending of the forty bucks in depth. Or should it be a bottle of cheap brandy?
He looked through the windshield, and was brought from his dreams of alcoholic grandeur by a slight braking of the car. He frowned as he noticed for the first time where they were. This was miles from where he thought he was being taken; this was a section of town he didn’t even know. In fact, from the deserted looks of the area, it appeared that very few people knew it.
“Hey,” he said, not complaining especially, since the little man seemed to be a potential source of income to be nurtured, “what are we doin’ way over here? I thought you was goin’ to drop me where you picked me up. Remember? Down at—”
“You didn’t hear good,” the little man said quietly. “They’d find you in five minutes down there, and then what? Dumping a mailman’s bag is a federal offense. You could get ten years.”
“Hey!” the wino said, startled. “You didn’t say nothin’ like that! You didn’t say nothin’ like that! You said it was a gag, a joke, is what you said. You said they wasn’t nothin’ to worry about!”
“And there isn’t,” Harry said evenly. “Not up here. Why do you think I’m dropping you off up here?”
“Yeah, but...” the wino began, doubtfully.
“I’m telling you. You drop off here, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Nobody’ll think to look for you up here.”
“Oh. Well, okay,” the wino said. Anyways, what difference did it make, down there, up here, wherever? Besides, who was going to raise a fuss about bumping into a mailman, anyways? It could have been an accident; who was going to prove it wasn’t?
Harry completed braking the car and drew it to the curb. He leaned past the wino, wincing a bit as the stale breath hit him, and pulled down on the door handle. The door swung open.
“Here you are.”
“Yeah,” the man said vaguely, and climbed out. He hesitated a moment, his hand on the open door, trying to remember what it was he had been thinking about before. Then it came to him and he bent down, peering in at Harry. “Hey, you ever get any more jobs like that, I’m your boy. On’y, how can I get in touch? I don’t usually have no fixed place I’m at...”
“I’ll find you,” Harry said confidentially, and leaned over, pulling the door shut.
The wino seemed to sense rejection.