Delirium (Debt Collector 1) Read online

  “Lirium.” I have no intention of calling Whitby “Tom.” I don’t get friendly with payoffs.

  “Lirium,” she repeats back with a purr in her voice. She gives me a knowing look. I’m sure she has collectors come through the office all the time. I’m beginning to suspect she’s angling for an illegal hit from me, something I may not be entirely averse to, when she gives my arm a gentle squeeze then releases it. She sweeps open Whitby’s door and holds back while I stride through.

  He’s on a call, talking to the screen on his desk. My boots don’t make a sound as I cross the lush carpeting. A wide expanse of glass covers half the walls and captures my stare. We’re well above the smog, and the world is different here. I can see the ocean, white-peaked waves drawing lines that crawl across the surface. The sky stretches from hazy white to a blue so brilliant I’m afraid it will hurt my eyes if I stare too long.

  “Ah, good!” Whitby says, waving a hand to terminate his call. “You’re here.”

  He comes around his glass desk, which seems to float in the air. I’m sure there’s something holding it up, unless the high-potential engineers developed maglev desks while I wasn’t paying attention. Before I can sneak a peek underneath, Whitby shakes my hand like I’m his long lost brother.

  “Your timing is impeccable!” His teeth are perfectly straight, except for one, slightly higher than the rest, a flaw that bothers me for some reason. His face is serious, but his slate gray eyes are alive and sparkling in a way that can’t be faked. Whitby is getting hits on a regular basis.

  “I have a meeting with the board of directors in about a half hour,” he says. “I’m pitching a new concept for a vaccination against pituitary cancer, and we’re at the critical funding stage. I need to be on top of my game.” His earnest look is somehow infectious. The high potentials tend to be that way—excited, fervent, with nearly supernatural powers of persuasion. Their enthusiasm quickly infuses into you, convincing you that they’re on a critical mission to save mankind. They’re damn hard to resist. I’d give him money out of my pocket right now, if I had any. But I have something better instead.

  “That’s why I’m here,” I say. I think Mr. Henry would be glad to know his debt is going to help fund cancer research, given that’s what burdened him in the first place.

  Whitby nods quickly and glances at an incoming call on his screen. “Do you mind if we…” He gestures between us, indicating he wants the hit now, so he can get back to his busy life. It rubs me the wrong way.

  I ignore him, turn over my palm, and bring up the recorder. I pretend to fuss with the settings and enter some data for a moment, just to make him wait. Then I start the recorder and hold my palm up to him.

  “I need to record your acceptance of the transfer, Mr. Whitby,” I say for the record.

  “Yes, yes, of course. I accept.” Technically, we’re supposed to record an acceptance acknowledgement with every transfer. In practice, repeat payoffs like Whitby have an acceptance on file and only have to renew it once a month.

  “This transfer of biogenic debt-sourced life energy,” I intone in my most make-the-bean-counters-proud voice, “will result in temporarily enhanced heart rate, mental acuity, physical sense ability, and sensitivity to the environment.” Only the bean counters could make getting high on life energy sound so dull. “Longer term effects include sustained health benefits such as enhanced immune function and slower metabolic stasis rate.” Meaning payoffs live longer than the rest of us. “Adverse reactions occur in less than 1.5% of patients, but receiving the transfer carries a risk of fever, autoimmune disease, muscle tremors, and in rare cases, cardiac failure. Receiving the transfer is counter-indicated for patients with underlying heart disease. If you experience any of these symptoms, you should contact your physician promptly. Do you understand these precautions, sir?”

  “Yes,” Whitby says to my palm recorder. His sunny, tolerant smile begins to fade. He knows I’m stretching this out. I’m enjoying his frustration, but I don’t want him to report me as being difficult to work with, so I skip ahead.

  “There are no clinically significant pharmacokinetic drug interactions but patients are advised to avoid recreational or prescription drugs or alcohol for twenty-four hours after the transfer.” I’d never had a payoff go code blue on me, but it does happen. Usually to people who were using and abusing before they got approved for the hit, but somehow passed or faked the drug test. “Have you taken any recreational or prescription drugs in the last twenty-four hours, sir?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Please indicate that you’ve received these instructions, understand, and accept them.”

  “I accept.” His impatience tempers a little, now that he knows I’m not going to delay any longer. I tap my palm to stop the recording, then look up at him. He’s a good three inches taller than me, and substantially older than my twenty years, but all the hits have erased any sign of aging. He’ll probably outlive me by fifty years, maybe more.

  I quickly press my right palm flat against his forehead, catching him off guard. His eyes go wide with concern, and I try not to smile. But then the transfer starts, and it kills any desire in me to smile. Ever again.

  The transfer to a payoff is like the high in reverse. It’s a black abyss of despair that pulls on me deep inside. The life is literally being sucked out of me. My palm grows cold, my fingers curl into a cramp that makes them dig into Whitby’s perfectly combed not-a-speck-of-gray hair. It’s a good thing, because every part of me wants to pull back and run screaming from the room. I clench my other fist, locking it in place, resisting the urge to hit Whitby. It seems like an endless gut-wrenching time but in reality only lasts a few seconds. I timed it once.

  I make sure to yank my hand free before the last ten percent of Mr. Henry’s debt is sucked out of me. That’s my cut, and I’ve earned it.

  Whitby is grinning like he’s won the lotto, and I suppose he has. He bounces on his toes, full of energy. He shakes my hand again, fervently, thanking me like he means it, and I’m sure he does. His flawless, unwrinkled skin glows a little more. His eyes reflect the bright sun streaming through his high-above-the-smog windows. He’s fresh off the hit, and he’ll feel it for hours, plenty of time for his board meeting. Another win for cancer research.

  My hand sneaks to grip my stomach. It aches like I haven’t eaten for three days. Sickness is rising in the back of my throat, and I know I need to make a quick exit, or I’ll lose my breakfast all over Whitby’s spotless white carpet. In spite of how I feel at the moment, I know this part will pass soon enough. I just need to get out of Whitby’s office—if I make a mess, I might lose the right to keep coming back for more. And the hits are something I need more than anything else on the planet, so I’m not screwing with it.

  I turn and stride purposely out of my payoff’s immaculate office, hoping to get home before the shakes set in.

  The shakes have mostly settled out, but I still take care not to spill as I fill all three shot glasses with pure Polish wódka, neat. The bottle wasn’t expensive, but it’s a step up from the stuff at the local liquor stop, which is only one shade away from rubbing alcohol and almost as deadly. Moe, Larry, and Curly stare at me from the glasses, their faces fixed forever in an approving smirk, a disgusted frown, and a wide-eyed dumbfounded look of shock, respectively. All three are apt reactions to my life, my profession, and the ritual the four of us are engaging in once again.

  “Hello boys.” I salute them. “Made it home without losing my breakfast.” They’re still judging me with their looks, so I pick up Larry’s shot, throw it back, and slam it down, his look of frozen disgust turned away. The vodka burns, and I cough even though I expect it. The ten percent still buzzes inside me, and I know the life force is kicking against the alcoholic onslaught carving a liquid path of happy through my system.

  I’ve already placed my order with Madam Anastazja for one of her high-end sex workers who cater to collectors. No familiar faces, I added online
this time. It’s easier to get lost in a girl when I don’t know her face, yet. Lost is where I need to be right now, and I have just the recipe to get there. Wait till the nausea passes. Get a hot shower and a change of clothes. Stow my trenchcoat in the closet by the door until I need to dress the part of Death again. Do three shots with the boys to get me started, then spend an hour of tangled limbs and ecstasy in the sheets with the girl. Finally, split the rest of the bottle until we’re both so stupid drunk we don’t remember any of it.

  It’s my routine, it makes me forget the spook and the fresh black mark on my soul, and I don’t mess with it. The next day, I’m back to normal, on the sort of even-keel that gets me through the day and the night and the day after that. Until I collect again.

  Plus it saves me from drinking the entire bottle alone.

  I placed my order a half-hour ago, so the girl will be here soon. I pick up Curly’s shot and down it, the burn already less, the smooth slide down my throat a great counterpoint to Curly’s look of shock. I place his shot glass upside down next to Larry’s.

  “Don’t be shocked, old man,” I say as I turn him to face away. “Even in your day, getting drunk and getting laid were time-honored ways of forgetting.”

  Shit. I’m talking to myself already.

  I usually save Moe and his self-satisfied smirk for when the girl arrives, but I might need a double shot of Moe today, so I throw it back. Just as I’m refilling the glass, the front door tone sounds. I make a split-second decision to leave the glass full, hoping I’m not jinxing the whole thing, and launch off the couch to get to the door before she has to ring again.

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand before I open it, hoping I’m not already to the slobbering drunk stage. Anastazja’s girls are first-rate: they’re all here for the hit of life energy at the end, so they would probably nurse me through a bender, if necessary. But that’s not how I want this to go. It would snarl up my ritual.

  My psych officer at the Agency would say I’m self-medicating and ritualizing. And she would be right. But at least I’m still here, still alive, and still collecting. And not crazy.

  Except for that talking to yourself part.

  I punch the button to open the door, and it slides to reveal the girl, standing in the hallway of my overcrowded apartment complex. She’s wearing a slick red-vinyl trenchcoat and red heels that make her six inches taller. I’m instantly wondering what’s under the coat, hoping for a minimal amount of anything, and forgetting my manners.

  I blink. “Please, come in,” I say, like an idiot. Not that politeness is wasted on sex workers—it’s definitely not—but because I sound like I’m about fifteen and have never done this before.

  She smiles too hard, like she’s not quite sure how much to dole out, then teeters past me into my tiny apartment. The scent of apples drifts past my nose as she walks by. Not the sickly sweet perfume that some of the girls wear—I think Anastazja gets a discount by the crate-full—or the heavy vanilla-and-sex scent that some of the more practiced girls wear. Apples. What sex worker wears apple perfume?

  I decide I’m more drunk than I thought.

  I close the door and follow her in. She’s already surveying the sparse contents of my flat. The worn leather couch. Curly and Larry down and Moe queued up on the low wooden table. The kitchen that’s barely more than a cold box built into the wall and a hot plate on the counter. And the doorway with no door to the bedroom, where my queen-sized bed fills half the room and where I’ll be spending most of the next hour with apple perfume girl.

  She turns to me, and doesn’t say a word, just smiles uncertainly and looks me over with her big, brown eyes. Her skin is pale but flushed, like she’s hiked the four flights to my flat instead of taking the elevator. She’s pretty in a clean-scrubbed way that makes me a little weak in the knees. The vodka reminds me of its presence by igniting a small fire low in my belly. The girl takes a half-step closer, and her hands are working at the clasps for her slicker. They’re some kind of metal, oversized and bulky, making her look all locked up—which only turns the fire into a blaze that courses through my body in waves. Her eyes are deep chocolate brown and seem to be getting wider by the second; I’m already getting lost in them. I give a small prayer of thanks to Anastazja, but when I drag my gaze away from her eyes, I see she’s having a hard time getting the top clasp undone. Her hands are shaking.

  I smile a little. “You’re new at this, aren’t you?”

  She gets a panicked look on her face. “No! I’m… I’m here to have sex with you.” Her fingers trip over themselves trying to undo the buckle.

  I can’t help grinning. “That’s… the general idea.” When I wrote No familiar faces, I should have been more specific and noted No rank amateurs either, please. What is Anastazja doing, sending this girl to me? Then I want to smack my forehead as I realize what’s going on.

  “Hey,” I say softly, laying a hand across hers to still them. “It’s okay. You don’t have to take that off right this moment.” Anastazja’s girls are usually such pros, I forget some of them get nervous around collectors. They all want the hit or they wouldn’t work for Anastazja in the first place, but wanting it and being face-to-face with a collector who could drain the life out of you with a simple touch are two different things.

  Her shoulders drop, and she lets her hands fall from the clasps and away from my touch.

  “I’m a collector,” I say, gently fixing the clasp so it’s fully closed and not half-open the way she left it. “You’d be a pretty strange person if that didn’t freak you out a little. But I’m not going to hurt you.” I’m closer to her now, and I can smell the apples again. I let one hand fall safely away, but I brush her hair back from her face with the other, releasing another wave of the scent. It’s in her shampoo, I think.

  “And you’re not pretty strange, just pretty.” I give her a small smile, and she is—her skin is almost translucent, and her cheeks curve up, leaving hollows for her blush. She may be new, but she’s clearly one of Anastazja’s girls. They all start out pretty to begin with, then get even better with all the life hits they earn in their trade. When I give her the hit, it will make her eyes shine brighter, her skin glow even more vibrant, and her body come alive with all those heightened sensitivities the warning label carries. The hit is just part of her payment—the rest gets deducted from my debit account—but it’s an aphrodisiac for both of us.

  She tries to smile back, but it’s forced.

  I pull my hand from her hair and brush the soft skin of her cheek as I go. “See? Not so scary.” I smile more strongly. “How about if I give you the hit first? It will help you relax, make it more fun.”

  But instead of relaxing, she bunches up her shoulders again.

  “It will be fun for both us,” I try again. “I promise.” The softness of her skin and the apple thing are starting to drive me a little crazy. I reach for her forehead, thinking if I can just get things started, she’ll start to feel it too, and it will all be good—

  She leans back and smacks my hand away.

  I frown and stare at my hand. What am I missing here? Usually the hit is the thing they want most… I look back to her. My face is probably a parody of Curly’s wide-eyed dumfounded look of shock. I’m starting to think I’ve already gone into the bender and this is some kind of highly realistic but frustrating dream.

  “I’ll have sex with you,” she repeats, “but I don’t want the hit. I want you to give it to someone else.”

  Shit. Everything suddenly becomes clear, even through the alcohol-induced fuzz around my brain. She’s not after the hit, she’s after me. My face morphs into Larry’s disgusted frown in a heartbeat.

  “Get out,” I say, low and angry.

  She looks as if my words just smacked her in the face, which is almost comical.

  Some people think they can lure debt collectors into a back alley and force them to do a transfer, either by sucking the life out of someone or transferring it into someone else
; sometimes both. But the truth is you can’t force a collector to collect—it’s the kind of thing that only works when the collector is relaxed. It’s not a secret. In fact, it’s common knowledge, plastered all over every PSA announcement about debt collectors and drilled into us in training. But not everyone believes it and some are stupid enough to try anyway. They put a gun to a collector’s head, thinking they’ll motivate that collector to do whatever they want, but it doesn’t work. It’s like trying to pee when someone’s watching: a whole lotta nothing happens. Which usually means the collector ends up dead. Or tortured until dead. Or mutilated and left for dead. The possibilities are many and unpleasant, and I’m doing none of them with Apple Girl.

  I take a step back, my disgust getting deeper. “Get out before I call the police.” I’d hate to do that to Anastazja, but she sent me a collector hunter, and she has to screen better than that if she wants to stay in business.

  “No, wait, please,” the girl says, her big brown eyes doing a great job of looking genuinely scared and worried. Maybe the mob family she works for will hurt her when she returns empty-handed, but that’s not my concern. She’s nothing but bait that will get me killed.

  “I’m counting to three, then I’m calling the police,” I say. Actually, I’ll count to three and throw her out. Then think about finding a new place to live. Collector’s addresses are kept off the grid for a reason.

  “Please, I’m begging you!” She grips my arm, dropping awkwardly to one knee on the floor, her ankles twisting in her ridiculous shoes. Her fingernails are short and unpolished. This, plus her gracelessness above the six-inch heels bothers me, but I don’t know why.

  “I need the hit for my sister,” she says. “My baby sister, she’s dying, and she needs it. Please just hear me out, let me explain…”

  I pull out of her grasp, and she goes down completely, her hands smacking against the polished wood floor. A cracking sound comes from her feet, and part of me cringes, hoping it’s her shoe and not her ankle.