End Man, Chapter 1

The story of a man who can't leave home.

End Man

Chapter 1

 

The goal, of course, was to determine if Klaes was alive or dead. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the reported dead were really dead. But occasionally someone faked death, played possum.

Death was a good place to hide.

Raphael opened up the computer file. Fifty pages so far. Off and on he’d spent two days on Klaes and couldn’t come to a conclusion.

Klaes had arrived at Norval by the most common transport: an obituary column. Assigned to the clean-up, his associate Matt researched the lead for three days before he brought it to Raphael’s attention. The lead wasn’t coming clean. The dirt resisted.

Matt was capable, but he lacked persistence. He wasn’t the kind of End Man who would lose sleep over a work problem.

Raphael magnified the obituary to fourteen point type and scanned it.

Former Caltech Professor of Physics Jason L. Klaes passed unexpectedly on October 10, 2016, in Los Angeles, California. He was sixty-four....

There was no indication of cause of death or any relatives to contact. Matt had inserted numerous notes into the PDF document. Raphael had read the notes, and then understood Matt’s concerns.

There were two aspects.

The first was signs of outward activity on several of Klaes’s online accounts after October 10. Matt wasn’t authorized to open e-mails, but the Active N software could detect whether an e-mail account was dormant or in play. Of course someone could have Klaes’s password or the account could have been hacked.

There were also problems with the obituary. It was generally the case that when “passed unexpectedly” was used, the cause of death was suicide, and suicides are reported. Matt had ascertained that the coroner recorded Klaes’s death, but there had been no inquest, which was always the case in a suicide.

Although Norval had solid contacts with the coroner’s office, no more information on Jason Klaes was available.

There was also the question of who had submitted the obituary information. An online chat with the obituary editor at the Pasadena Observer indicated the information was called in anonymously.

Raphael now looked at his own notes. Every path he took to establish that Klaes was a solid dead was starting to get entangled, overrun. If Klaes wasn’t a possum, what the hell was he?

Raphael scanned through some of the accumulated data.

A Google search of “Jason Klaes” “professional associations” turned up several dozen results. But the one that showed the most activity was a site where physicists asked questions of and received answers from other physicists.

Raphael brought up the site.

Much of the material was unintelligible, but some of the questions were at least penetrable. Raphael could get the gist of what they were asking.

The curious thing was that although Klaes was supposed to be a frequent contributor, Raphael could find no trace of the man on the site other than his bio.

For the Nth time, Raphael clicked on bios. A page of site users’ names popped up. The bios provided little more than the user’s academic background and special areas of interest. Some were detailed in their descriptions; others had only a question mark.

He went again to Jason Klaes.

Klaes’s bio offered little more information than his obituary. Raphael read it again and then returned to the bio main page. He surfed through a half-dozen bios. Many were impressive, but only one, Mona’s, caused him to read the entire entry.

“I refuse to ask or answer any more questions on this site. Because some users don’t comprehend a scientific answer, they continually downvote, rather than asking the poster for further explication. This occurs on a regular basis and the community refuses to address it. If the poster states objections, the poster become persona non gratia. I see no effort to rectify this situation. My knowledge is being distorted and wasted on this f*****g site. I am out of here.

Raphael glanced at the time on his monitor: 10 p.m. Except for the security guard, he was the last employee in the building, the last End Man among the sleeping computers. Being alone was nothing new. He was used to cooking for himself, finding the bathroom light on as he had left it, washing only one man’s clothes and since his mother passed no woman’s. But an empty office provoked a different kind of loneliness. Untethered in empty space, floating away from your ship. The rock star who died too young had a song like that ... Raphael was half that man’s age. More than one person had remarked that Raphael’s slender frame and delicate features put them in  mind of the performer.

Raphael yawned deeply, stretched his arms. He needed a couple of hours sleep before he returned to his painting.

He closed his eyes and saw the canvas that had hung beneath his ceiling for five years and might well require another ten years before completion. The painting was his life and his prison. No less, his secret. He had no relatives, at least any he had ever been in contact with, and his friends amounted to little more than Matt. There was a woman he liked, but she only sang to him, never spoke. He had mentioned nothing of the painting to anyone. It would be considered too weird. He lifted an imaginary brush, held it before him and drew a squiggle on the imaginary canvas.

He shut down his computer and turned off the lights.

At the security desk, he was signed out by Mohammad, a giant with hands thick as two-by-fours and a long dense beard.

“How are the new wheels?” asked Mohammad.

“Smooth as silk,” said Raphael, brushing his hand against a wheel and sending it spinning.

“You don’t have a car, do you?”

Raphael slapped his board. “It’s the only way I roll. See any ghosts lately?”

“One or two. You wait, young fellow. You’ll see our ghosts one night.”

Raphael stepped through the doors, set down his skateboard, pushed off hard and sailed over the steps. He landed it perfectly.

It was cool for October and Raphael regretted not bringing a sweater or a jacket. He crossed his arms. Usually he took a shortcut through the museum grounds rather than skating north on Fairfax and then east on Sixth, but the museum grounds’ gates closed after 9 p.m., which didn’t always stop him. He had climbed the museum fence more than once. He liked riding the museum’s shadowy paths. Sturdier men than Raphael would have feared getting mugged in the darkness, slammed against the giant sloth and forced to hand over his wallet. But on the museum grounds Raphael felt invulnerable. He stopped on the corner watching the steady stream of traffic down Wilshire, the city’s main corridor and the southern border of his square mile.

On the boulevard, the traffic had stopped at Fairfax. A car’s engine growled. Raphael turned toward the sound. The car’s front end rose from the ground. It sat at a forty-five degree angle, the underbelly visible, the engine roaring. Like a bear on its hind legs. The light changed. The car’s front tires slammed the concrete and the car tore down the boulevard, rocketing past the museum.

“Raphael?”

Raphael turned back toward the Norval building. He thought it might have been Mohammad coming out to remind him of something he had left at the security desk. But no one stood at the entrance. Was Matt somewhere around playing a joke?

“Hey, Matt, is that you? Where the hell are you hiding, man?”

But there was no response. On the opposite corner a homeless man wrapped in a blanket shifted against his wall.

Raphael shrugged and started down Fairfax. He rolled past the western end of the museum. Through the tall fence, bright lights shone perhaps fifty yards in. Students working into the night to finish their assignments. Diggers seeking sweet fossils.

He crossed Sixth Street. On the other side of Fairfax a number of people stood in front of the Irish bar that had operated for a half-century. They smoked, tossing their cigarette butts in the gutter. Music sprung from the opened bar door.

Not Raphael’s scene. And the wrong side of Fairfax.

The sidewalk was empty for a block.

“Raphael.”

Raphael kick-stopped and swung about. His name had been called out. It was not some sort of hallucination. Someone was f*****g with him, and this was beyond even what Matt could get up to.

“Show yourself, a*****e.” Despite his challenge, his heart beat fast and hard. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see who followed and called out to him in the night. But if he didn’t see the follower, it would keep him from sleeping.

Like an online troll.

Raphael waited a full minute. “F**k you, then.”

He walked a half block. In the shadows ahead someone called for help and Raphael saw two figures bent over and pummeling a third.

“Hey!” Raphael ran toward the people. As he got closer, the two attackers stood up and faced Raphael. They were young guys with clean hard faces. One of them held a can of lighter fluid.

“You want fired up too, a*****e?” He thrust the can toward Raphael, who stepped back and swung up his skateboard, which had been a weapon more than once. Their victim, a shabbily dressed old woman, moaned.

“Come on. I don’t want any trouble. Just, just leave her alone.”

“She your mom or something? You probably f**k her, right?”

The second young man balled his fist and strode toward Raphael. From across the street came a burst of music, and then wild shouting. Glancing back, Raphael saw a group of people running across Fairfax.

“F**k it. Let’s get out of here,” said the man with the lighter fluid        

The two young men took off down Fairfax. Their victim crawled to the curb.

“Are you all right?” Raphael called out.

Raphael saw the woman shift to the curb. She grabbed at her skirt. Something hissed.

 

Author's Note

This is the opening chapter of a novel in progress. Any response will be appreciated. I'll reciprocate

Reviews

[Nicole Laszlo]

I feel like it's an abrupt cut off. But that might just be your style. The character development is fast and efficient, too. While it's also not my normal read, I'm looking forward to your next chapter. You've got talent and one hell of a hook.

[Autumn Takatch]

definitely interesting so far.