The Inquisitor: A Novel (34 page)

When fireworks lit the sky again and were followed by a spate of crackles and pops, Geiger started forward, using the sound as audio camouflage. Hall was leaning around the entry’s molding.

Now just three feet away, Geiger slid his grip down to the poker’s handle and raised the weapon high.

“Geiger!” barked a voice behind him.

*   *   *

Hall whirled around and blindly backhanded his gun into the side of Geiger’s skull. Geiger dropped to his knees. The fireplace poker clanked to the floor.

Hall glanced up at Mitch, who stood just inside the back door. His partner’s gun was pointed at Geiger’s head, and the boy was muzzled and firmly in Mitch’s grasp.

Hall glared down at Geiger. “There’s no more time, Geiger—I want those discs!”

Geiger had trouble making out some of Hall’s words. There was an ocean’s roar in his right ear.

“Let the boy go,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

Hall shook his head. “The discs—now.”

Geiger swung his head slowly and looked down the hallway at the boy. Then he turned back to Hall. “They’re in the bedroom,” he said, pointing to the doorway on the left.

Hall took a quick look inside the bedroom and saw a gym bag sitting in the middle of a four-poster bed. “Okay, let’s go—you first, Geiger. Mitch, wait in the living room with the kid.”

Geiger rose to his feet and walked unsteadily toward the entry to the bedroom.

Hall waved him inside with his gun and then pointed at the bag. “Open it.”

Geiger pulled the bag to him and took out an envelope. He turned it upside down and the minidiscs fell onto the bedspread.

An adrenaline mule kicked wildly in Hall’s chest. He sucked in a lungful of oxygen to neutralize it.

“So,” Hall said, “did you look at them?”

“One of them. For a few minutes. Do you know what’s on them?”

“No.”

“Black site interrogations. Somebody shot the sessions with a hidden camera. And I’m in the videos.”

Hall gathered up the discs and put them back in the bag. “Tell me something, Geiger. How’d you get so good at your job?”

Geiger looked directly at him. His left temple was bleeding, and Hall could see that his eyes were having trouble focusing. “You could say I was born to it,” Geiger said. “It’s in my blood.”

For a moment, Hall turned the words over in his mind, thinking of how much time he’d spent in the devil’s den over the years. Geiger was right: it was in the blood. The virus, the incurable human virus.

He pulled the bag’s zipper closed. “That’s it, then,” he said.

“Let the boy go.” Geiger’s voice was still a whisper.

Hall motioned at the doorway with the gun. “Into the living room.”

“Let him go, Hall. His mother will be here soon. Don’t—”

“Move!”

Geiger stepped into the hallway, and Hall trailed him as he moved slowly into the living room. Mitch, his gun in his lap, sat with Ezra on the couch.

Hall raised the bag. “Got ’em.”

“Halle-fucking-lujah,” said Mitch, and stood up. “Let’s go.”

Hall didn’t answer or move. His gun stayed on Geiger, and he saw Mitch read his eyes.

“No?” Mitch said. “We’re not done?”

Hall shook his head.

“Is this from the top?” Mitch asked.

Hall didn’t respond. He turned toward the open front door, listening, and then suddenly raised his gun and shoved Geiger against the wall beside the doorjamb. Leaning back, Hall took a peek through the door and watched Harry limp into the apron of light around the front of the house.

*   *   *

Harry stepped onto the flagstone path and ascended the steps, his face sweat-streaked and dark. Anguish and guilt had swallowed him. In most ways Lily had left him years ago, but now he sensed that she was truly gone—and it was his doing.

Harry was one step inside the front door when he felt the barrel of Hall’s gun at the back of his skull.

“Walk with me, Harry,” said Hall. “Baby steps to the sofa.” Hall steered him into the living room. “Sit.”

Still standing, Harry turned around slowly. He stopped when the gun rested on his nose. He gave Hall a smile, though it looked more like a gash than a grin, and sat down. Hall backed up a few steps, keeping the gun pointed directly at Harry.

“Well, well,” Harry croaked, hoarse from all his yelling. He glanced over at Mitch, whose gun was pointing at Geiger. “We’ve got Moe and Larry. Where’s Curly?”

“Dead,” said Mitch.

“That right? Bummer. Curly was always my favorite.”

Harry took a quick look at Geiger, who stood with his back to the wall next to the front door. No immediate help there: Geiger’s eyes were glassy, and one side of his face was covered in fresh blood. Harry tried to catch Ezra’s eye, but the boy was sitting on the other side of Mitch, his head down. He looked as if he’d been crying.

Harry didn’t know how long he could stall, but he knew he had to keep talking. He turned back to Mitch.

“So tell me something, Bubba,” Harry said. “How long did you sit in the cab at the diner playing with yourself before you figured out that I’d made you for a fucking idiot?”

Mitch didn’t flinch. He stared at Harry impassively, all business now.

“Stop talking, Harry,” Hall said.

Harry stabbed a finger at the windows. “You know what, Hall?” he said. “My sister is out there lost, or worse, because of you—and you don’t give a shit.” Then he noticed the gym bag in Hall’s hand. “Got your de Kooning, huh?”

Hall nodded.

“So why are you still here?”

One look at Hall and another at Geiger gave Harry his answer. He stood up.

“Sit down, Harry,” said Hall.

“Fuck you.”
Harry put his whole body behind the invective, and Hall releveled the gun.

“Harry, I’m gonna tell you one more—”

“Let’s say I came at you,” Harry said. “You know—so I could rip your fucking heart out. Would you shoot me, Hall?”

“Sit the fuck down!”

Harry took a quick glance out the front windows: nothing. “And what if while you were shooting me, Geiger went for you? I guess one of you would have to shoot him, too, right? And then there’s the kid…”

Hall’s face had turned to stone.

“Oh, and don’t forget Matheson,” said Harry. “That makes four. You won’t let him walk around and make life miserable for you, right? So how about it, Hall? When does it get hard to kill people? When you’ve taken out a dozen? Two dozen?”

Harry checked the windows again, and this time he caught a glimpse of something. Relief flooded him. He had almost run out of things to say, but now he could stop talking.

“You know what, Hall? Forget it—don’t worry about it.” Harry pointed at the windows. “Worry about them.”

Hall pivoted and looked outside. Far away, two pairs of headlights had just turned into the long driveway.

Harry shrugged. “I decided to call the cops and get them to help look for Lily.”

“Motherfuck…” said Mitch, springing up from the couch. His gun still on Geiger, he moved to the windows—and then Harry bull-rushed him, shoulders down, arms outstretched. Mitch’s arm swiveled around with the gun, but Harry rammed him chest-high, wrapping his arms around him. His momentum carried them crashing through a window onto the porch, where, locked in Harry’s embrace, they did a clumsy, backward two-step until they hit the railing, broke it apart, and fell out of sight.

Hall’s gaze followed the two men for half a second too long, and Geiger forced his battered body into motion. It was a graceless, lopsided endeavor—one hand grabbing at Hall’s gun wrist, the other going for his windpipe—and when Hall turned in response, it became entanglement and struggle more than focused violence. For a few moments, Hall seemed to have the advantages of balance and strength, but then Geiger slammed his forehead into Hall’s and they fell to the floor, Hall’s gun skidding across the pine boards and stopping against the front door’s saddle, the gym bag dropping onto the living room’s dusty rug.

Geiger turned back toward the couch, his eyes searching for the boy. “Ezra—run!”

The boy took two steps toward the door before veering right and reaching down for the bag as he ran. Darting around the two fallen men, he raced outside and was gone.

Too weak to overpower Hall, Geiger fought like a wrestler in defensive mode, his twisting limbs doing whatever it took to keep Hall tied up. But then one of Hall’s hands found Geiger’s maimed thigh, and Hall dug his fingers deep into the wounds. The pain was a firestorm, and Geiger’s grip gave way as a howl rose in his throat.

Hall scrambled to his feet, grabbed the gun, and turned on Geiger, who lay sprawled on his back. The weapon came up; Geiger waited for the kill but saw Hall pause and reconsider: the proximity of the police made a gunshot out of the question.

Hall tucked the gun into his belt and gave Geiger’s wounded leg a fierce kick.

“And stay down, Geiger!” he hissed, before disappearing from view.

Geiger lay motionless, his blood seeping into the rug as the music flooded him. Turbulent, discordant choruses of brass and strings shook him—tasting bitter and pungent, they were potent, chromatic, rousing. His mind took hold of the music, wielded it like a club, and pummeled the pain flat.

Slowly, he got up, first to his knees and then to his feet. He moved heavily toward the open front door and leaned against the jamb. He did his best to perform an internal inventory, trying to measure what he had left and guess how far it would get him. The left leg of Corley’s sweatpants was turning dark red, sticking to his burning thigh.

Geiger saw the headlights coming up the driveway, close now, and he moved out onto the porch. Holding the broken railing, he looked down and saw Harry lying on top of Mitch, belly to belly, both as still as corpses.

Geiger started lumbering down the steps. “Harry?”

Harry’s head stirred, and then he rolled off Mitch, onto his back. The spike of one of the ground lamps protruded from Mitch’s sternum, and his dead eyes were open.

Harry’s chest shone with blood, but he looked up at Geiger and raised an arm. “I’m okay,” he said, pointing toward the river. “That way—both of them.”

*   *   *

Ezra stopped when he found a tree that looked thick enough to hide him. He stood with his back against it to make sure, then slid down its trunk to the ground. He had been running blind and so had lost all sense of bearing. The night was alive with sound: the continuing explosions in the sky, the far-off cheers of the crowd, the mosquitoes buzzing nearby. And he could swear he heard the perpetual rush of the unseen river.

Given the mayhem he had left behind at the house, it was impossible for him to guess who might have survived or who might be coming to look for him.

He clutched the bag and waited.

*   *   *

Hall moved silently through the trees. A night mist gave the woods a soft, smudged look, like a drawing in charcoal on gray paper. But every few minutes, a new hail of fireworks lit the sky, and suddenly the forest seemed alive with shadowy ghosts.

As Hall made his way toward the river, new possibilities came into sharp focus. Once he found the boy and retrieved the bag, the way forward was simple, clean, doable. He had the laptop’s satellite picture in his head; the dock and its rowboat were due west through these woods, about a hundred yards away. He would row out to the middle of the river so that no one could spot him from the shore, then float south with the current for a few miles. At the next town downriver, he’d row back in and find a way to get back to the city.

He knew the boy was near. Hall hadn’t been that far behind him, and he hadn’t seen anything move since he’d reached the trees. The boy was hiding someplace, scared to death, and it was almost a sure thing he wouldn’t budge. An adult might get wired by the adrenaline and make a move, but a kid would almost certainly be frozen by his fear. Hall didn’t expect to see any movement—he would have to coax the boy out.

*   *   *

“Ezra?”

The boy was drenched in sweat. Even so, the faint but distinct call of his name chilled him. It was less than a shout, more than a whisper. He couldn’t tell who was out there or how close the person was, but he was too frightened to peer around the base of the tree. Had Geiger come to rescue him, or was Hall hunting him down? He waved a hand at the swarm of mosquitoes that danced around his head.

The voice came again, closer this time. “Ezra? Where are you?”

This time he was almost sure it was Geiger’s voice. But something stopped him from answering. What if he was wrong? He pulled the gym bag tight to his chest. He didn’t know what was on the discs, but he felt as if he held his father’s life in his arms.

A new burst of fireworks exploded. His back reared up against the tree trunk, and a wave of panic hit him. The woods went quiet for a minute, and then the voice came again.

“Ezra? It’s
me.
”

The promise in that final word so unnerved him that something finally came apart in the boy. Some tether, stretched beyond its limits, broke, and he began to weep. His sobs came in short, ragged bursts and would not be stemmed.

*   *   *

Hall had been weaving through the trees in a sideways two-step, calling the boy’s name. When he heard the noise he didn’t stop but veered twenty degrees west. There was no question—it was a human sound, and its source was very close by.

Hall slowed to a stop, staring at a pine tree thirty feet away whose impressive girth claimed a larger perimeter than its neighbors. He understood the sound now. It was the boy, and he was crying.

Moving counterclockwise, Hall closed in, and soon he saw the murky profile of a figure huddled at the base of the pine. He crept forward using a slow heel-to-toe step, but the soft crunch of a twig made Ezra flinch. Without a backward look, the boy started away in a frantic crawl and then rose to his feet, sneakers digging for traction. But Hall was quicker, and Ezra’s sprint lasted only five strides before Hall grabbed his ankles and sent him tumbling onto his chest.

Hall flipped the boy over and straddled him, clamping a hand over his mouth.