Read Online Death Is My Comrade by Stephen Marlowe - Free Book Online

Main Post Office held down the southwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street. Diagonally across from it was the Raleigh Hotel, and a taxi line. Marianne’s Ford was still parked outside the post office when I got there. I stayed on the north side of the street, heading for the taxi line.
    I poked my head inside the window of the first cab and said: “Can you pull out of line?”
    The driver gave me a surprised look. “That’s what I’m here for, mister.”
    â€œI mean, pull out and wait?”
    He nodded slowly. “I got a meter.” Crushing a cigarette out in the dashboard ash tray, he asked: “Wait where?”
    â€œUp the block.” I gave him a ten-dollar bill. The look of surprise hadn’t quite left his face yet and that wasn’t likely to chase it away.
    â€œI’ll be in the post office,” I said. “Keep your eyes open. If I come out heading this way, get ready to roll. If I stay on the south side of the street, you’ve earned yourself a quick ten bucks.”
    â€œYou law?” Then he shook his head and answered his own question: “Not with the kind of swindle sheet where you can toss around a sawbuck like that.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œI ain’t giving you back the ten bucks, mister, am I? You bought yourself a deal.”
    I nodded and crossed the street just as Marianne came out of the post office, climbed into the Ford and swung it in a wide U-turn to head back along Pennsylvania Avenue in the direction we’d come.
    A moment later I entered the post office. It was cool in there. I hadn’t realized, till then, that I was sweating. Only two of the grilled windows were open for business at this hour. The sign on one of them said: Parcel Post, General Delivery. On the other: Stamps & Money Orders.
    I went over to the General Delivery window. The balding, bespectacled clerk was canceling the stamp on an envelope. I read the address upside down. Mr. Allen, General Delivery, Main P.O., Washington, D.C. Marianne’s handwriting, of course, and Ilya Alluliev’s letter.
    The clerk shoved the letter into the “A” slot on the General Delivery board to his left. “Help you, mister?”
    â€œA dozen stamped envelopes, please.”
    He gave me a mildly exasperated stare and jerked a thumb to his right. “Other window.”
    I bought my envelopes there and took them over to a wooden table against one wall. It was still too early for the kidnaper to make his move, I thought. I lit a cigarette and spread the envelopes on the table blotter in front of me.
    Seven o’clock. A man and a woman came in. He had a camera case slung over his shoulder, she was carrying a nylon bag that said Capital Airlines.
    â€œI’d like to buy some of those there commemorative stamps,” the man said.
    â€œRoom 6505,” the clerk told him. “But the sales windows are only open from nine to four.”
    â€œBut we’re flying home at midnight,” the man protested.
    â€œWinston-Salem,” the woman said. “That’s in North Carolina.”
    â€œI’m sorry, sir,” the clerk said. “6505 opens at nine o’clock Monday morning.”
    Grumbling, the tourists left. Seven-fifteen. Marianne would be home by now, waiting. I wrote this and that on a few of my envelopes. I smoked another cigarette. A man came in. He looked seedy and furtive and sinister, but all he did was buy a half-dozen postcards. Hell, he was probably the president of a bank. I was projecting.
    Seven-twenty-five, and a quick flurry of business. How much does it cost to mail a letter air mail to West Germany? a woman wanted to know. Fifteen cents anywhere in Western Europe, ma’am. I know, but West Germany? Fifteen cents, ma’am. A man mailed a package, insuring it for fifty bucks. Another man bought a money order for seventy-nine ninety-five.
    Alone again. One of the clerks told the other a dirty joke.