Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (15 page)

I stepped right into the room with them. I was careful to feel my way and avoid any collisions with walls or furniture, but I was confident that, encased in their suits with the continuous hearty drawl of Clellan in their headphones, they would not hear me pass by. I found the door to Wachs’s office, opened it, stepped through, and carefully closed it again behind me. When the latch snapped into place, Tyler looked up suddenly. We both remained motionless for a moment; then he went back to his attempt at defacing the invisible carpet. I waited a bit longer and then walked to the bathroom.

I was moving around more confidently now. I knew roughly where the walls and furniture were in these rooms, and I was developing a sense of when my unseeable foot would strike the unseeable floor as I walked. But it was still a laborious process. I was always groping with my hands in front of me, and with each step I still waited until my foot was securely placed before I shifted my weight onto it.

I found the medicine cabinet and got the aspirin bottle again. I felt much better now, but I extracted a few more pills anyway and swallowed them without water, before dropping the bottle in the side pocket of my jacket. Then I felt along each shelf of the cabinet, pulling out objects and dumping them into my pockets. A razor, dental floss, shaving soap, two plastic combs, razor blade cartridges, a hairbrush, an electric razor, nail clippers, a shaving brush, a small pair of scissors, a pair of tweezers, a small metal box full of bandages, a roll of adhesive tape. I also encountered half a dozen bottles of various shapes which emitted an assortment of perfumes. These I left where they were. On the edge of the washbasin I found a bar of soap, and on a ledge above it two toothbrushes and a plastic cup, all of which I jammed into my jacket pockets with the other things.

I needed some better way of transporting everything, I had not even gone through one room, and my pockets were already so heavy that I was afraid of tearing what was to be my only real suit for the rest of my life. I felt my way across the room to the shower and, with some difficulty, unfastened the shower curtain from its hooks and laid it out flat on the floor. Onto it I threw first all the towels I could find in the room and then the running suits hanging on hooks by the sauna. Then I emptied my pockets onto the heap. On a shelf above the hooks I got a woolen cap and a scarf and a metal box, which, because it was heavy, I opened to see if it was worth taking. Gauze, cotton, wool, adhesive tape — a first-aid kit. Onto the heap. I worked my way around the walls of the room, looking for any other shelves. I was sure I remembered having seen running shoes, and I went down on all fours and searched the floor until I found them: two pairs of running shoes and a pair of rubber sandals. I didn’t stop to see if anything fit. No time. I had to pack my things and go.

In the reception room Tyler and Morrissey had abandoned their marking pens and were now playing with brightly colored electrical tape. Even working together they were having a great deal of trouble cutting off pieces of the tape, and, once cut, it refused to adhere to the wall. It did, however, seem to adhere well enough to the fingers of Morrissey’s gloves. Tyler tried, with only partial success, to pull the tape off Morrissey, and soon there were bits of it fastening together the fingers of his gloves as well. Through the wall I could half hear them talking unhappily to Clellan about their difficulties. They seemed benign enough for the moment, but I knew that soon they would begin working their way through the building, and as I went through myself, looting, they were bound to become aware of me.

Having studied the building plan I was able to locate the janitor’s closet adjoining the bathroom without much difficulty, and there I found two shirts, a pair of trousers, and a pair of tennis shoes in very poor condition. I also found another, larger metal box. It took me a little while to figure out how to open it. Running my hands all around it I found two latches, which I was eventually able to snap open. These things can be difficult when you cannot see what you are doing. The top swung back, pulling up with it several interior shelves, on which I was immediately able to identify a pair of pliers, several screwdrivers, and a set of socket wrenches. A toolbox! I was elated by this discovery. But because in my examination of the tools I had somehow disarranged them, the box would not close again, and when I tried to straighten the tools out quickly, things only became worse. In the end I had to unpack half the box, laying everything out and systematically repacking it, before I could get the thing shut and latched again. Through all of this I was kneeling uncomfortably on the floor of the closet, becoming more and more unhappy about the time I was losing. I noticed that my shirt was wet with sweat, and I pulled off my jacket and laid it on top of the toolbox. My necktie as well. What use was a necktie now?

I could hear the voices of Tyler and Morrissey only very faintly here, not well enough to make out anything they were saying. I looked over at them. Morrissey was still holding a roll of tape. Tyler had opened a toolbox of his own, which floated waist-high in midair; he must have set it on a desk.

Returning hurriedly to my search of the closet, I pulled out a bucket, some rags, a box of plastic trash bags. I unscrewed the wooden handle from a push broom. I could think of no particular use for these things: I seemed to be choosing them almost at random, and I wondered anxiously if I was taking the right ones. But I had no experience to help me judge what I would need and no time to try to reason it out. I did know that I should take absolutely every bit of clothing I could find and any fabric that might eventually be used as clothing. Beyond that, I took everything portable that might conceivably be useful as a weapon or a tool — or that struck my terrified fancy.

In the back of the closet I found a stepladder about five feet high. Not nearly enough for the fence. I decided to leave it where it was. I carried everything I had picked out of the closet back into the bathroom and heaped it on top of the shower curtain. The toolbox, which was too heavy, and the broomstick, which was too long, I laid down on the floor next to the other things. I had to keep everything together. When you cannot see things, it can take forever to find them. This existence can be like searching for contact lenses all day long.

Tyler and Morrissey had now given up on the tape and were working with a large roll of cable. They would lay it out on the floor along the junctures with the walls. When they came to a door, they would cut the cable with an enormous pair of wire cutters and leave an interruption. In this way they methodically outlined the reception room and two small adjacent rooms — closets or storage rooms. They were superimposing a visible floor plan on the invisible building. It struck me that Wachs’s office would almost surely be next, and I wanted to go through it before they did. Really, I should have started there. I would have to hurry now. Stay calm and work as efficiently as possible.

I got hold of all four corners of the shower curtain and dragged the bundle back into the middle of Wachs’s office. I sat down at his desk and explored the desk top, coming up with a letter opener, a ruler, a stapler. Ignoring the now useless stacks of papers, I went on to the drawers, in which I found paper clips, rubber bands, scissors, a Swiss army knife, three key rings heavy with keys of every sort, a microcassette recorder, plastic credit cards, Scotch tape.

And, all the way at the back of the right bottom drawer, a gun.

I have never had much feeling about guns one way or the other. But the discovery of this one was exciting. It must surely, I thought, improve my situation — perhaps a great deal. I felt as if I had grown more powerful, and I found myself glancing over at Clellan and the Colonel standing out on the lawn. It was a pistol, a very small pistol. Right then, in spite of my hurry, I thought it worthwhile to take some time examining the gun: I wanted to be sure I knew what I had and how to use it. It took me several minutes to get the magazine open, since I was starting without the vaguest idea of how the thing worked. I emptied it, counting the bullets, one two three four five six, and then practiced pulling the trigger and setting and releasing the safety. I carefully refilled the magazine, counting the bullets again to be sure I had them all, and slipped the gun in my jacket pocket.

There should be more bullets somewhere. Not in these drawers. The trouble was that an invisible gun was pointless without invisible bullets, and I had only six. They would be in this room somewhere; I would have to take the time to search. Perhaps twenty minutes later — it was difficult to judge the passage of time — I had gone through the rest of the room and added to my store, among other things, a ball of twine, two extension cords, a telephone, an umbrella, a raincoat, and a pair of rubbers — but no more ammunition. I had become almost frantically obsessed with the need to find more bullets, and it was only with difficulty that I was able to make myself abandon the search before I jeopardized everything I had already accomplished.

My heap of objects had become very large by now and would be difficult to move about. Furthermore, Tyler and Morrissey might walk in at any moment and literally stumble onto it, and I would lose control of the whole lot forever. I had to get everything out of the building, away from their search. Stepping over to the wall at the end of the building and groping along it, I located a window and slid up the lower sash. The noise seemed to me cataclysmic, and I looked back over my shoulder — or, for all I knew, through it — to see whether Morrissey and Tyler had heard. They seemed quite caught up in their work. They were doing a wonderfully thorough job with the reception area. They had laid little lengths of cable along the window ledges, and now they were wrapping electrical wire around the legs of desks, tables, and chairs so that you could see quite clearly how the entire room was laid out and furnished.

Returning to my pile of invisible objects, I knelt down and located the four corners of the shower curtain and gathered them into one hand. Then I picked up the whole thing and half carried, half dragged it over to the window. I could hear things dropping out of the bundle as I went. I had filled it too full; I had to be more careful. No room for mistakes now. I hoisted the bundle up over the window sill, with what seemed to me an insupportable clatter, and lowered it to the ground below. Then I went down on my hands and knees to search the floor for whatever I had dropped in transit. All I could find was a bunch of keys and an athletic sock. As I knelt on the floor pocketing those items, Tyler and Morrissey pushed open the door and joined me in the office.

They were getting to be very good at their work, and they went right to it — cutting and laying their cable around the edge of the room and wrapping up the furniture with neat little twists of wire. Unfortunately, they started along the wall that separated the office from the reception room and the bathroom. Perhaps I should have waited — or simply climbed out the window and abandoned the field — but the broomstick and the toolbox were still on the bathroom floor, and I definitely did not want to risk having them get possession of that toolbox. Anyway, they seemed so absorbed in their work; and they hadn’t noticed me when I had walked right past them in the reception room before.

I got to my feet and walked ever so slowly, one step at a time, right between them to the bathroom door. For some reason the door was not open wide enough for me to slip through, and when I gently pushed it, there was an awful creaking noise. Tyler stiffened. When I put my foot down on the tiled bathroom floor, the leather sole made a noise. I heard Tyler speaking into his microphone in a low monotone.

“He’s in here with us now. He’s moving around in here right now… Yes, sir, I’m absolutely certain.”

Morrissey had stopped moving too. Bending down and patting the floor carefully, I located both the toolbox and the broomstick and then slowly lifted first the one and then the other. The broomstick made a little scraping noise as I got my hand around it. All three of us remained still for several long minutes. Then I began moving across the floor toward them, with each step bringing the edge of my heel into careful contact with the floor and then slowly rolling my weight onto the sole of my foot.

I should have left the bathroom by the other door and followed the corridor down to the other end of the building. But I hadn’t been there yet, and I was afraid of stumbling or, even worse, of finding myself trapped behind locked doors. I knew my way through the office quite well by now, and I thought that once I got onto the carpeted floor I could walk noiselessly. But just as I stepped alongside Morrissey, I heard him say, “You’re right. He’s right here. I can feel the fucker moving. I can feel the floor move.’’

He lunged right at me. It might have been only a guess, but it was a very good one. I shoved the end of the broomstick as hard as I could into his belly. I had no idea how much it would take to have some effect through his protective suit, but what I had done was evidently sufficient. He doubled up and collapsed onto the floor with a sort of gurgling moan. Tyler seemed uncertain at first about whether to pursue me or to go to Morrissey’s aid, but as he looked about helplessly and saw nothing much to pursue, he bent over Morrissey. Morrissey and I did not seem fated to be friends.

I continued right on into the reception room, out the front door, and around the corner of the building until I stepped into my pile of things. I found that more objects had spilled out the sides. I would have to secure the bundle somehow if I hoped to take it with me. I set about tying first one pair of diagonally opposed corners and then the other. I was getting used to not being able to see either my hands or what they were manipulating, but it was still like stumbling around in a dark house, and tying the knots was for some reason particularly hard. When I had finally completed the task, I slipped the broomstick through the knot and levered it — somewhat painfully — over my shoulder. Then, picking up the toolbox with my other hand, I set out across the lawn.

I could think of no reason for them to search the lawn, but I wanted to leave the things where there was no risk of anyone’s stumbling into them by accident, so I deposited everything at the base of the enormous beech tree, where low, spreading branches made it impossible for anyone to walk by without crouching. I kept the gun with me.