The Fading Read online

  Less than ten paces later Noel forgot about Julie’s Adventure People.

  It was amazing to look back, once it had all gone down, just how remote the odds were. Astronomical, really, and heart-stopping to behold. That the two of them should ever cross paths, that the two of them should be able to see each other at all.

  A middle-aged man whose tweed sport coat, wavy brown beard and slightly befuddled demeanor suggested something along the lines of a dealer in antiques or a professor of philosophy. He was alone when he vanished under the sign for the sunglasses store. Two minutes later, donning a new pair of white Oakley shades with fire-orange iridescent lenses, he re-manifested just three doors down, on the other side of the walkway near the coffee and dessert bar, where he took out his wallet and paid for a crepe smothered in blueberries.

  Following, heart jackhammering, Noel did not believe what he had seen. He must have imagined it. He trailed cautiously as the man took a bite of his crepe, wiped compote from his beard and stepped into one of the Palace Tower’s eight elevators.

  Inside, just before he vanished for the second time in less than five minutes, the professor faced the open elevator doors, raised his obnoxious white sunglasses, and winked at him, mouthing three words that shattered almost every illusion Noel had come to hold about his condition and his very place in the world.

  I see you.

  There was another and, whoever he was, his veiling was an instrument of his will.

  29

  When the stranger vanished, the white sunglass frames with their fire-orange lenses fell down to his invisible nose and hung suspended ‘in the air’ for an extra second or two, then they, too, were absorbed into the man’s bubble, and the elevator doors began to close. Dumbstruck, Noel lunged but did not arrive in time to get his hand between the rubber safety bumpers.

  A hand. My own hand.

  Noel saw it reach out and slap the elevator’s brushed aluminum fascia. He looked down. His arm, his legs, clothes, shoes, bridge of his nose, a lock of hair dangling near the corner of his eye. Everything, him. Just like that, his ten-week spell was over and he was back amongst the solids.

  Why? How? Had the stranger done something to him? Surely it wasn’t a coincidence. For a crazy moment Noel wondered if the man had stolen the thing from him, as if there were but one bubble for all mankind and somehow the oddball had usurped the power with a passing glance. No matter. It was just one more thing he needed to ask the guy about everything. His world had been rocked. Something huge was happening here and his mind was reeling.

  Noel stabbed at the buttons in vain; the elevator was already rising. He watched the row of floor numbers above, each glowing as the elevator ascended. There was no way to guess which floor the man would exit onto, of course, but when the number 13 glowed orange and stayed there for at least thirty seconds, Noel couldn’t stand it any longer and took the next available elevator, pressing 13 as he stepped on.

  He had the cage to himself but at the last moment someone yelled, ‘Hold it, hold it!’ and loped in, jostling the doors back open. Noel cursed under his breath as a father with curly black hair and his wife and two daughters trundled aboard with a mass of shopping bags. He had been gone so long, he wasn’t used to people seeing him and his instincts for self-preservation drove him back into the corner. The possibility of attention left him ill at ease, reminding him that he was now visible not just to people but to the eyes in the sky, to the Caesars Palace security team. Suddenly being here did not seem like a good idea. He should be leaving town, now, taking his money and getting as far away from Vegas as possible.

  The family paid him no mind. At the sixth floor they exited and mercifully no one else stepped on, which would only mean more stops, more time for the stranger (Noel kept thinking of him as the professor, even though he had no idea if the schlub was one) to get away.

  Noel jabbed 13 again. ‘Come on, come on.’

  The elevator lifted. Dinged. He hopped off, eyes already surveying every corner, every hall. He took a right and walked fast, looking over his shoulder every few seconds. The odds of finding the professor were not good even if the man were roaming in a solid state, and they dropped to nil if he didn’t want to be seen or had already shut himself in one of the hundreds of rooms.

  Noel hit a dead-end hall and reversed course. His mind was racing, alternately joyous and dying of curiosity for having spotted another like him, going in and out at moments of his choosing. That couldn’t be, could it? But how else to explain the timing, the casual theft of the sunglasses, that knowing wink? And to top it all off, the man had somehow allowed the sunglasses to linger, a clever magic trick that said, Look what I can do.

  Who was he? Where did he come from? What did he know about it and what could Noel learn from him? The prospect of answers to the questions that Noel had been wrestling with his entire life made it difficult to keep from running down the halls, pounding every door, shouting for the man to come back, reveal himself.

  He passed a sign which read USE STAIRS IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY and his heart sank. What if the man had taken the stairs? But then, why would he? If he wanted to hide, he could hide anywhere. If he wanted to be seen, he would have—

  Wait. At first the man’s casual blink in and out had seemed a random thing, or a trick to help him steal the sunglasses (sunglasses which looked flatly ridiculous on a middle-aged fellow in a tweed coat and cushioned loafers). Noel realized now the whole thing had been staged for his benefit. The man had showed himself to Noel on purpose.

  He found me when I was bubbled-up, so obviously he knows what I am. What if he knows who I am? How long has he been watching me? What if he had a front-row seat to half the things I’ve done? To all of it?

  Which raised the most troubling question – how had he seen Noel to begin with? It had happened so fast, Noel had almost forgotten he himself was invisible. Was it possible the man had the ability to see what the rest of the solids could not? What kind of power was the professor wired into?

  He was sweating now, racing up and down the halls. He took another elevator to the twelfth floor and checked every hall. He did the same with the eleventh. This was crazy. He could do this all day and night and get nowhere.

  Calm down, you idiot. Use your head. Pick a spot and wait.

  The stranger had gone up to one of the floors in this tower, the Palace Tower. Logic mandated he had to come back down. At some point he would want food, drink, a game, a girl, whatever he was into here. Noel didn’t like the idea of standing in the hall or parking his ass at one of the bars or restaurants for what could be hours or days, but he had to find this guy. The information such a creature might provide could prove far more valuable than the millions Noel had buried in the desert.

  Noel rode another elevator down to the lobby. He needed to find a perch as close to the source as possible. The bell dinged and the doors opened. Noel took his first step and a warm breath of faintly sour milk passed before him.

  ‘Giving up so soon?’ The low, playful voice was already moving away.

  Noel flinched, then froze up. The stranger had been in the elevator with him on the way down. The doors began to close and Noel jumped off.

  ‘Hey! Get back here!’ he called.

  Into the thoroughfare, looking both ways. To the right was a narrower hall of shops, to the left were the restaurants and the widening mouth of the main casino floor. He started toward the narrower passage but glanced back once more, just in time to see the professor walking backwards, solid-state, shaking his head with condescending disappointment. Incredibly, a group of young guys in various basketball jerseys over their white tees and baggy jeans passed the professor as he vanished again, and none slowed or gave the expected double-take.

  Shit. Noel darted back toward the casino, weaving between tourists and a security guy in a black and gold windbreaker. He made it as far as the noodle restaurant with the high tanks of goldfish when the voice came from behind him and to the right.

  ‘W
hy always in such a hurry?’

  Noel turned and the professor was nowhere to be seen, but seconds later a short woman with a cropped black hair and a black paper ALDO shopping bag in one hand yelped, turning to swat whatever had just pinched her butt.

  Noel walked toward her and twenty or thirty paces beyond her the professor left another breadcrumb for him, this time in the form of a cocktail glass filled with ice. One second it was sitting at the edge of the banister wrapping around a bank of oversized slots, the next it was soaring, drumming the carpet with ice cubes. One or two people saw it land but no one seemed to question who was responsible. Thus did the professor create a trail for him to follow through the winding circle of casino rooms, daring in his disruptions, flagrant in his offenses, keeping far enough ahead and weaving side to side so that Noel could track him without ever coming within arm’s reach.

  In one aisle of cheapie slots, a silver fox griped ‘Hey, now!’ as her plastic bucket of nickels crashed to the floor. On the rear perimeter of the sportsbook, a padded armchair fell on its back. One, two, three, four glass ashtrays were flipped like coins. The sound a large bell being rung sounded to Noel’s left and he turned in time to see the life-sized statue of Joe Louis wobbling on its foundation. On and on, deeper into the bowels of the resort the professor led him, taunting and teasing.

  Noel shouted, ‘You proved your point! Talk to me!’

  And soon after, the breadcrumb disruptions tapered off. Noel reached the entrance to the Forum Shops and the trail had gone cold. But he was sure the stranger wouldn’t leave him. This was a game to him. He wanted something, must be enjoying this. Even if he knew more about the trait that bound them and had known others who were hostage to it, he must have been at least a little intrigued by a new player in his midst. The professor wouldn’t give up now, but, if he really didn’t want to be seen or talked to, chasing him was a waste of time. Either way, Noel wasn’t going to let the man jerk him around all day.

  With that, he turned and headed back through the casino, toward the front desk, into a deli where he purchased an iced tea. He sat on a stool in front of a video gaming pod shaped like a spacecraft and sipped his drink, trying to appear bored. Twenty-five minutes later there was no sign of the professor or his mischief.

  Okay, you win. I’m leaving. I can’t leave the money out in the desert, not with you running around, watching my every move the way you probably have been for days, weeks … I want answers, but not if they cost six million.

  Noel tossed his tea and went through the main lobby, through the revolving doors, past the cab line and down the wide sidewalk toward the main drag. He’d almost reached Las Vegas Boulevard when a sedan yellow cab sidled up to the curb and kept pace with him.

  ‘You can’t even find the light switch, can you?’ the same low voice said, this time without the playfulness. Noel turned to see the frumpy solid-state professor staring at him from the back seat. ‘I was trying to find out what you’ve learned to do with yours. The answer, obviously, is nothing.’

  Noel cast a nervous glance at the driver, a man of indeterminate age with skanky rat’s tail of hair looped down to his shoulder, bobbing his head despite there being no radio on or music playing in the vicinity.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the professor said. ‘These guys see more imaginary people and hear more voices than you and I put together, but I’ll restrain myself.’

  Noel smirked.

  ‘Hop in. I’ll take you to my place and show you my collection.’ The door opened and the professor scooted back to make room.

  Noel shook his head. ‘Aren’t you supposed to offer me some candy first?’

  ‘God, you’re wound tight. That was a joke.’ The professor rolled his eyes. ‘I’m hungry. Let’s get some lunch and swap war stories.’

  ‘Did you do something to me? Back in there, when I snapped back?’

  The professor smiled. ‘Well, that’s something we can talk about. But not here.’

  There is always a choice in life. Give him your phone number, accept the job offer, get in the vehicle with the complete stranger. But there wasn’t a choice this time. Not for Noel. He had to know what this man knew, consequences be damned.

  Noel got in the cab and shut the door.

  ‘To Pink’s,’ the professor told the driver, and the car jerked away from the curb. He turned to Noel and offered a small, dry hand. ‘Theodore Dalton. Good to finally meet you, Noel.’

  ‘Where’d you get my name?’

  ‘Please. I’m surprised you’re still here. If I were you, I’d have socked away my winnings and skipped town a long, long time ago.’

  Noel had lost the capacity for speech. The bastard knew it all.

  The professor slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Loosen up, my friend. I’m not going to turn you in. I want to help. We have so much in common we might as well be brothers.’

  This sentiment turned out to be true in many ways. In others, not at all.

  30

  Theodore Dalton was one of those men who, after a particularly satisfying bite of his meal, made little wiggling motions of childlike pleasure with his fingers. He chewed with his mouth open. Bits of whatever he was shoving into his face tumbled down the bib of his shirt. He emptied entire napkin canisters, littering the table with a new one after each wipe, and smacked his lips at every sip of soda. All of this was bad enough on its own but was made worse by the fact that his lunch of choice was two chili dogs with cheese and onions and a large Diet Pepsi, the straw of which he offered to Noel as if they were on a date.

  Noel looked at the straw. ‘Thank you, no.’ ‘You hardly touched your food. Such a waste. These are the best hot dogs in the world.’ Now that their game of cloak and dagger had concluded, Dalton was not lively company. Though he had the vocabulary of an adult, something in him seemed to have been stunted at age thirteen.

  ‘I don’t have much of an appetite.’ Noel looked around the restaurant Dalton had chosen for their meeting, Pink’s Hot Dogs, near the entrance to the Miracle Mile Shops attached to the Paris resort. It was a busy spot – with foot traffic on the open mall side and a crowd of Pink’s true believers inside – but the public meeting place did not put Noel at ease. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them. He didn’t believe Dalton when he said he was ‘a former elementary school teacher and pastor, lifelong bachelor, presently unaffiliated with any company, group, or branded sect of society. I have hobbies and interests and I am not out to partner up with my fellow man, I am merely a lone wolf.’ Noel had no reason to trust Dalton. He could be anything. A government asset. A member of a cult. The aging pervert who finds himself lacking the vigor to play out his designs and seeks a surrogate.

  ‘Oh, but you do have quite the appetite,’ Dalton countered. ‘You’ve been gorging for weeks. What do you intend to do with all that money?’

  ‘Retire. How did you find me?’

  ‘You cleaned my room.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I spotted you a couple years ago. I come to Las Vegas for a few months every winter. I’m from Wisconsin originally, but with every passing year the cold becomes more intolerable. You used to work at Caesars. You were changing the linens as I was checking out. I stuck around for another day or two hoping to see you turn more than a hotel room, but you didn’t. I figured you’d give yourself a promotion sooner or later. Vegas has a little something for everyone like us, ha!’

  ‘But how did you know?’ Noel leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘Two years ago I wasn’t in the bubble.’

  Dalton licked his thumb. ‘The bubble? I never thought of it that way. More of a net. Better yet, an eraser at the end of a very long pencil. Sometimes a great big ol’ handful of them.’

  Noel was not interested in metaphors. ‘You didn’t answer the question.’

  Dalton met his gaze. ‘I can feel it. You learn to see it in their eyes.’

  ‘There are more like us?’

  ‘Of course. Just like there are more w
ith seven toes, psychic hotlines in their foreheads, blue skin disorder like that family in Kentucky.’

  ‘How many do you know about?’

  ‘Not many, but more than you might think. There are probably forty or fifty currently practicing in the States, maybe a hundred times that who haven’t tapped it yet and probably never will. Are you telling me I’m the first you’ve met?’

  Noel’s silence was answer enough.

  Dalton sighed. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘But it feels like fifty. Living with this, it ages you, kid. Some days I feel like a cat stuck on my eighth life. You need a hobby, something to keep you vital.’

  Noel scoffed. ‘Because I have so much time on my hands.’

  ‘What have you been doing all this time? You really haven’t figured it out?’

  Noel threw up his hands. ‘Who am I supposed to ask? A doctor? Mine didn’t come with the owner’s manual.’

  ‘When did you break your cherry?’

  Noel was starting to feel interrogated, when he wanted to be the one asking the questions. ‘My mom used to talk about it. Things that happened when I was a toddler, when I was nursing. I really don’t know.’

  Dalton regarded Noel with his bizarrely childlike curiosity once again. His pupils were different sizes – one normal, the other consuming all but the thinnest margin of its bordering green iris – and Noel thought the man was either ill with something or had a glass eye, though he wouldn’t have been able to say which was real. The gaze was unsettling and Noel looked away.

  ‘It’s a lonely life,’ Dalton said. ‘Do you have anyone? Family? Friends? Someone you can trust?’