Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

Carmine had given Geiger his first job in IR, eleven years ago. The day after Geiger overheard the conversation between the FBI techs, he had gone to an Internet cafe and found a photo of Carmine Vincent Delanotte, reputed mob boss, as well as the address of his restaurant, La Bella Ristorante, in Little Italy. Geiger read several articles about Carmine and learned that he was something of a visionary. In the early 1980s, he had started buying run-down brownstones throughout the boroughs for practically nothing. Apparently he had grasped all the possibilities-the houses provided him with a legitimate front, laundering venues, and kickback contracts-and fifteen years later a flood of cash had started coming his way. One of the articles quoted a source at the FBI who claimed that lately Carmine had been making more money in real estate than in loan-sharking and gambling combined.

That evening, Geiger had walked into Carmine’s restaurant and handed the maitre d’ a sealed envelope.

“Give this letter to Mr. Delanotte,” Geiger said.

Perhaps Geiger’s manner had an immediate impact, or perhaps the maitre d’ often delivered envelopes to the owner; in any case, he took the letter without a word and walked away. Geiger picked out Carmine at a table in a corner with three other men. The gleam of his blue eyes and his silver-streaked hair flashed with every tilt of his head, as if he had an alternating current running through him.

The maitre d’ leaned down to his boss, whispered in his ear, and held out the letter. Carmine looked at the offering, then turned his gaze toward Geiger. The cool stare measured him, and Geiger saw a flat look of nonrecognition give rise to a glint of curiosity in the man’s wide, cerulean eyes. Carmine opened the envelope with a flourish of his polished thumbnail, took out the single sheet of paper, and read it. He folded the paper methodically, tore it in half, and then tore the letter a second and third time. He dropped the bits of paper into a porcelain cup on the table, lit a match, and set them on fire.

His lips moved and the words put bodies in motion. The maitre d’ stepped away, and Carmine’s three colleagues rose and stood behind him against a blood-red brocade wall. Carmine looked again at Geiger and raised two thick fingers; flicking them, he gave Geiger an imperial command to approach.

When Geiger was three feet away, Carmine pointed at him. Geiger halted. Carmine leaned to the burning paper and blew out the flames. Smoke rose in languid puffs from the cup, and Carmine waved some of it toward his face and took in a deep, sensuous breath. Then he looked up at Geiger.

“I’m not allowed to smoke anymore,” he said in a voice that rumbled with the echo of thousands of deeply drawn cigarettes. He shrugged ruefully and sat back. “Guys…” he said. The three sentinels strolled to the bar.

“Sit down,” said Carmine. Geiger slid into a chair and Carmine poured himself two inches of Chivas. He put the bottle down in front of Geiger.

“I don’t drink,” said Geiger.

Carmine raised his glass and took a small sip. “Three years and I still can’t get used to Chivas without a Lucky.” He put his glass down. “What do you make on the late shift? What do I pay you?”

“One hundred and fifty dollars a night.”

“Cash, off the books. So it’s really more like two hundred and twenty a day.”

“Yes.”

“That’s more than enough to rent a room, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re sleeping in one of my houses. That’s not allowed, Mr. Geiger.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I save a lot of money that way.”

The corners of Carmine’s wide lips tilted up. “Are you fucking with me, Geiger?”

“No.”

“You do know who I am, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Delanotte. I’ve read about you.”

Carmine’s lips finished their arc into a fully fashioned smile. “Okay,” he said. “First thing: you don’t sleep in my houses anymore. Second thing: I appreciate the heads-up about the feds. I’ll deal with it.” He slipped a hand inside his suit jacket and took out a taupe leather billfold. “Five hundred sound fair?”

“I don’t want your money,” Geiger said.

“No? You’re so flush from sleeping free in my houses that you don’t need it?”

“I have a question.”

“Ask me.”

“About your ‘lieutenants.’ How will you find out which one is going to betray you?”

Carmine scowled. “Could be any one of five or six. I know a guy. He’ll find out.”

“I could do it,” Geiger said.

“ What is it you could do?” asked Carmine.

“Find out what you need to know.”

“And how would you do that, Geiger?”

“I’ll ask your lieutenants questions, and they’ll tell me the truth.”

“So-when you’re not doing reno, you’re in the truth business?”

“Information retrieval.”

Carmine’s head tilted, like a dog’s hearing a distant whistle. He was evaluating the tone of voice; Geiger had spoken the two words without the slightest hint of irony or sarcasm.

“Information retrieval,” Carmine said. “Got it. All right-so what am I thinking right now?”

“I’m not a mind reader, Mr. Delanotte.” Geiger turned his head to the right; there was a barely audible click. “But you are probably wondering if I might be psychotic-or retarded.”

Carmine’s grin lurked just beneath the surface, like a shark in shallow water. “I guess I can’t really ask for a resume, can I? You’ve got experience in… information retrieval, is it? The truth business?”

“I can tell when someone is lying. I can tell a lot about someone just by looking at them.” Geiger turned his head to the left. Another click. “You’re left-handed,” he said.

“That’s right. How’d you know that?”

“Your eyebrows.”

“My eyebrows, huh? You gonna read my palm and tell my fortune next?”

“I don’t know how to do that. But you see better out of your right eye than your left-and you had two, maybe three fingers on your left hand dislocated a long time ago. They still hurt. Probably arthritic.”

Carmine involuntarily flexed the fingers of his right hand, then leaned toward Geiger until their faces were inches apart. “Has anyone ever told you that you are one very strange motherfucker?”

“Yes. A number of people.” Geiger’s fingers fluttered on the tabletop. “Let me come to the first interrogation.”

Carmine frowned and poured another two inches of liquor. He stared at the glass, and for a moment he was absolutely still, as if listening to the sound of ten thousand hunches-his whole life, built upon them-and then his eyes started to shine with the wisdom of intuition.

“Geiger, do you own a cell phone?” he asked.

“No.”

“Get one.”

His daily regimen of push-ups done, Geiger went back into the house and stood in front of his enormous CD case. He had designed and built it himself; six feet square, it was made of flawless cherry, had ten open shelves on rollers, and held over eighteen hundred albums. He scanned the jewel cases and slid out Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks, flicked on the amplifier, and slipped the CD into the player. A tripping cascade of violins poured from the Hyperions.

He walked to a door and opened it. Inside was a small closet, just four feet by four feet, with mirrored walls from floor to ceiling. The music flowed into the closet from two mounted Bose mini-speakers.

Still naked, Geiger stared at his triple reflections. He surveyed the cabled muscles beneath taut skin, the crooked kneecaps and pronounced bumps of the outer ankles. He turned and craned his head around to see the slight, scoliotic curve of the upper spine and the oddly flattened iliac crests at the hips. And as always, he gazed with particular intensity at the myriad razor-thin scars running in horizontal columns down his hamstrings and his calves, all the way to his Achilles tendons. They looked like patient, punctilious markings etched by an inmate on a prison-cell wall.