The Confessor (35 page)

‘Do you speak English, Bruno?’

‘A little – some. Pleasure for you or business, monsieur?’

‘. . . Business.’

‘First time?’

‘Yes.’

Geiger was looking straight ahead, to the windshield – one eye was on the road and one was on the rearview mirror, studying the reflection of the driver’s face as he spoke.

‘You have your instructions, Bruno . . . to take me to Tulette?’

‘Yes, monsieur. Not to worry.’

‘I’m not worried, Bruno.’

They were on a two-lane road heading northwest. Geiger turned halfway round and looked out the back window. There were no cars in sight – and he turned back around.

‘Do you do this full-time, Bruno?’

The driver glanced up at Geiger’s image in the rearview window. ‘Pardon?’

‘The job. Driving. Do you do this all the time?’

‘Ah, oui. Five years. For long time I am chef. But no more. No work.’

Geiger was getting the rhythm of the man’s normal, unstressed speech, like a hoofer listening to a piece of music’s nuances before beginning to dance.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

The driver’s grin was fast coming, and crooked. ‘Ça craint.’

‘I don’t speak French, Bruno.’

‘Pardon. It sucks.’

Up ahead, Geiger saw what he had been waiting for – a narrow gravel turn-off that looked like it went nowhere. He reached into his bag and took out Christine’s customized kitchen knife, holding it out of Bruno’s view.

‘Bruno . . . Pull over – up there on the right.’

The driver’s eyes bounced to the mirror. ‘Monsieur . . . ?’

Geiger leaned forward. ‘Pull off the road here. Turn.’

‘Take you to Tulette, no?’

Suddenly the knife had risen into view, and came to rest with the blade flat against Bruno’s upper chest.

‘Bruno . . . Don’t make me tell you again.’

There was something about his voice nearly as unsettling as the knife – that it could be velvet-soft and steel-hard at once – and Bruno slowed the car, turned the wheel, and pulled into the turn-off.

‘Go to the bushes, then stop.’

The driver obeyed the order, and then put the car in park. His gaze didn’t leave the face in the mirror.

‘I have forty euros . . . and take the car. Please don’t hurt me.’

Geiger got a read on the unadorned sound of the man’s fear.

‘I’m not robbing you, Bruno.’ Geiger took the knife away and sat back, keeping the weapon visible, resting on his thigh. He checked the view from the back again. They couldn’t be seen from the road. ‘Turn around to me.’

The driver undid his seat belt, and turned round. The Inquisitor watched what looked like confusion gathering in Bruno’s sad eyes.

‘Bruno . . . Do you work for Dalton?’

The question put a row of ripples in the driver’s forehead. ‘. . . Pardon?’

‘Are you working for Dalton?’

‘Not understand. Work for Taxi Provençal.’ His stare kept making a detour to the knife before finding its way back to Geiger. ‘This name – Dalton. Not know this name. Please, monsieur. You make . . .’ He scowled, searching for the proper word, and his hand went to his tie and pulled the knot loose. ‘Ah. You make
mistake!
’

Geiger took out his pack of Lucky Strikes. He’d seen and heard enough.

‘Do you mind if I smoke, Bruno?’

‘. . . No.’

Geiger lit up, and then put the knife back in his bag. ‘It was necessary for me to scare you, Bruno. I’m not going to hurt you. I want you to calm down – and listen closely.’

‘I smoke too.’

Geiger held out the pack and Bruno took one from it. The cigarette shook in his hand as Geiger lit the end.

‘You are taking me to a very dangerous place, Bruno. You understand “dangerous”?’

‘Yes.’

‘And depending on what happens – some people may prefer that you were dead. You understand “dead”?’

‘
Dead?!
’ His eyes scrunched into slits – like a myopic trying to read a street sign. He unbuttoned his collar. ‘Why?’

‘Do you know the phrase “loose end” in English?’

‘No.’

‘It means an unfinished part of a job – something that needs to be taken care of before the job can be considered done. Understand?’

The driver nodded. ‘Oui. Details.’

‘. . . and some of the people I’m involved with don’t like loose ends.’

‘Me – because I contact with you . . . ?’

‘Yes.

‘They
okay
with killing?’

‘When you were a chef – were you okay with killing the chickens?’

Bruno began shaking his head pensively, side to side – one of those moments when a gesture means the opposite of what it seems. He looked baffled, stunned – but he understood all too well.

‘It could happen when you drop me off, Bruno – or tomorrow – or a week or month from now – or perhaps never.’ Geiger flicked his butt out the window. ‘I suggest you leave Avignon. Park the car in a garage and take a train someplace where nobody knows you. Stay a few weeks. You understand?’

Bruno ran his hand firmly down his face. The Shar Pei wrinkles stretched with the gesture, like a gloomy sad-sack in a cartoon.

‘Impossible.’

Geiger unzipped his bag, took out a large wad of euros and started counting some off. With each bill, the furrow between Bruno’s brows deepened.

‘Here.’ Geiger held the money out. ‘Three thousand euros. It should last you a month.’

Bruno frowned at the offering.

‘Take the money, Bruno.’

‘Why?’

Geiger’s eyes blinked – once. ‘Take it.’

Bruno’s hand suddenly flashed up in an angry wave. ‘C’est délirant! Crazy! You say “go away”. You say “take it . . . take it”. But why
give
it?’

Patience had always been an ally, but now Geiger could sense it standing off to the side – a bystander just out of sight, hesitant about joining in.

‘Bruno . . . Let’s just say – it works best for me.’ He dropped the money on the front passenger seat and zipped up the bag. ‘You need to go.’ He opened the door. ‘You have the address you were taking me to?’

When Bruno sighed, his shoulders hitched up around his ears. He reached up to the driver’s visor and slid out a piece of paper, and handed it to Geiger. It was three sentences of typed text.

‘Simple,’ said Bruno. He looked at the pile of money on the seat. Its presence made as much and as little sense as anything else that had just happened. ‘You strange man, Ezra.’

‘People have told me that. Goodbye, Bruno.’ Geiger got out of the car, closed the door, and watched the Renault turn around and head toward the road. He could gear his head toward the next phase now. He’d taken care of Céleste and Bruno. No innocent bystanders would suffer.

Standing in this dead-end path with the sound of traffic in front of him and a train approaching in the distance at his back, he had reached the last dot on the map where he could turn off and make his way alone.

When her Nextel dinged, Zanni and Victor gave each other a look.

‘We play this his way,’ she said. Victor nodded – and Zanni clicked on.

‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘Three minutes from the terminal in a hotel parking lot. Where are you?’

A gun-metal BMW 3 sedan cruised toward him, gravel crunching and grumbling beneath its wheels. The windows had a dense charcoal tint that sucked in and snuffed out the sunlight, and Geiger couldn’t see who was driving.

There would be a number of things to keep track of in his presentation, various layers of interplay moving through the maze. From here on, Soames and Victor would interpret almost everything he said in very different ways – Victor knew where the endgame was and Soames didn’t – and what Geiger knew, and how and when to dispense it, would determine who survived.

The car stopped and the front doors opened – Soames stepping out from the driver’s side and Victor from the passenger’s seat. Victor immediately lit a cigarette. There was a moment – when bodies finally arrive in the same physical space for the first time – that movement is briefly suspended while minds take measure of real flesh and bone. Size, posture, power.

Zanni leaned against the door-frame. ‘Bonjour, Geiger . . .’

‘Hello, Zanni.’

Victor walked toward Geiger, his arm rising in the ritual offer of a hand. Geiger filed away a few observations: the man was fifty-something but rock-hard, and had bad knees – more likely arthritic than an injury.

‘Geiger,’ Victor said, ‘good to meet you . . . in the flesh.’

Geiger grasped Victor’s hand and shook it firmly – and settled on a seventy-five percent likelihood that Victor was left-handed.

‘Hello, Victor.’

Their reflections were in each other’s gaze like fun-house mirrors – one image born of another, tunneling deeper and deeper. Geiger had looked into the eyes of killers too many times – and had rarely glimpsed that maniacal spark or lurking evil poets often found in residence there. Eyes held a thousand secrets and truths, but they could lie like tongues.

‘Geiger,’ said Zanni, ‘this is your show. Do you know where we’re going?’

‘We do now.’ He held up the directions Bruno had given him. ‘From the taxi driver. In French.’

He handed the paper to Victor and waited till his gaze went down to it, watching him read. The eyes moved minimally – and vertically, not horizontally. He was scanning information he already possessed.

‘Have you ever been there, Victor?’

‘Tulette? No,’ said Victor. ‘I’ve heard something of it, though.’ Geiger was certain the tell was coming. Victor’s hand rose, and his thumbnail began its ritual, up and down in the cleft of his chin. ‘Small – a decent local wine, I think. There are many villages like it in Provence.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Zanni. She dipped back into her seat and closed the door. Victor walked to the passenger door and gestured for Geiger to get in.

‘You sit there, Victor. I’ll sit in the back.’

Victor nodded. ‘Certainly,’ he said, flicked away his smoke, and sat down in shotgun.

Geiger picked up his bag and slid into the middle of the backseat. He took out his iPad. On the screen was a Google map of Provence, the route from Avignon to Tulette traced with a violet line. He leaned forward and handed it to Victor.

‘This is the route. It’s just under an hour’s drive. And I bookmarked the satellite shot of what I presume is the house.’

‘Excellent,’ said Victor.

Geiger handed Dalton’s note and the snuff box to Zanni. ‘These were in a locker at the station.’

Zanni read the note, handed it to Victor, and gave her attention to Dalton’s gift.

‘A
snuff
box,’ she said. ‘How clever.’ She opened it and eyed the contents. ‘
Usus . . .
?’

‘It’s Latin. It means expertise,’ he said. ‘Something he and I discussed when he worked on me. Our bond, if you like.’

‘Can we talk about how you see this thing?’ she said. ‘What you’ve been thinking about?’

‘I need to sleep for a little while first. Twenty minutes.’

Geiger settled back and closed his eyes. Zanni frowned, put on her sunglasses, then spun off a perfect reverse-to-drive maneuver and headed for the highway.

He could smell her lavender scent.

He hadn’t been sleeping, nor had he needed to. He’d wanted to take himself out of the three-way for a time and have a chance to hear the tone of simple back-and-forth between Zanni and Victor – but there had been few exchanges. He opened his eyes.

‘Did you look at the satellite shot?’

‘Yes,’ said Victor. ‘No other houses nearby. A good thing.’

They were on a two-lane road, going through a tiny village – a small café, a boulangerie, a single narrow street to turn on lined with a dozen two-story, faded pastel houses – and they were past it in less than a minute.

‘Here are my thoughts,’ said Geiger. ‘We drive up the hill toward the house, pull off out of sight, leave the car and go on foot to a higher vantage point. We watch the house, see if anyone comes in or out, perhaps we can see movement inside.’

Up ahead, arching plane trees on each side made a tunnel of the road – their branches curled over the road and clasped above it.

‘Then, I see two choices. I walk in alone – and at some point, you move in. Or – we go in together. We don’t know the interior layout . . . so we don’t go in at night – we wait until first light tomorrow. Either way – the reason I’m here is Harry and Matheson. I know your job is to take Dalton out – but my only concern is keeping them alive.’ His hand went to his jaw, to scratch at his beard, and he realized it was no longer there. ‘Your thoughts.’

He and Zanni found each other via the rearview mirror – their faces frames with blank canvasses.

‘If you go in alone – you’re putting whatever plans he has for you in motion. Maybe he wants to swap war stories over a bottle of wine, maybe he wants to see how much sushi he can make out of you. I don’t know, Geiger. If we go in together – the benefits are textbook. More interior coverage in less time – more discovery in less time – if he has guards in there, more decisions for them to make, more stress . . .’

They came out of the cave of trees and quilts of farmland stretched away on both sides, hues of a painter’s palette – tan and light and darker greens, spotted with trees, solitary exclamation points of cypresses, clusters of umbrella pines and sycamores, white-flowered almonds, huddled groves of olive trees. Geiger had a flash of the house in Brooklyn, filled with his creations and the rich scent of woods and oil. They were already orphans. Who would be the one to adopt them?

‘Key point, Geiger: Is Dalton going to let them go if you show up alone? My feeling is no – but it wouldn’t shock me if he did, either. He’s that crazy. If you believe he’s going to make the trade, then maybe you should go in alone . . . and we’ll bide our time. But – I think we should go in together.’