Geiger’s hand drifted up for the glass. When Dalton’s gaze moved to it, Geiger’s good leg snapped up and smashed into Dalton’s groin. Dalton doubled over, his spectacles falling, and Geiger’s forearm swung into his jaw with such force that two teeth shot out of his mouth. As Dalton went to his knees, Geiger swatted the gun out of his hand. Dalton held there for a moment, swaying, and then toppled over onto his stomach, one cheek to the floor, huffing like a beached fish.
“There was no praise intended,” said Geiger.
Geiger moved carefully off the couch and straddled Dalton, holding Dalton’s left arm high up on his back and pinning the other arm to the floor at the wrist. Geiger’s blow had rattled Dalton’s skull with such intensity that several blood vessels in his right eye had burst, covering it with a spidery hemorrhage.
“Make a fist with your right hand,” Geiger said.
“A fist?” Dalton said, gasping.
“Yes, make a fist.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not going to do this anymore.”
Dalton shook his head. His chest was heaving, but he managed a wolfish grin. “No. I don’t think I will. I want to see Geiger the Great in action. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you know?”
“Sorry. You’re about a day too late.”
Geiger pushed Dalton’s left arm higher up his back, and Dalton squealed with pain. “Dalton, for most of my life I’ve wondered what it would be like to kill someone. Say no again and you will give me one less thing to wonder about.” He kept cranking Dalton’s arm higher. “Make a fist.” And higher still. “Do it.”
A muffled syllable signaled concession, and finally Dalton’s right hand curled into a ball against the floor. Geiger made a fist of his own and sent it smashing down on Dalton’s, whose scream nearly drowned out the sound of his fingers breaking. Then Geiger grabbed Dalton’s left hand and swiftly jerked four of the fingers back until the bones snapped. Dalton’s howl was lower this time but longer, and soon it became a rough, growling whir. His hands, resting on the floor with the fingers splayed, looked like two crabs someone had stepped on at the beach.
Geiger got to his feet and fell back onto the couch. He took a deep breath. “Early retirement, Dalton. Teach yourself to type with your toes and you can start writing your memoirs.”
Geiger picked up his pants and pullover and considered the least torturous way to put them on.
19
“That’s it,” said Harry, turning from a window back to the living room. He sighed. “That’s the whole story.”
After Geiger had left, Corley had put out an assortment of finger food, and once Harry and Ezra had gorged themselves, he’d sent Ezra into the bedroom to watch television and then demanded that Harry tell him exactly what was going on or he would call the police. In telling the tale of Ezra, Harry at first tried to skirt the details of what he and Geiger actually did for a living, but early on it became clear that everything would have to come out. It was the first time he had ever told anyone about his work, and the undertow of the loathsome truth pulled at him.
As Harry talked, Lily sat next to him on the couch, her fingers twisting the ends of her hair in a secret ritual. Corley, sitting across from them, seemed lost in a world of his own, his eyes locked on the tightly spun gold-and-blue swirls of the living room’s Oriental rug. In truth, Corley’s eyes saw nothing in the room. His vision was pointed inward at the countless pieces of Geiger’s psychic puzzle.
“Doc?”
Corley was shaken by the revelation about Geiger’s work, and by his blindness to it. Torture. Was this how Geiger’s hidden past had been expressing itself all these years? A tiny, sharp-toothed beast started gnawing at Corley’s insides. Should he have seen it—or at least sensed something?
“Doc?”
Corley looked up. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry this ended up on your doorstep. I really am.”
Corley waved away the apology but then gave Harry a narrow look. “Putting aside, for the moment, what you two have been doing for the past decade—you do realize that this is kidnapping, a serious federal crime?”
“Yeah, but we didn’t kidnap him. We’re the … un-kidnappers.”
Harry took a sip of ginger ale and fisted a burp. He put a piece of sourdough pretzel up to Lily’s lips, but she ignored the offering.
“Eat something,” he said.
“I can’t remember,” she said, her eyes darting from side to side.
“Remember what?”
“There are so many words, and so many different meanings, and they all have to be in the right place. Where’s Harry?” she asked.
Harry gave Corley a quick glance. “Jesus, she said my name.” Then he turned her face to his. “Right here, Lily. Hey, it’s me, Harry.”
Corley got up and came over, crouching in front of her. He studied her eyes’ movements, noting the extended frozen stare that was interrupted by sudden zigs to the left and right.
“You said sometimes she comes out with a lyric as a response to things?” Corley asked.
“Yeah. Sometimes it feels like a connection to something, sometimes not.”
Corley leaned in close to Lily, his face just inches from hers.
“Lily?” he said. Suddenly he smacked his palms together. Harry flinched in surprise, but Lily remained unmoving. “Lily!”
“I want to go,” she said.
“I want to go, too, Lily,” said Corley. “Where shall we go?”
Lily half-sang, half-spoke: “Way down below the ocean…”
“See?” said Harry. “That could mean something—or nothing. She loved that song, and you just said, ‘Where shall we go?’ It can really make you crazy.”
Corley returned to his chair. “There is something going on inside. Whether it’s reactive, responsive, or random, I don’t know. But there’s a process at work, and at the end of it, she arrives at some kind of decision—for lack of a better word—and she sings.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think it takes superhuman strength to construct and maintain the kinds of walls that keep the horror locked up and the world at bay. Is she on medication?”
“Yeah, I think so, but I don’t know what kind.”
“Well, we’re going to need to keep a close eye on her. What was she like, Harry? Before.”
“A little spacey, but very smart. Funny, too, in a goofy-funny way.” He shook his head ruefully. “And for so many years now, I haven’t been there for her.”
“Harry, you know what someone once said about guilt?”
“What?”
“If a man didn’t feel guilty, he’d probably think it was his fault.”
Harry’s shoulders dipped. “Doc, it’s appreciated, but I don’t need a shrink. I know who I am.”
They eyed each other, Harry’s account of the day’s events once again floating between them, invisible but magnetic.
“He’s been gone a long time, Doc,” Harry said.
Corley glanced at his watch. Almost three hours. Worst-case scenarios were starting to fill his head.
“I’m sure he’s all right,” said Harry, but his lack of confidence in the statement was clear to both of them. Harry tried to grin. “I mean, he’s a big boy, right?”
Corley craved a cigarette. He wondered if he had any regular-strength Marlboros stashed anywhere.
“No, Harry,” he said. “He’s a very little boy.”
* * *
Geiger, carrying a small gym bag, walked for three blocks before he found a café with an empty booth shadowed enough to obscure his presence. He had taped a two-inch square of gauze over the hole in his cheek, but nothing could hide his stark pallor. There was much to do, but at the moment he needed black coffee and a few minutes to sit in relative solitude. He knew what Corley would say: Don’t let these memories slip away, don’t lock them back up. They’re part of you. Keep them alive and carry them with you.
The waiter put his iced coffee down. “Anything else?”
�
��No.”
The waiter, a kid of no more than twenty, made no effort to hide his staring at Geiger’s face. “You okay?” he said.
“Yes.”
Geiger heard the hollow chafing in his voice and saw the dubious look in the kid’s eyes.
“Yes,” he said more firmly. “I’m okay.”
The waiter clearly wasn’t convinced, but he wandered off.
Geiger took a long drink from his glass. He had wanted the coffee hot, but he knew that heat would encourage more bleeding from the wounds in his mouth. He swirled the chilled liquid around in his cheeks for twenty or thirty seconds before he swallowed, and then sank back into the booth’s cushions.
He knew that inner scars had given way and old wounds had opened. For years, he’d been vigilant about keeping the outside from getting in. But what he’d really done was seal in the demons that dwelt in his darkest places. Now he was turning inside out, and he didn’t need to summon Corley’s spirit to understand that what had been dead was exhumed and alive again.
You’re my son. I’ve given you what you needed.
* * *
Hall finished dragging the bench from Geiger’s yard to the alley-side wall. He stepped up and climbed over the fence, then jumped onto the dumpster and down to the alley. He called Ray on his cell as he walked toward the street.
“Yeah?”
“I’m in the alley, going back to the car.”
“Fucker better call soon.”
“He said half an hour.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“I think I’m starting to understand Mr. Geiger. He’ll call.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Hall slid into the Lexus. “I don’t know, Ray. I haven’t gotten that far.”
“Well, get there, man,” Ray said, and hung up.
Hall adjusted the seat so he could stretch out. He had that tingle in his fingertips, usually a harbinger of inspiration. He didn’t believe in luck, but he did believe that sometimes chaos threw all its pieces to the wind and when they fell back down to earth they fit together. It was the “put a million monkeys at typewriters and someday you’ll get a masterpiece” scenario, and Hall’s instincts told him that this shambles could still turn out to be his Hamlet. As he lay back in the Lexus, he saw it clearly, right there in front of him: his one last shot.
* * *
Mitch picked up his cell phone and called Hall.
“Yeah?”
“I’m on him,” Mitch said. “He’s coming out of a café.”
Mitch watched as Geiger limped to a pay phone on the corner. Earlier, he had spent almost two hours parked down the block from Geiger’s Ludlow Street place. When Geiger had hobbled out, he’d looked like a shell-shocked vet hitting the street for the first time since a mortar had put him down. For three blocks, Mitch had crawled behind him in his cab, and then he had parked again, half a block from the café.
Now, observing Geiger as he picked up the pay phone’s handset, Mitch was starting to feel pumped. He had the come-to-Papa buzz in his pulse that kicked in when things were looking up and chance finally decided to get with the program. Sometimes you could just sit back and watch it all come together and grin.
Mitch sipped his coffee. It was cold, but he didn’t mind. It tasted just fine.
* * *
Geiger held the phone to his ear but kept a finger on the cradle’s release. He was trying to resurrect Matheson’s phone number: 917-555-0 … His mind’s eye squinted at the murky vision of the numbers he’d written on his hand after their IM session: 061—what? 8?
He dialed the number. It rang once.
“Hello?” said a man’s voice.
“Matheson?”
“Who?”
“Matheson?”
“There’s no Matheson here,” said the voice.
Geiger hung up and let his forehead rest against the booth’s siding. He was managing the pain and the loss of blood, but doing so required nearly all his resources, and very little energy remained for focus and recall. He tried to see himself writing the number on his palm: 061 … 7?
He dialed again. Someone picked up before the first ring finished.
“Yes?” a man said.
“Matheson?”
“Yes.”
There was blood in Geiger’s mouth. He swallowed. “Listen carefully.”
“Where is my son?” Matheson said, his voice vibrating with fear and anger.
“Matheson, do not speak. Your only part in this conversation is to listen. This is not a negotiation. You will go where I tell you to go and bring what I ask you to bring. If you don’t, your son will not survive your recklessness. So please, listen carefully…”
* * *
Geiger got out of the cab and headed into Central Park. He felt light-headed as he walked, and he was aware that some people stared at him as he made his way toward the quadrangle of ball fields. All four fields had games in progress, and because of the July Fourth holiday, there were so many spectators that a person could easily become an anonymous part of the crowd.
Geiger had told Matheson to sit on a bench behind the westernmost field with a New York Times rolled up tightly on his lap, but even without the setup he could have picked the man out of a mass of strangers. He had seen this sort of extreme fear so many times: the raccoon eyes from sleeplessness, the high-strung shoulders, the anxious, bouncing heel. Matheson’s gray suit needed pressing and his handsome, stone-cut face needed a shave. Geiger could see that under less stressful circumstances he would look very much like a thirty-four-year-old Ezra.
Geiger came up behind him.
“Matheson?”
He tried to talk out of the right side of his mouth to minimize the pain, and it made his words oddly slurred. Matheson started to turn, but Geiger planted his hands firmly on the other man’s shoulders to stop the maneuver.
“Don’t turn around. Just watch the game.”
“Where is Ezra?”
“You have something for me, yes?”
“You get it when my son is sitting right here.” Matheson patted the bench. “Where is he?”
“You’ve lost the right to be with your son.”
“What?”
“From now on, it will be Ezra’s decision whether you see him or not. You have no say in it.”
“What the hell are you—”
He started to turn again, and this time Geiger dug his fingers into the hollows above his clavicle. Matheson froze with a soft yowl.
“Do not try and turn around again. If you do, I will break your neck.”
Matheson felt something tug at his brain. It was the voice. He’d heard it somewhere before.
* * *
Hall shot up straight in the driver’s seat at Mitch’s news.
“Matheson? You’re sure?”
“Yup,” Mitch replied, his voice coming through the cell. “I followed Geiger’s cab to the park, and now I’m about fifty feet away from them. Matheson’s sitting on a bench and Geiger’s standing right behind him. Goddamn fucking jackpot, man!”
Hall’s lips held their tight, hard line. He wasn’t ready to celebrate just yet. “But the kid’s not with him?”
“No. No kid.”
“Then what the hell is this about?” Hall’s fingers did a drum roll on the steering wheel. “What are they doing now?”
“Nothing. Talking.”
Hall stared at his cell. He would have to make another status call soon, and he wondered how long he could put it off before the man on the other end of the line decided to not answer his call.
* * *
“Who are you?” Matheson said.
“Not who you think I am.”
“Meaning what—that you’re not one of them? So why won’t you give me Ezra?”
“Because right now, you’re as much a danger to Ezra as they are. Whatever you’re peddling, you brought your son into it. You made him a target, and a victim.”
“Peddling? I’m not—”
&nb
sp; “So here is what is going to happen. You’re going to give me whatever it is they’re looking for—let’s just call it the package. Then I’m going to take Ezra to his mother—”
“Julia? She’s here?”
“And once Ezra is safe, I’m going to contact the men who are after you. I will tell them that I have the package, and assure them that as long as they stay away from Ezra they won’t have to worry about it ever seeing the light of day.”
“You don’t know who I am,” Matheson said, “or what this is all about, do you?”
“And I don’t care, either.”
“Have you heard of Veritas Arcana?”
“The whistle-blowers?”
“Yes. That’s who I am. But Veritas Arcana isn’t an organization—it’s only me and a few committed volunteers. And now you’re asking me to bury something the world needs to know about. Except it doesn’t belong to me—or you.”
“And you’d put Ezra’s life up as collateral?”
“No. I love my son—I would never do that.”
“You don’t understand, Matheson. You already did.”
Matheson started to say something, then stopped. He brought one hand up to his face, bowed his head, and covered his eyes. “Christ,” he said. “I had no idea they were so close. I just needed six or seven more hours. Just…” He sighed deeply and went silent.
A batter approached the plate, doffed his cap to the crowd, and patted his substantial belly. There were as many laughs as cheers.
“Two crucial points, Matheson,” said Geiger. “One: as much as anything, luck is the reason that your son isn’t already dead. And two: they won’t stop. Not as long as they feel there is the slightest chance they can accomplish their task. That’s what they do. They don’t stop.”
Something scratched at Matheson’s mind again.
“I know your voice,” he said.
“No, you don’t.”
The cost of his conversation with Matheson was making Geiger tremble with exhaustion. It was time to get what he came for and go.
“Matheson, hand the package over—now.”
Matheson nodded at the ground, then reached inside his jacket. He took out a manila envelope and held it up. Geiger took the envelope and slipped it into his bag.
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