Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

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 trunk 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?”