The Inquisitor: A Novel

by Smith, Mark Allen

  Carmine involuntarily flexed the fingers of his right hand, then leaned toward Geiger until their faces were inches apart. “Has anyone ever told you that you are one very strange motherfucker?”

  “Yes. A number of people.” Geiger’s fingers fluttered on the tabletop. “Let me come to the first interrogation.”

  Carmine frowned and poured another two inches of liquor. He stared at the glass, and for a moment he was absolutely still, as if listening to the sound of ten thousand hunches—his whole life, built upon them—and then his eyes started to shine with the wisdom of intuition.

  “Geiger, do you own a cell phone?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Get one.”

  * * *

  His daily regimen of push-ups done, Geiger went back into the house and stood in front of his enormous CD case. He had designed and built it himself; six feet square, it was made of flawless cherry, had ten open shelves on rollers, and held over eighteen hundred albums. He scanned the jewel cases and slid out Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks, flicked on the amplifier, and slipped the CD into the player. A tripping cascade of violins poured from the Hyperions.

  He walked to a door and opened it. Inside was a small closet, just four feet by four feet, with mirrored walls from floor to ceiling. The music flowed into the closet from two mounted Bose mini-speakers.

  Still naked, Geiger stared at his triple reflections. He surveyed the cabled muscles beneath taut skin, the crooked kneecaps and pronounced bumps of the outer ankles. He turned and craned his head around to see the slight, scoliotic curve of the upper spine and the oddly flattened iliac crests at the hips. And as always, he gazed with particular intensity at the myriad razor-thin scars running in horizontal columns down his hamstrings and his calves, all the way to his Achilles tendons. They looked like patient, punctilious markings etched by an inmate on a prison-cell wall.

  Geiger stepped inside the closet and lay down on his side, curling himself into a ball to fit. He reached up and pulled the door closed. He closed his eyes. As the music swirled around him, each note burst into a drop of radiantly colored light that left a dying trail like a falling star against a night sky. He could taste the sounds, too; each instrument and tone delivered a different flavor. The cello painted long, aquamarine streaks that tasted sweet and cool. The violins splashed hot red lines with hints of cinnamon.

  He was in the darkness now. He needed to think.

  4

  Jackie Cats awakened to the sound of a cat meowing plaintively. His eyes ached, and he could open only one of them. He remembered being yanked out of bed; he remembered being taped up and forced into a large, coffinlike aluminum trunk; and he remembered, later on, some guy opening the trunk and shoving a needle into his neck. The rest was a blank—until now.

  He was in a dark place and he couldn’t get a sense of its dimensions. He could see that he was suspended upright in a spread-eagled position in the center of a geometric construction made of steel bars that had been bolted together at ninety-degree angles to form a hollow cube about ten feet by ten feet. He was naked, arms and legs stretched out at forty-five-degree angles, wrists and ankles tethered tightly to the upper and lower horizontal bars by leather straps. Beneath him in the floor was a round metal grille, about four feet in diameter.

  His bruised body was bathed in the hard light of mini-spots shining from the eight corners of the cube. There was no other illumination, and outside the cube the black floor and ceiling merged with the darkness. He didn’t know where he was, but he knew why, and what was coming. He pulled on his ties, testing them. There was no give.

  The meowing dropped down into the guttural yowl of an angry feline, and soon another slow, bending yowl joined in, announcing a second cat.

  Jackie Cats shouted, “Shut the fuck up, huh?”

  He couldn’t believe what a schmuck he was. A dumb, fucking minchione. He’d waited years for his shot, put up with Carmine’s bullshit, got the right crew together, pulled it off without a snag. Free, clear, and rich. If he’d stuck to his plan, he’d be thirty-five thousand feet up right now, six little Chivas bottles on the fold-down table, listening to Learn to Speak Portuguese on his iPod. But he went over to Nicki’s to do her one more time, and ended up fucking himself instead. He shook his head ruefully, and it made his eyes throb.

  “Fuck me!”

  The yowling escalated to hisses and throaty growls, and then the unseen cats went at each other. The sound of small, thudding bodies, vicious snarls, and chalk-on-a-blackboard screams weaved into a shrill cacophony. It made him grit his teeth, and that made his eyes hurt again.

  The howls stopped and he was surrounded with a thick, pulsating silence. Just past the fringe of light he saw two unblinking eyes floating in the blackness, staring at him.

  “Here, pussy, pussy,” he said, chuckling. He’d made his peace with fear a long time ago. He’d looked down the barrel of a shotgun, felt a stiletto sink into his flesh, did five and a half in Attica with the beasties and the bush babies. And he had a theory about fear. It was all about regret. If you make what you want out of life and don’t bullshit yourself about your choices, then there are no regrets, and a man without regret isn’t afraid of anything.

  Then again, he did wish that he hadn’t paid that last visit to Nicki …

  The eyes darted toward him, and something swung into the light with a whoosh—it was a long wooden oar—and struck him flat-sided on the sternum. His body reflexively tried to double up, but the bonds prevented it, so he shook and spasmed like a large fish on a hook, and then slowly came to rest.

  “Muh—ther—fuck—er,” came out of him.

  The pain crawled up into his neck and flooded his eyes with tears. Someone was standing outside the cube; he was dressed in black and wore gloves and a hood. Jackie Cats knew he wasn’t dealing with Carmine or any of the guys. They’d taken him to a pro. He remembered Carmine talking about two guys in the past. One name started with a D—Denton, Durbin, something like that. He couldn’t remember the other guy’s name.

  “Jesus,” he said. “A fucking boat paddle?”

  The oar’s head smacked into the small of his back. His body tried to arch forward and the oar slammed into his stomach. The blows were wreaking havoc on his involuntary reflexes. Before his muscles could finish one violent spasm they were jolted by another. He was twisting up inside. He felt as if parts of him were being pulled from their moorings. Bile rose in his throat like volcanic magma.

  “You picked a helluva way to make a living, you sick fuck. It must pay well. Don’t mind if I puke, do you?”

  His lunch shot out onto the floor. It occurred to him that it had probably been his last meal, and he hadn’t enjoyed it. The veal had been tough. He greedily gathered air back into his lungs.

  “I’m not giving anybody up, asshole,” he said.

  Behind him, a soft voice said, “I need the names of the men who helped you steal the money, John.”

  Jackie Cats turned his head as far as he could. The guy was back there, but all he could see was blackness. “You hear what I just said?” he barked.

  “I need the names of the men who helped you steal the money, John.”

  “Are you fucking deaf or—”

  The edge of the oar met his chest with a crack. He howled, his head swiveling back around in time to see the oar disappear. The voice was behind him, so how could the guy be in front of him? Was there more than one of them?

  “You tell Carmine—he’s got his money back, and he’s got me, so leave it alone. I’m not ratting. And you can suck my dick.”

  He heard a click, and a stream of tepid liquid poured down on his head and shoulders, down his body, drenching him and dripping down into the grille.

  “What the fuck?”

  The dousing slowed to a trickle and stopped, and the mini-spots grew brighter. The stuff stung his eyes, like too much chlorine in a pool. It tasted bitter.

  “It’s a mixture of water and three chemical agents,” the
voice said. “Under the lights, it will start to heat up as it dries on the skin. It feels good, at first.”

  * * *

  For a few minutes, it did. Jackie Cats remembered lying on the tar roof of their house off Flatbush Avenue when he was a kid, the sun on his face and the heat coming up through his towel and warming his back. But now his skin was burning hot. He felt like a slab of meat on a spit. He could almost hear the sizzle.

  “So how does it work?” he asked the darkness. “You don’t get paid unless I give you names? That it? ’Cuz if it is, you’re doing this one pro bono. I’m telling you—you can wait till I’m fucking charcoal-broiled, but Jackie Cats ain’t talking.”

  “I told you what I need, John, but at the moment I’m not asking you for anything. It isn’t time yet.”

  “So who are you—Denton or the other guy?”

  “His name is Dalton.”

  “Whatever.”

  His skin felt like it was shrinking, tightening on his bones. His hands had gone numb. He’d begun to feel very strange: suspended this way, he was losing the sense of where his own body started and ended. If he could just touch something …

  “How ’bout this? One mean, crazy prick to another. Trust me when I tell you I ain’t giving anybody up, so how ’bout we cut to the chase and you take me out right now? Get it over with.”

  He heard the whoosh just before the oar met his left kneecap. His bellow sounded hoarse and unfamiliar.

  “Should I take that as a no?” He laughed, and that sounded different now, too. Tinny and high-pitched. “Tell you what, then. I’m gonna explain something to you. Try and make you see why you might as well do me now.”

  Another whoosh brought the oar smashing into his right kneecap. His teeth bit into his lower lip. He tasted blood. Harsh lights suddenly came on in the walls and ceiling. The optical shift delivered such a sensory jolt that his body stiffened as if he’d been hit again.

  The room was large, about twenty feet square. There was nothing else in it except a man who stood before him just outside the steel frame. Clothed completely in black, he held the oar in his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, motherfucker,” Jackie Cats said.

  Geiger pulled off his ski mask. He was satisfied with how things were going. He’d used force moderately, just enough to keep Massimo’s primal senses in the moment while the cube and the sodium hydroxide solution gradually did their work. Slowly the man’s concrete sense of the physical self would alter and diminish, ultimately affecting his mind and loosening his sense of resolve, priorities, loyalties. Massimo was telling him how tough he was, explaining why he couldn’t be broken. It was a good sign.

  “Go on, John,” Geiger said. “Tell me why we should cut this session short. I’m listening.”

  “Okay then. See, the way I see things, life and death is a no-lose proposition. I’ve felt that way for thirty years and I’m gonna feel that way no matter what kind of shitstorm you bring down on me. You know why that is?”

  Geiger started to walk slowly around the cube. The oar hung down at his side. “Tell me, John.”

  “Here’s why. The way I live life in my world, somebody wants to take me out? Fine. Take your best shot and see if I go down. If I do, hey, it’s cool with me, ’cuz I’m dead now and I don’t give a shit. I don’t care that you whacked me, or that you’re fucking my wife or pissing on my tombstone. Do whatever the fuck you like, or don’t. You staying with me on this, Mr. X?”

  “Go on, John.”

  “But if you try to whack me and I don’t go down … well, you gotta know I’m coming back at you and there’s a truckload of righteous retribution pulling up to your door. Because now I’m feeling like God on a long weekend with nothing to do but some really terrible fucking damage. And before I’m through with you, you’re gonna tell your wife to get on her knees and suck my hose till she chokes. To make me stop your pain, you’re gonna beg me to do things to her you’d never even let yourself dream about doing to the sorriest whore you could ever stick a cock in. Okay?”

  Geiger knew it wouldn’t be long now.

  “So either way,” Jackie Cats said, “dead or alive, I’m doing okay—see? Life and death’s a no-lose proposition on a silver fucking platter. And I’m not ratting. Not ever.”

  “I have a question, John.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if you were the other guy?”

  “What other guy?”

  “The man in your story who you’re punishing—who chooses to offer up his wife to sexual degradation in order to stop his own physical torture. Are you saying you wouldn’t make that choice if you were him?”

  “Fucking A right! What’ve I just been trying to tell you?”

  “Then how are you different from him?” Geiger stepped inside the cube. This close, he could smell the residue of the sodium hydroxide solution. He’d give him a second dose soon. “Tell me, John. What makes you different from him?”

  Jackie Cats’s reddened face screwed up in angry confusion. “What the fuck’re you talking about?”

  “Why wouldn’t you sink to those depths? What is it about you? Is it physical strength? Are you tougher?”

  Geiger raised the oar and brought the edge down on the outside of Jackie Cats’s right ankle with a sharp crack.

  “Do you have a higher threshold of pain?”

  He whacked the left ankle and Jackie Cats growled.

  “Are you braver?”

  He flipped his grip on the oar and hammered the rounded end into Jackie Cats’s right clavicle. A deep gasp burst out of his bleeding lips.

  “Or more noble—or loyal?”

  He drove the oar into the left clavicle, picking spots where he would inflict intense pain without breaking anything.

  “Or more loving?”

  Geiger raised the oar like a spear so the bridge of Jackie Cats’s nose became a bull’s-eye. As he thrust it forward, Jackie Cats winced at the imminent impact—and the oar stopped an inch from him. His eyes rolled back and his head tipped to the side.

  “John. What I have to say now is important, so nod if I’m coming through to you.”

  “Go … fuck … yourself.”

  Geiger’s fingers started their dance beside his thigh.

  “In this room, John, we try to deal in truth, and we stay here until we find it. Now, I do think you believe that what you just told me about yourself is true. I think that’s who you think you are—but I don’t agree with you.” He stepped out of the cube. “John, my job is to retrieve information, but sometimes, in order to do that, first I have to help you become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses, what you’re capable of and what you’re not. Discovering your true self, John—that’s what this is really about.”

  Geiger walked to the wall directly in front of Jackie Cats.

  “So you try to take a look at who you really are when all the poses and nicknames are stripped away. Give it a shot, John, and then you and I will talk again and see where we end up. I might even ask for the information I need.”

  Geiger reached out to a black control panel on the wall, pushed a button, and another shower came down on Jackie Cats, who grunted but hardly moved. Geiger punched another button and all the lights except for the cube’s mini-spots went out.

  “Been there, done that, motherfucker,” Jackie Cats muttered.

  The sound of the cats’ hissing and yowling started again, and then Geiger’s voice spoke from the dark as it had earlier.

  “I need the names of the men who helped you steal the money, John.”

  The sentence became an audio loop. Interweaving with the feline mayhem, the voice said the same words over and over. I need the names of the men who helped you steal the money, John. I need the names of the men who helped you steal the money, John. I need the names …

  Then a noise slipped out of Jackie Cats. Even in his impaired state, the sound stunned him. It was a whimper.

  5

  Sipping his morning coffee and sitting at the de
sk in his Brooklyn Heights living room, Harry looked out at the East River. He slid his hand inside his sweatpants and felt around gingerly, his scowl like a horseshoe embedded in his unshaven face. Last night, during one of his marathon showers, he’d discovered something that made him shiver in the hot steam—a small, subcutaneous something in his groin. The bulge was the size of a grape and semihard.

  During his years in the Obituaries department at the New York Times, which is where he’d worked before he met Geiger, Harry had developed the conviction that if you lived past forty, sooner or later you’d get cancer. The small percentage who didn’t make it to forty—who died in a head-on or were murdered or stroked out—they would have gotten cancer if they’d lived longer. Now Harry was forty-four, and his body, once a brother-in-arms against the world, could no longer be trusted. He knew from all the lives he’d sifted through that within every man is his own Caesar and Brutus, and from this point on his flesh could betray him at any time. The “Et tu” moment would come, not as a dagger in the back but as a swollen node felt while swallowing, or an enlarged pupil glimpsed in the mirror, or a grape-sized mass found by a fingertip during a shower.

  At times like these Harry envied Geiger. He wouldn’t change places for any price—clearly, the man had more demons than a Hieronymus Bosch painting—but that steel-trap heart and mind had a definite appeal. Nothing ever seemed out of the ordinary to Geiger. He was like some mystical engineer who’d found a way to shut down the highs and lows of happenstance and their impact. Back at the beginning of their partnership, Harry had decided that Geiger was on a mood equalizer, one of those drugs that sandpaper the rough edges off experience. But eventually Harry had changed his mind. If Geiger was on a drug, it was something he produced in his brain, and whatever that chemoneural cocktail was, Harry coveted it.

  They had met eleven years ago in Central Park at three A.M. Harry was drunk, as was his nightly custom then, and he was getting his head kicked in by two skinheads. A few years earlier he had become a dreamless man—not the nocturnal variety, but a man who had let go of any notion of prospects, any promise of the new and different, any hope of something else. The dreams of his youth were as dead as the people he wrote about, ashes and dust, and so the arrhythmic pounding of boot toes on bones and flesh and the breath-sapping pain and the possibility of being ushered out of the world had all felt almost right. Loss had become a sidekick; it was always near, shambling along a few steps behind him. The thought of finally bidding it good-bye was stretching Harry’s battered lips into a smile across broken teeth when Geiger stopped his nighttime run just long enough to lay out the punks in a blur of lethal hands and feet, and then go on his way before Harry could summon breath to speak.