The Mailman

By Michael Bronte

Scott Campbell has been a mailman in since his days as a Marine in Afghanistan, and the house where his high school sweetheart used to live is on his route. What was once a lovely home is now a run-down mess, and Scott wonders how anyone could let it deteriorate the way it has. His curiosity getting the best of him, he discovers that the house is being used as a transportation hub in a sex trafficking operation. Scott’s curiosity quickly becomes an obsession, and he becomes inextricably tangled in a complex series of events aimed at taking down a major criminal enterprise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Bronte
• Release date: Apr 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798391248835

Michael Bronte

Michael Bronte is a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and lives with his wife of 38 years in New Jersey. "All of the heroes in my novels are everyday people," says Bronte. "Any of them could by your next door neighbor. None of us really know what we're capable of until the time comes for us to reach beyond the boundaries of our everyday lives. Remarkable feats of courage are performed everyday, by everyday people. It's amazing."​ As a young teenager I remember reading paperback mysteries under a huge oak tree outside my parents’ neighborhood grocery store in Dalton, Massachusetts, a small town located in the heart of the Berkshires. I can recall pulling a book from the rack and getting locked in to those novels as the fragrant summer breeze of Berkshire County tried to turn the page before I was done reading it. I don’t know why, but I was greatly affected by a book titled The Fan Club, by Irving Wallace. When I was done reading it, I can still recall thinking that someday I’d be able to write a book like that on my own; I knew I could do it.Well, the idea stayed dormant for over thirty years while I did what I thought I should have been doing for a living (looking back, it all seems so trivial sometimes) until I rekindled my infatuation with writing novels. Now, many years after that, and many mistakes and many failures later, there are several Michael Bronte novels available for those of you who like mystery, suspense, action-oriented stories with true-to-life characters.

Book preview

The Mailman

by

Michael Bronte

Copyright ©: Michael Bronte 2023

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Part One

Chapter 1

102 Newell Street

The automated Delivery Point Sequence system, or DPS, was supposed to ensure that mail could be taken directly to the street without further sorting, ready for delivery. In reality, there were more issues with this process than when I sorted my route manually. Instead of spending less time, I was spending more making sure each piece of supposedly pre-sorted mail had made its way into the delivery sequence properly. That, and the fact that my route had been expanded because of the anticipated time savings that the DPS system was supposed to have provided, meant that I was constantly having trouble completing my deliveries and getting back to the post office by my designated quitting time. I shook my head in frustration. Pretty soon I’d have to switch from using a shoulder pouch to a hand-wheeled trolley to accommodate the heavier load as even the slightest bit of additional weight was magnified when walking the number of miles I covered every day. Already I was being saddled with bulky envelopes that should have been delivered by the FSS parcel carriers. I knew more than half the mail I delivered was junk, but the postage was paid, and I did my best to deliver every letter, bill, flyer, or catalog that had an address on my route.

Having completed the deliveries for Center Street, I took a right onto Forest Avenue where I did the north side of the street with the even-numbered addresses, and then crossed over to complete the deliveries to the odd-numbered addresses before moving on to Jefferson Street. I’d already checked the bundles for Forest Avenue and hadn’t found anything out of order. Hopefully, Mrs. Davenport at 323 Forest was out of the hospital and was able to bring in her mail. Her box had been loaded to overflowing for the last four days, so much so that some of it had spilled onto her porch. That was a dead giveaway that the house was unoccupied, and in that neighborhood it was asking for trouble. As was the case in many cities, the old inner-city residential streets had fallen on hard times. Some were starting to bounce back nicely as new immigrant groups replaced old ones, but it was a block-by-block revival. Overflowing mailboxes and uncollected newspapers were an outright invitation for robbers to break in, and they did regularly, especially in homes that needed some sprucing up. Those were often occupied by senior citizens who were especially vulnerable.

Stepping around a couple of Big Wheels that had been left on the sidewalk in front of 329 Forest where the Bukhari family lived, I hesitated before making my way to the mailbox located next to the front door. The Bukharis had gotten a dog about a month back, a big, ugly, drooling Rottweiler named Max that was good for protecting children and property, but bad for a mailman who was just trying to do his job. Max and I had already met a couple of times, and we didn’t get along. The coast was clear, and I dropped a couple of bills, the week’s supermarket flyer, and a letter with a return address from Pakistan into the mailbox. It took another twenty minutes to complete the rest of the deliveries for Forest Avenue, and I made my way over to Jefferson Street. I had to be careful on that part of my route.

For one thing, the back end of Jefferson Street emptied into lower Broadway, which was the sketchiest part of town. Check-cashing places, liquor stores, a couple of massage parlors, and some seedy bars occupied the area, and there wasn’t a week that went by that I wasn’t accosted by some strung out drunk looking to steal some Social Security checks. The closer I got to Broadway, the more the air smelled like stale beer and urine. The worst part was that I had to go inside to make the business deliveries, which meant I had to pull on the same door handles that had been touched by any number of unwashed hands that had quite possibly been digging in someone’s nose minutes earlier. Fearing that someday I’d catch the mung and have to have my fingers amputated, I carried a bottle of hand sanitizer in my pouch just for that reason. I popped into the Broadway Diner and dropped the mail on the back counter, noticing there was nothing in the outgoing tray.

Anything going out? I asked Irma, the big black woman who’d been slinging eggs and hash at the diner since I was a kid.

Nothin’ today, child. I guess our bills is all paid up. Want one to go? she asked, coffeepot in hand.

Not today, love, I replied as I put my pouch on the back counter. I’m running late. Mind if I—

You know where it is, Irma said before I could finish. I’ll watch the pouch for ya.

Thanks, Irma. You’re a doll. They always offered me a free coffee and let me use the bathroom at the diner, small favors for which I was very thankful, especially in the winter when there were six inches of snow on the ground, and I was cold as a popsicle. Have a good one, I said as I picked up my pouch on the way out. See you tomorrow.

God willing and the sun comes up, Irma replied. When you gonna bring in that girlfriend of yours so we can get a good look at her?

Soon, Irma. I promise.

"Uh-huh, she said, giving me the evil eye. You best make her Mrs. Campbell soon, son, or she gonna find somebody else."

I smiled. I don’t think so, Irma. I got her wrapped around my little finger.

"Uh-huh," she said again.

Chuck’s Auto Body Repair was the last business on lower Jefferson, and I crossed Murtaugh Avenue to complete the rest of the residential deliveries on the other side. The homes there were at least eighty years old, but most of them were adequately maintained and occupied by families, working class immigrants mostly, but they were upstanding citizens, and that was all right in my eyes. Unfortunately, some of those residences had deteriorated into rat’s nests over the years where gangbangers and addicts of all kinds lived in squalor—if it could be called living at all. Each address had an electric bill or a gas bill, however, along with the usual assortment of credit card offers and insurance solicitations, and I trudged from house to house on an ongoing basis delivering hundreds of pounds of paper that I knew would go immediately into the recycling bin, assuming those residents even bothered with that.

Finishing up with Jefferson Street, I continued my route to streets and homes I’d known my whole life. One of them was the Santoro house, or, better said, used to be the Santoro house, at 102 Newell Street. I had dated Tina Santoro all through high school—the hottest girl in New Jersey, I thought back then—right up until I went into the Marines. Everyone thought sure we’d be married one day, me included, but three tours in Afghanistan changed me and Tina both, and it never happened. I wondered occasionally how she was doing.

It broke my heart to walk that part of my route. The Santoros had kept their pretty white house immaculate, with every blade of grass trimmed and bushes perfectly manicured. Tina’s father always made sure there was no peeling paint on the house, and her mother’s vegetable garden in back had the biggest and juiciest tomatoes I’d ever tasted. Tina moved away when she got married, and both her parents had died since then. Now, the house was in total disrepair to the point where it was hard to tell that anyone lived there at all. Someone did, however. I was sure of it. I stuffed mail into that box almost every day, and someone picked it up. The mail was always addressed to one person: Grigor Volkov.

My first delivery on Newell Street was always at number 101, which was across the street from the Santoros’ former home. I stopped in front of the house and shuffled through a handful of envelopes and flyers to make sure all of them were for that address. Starting up the walkway, I stepped on the first porch step when the front door flew open and little Cammy Khanom came rushing out. Cammy was short for Chamelia, her mother had told me once. The Khanoms were from Bangladesh.

Hello Mr. Campbell. My mommy said I’m a big girl and you can give me the mail.

Mrs. Khanom smiled at me from the other side of the screen door. "You are a big girl, I said. Hold out your hands now." I placed half a dozen pieces of mail into her outstretched arms.

Cammy said, Thank you, Mr. Campbell, and she marched dutifully back to her mother.

She’s sweet, I said to Mrs. Khanom. What grade is she in now?

Still in kindergarten, Mrs. Khanom replied. I can’t wait until first grade when she goes to school full time. It’ll be like a vacation.

I chuckled. Kids can do that to you. By the way, I see you’re still getting mail for the residents who lived here before you. Did you tell the people at the post office about that?

No, I haven’t done it yet. I’ll tell them next time I’m there. Thanks for reminding me.

No problem. Have a good day now. I looked down. Bye Cammy.

Bye Mr. Campbell.

I started back down the walk and hesitated. Turning back, I said, I’m just curious, Mrs. Khanom. Have you or your husband ever seen the people who live in the white house across the street?

Unexpectedly, Mrs. Khanom said, Funny you should ask.

Really? I questioned. Why do you say that?

My husband asked me the same thing just the other night. Her voice went higher, and her accent sounded more distinct.

Do you mind telling me why?

I don’t know. It just came up. We’ve been living here for almost a year and neither of us has ever seen anyone coming or going out of that house until a few nights ago when my husband saw a bunch of girls go into the house in the middle of the night.

Girls? How do you mean? I asked curiously.

I don’t know, girls. That’s how he described them. Young girls, high-school age, he said, seven or eight of them. A white van pulled into the driveway, and they got out and ran into the house. He said they marched in there like... I don’t know... He said they didn’t even look up.

Strange, I thought. How was he able to determine all that at night?

The streetlight is right in front of the house, Mrs. Khanom replied. He said he saw it pretty clearly. Why are you asking about it?

I had a friend who lived there a long time ago. The house was immaculate back then, and it’s a real shame that someone let it deteriorate the way it has. If you don’t mind my asking, what time did your husband see this happening?

It was about three o’clock in the morning.

What was he doing up at that hour?

We just found out I’m pregnant, Mrs. Khanom replied. There’s been a lot of changes at his job, and I think he’s worried about money. He’s just like that. He worries all the time.

What happened to the van?

I don’t know. I didn’t ask.

Have you or your husband seen it there before?

Mrs. Khanom shifted her gaze to the other house. Not that I can remember, but I can only speak for myself. Actually, I’ve never seen a car there at all that I can remember.

I could tell she was beginning to wonder why I was asking so many questions. Well, I was just curious, I said to her. Have a good day, Mrs. Khanom. I pulled out the mail for the next house on that side of the street and went on my way.

* * *

I completed the deliveries for the west side of Newell Street, did the two cul-de-sacs of newer homes at Bluebird Court and Falcon Circle, then came back to the east side of Newell Street to finish up that section of my route. That put me back in front of 102 Newell Street with only three streets to go to complete my deliveries for the day. I looked at my watch. I was running a little early, so I had time. Looking up and down the street, the only people I saw were Mrs. Rooney playing Frisbee in her front yard with her five-year-old son, and old Mr. Rivera mowing his lawn with a push mower. I glanced across the street back to the Khanom residence but there was no sign of either Mrs. Khanom or Cammy. I caught a whiff of curry and garlic cooking as it wafted under my nose. Someone was making dinner.

I grabbed the mail for 102 Newell and flipped through the half-dozen envelopes, noticing that one of them was addressed to Pasquale Santoro, who was Tina’s father. I looked at the envelope, noting that it was just a solicitation for pest control services. Clean up your mailing list, guys. Old man Santoro hasn’t lived here in years. The rest of the envelopes were addressed with the same name I’d seen before: Grigor Volkov. I noticed that the words ...to the order of had dropped into the plastic window of the address portion of one of the envelopes. Obviously, the full phrase was Pay to the order of, I figured, which meant I could have been delivering a check. I say could have been because I’d seen solicitations where car dealers send fake checks in the mail that they say can be redeemed if you use them to buy a new car. I looked at the return address. It was just a post office box number in Dallas. The check paper in the window made it look like a real check.

The house looked tranquil, and it didn’t look like any lights were burning inside. It was hard to tell in the daytime, however. There was no van in the driveway where water had pooled in the tire tracks while foot-high weeds sprouted straight up in between them. If half a dozen or more teenaged girls were still inside, it made sense that there would be some signs of life. I decided to get a closer look.

With the half dozen envelopes and that week’s supermarket flyer in hand, I walked up the flagstone path that split the front yard in two. Half of what was once a perfect lawn was bare and dusty, while the other half was overgrown with clumpy weeds. The paint on the porch steps had chipped away long ago, while the steps themselves were no longer straight and true, but tipping to one side and coming away from the underside of the porch. My footfalls sounded hollow as I climbed the steps. Clunk, clunk, clunk. I walked across the porch and stopped for a moment, pretending to check the addresses on the envelopes before putting them into the mailbox. In reality, I was looking through the narrow sidelight windows that flanked either side of the front door. I remembered how Tina’s mother always kept those windows covered with filmy lace panels so that no one could see into the house. There were no such panels now, and the windows themselves were caked with grit that had gathered in the corners. I remembered from years back that the front door opened to a small foyer area, beyond which was the stairway that led to the second floor. The living room was on one side of the foyer, with the dining room on the other side. The kitchen and family room were at the back of the house, straight up the center hallway.

Trying to act nonchalant, I stuffed a couple of envelopes into the mailbox which was dangling askew and barely held there by a single rusty nail that was bent and almost coming out of the wall. All the while I was looking through the narrow sidelight windows. I made out the stairway on the far side of the foyer, but the rest of the interior was shrouded in shadow. Stepping back and examining the outside, I noticed that all the windows along the front of the house were covered with shades on the inside. Listening closely, I heard nothing coming from within, no TV, no footsteps, and no chatter or conversation from half a dozen teenaged girls. To me, that sounded impossible. Unless whoever was in the house was sleeping, the place had to be empty. Feeling bolder, I looked up and down the street again, noticing Mrs. Rooney still playing Frisbee with her son and Mr. Rivera trying to unclog the blades of his push mower. A car passed. The driver didn’t even look my way. Turning back to the sidelight windows, I cupped my hands against the glass and took a long look to either side of the center hallway. The only furniture I saw was a ratty-looking sofa and a flat screen TV that was set up on some upside-down plastic milk crates. The rest of the floor in both rooms was covered with mattresses. There had to be eight or ten of them, all of them bare, with no sheets or blankets anywhere. What the...?

Hearing another car pass on the street and the bells of an ice cream truck off in the distance, I pulled away from the sidelight windows. Stuffing the rest of Mr. Volkov’s mail into the mailbox, I went back to the sidewalk to finish my route and then head back to the post office. Something strange was going on inside 102 Newell Street, and there would be more mail to deliver there almost every day.

Chapter 2

Steak and Cheese Sandwich

I’ve seen a lot of crazy things as a mailman, everything from kids smoking pot while their parents were at work, to couples doing the deed on the living room floor, to frustrated stay-at-home moms giving me a little show as they sunbathed in the back yard. I’ve seen petty crimes, car jackings, breaking and entering, and even people putting dog poop on their neighbor’s porch. I once saw a guy fly a Nazi swastika from his front porch. It didn’t fly for long, however. Somehow, the house caught fire two days later. I can’t say I was surprised.

I’ve also seen plenty of good things take place: neighbors helping neighbors when trees got blown over, neighborhood residents banding together to look for lost children, young people helping old people shovel out during snowstorms so they could get their medicines. I remember the time when I knocked on the front door after seeing an old couple’s mail pile up for about a week, and I detected the telltale odor of human decomp. Believe me, once you’re exposed to it, you’ll remember that smell forever. It seems that the old couple had passed away about a week earlier, both of them from natural causes, almost at the same time. I found out later that in marriages that have lasted many decades, it’s not unheard of for an old person to die within hours of when his or her spouse passes. It’s the mark of true love, I guess, one person not wanting to go on with life when his or her soulmate is gone. I hope I find love like that someday. I’m working on it.

As for recognizing the awful odor of human decomposition, I experienced it more times than I would like to remember. I did three tours in Afghanistan during my five years as a Marine. My outfit was known as Dark Horse, part of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment in Helmand Province, which suffered the most casualties of any Marine unit in country. One of my commanding officers described it as hell on earth, while another referred to it as the Wild West. Almost no one in our country knows that fighting like that took place there. It was by far the most dangerous place in Afghanistan. As Marines, we never left a man behind, but that wasn’t the case with the Taliban. We came across plenty of bodies that had been abandoned, and in the summer months when it got into the upper nineties, the smell of decomp wafted in the air like a putrid invisible mist.

Having lived in and around Freeboro, New Jersey, up through high school, I went into the Marines after graduating from Brookdale Community College. My father Vernon worked as an auto mechanic his whole life, which meant that for every boloney sandwich we ate, his salary only paid for the bread and the mayonnaise. Our family consisted of my parents, my two brothers, my sister and me, in that order. My mom, Shirley, worked nights as a waitress when we were growing up, which is how we could afford the baloney to go along with the bread and the mayonnaise. I don’t know how my parents did it on their meager incomes, but they managed to put a roof over our heads, feed us, and turn us into productive human beings. My oldest brother is an electrician, my second oldest is a PhysEd teacher at Manalapan High School, and my sister is a radiologist. I was the baby of the family, so by the time I got to adulthood my parents were just happy that I hadn’t landed in jail. Just kidding, but they certainly didn’t have the money to send me to Rutgers, which is where I really wanted to go at the time. I had a real shot at an athletic scholarship, but I tore a rotator cuff during my last game at Brookdale, and I knew I’d never be able to throw a good slider again. Losing the possibility of a pitching scholarship and not having the money to attend even a state school, my only options were to go into debt up to my eyeballs for student loans, or go to work. I couldn’t stomach the prospect of owing anyone that much money right out of college, so I decided that finding a job would be the least painful of the two alternatives. Boy was I wrong.

My father got me into the repair shop where he worked, but that only lasted a few months. I didn’t like it, and he understood, encouraging me to not be a grease monkey—his words—like him. From there I went to work as an insurance salesman, which was awful, then as a groundskeeper on a golf course, which wasn’t bad but paid next to nothing. After that I worked as the manager of a cell phone store, which was the worst job of all. I mean, people are crazy. Each job sent me further and further into a downward emotional spiral, to the point where I think I was clinically depressed.

My father had fought in Vietnam, and despite his denials that he was fine, everyone in the family believed that he suffered from some degree of PTSD. I think that deep down he knew it too. Despite that, he suggested that I might consider military service as a way to lend some meaning to my life. Given my alternatives—I actually had some, but I was so buried in my funk that I didn’t see them—I went to a Marine Corps Recruiting office and they scarfed me up like a dog on a steak. I was at Parris Island before I knew it, and in the ensuing months I climbed out of my doldrums and started to feel some snap in my step. Being in the Marines is a part of my life I’ll never forget, but after three tours in Afghanistan I started to ask myself, What the hell am I doing here, and who am I doing it for? That’s when I knew a long-term military career wasn’t part of my future, and I decided not to reenlist. Upon my return, one of my Marine buddies who’d gone back to civilian life a few months before me convinced me to look at the postal service as a possible job choice.

People who work for the post office get federal government benefits, he told me. It’s a gravy train for life, man.

That wasn’t entirely true, but it was enough to get me to take the Postal Service Exam. I’m not there yet, but people who reach the upper grades in the executive administrative schedule can make a decent buck. I don’t know if that’s enough to keep me happy in the long term, but it’s enough for now. We’ll see how it all plays out. A lot of that depends on how serious I get with my main squeeze. Her name is Marisa Salazar, and we’ve been playing kissy face for a while now. I invited her to my parents fiftieth wedding anniversary recently, so she’s met the family. That sort of shocked the hell out of everybody, and the fact that she hasn’t broken up with me must mean that she thought we were normal. I mean, how abnormal can a Scottish family with the last name Campbell be?

The Salazars are from Spain, she said when we talked about it. "We step in front of bulls and dare them to stick a horn in our ass. Now that’s abnormal. On your worst day, your family couldn’t possibly be any crazier than mine."

That description applied to Marisa as well. I mean, she definitely has a wild side. She said she got that from her mother. She’s one of those people who will do anything on the spur of the moment, and some of the words that come out of her mouth would make a sailor blush, especially when she’s ticked off about something. That’s one side of her, but when the mood pendulum swings the other way, she can be introspective and downright sensitive. While I don’t think I’m a caveman, worrying about my feelings generally isn’t my first reaction to things. In fact, talking about feelings and emotions is something I try to avoid. That’s just how I’m built, I guess. I’ve always been that way. We’ll see how it goes between us, but so far we’ve managed to get along pretty well despite our differences. The fact that she’s got a brain and is kinda hot keeps me interested in the relationship.

* * *

I’ll say one thing about being a mailman, it keeps me in shape. The round trip on my route is almost eight miles long, which is about the same as walking two eighteen-hole golf courses every day. Yeah, I know, I’m walking, not running, but you give it a try with a forty-pound pouch slung over your shoulder and see how that turns out for you. Many of my friends from high school have a bit of a beer gut going on at this point in their lives, but I’m the same weight now as I was slogging through the sand at Parris Island. At a hair under six feet, I’m a hard and healthy one-sixty-five. I owe it all to the job and the Taekwondo classes I take twice a week with Marisa.

I didn’t know what to think when I’d checked out the inside of the Santoros’ old residence, but it bugged me. That was two days ago, Wednesday, May 12th. Then, yesterday, I wanted to check it out again, but wouldn’t you know it, I had no mail going to that address. It didn’t look like anything on the outside of the house had changed, however. Then this morning, I had a couple of pieces of junk mail to deliver. I went to the Khanom residence first as I usually did, and I made a good bit of noise as I clunked up the steps and across the porch, hoping Mrs. Khanom would hear me and come out to get her mail. I’d planned to chat with her if she came out, hoping to slip in a couple of questions about the van her husband had seen, or whether either of them had noticed any more girls coming or going out of 102 Newell. She didn’t come out, and it didn’t look like she was home. When I finally got to number 102, I climbed the porch to deliver the two pieces of junk mail, noticing right away that the mail I had delivered two days earlier was still in the mailbox, including the envelope where the phrase ...to the order of appeared in the address window. Obviously, no one was home, and I did a repeat performance of what I’d done on Wednesday, spying through the sidelight windows and seeing the same scummy mattresses inside the house. Just deliver the mail, Scott. Whatever is going on in that house is none of your business. Right. That thought lasted about ten seconds, and I pulled out my cell phone as I walked away from the house and called my friend Kaz. I wanted to see if he had the night off and could meet me for a couple of beers after work.

Kaz is my best friend and has been since high school. I was the best man at his wedding, which means he’ll be the best man at mine—if I ever get around to getting married. Kaz’s old man owned a construction company when we were growing up, and I knew he had connections with a some of the Freeboro Township Committee members, which is how Kaz got into the police academy. Kaz never denied it, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. His proper name was Kazuo Bibiak. His parents were Polish/Slovakian immigrants, which meant Kaz had been groomed to be the most stubborn man in New Jersey. He answered my call on the second ring.

Make it fast. I’m kind of busy.

And a howdy-do to you too, I responded. Kaz wasn’t into small talk. Are you on duty tonight?

No, I’m on days this month. Why?

I knew Kaz rotated shifts and worked four on, three off. I thought we might have a couple cold ones after work, I said, hoping I’d caught him during one of his off days.

Oh, sorry. Like I said, I’m kind of busy.

"Doing what? Watching reruns of Blue Bloods."

No, smartass. If you must know, I’m putting up some border paper in the spare bedroom. We’re turning it into a nursery.

A nursery? You mean...

Yup. Nicole is four months pregnant. Baby is due in October.

That’s great, Kaz. Why didn’t you say something sooner?

You know how it is. We wanted to make sure everything was normal with the pregnancy before we said anything.

Well, congratulations, bro. Jesus, another little Kaz crawling around. I’m not sure the world can take it.

Sorry, it’s not going to be a baby Kaz this time around. I thought Kazie would be nice but the wife ain’t buying it. She thought it was too close to crazy.

A girl? Hah! I can picture you sitting on the porch on prom night cleaning your shotgun and asking the poor son of a bitch who’d asked her out, ‘Where’s your daddy work, boy?’

See, you think just like my wife. I would never be that severe with little Kazie. The worst thing I would do would be sharpening my filet knife.

I chuckled. Are you sure you can’t spare an hour? I should buy you a congratulatory beverage, at least. There’s something I want to run by you.

It sounds important.

In a way. What’dya say?

I’ll tell you what. I’ll meet you for an hour, and then you come back here and help me move the spare bedroom furniture into the basement. How’s that sound?

Deal, I said. Meet me at Tommy’s at five o’clock.

I got back to the post office and clocked out right on time, making it to Tommy’s Tavern ten minutes early. I had a cold Yuengling draft waiting for Kaz when he got there. Wearing a paint-stained t-shirt and scruffy jeans, he took the stool next to me and said, I can only have one. The wife wants me to finish that wallpaper border tonight.

What are you hanging, butterflies, unicorns?

You’ve got to get with it, my man. We’re doing Elsa.

What’s Elsa?

Beats the hell out of me. Some Disney character, I think. It’s what the wife wants, and as long as she’s happy, I’m happy. You know what I’m sayin’?

I shook my head and clinked his glass. I never thought I’d say this, but I think you’re whipped.

Kaz snickered. I think you’re right. What’s this thing you want to talk to me about that’s got you all hot and bothered?

What makes you think I’m all hot and bothered?

Kaz wiped some foam off his lip. C’mon Soup, I’ve known you since you were six. I can tell when you’ve got a hard-on about something.

The nickname Soup was a play off my last name, Campbell. Campbell Soup, get it? There were only a handful of people who still called me that. Ironically, it got stuck to me again in Afghanistan. I did my best to discourage it, but it only served to develop into other embarrassing monikers. I don’t need to go into them here.

It’s about something I ran into at work, I said.

He grinned. It’s not that trophy wife on Pine Street again, is it? I wouldn’t mind running into her myself.

You’re a married man. Get your mind out of the gutter. Kaz chuckled. I think there’s something hinky going on at one of the residences on my route.

Kaz sipped some of his beer. What do you mean by hinky?

Do you remember the Santoro house on Newell Street?

As in Tina Santoro from high school? You really screwed that up, ya know. That girl was sweet. How long were you hittin’ that before you went into the Marines?

"Jesus, Kaz. I wasn’t hittin’ anything. What the hell is wrong with you?"

I don’t know. I haven’t been gettin’ much lately with the wife being pregnant and all. I guess I’ve got sex on the brain. Anyway...

Anyway, do you remember how Tina’s parents took care of that house, how the lawn was always perfect, and the bushes always trimmed?

I do, and how they had those painted white rocks bordering the driveway. I remember how the old man put up like a million Christmas lights.

I’d forgotten about that. I took a pull