Skinner

by Charlie Huston

  “It feels like that to me, killing. When it’s happening. It can be problematic later. From what I’m told, other people feel more. But that doesn’t mean, Jae, that I want to do it. Not all the time. Anyway.”

  He looks up and down the length of the car, people beginning to rouse themselves. The landscape outside has been becoming more populated, outskirts of a city now. Copenhagen.

  Jae hasn’t moved.

  Skinner points at the backpack on the floor between their feet, the laptops inside.

  “Tickets?”

  She used the Wi-Fi earlier, refreshing the Eurail website dozens of times before getting in. She picks up the pack.

  “Copenhagen to Cologne, connection in Hamburg.”

  She takes out her phone, looks at the time display.

  “With the boat train from Rødby to Puttgarden about an hour after we pull out of Copenhagen. Crossing water.”

  Skinner nods.

  “You booked the tickets with my card?”

  “Yes.”

  “If they didn’t transfer from the night train to this one, they’ll be on board for Copenhagen to Cologne.”

  He smiles.

  Jae doesn’t.

  “Funny?”

  “Cologne. Where Haven killed Terrence.”

  She fiddles with a zipper tab on her pack.

  “Do you know it was him?”

  Skinner’s hand goes to the small of his back, touches steel, returns.

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter.”

  He smiles again.

  “He found my mom for me. Terrence did. Arranged a meeting. So I could ask her. Things.”

  He stops smiling.

  “No. It doesn’t matter that Haven killed Terrence. It was bound to be one of us. And I’m happy, I think, that it wasn’t me.”

  Copenhagen Central Station.

  Skinner is being watched.

  Jae has changed dollars for euros and Danish kroner and is now restocking their provisions, more triangle sandwiches and bottled water, some chocolate, dried fruit. Skinner waits for her. Not as packed here as it was in Stockholm or Lund, feeling of a busy travel holiday in a snowstorm. Unless you need a ticket. The lines running in and out of the ticket offices remind Skinner of Soviet era bread and toilet paper lines. They measure a length of hopelessness.

  And there is Haven’s backpacker standing in one of the lines, watching him, carelessly. She does bother to turn away when he looks directly at her, but that is her token gesture in the direction of covert surveillance. Skinner is tempted to shoot her. The urge is not substantial, rather like the pull of a rooftop’s edge. What would it be like to jump? Skinner knows what it’s like to shoot someone in a large public space. He doesn’t need to inch closer to that particular ledge. She’s there to watch and report. Follow blatantly, certify that Skinner and Jae board the train they ticketed for online with Skinner’s eminently trackable credit card. Report any changes. Why bother trying to make a secret of it?

  How far will she follow? Into what hazards? Skinner would like to know.

  At the far end of the station, stairs, down, signs for luggage lockers, showers. The stairs are sparsely traveled, showers and lockers not popular today.

  Jae rejoins him, plastic shopping bag in hand.

  “Food. Water. What now?”

  Skinner looks at the large clock over the wide double doors that lead into the tunnels that feed the platforms. Analogue dial with a red digital display beneath.

  “How long to our train?”

  She looks at the clock.

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  Skinner points at the stairs.

  “Over there.”

  He starts to walk and she follows.

  “So it’s understood, I will reek rather than use a public shower in a train station.”

  “We’re in Denmark.”

  “People are gross. No matter what country you’re in, people are gross and they do gross things when they don’t have to clean up after themselves.”

  He nods.

  “Don’t take a shower.”

  It smells like the steam room at a gym. Humidity wafts up, a miasma at the top of the stairs.

  Jae groans.

  “Fetid, Skinner. Fetid.”

  He doesn’t attempt to contradict her, keeping his mouth shut, leading her down the stairs. An arched tunnel, tiled walls, luggage lockers at the end, branches to the right and left for showers and lavatories. An old woman is coming down the passage from the showers. A cane and a roller bag, her movements suggest an inertia that disdains rest. She transitions to the stairs, the bag banging up behind her a step at a time, rhythmic and distinct.

  Skinner points at the lockers.

  “Let’s lock something up.”

  Jae walks toward the lockers. They line an L-shaped alcove, a converted luggage storage room from the era when human attendants would have taken your case and given you a ticket in exchange. Each locker door has a tiny window next to the lock, red or green.

  Skinner walks to a locker on the bend at the far end of the L’s long stem, away from the tunnel but still in view of it.

  Jae unzips her pack, transferring the contents of her plastic shopping bag.

  “What are we doing here?”

  Skinner has swiped his credit card in the slot reader on one of the lockers on the top rank, shoulder level. He has the door open, hands inside, doing something.

  “Stand in the corner.”

  Jae moves down in the short branch of the L, out of view of the tunnel, into the corner there, slipping the straps of her pack onto her shoulders. Skinner leans slightly, peeks down the L branch, sees that she’s assumed a defensive stance, something similar to judo. He felt indications of some kind of training earlier when she arm-barred him, subtle force. Was that in her dossier? No. Good. Haven’s people won’t know. She is looking at his eyes. She doesn’t like being scared. He has to remind himself sometimes, other people don’t like feeling scared. He likes it because it makes sense to him. He knows where it comes from and why. He knows what to do when he’s scared. It’s like being excited, he thinks. Threatening excitement.

  It sounds like weather. Clouds, threatening excitement.

  It’s not the backpacker but the football hooligan who steps into view in the tunnel, stops, looks at Skinner, turns, looks both ways, down toward the service doors where the tunnel ends, back up at the stairs. He grunts, a professional dissatisfaction with the circumstances, and walks to a locker, jiggling the locked latch up and down, just that much pretense here, staring at Skinner, as if the fact that he’s been following too closely isn’t his own damn fault.

  Skinner finishes tying the knot he’s been working on inside his locker. Turns toward the hooligan, nods at the lock he’s jerking up and down, exasperated dumbshow.

  “I have a gimmick for those.”

  Shrugging, we’re all in this ridiculous setup together. Skinner reaches into his jacket with his right hand, and, turning, his left hand comes out of the locker, screened by the new angle of his body.

  “One of these.”

  Taking the red plastic ruler, Hotel Hellsten logo on its side, from inside his jacket.

  The hooligan has stopped moving the latch up and down, left hand still on it, right hand under his jacket, ostensibly scratching his stomach but actually caressing whatever firearm he has tucked there.

  Skinner is holding up the red ruler, stepping toward the hooligan, left hand behind his thigh.

  “Have you ever seen this one, the ruler gimmick?”

  The hooligan doesn’t move. Displeased with the turn of events. Not the kind to engage in professional chatter in awkward circumstances. Implacable deniability is his default setting for these situations. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just here to look at the roses. Lovely this time of year, yes?

  Skinner shakes the red ruler, holding it not unlike a bread knife, fingers wrapped loosely, three of its twenty centimeters sticking out near the heel of his palm.r />
  “These are great.”

  The hooligan has a hand on the locker, one under his jacket, turning now to face Skinner, quick-draw angle. Quite relaxed. The relaxation that comes with knowing that one can pull his weapon and fire it from under his jacket, slight movement, very quick, and with accuracy. Something practiced a great deal. A move he’s proud of. Rightfully so. Hard to be accurate with a shot like that. Skinner is certain the hooligan can make that shot count.

  He points the ruler at the hooligan’s locker.

  “Watch.”

  He reaches toward the swipe slot, the hooligan lets go of the latch. Skinner’s wrist snaps forward, bringing the straight edge of the ruler down on the sharp knob of the hooligan’s radius where it juts slightly under the skin. The hooligan grunts, pulling his right hand toward the protection of his body as Skinner flips his own wrist backhand, bringing the corner of the ruler into the corner of the hooligan’s right eye, raking, pause, flick of wrist, and the edge of the ruler comes down on the bridge of the hooligan’s nose. Another grunt, both the hooligan’s eyes are closed, tears welling under the lid of the left eye, tears and blood under the lid of the right eye. Movement under the hooligan’s jacket. Skinner is so close, pivoting to face the hooligan squarely, any shot will tear him open. An unmissable target. But already, swinging up, over, elbow tight to his body for maximum speed if reduced force, comes his left hand, holding the large double knot he tied in the doubled-up compression socks, one tucked into the other, extra strength to keep the two D batteries swinging in the reinforced toes of the socks from ripping out and flying across the tunnel.

  There is an equation for this. The speed at which Skinner’s arm is moving, weight of the batteries, length of sock. A very good mathematician or engineer would factor in the material of the sock, the hooligan’s own movement, humidity of the atmosphere. Torque is the relevant force here: Foot pounds? Meter kilos? Newton meters? Skinner doesn’t remember the math, glitch in the conditioning from that period of his education, maybe, but he knows there is a number. There’s a number to describe the force with which the batteries strike the right side of the hooligan’s face, impact spread from his temple down across his upper cheekbone. The most fragile pieces, sphenoid bone and zygomatic process, are pulverized; the heavier zygomatic bone and supraorbital process are shattered. The hooligan’s facial features are twisted, the blow snapping his neck around so sharply that his cheeks and lips flap. Skinner follows through, letting the mass of the batteries exhaust some of their residual momentum so that he won’t snap his wrist trying to stop them, a whisk of blood fans the floor in a rooster tail, the hooligan’s ruined face landing in its midst. His hand still under his jacket, the practiced shot never fired.

  Footsteps in the tunnel.

  Skinner stretches the doubled socks between his hands, wraps each fist once, batteries dangling at one end, and loops the middle length around the fallen hooligan’s neck, dragging him down to the corner of the L and around it, Jae still in her defensive position, the fists at her hips coming up as he comes into view.

  “Fuck.”

  Out of sight of the tunnel, Skinner stops, lowers the hooligan until he is sprawled on the floor face down, resets his grip on the sock, plants his knee in the hooligan’s back between his shoulder blades and just below the base of his neck, and chokes him to death.

  It does feel more. More than the pressure of a finger. Much more. In part, he understands, because Jae is watching and he knows this must be disturbing her greatly and he doesn’t know how to change that or help her or keep her from being afraid of him or disgusted by him or any of the other sensible ways that most people feel when they see someone killing another human being in front of them. But it also feels like more because this man was following them. Working for Haven. And was a danger to Jae. It feels like more because he is protecting his asset. Doing something he has conditioned himself to do.

  The hooligan is dead. Skinner drops him, leaves the bloody sock twisted deep into the tissue of his throat, and looks up at Jae. Her fists are clenched, knuckles white, and she’s staring at the body, nodding.

  Her eyes move to Skinner; she stops nodding.

  “He wanted to kill me?”

  Skinner straightens. His lower back hurts from straining to strangle the man.

  “Not now. On the train. They’re watching to see that I get on the train. Cross is hoping you’ll leave before then. Once you board with me, you’ll become dispensable. Valid collateral.”

  She nods, one sharp tilt of her head, then level.

  “One less to worry about then.”

  Skinner steps clear of the body.

  “Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”

  Jae looks at the body again, at their surroundings. Skinner can see that she’s starting to come back to where they are, after going to a place where people die violently before your eyes. Second time in three days. She’s seen it before, and what it feels like is coming back to her. How you get used to it. That’s good for some people. Not good for others. Skinner doesn’t know which kind she is.

  She unclenches her fists.

  “We should get the fuck out of here.”

  Skinner offers his hand.

  “Yes.”

  She takes it. Upstairs, the backpacker is loitering outside one of the call shops. She watches them come up the stairs and pass her. She waits. When the hooligan doesn’t follow she starts toward the stairs, but the sound of a scream from below turns her around and sets her after Skinner and Jae. Skinner watches most of this pantomime in small glances over his shoulder, a stuttering kinetoscope of pursuit. He wonders if she and the hooligan were friends in any way. It might make her vulnerable if they were, unbalanced. Easier. Time will tell.

  The boat train, final destination Munich, is at the platform, flip-down seats line the walls. Skinner and Jae claim two of them. People seated in the aisle rather than packed in on their feet. One hour to Rødby. Then the crossing. Jae is still holding his hand, her index finger pulsing, just that small amount of pressure, over and over again. But what he feels is more than that. Much more.

  They want everyone off the train.

  It’s a matter of safety. Once the train rolls onto the tracks that run directly into the lowest deck of the ferry, all passengers must disembark and climb the stairs to the upper decks before the crossing can begin. Nothing needs to be explained. All one has to do is imagine an accident, breached hull, ferry sinking, train full of people below the waterline, and just a few narrow staircases rising to the decks where life vests, dories, and rafts are to be found. But, this being Europe and not the United States, security is a relative matter. No tally of tickets is made as passengers file out of the train, along a narrow walkway, gritty nonslip tape underfoot, through a bulkhead door and up the stairs.

  One flight up, an open door leading to the auto deck, also emptying. Rows of dozens of cars, hatchbacks, low station wagons, narrow vans. The small, fleet, distant cousins of the American freeways’ behemoths. And then the main deck. Enclosed, shopping opportunities (duty-free!), a seafood restaurant, coffee, spiral stair to the upper deck, and doors to the exterior deck both port and starboard. The first passengers out of their cars and off the train are already emerging from the duty-free with shopping bags. Chocolate and beer seem to be the most popular items. Universal stress relievers.

  “Air.”

  Jae is pointing to the starboard exit.

  “Or are there too many potential witnesses if you want to kill someone?”

  He looks through the long bank of windows at the dozen or so wind whipped smokers and sightseers outside.

  “I’ll adapt.”

  He follows her outside, the wind trying to smack them backward as soon as they open the door, both leaning into it, Jae advancing to the rail. Skinner joins her there. Sky and sea are matching gray, erasing the horizon line, just a flat and nearly featureless background with the occasional white windmill, mounted with what looks like the propeller blade
s from a massive decommissioned transport plane from the previous century, poking up from the waters.

  “I was used as bait.”

  Jae is looking down, past the rust streaked hull, into the water.

  “I was an asset, in Iraq, seven years ago. And I was bait. First we became lovers, my protection and I. Then he used me as bait. I didn’t like it. Am I bait now?”

  Skinner touches the back of his head.

  “No.”

  He flips up the collar of his jacket.

  “Did it work?”

  “What?”

  “When you were used as bait.”

  She’s looking at the deck, the sky, the sea, anywhere but Skinner.

  “To the extent that someone tried to kidnap me and he killed them, yes. Is that how these things are measured?”

  Skinner wants to cup her face with his palm, wants to feel if she’ll lean into his hand. His fingers are cold, it would feel good.

  “Not for me.”

  She forces her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket.

  “It was Haven. You understand?”

  It takes him a moment, but then, yes, he understands.

  “That’s odd.”

  Another complicated emotional response from her, something like laughter, but it seems intended to express frustration or exasperation more than delight.

  She shakes her head.

  “Odd. Yeah. I think it starts at odd. Then it heads straight into freakishly bizarre.”

  Skinner thinks, nods.

  “It is odd. But also, for me, Haven has always been a part of my life. Entangled. He’s an influence. I see that it’s odd for us both to have been lovers with you. But it also feels like how it’s always been. And you know, as far as using you as bait, it could be said in his defense that he had a very difficult childhood.”

  She doesn’t smile. Why would she? It’s not in the least funny. But she does bring her hands out of her pockets and uses them to snap his collar back up when the wind has blown it down, tugging the wings close together in the front, releasing them, framing his face, her hands a few inches from his cheeks.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you look like a spy?”