Kolchak The Night Strangler by Richard Matheson, Jeff Rice Page B

I was looking for, I was sure I wouldn’t find it on the beaten path of the Underground Tour. So I looked for the un lit byways. It was like another world down there, a world of yesterday… the tomb of Old Seattle… The Seattle of Doc Maynard and Mary Kenworthy, of John Considine and his boxhouse hookers… a relic of an age now recalled only in watered-down films that were rarely as interesting as the real thing.
    Louise and I peered in and out of abandoned furniture stores, millinery “shoppes,” and finally, thoroughly lost, came upon a very dark shop of some kind, far off the beaten track.
    I tried to open the door but it was stuck. I handed her my camera and told her to train the flashlight on the doorway. Then I braced myself and gave a hard shove. It came open suddenly as its rotted hinges gave way. We both jumped.
    Inside was a dimly outlined figure in wrinkled clothes just standing there in a half-crouch. A bright glare from a light somewhere inside hit us in the eyes. A light? Down here? I moved an arm. So did the man inside.
    I turned to Louise, who was already giggling at me, and stared back toward the doorway in disgust. I was looking at myself in what must have been the cracked mirror of a barbershop.
    Louise was laughing at me and hugging me. “You should just see your face, Carl. Do you look funny!” She kissed me.
    “Well, this doesn’t make it al all. C’mon. Let’s find the group.”
    We picked our way around the maze of streets, tripping over rubble, climbing through holes in walls and rounded a corner.
    A hand reached out from behind a sewer pipe and grabbed me by the throat. I panicked and tried to pull away as Louise screamed and dropped the flashlight. The grip tightened. I started to black out and twisted slightly, slamming my right elbow into the man’s gut.
    The man grunted and let go. I staggered away. He jumped for me again, and I hit my head on a wall. Down I went with him right on top of me. His breath was foul, reeking of cheap wine. I beat at his back and head and finally managed to roll him off me. He started to stagger up but I kicked out at him, catching him square in the middle of his stomach. Again the grunt. I scrabbled to my feet and gave him all I had with a right cross. He slammed back against the pipe with the sound of shattering glass just as Louise got the light on him.
    “My bottle!” said the bulky wino, who was sliding down the pipe to the ground.
    “Who the hell are you ?”
    “Ah damn. What’s it to ya? What’re you? A cop?
    “You broke my bottle! Hell! Oh… my back. Lumbago. No damn privacy anywhere anymore.”
    “You could get killed down here. Do you know there’s a strangler loose somewhere in this damn ghost town?”
    He got up and began to totter off into the gloom.
    “Hey!” I shouted after him.
    Louise came up behind me. “Carl, are you all right?”
    I fingered my jaw. It seemed to be intact, although I was having trouble breathing and there was blood trickling from my nose.
    “Never laid a glove on me, Maw.”
    She ran a hand through my hair and handed me my hat.
    “You look awful… as usual. Let mama kiss and make it all better.”
    “Now, cut that out!”
”What’s the matter, you no like zee way zee Princess of the East kisses?”
    “I like just fine. But this is not the place.”
    “Agreed! Home, Mr. Kolchack!
    Had true romance come to this aging reporter? Had his withered heart begun to bloom again? Uh huh!
    “Now, how the hell do we get out of here?”
     
    There is something peculiarly inviting about a hot toddy and a warm, soapy girl in a steamy tub. Especially when the tub is aboard a houseboat rocking gently with the various swells set up by gentle winds.
    Louise was 32, had been raised in El Cajon, California, and had done just a little bit of everything. She had been a salesgirl, a secretary, a dance teacher, and even once, briefly, an assistant women’s editor for some small daily in San Francisco. A few unfortunate