The Confessor

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The Confessor Page 5

by Mark Allen Smith


  He clicked ‘play’ and headed unsteadily toward the closet. He knew the tendrils in his brain would turn into lightning bolts and the thunder would send him reeling. He opened the door and stepped inside. The staccato crack of lead guitar poured out of the Bose cube speakers mounted on the walls. ‘Purple haze is in my brain . . .’ He pulled the door closed, lay down on his side in the darkness and pulled his knees up so he fit snugly against the walls. It would be any second now. ‘S’cuse me while I kiss the sky.’

  For a moment, the ancient, dull ache in his iliac crests and ankles yanked him back into his child’s mind, to the cabin’s closet his father had built for him – curled up on the floor, arms wrapped round the cassette player – and a voice came through the door. But it wasn’t Hendrix. It was rich and arctic. His father.

  ‘You go to sleep now, boy.’

  And then the storm hit – and Geiger reached out and grabbed hold of a golden rope of a guitar’s scream and held on with all his might.

  5

  Harry turned off the shower, and his left hand went to his groin and probed the flesh. The smooth surfaces triggered an exhale. The grape-sized bump he had assumed was cancer, that had taken four months to shrink to nothing, hadn’t come back. The fact that he still checked every day told him he expected it would – but, as with most things now, even his dread of fated calamities had lost some of its boil. His cell rang and he walked out and picked it up off the folding table. Only one person had his number.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  The voice on the line was measured, but there was a charge in it. ‘Something just came in an e-mail to the site. I need you to look at it.’

  ‘So send it. Use the program I installed last month. It’s secure.’

  ‘Doing it now. Harry, this is big – if it’s real.’

  Harry glanced at his laptop’s screensaver, the revolving series of Jackson Pollock paintings he’d used as a natural tranquilizer for a decade, and the laptop gave a ding.

  ‘I got it,’ he said, poking the mail icon with a fingertip; he squinted at its content – a few lines of text.

  ‘Scroll down to the photo.’

  Harry did so ‘Who are they?’

  Two men sat at a table filled with plates of delicacies and demitasses, smiling, hands raised in conversation. One was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and elegant beige slacks. The other man wore a masqati cap and a keffiyeh over an expensive suit, the classic modern meld of Middle Eastern and Western style, a snake of smoke from his cigarette frozen in the air.

  ‘The guy in short sleeves is the former US Assistant Secretary of State – who now owns a major chunk of Argent Industries International.’

  Harry nodded. ‘It’s good to be king, huh?’

  ‘The other guy is number two in the Afghan Ministry of Economic Development. Now there’s an oxymoron for you. Harry . . . there’s software that can tell if an image is real or fake – right?’

  Harry put his nose two inches from the laptop. ‘Yeah – but these days the fakes are so good you really need the pro stuff the spooks use.’

  ‘You have it?’

  ‘Yeah, but not here. It’s at my apartment in the Heights.’

  ‘Shit.’ A deep breath came through the phone, signaling contemplation of a difficult subject. ‘You’ve got to get it, Harry.’

  Harry shook his head at no one. ‘You know I can’t do that.’

  ‘I know you haven’t – but you could.’

  ‘C’mon, man. The deal was I’d help you with the tech end. I don’t remember anything about getting myself killed.’

  ‘You’re paranoid, Harry.’

  ‘I’m breathing, too.’

  There was a five-second, silent hole in the conversation.

  ‘You’re right, Harry. This is my work, not yours – so here’s what we’ll do: Let’s meet tomorrow, I’ll come to you, you give me the keys to your place in Brooklyn. I’ll go – by myself.’

  A scowl took up residence on Harry’s face. He burped. It burned, a come-to-life ember dead-center in his chest. Harry blew out a weary breath. With Geiger’s death and the end of their sordid, lucrative business, his conscience had slowly come out of hiding. He liked having it around again, but not at this particular moment – because he knew he’d be the one retrieving the disk. He was finally going home.

  ‘You’re a manipulative prick, y’know that?’

  ‘Harry, I’m not in this business to make friends. On the contrary. If I’m not making enemies then I’m not doing the job right – right?’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  Brooklyn Heights felt light years from Chinatown. Remsen Street was a narrow passage and held onto the late-March mist from the East River, muffling the few, scattered 3 a.m. noises that slipped out of brownstone windows. The streetlamps’ fan of light made the sidewalks chalky and shadows blacker. Coming down the street, eyes swiveling side to side, Harry’s heart had a heavyweight slugfest going on inside it – jabs of fear and counter-punches of anticipation. He felt a touch of fatalism. He was almost home.

  If, in fact, there was a ‘they’ after him, it was the same folks who hired Hall and company to retrieve the torture vids – and they would want him dead. One less loose end. And if they were here now they knew he was, too – and they’d wait till he was off the street, inside. Make a neat job of it. Then again, he was aware of his penchant for paranoia, and that it was quite possible all that life had in store was a future much like the present. Still, his hands stayed in his raincoat’s pockets so he could steady the Louisville Slugger concealed beneath it. He had three false front teeth and thirty stitches in his scalp – mementos from the Central Park mugging that had cast a stranger named Geiger as his savior twelve years ago – and he wasn’t going down without a fight ever again.

  The sight of his darkened, second-floor picture window slowed him. He could see Lily standing at it, her favorite post when they brought her from the home for weekend visits. Nose pressed to the glass, staring at the reflection of Manhattan’s skyline lying on the river’s surface, singing about the city she could see beneath the water. ‘Way down below the ocean . . . where I want to be . . .’ His anguish caught on the edge of his grief and made him wince. He needed a Pepcid – and a few bourbons to wash it down.

  He headed for his front door. He slid the baseball bat out as he neared the step-down recess off the sidewalk where the garbage bins were, peered into its shadows, and went up the stairs. He opened the door, gave the street a final look, and stepped inside. He unlocked the inside door and went to the first-floor apartment’s door. He leaned to it, heard nothing, and headed up the stairs. The old wood still moaned at every imposition. The bulb on the second floor was out and every step took him into thicker darkness. When he tried to fit the key in the lock of his door, his hand shook so it took three tries to open up and go inside.

  A musty odor came at him, he waved it away, locked the door and went to the drapes and drew them closed. He put the bat against a wall, took out a penlight and turned it on. A galaxy of dust fairies did a lazy jig in the shaft of light. His large dracaena had died a slow and lonely death, its withered leaves in the pot and on the floor. He lowered the beam, and discovered he was standing on a large maroon stain in the rug. Ray’s blood.

  The memory rushed at him – the last time he stood here: Hall in a chair, stunned at the gun in Harry’s hand . . . Lily lying where Ray had tossed her like a rag doll . . . the queasy, thrilling sensation of crushing bone as he smashed his Beretta into Ray’s smirk . . .

  He pulled out the desk’s center drawer and trained the light, picked out a jewel case labeled ‘Video Verify’ and slid it in his pocket. He had given himself a talking-to before coming here – get in and out. This was no longer home-sweet-home. That life was gone.

  His stomach sent a corrosive comment via his esophagus and he patted his pockets for a remedy, then headed down the hall to the bathroom. He turned on the light and met his face in the mirror. The gray-specked beard
still surprised him. He opened the cabinet and the annoying squeak of the hinges brought a grin. No amount of WD-40 ever silenced it. He found some Pepcid Complete on a shelf. The expiration date was six months ago.

  ‘Close enough,’ he said, shook out three tablets and tossed them in his mouth. He swung the cabinet door closed – and heard its squeak continue for a second, like a faint, tardy echo that defied the laws of physics . . . and realized someone was on the hall steps. He flicked the light off and stepped into the dark hall. All he heard was his own fear-drenched breathing. He turned on the penlight, moved to the living room and pressed an ear to the door. Maybe the old cellist on the third floor was getting home uncharacteristically late. He glanced up at the ceiling and waited – a penitent hoping for a sign from above – but there were no footsteps. They’d seen him come in, and now somebody or bodies stood out there, almost certainly on an errand of erasure, unquestionably proficient at the task.

  They had only one way in – through the door – either picking the lock or putting a heavy shoulder or foot to it. Or, they might bide their time and make their move when he opened the door to leave. There was a fire escape outside his bedroom, but he’d put a steel gate on the window years ago and God knows where the key was – and then, Harry thought of Geiger, and saw it all clearly. It hit him head-on, like a punch in the eye.

  Geiger’s rule number one, in the work, in life, had always been Never let the outside inside – until he learned it was utter folly, and that cold truth had gotten him killed. But Harry had forgotten the lesson . . . and become a ridiculous man, a turtle of a man – crawling around in a tiny circle, ducking his head back inside his shell at every noise and tremor, as if the world wouldn’t notice him if he couldn’t see it.

  He grabbed the bat and faced the door. If someone was out there, it didn’t matter what side of it he was on. He figured he might have an advantage – a half-second’s worth of surprise. He wouldn’t go left, where the stairs met the landing three yards away. He’d go straight out the door, take a single stride, grab the railing with his left hand and vault over it, and land halfway down the staircase. He played a movie of it in his head – and it looked doable. Whether he’d break an ankle was a question he decided not to address.

  He took hold of the knob, blew out a deep breath to cleanse as much roiling stress as he could – then turned the cold brass and flung the door back . . .

  He sensed a moving force – shapeless, black – a tenth of a second before it hit him. Strong hands grabbing his arms, yanking him around, pushing him up against the wall and pinning him there, face-first. He was squirming madly, trying to twist free.

  ‘Stop,’ said the enemy.

  ‘Fuck you!’

  The hands shoved him harder against the wall, knocking the air and resolve out of him, and even with thick fear crushing his senses, he had time to feel incredibly stupid.

  ‘Calm down,’ said the voice in the familiar, singular, velvet tone. ‘It’s me.’

  It’s . . . me. Two syllables hit him a thousand times harder than the wall. The hands released him, and he heard the door close. He was holding his breath, while attempting the magic trick of turning absurdity into truth. He turned. The figure was a black imprint on the darkness of the room. Harry reached up and flicked on the light switch.

  Geiger was dressed in black, and his physical transformation – the severe haircut and beard – added to Harry’s state of shock.

  ‘Hello, Harry.’

  The best Harry could do, in a flat, stoned-out voice, was state the obvious.

  ‘. . . You’re . . . alive.’

  ‘Yes. I’m—’

  Harry took a step and threw his arms around him in a hug. Geiger tensed, hands flicking to life at his sides. Then, slowly, they rose and came to rest on Harry’s back.

  ‘All right, Harry. All right,’ he said. He grasped him by the shoulders, put him at arms’ length, and then let go.

  Harry watched the unblinking stare. It was unchanged. Fathomless, placid, but intent. Without feeling, but not unkind. A flesh and blood sphinx.

  ‘You don’t look well, Harry.’

  A sharp, short bark of a laugh came out of Harry.

  ‘Y’think?’ he said. Geiger was back from the dead – but the edges of everything still glowed with an aura of fantasy. Harry’s grief was dug in deep. It wouldn’t surrender its territory easily. ‘I have to sit down, man,’ he said. He went to his favorite chair and lowered himself into it, head wagging slowly like a Parkinson’s victim. His pulse thudded in every cell. ‘Sorry. This is tough. I just need to let this settle in.’

  He watched Geiger come and sit on the sofa, and noticed a subtle new hitch to his gait. They stared at each other. Harry was used to talking to ghosts, but this was different.

  ‘Jesus . . . We look like the fucking Smith Brothers.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Smith Brothers. Y’know – the two guys with the beards? The cough drops?’

  ‘I don’t use cough drops.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  Geiger turned his head to the right. Click. ‘Did Lily come back to shore, Harry?’

  ‘No. Lily’s gone.’ Harry felt a surge of melancholy coming on, and tried to head it off. He stood up. ‘I need a glass of water. You want some?’

  Geiger shook his head. Harry pushed himself out of the chair and went into the kitchen. He got a glass from a cabinet.

  ‘Can I ask you some questions?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened – after the river?’

  ‘I swam to shore, hid out, and got back to the city. The details aren’t important.’

  Harry turned on the faucet. The water had a tint of brown, so he let it run. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Here. In Brooklyn.’

  ‘Yeah? Since how long?’

  ‘Since the end of July. Three weeks after the incident.’

  Harry shut the faucet. Some new emotion bubbled up in him, expanding. There was only so much room in him before he popped. He walked back into the living room.

  ‘You’ve been here for eight months – and you didn’t let me know?’

  ‘Harry . . .’

  ‘What the hell is that? I mean – maybe you don’t understand the concept of grief – but Jesus Christ, Geiger . . . I’ve been a fucking—’

  ‘Stop.’ The soft command might as well have been shouted by a staff sergeant. ‘Harry . . . You shut down the website. You changed your cell number. How was I supposed to contact you?’

  Chagrin rushed into Harry’s stew of feelings. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry . . . I can barely think straight.’ He was uncertain of his balance, and put a hand on the chair. ‘Jesus . . . what’re the odds of you coming here tonight? I haven’t been here since July.’

  ‘I’ve been standing in the shadows across the street three or four nights a week for six months, waiting for you to come home.’

  ‘. . . You have?’

  Harry felt the tears about to bloom, and his hand sprung to his eyes and he rubbed them with thumb and forefinger in a counterfeit display of weariness. When he was reasonably sure he wouldn’t weep he stopped, and smiled warmly.

  ‘Thanks, man.’

  ‘Don’t hug me again, Harry. No more hugging.’

  Geiger’s classic deadpan made Harry’s smile stretch across his face.

  ‘Gotcha.’ Harry definitely had to sit back down, and did. ‘Does Corley know?’

  ‘No.’

  Harry remembered the unhhh of the psychiatrist’s breath catching when he’d told him Geiger was dead . . . and then the terrible silence. Later, for months he’d thought of getting in touch but was too worried someone might be watching Corley’s apartment, or tapping his line, or hacking his e-mails. Geiger probably felt the same way. Poor Martin.

  ‘Geiger . . . Ezra lives in the city now.’

  Geiger’s fingers fluttered to life in his lap. ‘. . . Where?’

  ‘In Matheson’s brownstone on Seventy-fift
h. I have his cell, e-mail. You can—’

  ‘No, Harry.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell him?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘But the kid’s having a really bad time, Geiger. He sees Corley three times a week – about you.’

  ‘I wasn’t meant to be part of his life, Harry – and I shouldn’t be. And he’ll be safer not knowing. Martin will get him through.’

  ‘But he needs—’

  ‘Ezra will be better off forgetting about me, Harry. And over time, he will.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Harry . . . I know what works best for me.’

  Harry wanted to push back, but he knew he’d hit solid rock. ‘What works best for me’ meant This conversation is over. I have no need to be understood. So Harry nodded, and sank back into the chair.

  ‘Do you know the Cairo videos went viral? Internet . . . TV.’

  Geiger nodded. The cool, thoughtful torturer in the videos had made a strong impression on the world, depending on the audience. Villain, madman, patriot. Terrifying, repellent, heroic.

  ‘Harry . . . Are you working?’

  ‘Not really. But I’m sort of the unofficial computer guy for Veritas Arcana.’

  ‘You’re working with Matheson?’

  ‘I help out here and there. Tech stuff. It felt like the right thing to do.’ He grinned sadly. ‘Penance for my past sins.’

  ‘Do you want a job, Harry?’

  ‘A job?’

  Echoes of the past chilled Harry. He could see Geiger waiting on the sidewalk outside of The Times Building twelve years ago. ‘I am going into a new line of work, Harry,’ he had said. ‘Illegal. I need a partner.’ Geiger had barely known Harry, but had offered him his trust with a paramount aspect of his life . . . and Harry had said yes. The strangest of pairs – alone, together.

 

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