“Lily?” Ezra said softly. “You there?”
Mitch heard the boy take a few more steps.
“He’s at the base of the tree, Mitch,” Hall whispered in his ear. “Starting to peek around the trunk. Take one full step left—now.”
Mitch moved his back off the bark but kept his fingertips anchored. He took a step.
“Don’t be scared, Lily. It’s just me, Ezra.”
Hall whispered again. “He’s going a step at a time. He doesn’t want to spook her. Get ready to take another step left.… Go.”
Mitch moved. He almost laughed aloud: a dozen years of hard work had come to a game of hide-and-seek with a twelve-year-old. He heard a buzz and felt a mosquito land on his cheek; he stayed perfectly still as the proboscis dug into his skin and started to feed.
“Get ready,” Hall said. “Left one step. Go.”
Mitch took another single side step.
“Lily?” Ezra said.
Mitch heard the boy sigh, and then his steps sounded like they were moving away.
“Okay,” Hall whispered, “looks like he’s leaving.”
Mitch let out a deep breath, leaned back against the tree, and took particular satisfaction in crushing the mosquito on his cheek.
But then he heard more movement, steps coming back toward the tree.
Hall was suddenly alive in Mitch’s ear. “Fuck. Mitch, he’s coming—”
“Lily?” Ezra’s head peeked around into Mitch’s view. “Are you—?”
Mitch grabbed him by the collar and slammed him up against the tree. His other hand clamped down tight over his mouth.
“Not one sound,” he hissed.
“Easy, Mitch!” Hall said in his ear.
Even in the dim light under the tree, Mitch could see Ezra’s eyes shining with fear.
“I mean it, kid. One sound and I’ll break your neck. Understand me?”
Mitch felt the boy nod beneath his hand.
“All right, Richie,” Mitch said. “It’s chicken salad time.”
“Don’t hurt the kid,” Hall replied. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
Lily came out of the trees. The night was alive with sound and light. She slipped off her shoes and felt the high grass underfoot, the blades working their way between her toes as she walked. She stopped at the bank of the river. She could hear it as it ran past.
The sky suddenly roared and gave birth to a new moon. Fully grown, beaming, the moon sent its children flying into the night, a thousand of them, singing, laughing, racing one another down to the water.
Lily could hear her own voice singing—young, silky, wrapping itself around her like a caress.
“Way down below the ocean…”
She watched the lights floating on the swift surface of the river, shining up from the city below. That’s where the children were going. They were going home. She sat down. She could still hear them, their song rising up from beneath the water, a bubbly, sweet canticle.
“Way down below the ocean, where I want to be, she may be…”
* * *
Hall arrived beneath the beech’s canopy, panting.
“Nothing I could do,” said Mitch.
Hall looked at Mitch in the darkness, thinking he heard a smirk in his voice. “All right,” said Hall. “We move fast—before Harry comes back. We use the kid as a chip. I go to the back door and get Geiger to come out. Then we all go inside, get the discs, and go.”
“Okay,” Mitch said.
Hall crouched down to Ezra’s eye level. He was surprised to find as much fury as fear in the boy’s gaze.
“Ezra, do this right and we’re done in five minutes, and then everybody goes home. When Mitch tells you to, I want you to call to Geiger. You shout, ‘Hey, Geiger, c’mere. I’m out back.’ You say it nice and cool, like you just want to show him something. I know you’re scared, so take a few breaths and calm down. Think about how soon this can all be over. I’m not going to hurt you or Geiger, kid. I just want to get back what your father stole.”
Hall stood up and turned to Mitch.
“Wait on me.”
Hall stepped to the shadows’ perimeter and then raced to the back door. Flattening himself against the wall, he took out his gun.
“Now, Mitch,” Hall whispered.
* * *
Ezra could smell Mitch’s sweat as the man leaned in close. It was dense and sour, the odor of something that had grown in darkness.
“Okay, kid. This is all on you. You screw up, a lot of people get hurt.” His hand came away from Ezra’s mouth. “Say it. ‘Hey, Geiger, c’mere. I’m out back.’”
Ezra felt a swirling in his head that made him feel like he was going to faint. He tried to fix his eyes on the blooming fountain of fireworks behind Mitch, but the image kept sliding away.
“Say it, kid,” said Mitch. “Call out to him—now.”
Ezra shook his head.
Mitch’s hand grabbed Ezra’s face and slammed the back of his head against the tree. “Do it.”
The wet glaze of Ezra’s tears turned each falling, pyrotechnic spark into a five-pointed star. It was a galaxy of pain, but again he shook his head.
Mitch stood up straight and turned toward Hall. “The little prick won’t do it.”
* * *
Hall tried to envision a one-on-one with Geiger inside the house. Did he have guns in there? Unknown, but doubtful. And Geiger had to be hurting; the fact that he hadn’t come out to join the search party confirmed that. Still, Geiger seemed to be immune to adrenaline and fear, so who knew what he was capable of? Hall had already guessed wrong—twice.
He decided to go into the house alone. If things got hairy, he didn’t want Mitch turning his encounter with Geiger into the O.K. Corral. He sprinted back to Mitch and Ezra.
“All right. Hold on to him, Mitch. Stay out here—I’m going in alone. Wait for my signal.”
Mitch clearly didn’t like the sound of this.“Why?”
“Because I’ve decided that this is the right way to play it.”
Mitch shifted his grip on Ezra and moved closer to Hall. “Well, seeing as how every decision you’ve made about how to handle Geiger has been wrong, maybe we should—”
“Do what I tell you, Mitch.” Hall leaned in until his face was inches from his partner’s. “That’s your job, okay? Now just shut the fuck up and do what you’re told.”
A crashing boom made all three flinch. After it passed, Mitch looked at Hall and nodded.
“Okay, boss,” he said. “Go ahead. Me and sonny boy’ll watch your back.”
Hall ran back to the door and pulled his gun out. He gave himself a moment and then swung the door open and stepped inside. He started down the hallway.
“Geiger!” he shouted. “It’s Hall!”
* * *
Geiger had dozed off in one of the living room chairs, and the voice cut into him like slashing teeth. It was Hall. How had he gotten out, and how had he come here?
“You’ve got the discs, Geiger, and we’ve got Ezra! Let’s do this!”
Geiger stood up. He felt a fiery stab of pain in his thigh, but it didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter how Hall had found them—he, Geiger, had brought him here. He had put Ezra and everyone else right in Hall’s crosshairs.
“Come on, Geiger—let me see you!”
Geiger’s gaze drifted through the room. There were two ways out: into the hallway and into the kitchen. He saw a wrought-iron poker standing against the hearth, its barbed spike covered in dust. He picked it up.
Hall’s voice seemed to be coming from somewhere near the back of the house. Geiger waited for him to call out again.
“We can finish this while no one else is here, Geiger! Nice and clean!”
Geiger cocked his head, tracing the sound. Now he was sure: Hall had come in the back door and was in the hallway, moving toward him. He was perhaps twenty feet away.
It was a given that Hall had a gun. Geiger shifted his grip to the midp
oint of the poker’s shaft and held it like a spear. He raised the weapon, took a stance, and rehearsed a throw, pivoting on his left leg as he would have to do when he threw it. The leg quaked and burned, but the stitches held.
Hall had gone silent. By now, he must have moved past the hallway’s entry to the kitchen. Geiger slipped noiselessly through the living room’s doorway, into the kitchen. Did Hall have Ezra with him? He didn’t think so; it was too quiet.
Geiger stepped over to the kitchen’s rear doorway. Hall had to be in the hallway off to the right. Geiger raised the poker shoulder-high, stepped silently into the hallway, and turned.
Hall was ten feet away, alone, up near the entry to the living room. His back was a bull’s-eye, but if Geiger could get closer he could use the poker as a club. He waited, watching Hall creep toward the living room doorway.
When fireworks lit the sky again and were followed by a spate of crackles and pops, Geiger started forward, using the sound as audio camouflage. Hall was leaning around the entry’s molding.
Now just three feet away, Geiger slid his grip down to the poker’s handle and raised the weapon high.
“Geiger!” barked a voice behind him.
* * *
Hall whirled around and blindly backhanded his gun into the side of Geiger’s skull. Geiger dropped to his knees. The fireplace poker clanked to the floor.
Hall glanced up at Mitch, who stood just inside the back door. His partner’s gun was pointed at Geiger’s head, and the boy was muzzled and firmly in Mitch’s grasp.
Hall glared down at Geiger. “There’s no more time, Geiger—I want those discs!”
Geiger had trouble making out some of Hall’s words. There was an ocean’s roar in his right ear.
“Let the boy go,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
Hall shook his head. “The discs—now.”
Geiger swung his head slowly and looked down the hallway at the boy. Then he turned back to Hall. “They’re in the bedroom,” he said, pointing to the doorway on the left.
Hall took a quick look inside the bedroom and saw a gym bag sitting in the middle of a four-poster bed. “Okay, let’s go—you first, Geiger. Mitch, wait in the living room with the kid.”
Geiger rose to his feet and walked unsteadily toward the entry to the bedroom.
Hall waved him inside with his gun and then pointed at the bag. “Open it.”
Geiger pulled the bag to him and took out an envelope. He turned it upside down and the minidiscs fell onto the bedspread.
An adrenaline mule kicked wildly in Hall’s chest. He sucked in a lungful of oxygen to neutralize it.
“So,” Hall said, “did you look at them?”
“One of them. For a few minutes. Do you know what’s on them?”
“No.”
“Black site interrogations. Somebody shot the sessions with a hidden camera. And I’m in the videos.”
Hall gathered up the discs and put them back in the bag. “Tell me something, Geiger. How’d you get so good at your job?”
Geiger looked directly at him. His left temple was bleeding, and Hall could see that his eyes were having trouble focusing. “You could say I was born to it,” Geiger said. “It’s in my blood.”
For a moment, Hall turned the words over in his mind, thinking of how much time he’d spent in the devil’s den over the years. Geiger was right: it was in the blood. The virus, the incurable human virus.
He pulled the bag’s zipper closed. “That’s it, then,” he said.
“Let the boy go.” Geiger’s voice was still a whisper.
Hall motioned at the doorway with the gun. “Into the living room.”
“Let him go, Hall. His mother will be here soon. Don’t—”
“Move!”
Geiger stepped into the hallway, and Hall trailed him as he moved slowly into the living room. Mitch, his gun in his lap, sat with Ezra on the couch.
Hall raised the bag. “Got ’em.”
“Halle-fucking-lujah,” said Mitch, and stood up. “Let’s go.”
Hall didn’t answer or move. His gun stayed on Geiger, and he saw Mitch read his eyes.
“No?” Mitch said. “We’re not done?”
Hall shook his head.
“Is this from the top?” Mitch asked.
Hall didn’t respond. He turned toward the open front door, listening, and then suddenly raised his gun and shoved Geiger against the wall beside the doorjamb. Leaning back, Hall took a peek through the door and watched Harry limp into the apron of light around the front of the house.
* * *
Harry stepped onto the flagstone path and ascended the steps, his face sweat-streaked and dark. Anguish and guilt had swallowed him. In most ways Lily had left him years ago, but now he sensed that she was truly gone—and it was his doing.
Harry was one step inside the front door when he felt the barrel of Hall’s gun at the back of his skull.
“Walk with me, Harry,” said Hall. “Baby steps to the sofa.” Hall steered him into the living room. “Sit.”
Still standing, Harry turned around slowly. He stopped when the gun rested on his nose. He gave Hall a smile, though it looked more like a gash than a grin, and sat down. Hall backed up a few steps, keeping the gun pointed directly at Harry.
“Well, well,” Harry croaked, hoarse from all his yelling. He glanced over at Mitch, whose gun was pointing at Geiger. “We’ve got Moe and Larry. Where’s Curly?”
“Dead,” said Mitch.
“That right? Bummer. Curly was always my favorite.”
Harry took a quick look at Geiger, who stood with his back to the wall next to the front door. No immediate help there: Geiger’s eyes were glassy, and one side of his face was covered in fresh blood. Harry tried to catch Ezra’s eye, but the boy was sitting on the other side of Mitch, his head down. He looked as if he’d been crying.
Harry didn’t know how long he could stall, but he knew he had to keep talking. He turned back to Mitch.
“So tell me something, Bubba,” Harry said. “How long did you sit in the cab at the diner playing with yourself before you figured out that I’d made you for a fucking idiot?”
Mitch didn’t flinch. He stared at Harry impassively, all business now.
“Stop talking, Harry,” Hall said.
Harry stabbed a finger at the windows. “You know what, Hall?” he said. “My sister is out there lost, or worse, because of you—and you don’t give a shit.” Then he noticed the gym bag in Hall’s hand. “Got your de Kooning, huh?”
Hall nodded.
“So why are you still here?”
One look at Hall and another at Geiger gave Harry his answer. He stood up.
“Sit down, Harry,” said Hall.
“Fuck you.” Harry put his whole body behind the invective, and Hall releveled the gun.
“Harry, I’m gonna tell you one more—”
“Let’s say I came at you,” Harry said. “You know—so I could rip your fucking heart out. Would you shoot me, Hall?”
“Sit the fuck down!”
Harry took a quick glance out the front windows: nothing. “And what if while you were shooting me, Geiger went for you? I guess one of you would have to shoot him, too, right? And then there’s the kid…”
Hall’s face had turned to stone.
“Oh, and don’t forget Matheson,” said Harry. “That makes four. You won’t let him walk around and make life miserable for you, right? So how about it, Hall? When does it get hard to kill people? When you’ve taken out a dozen? Two dozen?”
Harry checked the windows again, and this time he caught a glimpse of something. Relief flooded him. He had almost run out of things to say, but now he could stop talking.
“You know what, Hall? Forget it—don’t worry about it.” Harry pointed at the windows. “Worry about them.”
Hall pivoted and looked outside. Far away, two pairs of headlights had just turned into the long driveway.
Harry shrugged. “I decided to
call the cops and get them to help look for Lily.”
“Motherfuck…” said Mitch, springing up from the couch. His gun still on Geiger, he moved to the windows—and then Harry bull-rushed him, shoulders down, arms outstretched. Mitch’s arm swiveled around with the gun, but Harry rammed him chest-high, wrapping his arms around him. His momentum carried them crashing through a window onto the porch, where, locked in Harry’s embrace, they did a clumsy, backward two-step until they hit the railing, broke it apart, and fell out of sight.
Hall’s gaze followed the two men for half a second too long, and Geiger forced his battered body into motion. It was a graceless, lopsided endeavor—one hand grabbing at Hall’s gun wrist, the other going for his windpipe—and when Hall turned in response, it became entanglement and struggle more than focused violence. For a few moments, Hall seemed to have the advantages of balance and strength, but then Geiger slammed his forehead into Hall’s and they fell to the floor, Hall’s gun skidding across the pine boards and stopping against the front door’s saddle, the gym bag dropping onto the living room’s dusty rug.
Geiger turned back toward the couch, his eyes searching for the boy. “Ezra—run!”
The boy took two steps toward the door before veering right and reaching down for the bag as he ran. Darting around the two fallen men, he raced outside and was gone.
Too weak to overpower Hall, Geiger fought like a wrestler in defensive mode, his twisting limbs doing whatever it took to keep Hall tied up. But then one of Hall’s hands found Geiger’s maimed thigh, and Hall dug his fingers deep into the wounds. The pain was a firestorm, and Geiger’s grip gave way as a howl rose in his throat.
Hall scrambled to his feet, grabbed the gun, and turned on Geiger, who lay sprawled on his back. The weapon came up; Geiger waited for the kill but saw Hall pause and reconsider: the proximity of the police made a gunshot out of the question.
Hall tucked the gun into his belt and gave Geiger’s wounded leg a fierce kick.
“And stay down, Geiger!” he hissed, before disappearing from view.
Geiger lay motionless, his blood seeping into the rug as the music flooded him. Turbulent, discordant choruses of brass and strings shook him—tasting bitter and pungent, they were potent, chromatic, rousing. His mind took hold of the music, wielded it like a club, and pummeled the pain flat.
The Inquisitor: A Novel Page 26