As he continued to drift around his apartment he stopped at a window and looked out at a spectacular evening in New York. The apartment he was living in was the very same one he had grown up in, although he had completely gutted it after purchasing it; the ostensible reason had been to modernize and make it suitable for his particular needs. The more subtle motivation had been to obliterate, to the extent he could, the past. That compulsion did not only apply to his physical surroundings. Every time he put on a disguise, he was, in effect, layering over his real self, hiding the person his father had never felt deserved his respect or his love. None of the pain would ever be fully wiped away, though, so long as Jackson lived, as long as he could remember. The truth was, every corner of the apartment held the capability of flinging painful memories at him at any moment. But that wasn’t so bad, he had long since concluded. Pain was a wonderful motivational tool.
Jackson entered and exited his penthouse by private elevator. No one was ever allowed in his apartment under any circumstances. All mail and other deliveries were left at the front desk; but there was very little of that. Most of his business was conducted by means of phone, computer modem, and fax. He did his own cleaning, but with his traveling schedule and spartan habits, these were not overly time-consuming chores, and were certainly a small price to pay for absolute privacy.
Jackson had created a disguise for his real identity and used it whenever he left his apartment. It was a worst-case-scenario plan, in the event the police ever came calling at his door. Horace Parker, the elderly doorman who greeted Jackson each time he left his apartment, was the same one who had tipped his cap to the shy, bookish boy clutching his mother’s hand all those years ago. Jackson’s family had left New York when he was a teenager, because his father had fallen on bad times, so the aged Parker had accepted Jackson’s altered appearance as simply maturation. Now with the “fake” image firmly in people’s minds, Jackson was confident that no one could ever identify him.
For Jackson, hearing his given name from Horace Parker was comforting and troubling at the same time. Juggling so many identities was not easy, and Jackson occasionally found himself not responding when he heard his real name uttered. It was actually nice being himself at times, however, since it was an escape of sorts where he could relax, and explore the never-ending intricacies of the city. But no matter which identity he assumed, he always took care of business. Nothing came before that. Opportunities were everywhere and he had exploited them all.
With such limitless capital, he had made the world his playpen for the last decade, and the effects of his manipulations could be felt in financial markets and political paradigms all across the globe. His funds had propelled enterprises as diverse as his identities, from guerrilla activities in Third World countries to the cornering of precious metal markets in the industrialized world. When one could mold world events in that way, one could profit enormously in the financial markets. Why gamble on futures markets, when one could manipulate the underlying product itself, and thereby know precisely which way the winds would be blowing? It was predictable and logical; risk was controlled. These sorts of climates he loved.
He had exhibited a distinctly benevolent side as well, and large sums of money had been funneled to deserving causes across the globe. But even with those situations he demanded and received ultimate control however invisible it was, figuring that he could exercise far better judgment than anyone else. With so much money at stake, who would deny him? He would never appear on any power list or hold any political office; no financial magazine would ever interview him. He floated from one passion to another with the utmost ease. He could not envision a more perfect existence, although he had to admit that even his global meanderings were becoming a little tedious lately. Redundancy was beginning to usurp originality in his numerous lines of business and he had begun searching around for a new pursuit that would satisfy an ever-growing appetite for the unusual, for the extremely risky, if only to test and retest his skills of control, of domination, and ultimately, of survival.