Mr. Clear

by Stewart, Graham

  “Please do,” said Powell. “I’m running out of ways to keep myself entertained.”

  6

  Ben may have been on his own. But he didn’t consider himself alone. Any time he needed to talk to someone, all he had to do was pick up the phone.

  In this day and age there were dozens of people on the end of a toll-free line twenty-four hours a day ready to talk. It wasn’t as if he was abusing the service they provided. Sometimes he had things on his mind he needed to say. His anonymity was the most valuable thing, the only thing of value, he had. And the fact that these people did not need or want to know his name, or anything about him, was perfect.

  When he craved a more casual form of communication, there was always the internet and the thousands of chat rooms and forums on offer where, again, anonymity was assured.

  But it wasn’t like he could waltz on into some internet café and log on at will. Even if he could hop on to a machine when someone vacated it with a couple of minutes browsing left on the clock, there was always the risk that someone would sit themselves down on top of him as he worked away.

  That was where offices, especially the larger office buildings, were great. The ones with twenty-four-hour access. And the bigger the building, the better.

  These were the places where no one seemed to bother to knock the lights off at night and where the computers were left on as a matter of course.

  He had a dozen or so buildings dotted across Miami Central and the Financial District that he liked to frequent at random for his nocturnal chat room sessions. Getting past the night security was a doddle. For obvious reasons. Getting past the security on the computers themselves presented more of a challenge.

  But not much more.

  It simply meant coming in that bit earlier when the people who operated the computers were still about. A few minutes shadowing them and Ben was easily able to pick up their logon details and any necessary passwords.

  He had learned to have more than one machine on the go in each of his haunts. Passwords changed from time to time.

  After that, all he had to worry about were the contract cleaning crews. They had an uncanny knack of gravitating toward whichever workstation he was seated at. Usually it was the lure of the screen flickering with something other than an animated screensaver. They were a bored, nosey, easily distracted bunch. Once or twice he had been in the middle of reading something when one of them had marched up and switched off the monitor on him. Some of the more tech-savvy ones would go as far as to shut the machine down.

  They could be a real nuisance.

  And the ones up on the twenty-ninth floor tonight were irking him something special. By the looks of things, half of them were new, while the other half, the ones supposedly there to show them the ropes, were more intent on doing nothing but using the phones in the office to make personal calls.

  Ben was hemmed in at a corner desk by a small, skinny guy in his forties, who had an accent so sharp it could cut glass. The sound of fingernails being drawn down a blackboard for thirty minutes would have been preferable to listening to the guy’s mindless phone conversation.

  The rookies flitted about the office floor aimlessly like houseflies on autopilot. They kept vacuuming over the same spots, returning to clean a desk Ben had only sat himself down at because he had seen them do it already.

  It was like some horror hybrid game of Blind Man’s Bluff meets Pac-Man. No matter where Ben stationed himself, they managed to find him.

  After several near-misses he was sorely tempted to grab one of them just to see the look on their faces. Instead he took a deep breath, put his annoyance to one side, and decided to call it a night.

  He didn’t want a hollow, virtual conversation with someone who was pretending to be something or someone they weren’t anyway. Not after the experience of meeting someone so refreshingly real and as genuine as Freya.

  Down in the foyer, the regular night watchman, a real jobsworth brown nose, was not at his post. He had to be on patrol. The man would rather pee in a bottle beneath his desk than go AWOL.

  Ben stepped in behind the desk and looked at the bank of monitors. There were cameras stationed on every floor. He shuttled through the images until he found the twenty-ninth floor and zoomed the camera in on the annoying cleaner with the grating Boston accent. He was still chatting away, oblivious, on the phone, and had even discovered the computer Ben had been sitting at. Jackpot. It looked like he was checking out a little porn while he chatted. Who said men couldn’t multi-task?

  When Security Guard of the Year returned, and saw what was on screen, he would think all his Christmases had come at once. He probably wouldn’t even question how the camera had settled on the position. Any excuse to flex his Patron Saint of Night Watchmen muscle.

  It was past three in the AM. The automatic doors in the foyer were deactivated. The guard was the only person who could buzz anyone in or out. Ben’s only other choice was the emergency exit. The second he pushed through it, the alarm sounded.

  Ben stood outside for curiosity sake, counting, waiting to see how long it would take the guard to respond. When he got to seven, Jobsworth exploded out into the reception area, his .38 drawn, throwing himself from wall to wall like a TV cop.

  Sufficiently entertained, Ben turned and trotted down the steps toward the street, still in two minds as to whether he should head for another of his office haunts further down the street or go get some rest.

  There were hotels in the area, some nice ones, that still had conventional metal keys displayed on hook behind the desk to let him know which rooms were vacant.

  “Hey!” a man called from across the street.

  Ben didn’t even look. He didn’t need to. Nobody ever called him. But then the voice came again.

  “Hey!”

  Ben stopped dead. He looked away from the source of the voice and searched the street for whoever it was the voice might be trying to get the attention of.

  But there was no one.

  “Yeah. You. I’m talking to you,” the voice said.

  Ben turned. It was the guy from the train that morning, standing on the other side of the street. He stepped down off the curb and started in Ben’s direction.

  Ben thought about running. Really, he should have. But he was paralyzed. With curiosity, as much as fear.

  The guy strolled across the street and stopped next to him, then looked around and sat on the low wall next to them.

  “Nice night,” he said in a measured voice.

  “You can see me. How?” said Ben.

  “You’re direct. I like that,” the guy said. He smiled up at Ben. “Well, no. Obviously, I can’t… see you. But I know you’re there.”

  “How?”

  “Well that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? And I’m sure you’re dying to know the answer.” The guy looked around again. Behind that confident veneer, he was all caution. “Not here though. Let’s go for a drive.”

  The guy started walking and Ben found himself following. Every feeling in his fiber told him this was a bad idea. But he had too many questions needed answering.

  They descended a ramp into an underground parking lot and the guy led Ben up to a yellow cab. He opened the rear door without a word and took a jacket from the window. “Get in,” the guy said, his lips barely moving. Ben obliged and the guy closed the door behind him.

  “That was for the benefit of the cameras,” the guy said as they drove back up the ramp and out on to the street, “in case you’re wondering.”

  “Who’s going to see me?” said Ben.

  “We’ll get to that,” said the guy, looking in his rear-view mirror, but not at Ben. He was staring intently at the road behind. “Cab provides a great cover. The best car to drive around in at night. Never arouses suspicion,” he said.

  “Right,” said Ben.

  “My name is Cole,” the driver said. “I’m sorry. I probably should have started with that.”

  “Where are we going?�
�

  “Somewhere we can talk more. It wasn’t wise to stay where we were.”

  This guy was building up to something. Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to need any extra encouragement.

  “Guess I should explain,” said Cole. “The reason I know about you, what you are, and how I can see you, is that I used to be just like you.”

  Cole glanced back at Ben in the rear-view mirror.

  “I’m still like you,” Cole continued, “save for one important difference.”

  He let the words hang for effect. “And that is?” said Ben.

  Cole cleared his throat.

  His head faded from view.

  That was the only way to describe it.

  Ben grabbed the back of the driver’s seat and pulled himself forward.

  The jacket Cole was wearing was still sitting upright, the arms stretched out to the steering wheel, but there were no hands protruding from the sleeves.

  “See?” said Cole.

  “How?” said Ben.

  Cole became visible again.

  “How indeed,” said Cole. “All in good time. But let’s start at the beginning. What do you know?”

  “About what?”

  “About yourself,” said Cole.

  “How much does anyone know about themselves?” said Ben. “All I have to go on are my memories. My experiences. And the ones that stick out for me the most are the ones I’d prefer to forget.”

  “I’ve been observing you,” said Cole. “Except for your pretty little blind friend, you don’t seem to have anyone. You’re alone out here.”

  Ben was about to answer in the affirmative, but Cole quickly cut him off: “Except that you’re not.”

  “I see that now,” said Ben.

  “It’s not just me,” said Cole. “There are more of us. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Right across the country, and maybe even the world.” Cole began shaking his head like a schoolteacher disappointed in his star pupil. “And we don’t even know each other exist.”

  Ben could not disagree. When his mother died, he was all too ready to accept that he was the last of their kind. The thought that there could be more out there like him was not even entertained.

  “Fear,” said Cole, “is the problem. We live our lives forever in the grip of fear. Fear of discovery. Fear of the unknown. And where has it got us?”

  Ben knew the space to the right of the reflection of Cole’s stare in the rear-view mirror was where his own face was. He wished he could see it the same way Cole could. The fact was he had never seen his own face. He had no idea what he looked like. Or what his mother had looked like. They just knew where each other was, using some other sixth sense, like bats in the dark.

  “Nowhere. That’s where,” said Cole, “running around, hiding ourselves away like lepers. Denying ourselves clothes, shoes, a proper home. All the basic comforts and entitlements other human beings take for granted.

  “Because we are human beings, Ben.”

  Cole had called him by his name, when Ben was certain he had not mentioned it. Ben didn’t ask him how he knew. He was busier poking holes at Cole’s logic in his head. Not all people took clothing and shelter for granted. If anything, many of the ‘normal’ people he metaphorically rubbed shoulders with on a daily basis were the ones desperate for those very things.

  “We could be so much more. You, Ben, are capable of so very much more. Much more than just getting by and surviving.

  “Eating out of the trash? Living like a degenerate bum?” Cole probed. “Please.”

  This guy really had been watching him.

  He felt stupid for not making Cole before. But then the guy could make himself invisible at will.

  “You could, you should, be living like a king. It all comes down to using your gift - and you have to start thinking of it as a gift, not a curse - to your advantage.”

  Cole stopped talking as a van drew alongside them in the overtaking lane. Ben could see his eyes surveying it in the wing mirror. It glided past and Cole hit the signals, crossing two lanes sharply and heading for the next off-ramp.

  “Take that place tonight you were in. The office building. You got any idea what they do there?”

  “I don’t know. Place has lots of letters in its name. A law firm or something, I guess.”

  “That’s right. It is. One of the biggest. You should see their client list: pharmaceutical companies, oil companies. All with international interests worth hundreds of millions. And all with rivals willing to pay millions for the information sitting in filing cabinets and on hard drives within those walls. For example. There are hundreds of treasure troves like that one in this city alone. You see what I’m getting at?”

  “What use is money to me?” said Ben. “I can’t even walk into a store and buy a candy bar, no matter how much money I have. I don’t even have a bank account. I don’t exist.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Ben, don’t you see? You’re untraceable. But you’re missing the point. Look at me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well that’s just it. You’re looking at me. You can see me. And I can make that happen for you too. So that you can sit down in a restaurant and eat a meal off their plates, and not out of their trashcans. And hell, if you feel like not paying for it afterwards, you can just disappear. Literally.

  “Or I can just drop you off right here, and you’ll never see me again. But don’t even try telling me you’re not interested.”

  Talk about a crossroads. Five minutes ago life had been simple if a little, okay, maybe very, unfulfilling. Now Cole had made it very complicated. Ben was being offered a way to sample everything he had ever wanted on a plate.

  Of course he was interested.

  “What’s the catch?”

  Cole laughed. “It’s not a catch. It’s a condition. I’m looking for a partner, Ben. I’m working on something. Something big. And I need a partner. We’re kindred spirits, you and me, Ben. You just don’t know it yet. I’ll teach you how to walk on both sides, experience the best of both worlds. What do you say?”

  What the hell else could he say?

  “Okay.”

  7

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” said Cole. “You want something to eat? It is almost breakfast time.”

  Cole’s place was a massive open plan space, all plaster and exposed brickwork in what looked on the outside to be a derelict warehouse in Miami Port.

  The windows in the west wall were huge floor-to-ceiling affairs with wrought iron frames, split into panes. Long shafts of bright yellow light from the rising sun drew a chessboard across the dark solid wood floor.

  It would have been a shame to walk into the sunlight and disrupt the beautiful pattern, but then there was no fear of Ben doing that.

  Not just yet, if Cole was to be believed.

  The chance would be a fine thing.

  “So… how do you pass your time?” asked Cole, busying himself with some fancy, complicated looking coffee machine. “You know, aside from riding the train.”

  “I keep myself occupied.”

  “Care to expand?” said Cole.

  “I read a lot.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Just because I can’t be seen doesn’t mean I don’t exist. I still want to know what’s going on in the world, and what has gone on in the world. When I’m not hanging around offices at night, or I can’t be bothered looking at a computer screen, I like to read. Not libraries. Those places are dirty. The books dirty, worn, out of date. I prefer bookstores. I go late in the afternoon, do a bit of browsing, then hang around until they lock up, wait for everyone to go home and go back to where I spotted what I liked.”

  “Sounds easier than it is probably is,” said Cole.

  “No, most modern stores are good enough to leave their lights on all night. And none of them really have much call for security. I watch a lot of movies too.”

  “Let me guess: electrical stores. You wait until they lock up and watch the movi
e channel on this week’s bargain flat screen,” Cole laughed.

  “No, I go to the cinema, just like everyone else. Only I don’t have to pay. The earlier in the day it is, the less chance there is of bumping into anyone – if you know what I mean. I can sit pretty much where I want. One of the best places in the world to hide is in plain sight.” Ben noted a full-size sculpture of a naked figure by the far wall. He hadn’t noticed it at first when he came in, probably because it was made of a highly transparent glass. He went to take a closer look.

  “You like eggs?” said Cole.

  “I suppose so.”

  Cole fetched a tray of eggs from the ridiculously large refrigerator. He broke half a dozen of them into a bowl and began beating them with a fork. He leaned against the counter and grinned at Ben. “So? Come on. Tell me. Ever have any fun? At the bookstore. At the cinema? You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Well, you have to have fun sometimes. You’d go mad otherwise. And, hey, sometimes some people need manners putting on them.”

  Cole nodded.

  “Like this asshole who kept shouting at the screen. One of those Neanderthal feet-up-on-the-seat-in-front idiots. I had to step in and help him lose control of his supersize soda. Amazing how quiet you become with a liter of coke and ice in your lap. Movie got a whole easier to watch after he left. And then there was this dick of a new manager in one of those bookstores. He was skimming from the cash drawer and trying to frame up one of the old ladies who’d been working there for years to take the fall. Let’s just say when the police came calling, it wasn’t her jacket that the marked bills were found in – so yeah, I’ve had my fun. But not without reason.”

  “You sound like a man who hates to see sins go unpunished.”

  “I’ve got a strong sense of right and wrong, that’s all. I guess my mom raised me right.”

  “Your mom?” Cole remarked. “Is she still alive?”

  “No. She died.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Cole. “Was she like us too?”

  “Of course,” said Ben. “Wasn’t yours?”