“Geiger?”
It was Harry’s voice. Geiger glanced at the cell phone in his hand.
“Geiger! What the hell’s going on?”
“Harry,” he said into his phone, “how do they track cell phones?”
“You know-triangulation. Cell towers are always listening to your signal, handing you off from one to another as you move around, figuring out which one will give you the best service.”
Geiger saw himself in the Ludlow Street viewing room, taking the boy’s cell phone from Hall’s jacket-so Hall knew the boy’s number. He drew in a deep breath, trying to stem the flood of adrenaline. He heard the shower start, and it took him a few seconds to understand what the sound was, because the only time he’d ever heard it was when he was in it.
“Harry, do you have to place a call or answer one for them to get a fix on you?”
“No. As long as a cell phone is on, all it has to do is ring and they can track it.”
“How close a fix can they get?”
“Pretty tight. Three or four blocks, maybe closer.”
“What did Hall say to make you think he could track a cell?”
“He told me to call you, I said no, and then I told him that even if I did you wouldn’t answer. Hall said, ‘Just make the call. We’ll take it from there.’ What’s that sound like to you, man?”
“Harry, the boy’s cell phone just rang.”
“Fuck. What’re you gonna do?”
“I don’t know, Harry.”
The words seemed to hang in plain sight before Geiger, mocking him, a freshly coined motto for a new age. I don’t know.
“I have to get him to his mother,” Geiger said. “She’s in New Hampshire now.”
Geiger heard Harry mutter under his breath and then say, “Lily, come back here. Lily! Goddamnit… Listen, Geiger, I gotta go. I’ll call you back.”
“Harry, wait…”
His answer was a dial tone. Geiger stood wondering what he would have said next. The quartet played on, and he walked toward the bathroom.
He rapped on the door. “Ezra?”
The shower turned off.
“What?” said the boy.
“I couldn’t let you answer the phone.”
“Why not?” The question was a plea.
“If you did, those men might have figured out where you are.”
“How’m I gonna talk to my mom now?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
The door opened a crack.
“Do you have something I can wear? When I was in the trunk I… pissed my pants.”
The humiliation in his words hung in the air.
“I’ll get you some things,” Geiger said. “Give me your dirty clothes. I’ll put them in the washer.”
“Thank you.”
One of Ezra’s hands came out with his soiled things. Geiger took them to the kitchen and started a wash cycle, then went to his dresser. As he stood there, an image and echo of something rushed up from deep inside him. He was in darkness, a door was opening, and a silhouette spoke in a gruff voice:
“Did you piss yourself, boy?”
“No, Pa. I held it in.”
“Good.”
Geiger grabbed some underpants, a pair of shorts, and a T-shirt from the drawers and headed back to the bathroom.
12
The more Harry thought about Hall, the more his anxiety tilted toward paranoia, so when he hailed a taxi outside the laundromat and got Lily in the back with him, he told the cabbie to go into Manhattan and drop them at Seventy-sixth and Columbus, because the closest thing to a safe haven he could think of was the diner. He’d considered a hotel but decided against it. He didn’t have a lot of cash on him-he’d cursed himself for forgetting to grab more before he left the apartment-and without an ATM card he’d have to nurse along what he was carrying in his wallet. Besides, front desk clerks tended to notice people when they checked in, especially if one side of your face was swollen and purple and the only luggage you had was a crazy person. But nobody noticed anyone in diners. You went in, sat down, and ate. Maybe you read the paper, or had a conversation if somebody was with you, but people watching wasn’t big on the menu.
The taxi smelled of sweat and pine scent, and country music pumped out of the radio. They were halfway across the Manhattan Bridge. The cabbie’s baseball cap was tilted back on his head, and he slapped the steering wheel in time with the snare drum’s crisp beats, making sport of the bridge’s crowded, narrow lanes.
Lily sat beside Harry. She had lost weight since he’d bought her the sky-blue blouse, and it made her look even more like a child. He realized he’d have to keep a close eye on her until he could get her back to the home. She might get hungry, for one thing. And drugs-he had no idea what meds she was on, if any. He took her hand in his.
“You always held my hand, remember?” He asked the question with no expectation of getting an answer. “Even when we were grown up, if we were walking to dinner or the movies, you’d take my hand. Remember that?” He gave her hand a squeeze, but she stared straight ahead, fingers unresponsive to his. Still, he felt a little lighter for the memory of an old, precious bond when they were impossibly different people.
The throb in Harry’s head had become a dull, flat thud. He leaned to the plastic partition. “Hey, man. Think you could kill the radio for a while?”
“You don’t like country music?” said the cabbie. His voice had an oiled, good ol’ boy slide that surprised Harry.
“I just need a little quiet time. Got a headache.”
“Can do, buddy.”
The cabbie punched at the radio and the sound cut off, and as Harry leaned back Lily jolted to life, her tiny hands grabbing the lapels of his sport coat, fists tugging him back and forth with surprising force, like a child seized by a tantrum. She was mewling loudly, a tortured sound that made the driver’s head whip around.
Harry gripped her at the wrists. “Lily! What? What is it?”
“Don’t do that!” she howled. “Don’t do that!”
“Lily-stop!”
“No-no-noooo!”
The sound was almost more than Harry could bear, a siren of madness and loss. “Sweet Jesus,” said the cabbie. “What’s she want, man?”
And then Harry understood. “Turn the radio back on!”
The cabbie jabbed at the dashboard, the bright guitar streams returned, and Lily’s yowling slowed to a stop like a windup toy running down.
“Well, all right!” whooped the cabbie. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!” He chuckled and gave the horn four quick taps as he headed down the off-ramp.
Harry gently pulled at Lily’s wrists. Her clenched fists came away from his lapels and something fell into Harry’s lap. It was a button-sized black disk, an inch across, a quarter-inch thick. He picked it up. It was made of some kind of plastic, shiny and smooth on one side and sticky on the other. Harry repositioned Lily against the seat and then settled back, rolling the tracer between thumb and forefinger like a lucky coin.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered to himself.
