Duel (18 page)

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Authors: Richard Matheson

BOOK: Duel
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“The wall probably slides over it,” she said starting to tap. It sounded solid to me. “Darn it!” she said, “I can just hear what you're going to say.”
I didn't say it. I just stood there watching her.
“Lose something?”
The janitor's voice was sort of like Lorre's, low and insinuating. Ruth gasped, caught way off guard. I jumped myself.
“My wife thinks there's a—” I started nervously.
“I was showing him the right way to hang a picture,” Ruth interrupted hastily. “
That's
the way, babe.” She turned toward me. “You put the nail in at an angle, not straight in. Now, do you understand?” She took my hand.
The janitor smiled.
“See you,” I said awkwardly. I felt his eyes on us as we walked back to the elevator.
When the doors shut, Ruth turned quickly.
“Good night!” she stormed. “What are you trying to do, get him on us?”
“Honey. What … ?” I was flabbergasted.
“Never mind,” she said. “There are engines down there.
Huge
engines. I saw them. And he knows about them.”
“Baby,” I said. “Why don't …”
“Look at me,” she said quickly.
I looked. Hard.
“Do you think I'm crazy?” she asked. “Come on, now. Never mind the hesitation.”
I sighed. “I think you're imaginative,” I said. “You read those …”
“Uh!” she muttered. She looked disgusted. “You're as bad as …”
“You and Galileo,” I said.
“I'll show you those things,” she said. “We're going down there
again tonight when that janitor is asleep. If he's ever asleep.”
I got worried then.
“Honey, cut it out,” I said. “You'll get me going too.”
“Good,” she said. “
Good
. I thought it would take a hurricane.”
I sat staring at my typewriter all afternoon, nothing coming out.
But concern.
I didn't get it. Was she actually serious? All right, I thought, I'll take it straight. She saw a door that was left open. Accidentally. That was obvious. If there were really huge engines under the apartment house as she said, then the people who built them darn sure wouldn't want anyone to know about them.
East 7th Street. An apartment house. And huge engines underneath it.
True?
 
“The janitor has three eyes!”
She was shaking. Her face was white. She stared at me like a kid who'd read her first horror story.
“Honey,”
I said. I put my arms around her. She was scared. I felt sort of scared myself. And not that the janitor had an extra eye either.
I didn't say anything at first. What can you say when your wife comes up with something like that?
She shook a long time. Then she spoke, in a quiet voice, a timid voice.
“I know,” she said. “You don't believe me.”
I swallowed. “Babe,” I said helplessly.
“We're going down tonight,” she said. “This is something important now. It's serious.”
“I don't think we should …” I started.
“I'm going down there,” she said. She sounded edgy now, a little hysterical. “I tell you there are engines down there. Goddamn it, there are engines!”
She started crying now, shaking badly. I patted her head, rested it
against my shoulder. “All right, baby,” I said. “All right.”
She tried to tell me through her tears. But it didn't work. Later when she'd calmed down, I listened. I didn't want to get her upset. I figured the safest way was just to listen.
“I was walking through the hall downstairs,” she said. “I thought maybe there was some afternoon mail. You know once in a while the mailman will …”
She stopped. “Never mind that. What matters is what happened when I walked past the janitor.”
“What?” I said, afraid of what was coming.
“He smiled,” she said. “You know the way he does. Sweet and murderous.”
I let it go. I didn't argue the point. I still didn't think the janitor was anything but a harmless guy who had the misfortune to be born with a face that was strictly from Charles Addams.
“So?” I said. “Then what?”
“I walked past him. I felt myself shiver. Because he looked at me as if he knew something about me
I
didn't even know. I don't care what you say—that's the feeling I got. And then …”
She shuddered. I took her hand.
“Then?” I said.
“I felt him looking at me.”
I'd felt that too when he found us in the basement. I knew what she meant. You just knew the guy was looking at you.
“All right,” I said. “I'll buy that.”
“You won't buy this,” she said grimly. She sat stiffly a moment, then said, “When I turned around to look he was walking away from me.”
I could feel it on the way. “I don't …” I started weakly.
“His head was turned but he was looking at me.”
I swallowed. I sat there numbly, patting her hand without even knowing I was doing it.
“How, hon?” I heard myself asking.
“There was an eye in the back of his head.”
“Hon,”
I said. I looked at her in—let's face it—fright. A mind on the loose can get awfully confused.
She closed her eyes. She clasped her hands after drawing away the one I was holding. She pressed her lips together. I saw a tear wriggle out from under her left eyelid and roll down her cheek. She was white.
“I saw it,” she said quietly. “So help me God, I saw that eye.”
I don't know why I went on with it. Self torture, I guess. I really wanted to forget the whole thing, pretend it never even happened.
“Why haven't we seen it before, Ruth?” I asked. “We've seen the back of the man's head before.”
“Have we?” she said. “Have we?”
“Sweetheart,
somebody
must have seen it. Do you think there's never been anyone behind him?”
“His hair parted, Rick,” she said, “and before I ran away I saw the hair going back over it, so you couldn't see it.”
I sat there silently. What to say now?—I thought. What could a guy possibly say to his wife when she talks to him like that? You're nuts? You're loony? Or the old, tired, “You've been working too hard.” She hadn't been working too hard.
Then again maybe she
had
been working overtime. With her imagination.
“Are you going down with me tonight?” she asked.
“All right,” I said quietly. “All right, sweetheart. Now will you go and lie down?”
“I'm all right.”
“Sweetheart, go and lie down,” I said firmly. “I'll go with you tonight. But I want you to lie down now.”
She got up. She went into the bedroom and I heard the bedsprings squeak as she sat down, then drew up her legs and fell back on the pillow.
I went in a little later to put a comforter over her. She was looking at the ceiling. I didn't say anything to her. I don't think she wanted to talk to me.
 
 
“What can I do?” I said to Phil.
Ruth was asleep. I'd sneaked across the hall.
“Maybe she saw them?” he said. “Isn't it possible?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “And you know what else is possible too.”
“Look, you want to go down and see the janitor. You want to …”
“No,” I said. “There's nothing we can do.”
“You're going down to the basement with her?”
“If she keeps insisting,” I said. “Otherwise, no.”
“Look,” he said. “When you go, come and get us.”
I looked at him curiously. “You mean the thing is getting to you, too?” I said.
He looked at me in a funny way. I saw his throat move.
“Don't … look, don't tell anyone,” he said.
He looked around, then turned back.
“Marge told me the same thing,” he said. “She said the janitor has three eyes.”
 
I went down after supper for some ice cream. Johnson was walking around.
“They're working you overtime,” I said as he started to walk beside me.
“They expect some trouble from the local gangs,” he said.
“I never saw any gangs,” I said distractedly.
“They're here,” he said.
“Mmmm.”
“How's your wife?”
“Fine,” I lied.
“She still think the apartment house is a front?” he laughed.
I swallowed. “No,” I said. “I've broken her of that. I think she was just kidding me all the time.”
He nodded and left me at the corner. And for some reason I couldn't
keep my hands from shaking all the way home. I kept looking over my shoulder, too.
 
“It's time,” Ruth said.
I grunted and rolled on my side. She nudged me. I woke up sort of hazy and looked automatically at the clock. The radium numbers told me it was almost four o'clock.
“You want to go
now?
” I asked, too sleepy to be tactful.
There was a pause. That woke me up.
“I'm going,” she said quietly.
I sat up. I looked at her in the half darkness, my heart starting to do a drum beat too heavily. My mouth and throat felt dry.
“All right,” I said. “Wait till I get dressed.”
She was already dressed. I heard her in the kitchen making some coffee while I put on my clothes. There was no noise. I mean it didn't sound as if her hands were shaking. She spoke lucidly too. But when I stared into the bathroom mirror I saw a worried husband. I washed cold water in my face and combed my hair.
“Thanks,” I said as she handed me the cup of coffee. I stood there, nervous before my own wife.
She didn't drink any coffee. “Are you awake?” she asked. I nodded. I noticed the flashlight and the screwdriver on the kitchen table. I finished the coffee.
“All right,” I said. “Let's get it over with.”
I felt her hand on my arm.
“I hope you'll …” she started. Then turned her face.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “We'd better go.”
The house was dead quiet as we went into the hall. We were halfway to the elevator when I remembered Phil and Marge. I told her.
“We can't wait,” she said. “It'll be light soon.”
“Just wait and see if they're up,” I said.
She didn't say anything. She stood by the elevator door while I went down the hall and knocked quietly on the door of their apartment. There was no answer. I glanced up the hall.
She was gone.
I felt my heart lurch. Even though I was sure there was no danger in the basement, it scared me. “Ruth,” I muttered and headed for the stairs.
“Wait a second!” I heard Phil call loudly from his door.
“I can't!” I called back, charging down.
When I got to the basement I saw the open elevator door and light streaming from the inside. Empty.
I looked around for a light switch but there wasn't any. I started to move along the dark passage as fast as I could.
“Hon!” I whispered urgently. “Ruth, where are you?”
I found her standing before a doorway in the wall. It was open.
“Now stop acting as if I were insane,” she said coldly.
I gaped and felt a hand pressing against my cheek. It was my own. She was right. There were stairs. And it was lighted down there. I heard sounds. Sounds of metallic clickings and strange buzzings.
I took her hand. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm sorry.”
Her hand tightened in mine. “All right,” she said. “Never mind that now. There's something flukey about all this.”
I nodded. Then I said, “Yeah,” realizing she couldn't see my nod in the darkness.

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