Geiger’s eyes opened, and when they swiveled to Dalton light flashed on their wet surfaces. “How much did what hurt?” he said.
Dalton looked up from his cleaning ritual. He had heard the stories for years: about the boy wonder who’d brought a new style to the trade, about the wizard who at one point even had the CIA singing hosannas, about the master who could draw out the truth without drawing blood. But the man in the chair was not what Dalton had expected. He was too… But Dalton couldn’t complete the thought, couldn’t quite put his finger on the qualities that set the real man apart from the legend.
Dalton put the awl down and picked up the bat.
“Now, this takes me back,” he said, and took two short checked swings. “You like baseball?”
“I never played.”
Dalton swung and hit Geiger flush on the left pectoral. Dalton’s grunt was almost as loud as Geiger’s, whose lips twisted and seemed to pull the rest of his face inward, like an eddy sucking in debris. The physical agony ballooned inside his chest, and the army of angels’ voices in his head sent a volley of high-arcing arrows raining down on the pain. I see my light come shining — piercing it, puncturing it, deflating it- from the west down to the east.
“Tell me where the boy is, Geiger.”
When no answer came Dalton swung again, hitting the top of the sternum at the nexus of the clavicle. The force of the blow caused the trachea behind it to seize up, and the result was a combined feeling of choking and asphyxiating. Geiger’s ears filled with a high-pitched whine that drowned out the music inside him; he struggled reflexively against his bindings, his chest heaving.
Dalton grabbed him by the jaw and rammed his head back against the headrest. The thrust actually helped Geiger gulp some air.
“Listen to me,” Dalton said, leaning in very close. His breath smelled of peppermint. “I like my work, but I’m not enjoying this. It’s weird, you being who you are. So I’m going to tell you something. Call it a professional courtesy. This job is in effect a norell-hear me? No release likely. You may as well be at a black site. They’ll have me turn you into a Cobb salad before they tell me to stop. So don’t do this-stop being whoever you think you’re being, because that’s not who you are. And because if you don’t, you will probably die in this chair.”
Dalton straightened up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Now, was there any part of that you didn’t understand?”
Geiger was finally able to swallow.
“What’s a Cobb salad?” he asked.
Dalton brought the bat down hard, smashing it across both quadriceps.
The loud clap of the blow and the wild twisting of Geiger’s torso made Hall, watching through the one-way mirror, grimace.
“‘What’s a Cobb salad?’” he repeated. “That’s very funny.” He turned to Ray, who was sitting on the couch with a glass of ice pressed to his face. “Considering his situation, that is a great line.”
“Tell Dalton to start cutting him,” said Ray. “He’ll talk. And make sure he tells us where Harry is, too.”
Hall poured himself some Clynelish.
“Hey, me too,” said Ray.
“No alcohol.”
“I’m feeling better, you know.”
Dalton had found some lidocaine in Geiger’s medicine cabinet and given Ray a shot in his lower face. The pain had lessened, and Ray’s vitality was increasing.
“Ray, Harry didn’t give Geiger up. So what makes you think Geiger will give Harry up?” He raised the glass to his lips, then stopped and put the Scotch back down. “Listen to me, Raymond. The job is Matheson. That’s it. After that, I don’t ever want to see Geiger or Harry again. Ever. We clear?”
“After this is done, my time’s my own,” Ray said.
Hall could see Ray’s brain squirming inside his skull like a mutt in a cage. That would be all they’d need-to find Matheson, escape from this mess clean, and then have Ray go after Boddicker and leave a bloody, mile-wide trail. He was beginning to wish Harry had shot the sonofabitch in the head.
Hall turned back to the viewing window. Dalton was focused on the cart, eyeing his options. Geiger-red welts spreading on his chest, bleeding from his cheek-sat in the chair with his head bowed. The two men looked like deep thinkers considering a serious point of debate. Geiger was breathing through his mouth, cheeks puffing slightly with each long exhalation. Then he looked up, staring directly at the glass as if he could see right through it.
“What’s your story?” said Hall, as if Geiger could hear him, too. “You in the market for a little redemption? That what this is? Sorry, man-ain’t gonna happen. You’re going to hell, just like the rest of us.”
Hall’s cell phone rang, and he answered.
“You in position?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Mitch, “I’m here. Right downstairs, across the street.”
“Stay put.”
Dalton turned to Geiger, hands behind his back, head bobbing in a slow, satisfied nod, as if he had figured out some especially difficult riddle. Mr. Chips in a chamber of horrors.
“What do you do with it?” Dalton asked.
Geiger, his head inclined again, shifted his jaw slowly, searching for a position that would allow him to talk with the least discomfort.
“Do with what?” he mumbled.
“With the pain. I read all the studies. Do you do that ‘put it in a box’ thing? Or do you go Zen and rely on mind over matter? Which is it? I’m fascinated-honestly. I saw the backs of your legs when we stripped you down, and clearly you’ve had plenty of chances to practice. So what do you do with the pain?”
“It’s my…” The last word was difficult for Geiger’s battered mouth to form, so it came out a slushy mutter.
Dalton bent down. “It’s your what?”
Geiger’s head slowly rose until his eyes met Dalton’s. Their faces were just inches apart, so close that Geiger could see his reflection in Dalton’s glasses.
“My ex-per-tise,” Geiger said.
Dalton’s hands came out from behind him. They held Geiger’s antique straight razor, and Dalton saw the shift in Geiger’s eyes and the tightening of his chest muscles. The movements were minute but unmistakable. Dalton’s feral smile reappeared.
“This is a real beauty, Geiger. Where did you get it? Is this an old friend?” He admired the ornate handiwork on the mother-of-pearl handle. “And the backs of your legs? You know, the way you deal with the pain tells me that maybe the two of you know each other very well.” He pulled the blade out from its sheath. There was an inscription etched into the polished steel. “‘To Ben, with love, from Paula.’ Mom and Dad? Am I right?”
A smoke-spewing train came chugging through a tunnel in Geiger’s memory, barreling toward the moment. He sensed what cargo it brought, and the train’s clatter and roar set his eardrums vibrating.
“You got cut for years, huh? Was it Mommy or Daddy? I’m thinking it was dear old Dad.”
Geiger saw a glimmer of something new in Dalton’s eyes, but it wasn’t sympathy.
“You had a very bad time of it, didn’t you, Geiger? Sorry, but now you and I are going back there.”
Dalton ran his gloved thumb gently up and down the blade’s finely honed edge. The latex split open.
“A little too sharp, I think.”
Geiger watched him start tapping the razor on the cart’s metal railing, creating a serrated design the length of the blade’s edge. The train kept coming, its Cyclops eye burning fiercely.
“Where is the boy?” Dalton said.
“Are you ready, son?” said the voice inside Geiger’s head.
“I’m ready, sir,” Geiger replied.
Dalton turned, smiling quizzically.
