Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

As Harry talked, Lily sat next to him on the couch, her fingers twisting the ends of her hair in a secret ritual. Corley, sitting across from them, seemed lost in a world of his own, his eyes locked on the tightly spun gold-and-blue swirls of the living room’s Oriental rug. In truth, Corley’s eyes saw nothing in the room. His vision was pointed inward at the countless pieces of Geiger’s psychic puzzle.

“Doc?”

Corley was shaken by the revelation about Geiger’s work, and by his blindness to it. Torture. Was this how Geiger’s hidden past had been expressing itself all these years? A tiny, sharp-toothed beast started gnawing at Corley’s insides. Should he have seen it-or at least sensed something?

“Doc?”

Corley looked up. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry this ended up on your doorstep. I really am.”

Corley waved away the apology but then gave Harry a narrow look. “Putting aside, for the moment, what you two have been doing for the past decade-you do realize that this is kidnapping, a serious federal crime?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t kidnap him. We’re the… un-kidnappers.”

Harry took a sip of ginger ale and fisted a burp. He put a piece of sourdough pretzel up to Lily’s lips, but she ignored the offering.

“Eat something,” he said.

“I can’t remember,” she said, her eyes darting from side to side.

“Remember what?”

“There are so many words, and so many different meanings, and they all have to be in the right place. Where’s Harry?” she asked.

Harry gave Corley a quick glance. “Jesus, she said my name.” Then he turned her face to his. “Right here, Lily. Hey, it’s me, Harry.”

Corley got up and came over, crouching in front of her. He studied her eyes’ movements, noting the extended frozen stare that was interrupted by sudden zigs to the left and right.

“You said sometimes she comes out with a lyric as a response to things?” Corley asked.

“Yeah. Sometimes it feels like a connection to something, sometimes not.”

Corley leaned in close to Lily, his face just inches from hers.

“Lily?” he said. Suddenly he smacked his palms together. Harry flinched in surprise, but Lily remained unmoving. “Lily!”

“I want to go,” she said.

“I want to go, too, Lily,” said Corley. “Where shall we go?”

Lily half-sang, half-spoke: “Way down below the ocean…”

“See?” said Harry. “That could mean something-or nothing. She loved that song, and you just said, ‘Where shall we go?’ It can really make you crazy.”

Corley returned to his chair. “There is something going on inside. Whether it’s reactive, responsive, or random, I don’t know. But there’s a process at work, and at the end of it, she arrives at some kind of decision-for lack of a better word-and she sings.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think it takes superhuman strength to construct and maintain the kinds of walls that keep the horror locked up and the world at bay. Is she on medication?”

“Yeah, I think so, but I don’t know what kind.”

“Well, we’re going to need to keep a close eye on her. What was she like, Harry? Before.”

“A little spacey, but very smart. Funny, too, in a goofy-funny way.” He shook his head ruefully. “And for so many years now, I haven’t been there for her.”

“Harry, you know what someone once said about guilt?”

“What?”

“If a man didn’t feel guilty, he’d probably think it was his fault.”

Harry’s shoulders dipped. “Doc, it’s appreciated, but I don’t need a shrink. I know who I am.”

They eyed each other, Harry’s account of the day’s events once again floating between them, invisible but magnetic.

“He’s been gone a long time, Doc,” Harry said.

Corley glanced at his watch. Almost three hours. Worst-case scenarios were starting to fill his head.

“I’m sure he’s all right,” said Harry, but his lack of confidence in the statement was clear to both of them. Harry tried to grin. “I mean, he’s a big boy, right?”

Corley craved a cigarette. He wondered if he had any regular-strength Marlboros stashed anywhere.

“No, Harry,” he said. “He’s a very little boy.”

Geiger, carrying a small gym bag, walked for three blocks before he found a cafe with an empty booth shadowed enough to obscure his presence. He had taped a two-inch square of gauze over the hole in his cheek, but nothing could hide his stark pallor. There was much to do, but at the moment he needed black coffee and a few minutes to sit in relative solitude. He knew what Corley would say: Don’t let these memories slip away, don’t lock them back up. They’re part of you. Keep them alive and carry them with you.

The waiter put his iced coffee down. “Anything else?”

“No.”

The waiter, a kid of no more than twenty, made no effort to hide his staring at Geiger’s face. “You okay?” he said.

“Yes.”

Geiger heard the hollow chafing in his voice and saw the dubious look in the kid’s eyes.

“Yes,” he said more firmly. “I’m okay.”

The waiter clearly wasn’t convinced, but he wandered off.

Geiger took a long drink from his glass. He had wanted the coffee hot, but he knew that heat would encourage more bleeding from the wounds in his mouth. He swirled the chilled liquid around in his cheeks for twenty or thirty seconds before he swallowed, and then sank back into the booth’s cushions.

He knew that inner scars had given way and old wounds had opened. For years, he’d been vigilant about keeping the outside from getting in. But what he’d really done was seal in the demons that dwelt in his darkest places. Now he was turning inside out, and he didn’t need to summon Corley’s spirit to understand that what had been dead was exhumed and alive again.

You’re my son. I’ve given you what you needed.

Hall finished dragging the bench from Geiger’s yard to the alley-side wall. He stepped up and climbed over the fence, then jumped onto the dumpster and down to the alley. He called Ray on his cell as he walked toward the street.

“Yeah?”

“I’m in the alley, going back to the car.”

“Fucker better call soon.”

“He said half an hour.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I think I’m starting to understand Mr. Geiger. He’ll call.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Hall slid into the Lexus. “I don’t know, Ray. I haven’t gotten that far.”

“Well, get there, man,” Ray said, and hung up.

Hall adjusted the seat so he could stretch out. He had that tingle in his fingertips, usually a harbinger of inspiration. He didn’t believe in luck, but he did believe that sometimes chaos threw all its pieces to the wind and when they fell back down to earth they fit together. It was the “put a million monkeys at typewriters and someday you’ll get a masterpiece” scenario, and Hall’s instincts told him that this shambles could still turn out to be his Hamlet. As he lay back in the Lexus, he saw it clearly, right there in front of him: his one last shot.

Mitch picked up his cell phone and called Hall.

“Yeah?”

“I’m on him,” Mitch said. “He’s coming out of a cafe.”

Mitch watched as Geiger limped to a pay phone on the corner. Earlier, he had spent almost two hours parked down the block from Geiger’s Ludlow Street place. When Geiger had hobbled out, he’d looked like a shell-shocked vet hitting the street for the first time since a mortar had put him down. For three blocks, Mitch had crawled behind him in his cab, and then he had parked again, half a block from the cafe.

Now, observing Geiger as he picked up the pay phone’s handset, Mitch was starting to feel pumped. He had the come-to-Papa buzz in his pulse that kicked in when things were looking up and chance finally decided to get with the program. Sometimes you could just sit back and watch it all come together and grin.