“I need proof it was delivered.”

The clerk brought the stamp down hard on the front of the envelope.

The sharp thud rang off the high plaster ceiling.

“That’ll be four dollars and eighty cents, Amy,” she said.

I took a five-dollar bill out of my coat pocket and put it on the counter.

She slid twenty cents back across the glass with a long white paper tracking slip.

“If he’s home at his apartment on Broadway, the carrier will get his signature before noon tomorrow,” she said.