First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [102]
"Oh, him." The woman expelled a phlegmy cough. "He used to live here. Moved out about, oh, six months ago."
"Do you know where he went?"
"Nah." The dog's barking had become hysterical. The woman ducked her head back inside. "For God's sake, Mickey, shut the fuck up!" She turned back. "Sorry about that. People make him nervous. He's probably gonna leave a deposit on the kitchen linoleum." She grunted. "At least the carpet'll be spared."
"You wouldn't happen to still get any of Kray's mail," Jack said.
"Not a one." The woman took a mighty drag on her cigarette, let out a plume of smoke like Mount Saint Helens. "Sorry I can't be of more help."
"You did fine," Jack said. "Can you tell me the address of the local post office?"
"I'll do better than that." The woman pointed the way, giving him detailed directions.
Jack thanked her, and they picked their way back down the flagstone walk.
"The post office?" Nina said as they climbed back into the car.
Jack glanced at his watch. "We just have time to get there." He pulled out, drove down the street. "Tolkan said that Kray was a private man. He wouldn't have wanted anyone else getting his mail. I'm betting he filed a change-of-address form before he left."
They headed east on Tyler, while Nina finished her cigarette, turned right onto Graham Road, right again on Arlington Boulevard, then a left onto Chain Bridge Road. The post office occupied a one-story pale brick building. It looked like every other post office Jack had been to, outside and in.
He walked up to the counter, asked to see the postmistress. Ten minutes later, a hefty woman in her mid-fifties appeared, walking none too quickly. It seemed to Jack that all postal employees were constitutionally incapable of moving at anything but a sluggish pace. Then again, maybe they learned it at some secret government academy.
Jack and Nina showed their credentials, asked for a forwarding address for Ron Kray. The postmistress, who had a face like a boxing glove, told them to wait. She disappeared into the mysterious bowels of the building. Time passed, people walked in, got on line, waited, inched forward. Forms were filled out, packages were rubber-stamped, more forms were filled out, letters and more packages were rubber-stamped. People who failed to fill out the proper forms were sent to the corner stand to correct their mistakes. Jack was at the point of risking a federal offense by hurdling the counter to go after the postmistress, when she reappeared, inching snail-like toward them.
"No Ron Kray," she said in her laconic manner. She spoke like a character straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel.
Jack took a pad and a pen, laboriously wrote down Kray's last known address, the house they'd just come from. Tearing off the top sheet, he handed it to the postmistress, who looked as if her recent labors had tired her out. "How about a forwarding from this address?"
The postmistress peered down at the slip of paper as if it might possibly do her harm. "I don't think I can—"
"From six months ago, give or take a week."
The postmistress looked at him bleakly. "Gonna take some time, this."
Jack smiled. "We'll be waiting."
"I get off work in twelve minutes," she pointed out.
"Not today, you don't," Nina said.
The postmistress glared at her, as if to say, Et tu, Brute? Then, in a huff, she shuffled off.
More time passed. The line gradually dwindled down, the last customer finally dealt with. A collective sigh of relief could be felt as the postal workers totaled up, locked their drawers, and followed their leader into the rear of the building.
"I wouldn't be surprised if she was having a cup of tea back there," Jack said. "She looks the vindictive type."
"Jack, about Emma—I was just trying to help."
He looked away, said nothing.
She bit her lip. "You're a hard man."
She waited a moment. They were alone in the front of the post office, the entry doors having been locked.
She peered into his face. "Could we start over?"
Jack returned slowly from the black mood of last night. "Sure. Why not?"