novel 88 - 15. the old army game

by nick nelson

part 15 of ?

for previous episode, click here

to begin at the beginning, click here

harriet was a polite and well-bred person, and was in the habit of striking up polite conversations with complete strangers, even somewhat shabby and scary ones. harriet worked as a maid in a barely respectable downtown hotel, working the 4 pm to midnight shift, and took the last cable car home to her furnished room on california street. one chilly night she was riding home and there was one other passenger on the car, a man in a heavy coat several sizes too large for him and with a broad brimmed hat pulled down over his face but not concealing his long pointed nose. he looks familiar, harriet thought, familiar like a cartoon character - a comic villain. a bit cool tonight, isn’t it? harriet addressed the man. the man did not reply, and harriet decided he was not the talkative type. she never persisted in conversations if the person she spoke to did not respond. walter zank was a polite and well-bred person, though not very talkative, and liked to ride the cable cars at night. he would have liked to ride the cable cars all night long but they stopped at 2 a m and did not resume again until 6 a m. walter liked the long chilly foggy nights because they allowed him to dress as he liked best - in heavy coats several sizes too large for him and broad brimmed hats that he could pull down over his face, hiding the face except for his long pointed nose. although he never spoke to other passengers, even when they spoke to him, he took a keen interest in their mysterious existences and often reflected on them when he went back to his furnished room on o’farrell street. \ he recorded his reflections in school notebooks he purchased at walgreens. he did not keep the notebooks. when he had filled four of then,, he put them in an envelope and mailed them to the library of congress, with the return address of the doggie diner on geary boulevard and arguelo boulevard. he had learned in junior high school in davemport iowa that the library of congress kept a copy of every book ever written in the history of the world. he reflected on the middle aged woman who had observed that it was a chilly night. she did not invite much reflection but walter decided to give it the old college try, and play the old army game. now you see it, now you don’t. next