“I’m sore all over. Can I have some Advil?”
“I don’t have any,” Geiger said.
“Tylenol?”
“No. I don’t take drugs.”
“Drugs? Advil’s not cocaine, you know?”
He pulled Geiger’s T-shirt on, wincing from the effort. Its hem came to rest halfway down his thighs. The getup made him look even younger, like a kid playing dress-up with his father’s clothes. He sat on the toilet seat and started putting on his sneakers.
“What happens now?” he asked, his head bent to the task. “If you aren’t one of them, then what’re you gonna do with me?”
“Do you have any relatives nearby?”
“Uh-uh.”
“No grandparents?”
“Dead.”
“Uncles, aunts?”
“No.”
Geiger watched him lacing up, the long fingers working systematically, making precise knots and matching loops.
“Dad knew, didn’t he? He knew when he left that those guys were after him, right?”
“I don’t know, Ezra.”
Geiger stepped aside as Ezra stood up and came out. Then he followed the boy back toward the couch.
“This really sucks, man. I mean, I don’t want to be here. I want to be home with my mom and sleeping in my own bed.” He looked over at the pieces of his cell phone strewn on the floor. “Mom’s gonna freak.”
“We’ll call her. We’ll find a pay phone and call her cell.”
“Why can’t you just call her now on your cell?”
“I can’t let her know my number. I can’t let anyone know that.” Geiger could imagine her standing somewhere, dialing Ezra’s number again, growing a little anxious.
Ezra sat on the couch and put his head down in his hands. Webern was rising to a powerful, melancholy arc, and Ezra’s fingers came alive at his temples, wiggling along with the violin, coaxing the notes out of the air.
“This is great, right here where it climbs,” he said. “Sounds like crying, doesn’t it?” He hummed along, his voice cracking at the summit of the melody, and then his focus shifted and he leaned closer to the floor, as if noticing it for the first time. He reached down and ran a fingertip across the ornate design.
“Man, this floor is cool. Where’d you find something like this?”
“I made it.”
Ezra tilted his head at Geiger as one might at an idiot child. “You made the floor with your hands?”
Geiger nodded, feeling as he did the muscles at the back of his neck, stubborn and ungiving.
Ezra got up and began to prowl across the shining surface, studying the network of designs, the stars and disks and crescents, shaking his head as if encountering an impossible creation. “This is amazing,” he said. “People’ve told you that, right?”
“You’re the first person to see it.”
The boy looked up. “Like … nobody’s been in here?”
“No.”
“Never ever? How long have you lived here?”
“Almost seven years.”
“You don’t hang with anybody?”
“No. That’s what works best for me. Being alone.”
Ezra’s smile bloomed for the first time. It came out slowly, wistful and melancholy. It unsettled Geiger to see it on such a young face.
“Yeah,” the boy said. “I’m not Mr. Cool either.”
There was a continual stutter in Geiger’s experience of things—in sound, sight, and action. It was as if he were reading a book, a story about Ezra and himself, and every few seconds it all paused—balanced for a moment on a temporal cusp while he turned the page—and then the story resumed. He was aware that the sensation bled into his physical state as well, a minute hesitation in his breathing and heartbeat accompanying the stutter.
Every few feet, Ezra stopped his tour of the floor and turned around to view the masterpiece. “It changes,” he said. “When you move to a different place, it looks different.” He leaned against a wall and folded his arms. “Know what it’s like? It’s like a kaleidoscope.”
“Yes. It is.”
“My dad would really like it. He knows a lot about art.”
“He buys and sells art?”
“Uh-huh. Goes all over the world. That’s why Mom got me in the divorce, ’cuz he isn’t around a lot—which is sort of why they got divorced in the first place, I guess.”
His shrug was almost lost within Geiger’s shirt. He looked like some woeful survivor from a disaster—the oversized clothes, the discolored flesh on his face and arms, the solemn look of shock. A slow flush started to rise on the boy’s face like an infusion of dye.
“Why didn’t he call me?” Ezra asked. Anger screwed his voice into a wounded sound, as if invisible hands had hold of his throat. “Where is he? Why didn’t he call?”
The boy’s yelp buzzed inside Geiger’s ears like the whine of insects. He swiveled his neck to the left but the click wouldn’t come. He needed it. He needed the sound and sensation of realignment, of pieces sliding into their proper place. He turned his neck to the right. The vertebrae refused to obey.
“I hate him!” Ezra smacked the wall with his palms, and the action seemed to recharge him and propel him unsteadily toward Geiger. “He left me behind. That’s what he did, right?” He stopped inches from Geiger, his outrage already dying out, doused by a heavy sadness.“How could he do that?” It was not a question born of confusion or disbelief but a statement of wonder. He went back to the couch, sat down, and stared at the patterns in the floor. “I can’t believe how bad I feel,” he said. “I’ve never felt anywhere near this bad.”
Ezra had known different degrees of betrayal: a friend turning cold and distant, a music teacher stinging him with an insult, a bully humiliating him in a locker room. The divorce had been a dual betrayal—in the end, neither his mother nor his father loved him enough to put him before their own discontent—but he was in new emotional territory now.
The cat came to Geiger, got up on his hind legs, and started using Geiger’s pants as a scratching post. Geiger picked him up by the scruff of the neck and perched him on his shoulder. The boy smiled in spite of himself.
“He likes it up there, huh?”
“Ezra, do you want to go to the police?”
“You’d take me to the police?”
“I can’t go in with you, but I’ll take you there if you want. There’s a precinct nearby.”
“What’ll the police do with me?”
“They’d take you somewhere and look after you until your mother got here.”
Images of cramped rooms with cots and men with handcuffs on their belts crept into the boy’s mind. He saw windows with dark bars.
“Somewhere like what?”
“Somewhere for children. Someplace safe.”
“I’m safe here, aren’t I?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean? Do they know where you live?”
“No,” said Geiger, “they don’t. But what I’m trying to say is”—he struggled to line up the words—“I don’t know who those men are. I don’t know what they’re capable of finding out.”
To the boy, the statement shimmered with menace. He’d had only a second’s look at one of the men, but it was enough. That morning, his father had already gone when he’d awakened. His father had left a note: “Got early meeting. Keep door double-locked and put chain on. I’ll call later. Dad.” He’d had an Eggo waffle, gone back to his room, and started practicing his violin. He’d forgotten about the chain and was so absorbed in his music that he hadn’t heard them jimmy the door. He’d gotten just a glimpse of the black man lunging at him before the duct tape had blinded him.
Everything about the event had felt unreal, as if he’d suddenly become a character in one of those stories where someone is plucked from this life and flung into a magical realm where the enemies of goodness use their superpowers to unleash evil in the world. He remembered that when the men put him in the trun
k he thought he was going to die—not immediately, but soon. That idea was utterly new to his mind, and it had changed him.
“I want to stay here—with you—till Mom comes.”
“All right.”
“Can we get something for pain?”
“Yes. What?”
“I don’t know. Anything.”
“All right. But you stay here. I’ll go.”
Geiger took the cat from his shoulder and dropped him on the couch, and he curled up in Ezra’s lap and closed his eye. Geiger checked his pockets for cash and went to the door.
“I’m going to set the locks, so don’t touch the keypads. You could … trigger things.”
“Like what?”
“Just don’t touch anything.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“I said okay, didn’t I? I’m not going anywhere. Can I watch TV?”
“I don’t have a TV.”
“You don’t have a TV? For real?”
“Yes. For real.”
“And when you get the medicine, get some food food, okay?”
“All right, some food food, too.”
* * *
When Harry met Geiger at the diner for breakfast, it was usually earlier in the day. Now, as he and Lily slid into a booth, he noticed that the sun was higher in the sky and that its rays followed a more direct route through the large windows. His stomach felt like it was the site of a rugby scrum on a muddy field. The smell of food commanded various juices to start flowing, and as he sat with Lily beside him, his stomach’s rumblings were so loud that the two teenage girls in the next booth giggled at the noise.
His roiling gut was playing havoc with his concentration, making it hard for him to focus on the Butch-and-Sundance question: who are those guys? He also had no idea what they were really after, which made it all the harder to know how to outsmart them. He did have one consolation, though: right now Hall was watching a blip on a screen as it crisscrossed the streets of New York. The tracking device riding around in that cab ought to keep him busy for at least a little while.
Lily was looking out the front window, locking in on one passerby after another, her head swiveling as she followed them out of her field of vision. When the two of them used to come here on weekends armed with the Times, Lily would read Harry’s obits aloud as if they were Shakespearean soliloquies, adding her own touches of passion and drama.
Harry put a hand on her shoulder. He could feel the rounded bumps of bones under her thin skin. He leaned to her ear.
“Hey, Lily. You remember this place? Remember reading—”
“Jesus! What happened to you?”
It was Rita, putting steaming coffee down in front of Harry as she gawked at his swollen, livid temple. Harry was so distracted he’d forgotten about the battle wounds.
“I’m okay.”
“Sure you are—and I’m still a natural blonde.” Rita leaned in closer. “Really, Harry, what the hell happened? And don’t tell me, ‘You should see the other guy.’”
Harry grinned, which made him wince. “Actually, that’s right on the money, doll. Swear to God.”
“You need some ice on that.”
“Okay. And have you got some Advil?”
She nodded and went back behind the counter. Harry put a hand up to his face. It didn’t feel like his, and now that he thought about it, very little of his body and brain felt like the him he’d lived with for so long—from his throbbing head and sore groin to his dulled focus and softening heart. He felt in between lifetimes, afloat in some shifting temporal goo. He dumped three doses of cream into his coffee, sucked the vapors in, and took a grateful sip.
Rita held an ice-filled ziplock baggie and a container of Advil out to him. “Here.”
“Thanks.” He put the bag against his face. It felt wonderful.
“And who’ve we got here?” she asked, nodding toward Lily.
“Lily. My little sister.”
“Nice to meetcha, hon,” said Rita.
When Lily didn’t respond, Rita raised an eyebrow. But then a memory surfaced and a look of astonishment came into her eyes.
“Your sister? The one you used to come here with way back?” She took a closer look. “Yes, yes, I remember. Lily.” Her cheeks tightened with sadness. “Oh my—Harry, what happened?”
“She broke,” Harry sighed, “and her warranty had run out.” He popped five pills into his mouth and washed them down with more coffee. “She doesn’t really talk, and she’s been in an institution a long time.”
Rita clucked and shook her head. “Poor thing.”
“I’ve, uh, got her for the day.”
“Gonna take her to see the fireworks tonight?”
“Jeez—July fourth. Forgot all about it. Nah, we won’t be watching the fireworks.”
“You eating?” Rita asked.
“Until I pass out or throw up.”
“Charming. And sis?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try and feed her.”
Rita’s nose crinkled up, and she leaned closer to Lily and sniffed. “I think she needs to go to the bathroom, Harry. She gone lately?”
“Uh-uh.” He sniffed too. “Jeez, I didn’t even notice.”
“Does she—go by herself?”
Embarrassed, Harry shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Jesus, Harry—you don’t know a helluva lot. Didn’t they give you a list or something?”
“Who?”
“The home.”
“Oh. No, I—I was in kind of a hurry. Rita, could you do me a favor and check the ladies’ room to see if the coast is clear, so I can take her in there?”
“You can’t go in there, Harry. That place has more traffic than the Holland Tunnel.”
They both looked at Lily. A sparrow had landed on the windowsill outside and Lily was watching it watch her. Every time it cocked and recocked its tiny head, Lily did the same, as if conversing in a silent avian language.
“Christ,” sighed Rita, “I’ll take her.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Rita.”
Harry grabbed Rita’s hand and gave it a tight squeeze. Holding her hand felt good, and abruptly he realized that he might start weeping. He had no idea why.
“Harry,” Rita said. “I can’t take her unless you let go of me.”
“Sorry.” Harry let go of Rita and took Lily by the wrist. “C’mon, kiddo.” He stepped out of the booth and helped Lily stand up.
“The birds…” she said.
Rita wrapped her arm around Lily’s waist. “Let’s go, sweetie.”
As she steered Lily toward a narrow hallway, Rita hollered to the counter. “Manny! Gimme a chedlette, bacon crisp, nuke the homeys. Carla, watch mine for a minute.”
Rita and her ward disappeared into the shadows, and Harry sat back down. The coffee was beginning to pacify the ache in his head, so he tried to unscramble his thoughts by making a mental list of the issues he needed to sort out.
One: Hall had gotten past the firewall on the website. He didn’t think that this was possible without a legitimate in, so maybe he should try to contact the referral for some dope on these guys. But Hall had used Colicos, the scrap metal guy, as his reference, and it would be a major hassle getting to him.
Two: Could Hall track people by cell phone signal? If he had somebody inside Verizon or Sprint or wherever, he could get that kind of information for a price.
Three: What the hell was he going to do with Lily? He didn’t have the cash to pay for a rental car or a cab to drive her all the way back to the home in New Rochelle, and he didn’t have the nurse’s number so he could call and tell her to come pick Lily up. For now at least, it would have to be a brother-and-sister act.
“Mission accomplished.”
It was Rita. She eased Lily down in the booth and put a plate of food in front of Harry.
“She was wearing a diaper, so now she’s not,” Rita reported. “You might want to think about picking some up for her. And Harry—
she said something.”
Harry picked up a forkful of eggs but before eating said, “Yeah, she likes to sing songs.”
Rita shook her head. “No, she said something. She said, ‘Tinkle.’”
The past and all its lighter-than-air dreams closed in on Harry like a force field. He put his fork back down on the plate and stared into his sister’s dark, wishing-well eyes.
“She said that? ‘Tinkle’?”
“Yeah. You know, when she was on the toilet peeing.”
Harry felt Rita’s hand on his shoulder and then realized that tears were sliding down his cheeks. He reached across and rubbed his sister’s arm softly.
“Jesus, Lily. You’re still in there somewhere, aren’t you?”
Rita gave his shoulder a squeeze and said, “I’m gonna tell you something, Harry. You’re a good man. The way she is? Not every guy would take care of a sister like this.”
Harry sat back and wiped the tears away with his palm. “Not true, Rita, but thanks.” He picked up his fork. “Funny, though—you’re the second person to say that today.”
“That makes it two against one, Harry, so I must be right.”
“Yeah, how can I argue with you and a cabbie from Louisiana?” He shoveled some eggs into his mouth, but even before he finished the bite he stopped chewing. That cabbie: suddenly he heard the driver’s drawling voice say, I got a sister, too.
His senses ping-ponged from uncertainty to paranoia and back as he replayed the scene with the taxi driver in his head. Almost immediately he was sure: he had never told the cabbie that Lily was his sister.
He and Lily didn’t look anything alike now, but could the driver have overheard some part of their conversation and made a reasonable deduction about who Lily was? Or—more likely—had the cabbie known who Harry and Lily were before they got into the cab? Geiger said the boy thought there had been three men. Harry had to swallow hard to force the food all the way down his throat.
“Rita, is there a back way out of here?”
“I thought you were starved.”
“I am. Is there?”
“Yeah, down the hall. Goes out to the alley.”
Harry stood up and got Lily to her feet, took a few bills from his pocket, and put them on the table.
“If a guy with red hair and a mustache comes in, you didn’t see us. He might have a southern accent, too.”
The Inquisitor: A Novel Page 13