He yawned, zipped up his pants, took his coffee cup out of the water, and set it on the edge of the sink while he washed his hands. When he carried the cup back to the window he could still see the bright orange package through the bronze and glass door of the woman’s mailbox, so he sat down and took a sip.
He had a perfect view of the small shop from his office window. His elevation placed the rows of mailboxes in his field of vision, and he could see the surface of the counter and part of the workspace behind it where bored employees wrapped, weighed, and stacked packages, sorted letters, and sent faxes. The streetlamp in front of the shop threw a splash of light on the sidewalk outside the door.
He sipped the lukewarm coffee and watched. At this time of night, so few customers came in that his cop’s brain wondered whether the purpose of keeping the shop open might be that other customers besides the dark-haired woman were doing something illegaclass="underline" leave your money in some other mailbox on Tuesday, and come back on Wednesday and pick up your heroin from your own. But he had watched the boxes for a full cycle of shifts now, and he had detected no signs that he could interpret as commerce. Nobody who came in to open a mailbox seemed to take the time to look around him first for cops or thieves. Nobody seemed to bring anything in with him that ended up in one of the other mailboxes.
It was nearly midnight when he recognized the new clerk coming up out of the subway and walking toward the shop for the changing of the guard. The skinny kid with jeans and a black T-shirt came in the door, and the older man collected his belongings—a greenish brown sport coat that looked as though it had been picked up off a rag pile and a paperback book that he put in the side pocket so the coat hung down and made him look like the scarecrow he was.
But then he did something that made Seaver put his coffee cup on the desk and lean forward. He stepped behind the mailboxes. Seaver saw him reach into Box 345 and start sliding envelopes into a big padded mailer. Seaver watched as the orange and yellow package disappeared with the others.
Seaver snatched up his coat, stepped to the door, and ran for the stairwell. As he hurried down the steps, he switched on his receiver and watched the direction indicator for a base reading. He slipped it into his pocket, stepped out into the darkness at the side of the building, and walked slowly toward the street, his eyes on the lighted window of the little shop. He paused in the shadow until he saw the older man come out the door carrying the mailer under his arm.
Seaver followed the man along the dimly lighted street for three blocks, staying close to the buildings, sometimes keeping his silhouette obscured by the irregular outlines of pilasters and ornamental brickwork on the facades, sometimes pausing in the alcoves at store entrances to be invisible for a time.
The man turned left onto another street and Seaver broke into a run to shorten the man’s lead. As he turned the corner, he saw he had misinterpreted the man’s intentions. He wasn’t on his way to meet the dark-haired woman and hand her the mail. He was walking in a diagonal course along the broad, empty sidewalk toward the curb, where there was a big blue U.S. Postal Service mailbox. When the man had taken the woman’s mail with him, Seaver had been sure he wasn’t sending it off again. But he was definitely heading for that mailbox. The woman must have given him orders not to leave any packages lying around the store with her forwarding address on them.
Seaver’s mind was flooded with disappointment at the unwelcome news. There would be more airline trips, more nights sitting and watching doorways. No, it was worse than that. If that package went into the postal system before Seaver knew the address, he would have no idea whether it was going to an apartment a block away or to Ethiopia. He had to keep that man from reaching the mailbox.
Seaver called, “Excuse me.”
The man glanced over his shoulder and straightened. He was surprised to see Seaver suddenly so close. He kept going, a little more quickly.
“Wait!” shouted Seaver. “Sir?”
The man went more quickly, his long legs taking steps that made him strain. Seaver had made a mistake by not letting the man get a clear look at him right away, on a lighted street. In the light, Seaver could easily have passed for a prosperous middle-aged executive coming home from a restaurant. But the man was acting as though he expected to be mugged. Instead of stopping, he went faster. He seemed to want to get rid of the package so he would have both hands free to defend himself. It didn’t matter what he thought he was doing, or what Seaver had planned. The man was hurrying toward the mailbox.
Seaver walked faster, screwing the silencer onto the end of the barrel. “Sir?” he called. The man had obviously made his decision. Now he seemed to want to reach the big mailbox and use it as a shield.
Seaver stopped on the sidewalk with his feet apart, bent his knees slightly, extended both arms to steady his right hand, blew the air out of his lungs to keep the carbon dioxide from causing a tremor, and squeezed the trigger. The gun jumped upward and Seaver heard the spitting sound.
The man pitched forward. The mailer fell and slid a few feet, but the man had forgotten it. He was writhing on the sidewalk, bleeding.
As Seaver ran to finish him, he saw that a car had appeared near the far end of the block. He clamped the pistol under his left arm, knelt over the man, and said, “I tried to warn you. There was a guy in a car shooting. Lie still now.”
The man seemed to barely hear him. He was squeezing his eyes in an agonized squint and rolling his head from side to side on the pavement. Seaver glanced down at the blood on the shirt. It was bright crimson and bubbly, so the bullet must have passed through a lung.
Seaver saw the car pull up to the curb. It was a yellow cab. “Is he all right?” called the driver. Seaver could see only the dark shape of a torso and an oval head.
“He just tripped and fell,” said Seaver. “He’ll be okay in a minute.” The wounded man struggled to reach out his arm toward the cab, and moaned.
“Does he need to go to the hospital?”
“No,” said Seaver. “I’ll take care of him.” He returned his eyes to the wounded man, shifted his position slightly, and rested his right forearm on his knee. If Seaver heard the click of a car door latch, he would move the hand a few more inches and grasp the gun. He would use the time it took the driver to walk around the rear of the car into the open to pivot and fire.
The driver shook his head doubtfully, then stared anxiously ahead through his windshield for a moment. Just as Seaver acknowledged that he now had the task of killing this one too, the driver pushed a button to roll up the window and accelerated up the street.
Seaver felt an abrupt, wrenching tug, and realized that the wounded man was trying to pry the pistol out of his armpit. Seaver’s right hand swatted the man’s fingers away, and he straightened his legs so quickly that he nearly toppled backward. He pulled out the pistol, aimed downward, and shot the man through the chest. This time he judged that he had hit the heart. The man gave one spasmodic jerk and went limp. Seaver gave him a kick, but it prompted no reaction. Seaver decided there was no reason to keep wondering, so he fired one more round into the man’s head, put the pistol into his inner coat pocket, picked up the padded mailer, stuck it into his belt at the small of his back, and covered it with his coat.
Seaver turned and looked around him. The little discreet surveillance had degenerated into a bloody disaster, a tangle of complications and obstacles and hazards. There was a narrow alley between two buildings to his right, but there was a high iron fence to block it. He could never lift a grown man’s body above his head and push it over the fence. He thought he might be able to carry the body a short distance, but how could he do that without attracting attention? As he considered the problem, he saw another set of headlights come around the corner at the far end of the block and head toward him. He saw the lights jump upward as the car accelerated, but then they dipped and stayed low. The car was going to stop.