Secret Skin

by Frank Coles

  ‘You are in profound trouble Mr. Bryson. You have no friends here. You might think you can simply go to your embassy but not for something like this. We will insist that you be punished here as an example to others.’

  He gloated. ‘You are probably thinking how different things would be at home now….’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted, ‘I was thinking how totally full of shit you are.’

  Everything about his expression told me I shouldn’t have said that.

  ‘And what’s more you’re a terrible host. I’m dying of thirst over here.’

  ‘Do you know where you are Bryson?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, some third world brown field site with a first world façade, what do you want me to do Khadim, beg for mercy?’

  His eyes said yes. I had to finish this while I had the energy. I shrugged and said, ‘So let’s see, you expect me to break down and cry because you’ve got a neat little story that you’ll never be able to prove?’

  ‘We have witnesses, of course,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Of course,’ I smiled, ‘but witnesses aren’t exactly essential in your laugh-a-minute courts now are they? I imagine verifiable evidence of any kind is just an optional extra once the mighty Captain Khadim has pointed his finger.’

  He didn’t respond. Seems no one likes the truth.

  ‘C’mon, I mean really,’ I said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Is that it?’ He blustered. ‘You will go to court, you will go to jail, and if you live you will be deported as a pedophile.’ He smiled, ‘Bad things are going to happen to you Mr. Bryson. Count on it.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  He stood with his hands behind his back, chest puffed out, a small pot belly sticking out on his thin frame. He looked like a hurt child.

  ‘Why?’ he said.

  I gazed silently back at him and let a hint of a smile play on my lips. He gestured with one hand, eyebrows raised in expectation.

  ‘Speak.’ He commanded.

  The silence held. My smile grew a little wider.

  He stood up, paced impatiently behind the table and grew visibly agitated. His neatly pressed uniform swished with each about turn.

  ‘Bryson,’ he said loudly, ‘tell me what you are talking about.’

  My smile grew bigger still. He paced again then planted his hands on the table and glared.

  ‘Talk now,’ he said.

  He pushed the heavy table out of the way and charged. The skinny man surprised me with his strength. His arms clamped around my neck and he forced me up against the wall.

  It’s hard to speak with no air in your lungs. But why give him any pleasure? I stared the captain down and leveled the most condescending smile I could manage until blood rushed to my skin and capillaries puckered in search of oxygen. My head became hot and heavy and my eyes started to close.

  ‘Tell me!’ he screamed.

  I raised my cuffed hands between us and pushed, after a moment of half-hearted resistance he let go.

  I coughed and then cackled a little, clutching at my sore throat.

  He’d lost control. He was a simple bully, a little man. His eyes darted from place to place with embarrassment. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  ‘First call my editor,’ I croaked, ‘He will confirm I was on assignment for Arabian Outlook not “soliciting prostitutes”. Then I’d like to interview you, to find out why your officers actually appear to be in charge of prostitutes on the street. I’d also like to find out when you intend to arrest the sheikhs who own the hotels, apartments and bars involved in the illegal prostitution rings and human trafficking gangs.’

  He settled down. ‘That is speculation,’ he tutted, ‘You have nothing.’

  ‘Nothing apart from the recorded testimony of prostitutes, pimps and policemen who have told me everything I need to know about this racket, including how the women are trafficked by your department in collusion with known international criminals. If you want the world to see you for what you are Khadim, jackboots and all then go ahead, press these ridiculous charges. Either way call my editor, he can pick me up or arrange a lawyer.’

  ‘You’re bluffing.’

  Only half bluffing. Recordings of prostitutes and pimps yes, policemen no, so long as they didn’t find the memory card.

  ‘Try me. Dubai’s Anti-Human Trafficking Department is actually the Human Trafficking Department? It’s a dynamite story Khadim, and it’s going to blow up in your face if you carry on with these Gestapo tactics. So come on. Please. Just fucking try me.’

  I felt like Dirty Harry asking the punk whether he feels lucky.

  He didn’t. I tried to give him a face saving way out. ‘Perhaps someone you trust has been trafficking and pimping behind your back? Lying to you? A cousin, a nephew, a brother perhaps? Faisal for example?’ I said, testing the connection.

  His face didn’t reveal a thing. He looked at me for a long time and then said, ‘Give me the number.’

  He left the room and I heard him shout at someone. When he didn’t return they moved me to the holding cell.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  After a surge of early evening activity the hospital’s private suites became peaceful and shadowy. Martin sat deep in thought, for once not saying anything.

  I was tired of talking and thankful for the silence. The nurse hadn’t brought any more pain killers and everything hurt. I slugged back the dregs of the whisky and, not for the first time, wondered about Martin. He’d nearly finished the whole bottle on his own and didn’t seem even slightly drunk.

  Maybe this was his version of my morning coffee, never getting high, just topping up the levels so that he could function normally.

  The silence lingered. I looked out over the city. The arc-lights of 24-hour construction nearby provided painful stabs of illumination in the darkness. By contrast the mood-lit hotel facades in the distance gave off a soothing back light.

  The events of the last day flitted through my thoughts. The common thread beneath pulling for attention. Someone had tried to kill us. Or was it just me? Just me. It had to be. Faisal if I had to guess. Khadim possibly. Maybe even the Russian.

  Out of habit my thoughts turned to work.

  Where was the story? What was my angle?

  ‘Dubai government creates red-light free zone, whole of Dubai up for grabs,’ I said.

  ‘That’s over-egging the pudding,’ Martin said, coming back to life. ‘We can’t be seen to be openly critical. We have to show that the government is aware and dealing with the problem.’

  ‘Okay then: Anti-Human Trafficking Department admits to problem with prostitution and pedophilia in Dubai. Arabian Outlook reporter aids department in their enquiries over activities within Dubai’s bars, hotels and night clubs.’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘Nine year old girls forced to service the sexual appetites of the emirate’s growing male population…?’

  ‘That’s the sort of thing.’

  ‘Women lured into slavery with the promise of well-paid jobs.’

  ‘Yeah, that too.

  ‘On arrival their passports are illegally confiscated and they are forced to work as sex slaves for years until…’

  ‘…until they pay off the ‘debt’ to their traffickers in order to earn their freedom…’

  ‘…enduring rape and abuse for years on end, many die in the process…

  ‘....they disappear without trace, their bodies consumed by the desert.’

  He tapped his nose. ‘Hmm, no, scratch all that,’ he said. ‘We can’t call it slavery and we can’t imply openly that government departments are willfully involved.’

  ‘Ahuh, okay, I’ll make it fluffy just for you Martin. So how about: Male prostitutes take to the streets? Rents go up but boys go down type of thing?’

  ‘Hmm, yes, I like the story but not the headline; we can’t talk openly about gay Muslims either. Even though in theory everything apart from sodomy is allo
wed, and commonplace. Use broad strokes, lots of speculative maybes.’

  ‘So is that why men here prefer the company of other men? I heard the local boys think that as long as you’re giving and not taking it means you’re not gay.’

  ‘Who knows, maybe? They like prostitutes too right?’

  ‘They sure do. How’s this: Dubai’s vast sex industry involves women, men and children from all over the world, especially Russia and the CIS states as well as India, Pakistan, Britain, Eastern Europe, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Uganda, Philippines, Morocco and Thailand.’

  ‘As many nationalities as you can find please Bryson, we can sell the story in each of those countries if their people are involved.’

  ‘Okay but let’s not forget: AIDS, Dubai’s ticking time bomb. Expert warns of sick sexual practices with children, blood capsules inserted into young girls to create the illusion of virginity, etcetera, etcetera, yadda yadda yadda.’

  ‘What expert?’

  ‘No idea, but I’m sure I can find someone who thinks it’s disgusting.’

  ‘As many quotable sources as possible please, the less we say ourselves, the less can come back on us. Again imply the AIDS angle rather than say anything explicitly.’

  ‘There’s not much we can say explicitly is there?’

  ‘Not if we want to stay in business.’

  ‘It sucks,’ I hissed. ‘I’ll write a more exacting international version behind your back and see if someone will buy it.’

  ‘That’s your call. But I’d tread carefully if I was you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘Too late for that.’

  ‘So, if I receive any enquiries about recordings of police officers, prostitutes or pimps and where to get hold of them, what should I say?’

  ‘You’re not looking to sell me out here are you Martin?’

  ‘Of course not old boy, I just want to know if you’re blagging or not.’

  I liked Martin but I wasn’t sure how far I could trust him.

  ‘I have recordings. They are in a safe place. Security for them, security for me you know?’ A well worded lie, as long as the memory card was still in my shoe.

  ‘That’s all I need to know,’ he smiled. ‘Now write me that story Bryson, the deadline is looming, print day is nearly upon us.’

  ‘Sure, when I’ve had some sleep, you’re on,’ I said and slumped back onto the soft sleep inducing pillows.

  Martin placed the laptop in front of me.

  ‘What,’ I said, ‘do you expect me to do with that?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘You know what, you owe me.’

  ‘Not now Martin,’ I said weakly, ‘I’ve just been in a car wreck and I’ve barely slept in two days.’

  He placed a small brown plastic pot with a white lid on top of the computer. A prescription case but with no prescription on it.

  ‘Ritalin,’ he said,

  ‘Kiddie amphetamines?’

  ‘You betcha, it’s amazing what these private doctors will give you when you ask nicely. Just have a first draft ready for the morning. I can edit it to sound good and censor anything that needs censoring.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘Not a chance. While you’re in here you’re mine. Once you’re back out there someone could try to kill you again. So give me names, dates, figures, quotes, and anything else you’ve got. I’ll do the rest.’

  ‘Martin, it’s 1:30 in the bloody morning.’

  ‘That’s what the Dexys Midnight Runners are for, so get cracking. I’m going to rustle up some more spirits and see if I can’t figure out who’s trying to turn you into one. I’ll be back at nine in the a.m.’

  When he left I cursed him for a solid ten minutes, stamped around the cold floor and then staggered out to the balcony.

  The thick windows had sound proofed the room from Dubai’s relentless soundtrack of screeching tires and angry horns. I held onto the balcony rail and stood for a while listening to the high stress world below. After the professional chill of the hospital’s air conditioning the night’s humid warmth soothed my lungs. Eventually the dampness became too much but by then I’d calmed down.

  I went back inside and rummaged around for the memory card in my shoe. After a brief frantic search I found it amongst the pocket junk the nurse had sealed in a plastic bag on the sideboard. I pulled the laptop onto the coffee table and uploaded the memory card’s files to a second email account and the ftp server I used for my portfolio website.

  Then I began to type. By 3 a.m. the pot of Ritalin had burnt a hole in my hand.

  ***

  I came around in my apartment two days later. I had memories of Martin collecting the story from me the following morning. I remembered asking if he’d worked out who was trying to kill me. ‘Everyone,’ he’d answered unhelpfully and left me to pass out.

  An ambulance brought me home a day later with a plentiful supply of painkillers and orders to return for a checkup in a week’s time. The pain in my side had begun to fade. The speed, however, had left the shadow of drug induced depression lurking around the corner of each brain cell.

  I swallowed more painkillers than recommended and forced myself out of bed and into the kitchen where I made a pot of strong coffee and heaped tablespoons of sugar into the mug. Apart from some over-ripened bananas I had no food in the house. I ate both. I read somewhere years ago, back when house music was all the rage, that bananas balanced out your serotonin levels and stabilized your emotions after indulging in too many party chemicals.

  I didn’t know how much of that was wishful thinking but ever since I always kept some emergency bananas hanging around just in case my mood needed altering.

  I wondered whether I could pitch a drug story on Dubai. I knew quite a few people who had regular summer colds.

  ‘Stop working,’ I said out loud.

  Without busy thoughts to distract me, my addled psyche threw me down hard in front of the oncoming rush of bad memories. Like widescreen for the mind I relived the world through the Viper’s front window as it span out of control. My mental film speed slowed and I watched the other car tumble over a line of stationary cars in an ungracious cartwheel of flying metal and barely heard screams. I saw the imagined faces of the young men as they were crushed from view, ambitious, determined faces. They had tried to run us off the road. Now they were dead.

  Good, I thought.

  I fought back an overwhelming urge to fight or take flight from invisible foes and my heart pounded with the first pangs of what my friends used to call The Fear. Drug induced terror.

  My hands clenched and unclenched with the sudden overload of nervous energy. Speed comedown and shell shock. A fear cocktail.

  Bad things were coming. I could feel it.

  They’re gonna get you, my inner child sang, someone’s gonna kill you.

  Cold in the air conditioning but sweating unstoppably I gripped the kitchen counter as my heart tried to kick its way out of my chest. The pulse pounded in my ears, out of control, my breathing shallowed…hyperventilation…panic.

  Someone was really trying to kill me.

  I heard a fearful childlike wail, of monsters in the closet, of the bullies at school, of strangers in dark rain soaked alleys, and realized it was me. I was making that wretched noise. I would never let anyone make me feel like that again. Never never never. I hadn’t grown up through all that shit, that fear, to be reduced to…monsters and bullies please please leave me alone…I couldn’t breathe.

  ’No!’

  I slammed my fist into the cupboard door above the counter, denting the weak veneer, and screamed. A grown man’s scream, a don’t fuck with me scream, a come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough scream. A battlefield cry that would get me through the punches and kicks, a scream that would get me through the fear and out the other side.

  Yeah, the big man I thought, and chuckled, a fleeting positive feeling.

  I punched the air and chased the emotion, shadow boxing the kettles stea
m, willing the happiness endorphins to flow back into my veins. ‘C’mon!’ my hands moved faster, building up the speed of the jabs and punches. ‘Fuck yeah. Come on,’ more serious, throwing hard fast combinations until finally I couldn’t punch straight and I laughed with exhaustion.

  Humor always beats fear.

  What must the neighbors think?

  All smiles and grim determination, my emotions finally under control, I breathed again.

  Someone tried to kill me.

  It was finally sinking in. I was still frightened, but a little more prepared.

  ‘C’mon,’ I challenged the empty room, ‘What are you so fucking scared of anyway?’

  DEATH. A straight forward answer from the deepest part of me.

  Back in Britain I loved to mountain bike, with its lush green countryside, castles in the hills, rivers, even the rain. When everyone else was inside getting seasonal affective disorder and rotting their brains on soap operas I headed outside and aimed for the puddles. It used to rain so much that the only way to enjoy the ride was to stop worrying about getting wet, muddy, falling off, looking stupid, losing my way or any of the other indulgent distractions the unconscious throws at you. As it tried to persuade you to stay inside, in the warm, in the comfort zone, unchallenged and dying so passively you barely noticed.

  The fear of death lived in a deep murky puddle in my unconscious and I was too scared to look at my own reflection in its surface. It had once been a useful fear that kept a toddler’s hands out of burning fires, but it was useful no more.

  Aim for the fucking puddles I thought and felt instantly better.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  The battery in my phone had died. I had no idea when. Yasmin could have been calling for the last two days and I wouldn’t even have known. I cursed a little prayer for her hoping that I hadn’t gotten her into too much trouble.

  I plugged in the charger next to my bed and checked messages. There was just one. A quiet male voice said, ‘David?’ waited a few seconds for an answer and then hung up. The voice sounded familiar but with no number to call back I speed dialed Yasmin’s number instead.