by David Hosp
‘You don’t get it?’ Yvette grunts, turning the paper back around so that she can read the story aloud to me. ‘Listen: “The body of Amanda Hicks, 26, a part-time model and waitress, was discovered yesterday morning in her West Roxbury apartment. The specific cause of death is unknown, but the police are treating the matter as a homicide. Ms Hicks’ body was found by a neighbor bound to a chair, covered in feathers.”’
I get it now. ‘It’s just like the GhostWalk you were telling me about the other day,’ I say. The similarity is clear, but I reflexively dismiss any connection. ‘It’s just a coincidence.’
Yvette rolls her eyes and whaps me on the head with the newspaper. ‘It can’t be a coincidence!’ she says. ‘I mean, come on! Feathers and bondage? It’s not like that’s a common sexual theme.’ She looks at the face in the paper for a long moment. ‘Jesus, this girl even looks like the avatar in the fantasy. You think it could be De Sade?’
My mind rebels at the notion that someone could have used our technology to rehearse a murder that they then actually carried out. ‘Like you said the other day, just because someone does something in NextLife doesn’t mean they’re gonna do it in the real world.’
‘That’s true,’ she agrees. ‘But it doesn’t mean they’re not gonna do it in the real world, either.’ She chews a fingernail for a moment, staring out at the water. ‘What do you think we should do?’
She’s right that it’s a remarkable coincidence. I feel slightly sick, though, at admitting the possibility that the murder is somehow connected to the LifeScene. ‘We could tell someone,’ I finally concede, my voice hollow and unconvinced.
‘What, just call the cops and blurt it out?’
I shake my head. ‘No one will ever pay attention, if we do it that way. They’ll think we’re cranks. Besides, I don’t want to have to go into a lot of detail about all the research we’re doing on our users. If that got out, it’d cause some real PR problems.’
‘We have to do something! We’re talking about a murder. You have a friend who’s a cop, right? The guy who handled security for the last company party? What was his name? Paul – something . . . ?’
‘Killkenny. Paul Killkenny.’ I frown. Paul’s a guy I knew growing up. One of those tough guys who liked to mix it up, and ultimately had to choose a side in the real-life game of cops and robbers. Now he’s a homicide detective in the BPD. He and I have stayed friends, and I’ve hooked him up with a few sweet gigs organizing outside security for a few company events. Triple-time. I might be able to talk to him and hint around the edges, at least get a take on how serious he thought it was. ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say.
‘Nick, De Sade has other LifeScenes where he’s killed women,’ she points out. ‘You’ve seen some of them.’
I catch her meaning. If he’s carried out one of them, there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t carry out others.
‘I said, I’ll think about it.’
‘Think quickly.’ She folds her newspaper, leaves it on the bench and stands up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to my apartment.’
‘You don’t have to get pissed.’
She doesn’t turn around as she walks away. ‘You do what you think is right; and do it soon.’ She pauses. ‘Oh, and make sure you show up tomorrow. I’ll be pissed if you wuss out.’ She has a brilliant way of making me feel belittled when she wants to. It’s a gift, really. Her certainty about what is right and what is wrong is rock-solid. Often wrong, but never in doubt, as she likes to say. I can usually ignore her little tantrums, but in this instance something nags at me.
‘And what if I’m not there?’ I yell out at her, trying to take back a little more control.
She looks at me; her eyes are lasers. ‘You’ll be there.’ She turns and continues heading away.
‘Shit!’ I mutter to myself. I’ve been sitting here having such a good time, relaxing, enjoying being with an attractive friend on a warm day down by the water. Now I feel nothing but terrible. I stand up, thinking about going home, but sit down again. Ma is at home, and her coughing has been getting worse. I feel like I need a break.
I look down at the paper lying on the bench. The dead girl’s face is staring up at me. It’s a picture that must have been taken at a graduation or a prom, or some similar seminal event that evokes the promise of limitless possibilities. She is smiling like she’s made a list of all the secrets she plans to ration out to boys over the course of a lifetime. I wonder how many she managed to share before the life went out of her. I think about the beautiful avatar from De Sade’s fantasy in the white room. I can see her eyes in my mind, and remember the moment when she realizes that it’s all going wrong. She’s not real, I know; she’s just a series of millions upon millions of electrical impulses sliding through silicone. And yet there is something in that look that feels so real. The fear in it. The understanding. There’s nothing synthetic about that look.
I look down again at the girl who was killed. ‘Damn!’ I mutter. I pick up the newspaper and tuck it into my back pocket as I head up the hill, away from the water. Ma is waiting for me, I know. I can figure the rest of this crap out later.
CHAPTER FIVE
I said before that I’m not really afraid of anything. That’s not exactly true. There is one thing I am afraid of: heights. Always have been. It’s not really a problem for me; I stay away from balconies and ladders, and I’ve never had to travel, so planes have never been an issue. Cape Cod – that’s about as much of the world as I’ve seen outside of the greater Boston area. I don’t feel deprived. I know there’s a whole world out there that I know nothing about, but that’s fine with me. Charlestown is my world, and I don’t need to fly to see any of it.
Others take a different view. I made the mistake of sharing my phobia one night with Yvette when she was in a meddlesome mood, and she immediately embarked on a mission to cure me. Most people, in approaching that sort of process, would start by taking me through a series of desensitization exercises. Perhaps start with a walk up a tall hill. Go to the roof of a high-rise and look out. Take a ride on a roller-coaster. There are an infinite number of places she could have started to get me used to the concepts of height and speed and falling that might – just might – have eased my tension about heights gradually.
That is not Yvette’s way, of course. As a result, that Sunday I find myself bent over in a stripped-down tin can with wings, a helmet and goggles wrapped around my head, a parachute strapped to my back, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my teeth. The noise is so loud it may be the only thing that will cause me to jump.
Yvette is there, too, laughing with the skydiving instructor who spent the morning with us. She leans her head out the open door and looks down, and the sight of it makes me throw up a little in my mouth. ‘Get back!’ I scream.
She looks at the instructor and the two of them laugh. ‘You couldn’t be safer!’ he screams to me.
‘Than what?’ I shout back.
Yvette shuffles over to me, takes my arm. ‘I know you’re freaking out,’ she says. ‘But we’re going to do this.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the Nick I grew up with wasn’t afraid of anything. He wasn’t afraid of the other kids on the street, he wasn’t afraid of getting into fights; hell, he wasn’t even afraid of school – and that’s what the rest of us were most scared of. He just went out and did what needed to be done.’ I look down at her, and she locks eyes with me. It’s odd; her eyes are generally deep pools of cynicism, but at that moment they seem warm and genuine. For just this moment I forget that I am 10,000 feet off the ground with a glorified bed sheet strapped to my back, about to step out of a nominally functioning airplane. She screams, ‘I don’t want to see you scared of anything, understand?’
I nod.
‘Are you going to call your friend about the girl who was killed?’ she goes on.
‘I’m still thinking about it.’
‘Like I said, you
’re the one who does what needs to be done, no matter what,’ she says. ‘Remember that, as you’re thinking it over.’
I put an arm around her. ‘I hate you, you know that?’
‘Yeah, but you still can’t live without me. I make your life too interesting.’
‘We’re coming up on the drop-zone!’ our instructor yells. We move over to the open door. He looks at me. Hanging this close to the door, every word has to be screamed. ‘You go first!’ he hollers. ‘Yvette will follow three seconds later, and I’ll be right behind her. I’ll catch up to her, and then we’ll make it down to you! We have around forty seconds total before we have to pull the ’chutes, got it?’ My head nods, but I don’t know whether it’s an acknowledgment of agreement or a terrified spasm. ‘Okay!’ He turns me toward the door and I hold on to the sides. The wind shear is so strong I can barely breathe. Our instructor yells from behind, ‘One! Two! Three!’
I hold my breath and jump.
There is no way to adequately express what it feels like the first time you step out of an airplane. Imagine that you’re sucking on a giant fire hose, and out of that hose is shot all of the most intense emotions you can comprehend: terror, exhilaration, regret, hope, joy. It is literally like drowning. It’s hard to breathe; it’s hard to think; it’s hard to comprehend what’s happening. I relax my legs and put my arms out to stabilize my body position against the fall, as I was taught in a morning’s worth of lessons. And all the while the curve of the Earth flattens more and more as the ground rushes toward me with unrelenting speed. I assume I’m screaming, but it’s hard to know because the roar of my body rushing through the atmosphere is so loud. My hand goes to my ripcord, just to make sure I can find it.
I feel a tug at my arm, and it freaks me out. I know that our instructor told me he and Yvette would catch up with me, but it just seems so incongruous for them to be here, now, as I hurtle toward the world. It feels like I should at least be left alone in my own little hell. But I look over and they are both there, smiling brightly and giving me the thumbs up. I give them my best Fonzie back, though it feels insincere. I tap my wrist and pantomime pulling the ’chute, but they both shake their heads, still smiling as though they have a secret they haven’t shared with me yet.
‘When?’ I scream.
Yvette reaches out and takes my arm and pulls my falling body toward hers until our heads are right next to each other. ‘Relax!’ she calls to me. ‘Enjoy the ride!’
A horrible thought occurs to me. ‘We’re not wearing parachutes, are we?’
Her smile remains.
‘Oh God!’ I scream. I start pulling desperately at the ripcord, but nothing happens. I start to hyperventilate. ‘No! Oh, God, no!’ I start to struggle against the fall, and my body loses its stability, tumbling and rolling, but Yvette and the instructor grab me and settle my position again. I still can’t breathe and I close my eyes. Yvette puts a hand on my back. ‘Look at me,’ she calls. I open my eyes and look at her. ‘There’s nothing you can do!’ she yells. ‘It’s out of your hands. Just enjoy the fall!’ She nods below us at the ground coming up.
It is, I must admit, a beautiful scene. We took off from an airfield fifteen miles outside Boston, and below me the landscape is laid out like a suburban jigsaw. From my fall, I can see how it all fits together. I’ve never seen it from this angle. There is an intimacy with the land, looking at it from this vantage point, seeing it the way it once was in its natural state, and the way that the inhabitants have molded it, sculpted it to their needs. That intimacy is intensified by the fact that it is still rushing toward me, intent on crushing me.
That’s when it happens. I become calm. I see what is happening for all that it is, and nothing more. As we get closer to the ground it feels as though we are speeding up, but I’m okay with that now. My phobia, it seems, is gone.
‘You tricked me!’ I yell to Yvette.
‘You needed to be tricked!’ she yells back.
‘You’re a terrible person, but I owe you one!’
‘I’m collecting!’
‘I’ll call Killkenny tomorrow,’ I scream. I see her nod in a self-satisfied, serious way.
I turn and focus on the spot where I will make impact. It’s a field near a school, white lines painted on green grass. It is rushing up to greet me, to absorb me. ‘I’m ready!’ I call out in terror and delight. I can hear Yvette and the instructor screaming next to me, their high-spirited whoops of joy and release adding to the thrill. The last twenty seconds go by so quickly it is breathtaking, the ground overtakes my vision and perspective.
And then I hit.
It doesn’t hurt, and yet it feels like I have been blown apart, my being shattered into a billion flashes of light that spread out through the universe like giant fireworks in slow motion. It lasts for only a split second, but it is beautiful.
Then the bits of light coalesce. The screen explodes in a flash that recedes into the center of the world until the monitor is black.
CHAPTER SIX
I’ve known Paul Killkenny for most of my life. We’re the same age, and he grew up a block closer to the projects in Charlestown, in a three-bedroom shared house with five brothers and two sisters. His father was in the game, but at a much lower level than my father. Growing up, we were pitted against each other for no reason other than that we were a fair match at everything we did: stickball, street hockey, little league, brawling. I think the adults in our parents’ circle viewed us as the two who would carry on the traditions of the old ways. I can only imagine the collective disappointment they felt when we both walked away.
My defection from the neighborhood was viewed, I think, with a sense of confused acceptance. Few from our group made it into the world of higher education, and so I was considered somewhat of an alien. Paul’s departure, by contrast, was viewed as a betrayal. He not only failed to carry on the traditions of the gray-market world of hustlers where we grew up, but he became a cop. That might have been okay if he’d decided to walk a beat in Charlestown. We had plenty of insiders who did that: young men who understood the way the system worked, and who protected our turf from outside influences, while leaving the internal system intact. Paul, though, went big-time. He left Charlestown altogether and became a detective in Boston. That was viewed as ‘going Hollywood’ by the townies, and it was not appreciated. I’m one of the few from the old neighborhood that he keeps in touch with.
Paul agrees to meet me at a bar near Fenway Park at around five o’clock on Tuesday. It’s a hole in the wall and it’s empty when I arrive, except for two men in their sixties who sit motionless at the end of the bar, staring forward like zombies. I wonder, as I sit there waiting on Paul, whether they are wax statues – decorations to make the place feel more crowded. Only when one of them moves a hand to tip his whiskey into his mouth am I sure they’re alive. Even still, he moves with a stiffness that makes it seem as though he might merely be mechanized at a rudimentary level.
Paul walks in ten minutes late, pauses at the door to let his eyes adjust to the dark. He’s about my height, just under six feet, with thick black hair pulled back from an angular forehead. He’s good-looking in a street way, with a square jaw and symmetrical features thrown off only by a nose that’s been broken more than once. We often competed for girls when we were younger, and I still feel that rivalry.
He scans the room, seeming to scrutinize the place. When he sees me, he walks over, moving with a loose, confident gait. It’s the same walk I’ve seen over the years from so many cops on the street. Something in the way they carry themselves lets people know that they not only enforce the law, but, when the spirit moves them, they are the law. They are, at some level, untouchable. It comes through clearly in their every move and every word. I suppose it’s a fair trade for all the crap that cops have to put up with.
‘Nick,’ he says as he slides into the booth across from me. He nods at the bartender, who watched him enter. It seems they know each other. ‘Scotch,’ he says. The
bartender moves quickly. Paul turns back to me.
‘You on duty?’ I ask, looking at the bartender as he pours the drink.
‘You gonna report me?’ He smiles, and it occurs to me that, friend or not, Killkenny would be a bad person to be on the wrong side of. ‘How’s it goin’, Nick?’
I shrug. ‘Can’t complain. Business is good.’
‘So I’ve seen.’ I look at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘I read the financial pages,’ he says with a laugh. ‘It’s the new BPD. You can’t just follow the Sox if you want to get ahead; you’ve got to be able to talk business and politics and art and shit.’
‘Brave new world,’ I say.
‘Well, new, anyways.’
‘You get back to the old neighborhood at all?’
He shakes his head. ‘Not recently. I stopped by my folks’ place back around Christmas, but you know my dad. He wasn’t all that thrilled to see me, so I didn’t stay long.’
‘He always was a pisser.’
‘Yeah. Still is.’ Killkenny spits out a bitter laugh. ‘He pulled a gun on me. You believe that shit?’
‘Pulled a gun?’
‘Yeah. He said he didn’t want any cops in his house. I told him I was just going in to wish Ma a merry Christmas. He stood on that porch and pulled his piece out. Told me to get off his property.’ He laughs again. ‘I swear to God, I almost shot the old fucker. Hand to Christ.’
I laugh with him. ‘Shit! What happened?’
‘Ma came out screaming. He’s waving his gun around, probably ten Jamesons into the evening; I’m reaching into my jacket for my piece, just to show I’m not afraid of him, like I was when I was a kid; neighbors are starting to come out to watch. It almost turned into an ugly scene.’
‘Almost,’ I say without irony.
‘Ma starts beating on him, asking what the fuck he’s doing, until he finally goes out the back, gets into his car to drive to O’Malley’s.’
