Fortnight of Fear by Graham Masterton Page A

a tall dark-haired man in a blue raincoat. Jill immediately hailed a passing taxi, and climbed into it, but the man began to walk at a brisk pace toward Columbus Circle, turning his collar up as he did so.
    I hesitated for a moment, and then I went after him.
    He turned south on Seventh Avenue, still walking fast. The sidewalks were crowded, and I had a hard time keeping up with him. He crossed 57th St just as the lights changed, and I found myself dodging buses and taxis and trying not to lose sight of him at the same time. At last, a few yards short of Broadway, I caught up with him. I snatched at his sleeve and said, “Hey, fellow. Pardon me.”
    He turned to stare at me. He was olive-skinned, almost Italian-looking. Quite handsome if you had a taste for Latins.
    He said nothing, but turned away again. He must have thought that I was excusing myself for having accidentally caught at his raincoat. I grabbed him again, and said, “Hey! Pardon me! I want to talk to you!”
    He stopped. “What is this?” he demanded. “Are you hustling me, or what?”
    â€œJill Deacon,” I replied, my voice shaking a little.
    â€œWhat?” he frowned.
    â€œYou know what I’m talking about,” I replied. “I’m her husband.”
    â€œSo? Congratulations.”
    â€œYou were with her just now.”
    The man smiled in exasperation. “I said hallo to her in the lobby, if that’s what you mean.”
    â€œYou know her?”
    â€œWell, sure. I live along the hall. I’ve known her ever since she moved in. We say good morning and good evening in the lobby, and that’s it.”
    He was telling the truth. I knew damn well he was telling the truth. Nobody stands there smiling at you at a busy intersection in the pouring rain and tells you lies.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I told him. “I guess it was a case of mistaken identity.”
    â€œTake some advice, fellow,” the man replied. “Lighten up a bit, you know?”
    I went back to the office feeling small and neurotic and jerkish; like a humorless Woody Allen. I sat at my desk staring at a heap of unpaid accounts and Fred and Sheila left me very well alone. At four o’clock I gave up, and left, and took a cab down to the Bells of Hell for a drink.
    â€œYou look like shit,” Norman told me.
    I nodded in agreement. “Alien trouble,” I replied.
    Maybe my suspicions about the Latin-looking man had been unfounded, but Jill remained irritable and remote, and there was no doubt that something had come adrift in our marriage, although I couldn’t quite work out what.
    We didn’t make love all week. When I tried to put my arm around her in bed, she sighed testily and squirmed away. And whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she went blank or scratchy or both.
    She came home well after ten o’clock on Friday evening without any explanation about why she was late. When I asked her if everything was all right, she said she was tired, and to leave her alone. She showered and went straight to bed; and when I looked in at the bedroom door only twenty minutes later, she was fast asleep.
    I went to the bathroom and wearily stripped off my shirt. In the laundry basket lay Jill’s discarded panties. I hesitated for a moment, then I picked them out andheld them up. They were still soaked with another man’s semen.
    I suppose I could have been angry. I could have dragged her out of bed and slapped her around and shouted at her. But what was the use? I went into the sitting-room and poured myself a large glass of Chablis and sat disconsolately watching Jackie Gleason with the volume turned down.
The Honeymooners
, blurred with tears.
    Maybe the simple truth was that she had married me because I was Robbie’s brother; because she had hoped in some distracted and irrational way that I would somehow become the husband she had lost. I knew that she had been nuts about him, I mean