The Confessor by Mark Allen Smith

the
Times
. That had always been the ritual. Harry would get his usual – and Geiger, black coffee. Harry would bring the paper and start with the arts sections, because Geiger only read the letters to the editor. Harry would do almost all the talking – about the work, the turnings of the planet, the remarkable, ridiculous acts of the people on it – and Geiger would respond with an olio of ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘I see’. It had taken Harry a long time to understand the man was neither aloof nor uninterested – and that his presence was, in fact, proof of some inexpressible form of commitment. They were a child god’s playroom creation – ill-formed clumps of clay, randomly mushed together, that had solidified into a single entity over time. Two hearts, two minds, a shared need.
    ‘Still just read the letters to the editor?’
    ‘I haven’t read a newspaper since our last breakfast,’ said Geiger.
    Harry nodded. ‘And we went over my dossier for the Matheson job. Who knew, huh?’
    Geiger looked up. ‘Who knew what, Harry?’
    Harry sighed. ‘Never mind. Figure of speech.’
    Geiger had read Harry’s research that day, and decided to take the job. Ten hours later, Hall had shown up with Ezra instead of his father – Geiger had knocked Hall out and taken Ezra away – and the back door of the universe was blown off its hinges . . .
    Geiger picked up his coffee cup and held it before his lips in both hands with his fingertips, as was his custom.
    ‘They found me,’ he said.
    ‘
They
.’ Harry said it like the name of someone they both used to know. His tremors of surprise were minimal. ‘Fuck. How?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, I made sure no one followed me when I came here.’
    ‘What’re you going to do? Disappear?’
    ‘I haven’t decided yet.’ Geiger took a measured sip. ‘They wanted me for a job. They’ll be back. It may come down to how many times they’ll take no for an answer.’
    ‘Before what? Before they find a way to make you say yes?’
    ‘That won’t happen, Harry. I told you. I’m done. For good.’
    Harry tapped the fork’s tines on the plate’s edge a few times.
    ‘Geiger . . . If you leave, I want you to—’
    ‘There’s no reason to discuss it now.’
    Harry started making a circular sculpture of the remains of his home fries with his fork. Nothing seemed to possess a dimension of length anymore. A life, a doctrine, a relationship, a conviction. The assumption of a thing’s continuance was foolhardy.
    ‘Listen, Geiger . . . I’m going out of the country for a while. For a week, maybe. Leaving tonight – with Matheson. Veritas Arcana stuff. We got an e-mail with—’
    ‘Harry, I don’t need to know what it is.’ Geiger took another sip, then put his cup down. ‘You said “We”.’
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘You said, “We got an e-mail . . . ”’
    ‘Did I?’ Harry broke off a small chunk of bacon and popped it in his mouth. ‘Guess I’m kind of jazzed. Feels like the old days.’
    ‘When you were a reporter.’
    ‘Yeah. Haven’t felt like this in a long time. Matter of fact . . . I think you coming back from the dead has something to do with it.’ Harry took a swig of coffee. ‘Listen . . . this trip . . . Hard to tell what it might be like.’
    ‘You mean dangerous. A setup.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Then why are you going, Harry?’
    When Harry’s blue smile came out, Geiger was waiting for it. It was the emblem of his bedrock sadness, the thing always hovering about him like cobwebs in an attic. Harry reached down to the seat and then put an eight-by-ten manila envelope on the table.
    ‘If anything happens to me. The keys to the apartment and my safety deposit box, copies of the title to the apartment, names and instructions on what to do with it all. Just in case.’
    Geiger opened the folder, pulled out a few papers, put them down before him and stared at the top sheet. It had a few typed paragraphs on it. His fingertips began a