Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

“Yes.”

After hanging up, Geiger walked to Mott Street. La Bella was halfway down the block. Carmine had a cell phone and Geiger had the number, but Carmine didn’t talk on the phone. It didn’t matter whether it was business, or pleasure, or something dark and desperate. You didn’t call Carmine Delanotte. You went to La Bella.

The maitre d’ looked up and gave Geiger his composed smile.

“Mr. Geiger. How are you? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Is Carmine here?”

“Of course. Let me tell him you’re here.”

Geiger smelled garlic and oregano, and heard the Stones’ “Beast of Burden” playing on the restaurant’s sound system. La Bella wasn’t a throwback to an old-style Italian eatery with watercolor murals and a nonstop loop of Frank Sinatra and Jerry Vale. It wasn’t a front or a laundry, either. The floor was covered in six-inch-square, hand-painted tiles from Bologna, the lighting was provided by angled pin spots, and the walls were adorned with black-and-white photographs of Italy that could have been from a MoMA exhibit. The waiters moved unobtrusively around the room wearing Armani vests and slacks. Carmine was forward-looking in everything he did, and his obvious pride in what he’d achieved was a product of action, not arrogance. As he liked to say to Geiger and his many associates, “Never make believe you know everything, but make sure you find out.”

The maitre d’ returned and gestured toward the door in the back wall. It was flanked by two bodyguards.

“Mr. Geiger-the office, please.”

Geiger followed the maitre d’ to the back of the restaurant. The sentries gave silent nods, and one of them opened the door. Geiger stepped into a living room-style office of cool gray walls, thick carpets, and bird’s-eye maple and chrome furnishings. Geiger had borrowed the style when he’d designed his Ludlow Street viewing room.

Carmine put aside the Wall Street Journal, rose from the couch, and took off his reading glasses.

“Here he is.” He grinned. “The man from IR.”

Carmine was, by nature, a hugger of both men and women. But he’d learned that Geiger preferred minimal physical contact, so he waved a hand at a large, silk chair.

“Sit,” Carmine said.

The maitre d’ stood waiting in the doorway. Carmine didn’t have to look to know he was there.

“Kenny, a double X for me, black coffee for Mr. Geiger. No sugar.”

The maitre d’ nodded and closed the door softly. Both men sat down. Geiger was silent; he knew not to rush things.

“Strange times, my friend,” said Carmine, and patted the Journal with an elegant hand. “The economy tanks and business has never been better. I picked up three houses on Staten Island last month, dimes for dollars. In a few years I’ll turn them over threefold. Very strange-but very profitable.”

When you went to see Carmine, it was for one of two reasons: you had something to tell him that you believed he would consider worth knowing, or you needed a favor. In either case, you followed Carmine’s lead and waited for the moment when he asked why you’d come.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come,” said Carmine.

The maitre d’ walked in and put the double espresso and coffee on the table between the two men.

“Thank you, Kenny.”

As the maitre d’ left, Carmine picked up his cup. He winced, and then smiled and shook his head.

“Goddamn fingers.” He took a sip of the espresso, smacked his lips with satisfaction, and put the cup down. He flexed his fingers and opened and closed his hand into a fist three times. “They’ve really been bothering me lately. Remember the first time we met, when you told me about the feds, and you said I had a couple of bum fingers?”

“Yes.”

Carmine took another sip of his drink. “I ever tell you how it happened?”

“No.”

“Funny story.” He sank back into the cushions. “Summer 1970. I’m in the navy. We’re in Boston, waiting to go overseas. Ever been to Boston?”

“No.”

“You ought to go. Great town. So we get a night ashore, and I have the best lobster fra diavolo I’ve ever tasted. But you don’t eat seafood, right?”

“No, I don’t.”

Carmine pointed at the table. “Drink your coffee while it’s hot. Why do I always have to tell you that?”

The answer was that Geiger didn’t like La Bella’s coffee, and he never drank it unless prompted by Carmine, which was every time. He picked up the cup and drank.

“So I end up walking around Cambridge, and I hear someone talking on a microphone, so I walk through this arch in a brick wall and you know where I am?”

“No.”

“I’m in a courtyard in Harvard University. There’s a rally going on. Anti-war stuff. Vietnam. A sea of tie-dyed T-shirts and long hair. Before your time. A guy on the steps of a building with a microphone is talking about the war. I’m at the back of the crowd, and this kid just in front of me turns around-Jesus in jeans-and looks me over. I’m in my crackerjack whites, flat hat at my John Wayne angle, and he says, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ And I said, ‘I’m listening. It’s a free country, isn’t it?’ And the kid spits on my shoes. He spits on my shoes. Do you know how much time I spent, every day, polishing those shoes?”

Geiger took another sip of coffee.

“So I throw a punch, but before I can land it he jumps up and kicks me in the chest and puts me on my ass. Karate, kung fu, whatever-it was just like in the movies. He’s all of a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet and he puts me on my ass. I get up and load up my left, swing it all the way back for a knockout-and smash it into a lamppost. Wham! I’m howling and the kid walks away. I never even got to hit him. But you know what? Now I had two dislocated fingers, just like you said, and a crushed knuckle, and my hand is in a cast when the rest of my guys go off to Nam. I never went over. That little Harvard prick kept me out of the war.”

Carmine drained his cup. Geiger had another swallow from his.

“So what’s new in IR?”

Geiger put his cup down. This was the time. His temples drummed.

“I need your help with something.”

“Business-related?”

“I need a gun.”

The blue eyes flashed. “For what?”

Geiger didn’t want to tell him the whole story. His focus was starting to fuzz again on the edges. “It’s just a precaution.”

“Have you ever fired a gun before?”

“No.”

Carmine noticed a tiny piece of lint on the front of his tailor-made shirt and flicked it off.

“Eddie!”

One of the bodyguards came inside and stood motionless, hands clasped at his belt buckle.

“Geiger needs a piece. Not too big. He’s never used one before. Let’s keep the recoil down.”

The guard nodded. As he turned and walked out the door, he left a trail of images in Geiger’s vision.

Geiger reached for his coffee and knocked the cup over. The spill started running off the table’s edge, onto the carpet, and he watched each drop fall in slow motion.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Carmine. He sighed and flexed his fingers again.

Groggy as Geiger was, he caught the pang of rue in his benefactor’s voice. He wondered what had been put in his coffee.

Carmine stood up and ran a hand through his silver mane. “I don’t get you, Geiger. I’m a very smart man, but I don’t get you.”

Carmine knelt down directly in front of him, reached out, and patted his cheek affectionately. “I have to ask you something while you can still answer me. Can you understand me?”

This was another new sensation for Geiger-a drug-induced slide out of consciousness. He felt a spread of prickly heat from the neck up, but he didn’t care. “Right,” Geiger said.