Now he stepped off into the deep cold of the morning, his shoes squeaking on the path shoveled through the snow. His breath plumed out in front of him. The moon was down but the stars were sprawled across the black sky in idiot’s profusion, God’s jewel box, Vera always called it. You’re looking into God’s jewel box, Johnny.
He walked down Main Street, and he stopped in front of the tiny Jackson post office and fumbled the letters out of his coat pocket. Letters to his father, to Sarah, to Sam Weizak, to Bannerman. He set the attache case down between his feet, opened the mailbox that stood in front of the neat little brick building, and after one brief moment of hesitation, dropped them in. He could hear them drop down inside, surely the first letters mailed in Jackson this new day, and the sound gave him a queer sense of finality, The letters were mailed, there was no stopping now.
He picked up the case again and walked on. The only sound was the squeak of his shoes on the snow. The big thermometer over the door of the Granite State Savings Bank stood at 3 degrees, and the air had that feeling of total silent inertia that belongs exclusively to cold New Hampshire mornings. Nothing moved. The roadway was empty. The
windshields of the parked cars were blinded with cataracts of frost. Dark windows, drawn shades. To Johnny it all seemed somehow dreadful and at the same time holy. He fought the feeling. This was no holy business he was on.
He crossed Jasper Street and there was the town hall, standing white and austerely elegant behind its plowed banks of twinkling snow.
What are you going to do if the front door’s locked? Smart guy?
Well, he would find a way to cross that bridge if he had to. Johnny looked around, but there was no one to see him. If this had been the president coming for one of his famous town meetings, everything would have been different, of course. The place would have been blocked off since the night before, and men would be stationed inside already. But this was only a U.S. representative, one of over four hundred, no big deal. No big deal yet.
Johnny went up the steps and tried the door. The knob turned easily and he stepped into the cold entryway and pulled the door shut behind him. Now the headache was coming back, pulsing along with the steady thick beat of his heart. He set his case down and massaged his temples with his gloved fingers.
There was a sudden low scream. The coat-closet door was opening, very slowly, and then something white was falling out of the shadows toward him.
Johnny barely held back a cry. For one moment he thought it was a body, falling out of the closet like some-thing from a spook movie. But it was only a heavy cardboard sign that read PLEASE HAVE PAPERS IN ORDER BEFORE APPEARING FOR
EXAMINATION.
He set it back in place and then turned to the doorway giving upon the stairs.
This door was now locked.
He leaned down to get a better look at it in the dim white glow of the streetlight that filtered in the one window. It was a spring lock, and he thought he might be able to open it with a coat hanger. He found one in the coat closet and hooked the neck of it into the crack between the door and the jamb. He worked it down to the lock and began to fumble around. His head was thudding fiercely now. At last he heard the bolt snap back as the wire caught it. He pulled the door open. He picked up his attache case and went through, still holding the coat hanger. He pulled the door closed behind him and heard it lock again. He went up the narrow stairs, which creaked and groaned under his weight.
At the top of the stairs there was a short hallway with several doors on either side. He walked down the hall, past TOWN MANAGER and TOWN SELECTMEN, past TAX
ASSESSOR and MEN’S and O’SEER OF THE POOR and LADIES’.