Paycheck. Part 16

It's for your house, too. Your house and my house and all the houses. Here and in the next block, in the next town, the next state and country and continent. The whole world, like this. Shambles and ruins. Fog and dank weeds growing in the rusting slag. War for all of us. For everybody crowding down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, white-faced, frightened, somehow sensing something terrible.

And when it really came, when the five years were up, there'd be no escape. No going back, tipping back into the past, away from it. When it came for them all, it would have them for eternity; there would be no one climbing back out, as he had.

Mary was watching him. The policeman, the neighbors, the white-clad interns - all of them were watching him. Waiting for him to explain. To tell them what it was.

'Was it the hot water heater?' Mrs Hendricks asked timidly. 'That was it, wasn't it, Tim? Things like that do happen. You can't be sure ...'

'Maybe it was home brew,' a neighbor suggested, in a feeble attempt at humor. 'Was that it?'

He couldn't tell them. They wouldn't understand, because they didn't want to understand. They didn't want to know. They needed rea.s.surance. He could see it in their eyes. Pitiful, pathetic fear. They sensed something terrible - and they were afraid. They were searching his face, seeking his help. Words of comfort. Words to banish their fear.

'Yeah,' Tim said heavily. 'It was the hot water heater.'

'I thought so!' Foley breathed. A sigh of relief swept through them all. Murmurs, shaky laughs. Nods, grins.

'I should have got it fixed,' Tim went on. 'I should have had it looked at a long time ago. Before it got in such bad shape.' Tim looked around at the circle of anxious people, hanging on his words. 'I should have had it looked at. Before it was too late.'

Small Town

Verne Haskel crept miserably up the front steps of his house, his overcoat dragging behind him. He was tired. Tired and discouraged. And his feet ached.

'My G.o.d,' Madge exclaimed, as he closed the door and peeled off his coat and hat. 'You home already?'

Haskel dumped his briefcase and began untying his shoes. His body sagged. His face was drawn and gray.

'Say something!'

'Dinner ready?'

'No, dinner isn't ready. What's wrong this time? Another fight with Larson?'

Haskel stumped into the kitchen and filled a gla.s.s with warm water and soda. 'Let's move,' he said.

'Move?'

'Away from Woodland. To San Francisco. Anywhere.' Haskel drank his soda, his middle-aged flabby body supported by the gleaming sink. 'I feel lousy. Maybe I ought to see Doc Barnes again. I wish this was Friday and tomorrow was Sat.u.r.day.'

'What do you want for dinner?'

'Nothing. I don't know.' Haskel shook his head wearily. 'Anything.' He sank down at the kitchen table. 'All I want is rest. Open a can of stew. Pork and beans. Anything.'

'I suggest we go out to Don's Steakhouse. On Monday they have good sirloins.'

'No. I've seen enough human faces today.'

'I suppose you're too tired to drive me over to Helen Grant's.'

'The car's in the garage. Busted again.'

'If you took better care of it-'

'What the h.e.l.l do you want me to do? Carry it around in a cellophane bag?'

'Don't shout at me, Verne Haskel!' Madge flushed with anger. 'Maybe you want to fix your own dinner.'

Haskel got wearily to his feet. He shuffled toward the cellar door. 'I'll see you.'

'Where are you going?'

'Downstairs in the bas.e.m.e.nt.'

'Oh, Lord!' Madge cried wildly. 'Those trains! Those toys! How can a grown man, a middle-aged man-'

Haskel said nothing. He was already half way down the stairs, feeling around for the bas.e.m.e.nt light.

The bas.e.m.e.nt was cool and moist. Haskel took his engineer's cap from the hook and fitted it on his head. Excitement and a faint surge of renewed energy filled his tired body. He approached the great plywood table with eager steps.

Trains ran everywhere. Along the floor, under the coal bin, among the steam pipes of the furnace. The tracks converged at the table, rising up on carefully graded ramps. The table itself was littered with transformers and signals and switches and heaps of equipment and wiring. And- And the town.

The detailed, painfully accurate model of Woodland. Every tree and house, every store and building and street and fireplug. A minute town, each facet in perfect order. Constructed with elaborate care throughout the years. As long as he could remember. Since he was a kid, building and glueing and working after school.

Haskel turned on the main transformer. All along the track signal lights glowed. He fed power to the heavy Lionel engine parked with its load of freight cars. The engine sped smoothly into life, gliding along the track. A flashing dark projectile of metal that made his breath catch in his throat. He opened an electric switch and the engine headed down the ramp, through a tunnel and off the table. It raced under the workbench.

His trains. And his town. Haskel bent over the miniature houses and streets, his heart glowing with pride. He had built it - himself. Every inch. Every perfect inch. The whole town. He touched the corner of Fred's Grocery Store. Not a detail lacking. Even the windows. The displays of food. The signs. The counters.

The Uptown Hotel. He ran his hand over its flat roof. The sofas and chairs in the lobby. He could see them through the window.

Green's Drugstore. Bunion pad displays. Magazines. Frazier's Auto Parts. Mexico City Dining. Sharpstein's Apparel. Bob's Liquor Store. Ace Billiard Parlor.

The whole town. He ran his hands over it. He had built it; the town was his.

The train came rushing back, out from under the workbench. Its wheels pa.s.sed over an automatic switch and a drawbridge lowered itself obediently. The train swept over and beyond, dragging its cars behind it.

Haskel turned up the power. The train gained speed. Its whistle sounded. It turned a sharp curve and grated across a cross-track. More speed. Haskel's hands jerked convulsively at the transformer. The train leaped and shot ahead. It swayed and bucked as it shot around a curve. The transformer was turned up to maximum. The train was a clattering blur of speed, rushing along the track, across bridges and switches, behind the big pipes of the floor furnace.

It disappeared into the coal bin. A moment later it swept out the other side, rocking wildly.

Haskel slowed the train down. He was breathing hard, his chest rising painfully. He say down on the stool by the workbench and lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.

The train, the model town, gave him a strange feeling. It was hard to explain. He had always loved trains, model engines and signals and buildings. Since he was a little kid, maybe six or seven. His father had given him his first train. An engine and a few pieces of track. An old wind-up train. When he was nine he got his first real electric train. And two switches.

He added to it, year after year. Track, engines, switches, cars, signals. More powerful transformers. And the beginnings of the town.

He had built the town up carefully. Piece by piece. First, when he was in junior high, a model of the Southern Pacific Depot. Then the taxi stand next door. The cafe where the drivers ate. Broad Street.

And so on. More and more. Houses, buildings, stores. A whole town, growing under his hands, as the years went by. Every afternoon he came home from school and worked. Glued and cut and painted and sawed.

Now it was virtually complete. Almost done. He was forty-three years old and the town was almost done.

Haskel moved around the big plywood table, his hands extended reverently. He touched a miniature store here and there. The flower shop. The theater. The Telephone Company. Larson's Pump and Valve Works.

That, too. Where he worked. His place of business. A perfect miniature of the plant, down to the last detail.

Haskel scowled. Jim Larson. For twenty years he had worked there, slaved day after day. For what? To see others advanced over him. Younger men. Favorites of the boss. Yes-men with bright ties and pressed pants and wide, stupid grins.

Misery and hatred welled up in Haskel. All his life Woodland had got the better of him. He had never been happy. The town had always been against him. Miss Murphy in high school. The frats in college. Clerks in the snooty department stores. His neighbors. Cops and mailmen and bus drivers and delivery boys. Even his wife. Even Madge.

He had never meshed with the town. The rich, expensive little suburb of San Francisco, down the peninsula beyond the fog belt. Woodland was too d.a.m.n upper-middle cla.s.s. Too many big houses and lawns and chrome cars and deck chairs. Too stuffy and sleek. As long as he could remember. In school. His job- Larson. The Pump and Valve Works. Twenty years of hard work.

Haskel's fingers closed over the tiny building, the model of Larson's Pump and Valve Works. Savagely, he ripped it loose and threw it to the floor. He crushed it underfoot, grinding the bits of gla.s.s and metal and cardboard into a shapeless ma.s.s.

G.o.d, he was shaking all over. He stared down at the remains, his heart pounding wildly. Strange emotions, crazy emotions, twisted through him. Thoughts he never had had before. For a long time he gazed down at the crumpled wad by his hose. What had once been the model of Larson's Pump and Valve Works.

Abruptly he pulled away. In a trance he returned to his workbench and sat stiffly down on the stool. He pulled his tools and materials together, clicking the power drill on.

It took only a few moments. Working rapidly, with quick, expert fingers, Haskel a.s.sembled a new model. He painted, glued, fitted pieces together. He lettered a microscopic sign and sprayed a green lawn into place.

Then he carried the new model carefully over to the table and glued it in the correct spot. The place where Larson's Pump and Valve Works had been. The new building gleamed in the overhead light, still moist and shiny.

WOODLAND MORTUARY.

Haskel rubbed his hands in an ecstasy of satisfaction. The Valve Works was gone. He had destroyed it. Obliterated it. Removed it from the town. Below him was Woodland - without the Valve Works. A mortuary instead.

His eyes gleamed. His lips twitched. His surging emotions swelled. He had got rid of it. In a brief flurry of action. In a second. The whole thing was simple - amazingly easy.

Odd he hadn't thought of it before.

Sipping a tall gla.s.s of ice-cold beer thoughtfully, Madge Haskel said, 'There's something wrong with Verne. I noticed it especially last night. When he came home from work.'

Doctor Paul Tyler grunted absently. 'A highly neurotic type. Sense of inferiority. Withdrawal and introversion.'

'But he's getting worse. Him and his trains. Those d.a.m.n model trains. My G.o.d, Paul! Do you know he has a whole town down there in the bas.e.m.e.nt?'

Tyler was curious. 'Really? I never knew that.'

'All the time I've known him he's had them down there. Started when he was a kid. Imagine a grown man playing with trains! It's - it's disgusting. Every night the same thing.'

'Interesting.' Tyler rubbed his jaw. 'He keeps at them continually? An unvarying pattern?'

'Every night. Last night he didn't even eat dinner. He just came home and went directly down.'

Paul Tyler's polished features twisted into a frown. Across from him Madge sat languidly sipping her beer. It was two in the afternoon. The day was warm and bright. The living room was attractive in a lazy, quiet way. Abruptly Tyler got to his feet. 'Let's take a look at them. The models. I didn't know it had gone so far.'

'Do you really want to?' Madge slid back the sleeve of her green silk lounge pajamas and consulted her wrist.w.a.tch. 'He won't be home until five.' She jumped to her feet, setting down her gla.s.s. 'All right. We have time.'

'Fine. Let's go down.' Tyler caught hold of Madge's arm and they hurried down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, a strange excitement flooding through them. Madge clicked on the bas.e.m.e.nt light and they approached the big plywood table, giggling and nervous, like mischievous children.

'See?' Madge said, squeezing Tyler's arm. 'Look at it. Took years. All his life.'

Tyler nodded slowly. 'Must have.' There was awe in his voice. 'I've never seen anything like it. The detail ... He has skill.'

'Yes, Verne is good with his hands.' Madge indicated the workbench. 'He buys tools all the time.'

Tyler walked slowly around the big table, bending over and peering. 'Amazing. Every building. The whole town is here. Look! There's my place.'

He indicated his luxurious apartment building, a few blocks from the Haskel residence.

'I guess it's all there,' Madge said. 'Imagine a grown man coming down here and playing with model trains!'

'Power.' Tyler pushed an engine along a track. 'That's why it appeals to boys. Trains are big things. Huge and noisy. Power-s.e.x symbols. The boy sees the train rushing along the track. It's so huge and ruthless it scares him. Then he gets a toy train. A model, like these. He controls it. Makes it start, stop. Go slow. Fast. He runs it. It responds to him.'

Madge shivered. 'Let's go upstairs where it's warm. It's so cold down here.'

'But as the boy grows up, he gets bigger and stronger. He can shed the model-symbol. Master the real object, the real train. Get genuine control over things. Valid mastery.' Tyler shook his head. 'Not this subst.i.tute thing. Unusual, a grown person going to such lengths.' He frowned. 'I never noticed a mortuary on State Street.'

'A mortuary?'

'And this. Steuben Pet Shop. Next door to the radio repair shop. There's no pet shop there.' Tyler cudgeled his brain. 'What is is there? Next to the radio repair place.' there? Next to the radio repair place.'

'Paris Furs.' Madge clasped her arms. 'Brrrrr. Come on, Paul. Let's go upstairs before I freeze.'

Tyler laughed. 'Okay, sissy.' He headed toward the stairs, frowning again. 'I wonder why. Steuben Pets. Never heard of it. Everything is so detailed. He must know the town by heart. To put a shop there that isn't-' He clicked off the bas.e.m.e.nt light. 'And the mortuary. What's supposed to be there? Isn't the-'

'Forget it,' Madge called back, hurrying past him, into the warm living room. 'You're practically as bad as he is. Men are such children.'

Tyler didn't respond. He was deep in thought. His suave confidence was gone; he looked nervous and shaken.

Madge pulled the venetian blinds down. The living room sank into amber gloom. She flopped down on the couch and pulled Tyler down beside her. 'Stop looking like that,' she ordered. 'I've never seen you this way.' Her slim arms circled his neck and her lips brushed close to his ear. 'I wouldn't have let you in if I thought you were going to worry about him him.'

Tyler grunted, preoccupied. 'Why did did you let me in?' you let me in?'

The pressure of Madge's arms increased. Her silk pajamas rustled as she moved against him. 'Silly,' she said.

Big red-headed Jim Larson gaped in disbelief. 'What do you mean? What's the matter with you?'

'I'm quitting.' Haskel shoveled the contents of his desk into his briefcase. 'Mail the check to my house.'

'But-'

'Get out of the way.' Haskel pushed past Larson, out into the hall. Larson was stunned with amazement. There was a fixed expression on Haskel's face. A glazed look. A rigid look Larson had never seen before.

'Are you - all right?' Larson asked.