‘Geiger . . . If you—’
‘You need to stop talking.’ Geiger turned his neck till he got the click. ‘You are working from a scenario built on comparative thinking – one that assumes I will react in ways that most others in this kind of scenario do. If I say “No”, you will increase the offer of financial reward . . . you’ll consider introducing elements of patriotism, acting for a noble cause . . . you’ll also consider threats, and blackmail . . .’ His head slued back to the right. Click. ‘But, for various reasons, I do not fit the profile of most others, and because of that, I am irrelevant to the scenario. That’s what you need to understand.’
A bus was coming up from the east beneath the tracks. The driver gave the horn three sharp jabs as it neared and they moved away. Zanni followed Geiger until he stopped beside a massive steel stanchion.
‘What is relevant,’ he said, ‘is that I don’t work in IR anymore. You need to tell your bosses that, and tell them nothing will change that.’
Zanni watched his tunnel eyes. She was looking for something behind his stare, but he was either a master of concealment . . . or empty inside. Still – the fact was that last summer he’d run off the tracks. Three pros had been sent to deal with him and were dead. Dalton had been brought in for interrog and ended up crippled. And now she was suddenly aware how little traffic there was in Gravesend this time of night, and that Geiger, by chance or design, had led her into the stanchion’s wide, black pillar of shadow.
‘When you return to your office, Soames, access my file. I’m sure there is a category for “Status”. Delete whatever is there and put in “Permanently unavailable”.
Geiger leaned in closer. She held her ground, but wasn’t happy with how much of her focus she was using to keep her adrenaline in check.
‘Rosanna . . . I’m sure you’ve done your due diligence . . . and you know as much about me as there is to know. You know that they sent Hall and two others out for me . . . and that they’re all dead – and you’ve wondered about that.’
Zanni had the uneasy sense that he was one step ahead of her in every aspect of things – action, feeling, thought – and it made her furious.
‘I do not want to be asked again. I do not want to take this to another level. Do you understand, Rosanna?’
‘I understand,’ she said.
Geiger’s hands started to come up from his sides – and sinew and joints immediately tightened in Zanni, training and instinct and adrenaline kicking in as one – as she watched his fingers find his earbuds and put them back in place. His right brow rose imperceptibly, just enough to let her know he’d seen all the way in, through the lie of her placid exterior to her moment of alarm. Zanni tamped down a hot simmer. She didn’t like being read. What had been her tell? A flare in her irises? Nostrils? Lips?
‘Goodbye,’ said Geiger. He started off in an easy jog.
Zanni studied his odd grace, his constant adjustments to damage and gravity. She knew what Dalton had done to him, had heard him say it in his own words, and one quote stayed with her: ‘It wasn’t that he didn’t feel pain. He did. I just don’t think that it hurt.’
Geiger leaned against the running path’s railing, hands wrapping round the cold steel. The water’s face on Gravesend Bay was pocked by a million drops of rain.
Most things had singular meanings to Geiger. It was a stripped-down response mode Corley called ‘essential perspective’ – experiencing and defining things in the most basic terms and relevance to one’s existence. Food was sustenance – pleasure, taste and variety were not part of the equation. Clothing was utile – style, tailoring and color had, if any, minor significance. Housing meant simple shelter and separation – an inside independent of the outside – and now that had changed. The facts of how they’d found him were unimportant. They knew where he was.
Lights twinkled on the other side of the bay – white, pale yellow, paler blue – and snakes of smoke and heat trails rose from buildings and chimneys, wooed by a heavenly charmer. A woman sang, very softly, a feathery lilt, without accompaniment. ‘You are the sunshine of my life . . .’ Geiger’s hands rose to push the earbuds in more snugly – until he realized they hung loose at his sides.
‘Go on, Soames,’ said Bowe.
Her boss already had his ‘I won’t like the news’ look on, and Zanni was certain the other three of the crew sitting behind her wore the same expression.
She shifted in her chair. The strobe ache from her encounter with the wall last night had kicked in hours ago, from her knees to her collarbone. She wore a long-sleeved pullover to hide the swelling in her wrists. She had a straight-A record, but the alphas were always waiting for her to fall on her perfect butt. Boys will be boys . . . and assholes. Her career meant doing two jobs for one salary – being an agent twenty-four seven, and spending the rest of her time proving that possessing a clitoris was not a sign of weakness . . . or as she had put it more than once: Having a vagina doesn’t mean you’re a pussy.
‘I walked up to him on the street and identified myself. He didn’t seem surprised. I told him we wanted to bring him back in – that there were no hard feelings. He said no. And that was that. It didn’t last more than two minutes.’
She’d spent the flight back and half the night going over the episode – how Geiger had played her, reeled her in – and how he’d seen her inner flinch. It wasn’t like her – at all. She saw the unbothered ash eyes, heard the smooth-as-ice voice in her ear . . .
‘So – no chance?’ said Bowe.
As he often did, Bowe framed the words in the form of a question when it was actually a conclusion he was clearly displeased with.
‘I believe that’s right, sir. No chance.’
‘His exact words were . . . ?’
‘His exact words were – “I don’t work in IR anymore. You need to tell your bosses that, and tell them nothing will change that.”’
‘His demeanor?’
‘Demeanor? Geiger’s hard to describe, sir.’
‘So I’ve heard. Try.’
‘Cool. Unaffected. Kind of . . . disconnected.’
The man’s forefinger did five staccato taps on the desk, and then he leaned back in his chair. She could hear the others shift in their seats.
‘So . . . for the record,’ said Bowe. ‘Your conclusion is that further overtures will be pointless?’
There it was again – statement as query. The sideways approach of it irritated the hell out of her.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Not good, people.’ Bowe suddenly slammed his palm on the desk. ‘Has anyone noticed lately that enhanced interrogation has taken a little dip in the fucking polls?!’
He swiveled in his chair until he faced the wide window and starless night. Zanni was relieved. The maneuver always meant a meeting was close to an end.
‘This division cannot function without highly skilled interrogators, professionals who aren’t going to fuck up and put us on Veritas Arcana every month – and we’re seriously short-handed. Dalton has disappeared, we don’t know where he is. Geiger says he’s out of the game. The guys we have coming off the bench – I don’t love them.’
Zanni’s jaw tightened. Another sports metaphor. Why did they do that?
‘Soames . . . Now that Geiger knows we’ve found him, you think he’ll go off the grid?’
‘I think it would be foolish for anyone in this room to guess what Geiger might or might not do.’ She hoped that would keep the rest of them quiet. She wanted to go home.
‘Sir . . .’ came from behind her. McCormack. He subscribed to the ‘last heard, first remembered’ school, often waiting until he sensed he might have the final comment. Its content was of secondary importance. Its placement was what he thought had value.
‘Go on, Mac.’
‘The Russians said Vasillich did a decent job for them last month.’
‘He’s too green for us.’ Bowe stood up and stepped to the window. ‘I want you all thinking about leverage – way
s to get Geiger back in. Starting now. I don’t want to wait until we need him yesterday. Good night, people.’
Zanni stood up. ‘Good night, sir.’
‘Soames . . .’
She did her best to bury a sigh. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘You’re taking next week off?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Enjoy yourself.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
She headed out and down the hall. A drink was going to do wonders. She punched the elevator button – but the transport was in an uncooperative mood, and McCormack arrived before it did.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey.’
The elevator’s down button was already lit up, but he pressed it a few times. She bit her tongue.
McCormack smiled. ‘So you just walked up and introduced yourself . . .’
‘Yeah.’
‘And the infamous Inquisitor said what?’
‘“Who do you work for?”’
‘That’s it?’ He reached out and punched the button again, twice.
‘Mac . . . It doesn’t come any faster if you keep pushing it.’
‘Habit. So where you going on vacation?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Relax – just asking.’
‘Meeting some family. Big, big fun.’
‘Get a drink?’
‘No.’
‘C’mon . . . We’ll kick back.’
‘No.’
‘How come?’
Zanni took an even breath. It hurt. ‘Mac . . . Twice was enough. I’m not crazy about the way you kiss – and you don’t last long enough for me.’
McCormack took a step back, but she didn’t think he was aware of doing so.
‘Jeez, Zanni. Wow . . . Pretty fucking cold.’
‘I guess, yeah.’
The elevator came and she stepped inside. McCormack didn’t.
‘Sorry, Mac,’ she said, and shrugged as the door closed.
9
The clink and clack of silverware and plates, the waitresses’ barked orders, the farrago of conversing voices . . . It was all a splendid symphony to Harry. He had called Geiger about having a meal, then found a diner a few blocks from Prospect Park – busy enough that two faces would be undistinguished but not so crowded they might have had to stand around and wait for seats. His cheddar omelet was not the equal of their old place on Columbus, but the bacon was crisp and hot, and the coffee had body.
He watched Geiger’s eyes move across a line of print on the Op-Ed page of the Times. That had always been the ritual. Harry would get his usual – and Geiger, black coffee. Harry would bring the paper and start with the arts sections, because Geiger only read the letters to the editor. Harry would do almost all the talking – about the work, the turnings of the planet, the remarkable, ridiculous acts of the people on it – and Geiger would respond with an olio of ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘I see’. It had taken Harry a long time to understand the man was neither aloof nor uninterested – and that his presence was, in fact, proof of some inexpressible form of commitment. They were a child god’s playroom creation – ill-formed clumps of clay, randomly mushed together, that had solidified into a single entity over time. Two hearts, two minds, a shared need.
‘Still just read the letters to the editor?’
‘I haven’t read a newspaper since our last breakfast,’ said Geiger.
Harry nodded. ‘And we went over my dossier for the Matheson job. Who knew, huh?’
Geiger looked up. ‘Who knew what, Harry?’
Harry sighed. ‘Never mind. Figure of speech.’
Geiger had read Harry’s research that day, and decided to take the job. Ten hours later, Hall had shown up with Ezra instead of his father – Geiger had knocked Hall out and taken Ezra away – and the back door of the universe was blown off its hinges . . .
Geiger picked up his coffee cup and held it before his lips in both hands with his fingertips, as was his custom.
‘They found me,’ he said.
‘They.’ Harry said it like the name of someone they both used to know. His tremors of surprise were minimal. ‘Fuck. How?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, I made sure no one followed me when I came here.’
‘What’re you going to do? Disappear?’
‘I haven’t decided yet.’ Geiger took a measured sip. ‘They wanted me for a job. They’ll be back. It may come down to how many times they’ll take no for an answer.’
‘Before what? Before they find a way to make you say yes?’
‘That won’t happen, Harry. I told you. I’m done. For good.’
Harry tapped the fork’s tines on the plate’s edge a few times.
‘Geiger . . . If you leave, I want you to—’
‘There’s no reason to discuss it now.’
Harry started making a circular sculpture of the remains of his home fries with his fork. Nothing seemed to possess a dimension of length anymore. A life, a doctrine, a relationship, a conviction. The assumption of a thing’s continuance was foolhardy.
‘Listen, Geiger . . . I’m going out of the country for a while. For a week, maybe. Leaving tonight – with Matheson. Veritas Arcana stuff. We got an e-mail with—’
‘Harry, I don’t need to know what it is.’ Geiger took another sip, then put his cup down. ‘You said “We”.’
‘Huh?’
‘You said, “We got an e-mail . . . ”’
‘Did I?’ Harry broke off a small chunk of bacon and popped it in his mouth. ‘Guess I’m kind of jazzed. Feels like the old days.’
‘When you were a reporter.’
‘Yeah. Haven’t felt like this in a long time. Matter of fact . . . I think you coming back from the dead has something to do with it.’ Harry took a swig of coffee. ‘Listen . . . this trip . . . Hard to tell what it might be like.’
‘You mean dangerous. A setup.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Then why are you going, Harry?’
When Harry’s blue smile came out, Geiger was waiting for it. It was the emblem of his bedrock sadness, the thing always hovering about him like cobwebs in an attic. Harry reached down to the seat and then put an eight-by-ten manila envelope on the table.
‘If anything happens to me. The keys to the apartment and my safety deposit box, copies of the title to the apartment, names and instructions on what to do with it all. Just in case.’
Geiger opened the folder, pulled out a few papers, put them down before him and stared at the top sheet. It had a few typed paragraphs on it. His fingertips began a syncopated roll on the sides of his cup. He looked up at Harry.
‘Who is Christine Reynaud?’
Harry felt as if he was watching a DVD from one of Geiger’s sessions. The unchanging stare, the calibrated cadence in the question. The utter stillness of the man.
‘We don’t have to go into it now.’
‘If you might not come back, then I think we do.’
Harry sat back. ‘Remember the first time we sat and talked? The bar on Broadway?’
‘Yes.’
‘I had a hundred Wild Turkeys and told you my life story.’
‘Some of it, Harry. Not all of it.’
Harry sighed. ‘Right.’
Geiger’s fingers finished their dance and settled on the tabletop. ‘You told me about growing up, being a reporter at the Times . . .’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Then you talked about your drinking, your demotion to the Obituaries. But you didn’t talk about what happened in between. All you said was – “You know that sensation . . . when you feel like you’ve hit bottom, and you realize you’re right where you belong?”’
Harry grinned – but there was nothing funny about it. His stomach started up like a clothes washer. He patted his pockets for a Pepcid but found none, and took a long slug of water to try and pre-empt the acid’s ascent – but he had no strategy for fending off the vision. As is so often the case, the gods had decided to dabb
le in mayhem on a most ordinary day . . .
He had been at his desk in the old Times Building when she’d called. After a moment checking the elevators’ status he’d raced down eleven flights, five steps at a leap. The traffic in Times Square was a fused chunk of honking steel and rubber. He’d stood paralyzed, considering the capriciousness of rush-hour subways, and then gone into a mad sprint – west to Ninth Avenue, then north sixteen blocks, gasping ‘S’cuse me!’ and ‘Outta the way!’ He remembered the explosive backdraft of scorched air in his lungs as he skidded to a stop inside St. Lukes-Roosevelt and took in a huge breath . . .
Harry put down his glass and met Geiger’s gaze.
‘I had a child once,’ he said. ‘A little girl. With Christine.’
The only movement in Geiger’s face was an involuntary dilating of the pupils. Harry sighed again. It was the sound a priest would hear through the curtain of the confessional. He shoved the image back into the past, and leaned forward.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about something the last few days. About Ezra. He’s hurting. He needs to know, Geiger. He really needs to know.’
‘We talked about this. In the long run, he’ll be better off not knowing.’
‘I don’t agree.’
Geiger’s hand started up again – a finger-roll on the table, pinkie to thumb. ‘Harry . . . I know what works—’
Harry’s hand suddenly shot out and smacked Geiger’s flat.
‘Don’t say you “know what works” best for you! I’ve heard you say it a thousand times and I still don’t know what the hell it really means! Jesus . . . Just once – just once I wish that you’d . . .’
Harry slid his hand away and sat back, shaking his head. Geiger remained exactly as he was. It was Harry who seemed surprised at the outburst.
‘Go on, Harry. What is it you wish that I would do?’
Quintessential Geiger. Uninflected, a stranger to attitude, a living Rorschach blot to the listener. To a Jones it could paint Geiger shades of ominous, patient, arctic, wise. To Harry, it had often felt like a glimpse of a child lurking beneath the surface.
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