Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

Harry felt an odd satisfaction-his hypothesis was right-and it amused him to think of the button-sized tracer stuck to the cab’s backseat. But he also felt a nasty tingling in his hands. He wanted them around the cabbie’s neck.

“Is he the guy you’re looking for?” the stoner asked.

“Thanks for the help, kid.”

“Sure, man. Rock on.” He flashed a peace sign and went on his way.

Finding the answer to one question only triggered an avalanche of others. He still had no idea who he was dealing with; he didn’t even know how many people were after him. But all that could wait. For now, only one thing mattered. He put his arm around Lily and started her down the alley.

“C’mon, sis. We got to find Geiger.”

Mitch had parked a quarter of the way down the block so he could see the front of the diner but couldn’t be seen from inside the place. As he waited for Boddicker and his sister to emerge, he occasionally glanced down at the blinking blue light in the center grid of a black, PDA-sized instrument on the seat beside him.

His cell phone rang and he picked up. “Yeah.”

“Still got him, Mitch?” It was Hall.

“Yeah, still in the diner.” His molasses drawl was gone. “Where are you?”

“Upper West Side. We’re cruising. They got a hit on the kid’s cell.”

“How’s Ray doing?”

“He’s stitched up. Overall, I’d say he looks much better. He’s got that harelip thing going on-ladies’re gonna love it.”

Mitch took note. Mean, dead-on sarcasm meant that Hall was worried. Not just stressed out but wired in a big-picture way. It was bad to hear but good to know.

After Hall hung up, Mitch continued watching the entrance to the diner. His mind, meanwhile, was building a bracket of strategic configurations in case the job went south. A week ago it had tasted like a piece of cake, but not anymore. Although Mitch thought the odds were still in their favor, at this point he had to work up plans for worst-case scenarios. He called it his “fuck or be fucked” mode, and the key to it was staying a couple of steps ahead of the enemy, whoever that might be. Ideally, Hall would continue to run the show-the man was smart, resourceful, and ruthless. And Mitch had always worked well with Ray, who would walk through a wall before he’d go around it. But if this operation completely blew up and it came down to a body count, then so be it. He’d be the one doing the counting.

The place was otherworldly, more hell than heaven. Blaring, combative colors fought against a grab bag of aromas and a shifting melange of sounds. Shiny oranges and reds and browns, voices and music and mechanical buzzes, scents of oil and cinnamon and fish and meat all collided and intertwined.

Geiger stood just inside the doorway, stunned by the onslaught. He’d never been in a Burger King or any other fast-food establishment. He’d been in Carmine’s restaurant and the diner, but this, in every way, was a different experience. He moved a few steps closer to the counter and its three lines of customers. Looking at the wall-mounted array of menus dense with words and numbers and pictures was like trying to decipher a map of the galaxy.

“Hey, man. Are you on line or what?” A head poked into Geiger’s view from behind him; it was a white kid in a do-rag wearing half a dozen cheap chains heavy with gewgaws.

Geiger looked blankly at him. He felt suspended and seized up, as if he’d forgotten how to breathe. His hearing seemed affected as well-he was having trouble locating the sources of sounds.

“Visit this planet much, man?” said the kid as he moved past Geiger toward the counter.

Geiger took his place in one of the lines and repeated Ezra’s order to himself while he waited.

Finally it was his turn. “What do you want?” said the woman behind the counter. The brim of her BK-emblazoned baseball cap had a thumb-sized stain at the left edge where she had tugged on it with greasy fingers a thousand times.

“Just get me a burger, and fries, and a Coke.”

“Then you want a meal?”

“Yes. I want a meal.” Geiger studied the woman’s frown. Why else would he, or anyone else, be in here?

“Which one?”

“A burger. Fries. Coke.”

“Which meal, mister?” Her thumb pointed at the backlit menus above and behind her. “One? Two? Three? Which?”

“I don’t care,” Geiger said.

“Then just pick one,” she said.

“Meal number one.”

“Okay. Mustard-ketchup-pickles-onions?”

“What?”

“On the burger. Mustard-ketchup-pickles-onions?”

It was spoken as a mindless recitation, a litany as automatic as a blink or a breath. But to Geiger it made the surface of things ripple absurdly. Mustard-ketchup-pickles-onions. He couldn’t put it out of his mind. It became an audio loop, a Mobius word strip, a child’s nonsense rhyme. Geiger became aware that his jaw was as tight as a bear trap.

“What’ll it be, mister?”

“Everything,” Geiger said. “I want everything.”

Ezra sat in Geiger’s chair, at Geiger’s desk. The cat lay in his favorite spot, just to the right of the keyboard, his gray silken stomach exposed. He prompted Ezra’s hand with a tap of his paw whenever a minute had passed between scratchings.

Ezra stared at the long row of black three-ringed binders before him. They were labeled chronologically, starting with “Jan-June 1999” and running right up to the present. He felt as if the binders were calling out to him, all of them whispering, “Open me.” He slid the keyboard to the side, pulled one of the binders toward him, and laid it on its side. Nearly two dozen tabs jutted from the stack of pages. His fingers randomly found one, and then he opened the binder and began to read.

• DATE/TIME: 5-22-2004/3 A.M.

• LOCATION: Ludlow St.

• CLIENT: NYPD detective

• REFERRAL: Carmine/ASAP

• ISSUE: Detective’s 24-year-old daughter missing

• JONES: Daughter’s ex-boyfriend, 25

• DATA: Daughter missing 3 days. Detective has “real bad feeling” about ex-boyfriend, and rather than arrest him he went to Carmine for a favor.

• SETUP: Jones strapped in barber chair, clad only in boxer shorts. Muscular. Shaved head. Room fully lit. Portable cart w/aerosol spray, straight razor, blindfold.

Ezra turned a few pages, scanning them. This time, the word “razor” caught his eye. He went back to the top of the page and read more slowly again.

G: Do you know where Lisa is, Victor?

Jones: I told you, man-I don’t know where she is! You think I messed with her just ’cuz she broke up with me?

G: Victor, I know what you told me, but I think you are lying-and I’m usually right about these things.

G takes straight razor from cart, swivels blade out of sheath.

G: Victor, pay close attention to what I’m saying now, because it’s crucial that you understand what is to come. I’ve honed this razor to such a sharpness that precise cuts barely cause any pain.

Jones: Oh man, this is so fucked.

G takes vial of aerosol freeze spray from cart.

G: Victor, this works immediately and wears off quickly.

^ _

G takes one of Jones’s fingers and sprays tip. Jones flinches, stiffens.

Jones: Motherfuck-that shit’s cold!

^ _

G puts down aerosol, then cuts tip of Jones’s middle finger with razor. Blood brims from cut.

Jones: Fuck, man! You cut me!

G: But it didn’t hurt. Did it, Victor?

^ _

G prepares to make another cut.

Jones: No, it didn’t fucking hurt!

G: Victor, you’re only here to tell me the truth. Nothing else. I’m going to blindfold you and ask you again about Lisa-where she is, if she is still alive-and then I’m going to start slicing parts of you-