The Confessor

by Mark Allen Smith

  Dear Geiger,

  I will know what day you are reading this. Tomorrow, take the train from Paris to Avignon – the TGV station, Gare de Lyon. The key is to a storage locker at the Avignon train station on the main level. Inside you will find further instructions.

  Sincerely,

  Dalton

  Geiger shook the envelope and a small locker key dropped into his palm. Its red plastic nub had a ‘27’ on it. He put it aside, opened the manila envelope, and removed another hotel room key embossed with ‘404’. Carmine’s man had rented him a second room, as requested. The rest of what he required would be there, hopefully.

  He was being careful to ration focus and awareness – there was much to keep track of. On one flank – Dalton and crew. Dalton had lost some of his sanity, but the madness that had blossomed in its place was cunning, with a devoted purpose. On the other flank was Soames and the string-pullers at Deep Red. Less personal – but just as dangerous, because they had no investment in Geiger’s survival. Politics and pragmatism were of the first order, as with most structured entities in the world – governments, corporations, religious bodies, even revolutionary groups. Geiger had dealt with them all. Individuals and lives were not a primary concern. The protection of the foundation and agenda was always paramount – and Geiger knew this was the case with Soames. She couldn’t do her job if it weren’t so.

  And there was one other important element to monitor – himself. He hadn’t slept on the plane – to ensure he had no visits from a dream and its migraine companion. He knew he carried a time bomb without an audible ticking inside him, and he’d learned it could explode at any time – and that, in a way, made him the most volatile variable in the scenario. He reached to his bag and took out the cell Soames had given him, pressed ‘send’ – and Zanni came through instantly.

  ‘Hello, Geiger.’

  ‘I’m in my room.’

  ‘I know. We saw you. We’re in a room in the hotel across the street. Turn on the iPad.’

  Geiger took the iPad out of the bag and powered up. A corner icon lit up on the screen – the crimson octagon logo of Deep Red. Geiger tapped it – and Zanni was staring at him, the cell phone still to her ear. She lowered it.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  He nodded at her. He was all but certain both devices had tracking systems in them, but that was of little concern. It might even play to his advantage down the line.

  ‘Did you get instructions?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. At the desk when I checked in.’

  ‘Let me see them, please.’

  From here on in, everything would be for show, on both their parts. He knew it, Soames knew it – and they both knew the other knew it. They had a union of purpose, with the ever-present assumption of deceit, while holding out hope that in the end they might provide aid to the other. As Carmine liked to say – Never trust your friends more than you think they trust you. He held Dalton’s note up for Soames’s eyes.

  Zanni nodded. ‘Got it.’ Geiger lowered the paper. ‘Geiger . . . I want you to meet our contractor. You should know his face, and his voice.’

  Her image slid away from the screen as she handed off the device . . .

  ‘Geiger,’ she said, ‘this is Victor de Bran.’

  . . . and Victor’s stolid face came into frame. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said, and nodded.

  Geiger watched the lips purse slightly into a modest smile. When and if the time came, this was the man who would kill Dalton . . . and anyone who was a hindrance to that end. It was the face of an artisan, a maitre d’, a writer, a cop . . . everyman.

  ‘Hello,’ said Geiger. He had a great deal of respect for faces – for the versatility of their features, for their powers of deception – and knew the only place to find an unadorned sense of someone was in the eyes. De Bran’s were dark brown and glossy, with lazy lids at almost half-mast. An untroubled, temperate gaze, with a touch of the reptilian. An uncomplicated man whose confidence was the fruit of his experience. Geiger had often found that to be the case with men who killed people for a living.

  ‘May I just say, Geiger . . . I will do all I can to help in this.’

  At the start of his life in IR, Geiger created a list of categories for lies. He kept it in one of his binders, and over the years added to it frequently, refining it for context and levels of sophistication.

  ‘Denial’: a simple declaration of innocence or ignorance with a wide spectrum of deliveries – from outrage to bravado to despair.

  The ‘Drop’: where a small amount of truth or fact is mixed into a lie to try and color the whole statement as genuine.

  The ‘Con’: a lie of great detail whose sheer scope works toward creating the effect of truthfulness . . .

  . . . and a dozen other types. Some revealed less about a statement’s veracity and more about the speaker, such as the ‘Hook’. It was, by its nature, almost always unsolicited. ‘May I just say, Geiger . . .’ Seemingly spontaneous, it was premeditated and aggressive in its intent – to portray the speaker in a specific light with future interactions in mind. ‘I will do all I can to help in this.’ And while a hook might not be a lie, it revealed the presence of a manipulator. The more amateurish and unconfident the actor, the greater likelihood there would be a follow-up to try and sink the hook – ‘I just wanted you to know that,’ or a plain ‘Okay?’ or ‘All right?’ – so Geiger waited, but was nearly certain de Bran was finished speaking. They studied each other, as if face to face. They could have been sitting at a poker table, waiting for the next card to fall.

  ‘I understand,’ Geiger finally said. On the screen, Zanni took de Bran’s place.

  ‘My take is,’ she said, ‘Dalton will bounce you around a bit . . . and when there’s contact, it’ll be someplace he feels secure you can’t be followed – meaning, by us.’

  Geiger nodded. ‘I’m going to shower and sleep. I haven’t slept in a long time.’

  ‘All right. You’ll be in touch later on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Zanni worked at a casual nod, as if she believed him. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  Geiger turned the iPad off, put all of his things back in the bag, picked up the key to room 404 and left.

  Zanni refilled her coffee cup – and as she sipped, she sniffed . . . and scowled.

  ‘Victor . . . Outside – or put it out.’

  He was at the window, staring at Geiger’s hotel. As he exhaled a plume of smoke he looked down at the newly lit Gitanes between his long fingers.

  ‘Pardon, Zanni. I forgot.’ He opened the window and flicked the cigarette out. ‘Thoughts?’ she asked.

  ‘He is as you described. I think maybe he will try and make his own way without us. But . . . Did you ever think Geiger has no plans to go to Dalton? That he is just using you to get away – for good? You gave him a new passport, a plane ticket . . .’

  Zanni came to the window. Since she’d arrived in Paris, she’d felt the gears in her starting to turn, their teeth meshing, separate pieces coming together and beginning to push things forward. This job was going to change everything – and it was a rush to know that.

  ‘Whatever else Geiger is – he’s honest. He’s here to save them, and the truth is – there isn’t anything we could do or say, not one thing, to make him trust us . . . and what’s weird is – that works for us. Not trusting us will streamline his choices and give us less to guess about. As long as we don’t lose him completely – I like where we are.’

  The edge of Victor’s thumbnail slid up and down the cleft in his chin. He was thinking about Geiger’s legendary powers – to see beneath the masks, to decipher meaning in the noise men make – and wondering if Geiger sensed that betrayal was at the core of Victor’s purpose. He looked at Zanni. He was probably about the same age as her father. The thought struck him at an odd angle, vaguely unsettling – because he sensed that within it might be the faintest feeling of concern, and that was unacceptable.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I like wh
ere we are too.’

  Geiger opened the door to 404 and stepped inside. It was a front-view room, as he had requested in his list to Carmine, with two curtained windows. Geiger locked the door and went to the bed. Laid out neatly on it were a canvas gym bag, an aluminum attaché, a Canon wide-angle digital camera, an iPad, three neat stacks of euros, a Grand Master lock-pick set, and two keys on a ring with a cardboard tag labeled ‘315 Rue Questel, back door of store’. A sheet of typing paper had three handwritten lines on it.

  Hotel has no back door.

  Side door goes to alley, but only exit from alley is out to street.

  Carmine says good luck. Bonne chance.

  Geiger opened the attaché. Inside was a two-foot-square device of aluminum tubes. He took it out, released a knob on the side and started pulling the square apart. The telescoping ladder opened to a length of twelve feet, with eight rungs. It was perfect.

  The coffee maker had a three-cup pot, so he filled the basin, put in five packets and flicked it on. He closed his eyes, let his shoulders sag and his head droop, and stood perfectly still – so he could get the purest, clearest feel of his pulse and his pain activity. They were both in acceptable ranges.

  He went to one of the windows with the camera and pulled the curtains apart a few inches. He had a view of the street below and the buildings across from him. It had begun to drizzle and the street had a faint sparkle to it. He took a photo of the line of parked cars from mid-block to the east corner, and then a photo of the cars from mid-block to the west corner – about two dozen in all. Then he began shooting individual close-ups of every car . . .

  The Hotel Littré’s cleaning lady wheeled her cart down the hall to Harry’s room and knocked.

  ‘Femme de ménage!’ She waited the requisite moments, then knocked again. ‘Come to clean! Oui?!’ She was hesitant to enter, because she heard someone talking inside. It was an American. ‘Monsieur?! Hello?!’

  She used her key to open up and rolled her cart inside. The voice was coming from the adjoining room. It was younger than she had first thought. She moved to the connecting doorway.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  Matheson’s open laptop was on the desk as he had left it – and Ezra’s vidchat face was framed in the screen, a portrait of fear, cheeks hiked up, words coming out of tight lips.

  ‘. . . and this is, like, the tenth time I’ve tried, Dad. Geiger left me a note saying something was wrong – that he was going to find you and Harry. Where are you?!’

  The woman took a few steps into the room. Ezra’s gaze shifted as he noticed her at the edge of the frame, and he leaned forward like a kid pressing his nose to a toy store window.

  ‘Hey! Hey! Hello!’ The woman came two steps closer. ‘Who are you?!’

  ‘Je ne parle pas anglais.’

  ‘You’re French?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘You’re in France?’

  ‘. . . Oui, oui. France.’

  ‘Is there anyone else there?’

  The boy’s wiggy energy was making her nervous. ‘No English. Je ne parle pas anglais.’

  ‘Just listen, okay?!’ Is there anyone with you in the—’

  ‘No anglais . . .’

  ‘Shit!’ Ezra’s fist slammed his desk, his image jumped – and so did the cleaning lady. Frustration was pouring into his emotional stew, creating a volatile mix. ‘Christ, lady! Just LISTEN!’

  The cleaning lady didn’t need to understand English – she’d had enough – and stuck a finger in Ezra’s digital face and let loose with a reprimand in rapid-fire French. Ezra scrambled to put it in reverse . . .

  ‘Okay, okay . . . Jeez . . . I’m sorry, ma’am. Really. I’m sorry.’

  . . . but it was too late. The woman reached out to the laptop . . .

  ‘Wait. No! Don’t—’

  . . . and she slammed it shut.

  Ezra stared at the black screen. ‘Shit . . .’

  The cat jumped up on the desk, and after a luxurious stretch spread itself out, full-length. Ezra’s fingertips went to work on its stomach and its motor started running.

  ‘So what do I do now?’ He opened a desk drawer, took out Geiger’s letter, and reconsidered options for the nth time. ‘Tell Mom . . . ? She’d kill me – and there’s nothing she could do anyway.’

  His hand moved up to scratch the scarred eye socket, and the cat’s front paws rose and closed around it.

  17

  Geiger reached the door at the top of the hotel’s stairwell and put the gym bag and the attaché on the floor. The plaque said ‘TOIT – N’ENTREZ PAS’.

  He was well aware he was functioning in a different arena, doing things he hadn’t done before, and it occurred to him that he had never approached a task or job in terms of what could or could not be done – only what needed to be done – what was necessary to learn, to procure, to prepare, to execute.

  He had to get away without being seen. He took the lock-picking set from his bag. Since he stepped off the bus in Port Authority in 1996, without memory or direction or desire, he had followed the headings of some inner compass, and at every point of arrival melded instinct and logic into method and found a way to live in a world where he had no natural place. Life was construction – creating form from nothing, relevance out of separateness. Process was key. As Geiger had often said to Corley in a session – ‘Beginning, middle, end. That’s what works best for me. Completion.’

  He inserted the torque wrench into the lock with his left hand and slid in a pick with his right. Before leaving Brooklyn he had watched a YouTube video on ‘how to pick a lock’ four times – and had spent the last fifteen minutes practicing on the inside door lock of his room. He closed his eyes and, one by one, found the tumbler’s pins with the pick’s hook and nudged them up out of their set position. It took forty-five seconds, and he opened the door, grabbed his bag and case, and stepped out onto the roof. The light rain brushed against him – and the unexpected raced up at him . . .

  The door housing was set on a flat, ten-foot-square center section beside a large, noisy air-conditioning unit. From where he stood, the roof – smooth, shiny, gray metal sheets – spread out and down sixty feet on all four sides, finished with a three-foot-wide flat ledge. He judged the slope to be forty-five to fifty degrees. The hotel had put in central air and redone the roof, mansard style, in the years since Google’s satellite had taken its pictures.

  The western edge faced the street. Beyond the eastern side was thirty yards of open air with a courtyard below, and the north and south sides each ended at eight-foot gaps . . . with flat rooftops on the other sides that led seamlessly to more roofs – a patchwork quilt of tile and steel and concrete that he could criss-cross to get to the street one block over.

  The rain gave the roof the shiny look of a water slide. He slowly moved his shoe back and forth across a wet panel. The sole glided easily on the material, with barely any friction. The simple plan, when he thought the roof was flat, was to place the ladder across the span and crawl to the next rooftop. Now, just getting to the thin ledge was a downhill expedition, and one slip could send him sliding all the way to the edge with no way to stop – and a sixty-foot drop. He made the movie and watched it in his head. It looked quite real.

  But the option cupboard was bare. He couldn’t go back inside – he couldn’t be seen leaving the hotel now. He couldn’t be followed – because that would put a chokehold on the throat of his slim chances to take control of his life . . . and Harry’s . . . and Matheson’s . . . and Ezra’s. And every drop of rain that poked his face felt like another second stolen from the time he had left.

  Take what you’re given. Use it to make what you need. His father’s mantra.

  He picked up the gym bag, put his head through the handles and centered it against his chest, then walked to the edge of the plateau. He sat down, legs extended onto the pitched roof, and lay the attaché case on his lap. He’d need the ladder on the way back. And then he pushed off – and began sl
owly sliding down, fingertips to the slick metal for steerage and balance. He raised his feet off the surface to create more acceleration, and at the halfway point his speed had nearly doubled.

  His eyes were on the flat, three-foot apron of the roof. He wasn’t concerned with the distance of the leap. It would all be about the timing – and he had a highly developed sense for it. IR had demanded it. Split-seconds, inches and instinct . . .

  As the ledge came up at him, his hands rose and grabbed the attaché. He rocked his body forward, shoes coming down and finding the flat surface – and he sprang up, hurling the case ahead of him as he leapt – arms windmilling, legs pedaling fiercely on an invisible bicycle as he flew through the air . . .

  He didn’t expect the feeling of weightlessness, the sense that gravity had chosen to give him a free pass for this one, boundless moment – and the pure exhilaration was like a rocket booster. It was the closest he had ever come to feeling free – free of body, of mind, of pain . . .

  He touched down on the other side – and the landing set off hot sparks in his compromised hips, so he went down into a roll and came to a stop sitting up. He stayed still, letting the sensation linger, his tom-tom heart pounding – then got to his feet. He took note of the attaché’s location, fifteen feet away, and started off across the roof . . .

  André the bartender was checking the inside of the mini-fridge behind the bar.

  ‘Nous avons besoin de crème,’ he said.

  Christine wrote ‘cream’ down on her list. Odd – after all these years, how her brain still switched back and forth between the two languages. When she raised her head, she realized someone was staring at her. He was at the other end of the bar, with a cup of coffee, and when her eyes focused on him he felt no need to stop. Not even so much as a blink. She found the gaze unsettling because it was set in a handsome, angular face without any expression at all. She put on her café owner’s smile.