said, nodding, and took another bite without swallowing. He drew a finger softly down the cat’s spine; the tail and haunches rose at the caress.
“Geiger…”
“Yes?”
“I think he’s in the city someplace. My dad.” Geiger put the vegetables back in the bowl. “He left me a note. He said he had stuff to do in the city but he’d try to be home later. And he told me to keep the door locked.”
“But you don’t know why they’re looking for him?”
“Uh-uh.” The boy shrugged, and a sigh left him as his shoulders came back down. He looked like he was deflating. “Can I call my mother?”
“Yes. Soon. Is she at home?”
“No. She’s on vacation-sorta. She’s in New Hampshire, in a forest. She said it’s called a ‘silent word retreat’ or something like that. She calls my cell at around ten every morning. Then they take her phone away from her till the next day.” He suddenly punched the counter, and the cat looked up. “Shit-those guys took my cell!”
“No. I have it.”
Geiger took the cell phone from his pocket, turned it on, and put it on the counter. He’d wait until she made her call, then he’d get on the line. It would be tricky. My name is Geiger. Your ex-husband is missing. Your son was abducted, he’s with me now. You have to come to New York right away…
“This will be hard for her,” Geiger said. “I think it’s better if we wait for her to call you-like she usually does. All right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Ezra stroked the cat again. “Can I pick him up?”
“Yes. Scratch his scar. He likes that.”
Ezra picked the cat up and cradled him in his arms. His pointing finger went to work on the grizzled old wound, and the animal began to purr loudly.
“Man, listen to that.”
“Ezra. How many men came to your father’s apartment?”
“Two grabbed me. I think maybe I heard another one in the living room. Not sure.”
“I only met one man,” said Geiger.
“And he just let you take me away?”
“No. I knocked him out.”
The boy’s eyes widened with childish awe. “Really? You, like, hit him with something?”
“My fist.”
Geiger found the act of conversation enervating. There were so many new things on different levels to deal with: accommodating the boy’s presence and voice and questions, listening and responding, focusing on what action he might take.
“One of them was a big black dude. He said he’d kill me if I screamed.”
“He was trying to scare you,” Geiger said.
The boy’s voice tightened with anger, his lips crimping. “Well, I hope he was the one you hit. I hope you really beat the shit out of him.” He turned and walked back toward the couch with his new friend in his arms.
A thought unfurled in Geiger’s head like a “Grand Opening” banner: Nothing is as it was. Everything has changed. He felt set loose into the world, keenly aware of something lost and left behind, like a soldier who still senses the presence of an amputated limb.
Ezra called out: “Your cell phone beeped.”
Geiger walked to his desk. The screen on his cell phone read “1 Message.” He picked it up and punched a key. Instead of the usual “H” or “C” he saw “212-555-8668.” Reading the small font made the numbers’ edges blur and brought a dull ache to the dark side of his eyeballs. He’d never had a call from anyone but Harry or Carmine-not even a wrong number. He chose the “listen” option. It was Harry, the voice cutting through a background of mushy, chaotic noise.
As he listened to Harry’s message, Geiger shut his eyes. He saw a sky filling with clouds, a roiling, ominous crop. He tried to visualize a god puffing up his cheeks and spewing out a strong wind that would sweep the clouds away, but none came.
“This is really cool,” said the boy.
Geiger opened his eyes and saw Ezra standing before the custom-made CD racks, exploring the rows of the vast music library. The boy tilted forward, a particular title eliciting a grunt of interest.
“That’s the Dumbarton Oaks Stravinsky conducted, right?”
“Yes.”
“How many CDs you got?”
“Eighteen hundred and twenty-three.”
“Man, that’s a lot.”
Cell phone in hand, Geiger started for the back door again. “Be right back.”
“Can I put some music on?” asked Ezra.
“Yes.”
Outside, the mounting heat of the day was burning away the clouds and damp thickness. The opening strains of Webern’s Five Movements for String Quartet reached him like a tap on the shoulder, and Geiger turned to the sound like someone encountering an old friend in an unlikely place. Then he looked down at his phone and pushed the “call back” button. After one ring, Harry picked up.
“Hello?” Harry said.
“It’s me.”
“Jeez, man. It’s good to hear you.”
Even with all the background noise, Geiger could make out Harry’s sigh rustling through open lips. “Tell me what happened, Harry.”
The request was a skeleton key opening the tumblers in Harry’s mind. “A motherfucking train wreck is what happened! Jesus fucking Christ-how about guns and murder threats?” As he spoke, Harry picked up momentum, each word like a tiny hit of speed fueling him to the next. “Bodies getting tossed around. And blood, man. A lot of fucking blood!”
“Harry, slow down. Facts.”
Geiger could see Harry talking, the familiar tone and cadence, see his scowl, his wriggling discomfort. It suddenly struck him that Harry was the only person he actually knew.
“Okay, facts. I walked home, took a shower, and found Hall sitting in my living room. He tells me to call you-I said no. He says he’ll kill me if I don’t-I still said no.”
As Harry related the story, Geiger allowed himself a momentary glimpse of its underlying import: another human being made an act of sacrifice on his behalf. He quickly pushed the thought aside.
Harry finished his account and took a deep breath. “Jesus, man-I almost killed somebody this morning!”
“How did Hall find you?”
“I don’t know, but he said something that makes me think he’s got access to cell signal tracking. That’s why I told you not to call my phone.”
“Was there a third man? The boy thinks three men came to his apartment.”
“There were only two in mine.”
Geiger’s peripheral attention took note of a violin suddenly injecting a jarring melody into Webern’s string quartet. It rose above the other players, but another full measure played before Geiger recognized it as a signature snippet from Mozart’s Second Symphony. He ran back inside and saw the boy’s cell phone on the kitchen counter. Ezra was picking it up as its Mozart ringtone sounded again.
“Don’t answer!” Geiger yelled.
The boy flinched and then turned as Geiger came at him. “Don’t hurt me! Please!” His body folded up, cowering against the counter. “Please don’t hurt me!”
Geiger snatched the phone out of the boy’s hand and jammed his thumb down on the “end” button. But the ringtone sounded again, so he hurled it at the wall and it shattered.
Geiger looked over at the boy. “I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
The boy’s eyes glistened. He nodded, but tears started down his cheeks. When a sob broke from his chest, he raced out of the kitchen and Geiger heard the bathroom door slam.
