The Confessor

by Mark Allen Smith

  ‘I’ll check, sir.’

  ‘If he isn’t, I want him here – now.’

  Bowe’s assistant had been with him for nine years, and over that time she had developed a recognition and filing system for his tones of voice. Though the differences were often subtle – perfunctory, engaged, passionate, frustrated, angry, nuclear – she was almost always successful in her readings, but at this moment, she was stymied in her attempt to categorize the character of his last statement.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and walked out.

  Bowe put the first sheet aside, slid the second sheet to him and read on. A trio of horizontal ripples set into his forehead. The door opened and McCormack took two steps inside and stopped. Basic procedure.

  ‘Wanted to see me, sir?’

  Bowe tapped the desktop with a finger. ‘Read.’ McCormack stiffened inside. One-word commands from Bowe were never a good sign. He came to the desk, and Bowe slid the first paper around. McCormack bent to it, and as his eyes scanned the printed lines his head tilted slightly, as if he thought he heard a strange sound from far off – but wasn’t entirely sure.

  From: Felson/NY

  For: Bowe/DEEP RED ONLY

  Today, 4/04/13– 11.06 AM, NINA WAYLAND, DAVID MATHESON’S ex-wife, and their son, EZRA, arrived and produced attached letter re: MATHESON & HARRY BODDICKER, claiming it was written and delivered to her son by GEIGER (Is Geiger alive?!), and demanded to know what we knew about content of letter. She was angry and aggressive.

  The boy was monosyllabic in his answers to questions and clearly unhappy about being here. I told her we knew nothing (which is true).

  Are you boys having another go at those three?

  FYI – if you are, I don’t want to know ANYTHING about it – and, if you are – you’re fucking crazy.

  Bowe slid the second paper around to McCormack. It was a copy of Geiger’s letter to Ezra. McCormack bent lower to the desk, as if the paper possessed a magnetic force. He read aloud.

  ‘“Tomorrow I am leaving here, going out of the country, and will not return. I am going to try and help your father and Harry. They are in trouble.”’ McCormack looked up. ‘That could mean a thousand things, sir. Veritas Arcana and Matheson have enemies all over the world.’

  Bowe’s fingers started their drum roll on the desk. ‘I understand that. But Geiger wrote the letter – so that makes three out of three of them from last July involved in this – and three out of three makes me feel on-edge – and you know on-edge is one of my least favorite feelings.’

  ‘Yes – I know that, sir.’

  ‘So Mac . . . I want you to tell me if you know anything about this that I don’t.’

  ‘No, sir. After the Hall disaster you were quite clear about hands-off on all of them, especially the boy. I know of nothing active with any of them.’

  Bowe sighed. ‘Is Soames here?’

  ‘No, sir. Still on vacation.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  McCormack braced himself for the explosion. ‘I don’t know, sir. A family get-together of some—’

  ‘I don’t care if she’s playing gin with the fucking Pope! Find her – and get her on the fucking phone!’

  ‘Yes, sir. Will do,’ said McCormack, and gratefully hustled out of the room.

  32

  The concept of suffering was and had always been more compelling than the concept of death. Suffering could be complex, protean, in the blood, the flesh, the mind – open-ended, life-changing. And – suffering could make you wish for death, but it didn’t work the other way around – because death was an immeasurably brief, one-dimensional experience. I am . . . then, nothing. Not even the awareness of nothing. In terms of meaning and substance, it was the shallowest of human events.

  That was what he brought with him as he walked across the yard, because that was what today would be about.

  Geiger stepped from the grass onto the stone path and went to the door. He knocked, three times. The wood spoke with a deep, wise voice – and then the door opened . . .

  A stranger might have thought, on first glance, that there was a faint smile on Dalton’s lips, but there was a hardness to their line that crushed any possibility of humor or warmth.

  ‘Geiger . . .’ he said. ‘It’s very good to see you. Come in – please.’

  Dalton took a few steps back, putting ten feet between them, and Geiger came inside, into a foyer that was the nexus of three hallways. There was nothing on any of the walls or floors – and a strong, heavy aroma of coffee.

  Their gazes’ intensity was low wattage, and low-key. They might have been long-lost friends at a reunion trying to sense if they still had anything in common. Once again Geiger was struck by the loss of weight. The cheekbones and nose and brows were far more prominent now. He reminded Geiger of the death’s head on a Grateful Dead album cover.

  ‘Nine months and one day,’ Dalton said. ‘If you were wondering.’

  Geiger glanced down the hallways – and Dalton grinned.

  ‘Wondering where my guards are? Don’t worry. They’re around.’

  ‘I want to see Harry and Matheson.’

  ‘Of course you do. You want to see they’re alive, and all right. I understand. In a short while, Geiger. First, we’ll talk – for a few minutes.’ Dalton gestured toward a hall. ‘This way. There’s fresh coffee.’

  Dalton waited till Geiger started walking, came back to the door and closed it, and then followed Geiger from a few paces behind.

  ‘All the way to the end, and have a seat.’

  Geiger entered the kitchen. The sun had just cleared the horizon and the room was coming alive with light from the eastern window. On the two-burner stove was an old-fashioned pressure coffee maker – and on the counter beside it, two large coffee cups, two spoons, and porcelain milk and sugar pieces.

  There were three chairs at a rectangular table and two tall cabinets. On the table was a thick stack of typed paper, with yellow tabs sticking out from various pages. Geiger sat down in a chair that gave him a view of the doorway. The table was very old oak – wide-plank with an elegant grain and few knots. The world was in the wood. He ran his fingertips over it. Com -pletion was in the wood, waiting to be found . . .

  Dalton came in. ‘A little musty in here.’ He went to a window and opened it, then walked to the stove. ‘How do you like your coffee?’

  ‘Black.’

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No.’

  Geiger’s fingertips started a slow roll on the table – and then he put his hands together before him, fingers laced. He needed stillness. No movement. The only part of him he should sense was his heart, and he wanted each beat to be identical to the last.

  Dalton brought the bowls and put one down before Geiger, then sat across from him. His back was to the entry.

  ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘I expect it’s hot.’ He raised his hands a few inches from his coffee. ‘I can’t tell temperature with these very well.’

  Geiger wondered how many surgeries had been performed on them. The procedures had left the skin hairless, and abnormally smooth. Perhaps skin grafts had been performed. Geiger picked up his bowl and had a taste.

  ‘My own mixture,’ said Dalton. ‘Sumatra and—’

  ‘Blue Mountain.’

  Dalton’s eyes crinkled behind his lenses. ‘Very good. A connoisseur. Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘It’s not a good pairing. They work against each other.’ Geiger took notice of Dalton’s fleeting frown, put his bowl down, and pushed it to the side. ‘I want to see them, Dalton.’

  ‘And I told you – in time.’ Dalton took his glasses off and started cleaning them with the tail of his flannel shirt. ‘They’re alive, Geiger – a little worse for wear, yes . . . and you’ll see them when I decide it’s the time to do so.’ He put his glasses back on. ‘Don’t make me tell you that again.’

  Geiger nodded, while the Inquisitor took note.

  Dalton had spent a great deal of time, thought and eff
ort turning fantasy into reality. Obsession was addictive. He’d played out this moment and those to come countless times – his psychotic expectations had become future fact – and each moment that didn’t sync with them would be a tremor beneath it all. The bedrock truth was that Dalton owned the bank and Geiger had come hat in hand – but Dalton was crazy.

  ‘What have you been doing with yourself, Geiger?’

  ‘I work with wood. I make furniture.’

  ‘Furniture. Sounds satisfying.’ He cocked his head, and nodded at something. ‘Yes. Your father . . . He was a carpenter – right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like father, like son. I’m sure he’s very proud. Oh, but wait . . . You told me he was dead – correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dalton picked up his bowl and drank, rolling the brew around in his mouth. He shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps less Sumatra, more of the Blue Mountain.’ He put the cup down precisely. There was a touch of the mechanical to the movement. ‘Geiger . . . Do you remember, last year, I told you that someday I was going to write my memoirs?’ He reached to the stack of papers and slid them in front of him. ‘My agent already has three bidders. He’s especially excited about the European markets.’ He eyed the pages’ yellow tabs. ‘I thought this would be a good time – perhaps the only time – that I could share some of it with you. How does that sound?’

  ‘It sounds psychotic.’

  Dalton’s peculiar, ambivalent smile came back to him. He grasped one of the tabs between thumb and forefinger. Geiger found the action slightly more methodical than normal. Dalton turned to the page, cleared his throat, and began to read.

  ‘“It was thrilling to see him before me. Geiger, the Inquisitor, the legend, king of our craft. Even strapped into the barber’s chair, nearly naked and stripped of power, he seemed to be the one in control.”’

  It was easy as stepping through a doorway for Geiger to get back there.

  . . . His own session room, the deep whiteness of it, summoning the music in his head for the trial to come, hearing the heavy footsteps of buried memory coming closer, sensing the nearness of his father and the black truths he carried . . .

  ‘“As I worked on Geiger, with a white-hot awl, then a baseball bat, and finally his own antique straight razor, I began to understand I was in the presence of a true alchemist. But instead of changing copper into gold, Geiger could transform pain into something that transcended suffering. It was a revelation.”’

  Dalton picked up his bowl and took a long sip, then put it down and took hold of another tab. He turned to the page and read.

  ‘“Perhaps I was off my guard. Perhaps I was relieved the session was over. Perhaps I was in awe, watching him stitch up the long cuts I’d put in his quad without one wince or sound . . . But his fist fractured my jaw and knocked me to the floor, as two teeth flew out of my mouth and went skittering across the floor like bloody dice.”’

  His left brow did a quick pull-up, as if he was hearing the tale for the first time.

  ‘“Bloody dice”. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  Geiger could see it – slamming his knee into Dalton’s groin and then hammering his face. It was, by far, the hardest he had ever hit someone. Then – he thought he heard something in the house.

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ he asked.

  ‘Be my guest.’

  Geiger took his time getting his pack from a pocket and lighting up. He was trying to clear out a patch of empty air, listening for sounds beyond the room. But none came.

  Zanni stepped into a hallway, gun in hand by her side. She could hear voices. She moved toward them . . .

  Dalton looked back down to the page. ‘“As I lay on my stomach, Geiger straddled me, and what happened next – maybe he’d planned it, or maybe it came to him then and there in a blaze of passion – the crushing, the breaking, the demolishing of my fingers and hands. Geiger said to me – ‘Early retirement, Dalton. Teach yourself to type with your toes and you can start writing your memoirs.’”’

  Dalton looked up. ‘And here we are,’ he said. ‘What do you think? Does it have a ring of authenticity to it?’

  Geiger tapped his ash into his coffee bowl. ‘There was no blaze of passion. I don’t have those.’

  ‘That’s a pity. They can be very satisfying.’ Dalton sat back, muscles at his jaw-joints flexing a few times. ‘Maybe I can help you with that.’ He stacked the papers together and pushed them to the side.

  And Zanni came into Geiger’s view in the doorway, gun pointed at the room. She met Geiger’s stare without hesitancy, her extraordinary eyes clear and cool.

  There are moments when the mind suddenly retrieves something that seems, at first, irrelevant to the situation – a where did that come from? memory that might unveil its pertinence if there is time for the brain to connect the dots . . .

  Soundlessly, Zanni stepped into the kitchen behind Dalton.

  . . . and Geiger’s mind did a loop-de-loop – Brooklyn, the first time they met – and he remembered a decision he’d made that night. He had told himself that he couldn’t believe anything she’d say.

  ‘Hello, Zanni,’ said Dalton, without turning.

  She lowered her gun to her side.

  Dalton grinned. ‘How about it, Geiger? Do we have a blaze – of anything?’

  There was a steady thump starting up in Geiger’s temples, and a sharp, bitter taste flooded his mouth – the flavor of lies. She’d held out a poison apple and he’d taken more than a bite. And battered by his migraine, he’d even taken Dewey’s fiction for truth and swallowed it whole.

  Now Victor came into the room. The dead man’s Beretta was pointed at Geiger. The world was a chessboard, with four pieces, and he was the only pawn.

  ‘Bonjour,’ said Victor.

  Geiger shifted in his chair so his body faced Zanni. ‘Your idea,’ he said. ‘Making Matheson the bait . . .’

  ‘A moment, please,’ said Dalton. ‘Her plan, yes – but I’m the one who told her, after she debriefed me, that if she ever received information about your whereabouts, I would pay a lot for it. I planted the seed – so please, a little credit where credit is due.’

  Geiger nodded. ‘No one in Deep Red saw the video . . .’

  Zanni nodded. ‘No one.’

  ‘And no one knows you’re doing this.’

  ‘No one. Now take the knife out and put it on the table.’

  Victor shifted his aim a few degrees. Geiger reached inside his shirt, pulled the knife free and laid it down softly, tape and all.

  ‘Any others, Geiger?’ said Victor.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall I frisk him, Zanni?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Yes, Victor. I’m sure.’

  Zanni and Geiger’s eyes hadn’t left each other’s since she arrived. Flat, untelling stares. The wisest of seers couldn’t have guessed what they were thinking.

  Dalton pushed back from the table and stood up. ‘He can see them now – just for a minute – and then bring him to me.’

  Zanni turned and walked out. The spent cigarette was warming Geiger’s fingers. He dropped it in the bowl. Victor stepped to the entry.

  ‘Please. You first.’

  Geiger rose from his chair and walked out of the room. Victor followed, three steps behind him. They reached the foyer.

  ‘Turn right,’ said Victor.

  Geiger headed down a hallway. He could see Zanni waiting at the end, and he knew he had to kill the hot kick in his blood. Like sucking the poison out of a snake bite before it spread. He needed pure focus. If he hadn’t called her yesterday morning and come here on his own, he would have discovered her duplicity just the same – so nothing that had happened in between mattered. If it had changed him in any way, so be it. Nothing else had changed. He couldn’t allow himself to see it any other way. Not now.

  Zanni motioned at a door with her gun. ‘Here,’ she said.

  Geiger stopped, an
d turned to watch Victor halt six or seven feet away, gun up.

  ‘They are chained to the walls,’ said Victor. ‘Do not go more than a few steps in the room. Do not touch them. You understand – yes?’

  During the length of Victor’s statement, Geiger had eyeballed the distance between them all, the width of the space, their posture, the position of the guns – and decided an attack would almost certainly be unsuccessful, and quite possibly worse than that. ‘I understand, Victor,’ he said.

  Harry was flat on his back, staring at the old beams set into the ceiling, trying to find the place within him where he could get a true sense of whether or not he could kill someone. Certainly the anger was there, a mother-lode, shiny, fiery red – but anger was only the flint. What element must it strike to set off the act – and was it in him?

  At the same time, he was aware of a part of him that just wanted to slide into a sleep that didn’t end. There was something appealing about the concept of utter thoughtlessness. And that part of him wasn’t choosy. All he wanted was to know that the last thought he’d have was, in fact, his last. Just a heads-up that he was finished using his brain. A sort of farewell to self just before a bye-bye to everything else.

  He looked over at Matheson, who was sitting up, cross-legged, still applying pressure to the self-inflicted cut in his ankle with a blood-soaked gob of toilet paper.

  ‘Did it stop?’ asked Harry.

  ‘Just about, yeah.’ Matheson held up his plastic water jug with his free hand. He’d poured out the water, and managed to get about half an inch of his blood dripped into it. ‘I think that’s enough, huh?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Matheson leaned to his portable toilet, put the jug and compress inside and closed the top, and the door opened, and Geiger walked in.

  Matheson and Harry were like ragged marionettes on the same set of strings, slowly rising to their feet – and Geiger felt his fingers curling inward at his sides, balling into fists so tight that his forearms almost shook.

  ‘Good to see you, Geiger,’ said Matheson.

  Harry started toward Geiger, off the mattress onto the floor, and then four shaky steps, chain jingling, as far as he could go. Five feet away.