Limitless

The cab pulled up at my building on Tenth Street. I was so distracted by the Post article that as I paid the driver and got out, I didn’t notice the small group of what I would soon realize were photographers and reporters gathered on the sidewalk. They didn’t know me, didn’t know what I looked like, presumably only knew where I lived – but when I got out of the cab and stood there, staring at them in disbelief, it must have been obvious who I was. There was a brief moment of calm before the penny dropped, a two-second delay at most, and then it was Eddie! Eddie! Here! Here! Click! Whirr! Click! I put my head down, got my key out and surged forward. When are you going back to Lafayette, Eddie? Look this way, Eddie! What’s your secret, Eddie? I managed to get inside the door and to slam it closed behind me. I rushed upstairs into my apartment and went straight over to the window. They were still down there, about five of them, clustered around the door of the building. Was this a result of the story in the Post? Everyone wanting to know about the guy who’d beaten the markets? The mystery trader? Well if that was news, I thought, it was just as well no one realized I was the Thomas Cole the police were so anxious to interview in connection with the Donatella Alvarez situation.

I turned back in towards the room.

The red light was flashing on my answering machine. I walked over to it, wearily, and pressed the ‘play’ button.

Seven messages.

I sat on the edge of the couch and listened. Jay Zollo, pleading with me to get in touch with him again. My father, puzzled, wanting to know if I’d seen that thing in the paper. Gennady, pissed, declaring that if I was yanking his chain he’d cut my fucking head off, and with a bread knife. Artie Meltzer, all pally, inviting me out to lunch. Mary Stern, telling me it’d be so much easier if I would just talk to her. A recruitment company, offering me an executive position in a major brokerage house. Someone from David Letterman’s office – a booking agent – saying if I agreed I could be on the show tonight.

I flopped back on to the couch and stared up at the ceiling. I had to stay calm. I certainly hadn’t wanted any of this attention or pressure, but if I was going to come through it in one piece, I really needed to keep my wits about me. I rolled off the couch, got up and went into the bedroom to lie down properly. Maybe if I could just sleep for part of the afternoon, for an hour or two, I might be able to think a bit more clearly. But the moment I lay down on the bed and stretched out I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I was wide awake and my mind was racing.

I got up again and went into the living-room. I paced back and forth for a while – from the desk to the phone, from the phone to the desk. Then I went into the kitchen. Then out again. Then into the bathroom, then out again to the living-room. Then over to the window. Then back again. But that was it, there was nowhere else to go – just these three rooms. Standing near my desk, I surveyed the apartment and tried to imagine what the place would be like with ten rooms, and high ceilings, and bare white walls. But I couldn’t do it, not without getting dizzy. Besides, that was somewhere else – the sixty-eighth floor of the Celestial – and I was here now, in my apartment …

I stepped back from the desk, a little unsteadily, and leant against the bookshelves behind me. I felt queasy all of a sudden, and light-headed.

I closed my eyes.

After a moment, I found myself floating – moving along an empty, brightly lit corridor. Sound was distant and increasingly muffled. The forward motion seemed to continue for ages, the pace slow and dreamy. But then I was gliding around a broad curve, moving into and across a room, towards a wide, full-length window. I didn’t stop at the window, but floated on – arms outstretched – through the window and out above the vast microchip of the city, while behind me, after a brief but inexplicable delay, the huge plate of bronze-tinted glass shattered deafeningly into a million pieces …

I opened my eyes – and jolted backwards, recoiling in fright from the unexpected aerial view I was now getting of the sidewalk down on Tenth Street, of the trash cans and parked cars and photographers’ heads milling around like bacteria in a lab dish. I pulled myself in from the window ledge, struggling to keep my balance, and slumped down on to the floor. Then, taking deep breaths and rubbing the top of my head – which I had banged against the upper section of the window – I stared over in amazement at where I had been a moment before … and still should have been …