THE POSTMEN
By Reilly Keen
EPISODE 1: A Job To Die For
I walked on the crowded street corner because I didn't have a car. I'm very eco-centric, I'm vegetarian, all that, so I don't drive alone. It takes a while to get to places, but I feel like I'm helping.
I saw the sign. "Postman's Baltimore Private Investigation Group", it said. They contacted me after I finished University with a bachelor's law degree.
I looked at the building. It looked like it was a thousand years old, and had faded bricks. There was a little garage next to the building, which seemed to be relatively new.
The building was the Postman's building. It had held galas for a while, until the new owner turned it into a PI center.
They'd contacted me to be their clerk, which I thought meant that they had wanted to keep records, which I'd be in charge of. I ended up being kind of right.
I walked towards the old mahogany doors and pushed on the door handle.
Inside was a dingy, dusty couple of desks. There was a man in a collared shirt sleeping on one, and the other was writing on a pad of paper, checking his watch.
I looked further and then heard a hiss. A large rodent creature lunged at me, knocking me to the ground.
"DOWN, DANGER, DOWN!" I heard in a gravelly voice. The raccoon left me alone and looked back towards the filing cabinet, jumping up onto it and sitting in a cat bed, with the stitching in cursive "Danger" on it.
I looked at the man. He was clean shaven, wearing a pair of pitch black sunglasses, with a black jacket and slacks, white collared shirt, and a green tie. He was keeping his left hand in his pocket. I asked him, “What’s in your left pocket?” He ignored me. He grinned at the rodent, saying "Good guarding, danger, but this isn't an intruder, this is our new hire! Mike!"
He looked over at the sleeping man and tapped the desk. He tapped again, louder, as I got up from the floor. The tapping got progressively louder as i saw a sign for the bathroom, a sign for the stairs, and a sign for "The SUCKitorium", which I assumed read "The auditorium" before vandals got to it.
The man in the jacket was now screaming, "MIKE! WAKE UP!"
He sighed, and said, "Cheez-its."
The man in the collared shirt immidiately shot up, saying "Where?!"
The first man pointed at me. "Mike, this is our new hire."
Mike squinted and got out of his chair. He was slightly heavy, with an unkempt beard and hair, with somewhat empty eyes.
He stuck his hand out, and said, "Mortimer Elbowson?"
I shook his hand. It was very grimy, so I pulled my hand away as soon as I could. "Actually, it's Verne. Verne Platts."
Mike slapped his head. "I knew it started with a W!"
The man in the jacket looked at Mike oddly. "Neither Verne or Mortimer starts with a W, Mike. Anyways, Verne, this is Mike McKay, the owner of the Postman building. I'm Ross Tawfik and I'm going to be your boss." Ross grinned, which gave me some hope, although I reminded myself that his voice sounded like one of the puppets on Sesame Street, which made me unsure again.
Ross walked upstairs for a moment, and I decided it would be smart to answer some questions.
I looked at Mike, and asked him "Isn't this just supposed to be an interview?"
Mike shrugged, and coughed. "Ross knows what he's doing."
I frowned. "That's not a good answer."
Mike stepped towards me, and I flinched. He gritted his teeth and threateningly said, "You're not a good answer!"
I heard the stairs creak, and a giant of a man walked down into my view. He was also clean shaven, but unlike Ross, who was just kind of silly in how he came off, this man looked like the kind of guy the mafia sends when you don't pay your debts. He nodded at me as he strode down. He was wearing a tank top and jeans, and I would have sworn I saw his muscles bulge in a rhythmic motion.
Behind him was a woman with a similar attire to Mike, and waved to me as she walked down the stairs.
Ross danced back down the stairs, and walked right up to me. “That’s Bob Karma. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s good with intimidation and stuff like that. And that’s Clara Preaton. Also good with intimidation, but she mainly works on the Trash Panda.”
I glared at him. “What in the name of god is a Trash Panda?”
Ross shrugged. “It’s another name for a raccoon, but that’s not important right now. Bob and Clara are also, fun fact, dating. Trust me, it’s important to say. Last guy we hired, I didn’t tell him, and he asked for Clara’s number, and, well, uhh…”
Clara finished the thought. “I said no, he found a job, as he calls it, not populated by ‘inane psychopaths’.”
“Yeah…” Ross continued. “Anyways, I’m going to show you the Trash Panda.”
He opened a door to my left which led into a garage. He flipped the switch which lit up a vehicle that looked slightly like an ATV, but way bigger and with a roof. It looked like an amalgamation of a bunch of different cars.
Ross patted the truck, and said, “You can touch it if you’ve got your tetanus shot!”
He laughed for a sec, then said, “I’m kidding you. It’s still dangerous to touch it.”
He laughed again, then walked back into the main building, but giving me a slightly concerned look. That look made me decide to get away from the vehicle as soon as possible.
Clara pointed towards the room delicately and affectionately called “the SUCKitorium” and I walked inside, and was taken aback.
It was an absolutely beautiful ballroom that looked like it had not been touched in years.
Mike slightly mumbled, “We have open mic night here on tuesday. That’s most of our revenue.”
I looked over at him. “Aren’t you guys a detective agency?”
Clara crossed her arms. “We solve mysteries. Nobody really pays us to do so.”
I asked, “So like scooby doo?”
Ross looked over and asked, “What the hell is a scooby doo?”
I hesitated. “Talking dog? Mystery machine? Old man jenkins?”
Ross snorted, “That’s the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Oh-Pierre would love this!”
Bob huffed, and shook his head. Clara looked at Ross straight in the eyes, and said, “Ross, Verne here probably thinks we’re already a bunch of weirdos, please don’t let Pierre talk.”
Ross rolled his eyes. “Nonsense!” He pulled out his left hand from his coat pocket.
There was a sock puppet on it. “ROSS, IF YOU EVER LEAVE ME THERE AGAIN I WILL CHOKE YOU TO DEATH!” ‘It’ screeched in a squeaky, high pitched voice. The sock puppet seemed to be judging me with its cold, dead, googly eyes.
Ross shrugged, and said, “This is Pierre, he’s cranky most of the time.”
I stared at Ross, and facepalmed. “The pay for this job better be high.”
Mike mumbled, “How about a thousand dollars a week? I’ll pay your bills for the first three months, too.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding. That is crazy pay. So what am I supposed to keep records of?”
Ross grinned. “Our escapades, of course!”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “What?”
He laughed. “We hired you in order to keep track of our incredible happenings and then try to sell them to some kind of writing, or cereal company.”
I froze. “Uhhhh….What?”
Clara rolled her eyes. “You heard him. Just keep a journal of what we do on the job. Ross is convinced we could be on COPS or something.”
Ross shook his head. “Nah, COPS got cancelled.”
I remembered something. “It’s on that one streaming service featuring the sweaty guy with the anti-women’s rights videos.”
Ross looked at me and said, “Hence, why I don’t want to be on COPS. I was thinking more of CHiPs.”
I stared at him. “What’s CHiPs?”
Ross sighed. “They’re a junk food, Platts!”
Bob opened his mouth. “And they come in a lot of flavors.” His voice was booming, similar to that of a giant.
Ross grabbed my shoulder. “Listen, Verne. It’s good pay, fairly easy work, and you get some interesting stories out of it. You taking the job or not?”
I hesitated. These were some weird people to work with, between the gravelly-voiced sock puppet enthusiast, the guy who looked like he could suffocate me just by looking at me too hard, the owner who seemed like he’d never had responsibility for a pencil, let alone a multiple-generation building, a woman who thinks she can make sense of these guys, and a security raccoon.
Then again, free rent for the first three months on top of a thousand dollars a week, and I’d just have to write about these four and potentially myself.
I faked a smile, and said, “When do I start?”
Ross gave me a sincere smile and said, “Right now. There’s a cubicle upstairs, clean it out, and then just hang out with us for a bit. Oh-one more thing.”
“Hm?”
Ross handed me a notebook, with the words “THE POSTMEN” on it. I asked him what it meant.
Clara answered, “It’s what the police call us when we do investigations.”
Ross grinned. “They sure do hate us, those Baltimore policemen.”
Clara grumbled, “Probably not a great idea to do that.”
I left the ballroom to go to my new cubicle.
That’s how I became the record keeper of the Postmen Investigation Group, as well as the best job I ever had.