The Confessor

by Mark Allen Smith

  Dewey.

  Was Geiger involved in his disappearance? If yes, then it created more unknowns. How much might Geiger have gotten out of Dewey? Did Geiger know the true nature of things? If yes, that created still more unknowns. Is that why Geiger had called? Keep your friend close and your enemy closer?

  His scuffed old traveling bag lay open on a small bench. Morocco . . . 1987 . . . at a bazaar in Tangier . . . the German banker who’d skipped with millions . . . tossed off the roof with a phony suicide note in his pocket. Victor looked round the room, picked up his vest, lay it on top of the neatly folded clothes in the bag, and closed the ties. He was always ready to leave someplace. He headed for the door with it, then paused, and put his bag down.

  ‘I am on my way! Two minutes! I just have to take a piss!’

  The train to Avignon was a sleek, slope-nosed TGV Duplex, and Geiger had gone to the upper level and settled into an aisle seat with a view of the stairs. There were a dozen riders in the car with him. During the ride south, he’d paid little attention to the view outside, but stared at the patterns in the seatback in front of him and considered scenarios for a future that he was racing toward at a smooth two hundred miles an hour.

  He stepped off the train onto the platform to be met by his own reflection in the curved glass and steel walls of the Gare d’Avignon terminal. The sun was a burning white blotch on the glass and the sky was clear. He hoped the weather held.

  He doubted Dalton had anyone on the train with him, but as he neared the entry he knelt down with his bag and feigned a search of its contents, catching the reflections of those who disembarked as they went into the terminal – a young mother with a pair of cranky boys in tow, a bald old man with a tobacco-stained moustache, three glum teenaged boys going back to their school . . .

  Inside, the main hall was flanked by towering walls that curved gracefully inward and met to form a cathedral-like arch of glazed glass. Strips of sunlight coming through the steel slits lay across the floor like bars of glowing paint. Geiger stopped and looked up, slowly turning in a circle, giving himself the gift of a moment to take in the striking, elegant angles – then headed down the corridor. There were plenty of people about – hustling for trains, huddled beneath the large schedule board, lined up at a café for bread and coffee – and then he sensed a body moving toward him from behind.

  ‘Monsieur? Pardon, monsieur . . .’

  The flat, nasal voice had a French accent straight out of Rosetta Stone. Geiger turned. The man wore a checkered flannel shirt and khaki slacks that said – or meant to say – Farm Belt tourist. He had a jacket with its red ‘CHURCH OF CHRIST BOWLERS’ logo slung over his shoulder, a camera round his neck, and looked very unhappy.

  ‘Uh . . . Est-ce que vous – uh – savez où est . . . Uh . . .’ His vocabulary failed him, and with a mutter he pulled an English-to-French dictionary from his back pocket and started paging through it, licking his thumb as he did. ‘Pardon . . . Un moment . . .’

  Geiger was letting it play so he could get a read. The man looked fit and hard for forty-something, and his nose had been badly broken at some time in the past. He was a definite possible.

  ‘Ah!’ said the man, tapping the page. ‘Bureau des objets trouvés!’ He looked back up hopefully. ‘Objets trouvés, monsieur?’

  ‘I don’t speak French.’

  The man’s face split open with a toothy, jack-o’-lantern grin. ‘American! That’s great! Oh Lord, thank you!’ He reached out and gave Geiger’s arm a short, brisk shake of camaraderie. ‘Calvin Haas – Bellevue, Nebraska – really pleased to meet you. Praise God.’

  Geiger nodded.

  ‘Listen . . . What I was trying to say was – do you know where the Lost and Found is? I left my wallet somewhere, or dropped it . . .’ He flashed a mortified grin and shrugged. ‘. . . or the pick-pockets saw the dumb tourist coming a mile away – right?’

  It was the salt-in-the-wound grin and shrug that sold Geiger. The man was the real thing. A sad-sack with a big heart and small vocabulary. And no wallet.

  ‘I believe I saw a sign, Calvin.’ Geiger pointed down the hall. ‘That way.’

  ‘Yeah? Well thanks, man. Really.’ He smiled, and started away. ‘Wish me luck.’

  ‘Good luck, Calvin.’

  Geiger was looking for a sign with the term he’d found online – consigne à bagages. The arrow pointed left. He felt loose-limbed, smooth, in the flow of things. Soon the speed of time would start to shift – racing faster, slowing to a crawl, stuttering to a dead stop, revving up again . . . It would be like rodeo riding – trying to stay in the saddle, react to the beast with body and mind, and not get thrown.

  The lockers, six rows of three compartments painted a bright teal, were in a shadowed, recessed stretch of wall. Geiger took the red-nubbed locker key from his pocket. Locker 27 was at the end, the middle compartment. He turned to have a look around, and waited till the vicinity was relatively person-free, then put the key in and opened the locker. Inside was a letter-sized envelope and a small wooden box – the kind one would find on top of a bedroom dresser filled with earrings or rings. Geiger took out the envelope and pulled a single sheet of typewritten paper from it.

  Geiger,

  Go to the ‘Taxi Provençal’ counter. They are expecting you, under the name ‘Ezra’. The driver will have instructions where to take you.

  But first, open the box. Consider the contents a reminder of the sincerity of my threats. I apologize for my heavy-handedness, and I have tried to atone for my lack of style with style – a 19th-century French ‘snuff’ box. Appropriate, no? And quite expensive. I find it charming.

  Geiger reached into the locker and took out the box. It was made of polished teak, three by two and a half inches, the lid decorated with an intricate oval mosaic of tiny nacre and sapphire diamond-shaped inlays. He ran his fingertips across the design. The craftsmanship was superb. The artisan had been a patient, passionate man – a stickler for detail, as Harry liked to say. Geiger turned the box upside down. Etched into the bottom in gold were three initials – DJS – and a date – 1815. What would DJS think – that two centuries later his beautiful creation was being admired by a kindred soul . . . and filled with some cruel, unthinkable memento?

  Geiger grasped the lid between thumb and forefinger and lifted it off. The inside was lined with chartreuse felt, worn in spots – and laid out on it in a row were four circles of skin, each about the diameter and thickness of a penny. Geiger could tell they were from a human palm by the pronounced creases in the flesh. Some were parts of life-lines. Each circle had a letter etched in it, in gold, much like the bottom of the snuff box. Read left to right – U . . . S . . . U . . . S.

  Geiger put the top back on and slid the box in a pocket, then took his iPad out of his bag and Googled ‘usus’. It was Latin, and there were many usages – legal term, form of matrimony, participle, and the most common – a noun, whose first definition was ‘skill, advantage, expertise’.

  Expertise.

  The thing that bound them together. The skill and practice of a dark art. The echoes of suffering forever drifting in their heads. The willful tainting of the spirit. Dalton sought a final session – and who else could it be with? In a very real sense, Dalton needed him. It could be no one else. Geiger understood that Dalton’s madness had clarity, a creature dwelling in a house built with detail and purpose, but the angles were all askew – tilted walls and sloping floors, halls that dead-ended, doors that opened onto nothingness . . .

  He tore the paper into pieces and dropped them into a refuse bin. It would be at least three hours before Soames and Victor arrived. He’d get coffee and a piece of fruit, and think for a while. Now that he had his instructions, there were a few things that would need tending to.

  Matheson was seeing it all in crisp, Technicolor playback – Ezra up on the stage like a miniature man in his little suit and bow-tie, eight-year-old fingers coaxing sweetness and soul from the violin’s strings. Bach, ‘Ai
r on a G String’ – and now, as then, Matheson’s eyes grew warm with tears and he felt a fullness and sense of grace he rarely knew . . .

  . . . and Harry’s clogged snoring suddenly kicked back in and Matheson looked over at him. He was lying on his side on the mattress. The swelling in the cheek and temple seemed to be going down, but the mean, purpled splotches refused to follow suit, and Matheson wondered if some infection had taken root. In the last few days he’d thought about dying more than in the whole of his life – ways to die, how much pain might be involved, how fast or slow the process, the order of their deaths . . . and whether he’d want to be first or last. ‘After you, Alphonse.’ ‘No, you first, my dear Gaston . . .’

  To gain some traction in a mind slippery with pain, he’d kept forcing himself to examine a two-part question: In the end, if Geiger arrived and Dalton agreed to set one of them free, and only one, who should it be? And if the moment arose when it was in anyone’s power besides Dalton to decide, who should make that choice? Matheson had tried to come at the dilemma from different starting points, but always arrived at the same conclusion.

  He slowly raised his leg and, once again, studied the fetter and chain round his ankle – and the stories of wolves and coyotes gnawing off a limb to free themselves from a steel-jaw trap paid another visit. And there was the man pinned down by a boulder in a canyon who cut off half his arm . . . They made a movie about him, but Matheson couldn’t remember the name.

  For years he’d thought it a high-percentage bet his death would be a private affair, carefully and anonymously planned by strangers, and undiscovered. Veritas Arcana would go dark, and there would be some slow-simmering concern, whispers and rumors, perhaps speculation in the media – but no resolution would arrive, no evidence would be found. Ezra would be the last holdout, as much out of obstinance as hopefulness, but as the days without his father’s e-mails and apologetic IMs stretched out the boy would come to accept the truth – because he’d learned too well, and much too young, that there is power that corrupts and destroys without hesitance. This was the legacy his father had left him.

  He lowered his leg to the mattress, and the chain’s clank opened Harry’s swollen eyes. Harry licked his lips.

  ‘Christ . . .’ His eyes found Matheson. ‘I feel like hell. ’

  ‘You’re basically purple, Harry.’

  ‘. . . Purple, huh?’ He grunted his way up into a sitting position against the wall. ‘Would you say closer to violet . . . or plum?’

  ‘. . . Plum, with splotches of eggplant.’

  ‘But it’s a good look, right? Plum is a good color for me.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘I have a plum sweater. I’m a knockout in it.’

  Matheson watched Harry’s wisp of a blue smile come out. It had been years since he’d shared enough time with someone to have a sense of who they really were, let alone care about them. He and Harry would’ve made a good team . . .

  ‘Gotta piss,’ said Harry, and swung his legs around so his feet reached the bare floor. He planted his good hand against the wall and started to get up.

  ‘Careful, Harry.’

  Harry rose unsteadily, took a deep breath to help his blood find a new rhythm, and shuffled to the portable toilet, his chain jangling on the floor.

  ‘Jesus . . . Look at me. I’m fucking Jacob Marley.’ He pulled up his smock and started to piss.

  ‘We need to talk, Harry.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Ezra.’

  ‘Nope,’ Harry said.

  ‘Nope . . . ?’ Matheson’s brows tilted like a seesaw. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just what I said. I’m not going there.’

  ‘Where exactly is the “there” you think I want to talk about?’

  ‘You want me to promise I’ll help look after Ezra if you die and I don’t – and it’s bullshit.’

  ‘Bullshit? Well fuck you, Harry.’

  Harry shook off the last drop, let his smock down and turned.

  ‘Listen up, man!’ The sudden punch in decibels made the room feel much smaller. ‘Christ . . . Either Dalton’s gonna kill us both – in which case I’ll be hard-pressed to make good on my promise . . .’ A sudden wince from unknown origins made Harry pause and take a breath. ‘. . . or he’s gonna let us both go, like he said he would – in which case you can go back to your son and try to atone for your fucking sins by yourself.’

  Matheson nodded slowly. ‘Right.’ The sole word had the flat sound of a nail being hammered into something hard.

  Harry looked to the window and stared at the two-inch vertical opening between the boards. The perspective took away all sense of depth – it looked like a still-life, the bottom lavender and striated forest on the top. He started toward it, until the chain stopped him. The pulse in his temples was piston-heavy. He didn’t want to die here. He wanted to do some damage. Break something. Growl at the top of his lungs. Rip something apart. He looked down at his chain.

  ‘Motherfucker . . .’

  He bent down to it, grabbed it in both hands – and began smashing it against the floor.

  ‘Muh – thur – fucker!’ The loud clang accompanying his outbursts was like tympani from hell. Up, down, up . . . Harry’s very own Anvil Chorus. ‘Muuuh – thurrr – fuuuucker!!’

  Matheson had the look of a bystander watching a multicar pile-up on an icy highway – one sliding vehicle crashing into the back of another – and another – and another.

  ‘Fuck!’ growled Harry. Wham! ‘Fuck!’ Wham! ‘MOTHER–FUCKING FUCK!’

  Harry slammed the chain down one last time, tottered, and flopped down onto his ass, chest heaving, spewing gusts of air from his mouth, spent.

  Matheson didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. He was thinking Harry resembled one of Notre Dame’s gargoyles – but then decided he looked more like a truly crazy person – a character out of Marat/Sade, or Cuckoo’s Nest.

  Harry looked over at Matheson, and let loose a final, satisfied sigh.

  ‘David,’ he said, ‘I think I’m finally starting to get in touch with my anger.’

  They regarded each other with the equable look of philosophers putting a point of existential theory to bed – but the comment was a lit fuse, burning its way to the truth of their situation. Jet-black humor could only deflect the reality of things for so long . . .

  It was Matheson who lost control first, with an explosive, harsh guffaw that set Harry off – and their brittle laughter rose, unable to be contained. That there was no trace of humor or pleasure in the sounds made the effect all the more jarring – but they couldn’t stop.

  Geiger was staring at the Taxi Provençal counter fifty feet down the hall. He had the scene worked out. It had weak spots, but there was no helping that now. He headed for it – and noticed Calvin sitting on a bench to his left, staring at the floor. He stopped.

  ‘Any luck, Calvin?’

  Calvin looked up with a dark face. ‘Oh, hey there. No – no luck. Not a stitch. I can’t even use the friggin’ ATM.’ His sheepish grin returned. ‘I believe I am now officially, royally screwed. But thanks for asking.’

  Geiger could feel thought lines in his mind quickly shifting, rerouting, connecting dots into a different picture. It happened in IR sessions all the time. New input equaled new construct.

  ‘Calvin . . . How much do you need?’ he said.

  Calvin squinted, and then waved the idea off with both hands. ‘No, no. You’re a great guy for asking, but I can’t let you do that.’

  ‘Why can’t you let me do that, Calvin? It was my suggestion, not yours.’

  Calvin shrugged. ‘True. But still, I just couldn’t—’

  ‘Where do you need to go?’

  Calvin frowned. ‘Closest American Express office is back in Paris . . .’

  ‘So you need one hundred twenty euros.’

  The man from Nebraska sighed. ‘Yup.’

  ‘Here is what we’ll do, Calvin. I need
to go to the taxi service – over there, for a car. I don’t have much cash on me – I was going to have them charge my credit card for some euros anyway. You wait for me over there . . .’ Geiger pointed to the wall directly across from the taxi counter. ‘We’ll get you back to Paris. All right?’

  Calvin stood up. ‘You’re a very nice man, mister. A godsend.’

  Geiger pointed again. ‘Right over there, Calvin. I’ll see you in a few minutes.’

  Calvin went off toward his destination. Geiger took a moment to put the finishing touches to the scene . . .

  The striking young woman behind the Taxi Provençal counter was on the phone. She smiled at Geiger, held up a finger and silently mouthed, ‘Un moment.’ She was dressed in a crisp, white, man-tailored shirt and a snug blue vest that she tugged down to accentuate her figure for him. He watched her eyes wander over him, pleased with what she saw. It was a look he’d seen many times, from women and men. It started with a simple glance, and then something about him – the tunnels in his eyes, the angles of his face, the stillness that made him stand out on the landscape – turned it into a stare that lingered, curious and often carnal, until the lack of any kind of signal from him sent the looker’s gaze elsewhere.

  The counter woman hung up the phone. ‘Bonjour, monsieur.’

  ‘I don’t speak French,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, an American. I speak English. I was in University of Miami one year.’ Her playful smile slipped out. ‘The sun. And waterskiing.’

  ‘There’s a car and driver reserved for me. The name is Ezra.’

  The counter woman took a second’s notice of his disinterest, looked down at her monitor and poked her keyboard. ‘Yes – here it is. “Ezra”. I’ll call the driver. His name is Bruno. And – if you will just read this and sign.’ She put a pen and one-page document on the counter and dialed her cell. ‘’Allo, Bruno. Céleste.’ She turned away from Geiger and lowered her voice as she continued talking.