The Confessor

by Mark Allen Smith

  Geiger picked up the pen and leaned to the paper – and the action combined with the counter’s height set off a dull throb in his shoulder, an alarm clock reminding him to stay awake about the injury. He signed as the woman turned back to him.

  Bruno will arrive quite soon, just outside by the taxi line. A red Renault.’ She turned the paper around to examine the signature. ‘Mr. – Jones, is it?’

  ‘Yes. Ezra is my first name. Your name is Céleste?’

  Her flirting smile made a comeback. ‘Oui.’

  He leaned forward a few inches. ‘Céleste . . . I am assuming there are directions in the rental order . . . to notify the renter, my friend, when I arrive for my ride. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I need you to not make that call, Céleste.’

  ‘But monsieur . . . It is—’

  ‘I would like to surprise him. It is – like a game he and I play. You understand?’

  Now it was her turn to lean in. Her smile ebbed to purely professional.

  ‘Monsieur Jones . . . This is a – a difficult position that you put me in. I am sure you understand this, no?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Céleste. But this is not a request.’

  ‘. . . Excuse me?’

  The fingers of Geiger’s right hand began a smooth, easy drum roll on the counter.

  ‘The truth is, Céleste – it is crucial that my friend not know of my approximate arrival time – and that’s why you cannot make the call.’

  ‘Monsieur . . . This is – a joke, perhaps?’

  ‘Céleste . . . I have never told a joke in my whole life. Do I look or sound like I am now?’

  Her stunning head did a ten-degree tilt. She reminded him of a deer hearing a twig snap in a forest.

  ‘There is someone watching us right now, Céleste. Your photo has already been taken.’

  ‘My photo . . . ?’

  The Inquisitor watched her eyes reflexively dart away from his and scan the area. He turned halfway around – and found Calvin leaning against the opposite wall, ninety feet away. Geiger nodded, and Calvin gave him a short sideways wave.

  Céleste saw the gesture. ‘But . . . why?’

  Geiger turned back to the woman. One of her hands was pressed against the counter, and he gently covered it with his own.

  ‘Céleste . . . Look at me.’

  The command was soft and light as a summer breeze, and pulled her gaze back to him like a pair of strong hands.

  ‘I realize you don’t understand any of this, that it seems bizarre, or as you said – even some kind of prank. The simplest way to put it is . . . it’s bad timing for you – that you were on duty when I arrived – but you are now part of something very serious. Life and death serious. Is your English good enough to understand what I said?’

  A score of actors might have recited the speech to no effect . . . or scorn . . . or dismissal, but while she stared at him Geiger could see parts of her face – the jaw, brows, eyes, the temples – shifting and resettling as the outrageous morphed into her moment’s reality. She finally nodded.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Céleste . . . When I arrive at my friend’s house, it will be clear whether he was expecting me or not – and I will know if you notified him. If you did, I will tell that man over there, the one with your picture, to find you. And he will hurt you, Céleste. That’s what he does. There really are people in the world who do that for a living.’

  Their faces were six inches apart, and she had no more ability to move away from him than the moon from the earth.

  ‘So again . . . I want to make sure you understand. It’s very simple. If you don’t make the call, your life goes on as it has. Nothing changes. If you make the call, there will be terrible consequences. It’s crucial you believe me, Céleste.’

  She nodded again. ‘I won’t call. I promise I won’t.’

  Geiger took an envelope from his pocket and put it on the counter. There were ten hundred-euro notes inside.

  ‘This is for your trouble. Thank you, Céleste.’ Geiger picked up his bag, turned, and walked away. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said, but so softly that he couldn’t have heard her.

  Geiger put four fifty-euro notes in Calvin’s palm, one at a time, and Calvin started shaking his head as the pile grew.

  ‘Dear God . . . Please . . . This is too much. I’m already—’

  ‘Calvin . . . I need you to stop talking now. You should have some money in your pocket after you pay for the ticket.’

  Calvin’s mouth crumpled up with emotion. ‘Thank you. Really. Thank you. And I want to say to you . . . I don’t know if you’re a man of faith, and what that faith might be—’

  ‘I don’t believe in God, Calvin.’

  Calvin’s smile came out, calm and patient. ‘Well, my friend . . . You are a generous soul, and in the book of God it doesn’t get any better than that.’ He put the bills in a pocket. ‘If you give me your name and address I can send you the money when you’re back home.’

  ‘That’s not necessary, Calvin. And the truth is – I don’t expect to be going back home.’

  ‘So this is a hit the road and see the world kind of trip, huh?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Calvin put his hand out. ‘Well . . . If you’re ever in Nebraska . . .’

  Geiger took his hand and they shook. ‘Goodbye, Calvin.’

  ‘Goodbye. And God bless you, mister.’

  Geiger glanced over at the taxi counter. Céleste had been watching it all. She looked as white as her blouse.

  He picked up his bag and walked off.

  Geiger waited inside, by the glass wall, while he took himself for a Google Maps virtual drive on his iPad – away from the terminal, toward the road to Tulette . . .

  He saw the red Renault cruise up alongside the terminal and stop. The driver’s door opened and a man stepped out. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with a wide slab of shoulders and the face of a Shar Pei, and as he tugged down the sleeves of his navy-blue suit Geiger saw that the elbows were faded. The man took up a post beside the car and, with one hand, held up a one-foot-square piece of cardboard with ‘Taxi Provençal’ printed across the top and EZRA written below it in large, crude letters, while he combed his fingers through his graying, steel-wool crop of clipped hair with his free hand.

  Geiger stepped outside and walked toward the driver. ‘I’m Ezra,’ he said.

  The driver smiled and did a short, choppy bow. ‘Bonjour, monsieur. I am Bruno.’

  He opened the back door and Geiger got inside the car. There was the faint but cloying aroma of synthetic pine. The driver came around and got in the front, put the Renault in gear and eased the car away from the terminal. Geiger put one of the windows down to dilute the smell.

  ‘Do you speak English, Bruno?’

  ‘A little – some. Pleasure for you or business, monsieur?’

  ‘. . . Business.’

  ‘First time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Geiger was looking straight ahead, to the windshield – one eye was on the road and one was on the rearview mirror, studying the reflection of the driver’s face as he spoke.

  ‘You have your instructions, Bruno . . . to take me to Tulette?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur. Not to worry.’

  ‘I’m not worried, Bruno.’

  They were on a two-lane road heading northwest. Geiger turned halfway round and looked out the back window. There were no cars in sight – and he turned back around.

  ‘Do you do this full-time, Bruno?’

  The driver glanced up at Geiger’s image in the rearview window. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The job. Driving. Do you do this all the time?’

  ‘Ah, oui. Five years. For long time I am chef. But no more. No work.’

  Geiger was getting the rhythm of the man’s normal, unstressed speech, like a hoofer listening to a piece of music’s nuances before beginning to dance.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

  The driv
er’s grin was fast coming, and crooked. ‘Ça craint.’

  ‘I don’t speak French, Bruno.’

  ‘Pardon. It sucks.’

  Up ahead, Geiger saw what he had been waiting for – a narrow gravel turn-off that looked like it went nowhere. He reached into his bag and took out Christine’s customized kitchen knife, holding it out of Bruno’s view.

  ‘Bruno . . . Pull over – up there on the right.’

  The driver’s eyes bounced to the mirror. ‘Monsieur . . . ?’

  Geiger leaned forward. ‘Pull off the road here. Turn.’

  ‘Take you to Tulette, no?’

  Suddenly the knife had risen into view, and came to rest with the blade flat against Bruno’s upper chest.

  ‘Bruno . . . Don’t make me tell you again.’

  There was something about his voice nearly as unsettling as the knife – that it could be velvet-soft and steel-hard at once – and Bruno slowed the car, turned the wheel, and pulled into the turn-off.

  ‘Go to the bushes, then stop.’

  The driver obeyed the order, and then put the car in park. His gaze didn’t leave the face in the mirror.

  ‘I have forty euros . . . and take the car. Please don’t hurt me.’

  Geiger got a read on the unadorned sound of the man’s fear.

  ‘I’m not robbing you, Bruno.’ Geiger took the knife away and sat back, keeping the weapon visible, resting on his thigh. He checked the view from the back again. They couldn’t be seen from the road. ‘Turn around to me.’

  The driver undid his seat belt, and turned round. The Inquisitor watched what looked like confusion gathering in Bruno’s sad eyes.

  ‘Bruno . . . Do you work for Dalton?’

  The question put a row of ripples in the driver’s forehead. ‘. . . Pardon?’

  ‘Are you working for Dalton?’

  ‘Not understand. Work for Taxi Provençal.’ His stare kept making a detour to the knife before finding its way back to Geiger. ‘This name – Dalton. Not know this name. Please, monsieur. You make . . .’ He scowled, searching for the proper word, and his hand went to his tie and pulled the knot loose. ‘Ah. You make mistake!’

  Geiger took out his pack of Lucky Strikes. He’d seen and heard enough.

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke, Bruno?’

  ‘. . . No.’

  Geiger lit up, and then put the knife back in his bag. ‘It was necessary for me to scare you, Bruno. I’m not going to hurt you. I want you to calm down – and listen closely.’

  ‘I smoke too.’

  Geiger held out the pack and Bruno took one from it. The cigarette shook in his hand as Geiger lit the end.

  ‘You are taking me to a very dangerous place, Bruno. You understand “dangerous”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And depending on what happens – some people may prefer that you were dead. You understand “dead”?’

  ‘Dead?!’ His eyes scrunched into slits – like a myopic trying to read a street sign. He unbuttoned his collar. ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you know the phrase “loose end” in English?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It means an unfinished part of a job – something that needs to be taken care of before the job can be considered done. Understand?’

  The driver nodded. ‘Oui. Details.’

  ‘. . . and some of the people I’m involved with don’t like loose ends.’

  ‘Me – because I contact with you . . . ?’

  ‘Yes.

  ‘They okay with killing?’

  ‘When you were a chef – were you okay with killing the chickens?’

  Bruno began shaking his head pensively, side to side – one of those moments when a gesture means the opposite of what it seems. He looked baffled, stunned – but he understood all too well.

  ‘It could happen when you drop me off, Bruno – or tomorrow – or a week or month from now – or perhaps never.’ Geiger flicked his butt out the window. ‘I suggest you leave Avignon. Park the car in a garage and take a train someplace where nobody knows you. Stay a few weeks. You understand?’

  Bruno ran his hand firmly down his face. The Shar Pei wrinkles stretched with the gesture, like a gloomy sad-sack in a cartoon.

  ‘Impossible.’

  Geiger unzipped his bag, took out a large wad of euros and started counting some off. With each bill, the furrow between Bruno’s brows deepened.

  ‘Here.’ Geiger held the money out. ‘Three thousand euros. It should last you a month.’

  Bruno frowned at the offering.

  ‘Take the money, Bruno.’

  ‘Why?’

  Geiger’s eyes blinked – once. ‘Take it.’

  Bruno’s hand suddenly flashed up in an angry wave. ‘C’est délirant! Crazy! You say “go away”. You say “take it . . . take it”. But why give it?’

  Patience had always been an ally, but now Geiger could sense it standing off to the side – a bystander just out of sight, hesitant about joining in.

  ‘Bruno . . . Let’s just say – it works best for me.’ He dropped the money on the front passenger seat and zipped up the bag. ‘You need to go.’ He opened the door. ‘You have the address you were taking me to?’

  When Bruno sighed, his shoulders hitched up around his ears. He reached up to the driver’s visor and slid out a piece of paper, and handed it to Geiger. It was three sentences of typed text.

  Tournez à droite vers D51/D51A.

  Quand vous arrivez à une fourche, prenez la route sur votre droite.

  Allez tout droit jusqu’à l’impasse.

  ‘Simple,’ said Bruno. He looked at the pile of money on the seat. Its presence made as much and as little sense as anything else that had just happened. ‘You strange man, Ezra.’

  ‘People have told me that. Goodbye, Bruno.’ Geiger got out of the car, closed the door, and watched the Renault turn around and head toward the road. He could gear his head toward the next phase now. He’d taken care of Céleste and Bruno. No innocent bystanders would suffer.

  Standing in this dead-end path with the sound of traffic in front of him and a train approaching in the distance at his back, he had reached the last dot on the map where he could turn off and make his way alone.

  When her Nextel dinged, Zanni and Victor gave each other a look.

  ‘We play this his way,’ she said. Victor nodded – and Zanni clicked on.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘Three minutes from the terminal in a hotel parking lot. Where are you?’

  28

  A gun-metal BMW 3 sedan cruised toward him, gravel crunching and grumbling beneath its wheels. The windows had a dense charcoal tint that sucked in and snuffed out the sunlight, and Geiger couldn’t see who was driving.

  There would be a number of things to keep track of in his presentation, various layers of interplay moving through the maze. From here on, Soames and Victor would interpret almost everything he said in very different ways – Victor knew where the endgame was and Soames didn’t – and what Geiger knew, and how and when to dispense it, would determine who survived.

  The car stopped and the front doors opened – Soames stepping out from the driver’s side and Victor from the passenger’s seat. Victor immediately lit a cigarette. There was a moment – when bodies finally arrive in the same physical space for the first time – that movement is briefly suspended while minds take measure of real flesh and bone. Size, posture, power.

  Zanni leaned against the door-frame. ‘Bonjour, Geiger . . .’

  ‘Hello, Zanni.’

  Victor walked toward Geiger, his arm rising in the ritual offer of a hand. Geiger filed away a few observations: the man was fifty-something but rock-hard, and had bad knees – more likely arthritic than an injury.

  ‘Geiger,’ Victor said, ‘good to meet you . . . in the flesh.’

  Geiger grasped Victor’s hand and shook it firmly – and settled on a seventy-five percent likelihood that Victor was left-handed.

  ‘Hello, Victor.’

&n
bsp; Their reflections were in each other’s gaze like fun-house mirrors – one image born of another, tunneling deeper and deeper. Geiger had looked into the eyes of killers too many times – and had rarely glimpsed that maniacal spark or lurking evil poets often found in residence there. Eyes held a thousand secrets and truths, but they could lie like tongues.

  ‘Geiger,’ said Zanni, ‘this is your show. Do you know where we’re going?’

  ‘We do now.’ He held up the directions Bruno had given him. ‘From the taxi driver. In French.’

  He handed the paper to Victor and waited till his gaze went down to it, watching him read. The eyes moved minimally – and vertically, not horizontally. He was scanning information he already possessed.

  ‘Have you ever been there, Victor?’

  ‘Tulette? No,’ said Victor. ‘I’ve heard something of it, though.’ Geiger was certain the tell was coming. Victor’s hand rose, and his thumbnail began its ritual, up and down in the cleft of his chin. ‘Small – a decent local wine, I think. There are many villages like it in Provence.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Zanni. She dipped back into her seat and closed the door. Victor walked to the passenger door and gestured for Geiger to get in.

  ‘You sit there, Victor. I’ll sit in the back.’

  Victor nodded. ‘Certainly,’ he said, flicked away his smoke, and sat down in shotgun.

  Geiger picked up his bag and slid into the middle of the backseat. He took out his iPad. On the screen was a Google map of Provence, the route from Avignon to Tulette traced with a violet line. He leaned forward and handed it to Victor.

  ‘This is the route. It’s just under an hour’s drive. And I bookmarked the satellite shot of what I presume is the house.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Victor.

  Geiger handed Dalton’s note and the snuff box to Zanni. ‘These were in a locker at the station.’

  Zanni read the note, handed it to Victor, and gave her attention to Dalton’s gift.

  ‘A snuff box,’ she said. ‘How clever.’ She opened it and eyed the contents. ‘Usus . . . ?’

  ‘It’s Latin. It means expertise,’ he said. ‘Something he and I discussed when he worked on me. Our bond, if you like.’