The Confessor (42 page)

At the same time, he was aware of a part of him that just wanted to slide into a sleep that didn’t end. There was something appealing about the concept of utter thoughtlessness. And that part of him wasn’t choosy. All he wanted was to know that the last thought he’d have was, in fact, his
last
. Just a heads-up that he was finished using his brain. A sort of farewell to self just before a bye-bye to everything else.

He looked over at Matheson, who was sitting up, cross-legged, still applying pressure to the self-inflicted cut in his ankle with a blood-soaked gob of toilet paper.

‘Did it stop?’ asked Harry.

‘Just about, yeah.’ Matheson held up his plastic water jug with his free hand. He’d poured out the water, and managed to get about half an inch of his blood dripped into it. ‘I think that’s enough, huh?’

‘I guess.’

Matheson leaned to his portable toilet, put the jug and compress inside and closed the top, and the door opened, and Geiger walked in.

Matheson and Harry were like ragged marionettes on the same set of strings, slowly rising to their feet – and Geiger felt his fingers curling inward at his sides, balling into fists so tight that his forearms almost shook.

‘Good to see you, Geiger,’ said Matheson.

Harry started toward Geiger, off the mattress onto the floor, and then four shaky steps, chain jingling, as far as he could go. Five feet away.

‘Hello, Harry.’

‘Hi.’

‘Why is your face purple, Harry?’

Harry smiled, but some of it was lost in the swollen flesh. ‘The Asian giant hornet. I’ve become very well informed on the subject. According to our host, they have the most toxic venom in the insect world. Cool, huh?’ Harry wagged a finger. ‘And it’s not purple – it’s
plum
, according to Matheson.’

Matheson nodded. ‘Definitely plum.’

Harry’s heartbeat was a jackhammer, breaking up things inside him. ‘Can I ask you a question, Geiger?’

‘Yes.’

Harry’s face hardened like fast-acting superglue. ‘What the
fuck
are you doing here?’

His voice had a thin, rough coat of anger. It was new to Geiger, and with all the balls his mind was already juggling, it gave him pause.

‘I . . . came—’

‘Jesus, man . . . You’re a human goddamn sacrifice! That’s
all
you did by coming here – put yourself on the altar of the almighty Dalton. And the fact that he’ll probably
still
kill me and David anyway isn’t even the point. Christ . . .’

Harry had a faint awareness that the brake on his emotions had given way, and they were barreling downhill, picking up speed – and that the rant wasn’t just about Geiger’s outlandish, selfless act, but about other things, too many to try and grasp.

‘I’m not cool about you trading your life for mine. Okay? It’s not right, man. It feels really wrong.’ He huffed and ran a hand through his matted hair. ‘Goddamnit, Geiger . . . If this was some kind of atonement for your sins, there were plenty of churches in Brooklyn! You should’ve stayed home. Whatever the hell it was you thought you—’

‘I didn’t want you to die, Harry. That’s why I came.’ It wasn’t the emblematic velvet cloak of tone – Harry knew it as well as his own voice – but the communion wrapped inside it that muted him and glazed his eyes with tears. His head started shaking side to side in tiny degrees, like a pre-Parkinson tremor.

Victor was listening, thumbnail stroking his cleft. He turned to Zanni, leaning against the wall. She was staring straight ahead, barely a rise to her chest as she breathed.

The bass drum pulsed in Geiger’s ears. He looked to Matheson. ‘I spoke with Ezra. He asked me to tell you that he loves you.’

Matheson sighed. ‘Then he knows – about all this?’

‘Not the details – but that there’s trouble, yes.’

‘Is he . . . okay?’

Zanni stepped into view. ‘Time, Geiger.’

‘Who are
you
?’ said Harry. She didn’t answer.

‘Geiger . . . Who the hell is
she
?’

Geiger glanced at her, framed in the open doorway, the morning light alive behind her. She looked different to him now, but he chose to not investigate that perception any further.

‘Now, Geiger,’ said Zanni. ‘Time to go.’

Geiger turned back to the two captives. He owned all of this – everything here, everything that had happened, every notch of fear and loss and pain was because of him. This was the Inquisitor’s doing. They might just as well have been two of his Joneses.

‘Goodbye,’ he said.

Matheson nodded silently.

‘See you around,’ said Harry. In his present state there was little he could trust of his senses – but as Geiger stared at him one last time, Harry thought there was something in the gray eyes that had never been there before. Some very pale, warm light.

Geiger turned and walked out. Zanni was waiting at the far end of the hall. Victor pointed that way and then fell into step a few feet behind Geiger.

‘I have to say, Geiger. Before, when I came into the kitchen, you looked – how to say? – so
disappointed
to see me. You would rather I had still been dead.’

‘Yes. That would be my preference – that you were still dead.’

‘I understand. There are others too who feel the same way. I would think there are many who feel the same way about you.’

Geiger stopped, and Victor did too.

‘Do not be foolish, Geiger.’

Geiger slowly turned round to him. The gun was raised and ready.

‘I’m not a foolish man, Victor. I just have something to tell you.’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t hurt them, Victor. This isn’t about them, it’s about me. Do you understand me?’

Victor smiled. ‘Geiger . . . Please, take no offense – but you are not in a position to make threats.’

‘I agree with you, Victor – and it wasn’t a threat.’

Geiger turned and headed away, leaving Victor’s smile to slowly dissolve.

As Geiger came her way Zanni’s pistol rose, but there was no hurry or concern in the motion. There would be no last-second, unforeseen zigs or zags. The race was all but done. In minutes she’d be breaking the tape . . .

She’d wait for the deal’s back-end transfer to show up in her account – then an hour and a half south on the A7 to Marseilles – park the car in the long-term lot – change into the skirt suit, put on the wig – then get the shuttle to the international terminal, and onto the plane.

She’d thought about asking Geiger about her brother’s last minutes – but decided she wasn’t going to take that with her – or Geiger’s granite stare – or Dalton’s insaner-than-thou dissertations. She wasn’t going to leave with anything that would weigh her down. The horizon was a tightrope she would tiptoe across – and at the end was a place where it all started over again.

‘Far enough,’ she said when Geiger was ten feet away, alongside another door. ‘You’re going in there.’

‘And then you’re done?’ he said.

‘And then I’m done.’

Geiger nodded. ‘The sharpest one in the room.’

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Go on in.’

His pulse’s thump refused to calm. Some new element in him was fueling it, and it was immune to his old methods.

He turned the knob and went inside.

‘Welcome home,’ said Dalton.

The room was a three-quarter-sized replica of Geiger’s session room on Ludlow Street – a dedicated effort, or as Carmine was wont to say, close enough for the blues.

Every surface was gleaming white linoleum, there were a dozen recessed three-inch pin-spots in the ceiling, and in the center of the floor was a chrome, leather and porcelain barber’s chair like Geiger’s that had five metal-mesh straps attached to it. Beside it was a folding chair, and a chrome cart with a towel on top – and various shapes were visible beneath the fabric. On a metal desk were a plastic jug of water and a stack of paper cups, and a DVD player and monitor. A second door was across the room in the opposite wall.

Dalton waved a hand around his creation. ‘A modest facsimile, I know – but I was trying to create a feel of continuity for our reunion. What do you think?’

‘You have a good memory,’ said Geiger.

‘Some things you never forget.’

Geiger heard what he could only think of as a hush of melancholy in the undertones of the madness – and he knew this much was true: no matter how different he and Dalton might be and had been, how disparate their reasons for choosing the trade, how opposed in their methods – they were joined in ways no other pair on the planet could be.

‘Have a seat, Geiger.’

Geiger walked to the barber’s chair and sat in it.

‘Comfortable?’

‘Yes.’

‘It took months to find one in mint condition. Give it a whirl.’

Geiger gave a small push off the floor with his foot and the chair spun smoothly. He stopped after one revolution.

‘You went to a lot of work,’ he said.

‘Yes, I did. And it’s fascinating . . . Have you ever noticed how anticipation changes the nature of time?’

‘In what sense?’

Dalton pulled the folding chair over and sat down five feet from Geiger.

‘All these months, it felt like each day pushed July Fourth further and further into the past – that it all happened so long ago – and now that you’re here, it feels like it was yesterday. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I understand that today means a lot to you.’

Dalton stared back at him, and then he sighed. ‘Don’t humor me, Geiger. It doesn’t suit you.’

‘I’m curious about something.’

‘What about?’

‘The psychosis.’

‘. . . Yes?’

‘You do realize you’re deeply psychotic . . .’

Dalton shrugged. ‘It’s a catch-all term – but go on.’

‘Are there times when you feel out of control? When you’re at its mercy, so to speak?’

‘No. I feel quite . . . What’s the right word?’ Dalton gave it thought. ‘There’s no inner struggle, if that’s what you mean.’ He was warming to the subject. ‘The madness usually shows itself in hallucinations. Very compelling events. At first they were unsettling – even frightening – but I came to terms with them as I moved to a higher state. It’s like being on a rollercoaster ride.’

Geiger needed to keep him talking – to gather as much psychic information as he could. He’d have nothing else to work with.

‘In what way?’ he asked.

‘When you’re at the very top and you start down – and the speed grows quickly, and the car is rattling, you feel that
pull . . .
It’s very scary – right?’

‘I’ve never been on a rollercoaster.’

Dalton nodded. ‘And again, why am I not surprised? Well . . . You’re barreling down the track, the torque is yanking at you, the deafening noise, your pulse is exploding, you might even be screaming . . . and you’re terrified – because your systems, your primal self, is telling you that you won’t make it through – you’re going to die. But—’

‘But you know the ride is going to end.’

‘Yes! Exactly right.’ Dalton nodded eagerly. ‘The higher state knows the ride will end even before you even get on – but then
fear
overwhelms us.’ He stood up and began to pace. ‘So now, when I look at someone and see their head explode, or watch the serpents rise out of the lavender and devour each other . . . What I’ve learned to do – is to remember that
the ride will end
. And it does.’ He turned to Geiger. ‘That’s what I learned to do with the pain, too.’ He held out his hands. ‘With these. And I owe it all to you.’ He sighed with palpable satisfaction. ‘I knew you’d understand. I am so pleased that you came, Geiger. Really.’

Dalton walked to the desk, poured himself a cup of water and drank it slowly. Geiger couldn’t see a play anywhere – and he decided to stop looking, for now.

‘Thirsty?’ Dalton asked.

‘No.’

Dalton crumpled the cup and let it drop to the floor. ‘Time!’

Zanni and Victor came in. Victor went to the barber’s chair while Zanni held her gun on Geiger.

‘Now,’ said Dalton, ‘Victor is going to secure you. Take off your jacket and shirt first.’

Geiger obeyed the command and handed them to Victor, who folded them neatly and put them on the desk. Then he returned and started securing the straps – first, around Geiger’s chest, then the ankles.

‘Put your wrists on the chair arms,’ Dalton said.

Geiger placed his forearms down flat on the leather padding.

‘Merci,’ said Victor, and strapped Geiger’s wrists down.

‘Good,’ said Dalton, and started out. ‘Be back soon, Geiger. Victor . . . Zanni . . .’

Victor followed, and Zanni came to Geiger’s side.

‘I’ll be going soon,’ she said.

Geiger nodded. ‘They’ll find you, you know.’

‘Why so sure?’

‘Because that’s what they do. You found me, didn’t you?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I did.’ She leaned down to his ear and whispered. ‘Full disclosure: Dewey was my brother.’

Geiger’s head turned to her. The list of things he’d missed was growing longer. The short, subtle flick of her lips was not a smile or a scowl. It looked lost, as if it had wandered onto the wrong face. Then she cradled his cheeks in her palms and kissed him. The tenderness of it was unexpected.

She straightened up. ‘Goodbye, Geiger.’ She gave the chair a firm push and started it spinning, and then she left.

As he went round and round, Geiger closed his eyes – and started making a list of the music he would play in his head . . . when the time came.

When she walked into the study, Dalton was standing at his desk and Victor was across the room, staring out a window. She had the Beretta down at her side, against her thigh, but her finger was on the trigger, because this was fertile ground for betrayal.

As a physical threat Dalton was an unlikely candidate, but back at the very start she had fashioned a scenario and held it close, like a lucky keepsake – that when and if everything played out successfully there would be a moment, this moment, before she got paid, when killing her would be a smart cost-cutting move on Dalton’s part. That if he had offered Victor a tenth of her fee to take her out, her French friend would do it with a melancholy flick of his knife. And it would not be a betrayal in his eyes. Betrayal’s partner, by definition, was trust – the former could not occur without the latter – and in their line of work there was no such thing.