My Fair Hobo (1/2)

One snowy January night in Montreal, a expensive car cruised through the industrial area of Little Burgundy. It parked, engine idling, in a little alley between an auto dealership and a beauty-supplies store. A giant figure in a suit and balaclava jumped out of the car, hauled something heavy out of the backseat, dragged it a couple of metres across the concrete and propped it up against the wall of the beauty-supplies place, between a container labelled ‘huile’ and a ratty old tarp. The giant man produced a hypodermic needle and placed it on the ground beside the heavy object.

Swiftly and noiselessly, the giant returned to the car, got in and drove away.

The tarp moved and revealed a man. His name was Truit and he’d witnessed the whole scene with interest through a hole in his rustic cover. He was drunk but not as much as he would’ve liked to be, because his tooth hurt like hell. He had a feeling that he didn’t really want to know what was going on out there—you could call it Street Gut—but curiosity got the better of him.

He crawled over to the object against the wall. As impaired as he was, Truit quickly realized that the object was a human being, and not a living one either. Instinctively, he recoiled, appalled. He’d seen a dead person before—his friend Theo for one, who’d perished from hypothermia the previous winter. Even so, Truit was hardly inured to the sight of a corpse, especially a surprise one.

The man was Asian, pretty good looking with a strong jaw. He was slim but didn’t seem undernourished. Maybe in his forties, but could have passed for thirty.

Truit sat on his haunches for a while, contemplating the figure. The man was barefoot and dressed in raggedy clothing but something about him was off. He wasn’t from the streets. He was clean—his hair was short and neat. He had a five o’clock shadow but it was barely visible. His nails were so clean they looked polished. His feet didn’t even have callouses. Truit remembered Theo’s feet—they were the ugliest things he’d ever seen. More hoofs than feet, with cracked heels, chilblains, black nails…

Sniffing, Truit noticed an enchanting fragrance. It was coming from the body. He had a sensitive nose, once even worked as a sommelier before things went bad. That was not Lynx, not even Old Spice. That was the smell of Money.

Lurching forward, Truit patted the guy’s pockets. Nothing. He looked at the wrist. There was a pale patch where a watch had been but it wasn’t there any more. Truit looked at the face more closely, just to make sure there was no life there. He felt a lurch of sadness in his gut, a kind of sympathetic grief. This guy could be him! They looked similar enough. With his First-Nations great-grandmother and Japanese granddad, Truit sometimes passed as Asian.

Spotting a sharp gleam, Truit gingerly pulled the hoodie back from the corpse’s head and whistled.

“Osti de câlisse de ciboire de tabarnak!” he swore softly.

Two diamond studs, one in each ear. He was pretty sure he could pawn them for something big. The sentimental urge he had been feeling quickly gave way to practicality—with cold hands he proceeded to detach the earrings. He’d just dislodged the second one when he heard a car screech to a halt nearby.

Swearing, Truit dove for cover under his tarp. He held his breath. His heart jumped out of his mouth and hid in his shoe. Shivering with fear, he heard boots crunch on the snow, heavy breathing, a curse. There were a few moments of silence and then he felt a vice-grip on his ankle and the tarp flew off of him.

Truit screamed and writhed.

“Help, anyone! Help!”

“Quiet, idiot,” boomed a deep voice. Truit felt something cold and hard pressed on his neck—a gun. He lapsed into silence and shut his eyes, not wanting to see anything. He wanted oblivion.

To his surprise, he then heard a woman’s voice. A deep voice, authoritative.

“Wait,” it said.

The giant grunted.

“You’re going to come for a little ride with us,” said the woman’s voice. Truit looked up and saw a small Asian woman in a long black fur coat. She was showing teeth that were at once very white and gave the impression of being quite sharp. He supposed it was a smile but it didn’t make him feel like smiling back, not at all.

He felt the giant’s hand on the back of his neck and the hard tube in the small of his back.  At that point, his legs gave way under him and he lost consciousness.

When Truit came to, he noticed that he was in a confined, dark space and that he felt even worse than usual. At first he couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, but then he remembered the dead man in the alley. He wondered why he was still alive.

After this initial assessment, he noticed that his jeans were damp and chafing his thighs—he’d wet himself somewhere about the time of his fainting fit. His usual personal scent was fairly strong anyway and there was very little ventilation in what seemed to be the trunk of a car. All in all, it would have been preferable to have remained unconscious.

He started thinking about what he’d do when the car stopped. Should he kneel crouched, ready to spring? It didn’t seem smart, considering that at least one of his kidnappers was armed. Besides, he was about as flexible as a rusted corkscrew. Would it be better to pretend unconsciousness?

As it happened, he did nothing. When the trunk was opened, he stared up into the blinding light at the looming silhouette with wide eyes, whimpering like a helpless baby. The giant, whose face was still covered by the balaclava, picked him up and dropped him on snowy ground. He could see that they were in front of a big house somewhere in the country side. It seemed to be on the top of a hill—the lights of Montreal could be seen in the distance.

“Get up,” growled the giant. “Walk to the house. Don’t try to run. There are dogs. They like liver.”

Still whimpering, Truit lurched towards the great house, limping thanks to paresthesia in his legs.

The woman, who moved like a cat, preceded him to the door and pressed a pinpad that made the door open and the lights turn on. She slipped inside, disappearing into another room.

Truit followed her in a daze. It was clear that it was extraordinarily luxurious and modern. What kind of millionaire assassins are these? He wondered.

The woman looked like she belonged in a cosmetics ad, not in jail. She was a slinky Chinese woman with long dark hair and alluring eyes. The man was the beefiest guy Truit had ever seen. Probably took steroids but clearly genetics had given him a headstart.

The woman reappeared, carrying a large plastic garbage bag.

“Strip.”

“Huh?” Truit giggled uncomfortably.

“You heard. Take your clothes off,” the giant growled.

“À poil?”

“Everything,” the woman said decisively. “Put the clothes in here.“

Slowly, Truit took off his jacket, his shirt, his jeans, his boxers, his socks. For some reason, wondering at himself while he did it, he folded each garment before putting it in the bag. He wasn’t usually particularly shy but he felt self-conscious, especially because the giant was still pointing the gun at him.

“Drago will now take you to the bathroom,” she said when he was completely nude.

Truit felt rising alarm but tried not to show it.

“We’ll talk when you’ve tidied up,” she said brightly. “By the way, my name is Lily.”

Truit nodded, barely understanding. It was a lot to take in.

The bathroom was upstairs. It was completely tiled, in white. Having seen a lot of films in his youth, Truit knew that it would be relatively easy to clean up after an execution. Shivering, he hugged himself and waited for the inevitable.

“Run the bath,” Drago said.

With shaking hands, Triut turned the faucets on. Water poured into the basin. So he was going to be drowned? That would be cleaner for them, he supposed dully.

“You can use the bath salts if you like,” Drago said. “Îsle de la Madeleine, it’s nice. Smells like a cool sea breeze.”

Obediently, Truit took up a glass container and shook some blue crystals into the water.

Steam was rising.

“You might want more cold water in there,” Drago suggested. “Or you’ll get burnt.”

Strange concern for the niceties, considering he’s about to kill me, thought Truit. Even so, he was not in a mood to contradict anyone, especially not Drago. He turned the cold water on.

“OK, get in. There’s a sponge and soap on the soap dish there.”

The water was still too hot and Truit quickly turned a pretty shade of red but he hardly noticed and started scrubbing and soaping like someone in a dream, his mind running around in circles and chasing its own tail.

He noticed a window—too high and small to be of any use except as a cosmic taunt. Drago was blocking the door out. And even if he did get through the door and out into the night, he

The bathwater quickly acquired a murky grey-brown color and the smell of it combined with the Îsle de la Madeleine made him feel a little nauseous. Nevertheless, he continued aimlessly stroking his arms with the sponge if only to delay the inevitable. He decided not to bother washing his hair—it was so matted it wouldn’t have done any good. Leave that to the undertaker.

Undertaker! He had no money to pay for a funeral. Funeral! These two weren’t about to contact the funeral parlor after dispatching of his corpse. It was a shallow grave for him…

This was the gloomy tenor of his thoughts.

“That’s enough,” Drago said. “Get out and dry yourself. Put that on when you’re done,” he indicated a bath robe hanging from a hook on the bathroom door.

Truit obeyed, clumsily lurching to his feet and dripping like a creature from the deep. He stepped out of the bath and took the towel Drago had left on a stool.

Five minutes later, Truit emerged from the bathroom and went, always shadowed by Drago and the gun, into a large living room pleasantly lit by a gas fire designed to look like a log fire.

Lily was waiting for him with a tape measure.

For the coffin? Truit wondered. Coffin! Don’t be ridiculous. There will be no coffin…

The woman took his measurements with cold, efficient hands.

“Keep still,” she said sharply as he squirmed at the touch.

The measurements complete, she pointed to a chair and told him to sit down.

He did, and she wrapped a towel around his shoulders and started chopping his hair off. Drago looked on heavy-lidded, bored. When the knots were all on the floor, she reached for a clipper and shaved his head.

“What do you think?” she asked Drago, gesturing to Truit with triumph.

He raised his eyebrows and nodded.

“I see what you mean,” he said.

“OK, put those pyjamas on and we’ll talk.”

The pyjamas she indicated were of deep purple satin and felt strange, slippy and cool like refrigerated water.

He waited for his next instruction.

“You’re cooperative,” Lily said thoughtfully. “I like that. What’s your name?”

“Truit.”

“Truit what?”

“Just Truit.”

“Like the fish?”

He nodded.

She held out a fist and opened it, palm upward, to reveal the two diamond studs he’d removed from the dead man’s ears. She must have rifled through his pockets. As she stood there looking at him, he felt the blood drain from his head to his heart.

“You took these,” she said simply.

“Yes.”

“They did not belong to you.”

He waited.

“You know what they cost? One thousand dollars each. Do you have that on you?”

She already knew he didn’t.

“But,” she continued. “You can pay for them in another way.”

“That’s OK, I don’t really want them now anyway,” he said, trying to sound casual.

She smiled and shook her head.

“Too late for that, I’m afraid.”

“What do you want from me?” He asked desperately.

“I simply want your cooperation. See? Easy, right?”

He looked at her. Her skin was very pale and her mouth blood-red. He supposed it was the effect of make-up.

She perched on the edge of an armchair next to him.

“Tell me about yourself, Truit,” she bared her sharp teeth.

“I don’t know that there’s that much to tell,” he said. “I was in and out of foster families as a kid. Ran away when I was 13 and have been living on the street ever since.”

“It sounds like a hard life,” she said, tilting her head like a robot counsellor.

“Pretty hard, but you get used to it. In some ways you’re more free on the street.”

“Do you have any pain? In your teeth, for example?”

Truit wondered how she’d guessed that—he’d been having persistent tooth pain for a couple of months now. He’d spent as much time drunk as possible, just to get rid of the pain.

“How would it be if I paid for you to go to the dentist?”

Truit nodded, dazed.

“You want me to kill someone or something?”

She laughed, a strange sound with metallic edges.

“No, of course not! We just want you to play a part for a little while. To be a…businessman. Do you think you could do that?”

“What, like an actor?”

“Yes, sort of,” she said.

He shook his head, relieved.

“I don’t know how to act.”

“Oh, it’s not like that. It’s more like…”

“A body double,” said Drago. “Security.”

“Yes, a body double,” nodded the woman. “You wear nice clothes, go to a meeting. That’s all.”

Truit was silent, looking at the floor.

“And your name will be different,” she said. “Tell me, have you ever been fired?”

“A couple of times. I slept late and missed work. Y’know, I don’t like working.”

She smiled.

“Well, this job will be very easy, you do not have to worry about working too much.”

For the next week, Truit was kept at the house in the woods. Various specialists came to the house to effect a comprehensive makeover.

A dentist visited and the pain went away almost at once. This alone was enough to convince him that he was happy to do whatever Lily asked of him, even if the vision of the dead man occurred to him now and again when he closed his eyes. Every time he thought of the body in the alley, he hurriedly pushed it to the back of his mind.

He wore the tailor-made clothes provided for him, he underwent a skin treatment, a manicure, a pedicure, an all-body wax. He had an exquisite tattoo of a lotus flower done on his right shoulder. He was seen by a physician who prescribed him an inhaler for his asthma and other things that he never knew he needed. He lifted weights and jogged every morning. When in public, he was instructed not to speak and to always wear sunglasses, a Rolex watch and a gold wedding ring.

He was desperate for a cigarette but this was forbidden. When he started shivering and sweating from withdrawal, Lily agreed to get him a nicotine patch.

He got his ears pierced and was told to wear the diamond studs. He now saw them as a kind of dread talisman, invested with the vengeful hatred of the spirit of the dead man whose body he’d despoiled.

His name was now Simon Chang.

Lily visited him for an hour every afternoon to ‘prep’ him for the meeting he was going to attend. She told him not to fidget, to sit with his back straight, to keep an expressionless face—a ‘power pose’. She taught him twelve phrases in Mandarin and drilled them until he was pitch-perfect. He didn’t know what any of them meant but she said that didn’t matter.

The plan was that he would sit completely still while his interlocutor spoke. The translator would then speak Chinese. Truit would nod once to register comprehension, then make some small movement—touching his tie or twisting his ring. Then he would come out with one of the twelve phrases he’d learned by rote. The interlocutor didn’t speak Mandarin so it didn’t matter which phrase he chose—the main thing was to sound convincing.

After two weeks, Truit did not recognize himself in the mirror. He looked attractive—socially acceptable, like important people. It was disorienting. He felt out of place and missed his friends Drake and Fiona. Would he see them again? Were they worried about him? Probably not. Drake would be on gak or booze and Fiona would be streetwalking to make money for fent. Besides, there was a rule on the street: when someone disappeared it was better not to think about it. They were probably dead or dying, in which case there was not much to do. In some cases, they’d got out. In that case you probably weren’t going to see them again. If they showed up again, great, you could take up where you left off.

He remembered the day he’d found Theo in the doorstep near the Blue Duck, where he always slept. Drake and Fiona had helped him out that night—they’d partied together and drank to try to forget about the sight of that pathetic almost child-like figure. He looked happier then than he ever had in life…As terrible as that time had been, Truit found himself missing it. He missed the blunt realities of the street and the genuine warmth of a pisshead and a prostitute. He knew how to navigate that world. Here, nothing that happened made any kind of sense to him.

After four weeks of this strange existence, Lily finished her Mandarin class and clapped her hands, delighted.

“You’re ready. The meeting is tomorrow.”