Secret Skin (11 page)

Martin stomped out through the tinted glass door of the main office. He slammed it so hard behind him that I thought the glass would shatter. So did one of the officers who opened the door after him and shouted, ‘Hey you, stop that.’

‘No! Why should I?’ He yelled back at him. ‘I’ve just paid for twenty of these doors, so I’ll break it if I bloody well want to.’

‘You must stop,’ the junior officer said, unsure what to do when someone answered back.

‘No! I will not stop, if you speak English why didn’t you open your bloody mouth the whole time I was in there? Your friends have been extorting money from me for the last six hours.’

‘Your friend was soliciting prostitutes sir,’ he said pointing at me, his young hand shaking.

‘Like hell he was,’ Martin said. He pointed his key fob to an expensive Dodge Viper on the other side of the courtyard. ‘Get in the car David.’ Smoke grey with distinctive twin racing stripes the car looked factory fresh.

‘Okay, but you should probably get in as well, this guy is probably family. Look at his rank, look how young he is. Don’t lose your cool.’

‘Yeah,’ he agreed reluctantly, eyeing the young officer’s epaulets, ‘Daddy got you this job did he sunshine?’

The kid didn’t answer.

‘I thought as much,’ said Martin and turned his back on him.

***

‘Nice wheels,’ I said as we pulled away. ‘Smells like a new car.’

‘It’s a promotion. The deal is….’ he said, pausing as we leaned into a long curve at speed. ‘The deal is, I give them a good write up with a positive Middle East slant and they give me a flash motor for a month.’

‘Sweet. Journalistic objectivity at its best.’

‘You bet. Objectively anyone can see that I’m laughing my arse off.’

‘The devil must be very happy with your soul Martin.’

‘Oh he is. He told me as much when he dropped the car off.’

At that he gunned the engine, we straightened up, and fired out of the slip road towards the endless conveyor belt of Sheikh Zayed Road. The other cars refused to let us in. Martin accelerated along the hard shoulder passing the near lane column of cars and swerved out to lane three with room to spare. Our speed already made the other cars look like they were standing still.

‘Tee hee.’ Martin said. Out loud. I gave him a funny look but he was engrossed in his new toy, his cherubic cheeks crimson with excitement.

I indulged him. He had just spent six hours getting me out of jail.

He swung out in front of a slow moving car in the middle lane which by necessity had become the city’s crawler lane, reserved for Sunday drivers. Every other lane was just too dangerous. Martin weaved neatly in and out between the cars, each vehicle a safe distance apart like stunt cars in a Hollywood movie.

I held on to the sporty hand grips as he jumped over to lethal lane five. On cue a black BMW surged toward us, flashing its lights at 180kph, refusing to slow down.

He didn’t have to. Martin giggled uncontrollably and stamped the accelerator. The pedal touched the floor and we powered ahead. Moments later the black car closed on us. Martin kept the pace. I looked at the speedometer, 200kph, 1kph away from a reckless driving fine.

Martin grinned like a pick-pocket in an empty cloak room. We hit a speed camera. It flashed. In the rear view mirror the man in the dishdash and plain white head dress driving the BMW beamed back at us. He laughed, gave us a friendly little wave, and zigzagged across the lanes to the next junction.

Martin hooted. ‘What a riot!’

I tried to smile but sensed something wasn’t right.

I saw them in the wing mirror first.

‘Hey look out, there’s some nutter behind us, no lights, it looks like…’

The Dodge lurched ominously as the car accelerated into the back of us.

‘…shit, like they’re too fucking close,’ I said.

Martin grimaced and pushed the car as fast as it would go.

I watched the clock shoot through 220, 250, 280…when it hit 300kph I stopped looking and checked behind us. Three serious young men, nothing friendly about them, were right on our tail. They were so close I couldn’t even see the insignia on their bonnet.

‘Pull over,’ I yelled.

I could see the men talking between themselves and the driver looking to the lane beside us, his co-drivers advising him what to do if we switched lanes.

‘I can’t,’ he yelled back. ‘Look at the fucking traffic.’

‘Well slow down then.’

‘I’d love to. Only they won’t let me.’

I looked desperately for an escape route, at that speed the lane beside us was effectively bumper to bumper. Any gaps filled up quickly as Martin flipped his lights and hammered his horn, warning the cars ahead to get out of our way.

We sped towards junction two, the Business Bay and Downtown districts behind it. After that junction one, defence roundabout and the skyscraper end of Sheikh Z, where traffic usually came to a standstill.

We were being driven into a pile up.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ Martin said. ‘What can we do?’

‘Try and slow them down, we’ll squeeze out at the next break in traffic.’

Martin squirmed. ‘Huhhnnh!’ he said, controlling his panic. ‘Okay.’

I opened my window a notch and tried to look over the cars to my right.

‘There, after the yellow car, they’re pulling into the next lane, there’s your gap,’ I called to Martin, ‘Okay?’

‘Yep.’

The two passengers in the car behind prompted the driver, his eyes darted to the gap ahead. ‘They better not….’ I said to myself.

I turned to Martin, he tensed, and made his move, the car behind accelerated, grazing our bumper, the Dodge’s front end floated dangerously toward the central reservation. Martin brought us back under control and tried again, they sped into the same space we were aiming for, Martin hadn’t noticed.

‘Look out!’ I shouted.

He swung back into the fast lane narrowly avoiding a collision. For a moment both cars drove side by side. We checked each other out. They were intensely focused on us and grinning with malevolent pride. Their move had worked. We screamed abuse at them.

Unfazed they pulled expertly back in behind us blocking any opportunity for us to slow down.

‘Who are these guys?’ I said.

‘I’ll just stop and ask them shall I?’

‘No time, look!’ I said, pointing ahead. Hazard lights blinked across all lanes. The traffic was slowing. That could mean an accident and the ghouls were cruising for a better look at the carnage, or just another traffic jam.

Either way we only had seconds to find a way out. But we couldn’t slow down and there were no gaps.

‘We’ll have to force our way through,’ I shouted, ‘just pick the biggest space between cars and go for it.’

‘What? There aren’t any spaces.’

‘Do it, we’re dead anyway.’

A few hundred meters ahead the lane had come to a complete stop. Lane four beside us continued to move, but slowly.

‘That truck up ahead, it’s moving off, hard right in front of it.’

Martin started to argue.

‘Just do it.’

He eased off the accelerator and aimed the car, a narrow space opened up ahead of the truck as it lumbered to catch up with the rolling traffic.

Martin shrieked, and then floored it.

The car howled through the gap. Martin slammed his foot on the brake and wrestled the steering wheel as he tried to control the spin.

We made it across two lanes before anything hit us. The impact slowed our rotation and mercifully the car stayed on the ground.

On the first 3600 we saw the car chasing us hit the same gap. It left the ground when the truck hit the car’s front wing.

On our second spin we glimpsed the car completely vertical, but only briefly, like a snapshot it appeared to float in the air above the lines of traffic.

We finally came to a spinning stop on the dust between the side of the road and the Downtown development. The half built Burj and a hundred busy cranes towered above us.

We sat immobile for what seemed forever, a moment frozen in time. The car was completely shrouded in dust. I could only see airbag. I pushed it down and looked at my right hand. The dented metal of the door curved over it. Jagged aluminum scars shone through the shredded upholstery and fresh paint. Shattered glass covered me. That new car smell still permeated my senses.

Martin hollered, ‘Are we okay?’

‘I don’t know,’ I tried to say, but he had already unbuckled himself and begun to climb out. The passenger door was wedged shut, so I clambered over to the driver’s side and out after him. Martin patted himself up and down, testing each joint, bending limbs, trying to find a break, a pain, a hemorrhage.

‘I’m alright,’ he said. ‘I’m alright. I’m not even dead.’ He ran over and began examining me. ‘How are you? Are you okay? Bryson!’ he said urgently, ‘I said are you alright?’

‘I’m terrified. But I think I’m okay.’

‘You look a bit strange, are you sure you’re not hurt?’

I sat down on a hump, exhausted and shocked. The shakes hit my hands first, bloodied from the small shards of glass embedded in them. Then the rest of my body began to shiver uncontrollably in the afternoon heat.

‘I’m not sure,’ I finally managed. ‘I’m too scared to check. Look.’ I said and pointed.

On the road we saw the other car upside down, its roof crushed flat. The family in the 4x4 beneath it appeared afraid but unhurt. I could only guess about our three pursuers. A dark bloody stain trickled out from what had once been a passenger door.

‘Who were they?’ Martin said.

As if sat courtside at Wimbledon the eyes of our rubber-necked audience darted back and forth between us and the upturned car ‘I don’t know. But I don’t think they liked us.’

‘Oh well, we’re alive and they’re dead.’ Martin said. ‘Insha’allah.’

‘Yes,’ I said and passed out.

***

The sensation of spinning out of control woke me with a nauseous lurch and a trace image of the other car in mid-air scarred across my mind’s eye.

When the hyperventilation finally stopped I found I had no memory of arrival in the hospital. It didn’t even look like a hospital; only the familiar antiseptic smell gave it away.

Spacious glass walls, dark, intricate Arabic furnishings and the svelte blacks and silvers of high-priced electronics cocooned me in my bed. An expensive clash of cultures designed to make the patient feel better knowing they could afford the finest possible healthcare.

I knew I couldn’t and felt instantly worse for it. The pulsing throb in my head didn’t help much; neither did the sharp stabs of pain up and down my right side.

A red button in a cabled box hung next to the bed, I pressed it repeatedly and was bitterly disappointed to find it wasn’t some kind of self administered morphine drip.

While I waited for help I gazed out of floor to ceiling windows over a panoramic cityscape of thrusting towers and lithe architectural shapes that glistened with modernity in the late afternoon sun – a futurist’s wet dream. This place made my apartment look like a dormitory.

The nurse entered through a concealed door that stood invisibly flush against one of the panes of expansive glass.

Seriously, who was paying for this?

‘Mr. Bryson, you are awake,’ she announced, just in case I hadn’t realized. ‘Any pain?’ she said, busily examining the leather bound notes at the foot of the bed ‘Yes,’ I said, my mouth tinder dry from lack of water.

‘Tell me where please Mr. Bryson?’ she said, as if talking to a needy child.

‘My wallet possibly,’ I said looking around for something to drink. She poured and handed me a glass of iced water from the jug on the sideboard.

‘I think there’s been some kind of mistake. I don’t think I should be here.’

‘You’ve been in a very serious car accident Mr. Bryson, you’re extremely lucky to be alive. I should say hospital is just the right place for you to recover, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’ve absolutely no idea. What’s wrong with me?’

She scrutinized me sourly. Then busied herself plumping pillows, tucking sheets in, topping up my glass.

‘There’s some bruising on your right side where the door crushed you, possible whiplash, possible concussion and a large bump on your head. We’ll be keeping you in overnight to monitor you. Doctor’s orders I’m afraid.’ She smiled with counterfeit concern. ‘I’m sure you just want to get back in your car and go driving off like a lunatic again?’

Missing her nuance I lifted a hand to scratch my neck. I hadn’t even noticed the neck brace they’d put on.

‘I’ve been given painkillers?’ I said.

‘Yes.’ She said, jamming a thermometer into my mouth.

‘Really? Can I have some more?’

‘In one hour.’ She wrapped one of those blood pressure monitors that look like a tire's inner tube tightly around my arm. Too tightly.

‘You see this kind of thing all the time I guess?’ I said, the thermometer waggling from my mouth like the tail of a swallowed dog.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. ‘Every day,’ she said. ‘The patients on this floor can afford not to scream. Downstairs I’m afraid it’s quite a different matter. I grow tired of waiting for young men to die on my gurneys so that I can use them for someone else to do the same thing. No insurance, puny little beards and big ideas about what it is to be a man. It’s pathetic.’

I realized what she was driving at. ‘What happened to the men in the other car?’

‘Boys,’ she said. ‘Teenagers. They’re dead Mr. Bryson,’ she sighed. ‘I expect you’re going to tell me it wasn’t your fault?’

‘It wasn’t.’ I said.

She deflated the inner tube and whipped it from my arm. ‘Blood pressure normal,’ she snapped.

‘If they weren’t actually trying to kill us they did a bloody good impression of it.’ I said. God, that sounded something like Martin would say.

‘Yes, I’m sure they were. Driving fast were we?’

‘Ah, well…yes, just a bit.’

She yanked the thermometer out of my mouth and examined its reading.

‘Ow,’ I said in protest.

‘Well it looks like you are okay, Mr. Bryson.’

‘I wasn’t even driving.’

Both eyebrows shot up. ‘Very good Mr. Bryson, everything is all right then isn’t it?’ she said with a half hearted smile. ‘You seem well enough to talk to the police, shall I send them in?’ She turned to walk out leaving me with my mouth open.