The House of Numbers

by Jack Finney

  SAN QUENTIN

  I've got to make my older brother understand: He has to get me out of here. It's not the walls, not the monotony, not the guards, not the cell the size of a closet.

  It is, very simply, a matter of life and death. It's a guard who's been assaulted … and according to California law, it's death for a lifer to strike a guard.

  That's me they're talking about. I'm the lifer.

  And as I sit here looking at him, I know he'll do it — for his kid brother. He always was a sucker.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  The Body Snatchers

  Five Against the House

  THE HOUSE

  OF

  NUMBERS

  Jack Finney

  A Dell First Edition • an original novel

  Published by

  DELL PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.

  261 Fifth Avenue

  New York 16, New York

  © Copyright, 1956, 1957, by Jack Finney

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 57-7752

  A shorter version of this book appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine under the title House of Numbers.

  Designed and produced by

  Western Printing & Lithographing Company

  Cover painting by Daniel Schwartz

  This is a work of fiction, and, except for the authorized use of the name of Warden Teets, all names and characters in the story are fictional, and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental.

  Dedication: To my friend, Harley O. Teets, Warden of the California State Prison, San Quentin

  First printing — May, 1957

  Printed in U.S.A.

  1

  I moved the outboard rudder handle slowly to the right, and the little round-bottomed rowboat swung out of Raccoon Strait in a wide slow curve — then suddenly we saw it. Rounding the easternmost point of the Tiburon peninsula, we saw the glow of pale orange light far ahead in the night, near the western edge of San Francisco Bay. As I straightened the tiller again, holding the nose of the little boat on that faint orange glow, I felt the girl on the narrow seat beside me go rigid.

  Glancing at her profile in the faint starlight, I saw that her face muscles were set and her eyes were closed; she was scared; but I said nothing, offering not a word or gesture of comfort. Far behind us and to our left, across the calm black Bay — I turned on the seat to look — hung the strung-out orange jewels of the Golden Gate Bridge lights; then one by one they disappeared as the peninsula beside us cut them from view. Directly behind us, miles to the rear, lay the longer span of the orange-lighted Bay bridge, and rising up behind it, the patterned lighting of the streets of Berkeley. Over the minutes the orange glow far ahead grew steadily in size; and with the motor growling away behind us, we sat in utter silence, watching it. Here and there on the black surface of the water ahead, and far off at the right toward Richmond, lay the green and red lights of buoys, and we could hear their bells now and then. So far as I could see, we were the only moving craft on the enormous black surface of the Bay.

  Then presently the orange glow ahead began taking on form and definition, and after a little longer, less than a mile from it now, we could see what it was. It was a line of great floodlights mounted on standards higher than telephone poles, and shining down on an immense peach-colored strange-looking building which rose up out of the spade-shaped point of land we were approaching. Before it sat a smaller structure of the same material and color. The motor at low speed now, we moved closer still for five or six minutes. Now the great peach-colored building seemed very close; a long long building with immensely tall windows; a strange sort of structure unlike any, I was certain, either of us had ever seen anywhere else.

  "Well," I said quietly, angrily, "there it is," and I shut off the motor, and we sat in a sudden silence still moving through the black water with the dying momentum of the boat, staring at the silent buildings ahead. High in the air before them at the water's edge, stood a glass-windowed hut raised on immensely tall stiltlike legs; and off to the left, fading into the darkness beyond the reach of the floodlights, were more buildings, and these were tinted a delicate shade of green.

  Staring at them and at the great peach-colored building, the girl on the seat beside me tried to speak casually. "It's colored," she murmured, "I can never get over that; it's not gray but colored, and in pastels."

  "Yeah," I said coldly, "San Quentin, the pastel prison; it's almost pretty from here. Take a good look at it," I said brutally. "Fill your eyes with it; you can actually see the bars on the windows now; notice?" She nodded, and I saw her eyes close. "And off to the left" — I stopped, waiting, forcing her to open her eyes again, then I pointed — "you can see part of the walls. There are men up there, and they're carrying guns. It's all real!" I said suddenly, almost shouting it, "And you're looking at it now, San Quentin prison; there's nothing more real in the world. Look at it; we're actually talking about taking a man out of there! Actually helping Arnie escape from San Quentin! Take a good look, because you're looking at the kind of place you'll end up in instead — you, yourself, Ruth Gehlmann, in the women's prison at Corona! — if anything at all goes wrong." I didn't let up on her. "See that green light?" I said softly, my arm pointing in the faint light of the stars; and she lifted her face to stare at the globe of vivid green light mounted high on a standard over the prison. "It's green now because all's quiet at San Quentin; every last man accounted for. But once that light turns red, if you helped do it, you're in the worst trouble of your life; and you may never be free of the consequences as long as you live."

  I stopped then, letting up on her, and on myself, and turned away to stare off across the stern of the boat, giving her a little time alone with herself to think. Stretching for miles behind me lay the widest portion of San Francisco Bay, ink black and silent, and the city far beyond it — the tiny lights of its homes where human beings lived and moved — seemed infinitely removed from me now. Overhead in the clear night sky the needle-pricked blue lights of the stars seemed cold and remote, older than time, unconcerned with me or the whole human race. And I suddenly saw us, two people in a tiny boat on the vast black surface of the Bay, utterly alone out here, no one knowing we were here or why, and I finally understood completely and at last that what we had thought we could do was impossible. Rescue my brother from San Quentin prison — the very thought now, as I sat lost in the immensity of the great black Bay, was chilling. There was a beginning mist on the water now, cold and chill, and far off across the Bay a foghorn began to sound, mournful and menacing. Glancing up at the remote immensity of the stars then, I felt angry and alone and helpless; and I was afraid. The deep, double-noted, warning growl sounded again, and it frightened me to think of how far I had come in only two days without ever really thinking, until this moment as I sat here in the gathering mist staring at San Quentin prison.

  My name is Benjamin Harrison Jarvis. I'm twenty-six years old, a stocky man several inches under six feet, weighing a hundred and seventy pounds; with black hair, blue eyes, and an ordinary, average American face — and I'm no faster thinking than the next guy, I know. Rut still, it was hard to believe now that less than an hour before, lying in the darkness in a strange bed and room, I had thought I was ready to help a man escape from San Quentin; hadn't even questioned that it was possible to do.

  Lying there, then, trying to sleep, I'd heard the snap of a light switch and the click of high heels in the hall just outside the thin wood of my door; in my mind I could see the sleek nylon legs that were making this sound, and the delicate fine-boned ankles that — gradually at first, then suddenly — swelled upward into rounded perfection. An instant later, as a switch clicked on in the front bedroo
m we'd decided would be hers, I tried to remember her face as it looked when we'd introduced ourselves this morning. First, I remembered her hair: very heavy and long, nearly touching her shoulders, and the kind of yellow mixed with darker strands that only genuinely blond hair ever has; then in my mind I saw her prominent cheek bones, her pale magnificent complexion, and gray intelligent eyes.

  Her heels clicked down the hall toward me again and stepped onto the tile of the bathroom floor near my door. I heard the medicine cabinet open, then the door close; and suddenly I realized how intensely aware I was of these sounds and of the girl living under this roof with me now who made them. I tried to ignore them and remind myself of the only reason we were here together. But the door opened again; the steps sounded once more on the wooden hall floor, then stopped. There was a moment's complete silence, then I heard them approaching. A very light tapping sounded on my door; it opened quietly; and the girl's handsome figure stood sharply silhouetted against the hall light. "Asleep?" she whispered.

  "No."

  She hesitated a moment, then said, "Ben? Do you ever — ? Are you at all — frightened?"

  "Oh," I said slowly, "I don't know. Yeah, a little, I guess. Why? You frightened?"

  She nodded, standing there in the doorway against the hall light. "Yes, some," she said quietly. Then suddenly she said, "Oh, Ben, yes, I am! I'm scared! Terribly! Tonight after you left the living-room, I sat there. The house was so quiet and strange, it was as though I had my first chance all day to really think, and — Ben, talk to me!" She moved suddenly to my bed and sat down on its edge facing me — "Tell me it'll be all right!" Her voice dropped. "Oh, Ben, I am scared."

  In the faint light from the hall I could see her face straining for control. I sat up, my mind searching for words. She leaned forward suddenly, hands rising to

  her face, and dropped her forehead on my shoulder. Automatically my arms rose and went around her as she huddled against me for comfort, and I patted her back gently and began to murmur. "Take it easy," I said soothingly, "relax. You've got a right to be scared, you've got a right to let down now and shed a few tears." My voice was a monotone, the sound of it more important than the words — "All in one day you move out of your apartment, move in here with a stranger, and the worst is still to come; why shouldn't it get to you? But you'll be okay in the morning; things will look better; you'll be all right, you'll see." I went on like that; and presently she wriggled her shoulders under my arms with a little shuddering sigh and lay there against me, breathing quietly.

  For a moment longer I held her, sitting up there in bed, then arched my chest to push her gently erect. She looked up, face puzzled, as I put my hands on her shoulders and, leaning back, held her at arms' length. "Go to bed now," I said, and though I smiled to soften the effect, I hadn't quite kept the gruffness out of my voice. "Go ahead now," I said as she continued to stare at me. There was an edge of irritation in my voice I couldn't help, and I knew I had to explain it. "Look," I said gently, "I know how you feel, and I want to help you, but — damn it, Ruth," I burst out, "you're a beautiful womanl Not just pretty and sort of attractive, but beautiful! And we're alone here, absolutely alone, living and sleeping under the same roof, and now here you are sitting on my bed — " I stopped suddenly. "I'm sorry," I said then. "I'm very sorry, but — "

  She was nodding, the light from the hall yellow in her hair. "Of course," she said quietly. "I just didn't think. It: didn't enter my mind at the moment; I was scared; I wanted comfort; but — Well, of course." She stood up quickly from the bed, nervously smoothing her skirt. "I'm sorry, Ben. And I'm all right now." She managed to smile down at me then turned away toward the doorway.

  She reached it and walked through it, while I stood staring after her; but now, for the first time in the strange and hectic past two days, things seemed to be falling into place or coming into focus in my mind, or something; I wasn't quite sure what I was thinking. "Wait," I said, and she stopped to stare back at me. "You're not all right," I said quietly. "And neither am I. Get your coat." I tossed back the light blankets suddenly. "We're going to take a little ride."

  The boat and outboard belonged to the man whose furnished house I'd rented the day before, an Army man transferred to Germany. Since half the people in Marin County own boats, the boat and motor went with the house. It took us less than ten minutes, after I'd dressed, to reach them. We drove south on 101 from Mill Valley to Sausalito — the first town past the Golden Gate Bridge on the Marin County side — and I parked at the north end of the town's single business street, shut down now for the night. Then I led Ruth across the narrow strip of weed-grown land which separates the street from the Sausalito dock area. Nothing, I noticed, had really changed through the years here so far as I could see; way off to the right, against the night sky, I could see the black silhouette of the old ferry-slip, still there though it's been unused ever since Golden Gate Bridge opened. This area — dozens of floating docks projecting out into the Bay, each lined on both sides with pleasure boats of every size and kind — was a gay festive place on summer weekends. I'd been here often; my brother and I went to school in San Francisco. But now the whole area was dark, deserted, and almost utterly silent. The bare masts of the sailboats, moving in shallow arcs on the never-still tidewater, were just visible against the dark sky.

  On the wide wooden walkway alongside the docks, I found in a long row of them, the little wooden storage locker with the number painted on its door, which the key the real-estate agent had given me would unlock. Then I brought out oars, motor, and a half-filled gas can, led Ruth out onto the nearest dock, and found the little rowboat. It had Albatross painted on its prow.

  For the first ten minutes I rowed, dipping the oars very quietly, heading out into the bay to the southeast, Ruth in the back seat facing me. A quarter-mile out, I attached the outboard. It started on the fourth try, and I sat down beside Ruth, my hand on the tiller. Sausa-lito lay well behind us now, diminishing in size, the tiny lights of its homes scattered on the hillsides that enclosed it. Far ahead, extending out from the edge of the crisscrossed lights that were the streets of San Francisco toward the Oakland side of the Bay, were the lights of the Bay Bridge; and I could see the buildings, floodlighted like billboards, of Alcatraz Island. It took half an hour to reach and pass through Raccoon Strait — the black silhouette of lightless Angel Island now close at hand to the right; the scattered lights of the villages of Belvedere and Tiburon on the mainland of Marin at the left. I'd known this whole area well as a boy, and for a short time it was almost good to be back. Then we rounded the far point of the Tiburon peninsula; the pale orange glow of San Quentin revealed itself; and I knew I wanted to be anywhere but where I was.

  Now, our boat motionless on the water before the great prison, Ruth turned to look at me, and I said softly, "This morning when I told you what Arnie wanted you said yes, you'd help. But that doesn't count, Ruth; it came at you too fast. But now you've had time to think. What about it, Ruth?"

  For a moment she turned to look at the floodlighted prison again, then she was shaking her head. "I can't," she whispered. "Ben, you're right. I can't do it!" and she covered her face with her hands. Presently she lowered them and looked at me, eyes bitter. "Maybe I ought to," she said quietly. "I think I should. I think I ought to. But" — her shoulders moved helplessly — "I can't, that's all. It's absurd; but I don't want to be in prison any more than Arnie does!"

  "'Ought to'?" I said. "Why 'ought to'? Why should you help Arnie?"

  She didn't answer for several moments; just sat, shoulders slumped, staring over the misting water at the prison. Then she said, "You know why Arnie's in San Quentin, of course, but I doubt if he ever told you why he did what he did." She turned to me again. "Ben, the first time I met Arnie I liked him, but after I'd seen him a few times I almost decided to stop. I liked him more than ever, but I'd begun to wonder if he wasn't attracted to me because" — she shrugged a little — "I had some sort of social standing or whateve
r you might call it. My family's been in San Francisco a long time; people familiar with such things recognize my name as one of the old ones here, and my people have money. They're not wealthy, none of them, but their homes are pleasant, expensive, and I think Arnie was impressed with all that."

  I nodded. "I expect he was."

  She nodded, too, and said, "Well, when the time came to pick out an engagement ring, I told Arnie I didn't want a big one; I knew he didn't make much money, or have much. I said I wanted just a small one-carat diamond. Ben," she said pleadingly, "what would you say a one-carat diamond engagement ring would cost?"

  I shrugged. "I never priced them; several hundred dollars, I suppose."

  She nodded. "That's what I thought; two hundred and fifty dollars, maybe, and I didn't really want him to spend that much. Well, we went to Shreve's in San Francisco and looked at rings, a trayful of them. And as a matter of fact, I rather liked one of the smallest they had, but Arnie just grinned and shook his head, glancing at the clerk. That ring was too small for a member of one of California's oldest families, he said, and I could have slapped him. He was impressing the clerk, a man he'd never even seen before. We finally picked a ring; I admired it, holding my hand off to look at it; the clerk admired it — it was beautiful — and Arnie said we'd take it; what did it cost? Well, the clerk wrote down figures on a little pad — I thought he'd never stop — added them all up, then smiled and said thirteen hundred and eighty-five dollars. I had my hand up to pull off the ring, starting to speak, but Arnie had hold of my arm so tight it hurt, and when I saw his eyes I knew I didn't dare speak.

  "Ben! He just smiled at the clerk, nodding his head, and asked if they'd take his check. 'Of course!' the clerk said, as though the whole world knew Arnie's check was good for any amount he chose to make it. But since Arnie had no account there, we'd have to wait a few moments till the store manager okayed the check. Well, now I know what Arnie knew then. They'd have phoned the bank from the store office and found out immediately whether his check was good or not. But Arnie just smiled and said not to bother; he had to stop at his bank anyway today, and he'd simply cash a check himself and come back with the cash.