The Confessor (27 page)

. . . and the ringing stopped.

‘’Allo?’

He flinched at the voice. ‘Hello? Is this – Christine Reynaud?’

‘Yes. Who is this?’

‘Well . . . My – my name is Ezra – and I’m almost thirteen and I’m calling from New York City – and I’m a friend of Harry . . . and Geiger – and I know this is gonna sound totally crazy-strange but it’s really important.’

‘. . . Go on, Ezra.’

The smooth cool of the voice helped move him on.

‘Geiger is on iChat with me right now . . . You know what iChat is, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good, good. Okay . . . Geiger said he met you today . . .’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Do you know why he’s over there, Miss Reynaud?’

‘Yes, Ezra. I know.’

‘Well . . . Geiger – he’s hurt . . . and he asked me to call you and ask you to help him . . . to come help him. I know Geiger, Miss Reynaud – and I know he wouldn’t ask for help from
anybody
if he wasn’t in bad shape.’

The cat jumped up on the desk and lay down beside the keyboard, limbs stretched out to the max, awaiting a caress.

‘Ezra . . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘I need to ask you . . . How do you know Geiger and Harry?’

The boy’s glance swung to the iPad – to the silence and shot of the ceiling.

‘They saved my life, Miss Reynaud.’

He could hear her breathing while she tried to meld the bizarre pieces into a recognizable shape.

‘Where is he?’ she said.

‘He’s at 315 Rue Questel. Q – U – E – S – T – E – L. In a boarded-up store. You can get in the back door.’

‘What else?’

‘That’s all.’ He gathered a breath and blew it out. ‘I know you don’t know him, Miss Reynaud . . .’ His voice bent like a bad note, and he wiped away a sudden tear. ‘He’s a really weird guy, but he’s a good person.’

‘It’s all right, Ezra. I understand.’

‘What should I tell him?’

‘Tell him I’m on my way.’

Ezra sprung out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box. ‘Thank you – thank you –
thank you
!’

‘I’m going to hang up now, Ezra. Okay?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Okay. Thank you.’

He leaned down to the screen. ‘Geiger . . . She’s coming. You hear me? She’s on her way. Geiger? Can you hear me?’

He sank back down in the chair. The only sound he heard was the cat’s ridiculously loud purr. He picked the creature up and laid it across his shoulder, and began the wait.

Christine had never heard of the street, so she brought up Google Maps to see where it was. She’d been on the couch, sinking into a downhill half-sleep, far from peace, when the phone had rung – and she had known with odd, unsettling certainty that the caller was going to take her deeper into the hairpin turn her life had taken. And when she had hung up, she’d realized there had been no moment of choice, no ‘do the right thing’ element to consider, no decision. Her initial, intense desire to turn away from the boy was proof of that.

She stood up, grabbed her car keys off the coffee table and headed for the door, though she almost believed that once she got behind the wheel and turned the ignition she could sit back, hands in her lap, and arrive at 315 Rue Questel without issue – because someone else would be doing the driving.

His mind had been burning down – a cabin on fire, and he was inside the inferno. There was no music to hear or see or taste and draw sustenance from, only the baying flames, and wood crackling and spitting all around him. And the scorching heat. Finally he had lain down, curling into a ball in the center of the blaze, and waited for some kind of end. There was pain, but no dread – because he had no fear of this kindred spirit.

When he finally felt the air starting to cool, and the silence take hold, he stirred and looked up. The fire had finished its feast – and its appetite had been its death. The flames, except for a few orphaned wisps and flickers, were gone, and the charred husks of walls were cracking and falling to the floor in black chunks. But someone was with him – as clearly near as she was invisible . . .

‘Geiger,’ she said.

He’d gone down the black hole enough times to know that when he came out the other side everything would be happening at seven-eighths speed for a few moments.

‘Geiger . . .’

He opened his eyes. She was kneeling at his side. She’d been studying him, and her face showed an internecine battle of feelings. Fear, bafflement, concern, mistrust . . .

‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, as if he were the head psychiatrist welcoming an inmate’s relative to Bedlam.

It hadn’t been more than ten hours since she had met him, but the pain had frayed the edges of his voice, sucked the color out of his face and literally laid him low . . . so whatever small sense she had of him – the tall, dark stranger on a dangerous mission – had been erased. He was a pale, wounded riddle.

‘Geiger . . . The man over there is dead.’

‘Yes, he is. He’s one of the men who kidnapped Harry.’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘No. The water tank fell on him. As a rule, I try not to kill anyone.’

It was her first taste of Geiger’s singular way – the velvet, unironic delivery that could seem soaked with sarcasm. Geiger watched her gaze narrow. He’d seen the expression countless times. Harry used to call it the ‘Listening-to-Geiger’ face.

‘It was an accident, Christine. I’d prefer that he were still alive.’

He started to sit up, forgetting the state of his shoulder and leaning on it for half a second before he slumped back down with a grimace.

‘What’s wrong with your shoulder?’

‘Dislocated. I need you to pop it back in – if you can do that.’

‘Tell me what to do.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know . . . ?’ Christine stared at the ugly, crooked joint. ‘Jesus . . .’

‘I got it right here.’

Their heads swung toward the voice in the iPad . . .

YouTube was on Ezra’s monitor and he was typing quickly. H – O – W – T – O – F – I – X – A – D – I – S – L – O . . .

‘It’s me. Ezra. I’m still here,’ he said. ‘One sec.’ He hit ‘enter’, scanned the choices, and clicked on one. A handheld video started playing: the scene was a hospital emergency room. At the bottom of the shot was a chyron ID line – ‘ST. MICHAEL’S MEDICAL CENTER/TEACHING HOSPITAL’. A doctor stood beside a gurney where a younger man lay on his back, one eye swollen shut, bare-chested, in a frozen grimace, his left shoulder clearly out of whack.

Ezra picked up his iPad and held it in front of the monitor. ‘Here. Do what he does.’

Christine slid the iPad over to her side. On the screen, the doctor took hold of the patient’s wrist.

‘First, I’m going to raise the forearm . . . about forty-five degrees . . . while I put pressure on the upper arm here, at the elbow – to keep it anchored . . .’

Christine duplicated his movements – holding Geiger’s wrist, and grabbing the upper arm just above the elbow with her other hand. She brought the forearm up.

‘That okay?’ she asked, and Geiger nodded.

‘Make sure to keep the arm close to the body – only a few inches apart. Now, I’m going to begin
rotating
the upper arm outward, very slowly, keeping the forearm
steady
.’

He started turning the upper arm toward him and the patient began to groan in short, loud bursts. Christine’s face crimpled – as much in dread of her own actions as the compelling bellows.

‘Try to breath evenly,’ said the doctor, ‘and don’t fight the movements.’

‘Go ahead, Christine,’ said Geiger, and closed his eyes.

She began twisting the upper arm toward her, eyes darting back and forth to the screen to gauge her technique. While the young man’s outbursts rose to sharp barks Geiger was silent, lips fused together in a straight, hard line.

Ezra was watching the video, locked in the betwixt-and-between state of fascination and repulsion – rapt, and flinching at every howl.

‘Now . . . When the arm’s resistance to the rotation feels as if—’

‘Ez . . . I’m home!’

His mother’s voice, from the other side of his door, punched up his heartbeat from rapid to panic speed. The door started to open and there was only time to lower the iPad and put it on the desk face-down before she stuck her head into the room.

‘Whatcha doing?’ she said.

‘Huh? Uh . . .’ He tried to swallow. ‘Nothing much.’

The patient’s chilling cry brought Ezra’s mother’s gaze to the monitor. ‘Jesus . . .’ She came inside. ‘What are you watching?’

‘A video. How to fix a dislocated shoulder.’

Christine winced at the iPad’s black screen. ‘Merde!’ The doctor’s voice was muffled beyond understanding.

Geiger’s eyes opened. ‘Don’t stop.’ He reached across his chest with his other arm and gripped his damaged joint. ‘Try and push the arm forward. Go on, Christine.’

She tightened her hold and slowly applied forward pressure. Geiger was trying to align the head of the humerus with the socket, making staggered noises without tone or texture – rough expulsions of air.
Hunh! Hunh!
Their expressions were nearly identical – twisted and tight – and without the sounds, a witness would have been hard-pressed to guess who was the one in pain.

‘Harder,’ he said.

Ezra’s mother gawked at the monitor. ‘Jesus, Ez . . . This is brutal. And you’re watching this
why
?’

‘For, uh – for school.’ He had no idea why he’d said it, and now he was going to have to think up something
and
pull off the delivery while keeping his heart from jumping out of his throat. ‘It’s a . . . project.’

‘
This
?’

‘
More
, Christine.
Harder
.’

She let go of his wrist so she could get two hands on the upper arm, and pushed. A growl started forcing itself out through Geiger’s clamped teeth. It sounded like he had an angry, wounded beast caged inside his mouth.

‘Allez, merde!’ she barked, and gave his arm a shove. Geiger’s sudden moan was an almost musical accompaniment to the
Pop!
of the bone finding its way back into the socket. He came to rest, in silence, and Christine sat back, shaking her head, slowly puffing out breath after breath.

Ezra waited, praying his mother had no further questions.

‘A project?’ she asked. ‘What kind of project?’

‘Well . . . see . . . We, uh, we – we have to show a way that the internet has changed how we, y’know, live and stuff.’

‘And this is what you chose?’

‘Well, yeah. Like . . . Like if – if you were stuck on a mountain or something with a dislocated shoulder and you had an iPad or a smartphone – you could watch this and fix it – and, y’know . . . you couldn’t do that before the internet, right?’

His mother cocked her head at her son. ‘Know what? You’re absolutely right. Cool choice, Ez. Truly strange – but cool.’ She leaned down and kissed the top of his head, then walked back out the door, shutting it behind her.

Ezra stopped the video and flipped the iPad over. ‘Hey . . . You there?’

Christine leaned into view. ‘Yes.’

‘Sorry, sorry. My mom came in. Should I play it again?’

‘No. It’s done. It’s all right now.’

He clicked off the video. ‘He’s okay?’

Christine’s smile floated across her weariness. ‘Yes, Ezra. Geiger’s okay.’

‘Can he talk?’

Christine nodded, the image swerved, and Geiger’s face replaced hers.

‘Thank you, Ezra.’ He sounded like a marathoner speaking his first words beyond the finish line. ‘You did really well.’

Ezra smiled. ‘God, it’s so great to see you.’

‘It’s good to see you too.’ He turned his head to the right.
Click
. ‘But I have to go now.’

‘. . . Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re gonna find Dad and Harry?’

‘Yes.’

‘. . . Okay.’

Geiger’s head screwed left.
Click
. His constant stare blinked, once. ‘Goodbye, Ezra.’

Geiger’s image blurred slightly in the screen, like a lens going out of focus – and Ezra realized it was the effect of his imminent tears. July Fourth had been a crash course in hell – fear, betrayal, death – and extinguished part of the boy in him. The phoenix that had risen from the ashes possessed wisdom at odds with his youth . . . and understood that there were a thousand things left to be said – and nothing more to say.

‘Goodbye, Geiger.’

He turned off the iPad. On the desk, the cat lay waiting for a scratch, his eye trained on the boy. Ezra complied, then slid his mouse along the desk until the cursor reached the monitor’s iPhoto icon, clicked, and then clicked again on one of the small photo squares. It zoomed up to full-screen – eight-year-old Ezra standing on a small stage in a suit and bow-tie, holding a violin in one hand and a framed certificate in the other, his proud, smiling father standing beside him. On the curtain behind them was a red banner with bright gold letters: N.Y.C. JUNIOR VIOLIN FESTIVAL.

Ezra reached over and picked up his instrument and bow, closed his eyes and began to play – Bach’s ‘Air on a G String’, sweet and somber – shoulders dropping, feeling the vibrations flow from string to flesh . . . and deeper, letting it soothe him, giving himself over to it.

The door opened slowly, silently, and his mother leaned in, listening – the music and memories of a past weaving their way into her. When she saw the photo on the monitor the hot-cool rush of anger and melancholy came up in her again, and she blew out a sigh to dispel it.

Ezra stopped playing, and lowered the violin to his lap.

‘You haven’t played that in a long time, Ez.’

The boy raised his head to her.

‘What’s wrong, Ez? Something’s wrong.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Ezra . . . There are some things you can’t lie to me about. What’s wrong?’

Ezra pointed at the desk. ‘Top drawer. The letter.’

She went to the desk, opened the drawer and took out the sheet of paper, and read.
Now you know. But tomorrow I am leaving here, going out of the country, and will not return. I am going to try and help your father and Harry. They are in trouble.