Disappearing off the Face of the Earth

by David Cohen

  I cleared my throat. ‘By the way, you haven’t seen Ellen, by any chance? She was supposed to come and collect her gear.’

  ‘Ellen? I haven’t seen her here, no.’

  ‘Haven’t been in touch with her at all?’

  ‘Me, Ken? Why would I be in touch with Ellen?’

  ‘I don’t know, Bruce. Why would you?’

  ‘You told me not to intervene, Ken.’

  We looked at each other again. I changed the subject.

  ‘That brings me to another question, Bruce. What’s the deal with you using my van for your late-night excursions?’

  ‘What late-night excursions?’

  I wheeled my chair forward, resting my elbows on the desk.

  ‘Don’t play dumb, Bruce.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You’ve been watching re-runs of the security footage again, haven’t you?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘It’s written all over your face, as they say.’

  We both looked at the CCTV screens, currently displaying the usual real-time footage of the facility. The corridors were empty. The central loading bay remained as dead as ever. I might as well have thrown away the surveillance equipment and stuck up a photograph.

  ‘With respect, Ken, I think you spend far too much time looking at the footage. Our business is crumbling and meanwhile you look at the footage. I ask you, Ken: what is to be gained by looking at the footage?’

  ‘Don’t try and turn this around, Bruce. Answer the question.’

  ‘I don’t have a vehicle, Ken. And you told me I could use your van. It’s not as if I don’t put petrol in it. All right, so I take your CDs out of the CD player – not everyone loves prog rock, Ken; I’m more of a U2 man, as you know – but I don’t just leave them sticking out of the slot. I put them back in the case.’

  ‘I never said you could use my van. And you never asked.’

  Bruce shook his head. ‘Seriously, Ken, I think you need a brain scan or something – your memory’s …’ With his hand he imitated a bird flying off into the heavens.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my – what were you using the van for, anyway?’

  ‘As I explained at the time, Ken: for visiting clients.’

  ‘Right – your “house calls”. At one in the morning?’

  ‘I suffer from insomnia, Ken.’

  ‘And what about your “clients”? Do they also happen to suffer from insomnia?’

  ‘The wee small hours are the loneliest time when you’re already lonely. That’s when these people are most in need of company.’

  ‘Late-night chats?’

  ‘Yes. To be honest, though, I do most of the talking.’

  ‘How surprising. And what do you talk about, Bruce?’

  ‘Things.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Yes, Ken.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Bruce said. ‘You know how I like to speculate about matters, think about ideas, develop theories. I remember telling Michael Tan my theory about there being only so many faces to go around.’

  That sounded familiar. Someone had expressed the same idea to me once before. Then I remembered who: Bruce himself.

  ‘Funny, Bruce – I remember you using that expression back in the Pharaoh’s Tomb days. But you never really explained what it meant. Perhaps you’d like to now.’

  ‘It means,’ Bruce replied, ‘that there are more people in the world than there are faces to put on them.’

  I was accustomed to Bruce’s crackpot theories, but with this one he seemed to have wandered into a new zone of absurdity; I was amazed that he’d held onto it for so many years.

  As if to illustrate, he thrust his face in front of mine, forcing me to look. It seemed to be growing fatter and rounder by the day. His eyes, nose and mouth were slowly but surely making their way towards the centre of his face. One day they would disappear for good, like small boats being sucked into a whirlpool.

  ‘Take you and me, for example,’ he said. ‘We have the same face, pretty much.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ I said.

  ‘It’s no big deal, Ken. Nothing to be perturbed about.’

  ‘I’m not perturbed,’ I said, ‘because you’re talking crap.’

  I pushed my swivel chair back from the desk, towards the wall, but Bruce somehow remained as close to me as he had been a second earlier.

  ‘I knew you’d take this the wrong way, Ken. You’re a glass-half-empty kind of guy; you always have been. That’s cool, you are who you are. But try to see the positive side.’

  I laughed nervously. ‘Stop fucking around.’

  ‘Think of the possibilities of two people who look the same.’

  I massaged the skin of my head, trying to get my thoughts into some sort of order.

  ‘Bruce,’ I began, ‘I’ve been avoiding bringing this up. It’s a slightly delicate question, but it’s one I feel I have to raise. Are you … are you having issues with your meds?’

  ‘What meds, Ken?’

  ‘The ones – you know. The ones that stop you going too far. The ones you told me about back at Pharaoh’s Tomb.’

  ‘I don’t recall that, Ken.’

  ‘But you talked about them here too – ages ago.’

  ‘Well,’ Bruce said, ‘I guess my memory isn’t what it used to be.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Okay, but let’s stop this. There’s work to be done. I can hear lights flickering.’

  Bruce smiled. ‘Yes, the never-ending problem of the flickering lights. I know how much you hate them. If only someone could invent the light that never dies – the eternal light.’

  ‘Okay. Enough. Go.’

  ‘Sweet as, Ken.’

  Bruce left the office. I sat in my swivel chair, slowly swivelling left, slowly swivelling right, trying to calm my nerves. I looked over at the picture of the building and hedge, only to find that they’d merged; the image had dissolved into a white-green blur. For a moment I thought I was losing my mind. But then I realised I just didn’t have my glasses on.

  Twenty

  With everything else that was going on, I hadn’t got around to taking the things from Michael Tan’s unit to Kelvin’s house, nor had I been in the mood to do so. My last couple of trips to Kelvin’s, with the comic books and the porcelain figurines, had seen me in a triumphant mood. But I didn’t feel that way anymore, at least not with this cargo of Michael Tan’s wife’s worldly goods, and especially not after Bruce’s suggestion that Michael Tan had done away with himself.

  Kelvin gave me an unusually warm reception.

  ‘Where have you been, man?’ he said as we drifted down the hallway towards the games room. ‘Haven’t seen you in ages.’

  That was true, although he’d continued to keep me up-to-date on how things were selling. The comics and figurines were doing well, and I had no doubt that Li Tan’s expensive things would do likewise under Kelvin’s supervision. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that none of it could save Hideaway Self Storage.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been a bit busy with other things,’ I said.

  ‘How’s business?’

  ‘Not great. Lots of empty units and nobody to fill them.’

  Kelvin nodded. ‘Well, let’s hope things pick up. Meanwhile, I’ve been hanging out for some Yahtzee.’

  ‘Don’t you have anyone else you can play with?’

  ‘No. Mum and I used to play, although she was more the Scrabble type. Before she passed away, it was just her and me here. Now it’s just me.’

  He stopped to contemplate a framed colour photograph in the hallway, a picture of a dark-haired woman holding a dark-haired child. There was a Hills Hoist and a set of monkey bars in the background. The photo had always been there but I’d never really looked at it.

  ‘Is that her?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. And that little kid’s me. That’s out the back of our house – not this house, a different one. I was much thinner th
en, obviously.’

  We both looked at the photo.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a bit lonely without her.’ This was the first time Kelvin had said anything remotely personal to me.

  ‘Let’s play Yahtzee,’ I said.

  I won but it didn’t give me any pleasure. Even Test Match would have failed to lift my spirits. I felt sorry for Kelvin, and for myself. I wanted to see Ellen again, even if it just meant looking on while she emptied her unit.

  ‘Good game,’ Kelvin said.

  Then it was time for business. We walked outside again, down the rotting steps and into the carport, stopping at the rear of my van.

  I opened the door. Kelvin poked his head inside.

  ‘Least it doesn’t smell as bad as usual,’ he remarked.

  That may have been because the scent of Michael Tan’s wife still permeated the clothes and handbags and other things. That scent would still be there as Kelvin photographed them and posted them on eBay. It would still be there when he packed them up to send to Sydney or Adelaide or Japan or Canada or wherever, and it would still be there when some random person opened the parcel at the other end.

  I almost couldn’t face going through this ritual again, but together we carried the items from the HiAce back into Kelvin’s house.

  ‘By the way,’ Kelvin said as we removed the last few things from the van, ‘those comics you gave me a while back – did you say they belonged to someone called Stelzer?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Leonard Stelzer.’

  ‘Yeah, thought so. Apparently he’s gone missing.’

  ‘I know he’s gone missing – that’s why I gave you his comics.’

  ‘No, he’s officially missing. I saw it in the paper: he’s missing and nobody knows where he went.’

  I shut the van door. ‘You serious?’

  ‘I was flicking through the paper in Woolworths yesterday and I came across this article about a Leonard Stelzer. I thought, Hang on, that name rings a bell. And it’s a bit of a mystery, this case, because apparently Stelzer never went anywhere or did anything. Well, he did everything from home – a bit like me, in a way – so how could he suddenly go missing?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s what Bruce said: a reclusive type. In fact, Bruce even said Stelzer could disappear and nobody would even notice.’

  ‘Well, he was half right.’

  ‘Poor Stelzer,’ I said. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I have to tell you,’ Kelvin said, ‘I feel a bit weird about selling his stuff now.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t to know. Neither was I, for that matter.’

  ‘Still …’

  We stood there by the van, contemplating Kelvin’s unmown lawn.

  ‘Speaking of Bruce,’ I said, ‘you know what’s also weird? He told me he’s been visiting tenants, late at night. How weird is that?’

  ‘That’s weird,’ Kelvin said.

  ‘I mean, he doesn’t seem to understand that you can’t go getting personally involved with clients. The guy’s brain can’t comprehend that fundamental principle.’

  ‘Aren’t you involved with one of your clients? One of your female clients?’

  If I’d mentioned Ellen to Kelvin, I’d forgotten all about it. Kelvin, on the other hand, never forgot anything.

  ‘Well, that’s a slightly different situation,’ I said. ‘We’re in a relationship – your standard, man–woman relationship; I’m not just randomly dropping in to people’s houses. Anyway, she may not be a client for much longer.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Kelvin asked.

  I kicked the nearest tyre of the HiAce, hard. ‘Because Bruce is a shithead, that’s why.’

  ‘Don’t tell me he’s been visiting her too?’

  ‘No, no. He – it’s a long story. But essentially she doesn’t need to store her things there anymore, so …’

  ‘She’s moving them out.’

  ‘She’s moving them out.’

  I felt uneasy as I drove back to work. I couldn’t believe Stelzer was missing, even though as far as Hideaway Self Storage was concerned, he’d been missing since he’d stopped paying rent on his unit. But now he was officially missing, which was quite a different thing.

  I wondered if Bruce knew about this. Was he even somehow mixed up in it? I’d really have to keep a close eye on him. I didn’t know what the hell was going on with Bruce but I got the feeling his recent denial about the meds was complete bullshit. He’d had issues with his meds all right, and I was sure those issues extended from his hospitality days to the present moment. And I took ‘issues’ to mean that he should have been taking the meds but wasn’t.

  Driving along the M1, I could see the revolving white barrel of a cement mixer truck in the distance. As I got closer, I saw that it was stationed at the Pharaoh’s Tomb construction site. They’d finally started work.

  Twenty-one

  One Tuesday morning when I was drinking coffee in the kitchenette, Ron Wood walked in and asked me to accompany him to the training room.

  At first I assumed it was for a staff development workshop, which typically involved Ron pontificating in front of some PowerPoint slides. But today there were no slides, no printed documents to be handed around, no sign of Caitlin and the other casuals. The table was bare except for the landline phone that sat at one end as always, and Ron’s laptop, which was currently closed. He sat down, inviting me to do likewise.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ Ron said.

  I nodded.

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

  Obviously this wasn’t the time for honesty.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ron said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Ron looked at me and shook his head. He seemed genuinely lost for words.

  ‘Buddy …’ he said. Even now, he continued to call me buddy. ‘Do you reckon your little sprees in the pyramids have gone unnoticed?’

  I said nothing and did nothing.

  ‘Because if you do reckon that, you really must think I’m stupid.’

  He opened up his laptop, pressed a key, and turned the laptop around so I could see the screen. For a moment I thought, Here we go: he can’t resist the PowerPoint, even now.

  But what appeared on the screen was CCTV footage of me walking down a corridor at 8.26 p.m. on Tuesday 3 March. I didn’t recall, just by looking at it, precisely which corridor, as one CCTV-footage corridor looks much the same as another. Whenever it was, I’d momentarily forgotten to keep my head down because I was looking straight up at the camera, only briefly, but for long enough to be identified. I appeared a bit ghostly under the strip lighting, but the high-res cameras at Pharaoh’s Tomb had captured my face clearly enough. I don’t know where Bruce was at that point; maybe still inside whatever unit we happened to be robbing that night.

  ‘That’s not me,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ Ron said, ‘before you say anything more, don’t bother. You see, I’m not stupid at all. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a little while now. Did you know that over the last month you’ve been filmed roaming the corridors after-hours on four separate occasions? In that same period, I’ve had two tenants complain that stuff has gone missing from their units. No one’s complained about that before. Bit of a coincidence, eh?’

  I thought, What would Bruce do if he were here right now? Deny everything, most likely, no matter how incriminating the evidence. But the thing was, Bruce wasn’t here right now; I was, and I simply couldn’t go through with that charade. It was pointless, just as Bruce’s little chat with Anthony, whatever that entailed – he still refused to tell me – had been pointless. We’d thought we were clever and Ron Wood was stupid. I blamed Bruce. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t brought up the idea of augmenting our income. And now I was taking the hit.

  ‘Not much use pretending then, is there?’ I said.

  ‘Correct, buddy.’ Ron nodded at the laptop. ‘There’s not.’

  For a few moments we just sat there looking at the screen.

>   ‘Right, then,’ he said, almost cheerfully, and reached for the phone. ‘Time to call the cops.’

  What I said next made me want to vomit, but I couldn’t face the prospect of being locked up.

  ‘No, Ron, I’m begging you. Seriously, whatever can be returned will be returned. But please don’t call the police. Please, Ron.’

  Ron sat back in his swivel chair, hands crossed behind his head, and contemplated the ceiling. He seemed to be thinking the matter over. I folded my arms to stop my hands from trembling. Jesus, the man was dragging it out.

  Before too long little spotlights of triumph appeared in Ron’s seal eyes. ‘Alright, buddy,’ he said. ‘No police. But as soon as you’ve brought back whatever stolen gear you still have, I’m going to ask you to return your pass card, empty your locker, and fuck off.’

  As I walked out of the building, I saw Caitlin parking her Hyundai on the other side of the car park. I waved but she didn’t wave back. Maybe she already knew something; that would explain her coolness towards me of late. And to think we’d got along so well at first. I recalled how she’d approached me that day when Ron gave me shit for showing up late, saying she thought he’d acted like a tool. Recently, not too long before today’s meeting with Ron, she’d confided in me that she and her boyfriend had broken up; I was planning to ask her out that very week. Clearly Ron had done his utmost to poison that particular well. What a shithead.

  I made my way across the car park. When I reached my car, Bruce was there waiting for me.

  ‘How was your meeting with Ron?’ he said. ‘Productive?’

  ‘You know about that, then?’

  ‘I know Ron accused you of stealing from the units. I also know you did nothing to deny it.’

  ‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘News travels quickly, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does, but I can read you like a book anyway. I know —’

  ‘You know a lot, don’t you, Bruce?’ I unlocked the car door. ‘Do you also know that the reason Ron accused me of stealing was because I was caught on camera, stealing?’