Grace shoved into the building and shouted at the top of her lungs, "ALEXANDER, GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW." before she started pacing back and forth, her heels clicking on the cement floors. She was muttering under her breath about overdue bills, misplaced letters and the price of stamps. She had finally had it with the Post office around here. After sending thug after thug to send them a message, she was about to pull out the big guns. She snorted, ok little gun, since it was hers. 

She stopped pacing and looked around, "God damn it, Alex, I know you're here. It's your day to be in the office." she said aloud, waiting for him to magically appear like some freakishly stealthy cat in the jungle. He had a habit of sneaking up on her and scaring the ever living crap out of her. One moment he wasn't there, and then he was. She sighed and took a deep breath, he was the least of her problems today. 

"I'll be in my office," she shouted, as she made her way down the hall to the third door on the right. Pushing it open with enough force for it to bang against the wall behind it . She stomped to her desk and dropped the box containing all the letters that had somehow been misplaced. "Fucking idiots, can't do a simple job," she muttered as she started pulling out the envelopes and sorting them into piles of importance. 

Alex hurried into the office wondering what had his boss so worked up. She certainly had a temper - he was all to aware of that - but she normally controlled it well at the office. When he walked into the office she was furiously sorting mail and was obviously agitated by something. Thinking quickly he tried to remember anything he had done recently to piss her off and nothing came to mind. 

Warily he said, "Hey boss, whats up? How can I help you?"

She pointed to the chair across from her desk, "Sit." she told him tersely. She then proceeded to ignore him while she resumed sorting the mail in her hand. Bills, notices, letters from colleagues back in Philadelphia, invitations to conferences, letters and cards from her mother. She sighed and looked at the container on her desk, this was going to take a while. Once she dealt with what was in her hand she dropped into her chair and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. 

She looked up at Alex and sighed, "Sorry, don't worry - it's not anything that you've done." she told him before gesturing at the mess on her desk. "It's to do with this," she told him, "Ever since the move, I haven't been getting my mail," she explained. "And despite numerous attempts to go down there and fill out a change of address forms, they refused to release it to me. In fact, half the time they stated that there was no mail at al." She glared at the offensive mail on her desk, "Clearly, they were lying." she muttered. 

Alex looked at Gracie with a slightly bemused look. "Umm, boss, you know I am happy to do whatever you need but when you told me you needed muscle dealing with the clerk at the post office wasn't exactly what I thought you had in mind. I mean, I know the post office is a pain and all but am I missing something here?"

She threw her hands in the air, causing the mail she was holding to rain down upon them like disappointing, money demanding confetti. "You are missing so much!" she told him, exasperated. She rubbed her lower back and glared at the mail yet again. "The guy who runs the Post office around here, he came into see me when we first moved." she explained, "Medically," she added, to clear a few things up. "Had some problems with his bait and tackle, caught a nasty infection doing lord knows what." she shook her head, "I didn't ask questions and he wasn't in the mood to offer up a story." 

She stood up and started to pace around the office, "So I ran some tests, told him I'd get in touch." she said, her hands pressed against her back now which was aching something fierce. "So a few days go by and I get the results, turns out the guy has Syphillis. So I call his house and let his wife know I got his test results back, I tell her its a simple treatment to cure his disease." she shakes her head and sits back down, "She starts going on about his disease, thinking he's dying or something, and I had to explain what it was and that he wasn't going to die because we caught it soon enough." she chuckled, "But then I suggested she come in and get tested." 

She put her head down on her desk. "Long story short," she said, her voice muffled, "His wife found out about his extracurricular activities when he was working late, and now is making his life a living hell." she lightly hit her head on the desk, "And that is why, the son of a bitch has decided to make my life difficult by withholding my mail from me." she looked up at Alex. "So yeah, I'm going to need your help." she said. 

Alex frowned slightly as he took in Gracie's words and sorted the situation out in his mind. The more he thought about it the more he was sure that there were plenty of non-violent ways for the situation to be resolved - after all, the guy holding up her mail obviously answered to someone. 

"Gracie, you know that I trust you and I will follow your lead. And even if I didn't, my profession is one that does not ask a lot of questions. However, as your friend I must protest slightly. You are asking me to take care of a man - and to be clear the way I take care of people is rather permanent - when it seems many less extreme solutions might be possible. If you insist I will ensure that his man never bothers another soul, but I have to ask why you are being so unreasonable and jumping to such a violent end?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and through clenched teeth said, "I want him dead." she knew she was being slightly unreasonable. Her uterus was trying to kill her, her back ached and everything was a bit muddled in between. Perhaps there were too many emotions involved but she didn't care. She had taking one to many calls about overdue bills to care anymore. "He needs to die," she muttered as she sorted through her mails some more. "And when you punch him, make sure its right in the balls." She added with a nod of her head as if that might mimic the suffering she was going through right now. But everyone knew what she was dealing with was far worse. Her body was literally tearing away chunks of her body. She tossed some more mail in the overdue bill pile and almost growled at it. 

Alex nodded, “Then he will die.”

With those simple words, Alex stood and nodding once more walked out of the office.

----

Alex had been making contacts around the city since arriving and now pressed on them hard for information. His contacts came through and he now sat in a car outside of Michael Melbourne’s house waiting for him to get home. Michael – the current head of the local postal office – was now living alone in a rundown house on the south side of the city, his wife apparently now occupying their large modern home alone after kicking him out. After about an hour of waiting Alex saw the man pull into the driveway and walk into the house; waiting a few more minutes Alex approached the door and knocked. As soon as Michael answered the door Alex kicked him swiftly in the balls – he would normally consider this foul play but Gracie had been rather specific in her request.

The man fell back clutching his privates and then rolled over and threw up on the floor and sat their panting, “What the hell, did my bitch of a wife send you? Look, leave now or I’m calling the po…”

The man couldn’t finish he sentence as Alex kicked him again, this time hard in the side and sent him rolling across the floor. The man started to try and scramble to get up when Alex grabbed him by the hair and started pulling him upward before sending him face first into the side of the wall separating the kitchen from hallway.

The man now laid on his back with his face bloodied and stared up at Alex with terror in his eyes. “Please man, I’ll give you anything you want. Whatever my wife is paying you I’ll double it, please, just stop.”

Alex laughed down at the man as he pulled his pistol out of the back of his waistband, “No one said your wife sent me. You should have never fucked with Gracie Angeletti you diseased piece of shit.” Before the man could respond Alex pointed the gun at his face and fired off three quick rounds before turning and slipping out the front door.

---

About half an hour later Alex called gracie from his tattoo parlor. When she picked up he told her, “You should have no further trouble getting your mail.”

She was curled up in a ball with a hot water bottle pressed against her midsection when the phone rang. "Really?" she asked it, as it continued going. She groaned and got to her feet to go answer it. Alex told her it was done and she smiled, "Excellent." she said to him, "I suppose this means I can go ahead and start replying to all this mail." she said to him as she looked at the mess on her desk. "Thank you," she told him, "I think a large Russian sends a better message than a pint-sized hormonal mess," she jokingly told him. "Now leave me be, I have mails to answer," she said to him before saying goodbye and hanging up the phone. She sat in her desk chair and picked up her pen. It felt good to be back to normal.