The House of Numbers

by Jack Finney

  Over half an hour had passed, and now I waited a good five or six minutes more, and not a single car of any kind passed heading east. Then another set of headlights approached from behind me, and as it passed, I saw the man behind the wheel, no one else in the car, and his right-hand window was rolled clear down. I could see the traffic signal, the amber light on, and as the car slowed for the highway, the waiting highway traffic started up, and the car, a 1953, two-door Buick sedan, stopped to wait, five or six feet from the highway's edge.

  I got up and walked toward it, keeping the rear corner of the car between me and the driver. Passing the back end of the car, I saw the driver's face turned away from me, staring to the north watching the traffic signal. I pulled the wooden pistol from my pocket, walked silently up to the right-hand car door, and did two things simultaneously. With my right hand, still holding the gun, I turned the door handle, while my left hand grasped the little plastic-capped door-locking device, and pulled up. As the door opened, the man turning to stare, I had the gun pointing directly at his face and was sliding into the right-hand seat. "Don't act crazy, and you won't get shot," I said quietly. "Just keep your head, and you'll be all right, and won't get hurt." Reaching behind me with my left hand, never taking my eyes or the gun from the man's astonished face, I closed the door beside me. "Now, do you understand what I say?" I said pleasantly. "I don't particularly want to shoot you; just don't go panicky on me."

  The man hadn't moved; the rims of his eyes had opened wide in astonishment and fear. Now he narrowed them, in control of himself. He was a man of perhaps fifty, stout but not fat; he wore a dark brown suit, and a brown felt hat; I could see him clearly in the reflected light from the busy highway just ahead of us. Then he nodded his head several times, slowly. "I understand you," he said. "I'm not trying anything; I got a family. You're welcome to anything I got on me; just tell me what to do." He sat motionless, staring at me, his face tense, worried over what was happening, but not terror-stricken, not panicky.

  "Nothing," I said. "When the light changes, swing right onto the highway just like you were going to do before you got company. I'll tell you what's next after that."

  The man nodded. "Okay." He kept staring at me, fascinated, and after a moment I smiled.

  "Go ahead," I said, "take a good look. You like my clothes? Maybe you want to trade?"

  He didn't answer; the traffic light changed, and highway traffic slowed and stopped, fifty feet to our left. Still staring at me, the man didn't see this. "Light's changed," I said. "Let's go. But take it easy; don't stall that motor; we got plenty of time."

  Again he nodded, turned to look at the highway before him, and started up very slowly and carefully. On the highway, heading south, he continued to drive very slowly in the right-hand lane beside the dirt shoulder.

  "Pick it up a little," I said. "And hold it at forty." I sat pushed into the corner of the seat, back partly against the door behind me, facing the driver. My forearm in my lap, the gun pointed steadily at the driver's side. As cars passed us, lights sliding through our car, the barrel of the gun in my hand glinted and gleamed; it looked entirely real.

  We drove two miles, neither of us speaking most of the time. Once I said, "You're busy thinking now, but don't let it get you into trouble. I can pull this trigger faster than anything you can do. Behave yourself, and you'll be home in an hour, safe and snug."

  Just ahead now the road passed between two high embankments, slicing through a hill as it ascended a shallow curve. From a section of the embankment just ahead to the right, I knew bulldozers had removed truckloads of earth fill, and the road shoulder there for a length of twenty-five yards was wide and flat, extending far off the road. "Pull off just ahead," I said, "and stop. Get all four wheels off the road."

  The man slowed, then pulled off, stopped, and turned to look at me, waiting. "Turn off your lights, put the gear in neutral, and set the hand brake," I said. "Don't turn the motor off." He did as he was told then again turned to me. "Now, listen," I said. "What I want is your car. You'll even get it back, undamaged, by tomorrow. All you're going to lose is a little gas. I don't want you, your money, or anything else. So all I need now is to get you out of the car. You'll have a little walk, then, but that's all. Understand me? There's nothing to get excited about; you'd be crazy to make me shoot. Okay?"

  The man nodded, eyes wide again, and he swallowed before he spoke. "Okay," he said. "Sure, fine. Take the car; it's insured. Look, mister, I did my part; don't you get excited. Don't pull that trigger now; just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

  "All right." Reaching behind me with my left hand, I opened the door beside me an inch. "As I move out real slow, you move with me. Don't try starting up the car to shake me loose, or you'll have a bullet in your side before your foot ever touches the gas pedal. Move with me, but keep your distance. Don't get any closer, and don't try to lunge at me. Okay" — eyes and gun never wavering from the man, I slid out of the seat, feet feeling for the ground — "move across with me."

  A hand on the steering wheel for leverage, his other hand on the seat, the man slid himself across the seat after me. When he was well clear of the steering wheel, I stepped backward a pace, holding the car door open with my right shoulder. "Come closer," I said. "Get both feet on the ground now but stay sitting on the seat."

  The man did this, and I stepped back another pace, the car door remaining open of its own weight. "Now, stand," I said, "and walk toward me slow, always slow. Just keep your hands at your sides." Clear of the car now, I was standing where passing traffic might conceivably see what I was doing, so I lowered my gun hand to my side, keeping well clear of the man facing me. "Now keep facing me," I said, "but circle around in back of me."

  The man, always facing me, moved sideways, shuffling his feet, circling around me toward the embankment. As he did this, I turned to keep facing him; then I backed to the car door again. After a moment or so, left hand behind me, I found the car seat and sat down on its edge, feet on the ground, facing the man, the gun in my lap. "Back up some more," I said, "clear to the embankment."

  He did this, shuffling backward, then suddenly, his back touching the dirt embankment, he knew I was going to shoot him. "My God, mister, don't," he said. "Please don't. You got the car; I never did anything to —"

  "I'm not going to shoot," I said quietly and quickly. "Get that through your head. I just want you clear of the car when I start." As though speaking to a deaf man, I said very slowly and clearly, raising my voice a little, "I'm not going to shoot; you're okay. Just let me get out of here, and you're in the clear." I slid back across the seat, always facing the man, who stood staring at me, his suit and hat almost invisible against the dark dirt embankment rising high in the darkness behind him, his face and hands pale blurs.

  Now, my gun hand still pointing at the man, my eyes always on him, I felt for the clutch with my feet, depressed it, released the brake, and put the car into gear with my left hand. The car door remained open. I pressed the gas pedal slightly, the motor revved up smoothly, and I said, "All right; you're okay now, mister." I leaned to the right as though about to pull the right-hand door closed, then I stopped, leaning across the seat, and I grinned suddenly as though an amusing idea had just occurred to me. The gun was on the seat now under my hands, and I rubbed it briskly over the upholstery, flipped it over with a fingernail, and repeated the action till I was certain any trace of fingerprints was gone. Then I picked it up by the barrel between two knuckles of my right hand. I switched on the car lights, then said, "Here. Here, mister, here's a souvenir for you," and I tossed the gun out of the car toward the man's feet and saw and heard it strike the dirt and slide a few inches, stopping a yard before the man. The man glanced down at it then up at me. "Go ahead," I said, allowing my laughter to fill my voice. "Pick it up; I'll trade you — the gun for the car." Deliberately laughing aloud now, I glanced into the rear-view mirror, then released the clutch, gunning the car, and as it shot onto the pavement, grave
l spouting under the wheels, the right-hand car door slammed shut. Immediately I decreased the sudden pressure on the gas pedal, accelerating more slowly. I brought the car smoothly up to forty-five miles an hour, the legal speed limit, and drove on toward the south, toward Waldo Grade, and the Golden Gate Bridge four or five miles ahead.

  The man I had left behind, I knew, was just two and two-tenths miles from the nearest gas station and telephone; I'd picked this spot on the way home from Muir Woods today and clocked the distance on my speedometer. I knew it wasn't completely impossible that the man would somehow get an immediate lift and telephone the police, with so perfectly coherent and brief an explanation of what had happened to him that the police would be waiting for me at the toll gate ahead, all within ten minutes' time. But it was far from likely; people are wary of hitchhikers, at night especially, and the chances were very high that he'd have to walk every foot of the way.

  Just the same, as the road curved into the bridge approach, nine minutes later, I turned on the car radio; it seemed to me that the sound of dance music would seem inappropriate to anyone's conception of a man doing wrong. I had my twenty-five cents ready as I approached the toll gate, my window open. I slipped the coins into the man's hands without quite having to bring the car to a stop; then I was moving on toward the cutoff just ahead that led to the old San Francisco Exposition building whose domed roof I could see to the right. Far behind me, I was sure, the man whose car I was driving had probably walked half a mile, turning as the headlights of each passing car touched him to thumb vigorously for a ride.

  17

  Driving into the little tree-sheltered street which curves around the dark empty old Exposition building, I saw just one car there and recognized it. I parked directly in back of it and turned off the motor and lights. I wiped all of the steering wheel hard with a handkerchief, the brake handle, light switch, ignition key, and radio panel. Then I opened the right-hand door, sliding across the seat to it. I wiped the door handle and lock, then got out of the car. I closed the door quietly, and wiped the outside door handle. Then I walked five steps ahead to my own car, and got in on the right-hand side. The motor was running quietly, and I said to Ruth, "Everything's fine; let's go home." She started up, and I said gently, "Don't forget your lights."

  Ruth said, "Oh!" and turned on the car lights.

  "Want me to drive?" I said. "This has been a hell of a strain on you."

  Ruth shook her head and turned to look at me. "I'm all right,'' she said. "You're all right, and I am, too, now. But I've got to hear exactly what happened, right away. Where can we go?"

  "The Marina, I guess. It's just a couple blocks from here," and Ruth nodded and put the car into gear.

  The Marina is a sort of common; a wide belt of green public lawn between the street and the edge of the Bay here. Along its water edge are docks for pleasure boats, and there's an asphalt parking area at the very edge of the water with a miraculous view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and this, naturally, is a favorite local lover's lane. We parked there, a little distance from the nearest of the other darkened cars. Ruth turned off the motor and set the brake, and I said, "It went exactly as we planned, no trouble." And then I told her about it.

  Ruth nodded, staring off to her left at the string of golden-yellow bridge lights strung across the Bay. "You don't have to reply to this, Ben," she said then. "You don't have to say a thing about it, but I love you."

  I didn't answer for a moment, and I guess Ruth thought I wasn't going to, because she turned to me suddenly, her face anxious. "Well, if I may," I said, "I'd like to answer it. I love you. So damned much there's no way to say it."

  In the dim reflected light from the water her eyes looked suddenly excited and happy, but she was biting her lip and shaking her head. "Ben, what are we going to do?"

  "Well," I said, "if it's all right with you, I think one thing we might do is get married. And another thing is this — " I reached out, took her in my arms, and did what I'd been wanting to do for longer, I knew, than I'd realized. I kissed her, holding her very close and tight, and for a long time that was enough.

  Then Ruth said it, drawing back to look up at me. "What about Arnie?"

  I just shook my head. "I don't know," I said. "Far as I know there's nothing to do about that and nothing to say. I'm sorry, if you know what I mean. But what can be done about it? What can we do? Arnie could have been married to you long since, but he isn't; he's in San Quentin instead and we didn't put him there. And Arnie brought us together, threw us together — living together under the same roof, day and night — in order to get himself out of his own jam. And what's happened now is just something Arnie's going to have to accept, damn it. I didn't bring this about, and neither did you; Arnie did. And he'll have to accept the consequences." I shook my head again. "Though I'll admit I'm going to hate the job of telling him."

  "Ben," she said, "let's be glad about this. You're right; when I have to face Arnie I'm not going to like myself. But nothing else could have happened but this. It's not something we could control, and I won't have it spoiled! Ben, smile at me, tell me you're glad."

  So I told her; and it was true. All my life seemed to have led up to the way I felt now, and I held Ruth and kissed her and was happy.

  We might have stayed there at the Marina, talking, making plans, watching the harbor, for an hour; I don't know. Then we drove back, Ruth at the wheel, I sitting on the floor beside her as we passed through the toll gate. I sat on the floor again as we approached our street, and stayed there till the car was in the garage, and the big metal door closed. Then I got out of the car and followed Ruth into the house.

  Entering the lighted living-room, Ruth stopped so suddenly I bumped into her; then I, too, saw Nova in the big easy chair near the window.

  18

  "Evenin'." He nodded his big bald head, utterly calm and sure of himself. "Been waitin' for you." We just stood there, motionless. "All alike these houses," he said. "All got one more door'n you can ever remember to lock." He nodded toward the backyard door. "So I come in and made myself comfortable. Got a little news for you."

  I nodded, dead furious at this malicious fat man who'd walked into my house; but I knew this was no time for indignation. "What is it? Have they found Arnie? Is he all right?" I walked to the davenport, and Ruth and I sat down facing Nova.

  He smiled as though I'd made a little joke not meant to be taken seriously. "No," he drawled as though humoring me, "they haven't found him. Expect he's all right, though." His voice mocking me, he said softly, "The word is he escaped."

  "Oh?" I stared at him for a moment. "How?"

  Nova threw back his head and laughed silently. "How," he said, grinning at me. "You don't know how. Well, now, I'll tell you somethin'; they don't either — out to the prison. I was s'posed to be on tonight, extra man on the first watch. So I phoned the prison just before time to leave; figured it was about time for somethin' like this; most hideouts don't last long. 'We don't need you,' the sergeant says. 'Green light's on again; he made it out tonight.'" Nova sat forward, glancing from one to the other of us, grinning. "Seems some guy got his car clouted tonight. At the Greenbrae intersection, mile or so from the prison, just where you'd expect a con might come out at the highway. So when this guy tells the state cops how — guy took it with a wooden pistol, young guy in blue denims, all dirtied up, needs a shave — they take him over to the prison. And he picks out your brother's picture from a batch of them. 'That's him,' the guy says; 'I can tell from the eyes and the hair. Put a two, three day black beard on him, and that's the man.'"

  Nova shook his head several times. "Warden's a slow man to give up a search, though; anybody can clout a car wearin' blue denims and needin' a shave." He stared at my clothes and face, then winked. "And the guy coulda made a mistake about the picture; though the wood pistol looks suspicious, like maybe a con carved it out. But the Warden kept the red light on just the same. Only now they had a state cop, radio-car man, pokin' around where thi
s car was clouted; the guy took it must have been waitin', they figure, hidin' in the weeds or the ditch. This cop brings in your brother's ID card, all tore up and throwed away there. They fit it together like a jigsaw puzzle, and that's it — it's your brother's ID card and it didn't fly over the wall itself. Looks like your brother made it out, all right. They don't know how, but he sure as hell must have." Nova sat back in the chair, regarding us, his eyes amused. "Been for a drive?" he said.

  "Yeah, little drive."

  "Well" — Nova dropped his palms on his knees as though ready to rise and leave — "just wanted you to hear the news."

  "Thanks," I said. "Very nice of you."

  "No trouble. I had plenty of sleep tonight, figurin' I'd be on duty, so I didn't mind waitin' for you — out for a little drive. Little curious anyway, I don't mind admittin', to see how you'd take the news. When you finally come home." Deliberately he let his eyes move over me, from head to foot, then he said casually, "I tell you I run into your brother out to the prison? Yep" — he nodded his big bald head, not waiting for an answer — "just before he hid out." Nova sat back in his chair and said, "I was on in the mess hall, there was a little trouble, and I come walkin' over. Thought I heard your brother's name, so I took a good look at the guy." He shook his head as though in amazement. "No doubt in my mind who it was when I saw him good. Looked exactly like you do. Yes, sir, now I see you in the light, the con I talked to — your brother, that is — looked exactly like you do now; specially in them clothes." He slapped his thigh as though at an amusing idea. "Lucky the guy lost his car didn't run into you tonight! Just drivin' around like you say. He coulda thought you was the guy clouted his car! Specially in that getup you're wearin' — just like prison clothes; Same kind they wear, you know. But course you know; you been out there.