City of Sand

by Robert Kroese

  “Is it the one you called from?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ve got it. I’ll have Cameron give you a call at one.”

  “Fine,” said Benjamin, and ended the call. He left the building and walked toward his car. He had seen a Carl’s Jr. sign on the way over; it was as good a place as any to get some lunch. But he hadn’t even opened the door to his car when his cell phone rang.

  “Benjamin Stone,” he said.

  “Mr. Stone,” said the male voice on the other end, “this is Cameron Payne. My secretary said you wanted to talk to me. Have you had lunch yet?”

  “No,” said Benjamin. “I was about to head over to Carl’s Jr.”

  Payne laughed. “I think we can do better than that. Do you know downtown Sunnyview?”

  “I knew it fifty years ago,” said Benjamin. “Shall we meet for ice cream at Fenneman’s Corner Store on Second and Palm?”

  Payne laughed again. “Don’t know the place,” he said. “But there’s a restaurant not far from there called Blue Agave. On Second, between Palm and Walnut. It doesn’t look like much, but their burgers beat Carl’s Jr. any day of the week. I can meet you there at noon.”

  “Works for me,” said Benjamin. “I’ll see you then.”

  Benjamin hung up and took a moment to get his bearings. The Sunnyview Administrative Center was on a long, winding road west of downtown called Orchard Parkway. Looking down the road to the north, Benjamin could just make out a street sign reading “Guadalupe.” To the south was Coburn Street. “Guadalupe” didn’t ring any bells, but Miles Coburn had been a prominent local dairy farmer when Benjamin was a kid. There was no sign of Coburn’s Dairy now; it was all nail salons, copy centers, and other establishments catering to the upscale clientele of Sunnyview’s suburbs. But if that massive old oak on the corner was the same one Benjamin used to park his bike under and eat ice cream cones from Fenneman’s, then downtown was only about half a mile to the east. He could easily walk there by noon.

  Slipping his car keys back in his pocket, Benjamin waited for a break in the parade of SUVs and minivans down Orchard Parkway and jogged diagonally across toward the oak tree. It was definitely the same tree; it was a little bigger, and the nearly leafless limbs were more ridden with bunches of mistletoe than he’d remembered, but there was no mistaking the gnarled shape of that massive trunk. The dirt track that he’d remembered from his youth was gone, overwhelmed by sidewalks and patches of sprinkler-watered grass. Coburn Street seemed to run parallel to the old track, though, so Benjamin began walking down the street to the east.

  After a few blocks, Coburn dead-ended into Bayner Avenue. Benjamin turned left and then right on Walnut, which would take him the rest of the way downtown. He was in a residential part of town now; big stucco houses with tiny lawns lined the street. All of these houses had been built in the years since Benjamin left, and most of them looked like they were less than twenty years old. After another few blocks, Benjamin found himself in an older part of the town; a few of the buildings he even recognized, although most of them now housed businesses that were foreign to him. The Sunnyview Drugstore was now a Blockbuster, and Jack’s Farm Service was an organic grocery store.

  Downtown Sunnyview was surprisingly unchanged for the most part; it seemed that some effort had been expended to retain (or recreate?) the folksy charm of the downtown area. The feed store was now a tanning salon, and Schulman’s Hardware was now a Starbucks, but if Benjamin squinted a little, he could almost imagine he was in the downtown of his youth. Only the BMWs and Acuras clogging the brick streets and the throngs of khaki-clad twenty-somethings on the sidewalks spoiled the illusion. Fifty years ago these streets would have been nearly empty except for the occasional farmer heading into town for feed or supplies, and housewives visiting the butcher shop or a family-owned grocery store.

  Benjamin passed what used to be Fenneman’s Corner Store—now a Kinko’s—and turned left on Second Street toward Palm. The sign for Blue Agave was so unobtrusive that he would have walked right past it if a young man standing outside hadn’t reached out and put his hand on Benjamin’s shoulder.

  Benjamin started, pulling back out of the man’s reach. The man smiled, slipping a cell phone into his pocket. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” the man said. “I’m Cameron Payne. I’m guessing you’re Benjamin Stone.”

  So this was the millionaire genius founder of XKredits.com, thought Benjamin. There was nothing to differentiate him from any of the other young men he’d seen walking the sidewalks of downtown Sunnyview. The Wired bio put Payne at twenty-four, but the rings under his eyes and thinning hair made him look older. He wore khaki pants, a black t-shirt, and a lightweight gray zip-up sweatshirt. His skin was pale from spending too much time indoors, and his sparse, jet-black hair was just long enough to stick out from his head in a way that made Benjamin want to spit in his hands and smooth it down. Presumably that would be a violation of social etiquette even in the notoriously relaxed Silicon Valley.

  Benjamin held out his hand. “How did you…?” he began.

  Payne smiled, shaking Benjamin’s hand. “You sort of stand out,” he said, jerking his chin to point at the passing pedestrians.

  “I suppose I do,” acknowledged Benjamin.

  “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  Payne led Benjamin into the restaurant, holding two fingers up for the hostess, who nodded and hurried away. Less than a minute later, she returned, grabbed two menus, and led them to a table by the window. Benjamin noted that a dozen people who had arrived before them still waited in the foyer. Payne didn’t look like much, but they definitely knew him at this place.

  Benjamin ordered the Monterey Burger on Payne’s recommendation, and then Payne got down to business. “I assume you’re here because of Jessica’s disappearance,” he said. “I’m not sure how I can help, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “I appreciate that,” said Benjamin.

  “You’ve talked to the police?”

  Benjamin nodded. “This morning. No leads. They’ve interviewed you, I take it?”

  “Yes,” said Payne. “A Detective Lentz. I understand you’re a cop yourself.”

  “Retired,” said Benjamin. “You’ve been researching me?”

  Payne smiled. “Jessica told me. She speaks highly of you.”

  Benjamin looked into Payne’s eyes, trying to gauge whether he was being facetious, but there was no sign of malice there. Either Payne was an excellent liar, or Jessica really had said good things about him. He found that hard to believe, unless it had been part of a façade to endear herself to her new employer. Happy new employee, no personal baggage. It actually surprised Benjamin to hear that Jessica had spoken in depth to Payne at all, about him or anything else. As far as Benjamin knew, she was just a low-level web designer, and she’d been with the company for less than three months. She’d dropped out of San Jose State to take an entry level marketing position with Glazier Semiconductor, and then less than two years later she’d quit and gone to work for XKredits.com. He couldn’t imagine why someone like Cameron Payne would spend much time talking to her—unless he was interested in more than her professional expertise. He hated himself for thinking it, but Jessica had always been prettier than she was smart.

  “Are you close?” asked Benjamin.

  “We work closely together,” said Payne. “She’s a valuable member of the team.” Benjamin’s dubiousness must have showed on his face, because Payne added, “We just work together, Mr. Stone. There is no romantic involvement. Anyway, she has a boyfriend. Guy named Chris Sandford.”

  “I understand they broke up a couple weeks before Jessica disappeared.”

  “Did they? Well, as I say, our relationship was purely professional. I wouldn’t know the details of Jessica’s personal life.”

  “So you don’t know this Chris Sandford?”

  “I met him once. Jessica took him to one of our company parties. I think she was trying to get me to hire
him. He didn’t particularly impress me. Just out of school, no real skills or motivation. He didn’t have the sort of spark that Jessica has.”

  “What does Jessica do for you exactly?”

  “Her job title is ‘web designer,’” said Payne. “But it was clear early on that she had a lot more to offer the company. We were talking about moving her into a position with more responsibility when she….”

  “What kind of position? What do you mean when you say she had more to offer the company?”

  Payne shrugged. “It’s not something I can easily put into words. I mean, look at me. You almost walked right past me on the street. Even people who knew me in college are surprised at how successful I’ve been. I wasn’t the smartest guy in my classes, and I certainly didn’t have the best grades. There’s nothing about me that obviously sets me apart from any of the rest of these guys.” He waved his hand to indicate the khaki-clad horde surrounding them. “But I’m worth a hundred times everybody else in this restaurant combined.”

  “So what’s your point?” asked Benjamin. “That Jessica has some sort of hidden talent?”

  “Not exactly hidden,” Payne replied. “It’s apparent to anyone who looks beneath the surface.” He took a bite of his salmon burger.

  It was all Benjamin could do not to visibly wince at Payne’s remark. Was Benjamin’s low regard for his own daughter’s ability so evident? And more to the point, was Payne right? Had Benjamin been mistaken in his assessment? Maybe there was more to Jessica than Benjamin realized. Either that or she had changed a lot since he had last talked to her.

  “You said she was a web designer,” said Benjamin. “What does that mean? She made your website?” Benjamin found it hard to believe that Jessica had mastered something so technical. But then, her generation seemed to have a knack for this stuff. The Internet was something of a mystery to Benjamin.

  “She built a lot of it, yes,” replied Payne, still chewing. “She’s very good with graphic manipulation and layout. But she clearly has other talents as well.”

  “You keep saying that,” said Benjamin. “And while I don’t doubt it’s true, you aren’t being very specific.”

  “Well,” started Payne, “the problem is that it’s difficult to explain if you don’t know what XKredits.com is all about. How familiar are you with our company?”

  “I did a little research at the library,” said Benjamin. “XKredits are some kind of digital currency?”

  Payne nodded. “That’s the long term plan. We call them the future of currency. What we do is, we partner with online retailers to accept XKredits as a form of payment. You can earn XKredits by shopping at one of our partner sites, and then spend them at another partner site.”

  “I have a credit card that gives me frequent flyer miles when I buy something,” said Benjamin. “Is it like that?”

  “Same basic idea,” said Payne. “But our goal is to be much more pervasive than that. In three years we plan to have a thousand online retailers as partners. Our system also allows for micro-payments. Are you familiar with that idea?”

  Benjamin shook his head.

  “One of the problems with the web is that it’s very difficult to charge for content. Do you have any hobbies, Benjamin?”

  “Fly fishing,” said Benjamin. He’d only tried it twice, but it was easier than saying “no.” He got the feeling that Payne had delivered this speech a few hundred times, and that it didn’t particularly matter what Benjamin said.

  “Great,” said Payne. “Let’s say you write a how-to article about fly fishing. And like most writers, you want to get paid. So you sell your article to a fly fishing website. The question is, how do the people running the fly fishing website recoup the cost of paying you for the article? They can try charging a subscription fee, but most websites that have tried that haven’t done very well. People expect content on the Internet to be free.”

  “Advertising,” offered Benjamin.

  “That’s a possibility, but online ads don’t pay very well. What you really need is a way to charge people a very small amount of money for reading your article—large enough that if they have a few thousand readers, they can recoup their costs, but small enough that the typical reader won’t think twice about paying it. Maybe a few cents, or even a fraction of a cent.”

  “Makes sense,” said Benjamin.

  “We call them micropayments,” said Payne. “The problem is that the typical way to make an online purchase is with a credit card, but the transaction costs are prohibitive. In other words, it would cost the credit card company fifty cents to charge you a nickel. And the average fly fisherman probably doesn’t want to give his credit card information to some random fly fishing website—nor does he want to spend five minutes doing it just to read one article. What is needed is a simple way for a website to show a visitor a pop-up message, ‘Do you want to pay a nickel to read this article?’ The visitor clicks yes, and boom, they’re learning Benjamin Stone’s patented fly fishing techniques. Except instead of paying a nickel, you’ll pay some number of XKredits.”

  “XKredits that they earned by buying stuff from your partner sites,” said Benjamin.

  “Exactly!” cried Payne.

  “And you have this all in place now?” asked Benjamin.

  “We’ve got twenty-six partners already,” said Payne, “and a lot more in the pipeline.”

  “But the micropayment thing, that’s working?”

  Payne nodded excitedly. “It’s in beta right now.”

  Benjamin nodded as if he understood what this meant. The truth was, he wasn’t particularly interested in XKredits, and to the extent that he understood what Cameron Payne was saying, he didn’t find it reassuring. As far as he could tell, XKredits was a company that didn’t produce anything, sell anything, or, when it came right down to it, do much of anything at all. He supposed there were hundreds of companies like it in Silicon Valley; maybe that was just how the new “Internet economy” worked. But it seemed like a lot of smoke and mirrors to Benjamin. And Payne still hadn’t answered his most pressing question.

  “So how does Jessica fit into all this?” asked Benjamin.

  Payne nodded, as if anticipating the question. “Jessica has been instrumental in getting several of our partners on board.”

  “I thought you said she’s a web designer.”

  Payne sighed. “You have to understand, Benjamin, XKredits.com is a small company. And we’re what you would call a matrix organization. Do you know what that means?”

  Benjamin simply stared at Payne. The young man’s condescending manner was starting to grate on him.

  “It means we don’t operate under a strict corporate hierarchy,” Payne continued. “Our team members are free to contribute in any way they see fit. So if someone like Jessica has a good idea, she can run with it. We encourage our people to think outside the box. Jessica saw some opportunities to reach out to new partners, and we value that sort of orthogonal thinking.”

  Benjamin nodded, mostly to keep Payne from spouting any more bullshit corporate jargon. He wondered if anyone was impressed with Payne’s corporate-speak. Somebody must be, if Payne was telling the truth about the partner companies “on board” and “in the pipeline.” And somebody was paying the salaries of Payne and his employees. On the other hand, maybe XKredits’ partners were more nebulous companies that didn’t produce anything tangible. Glittering buildings filled with pimply faced kids drinking Frappucinos and thinking outside the box. Orthogonal, my ass.

  Payne’s cell phone rang, and he looked at the display. “Gotta take this,” he said. “My lawyer calling about the IPO. Very nice to meet you, Benjamin. Call my office if you have any more questions.” Before Benjamin could reply, Payne handed him a business card, threw a hundred dollar bill on the table, flipped open his phone, and walked away.

  “Asshole,” muttered Benjamin to himself. He finished his burger and walked outside, just in time to see a bright red BMW 3 Series with the license plate X
KREDIT pull out. However nebulous XKredits’ business model was, somebody was paying for Payne’s lunches and toys. Somebody with real money. And once XKredits.com went public, there would be a lot more real money coming in. Investors were climbing over each other to get in on the ground floor of companies like XKredits.com. Despite his skepticism, Benjamin found himself wondering if he should call his broker. If he moved even a thousand dollars from his IRA into XKredits.com and it took off the way some of these other little startups were, he’d make out very well. And it might be a good way to get a little more involved in Jessica’s life—assuming she was still alive, and could be found.

  He made his way back toward the Buick. The sun was high in the azure sky, and Benjamin blinked in the bright light. His glasses had darkened, but the angle of the sun was such that the rays sneaked through the crack between his brow and the lenses, reawakening his dormant headache. He rarely saw this much of the sun in Portland.

  As he crossed the alley next to Kinko’s, he nearly ran into a long-haired man wearing a dirty brown overcoat. In fact, everything about the man was dirty: his hair, his hands, his pants—his feet were so dirty that Benjamin didn’t realize at first the man was wearing no shoes.

  “…blind?” the man muttered. His tone was more confused than accusatory.

  “Sorry,” said Benjamin. “The sun…”

  “Blinded by the glare,” the man said, and laughed as if he had made a joke. He looked expectantly at Benjamin, his mouth hanging open slightly. His pupils darted back and forth.

  “Yes, that’s right,” replied Benjamin, with a forced laugh, trying his best to maintain eye contact. “Blinded by the glare.”

  “The glare!” exclaimed the man again. With that, he turned away and continued across the alley, mumbling incoherently to himself.

  Benjamin shook his head, brushing at his sleeve where the man’s filthy hand had left a mark. As disconcerting as the encounter had been, Benjamin also found it somewhat reassuring that Sunnyview had at least one crazy homeless person in addition to the khaki-clad throngs. It made it feel more like a real city and less like some bizarre hive of drones toiling away at incomprehensible tasks in the service of insubstantial projects.