The Inquisitor: A Novel

by Smith, Mark Allen

  “I mean that you’re lying. That’s what I do, Mr. Hall—I determine whether someone is telling the truth or not.”

  Hall took a sip of his wine. “All you need to be concerned about is doing whatever’s necessary to get the kid to talk.”

  “All right. Just trying to be helpful.”

  Geiger looked out to the boy. For a moment, the nature of time, and Geiger’s awareness of it, changed. It ceased to be perpetual and fluid and solidified into measured instants. Each brief moment had its own beginning and end, like the flickering frames of a movie glimpsed individually even as they ran together.

  “I think it’s time,” he said, and his right fist shot straight out, his knuckles smashing into Hall’s chest an inch below the sternum, driving the breath from him in a loud, expulsive grunt. Hall stumbled back into the wall and slumped to his knees, chest heaving, hands on his quadriceps. A noise like a hacksaw cutting through copper pipe clawed its way up his throat as his diaphragm struggled to free itself from spasm and pull in air.

  Geiger crouched down beside Hall. Spittle, tinted pink with pinot noir, was beginning to bubble out of his mouth. His lips opened slightly in a preface to speech.

  “Uhhnff … uhhnff” was what came out.

  The foghorn audio stopped, and Geiger rose to look through the window. The wheelchair rolled to a stop; the boy didn’t move. Geiger knelt back down. Hall seemed incapable of turning his head, but his wet eyes managed to swivel in their sockets until they found Geiger’s deadpan stare.

  “Mr. Hall,” said Geiger.

  The tears rolling down Hall’s cheeks made him look deeply unhappy, as if the tough-guy persona was an act and Geiger had said something mean and wounding.

  “Fffff … fuck,” he gasped.

  “I don’t know who you are, Mr. Hall—but I do know who you aren’t.”

  The surface of Geiger’s words had a slight, gravelly patina that was unfamiliar and slightly unsettling. The unscheduled violence had ratcheted up Geiger’s pulse and breathing and altered the topography of his voice.

  “Do you want to tell me who you really are?” Geiger said.

  Hall’s head drooped, his shoulders stretching, his body searching for some physical accommodation, a way to breathe. His head levered back up; he blinked, coughed, and then blinked again, as if delivering an answer in some secret code he assumed Geiger knew.

  Geiger planted his open palm tightly on Hall’s face and then rammed his skull back into the wall. The crunching sound announced the crushing of some substance—wood or bone, or both—and Hall’s eyes widened in further surprise before falling shut.

  Geiger held Hall’s head in place, observing each partitioned instant as it passed. Some kink in his optical network reduced the depth of images going to his brain, rendering them flatter than normal, like Polaroid snapshots. Finally he took his hand away and Hall slumped sideways onto the floor, revealing a grapefruit-sized dent in the wall. It was an inch deep, and moist crimson specks mingled with the mashed fibers.

  The pockets of Hall’s pants contained the expected: a wallet with American Express and Diners Club cards, about six hundred dollars in cash, a Pennsylvania driver’s license, a State Farm insurance ID for a 2006 silver Lexus coupe. In his jacket pockets were a pack of Camels, a lighter, and two cell phones, a BlackBerry and a Motorola Droid that Geiger assumed belonged to the boy. A black leather holster clipped to Hall’s belt held a Taurus Millennium Pro nine-millimeter semiautomatic.

  Geiger stuck the phones in his pockets and stood up. The pulse in his eyes throbbed, producing a minuscule blip in his vision, a cambered shift of objects and surfaces. He put the gun on the bar and went through the door into the session room. He detected a hint of smoky aroma in his nostrils, and his breath was coming in long, strong exhalations, as if he were a runner pacing himself in the early stages of a marathon.

  He walked over to the boy, his mind keenly aware that its moment-to-moment workings were, for the first time in memory, without premeditation. Overriding all thought and feeling was the pure, unencumbered sensation of moving toward some unknown destination. It was a feeling alien to his consciousness but familiar from another domain. He knew it from his dreams.

  The boy sat slack in the chair, head listing. Geiger had set the room’s temperature to sixty-three degrees but the boy was sweating, his shirt and shorts flat and damp against his body, his exposed skin covered with a sheen of fear. Geiger watched the carotid artery in the boy’s neck gorge and shrink to the accelerated beat of his heart.

  “Ezra…”

  The boy’s body violently snapped to attention like a soldier obeying a sergeant’s order.

  “Ezra, there won’t be any questions now.”

  The boy’s throat swelled with a squeaky grunt. Geiger took out his cell phone and pressed a key. Harry answered before the first ring finished.

  “That was fast,” Harry said.

  “Come on up—and bring the money.”

  The silence on the line had a question mark at the end of it. “The money? Okay.”

  Geiger walked back into the viewing room. Hall hadn’t moved; he lay on his right side in a near-fetal position. On the wall was the wet, arcing swath his wound had painted as his head had slid down from the point of impact to the floor.

  Geiger heard faint music rousing itself deep within him. He saw flashes of violet and chartreuse sound begin to wave in time behind his eyes, and then the creak of an opening door and a sliver of dusty light invaded the pitch-black core of him. He felt a dull ache in his ankles. Rising up like a ballet dancer on the balls of his feet, he stretched his Achilles tendons and calf muscles. The pain and the music stopped, and then the sliver of light disappeared.

  The elevator gate rattled.

  “Geiger?” Harry said.

  The word came to Geiger as if called to him across a canyon. He turned to find Harry standing in the doorway, bafflement breaking across his face.

  “Jesus Christ. What the hell happened?”

  Geiger glanced back at Hall. “We’re leaving,” he said, as if he were informing the body instead of Harry.

  Harry put the attaché case down at his feet. “Oh fuck. What’d you do to him? Is—is he dead?”

  “No. We have to go now.”

  Geiger moved for the door, and Harry put his hands up like a traffic cop. Geiger stopped, staring at Harry’s raised palms.

  “Wait a second,” Harry said. “Just wait, okay? Jesus Christ.” He put his palms to his cheeks. “What the hell is going on with you?”

  “We have to go.”

  “Can we talk about this for a minute?”

  “Right now, Harry, it’s more important that we leave.”

  “I disagree, man. This is crazy. This is truly nuts, okay?”

  “Harry,” Geiger said, “it’s probable if not certain that one of Hall’s men followed him here and is waiting nearby. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “I have no fucking idea.”

  “And that’s why we need to leave—now. The longer we wait, the more complicated things will get.”

  “Complicated? You just coldcocked a client!”

  Harry looked over at the bar, at the multicolored skyline of bottles. He hadn’t had a drink since the day he took Geiger up on his offer. It had been Geiger’s one requirement—that he stop drinking—and consciously or not, his sobriety had become another reason to see Geiger as his lifesaver. But even after eleven years he could still summon the taste of cheap bourbon at the back of his mouth. He was beginning to understand what the body on the floor meant, how it would likely redefine his life from this moment on, and he wanted a drink, now, to flatten the thumping pulse in his ears.

  “We’re going now, Harry. Out the back.”

  “Going where?”

  Geiger sighed. Harry was stunned; he realized that he had never seen Geiger sigh before. He couldn’t have been more surprised if Geiger had screamed.

  “And we leave the money,” Geiger said.

 
The statement sent a dull pang through Harry’s chest, but somehow he had seen it coming. He nodded sadly. “If we leave the money, you think this can all be smoothed out?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t think the money’s important to Hall—and because I’m taking the boy with me.”

  “With you?”

  Harry looked back through the doorway. He’d forgotten about the boy. The sight of him, silent and inert, kicked an angry squall to life in Harry’s stomach.

  Harry turned back to Geiger. “This is absolutely fucking crazy. You tell Hall you don’t do kids, then you change your mind and say yes. And then you punch him out. Why, man?”

  “We need a car, Harry. Go out through the alley—”

  “What the fuck is this about, Geiger?”

  “Take a cab to the Thrifty rental. They stay open late—”

  “Geiger—”

  “Get a car, bring it to the alley, back it in, and knock on the door. We’ll—”

  A wet cough popped out of Hall, and Geiger and Harry turned to see one of Hall’s legs move, shifting from a ninety-degree angle to about forty-five. Geiger crouched beside him.

  “Geiger,” Harry said, “have you even begun to think this through?”

  Geiger undid Hall’s tie and began lashing his ankles with it.

  “For starters,” Harry said, “you broke your own first commandment: Never let the outside change the inside. I’m not saying I think you were wrong—he’s just a kid—but I don’t know where the hell that leaves us.”

  Geiger finished tying up Hall’s ankles and pulled the knot tight.

  “Second, maybe there’s still a chance we could finesse this thing—maybe—but if you snatch that kid, then you’ve just retired yourself. Do you get that? Word gets out and we’re done, man. Finished. Not even Carmine would touch us. Jesus—did you think about any of that?”

  Geiger rose and faced Harry. “No. I didn’t think about any of that.”

  “Well maybe you’d better—”

  “Harry, listen to me.”

  “I cannot fucking believe you just—”

  Geiger grabbed his partner and slammed him up against the doorjamb. “You’re not listening to me, Harry. Stop talking, take a deep breath, and listen to me.”

  Harry felt completely incapable of taking a deep breath, but he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  Geiger’s pupils flared. They were like two shotgun barrels in a gray mist aimed at Harry.

  “This,” Geiger said, “is not about a painting.”

  He let go of Harry, walked to the bar, and poured another glass of water and began to drink. Harry’s shoulder blades ached from the impact with the wall. It was the first and only time Geiger had ever touched him. Clearly, this was going to be a night full of firsts—and probably lasts. He watched Geiger’s Adam’s apple bob up and down until he lowered his empty glass.

  “Mr. Hall,” Geiger said, “is not a private detective working for a rich man with an art collection.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He said he came to me because he knew I was more ‘understated’ than Dalton, but if I turned the job down he’d take Ezra to Dalton anyway, knowing he could end up a bloody mess, a norell. Would you do that if you were looking for a stolen painting?”

  “Then who is he?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned back to Harry. “But whoever he is, I don’t think he’s going to stop—and his job description may include murder as an acceptable option.”

  “Can I ask you one more thing?”

  Geiger waited, his fingers coming alive at his sides.

  “What happened, Geiger?”

  “What happened?”

  “To you. Something’s happened.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Geiger said.

  Harry shook his head. “Yeah, well … neither do I.”

  And that’s that, thought Harry. No more questions, because Geiger had no answers. There had been a massive sea change inside this room, and now Harry was in the drink, head barely bobbing above the waves, no sign of land, no sense of which way to swim, no assurance that someone wouldn’t blow his head off as soon as he crawled onto the shore, if he was lucky enough to reach one. The only thing he was sure of was that if he ever did set foot on land again there’d be no more attachés full of cash waiting for him. The aftershock of that thought—that there might be a certain righting of cosmic scales at work, that some renascent sense had spurred Geiger into an act of spontaneous grace—made him smile, sadly, as one might when cleaning out a cluttered desk drawer and finding an old photograph of someone dear and long departed.

  “You’re smiling, Harry. Why?”

  “Not important.”

  “Then go get the car.”

  “Okay.”

  Harry allowed himself a final glance at Hall’s attaché case and walked out.

  Geiger watched him step into the elevator and descend. Interacting with Harry had tightened him back up. The acts of listening and responding had been a truss wrapping around him, closing cracks and giving him a footing in time again.

  Hall’s limbs moved in small, lazy shifts with the gradual onset of consciousness. Geiger walked into the session room and went over to the boy.

  “Ezra?”

  The boy turned stiffly, as if the spell in the chair had tightened his joints and made even casual movement an effort.

  “We’ll be leaving soon and going someplace safe.” The boy nodded slowly. “I’ll leave the tape on until we’re there.” There was no nod this time, just a brief whimper.

  Geiger walked to a wall, pressed back flat against it, and closed his eyes. He felt like someone who’d been driving a road with no end. As if observing the driver from a great distance, he thought: You’ve been behind the wheel so long that the hum of it in your hands has numbed your senses. Your head droops, you’re nodding out, and suddenly you jolt awake and hit the brakes. You pull over onto the shoulder. You look out the windshield, in the rearview mirror, out the side windows, and you discover that you’re in a perfect blind spot, one where trees and humpbacked hills and bends in the road ahead of you and behind you are a veil to every perspective. You’re not exactly sure when you nodded off, or for how long, but now you have no idea where you are.

  You could be anywhere.

  9

  When Geiger got Harry’s call announcing his arrival in the alley, he checked on Richard Hall; he was semiconscious but his pulse was steady. Geiger wheeled the boy into the elevator and pulled the gate closed. Through the steel latticework, he saw the violin case lying on the session room floor. He came back out, picked up the case, returned to the elevator, and went down to the basement and alley door. He’d had the door installed in case a clandestine departure was ever necessary—lockless and knobless on the outside, the door was solid steel with internal hinges, manual slide bolts, and an interior handle.

  Before leaving the building, he told the boy what to expect: he’d be getting into the backseat of a car, lying down, and going for a ride that would last about half an hour. When getting in and out of the car, he was not to try to run away—there would be no punishment for an attempt, but it would be a waste of time, and time was important now.

  Geiger slid the bolts back and opened the door. A Taurus four-door sat in the unlit alley with the motor running. Standing beside it, Harry’s silhouette glistened slightly with a coat of drizzle.

  “Can I say something?” Harry said.

  “What is it?”

  “We could drop him off at a police station. He’s never seen us. We just keep the tape on, pull up at the station, point him toward the door, and leave.”

  “Bad idea, Harry. No cops.”

  “I’m just trying to help out here.”

  “This has got nothing to do with you.”

  Harry felt heat rise beneath his skin. “No? How the hell do you figure that?”

  “Harry, no
more talking now. Go home.”

  “I’m not coming with you?”

  “No. Leave the van in case Hall has eyes out here, and stay off Ludlow Street.”

  “What if Hall tries to get in touch with me?”

  “I expect he will. I don’t think Mr. Hall is the type to just call it a day. The safest thing to do is go home and stay there—until we see how this plays out. And if Mr. Hall tries to contact you through the website, don’t answer.”

  Geiger went back inside. Harry had the disconcerting sensation that his position in the physical world was going off kilter. Either the landscape was receding from him or he was growing smaller, shrinking.

  Geiger came out leading the blinded boy by the hand. His ankle ties had been removed. Geiger opened the Taurus’s back door and tossed the violin case on the floor.

  “Bend down, Ezra, and lie down in there.”

  Manacled arms outstretched, the boy did exactly as he was told, without hesitation or a sound. Geiger closed the car door and then the door to the building. He came around past Harry and slid into the driver’s seat. He sat up straight and his hands settled gently on the wheel, precisely at nine and three o’clock. To Harry, there was something vaguely childlike about Geiger’s posture. It wasn’t the first time he’d had that thought.

  “You’re okay driving?”

  Geiger’s eyes scanned the dashboard displays and nodded. He turned around to look at the boy, who was curled up on his side. “We’re going now, Ezra.”

  A soft, guttural cluck of understanding came from the boy.

  Geiger faced forward. “Don’t call me,” he said to Harry. “I’ll call you.”

  No you won’t, thought Harry. He stepped back and watched the car move slowly down the alley.

  * * *

  Geiger drove north on Tenth Avenue. He passed two patrol cars doing slow right-lane cruises, but the traffic was light, mostly taxis. He kept his speed under thirty-five miles an hour and was making about eight blocks between red lights. He’d gotten a license five years ago, and each April since then he had rented a car and taken it out on the West Side Highway for an hour’s practice, navigating the same route every time. From the rental place on Fifty-seventh Street, he would drive two blocks west to the highway’s entrance ramp, drive north to the Ninety-sixth Street exit, circle under the highway, get back on the highway going south, and get off at Fifty-sixth Street. Round and round he drove, five circuits in all. Now, on this night that had broken free of its mooring, he was actually driving somewhere, with someone, for the first time.