The Confessor (20 page)

The woman took a few steps into the room. Ezra’s gaze shifted as he noticed her at the edge of the frame, and he leaned forward like a kid pressing his nose to a toy store window.

‘Hey! Hey! Hello!’ The woman came two steps closer. ‘Who are you?!’

‘Je ne parle pas anglais.’

‘You’re French?’

‘Er . . .’

‘You’re in France?’

‘. . . Oui, oui. France.’

‘Is there anyone else there?’

The boy’s wiggy energy was making her nervous. ‘No English. Je ne parle pas anglais.’

‘Just listen, okay?!’ Is there anyone with you in the—’

‘No anglais . . .’

‘Shit!’ Ezra’s fist slammed his desk, his image jumped – and so did the cleaning lady. Frustration was pouring into his emotional stew, creating a volatile mix. ‘Christ, lady!
Just LISTEN!
’

The cleaning lady didn’t need to understand English – she’d had enough – and stuck a finger in Ezra’s digital face and let loose with a reprimand in rapid-fire French. Ezra scrambled to put it in reverse . . .

‘Okay, okay . . . Jeez . . . I’m sorry, ma’am. Really. I’m sorry.’

. . . but it was too late. The woman reached out to the laptop . . .

‘Wait. No! Don’t—’

. . . and she slammed it shut.

Ezra stared at the black screen. ‘Shit . . .’

The cat jumped up on the desk, and after a luxurious stretch spread itself out, full-length. Ezra’s fingertips went to work on its stomach and its motor started running.

‘So what do I do now?’ He opened a desk drawer, took out Geiger’s letter, and reconsidered options for the nth time. ‘Tell Mom . . . ? She’d kill me – and there’s nothing she could do anyway.’

His hand moved up to scratch the scarred eye socket, and the cat’s front paws rose and closed around it.

Geiger reached the door at the top of the hotel’s stairwell and put the gym bag and the attaché on the floor. The plaque said ‘TOIT – N’ENTREZ PAS’.

He was well aware he was functioning in a different arena, doing things he hadn’t done before, and it occurred to him that he had never approached a task or job in terms of what could or could not be done – only what
needed
to be done – what was necessary to learn, to procure, to prepare, to execute.

He had to get away without being seen. He took the lock-picking set from his bag. Since he stepped off the bus in Port Authority in 1996, without memory or direction or desire, he had followed the headings of some inner compass, and at every point of arrival melded instinct and logic into method and found a way to live in a world where he had no natural place. Life was construction – creating form from nothing, relevance out of separateness. Process was key. As Geiger had often said to Corley in a session – ‘Beginning, middle, end. That’s what works best for me. Completion
.
’

He inserted the torque wrench into the lock with his left hand and slid in a pick with his right. Before leaving Brooklyn he had watched a YouTube video on ‘how to pick a lock’ four times – and had spent the last fifteen minutes practicing on the inside door lock of his room. He closed his eyes and, one by one, found the tumbler’s pins with the pick’s hook and nudged them up out of their set position. It took forty-five seconds, and he opened the door, grabbed his bag and case, and stepped out onto the roof. The light rain brushed against him – and the unexpected raced up at him . . .

The door housing was set on a flat, ten-foot-square center section beside a large, noisy air-conditioning unit. From where he stood, the roof – smooth, shiny, gray metal sheets – spread out and down sixty feet on all four sides, finished with a three-foot-wide flat ledge. He judged the slope to be forty-five to fifty degrees. The hotel had put in central air and redone the roof, mansard style, in the years since Google’s satellite had taken its pictures.

The western edge faced the street. Beyond the eastern side was thirty yards of open air with a courtyard below, and the north and south sides each ended at eight-foot gaps . . . with flat rooftops on the other sides that led seamlessly to more roofs – a patchwork quilt of tile and steel and concrete that he could criss-cross to get to the street one block over.

The rain gave the roof the shiny look of a water slide. He slowly moved his shoe back and forth across a wet panel. The sole glided easily on the material, with barely any friction. The simple plan, when he thought the roof was flat, was to place the ladder across the span and crawl to the next rooftop. Now, just getting to the thin ledge was a downhill expedition, and one slip could send him sliding all the way to the edge with no way to stop – and a sixty-foot drop. He made the movie and watched it in his head. It looked quite real.

But the option cupboard was bare. He couldn’t go back inside – he couldn’t be seen leaving the hotel now. He couldn’t be followed – because that would put a chokehold on the throat of his slim chances to take control of his life . . . and Harry’s . . . and Matheson’s . . . and Ezra’s. And every drop of rain that poked his face felt like another second stolen from the time he had left.

Take what you’re given. Use it to make what you need.
His father’s mantra.

He picked up the gym bag, put his head through the handles and centered it against his chest, then walked to the edge of the plateau. He sat down, legs extended onto the pitched roof, and lay the attaché case on his lap. He’d need the ladder on the way back. And then he pushed off – and began slowly sliding down, fingertips to the slick metal for steerage and balance. He raised his feet off the surface to create more acceleration, and at the halfway point his speed had nearly doubled.

His eyes were on the flat, three-foot apron of the roof. He wasn’t concerned with the distance of the leap. It would all be about the timing – and he had a highly developed sense for it. IR had demanded it. Split-seconds, inches and instinct . . .

As the ledge came up at him, his hands rose and grabbed the attaché. He rocked his body forward, shoes coming down and finding the flat surface – and he sprang up, hurling the case ahead of him as he leapt – arms windmilling, legs pedaling fiercely on an invisible bicycle as he flew through the air . . .

He didn’t expect the feeling of weightlessness, the sense that gravity had chosen to give him a free pass for this one, boundless moment – and the pure exhilaration was like a rocket booster. It was the closest he had ever come to feeling free – free of body, of mind, of pain . . .

He touched down on the other side – and the landing set off hot sparks in his compromised hips, so he went down into a roll and came to a stop sitting up. He stayed still, letting the sensation linger, his tom-tom heart pounding – then got to his feet. He took note of the attaché’s location, fifteen feet away, and started off across the roof . . .

André the bartender was checking the inside of the mini-fridge behind the bar.

‘Nous avons besoin de crème,’ he said.

Christine wrote ‘cream’ down on her list. Odd – after all these years, how her brain still switched back and forth between the two languages. When she raised her head, she realized someone was staring at her. He was at the other end of the bar, with a cup of coffee, and when her eyes focused on him he felt no need to stop. Not even so much as a blink. She found the gaze unsettling because it was set in a handsome, angular face without any expression at all. She put on her café owner’s smile.

‘Bonjour, monsieur.’

‘Hello.’

‘Ah . . . An American. Is there something else you’d like?’

‘No. Are you Christine Reynaud?’

There was something lacking in the question – an attitude, any hint of a reason for the asking. It was strange to hear.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

He rose from his stool, picked up the bag at his feet and came over beside her. ‘My name is Geiger.’

There was an intensity coming off him – not sexual, not threatening, neither hot nor cold. It seemed more like a natural state. The name fired a synapse in her brain, and it took about three seconds in search mode to find an association.

‘Geiger . . . You’re Harry’s friend.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, this is strange. Harry’s in Paris, too. But you probably knew that.’

‘I thought he might have come to see you. Could we talk in private?’

It was like a fuse being lit. She could almost smell the phosphorus. There was a 90 percent chance when someone asked ‘
Could we talk in private?
’ that what followed could likely blow a hole in a life – and that thought straightened her spine.

‘My office. Come.’

They walked to the back of the café and stepped inside a small room with two file cabinets, a cluttered desk and chair, and a half-sofa. She turned to him as Geiger closed the door – and she stated what was clearly a fact.

‘Something’s happened to Harry. Something bad.’

‘He’s been abducted. Harry and another man.’

Abducted. The word stretched her face. It wasn’t a term heard very often in conversation. The fuse continued to sparkle as it burned down toward the bomb.

‘Why?’

‘Someone wants to make a trade – them for me.’

The combined effect of bizarre information and its seemingly nonchalant delivery played havoc with her reaction. Things were tilting slightly, long-assumed ninety-degree angles becoming eighty-eight and ninety-two.

‘A
trade
? What the hell does that mean?’

‘Christine . . .’

‘Who
are
you?’

‘Explaining this would take a long time, and I have very little time – so I need you to tell me what you can.’

Christine suddenly had company – a little troll in her mind’s corner, gnawing on itself, snickering.
I’m back. Time to lose
.
Time to hurt.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘When was Harry here?’

‘Three nights ago.’

‘Did he say anything about why he was here? Where he was staying?’

‘No.’

‘Who he was meeting – and where – and when?’

‘No. Nothing. He just said he was here on a job.’ She was trying to get some feel for the man, but there was nothing about him to get hold of. He was smooth as ice. Harry had called him a close friend. The pairing seemed unimaginable to her.

From his bag, Geiger took out a folder – the one Harry had given to him in the diner.

‘Before Harry left New York, he gave me these. A copy of his will . . . title to his apartment . . . documents for his safe deposit box.’ He dropped the folder on the desk. ‘Think again, Christine. Is there anything at all you can remember Harry mentioning that might be of any importance? His schedule? His itinerary?’

The speed of things continuing to shift out of commonplace and swerve into preternatural was dizzying.

‘We talked about us. The past, mostly. And he mentioned you. But there was nothing more about his being here. I’m certain.’

There is a certain sense of imbalance – almost a kind of loneliness – upon realizing you are in the presence of a complete stranger who is connected to you, who knows things about another dear to you, secrets with the power to alter feelings and long-set assumptions. She felt a twinge of something close to anger – and didn’t understand why.

‘I have to go,’ said Geiger, and he turned for the door.

‘Wait!’ She reached out and grabbed his arm. He looked back at her, and something in his eyes made her let go of him.

‘Just . . . just wait,’ she said. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Find them.’

‘What about the police?’

‘This is a world you know nothing about, Christine. No police.’

She watched his hands begin a tap dance on his thighs – crisp, contrapuntal steps.

‘I have to go,’ he said.

‘But – but how will I know what happened? I need to know.’

‘You won’t see me again. If Harry survives, my guess is you’ll hear from him. If you don’t – then you’ll still know what happened. Goodbye, Christine.’

He opened the door and walked out. She watched him move across the café and out to the street. There was something about the way he walked. Some reinvention that accommodated all but a trace of damage. She closed the door and sat down on the couch.

She suddenly wondered if he was crazy. He was talking about crazy things, and it felt contagious. That first stutter when your senses revolt – I can’t believe this is happening – and demand a do-over. The troll winked at her.
Long time, no see
.

When Geiger got in the backseat of the cab and gave the young driver the address, he got a tilt of the young man’s shaven head and a raised brow in return.

‘Rue
Questel
?’ He scratched at his scraggly goatee. ‘Hmm . . . This is sure? You have gone before there?’

‘No,’ said Geiger, and showed him the tag on the key provided by Carmine’s associate.

The cabbie shook his head and shrugged. ‘I dunno – but is okay.’ He grinned, and pointed at the screen of the dashboard GPS system. ‘We get there. Three-one-five Rue Questel.’

He pulled away from the curb and turned east on Rue Claude Bernard, and Geiger sat back and let his head rest against the top of the seat. His gaze volleyed side to side, watching the buildings go by – taller and more massive here, eight stories of very old earth-toned stone and mortar, graced with rows of iron balconies that stretched without end like a Mondrian-made universe. Their changing intricacies rushing past him – spears, filigrees, curlicues, fleurs-de-lis – touched his sense of design and gave him a visual line to follow, but for hours he had felt his upper trapezius stiffening in his neck, very gradually, and now it was starting to tug at the base of his skull like a cranky child demanding attention.

It was because of all the people. There were too many of them. The shifting and balancing of their questions and stares and needs and agendas. Words to parse, expressions to read, sifting through it all on the fly.

The driver turned onto Avenue des Gobelins, and the sight of its queues of trees – thin-trunked with sparkling emerald leaves lacquered with rain – triggered a tactual moment, like a cool puff of wind in his face.