Husk (3 page)

You dream while you’re under. It can’t be helped. Sometimes it’s lucid, other times it’s just a thick haze you try your best to navigate. Never feels like you have any real control though. Clients tend not to sleep very much while they’re renting you. They
want their money’s worth, every minute, every penny. It’s safe to assume that your body is always on a bender. It has to be for a client to feel alive again. Using a Husk isn’t real living, but it’s close. Living by proxy is the best way to describe it. They say it feels like being encapsulated in a thin layer of rubber. There’s a barrier between sensations, through which a client experiences everything
on a duller note. This buffer can be overcome if the body is pushed to its limits. Full throttle, fifth gear, the max, whatever you want to call it. Dialled up to ten, that’s when clients really feel alive again. When Husks reawake we’re almost always exhausted, physically and mentally.

Your coma never feels long, regardless of whether you’re on a short jaunt or the seventy-two-hour maximum.
I’m in the middle of dreaming about a certain special lady in my life when I start to feel myself re-emerging. Coming back is always interesting, the minute of cross-over where your entire natural concept of consciousness is in question. For a few moments there are actually two distinctions
sharing the same bio-circuitry, you and something that could be you, a shadow with its own agenda, extended
déjà vu working with you and against you. It’s the kind of thing you can’t conceptualize, can’t envisage until it actually happens. The best I can give you is likening the experience to the beginnings of a hive mind. As soon as you think you might have a grasp on it, it’s gone. And then you’re back, alone and awake and in pain.

Suddenly, I’m using my own eyes again and the first thing I see is
the Picasso-Navarette before me on the screen. I’m back in his study, wearing an expensive, if not garish, suit that appears to have suffered through an all-night party or two. The tie hangs loose around my ragged throat. My body aches inside the smooth, soft fabric. My lymph nodes are swollen. I can tell I’m not wearing any underwear. My cock and balls are sore. I taste bourbon and cigars and vomit
in my mouth. The effect of some stimulant still courses through my veins.

‘That was fun,’ Navarette says.

‘For you,’ I groan.

‘That was the whole point.’

‘How did the gambling go?’

‘You win some, you lose some.’

His Cheshire grin returns. I run my hands over my face and check my reflection in the desk’s polished glass, relieved to find I’m in one piece. My muscles are raw, but there are
no cuts on the surface, no breaks inside. I unplug the cable connecting me to the data port and carefully pull the proboscis from the Ouija in my head. A subtle click I’ve never heard before accompanies its removal and
a nondescript flash of something wretched and bloody invades my thoughts for an instant.

What the fuck was that?
I think.

‘We should do this again some time,’ Navarette says.

‘Yeah,’ I say, rubbing my temples. ‘I think so too.’

I’m under the impression he’s used me correctly, and for that I’m appreciative. We’re starting out on the right foot, mutually respectful, a solid understanding between live product and dead consumer.

‘Please see Dante on your way out. He has everything you need.’

‘Thank you, Mr Navarette. Do let me know –’

But Navarette is gone, the Picasso
image breaking apart and fading on screen as he returns to whatever virtual world he wishes to exist in. I get up and remove the new suit that smells like sweat and sex. Naked, I walk out of the study and find the bathroom. In the oversized mirror I examine my body. There are fresh bruises on my chest and buttocks, small and sparse. The older ones from before are already yellowed and fading. There
is mouthwash by the sink. I rinse the taste of puke from my teeth, feeling a sharp sting in my gums. Then I step into the shower and soak up all the soft, hot water I don’t regularly get to indulge in. Through the glass partition I see Dante come into the bathroom with fresh towels. He waits for me to finish. I get the distinct impression that he wants to join me.

‘Was your boss satisfied?’ I
ask.

‘Very.’

‘Any problems?’

‘None that are of any of your concern.’

I look over to see what expression he wears, but the steam from the shower has fogged the glass leaving a flesh-coloured blur where his face would be.

‘I took the liberty of testing your blood at the end of the session,’ he says. ‘The results came back HIV positive.’

I wipe away the fog and look at him. ‘How’d I contract
it?’

‘Dirty needle? Sketchy piece of ass?’ Dante smirks. ‘Who knows? Don’t worry. You … I mean,
he
, infected me as well with it the other night.’

I can’t help but wince. In my own absence I’ve either done intravenous drugs with Dante or slept with him, neither of which I find very appealing. I step out of the shower and take the towels offered. He’s also brought my clothes, washed and freshly
pressed. As I put them on, he hovers too close for my liking. When I walk into the living room he follows too quickly.

‘Navarette is gone now,’ I say, turning to face him so fast that we almost butt heads. ‘He’s not me. I’m not him. You understand that, don’t you?’

Dante looks disheartened. ‘Yes, I know.’

His eyes moisten and his bottom lip quivers. He becomes fidgety, kneading fingers, unsure
how to deal with the emotions that are welling up inside him. I didn’t think it possible, but I start to feel a little bit sorry for him.

‘What was he to you anyway?’ I ask.

‘A good friend.’

He lets out a shuddering breath. What I do is a generous
mix of kindness and cruelty most of the time. I can only imagine how hard it is to get over the loss of someone when just enough of what they used
to be still exists in such a way as to be considered living. With little left to say, I check my Liaison to make sure the correct payment has been deposited into my account.

‘Satisfied?’ Dante asks.

‘Very,’ I reply, looking at the amount.

‘Good. I’ll be contacting your firm about future bookings.’

‘Wonderful. I guess I’ll be seeing you again soon.’

I turn to leave, but stumble with my first
step. Exhaustion ambushes me and I suddenly feel a swirl of drowsiness. How long I’ve gone without rest is unknown, but it’s obvious I need sleep and plenty of it. I think about asking Dante for an espresso or energy drink or maybe a couple grams of coke if there is any lying around, but I don’t want to stay in the Emerald City for another goddamn minute.

‘Wouldn’t you like the vaccine before
you go?’ Dante asks.

I turn back. ‘Yes, of course.’

Dante tosses me a medi-pack with an ampoule of the HIV vaccine and a disposable syringe. I go to put it in my pocket, but he shakes his head with a sly smile.

‘You know better than that, Mr Rhodes. Do it now.’

I do know better than to try and leave with the vaccine in my possession, a cure that doesn’t officially exist for the general public.
I fumble with the packet as I try to open it, fatigue making everything more difficult than it has to be.
Dante steps closer and gently takes it from me, prepping the dose with steady fingers.

‘I’ve called you a limo,’ he says as he finds a vein in my forearm and injects me. ‘Anything you want, within reason, is available. Just ask the driver.’

‘I want sleep,’ I grumble.

‘Sleep when you’re
dead,’ he says, and then looks back to the study Navarette haunts. ‘Or maybe not.’

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out another clear packet with a half-dozen red and white pills inside. I already know it’s the detox medication for the drug abuse Navarette indulges in. These meds have been given to me before, though I can’t remember which withdrawal symptoms they combat. I slip them into
my pocket.

‘One pill every four hours until they’re finished,’ Dante says. ‘You can see yourself out?’

‘Not a problem.’

Dante gives a terse nod and walks back to the study, leaving me in the living room. He doesn’t look back before entering, doesn’t even shut the door. Through the doorway I see him sit before the flat-screen where Navarette appeared. The framed oval remains dark. I see Dante’s
head hang forward, his face in his hands. Soon I hear the sounds of him sobbing.

Swallowing one of the pills, I exit by the front door of the condo. In the hallway outside the security guard with the Vector is waiting, gun in hand. I can’t help but notice the safety is off. It makes me nervous. That particular gun can fill me with an entire magazine of .45 rounds in a matter of seconds. The Emerald
City is wary of
outsiders, maybe a little too much, but enough of the rich have been murdered by the great unwashed in recent years to warrant concern. On the elevator ride down I lean against the doors for support, my sore head pressed to the cool metal. The guard looks like he wants to say something, but keeps silent. He walks me out of the Emerald City to the limo idling at the kerb.

‘You
take care of yourself now,’ he says as the driver opens the door.

‘Thanks, I will.’

The guard shakes his head and frowns. ‘It didn’t look like you were doing a very good job the other night, pal.’

I want to ask him what he’s talking about, but I can barely keep my eyes open. I half step, half stumble into the air-conditioned limo and slump down onto the cool leather. The driver shuts the door
as I help myself to a rare single malt Scotch from the minibar. The pour is generous. I raise the glass to the guard standing on the sidewalk, even though I know he can’t see much of me through the tinted windows. As the limo pulls away the guard looks on, unimpressed.

‘To the airport, sir?’ the driver asks through the intercom.

‘Yeah,’ I say, and throw back the contents of my tumbler. ‘But
for the love of God take the long way round.’

Less than a minute later I’m fast asleep.

The whole flight back to NYC I’m wide awake, much to my annoyance. Maybe I’m overtired, or maybe it’s an effect of the detox medication. My body is out of whack, doesn’t know if it’s coming or going. Every time I start to fall asleep, my Ouija makes that
odd click and some awful thought occurs, jarring me awake. What I see in my head is appalling, but seconds later I can’t remember what it was. There’s no way to retain the information, almost as if it isn’t mine to keep. I figure it has something to do with the change in air pressure, or maybe another side effect of the detox pill, except the first time it happened I was neither on a plane nor medicated.
That bothers me. I sit in first class waiting anxiously for the flight to be over, being short and dismissive with the stewardesses when they ask if there is anything they can do to improve my flight experience. My thoughts race. it seems all I have is time to think. A sense of guilt seeps into me, though there is no basis for it. I feel like a total shit. I feel like I have to remind myself
why it is I do what I do.

You see, I’m not what you’d call a skilled man. No trades or talents. I can’t act, don’t play an instrument. Singing a single note in tune is a personal challenge. I’ve got two left feet on a good day. Hell, my work ethic in general leaves a lot to be desired. What I do possess is the looks and little else. It’s
always been this way. There wasn’t much for me growing
up. My parents, good people, worked tirelessly at low-wage jobs so me and my sisters could keep pace with our peers, just enough to dodge the label of
poor
. Even when I was young I knew the family was living cheque to cheque, sometimes day to day. The fights I heard through the walls, always money, always too little of it. The constant phone calls and piles of mail, new credit card offers alongside
letters from collection agencies running out of patience. First notices, second notices, final notices. Mom and Dad hid it from the kids as best they could, but they couldn’t plug every hole in that crumbling dam.

There were times when it was more obvious. Conversations overheard, Dad asking friends for loans, Mom requesting emergency funds from family. Once in a while my sisters or I would answer
the phone and get an earful from whoever was owed, threats being thrown around that we were too young to understand. None of us answered the front door much when the doorbell rang. We would stay quiet until the shadowed figures behind the frosted glass moved away. Sometimes our electricity or phone would be cut for a while. Mom walked out on us a few times, unable to cope, only to return later
laden with guilt. Dad increased his drinking. There were times my parents didn’t talk to each other for days, sometimes weeks after a bad blowout.

Somewhere in those formative years I made a firm decision not to live that way. I craved security, the kind that only fat bank accounts could afford. Instability was unbearable. The anxiety of my folks not knowing where
next month’s rent was coming
from affected everybody. Living one bounced cheque away from the poverty line was always on our minds, driving wedges between us when we needed each other most. The absence of money somehow managed to trump all other aspects of our lives. Everything else we had, we had to spare: love, laughs, a certain liberty around the dinner table. My parents entertained every far-fetched dream their kids ever
had, told me I would be someone important one day, told me to follow my gut and walk my path wherever it led. I believed them, wholeheartedly.

I did my damnedest to come out on top, played every card I could. People said study hard. I hit the books. Guidance counsellor told me to go to university. I applied to the best. Eventually I graduated with a Bachelor of Fuck-All and tallied up a shitload
of school debt for my troubles as I entered a job market that was already saturated with degrees and diplomas, but lacking any real opportunities. I ended up taking whatever I could with the rest of the over-educated suckers. We, the post-secondary mass-produced, bartenders with bachelors, hostesses with honours, managers with masters, all of us employed in a tenth of the capacity we were good
for doing jobs we never expected.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when everything you were working toward was designed to ensure that you wouldn’t end up where you eventually did. Sure, tell me I’m bitching about my First World problems, except too much of the West ain’t looking like First World anything any more. We’re more like Second World now, reminiscent
of Cold War Russia, a
military superpower with a miserable middle-class population facing few legitimate ladders they can climb and getting more desperate by the day.

So what do you do if you don’t want that desperation in your life? You acquire an understanding, a moral flexibility to do something lucrative off the books, off the radar, and often in bad taste. You find that double-edged sword which doesn’t scare
you like it scares other people, and throw yourself on it. Husking and I found each other, one part destiny and one part design. We go hand in hand. You want to be someone rich and special in life? Well, for periods of up to three days at a time, I’m some of the wealthiest, most high-profile people who ever lived. There’s an awful lot profit to be made in this business. I do what I do for the money,
plain and simple.

Smooth touchdown at JFK International and I’m feeling better about myself. I apologize to the stewardesses for being a consummate dickhead and take a double espresso to go. Outside the airport I hail a cab back to the East Village and boot up my favourite eighties playlist. I’m listening to Hall & Oates’s ‘Out of Touch’ when Ryoko calls. I love the timing. Feels like a little
touch of fate.

‘Hi, beautiful,’ I say.

‘Hi, handsome,’ she replies, but it lacks warmth. ‘Where you at?’

That fateful feeling takes on a darker tone. She doesn’t sound like herself and I wonder quickly if it actually is Ryoko or if it’s one of her clients breaking the rules by going through the contacts on her Liaison. I throw out our little codeword to make sure.

‘Just on my way home from
the airport, sugarplum.’

‘Fancy meeting me for a drink, cheesecake?’

It’s her. I breathe a sigh of relief and throw back the rest of my espresso to give me enough energy for a round or two.

‘Love to. Where’re you thinking?’

‘How about Harbinger’s in half an hour?’

‘Sounds good. See you there.’

She hangs up, leaving me to wonder what’s got her panties in a twist. Then I can’t stop thinking
about her panties, the trademark lacy pink ones that I love tearing away from her fantastic ass. The thought electrifies me, despite my exhaustion. I wonder if she’ll take me for a quickie in the bar bathroom when we meet.

When I get to Harbinger’s it becomes obvious it won’t happen. I find Ryoko in a private booth nursing a glass of Chardonnay. She looks dark around the eyes and the muscles
in her gorgeous face seem slack and tired. Otherwise, she’s stunning, her striking half-Swedish, half-Japanese features never failing to turn heads. There’s good reason why she falls under the
exotic
category.

‘Hi, you,’ I say as I plunk down beside her.

‘Hi, you.’

I kiss her gently on the nose as she nuzzles up to me, resting her head on my shoulder. A beefy, balding waiter comes and I order
a gin and tonic.

‘I tried calling you the other day,’ Ryoko says.

‘I was in Vegas.’

‘Working?’

‘Yeah, you?’

She shakes her head. ‘I haven’t worked in a few days now, not since I got back from London. I think I need a little time off to be honest.’

‘I was thinking the same thing.’

‘Yeah, well, the boss is going to be crawling up your ass about more gigs. Demand is up again. Baxter has been
calling me non-stop. I’ll probably have to go back soon.’

My gin and tonic arrives and I take a long drink. It’s not like Ryoko to turn down gigs, but the fact she’s willing to makes me want to do the same. I need a timeout, a breather. Everything lately has seemed like some sort of masochistic marathon. Ryoko chews her bottom lip in a way that looks like she’s trying to be cute. What it means
is anything but.

‘What happened?’ I say.

‘Fuck it. Forget about it.’

I reach over and lay my hand on hers. ‘Ry, what is it?’

We’re not supposed to talk about work. She takes a mouthful of wine, swishes it around, swallows and orders another one with a hand gesture as the waiter passes. Then she turns and looks me straight in the eye. Hers are surprisingly cold, disconnected in that way we
have to be sometimes.

‘The gig in London,’ she says. ‘The client used me to go slumming …’

I shrug. We’ve both been there before. Ryoko continues to chew her lip, hard. I worry she might make it bleed if she keeps it up. I’m about to tell her to stop when I realize she might be doing it on purpose. Damage decreases value. Cuts and marks, even slight and
temporary, instantly make Husks less marketable.
We can be sidelined for such. If she wants time off, this is one way to go about it.

‘Before I got out of the city,’ she continues, ‘some kid managed to locate me. He must have been fifteen or sixteen. He just appears out of nowhere and starts professing his undying love for me. Without a doubt my client popped his cherry and broke his little heart.’

The new glass of white wine arrives and Ryoko
takes to it eagerly, polishing off half. Her tolerance is shit, and she knows it, but she has this look on her face like no amount of booze is going to get her drunk this evening.

‘Client must have done a number on him, because the poor boy didn’t want to go on living without me.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah.’ The rest of the wine filters through Ryoko’s clenched teeth. ‘Kid had the cuts on his wrists
to prove it.’

Her words leave a bad taste in my mouth. I gulp down most of my gin and tonic, thinking about similar situations I’ve had over the years. In the silence our attention drifts to a fifty-inch flat-screen behind the bar where a news anchor informs us that a young Manhattan woman has been reported missing. She’s identified as Tiffany Burrows, age twenty. The photograph that takes over
the screen is of a blue-eyed blonde bombshell with high cheekbones and a foolish smile. My gut tells me the broad comes from money. I immediately think kidnapping, a crime that has been happening in the US with increasing regularity. A ransom demand will turn up in a day or so, keeping to the standard set decades ago by lower-class
criminals in South America. Kidnap rich kids, mail their wealthy
parents a finger or an ear plus an amount to be paid for their safe return, and then wait to see whether they do the drop or send a SWAT team. The following report says two men have been found beaten to death in an alley in Hell’s Kitchen. Police suspect they are the victims of a robbery gone wrong, yet another casualty of the rotting Big Apple.

When news of Occupy Central Park finally airs,
the anchor downplays it almost immediately. The sarcasm in her voice can’t be ignored as she reiterates the fact that the movement has no clear demands, much like the original Occupy Wall Street movement before it. The footage shown of dishevelled men and women rallied together bitterly voicing their anger couldn’t be more biased. Reporters mockingly question occupiers before holding microphones up
to their dirty, unshaven faces for answers. According to the anchor the number of protesters in the park is only in the hundreds, but everyone already knows it is well into the thousands.

‘Damn,’ Ryoko sighs. ‘I can’t get the thought of that poor kid out of my head.’

‘Stop it,’ I say, slinging my arm around her. ‘Forget about it. It wasn’t you. There’s nothing you can do.’

‘I know, I know.
How was your Vegas gig?’

‘Fine, I guess. A new client took me on a two-day binge of debauchery in Sin City.’

‘When in Rome,’ she chuckles. ‘You look like shit by the way.’

‘I feel like shit. Been having these strange flashbacks,
but I can never remember much, like my brain changes channels for a second when I’m not paying attention, and when I turn to look it’s already switched back over.’

‘It’s probably nothing,’ Ryoko says, but she can’t hide her concern.

‘Gotta go into the office tomorrow and see Baxter and Tweek anyway,’ I say, running my fingers behind my ear, touching the Ouija under my skin. ‘I’ll get checked out, have some diagnostics run.’

‘What you need is some rest and relaxation, sweetheart.’

‘No kidding. Maybe I can get a week off, call in a favour and farm out a
gig or two to Phineas or Clive or someone.’

‘Clive?’ Ryoko says with a frown, and then puts a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, Rhodes, you don’t know, do you?’

‘Know what?’

‘Clive’s … been arrested.’

‘What? When? Where?’

‘It happened a few days ago in Paris. I found out through Nikki. He beat some woman to death outside a café after she attacked him.’

‘Christ,’ I groan, feeling winded. ‘Wait,
was it him?’

‘Yeah, it was
him
. He was off the clock. Unexpectedly ran into someone his client screwed over, just like I did, except this woman had claws apparently. She threw scalding coffee in his face.’