Going Postal

was amazing that bright lads like them hadn’t spotted this flaw. They were, he thought, a bit gullible.

    A HUNDRED FEET DOWN and a quarter of a mile away as the woodpecker flies during daylight, Moist followed the path of destiny.
    Currently, it was leading him through a neighborhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you’d bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and garbage were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality, and the graffiti was close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.
    And then he saw it. It was one of those hopeless little shopfronts that house enterprises with a lifetime measured in days, like Giant Clearance Sale!!! of socks with two heels each, tights with three legs, and shirts with one sleeve, four feet long. The window was boarded over, but just visible behind the graffiti above it were the words THE GOLEM TRUST .
    Moist pushed open the door. Glass crunched under his feet.
    A voice said, “Hands where I can see them, mister!”
    He raised his hands cautiously, while peering into the gloom. There was definitely a crossbow being wielded by a dim figure. Such light as had managed to get around the boards glinted off the tip of the bolt.
    “Oh,” said the voice in the dark, as if mildly annoyed that there was no excuse to shoot anybody. “All right, then. We had visitors last night.”
    “The window?” said Moist.
    “It happens about once a month. I was just sweeping it up.” There was the scratch of a match, and a lamp was lit. “They don’t generally attack the golems themselves, not now there’s free ones around. But glass doesn’t fight back.”
    The lamp was turned up, revealing a tall young woman in a tight, gray woolen dress, with coal-black hair plastered down and forced into a tight bun at the back so that she looked like a peg doll. There was a slight redness to her eyes that suggested she had been crying.
    “You’re lucky to have caught me,” she said. “I’d only come in to make sure nothing’s been taken. Are you here to sell or to hire? You can put your hands down now,” she added, placing the crossbow under the counter.
    “Sell or hire?” said Moist, lowering his hands with care.
    “A golem,” she said in a talking-to-the-hard-of-thinking voice. “We are the Go-lem Trust. We buy or hire go-lems. Do you want to sell a go-lem or hire a go-lem?”
    “Nei-ther,” said Moist. “I’ve got a go-lem. I mean, one is working for me.”
    “Really? Where?” said the woman. “And we can probably speed up a little, I think.”
    “At the Post Office.”
    “Oh, Pump 19,” said the woman. “He said it was government service.”
    “We call him Mister Pump,” said Moist primly.
    “Really? And do you get a wonderful, warm, charitable feeling when you do?”
    “Pardon? What?” said Moist, bewildered. He wasn’t sure if she was managing the trick of laughing at him behind her frown.
    The woman sighed. “Sorry, I’m a bit snappish this morning. A brick landing on your desk does this to you. Let’s just say they don’t see the world in the same way as we do, okay? They’ve got feelings, in their own way, but they’re not like ours. Anyway…how can I help you, Mr….?”
    “Von Lipwig,” said Moist, and added, “ Moist von Lipwig,” to get the worst over with. But the woman didn’t even smile.
    “Lipwig, small town in Near Uberwald,” she said, picking up a brick from the broken glass and debris on her desk, regarding it critically, and then turning to the ancient filing cabinet behind her and filing it under B. “Chief export: its famous dogs, of course. Second most important export: its beer, except during the two weeks of Sektoberfest, when it exports…secondhand beer, probably?”
    “I don’t know, we left when I was a kid,” said Moist. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a funny name.”
    “Try Adora Belle Dearheart sometime,” said the woman.
    “Ah. That’s not a funny name,” said Moist.
    “Quite,” said Adora Belle Dearheart. “I now have no sense of humor whatsoever. Well, now that we’ve been appropriately human toward one another, what exactly was it you wanted?”
    “Look, Vetinari has sort of lumbered me with Mr.—with Pump 19 as an…an assistant, but I don’t know how to treat”—Moist sought in the woman’s eyes for some clue as to the