Dagger Key and Other Stories

by Lucius Shepard

  “Told you you’d like it,” I said.

  “I do.”

  She jiggled her line.

  “You’ll never catch anything that way.” I demonstrated proper technique. “Twitch the line side-to-side.”

  Amused, she said, “I really doubt I’m going to catch anything. What were you and Rudy batting? One for a thousand?”

  “Yeah, but you never know.”

  “I don’t think I want to catch anything if it resembles that thing he had mounted.”

  “You should let out more line, too.”

  She glanced at me wryly, but did as I suggested.

  A cloud darkened the bank and I pictured how the two of us would appear to God, if God were in His office, playing with His Gameboy: tiny animated fisher folk hunched over their lines, shoulder-to-shoulder, waiting for a tiny monster to breach, unmindful of any menace from above. Another cloud shadowed us. A ripple moved across the pond, passing so slowly, it made me think that the waters of the Polozny, when upthrust into these holes, were squeezed into a sludgy distillate. Bare twigs clattered in a gust of wind.

  “All these years,” Andrea said. “All the years and now five months…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Everyday, there’ll be two or three times when I see you, like just now, when I look up and see you, and it’s like a blow…a physical blow that leaves me all ga-ga. I want to drop everything and curl up with you.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  She hesitated. “It just worries me.”

  “We’ve had this conversation,” I said. “I don’t mind having it again, but we’re not going to resolve anything. We’ll never figure it out.”

  “I know.” She jiggled her line, forgetting to twitch it. “I keep thinking I’ll find a new angle, but all I come up with is more stupidity. I was thinking the other day, it was like a fairy tale. How falling back in love protected us, like a charm.” She heel-kicked the bank. “It’s frustrating when everything you think seems absurd and true all at once.”

  “It’s a mystery.”

  “Right.”

  “I go there myself sometimes,” I said. “I worry about whether we’ll fall out of love…if what we feel is unnatural. Then I worry if worrying about it’s unnatural. Because, you know, it’s such a weird thing to be worried about. Then I think, hey, it’s perfectly natural to worry over something you care about, whether it’s weird or not. Round and round. We might as well go with the flow. No doubt we’ll still be worrying about it when we’re too old to screw.”

  “That’s pretty old.”

  “Yep,” I said. “Ancient.”

  “Maybe it’s good we worry.” Then after a pause, she said, “Maybe we didn’t worry enough the first time.”

  A second ripple edged the surface, like a miniature slow tsunami. The light faded and dimmed. A degree of tension seemed to leave Andrea’s body.

  “You want to go to Russia?” she asked. “I’ve got this conference in late May. I have to give a paper and be on some panels. It’s only four days, but I could take some vacation.”

  I thought about it. “Kiwanda’s pretty much in control of things. Would we have to stay in Russia?”

  “Don’t you want to go clubbing in Moscow? Meet new people? I’ll wear a slutty dress and act friendly with strangers. You can save me from the white slavers—I’m sure I’ll attract white slavers.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said. “But some of those slavers are tough.”

  “You can take ’em!” She rubbed the side of her nose. “Why? Where do you want to go?”

  “Bucharest.”

  “Why there?”

  “Lots of reasons. Potential for vampires. Cheap. But reason number one—nobody goes there.”

  “Good point. We get enough of crowds around here.”

  We fell silent again. The eastern slopes of the Bittersmiths were drowning in shadow, acquiring a simplified look, as of worn black teeth that still bore traces of enamel. But the light had richened, the tree trunks appeared to have been dipped in old gold. Andrea straightened and peered down into the hole.

  “I had a nibble,” she said excitedly.

  I watched the surface. The water remained undisturbed, lifeless and listless, but I felt a presence lurking beneath, a wise and deliberate fish, a grotesque, yet beautiful in the fact of its survival, and more than a murky promise—it would rise to us this day or some other. Perhaps it would speak a single word, perhaps merely die. Andrea leaned against me, eager to hook it, and asked what she should do.

  “It’s probably just a current,” I said, but advised her to let out more line.

  EMERALD STREET EXPANSIONS

  I went down to Emerald Street in search of something new, an attitude with keener claws, a sniper’s calm and distant eye, a thief’s immersion in the night. I wanted some red and unreasonable religion to supplant the conventionality I believed was suffocating my spirit…though I was less dissatisfied by conventionality itself than by my lack of dissatisfaction with it. That I had embraced the cautious and the conservative so readily seemed to reflect a grayness of soul. I thought adding a spare room to my mind, a space with a stained-glass window through which I could perceive the holy colors of the world, would allow me to feel content within my limitations.

  It was a gloomy Seattle morning with misty rain falling and a cloud like a roll of silvery dough being squeezed up from the horizon and flattened out over the Sound. The shop, to which I had been directed by friends—satisfied customers all, successful young men and women of commerce who once had suffered from maladies similar to mine—was a glass storefront sandwiched between a diner and a surgical arcade. A hand-painted sign above the door depicted a green crystalline flash such as might be produced by a magical detonation, with the name—EMERALD STREET EXPANSIONS—superimposed. As I drew near, two neutral-looking, well-tailored men in their thirties, not so different from myself, emerged from the shop. The idea that I might be typical of its patrons diminished my enthusiasm. But recognizing that the mental climate that bred this sort of hesitancy was precisely my problem, I pushed in through the door.

  The interior of the shop was furnished like a living room and all in green. The color of the carpet was a pale Pomona, the grouped chairs and couches a ripe persimmon, and the attendant was a woman of approximately my own age, wearing a parrot-green dress with a mandarin collar and a tight skirt. Her features were too strong for beauty, her cheekbones too sharp. Yet she was striking, impressive in her poise, perched alertly on the edge of a chair, and I had the thought that this was not a considered pose, that she must always sit this way, prepared to launch herself at some helpless prey. Her skin had a faint olive cast, testifying to a Latin heritage, and a coil of hair lay across her shoulder and breast like the tail of a black serpent. She glanced down at her hand, at a tiny palm console that—assuming the doorway was functioning—revealed my personal information. She smiled and indicated that I should sit beside her.

  “Hello, David,” she said. “My name is Amorise. How may I help? Something to brighten the overcast, perhaps? Or are you interested in a more functional expansion?”

  I explained my requirements in general terms.

  “I assume you’ve read our brochure,” she said, and when I said I had, she went on: “We provide you with a perceptual program that you’ll access by means of a key phrase. It’s the usual process. The difference is that we only do custom work. We expand what is inborn rather than add an entirely new facet to the personality.” She glanced down at the palm console. “I see you design weapons. For the military?”

  “Personal protection devices. Home-defense.”

  “David LeGary…” She tapped her chin with a forefinger. “Wasn’t there a piece about you on the news? Murderous appliances, windows that kill…that sort of thing.”

  “They sensationalized my work. Not all my designs are lethal.”

  We talked for fifteen or twenty minutes. As Amorise spoke she touched my hand with a frequency that
appeared to signal more than simple assurance; yet I did not believe she was teasing me—there was a mannered quality to her gestures that led me to suspect they were an element of formal behavior. Her eyes, of course, were green. Lenses, I assumed. I doubted such a brilliant shade was found in life.

  “I was going to pass you off to another therapist,” she said. “But I’d like to treat you myself…if that’s all right.” She rested a hand on my forearm. “Do you want to hear what I have in mind?”

  “Sure.”

  “A poet,” she said.

  My face may have betrayed disappointment, because she said hurriedly, “Not an ordinary poet, but a poet maudit. A lover, a thief, a man who shed the blood of a priest. He lived six hundred years ago in France. Like your own ancestors, David.”

  “You can provide elements from a specific personality? I didn’t know that was possible.”

  She passed my comment off with a wave. “The man’s name was Francois Villon. Have you heard of him?”

  I said, “No,” and Amorise said, “Well, it’s not an age for poetry, is it?” She looked down at her hands, as if dismayed by the thought. “Villon was a cynic, but passionate. Sensitive, yet callous. A drunkard and an ascetic.”

  “I don’t believe any of those qualities are inborn in me.”

  “I’m certain that they are. Though the world has done its best to murder them.”

  I recognized that people in her line of work were gifted with intuition, capable of quick character judgments, but this intimation that she had some innate understanding of me, a knowledge that ran so contrary to my own—it seemed ridiculous. A silence shouldered between us, and then she said, “Let me ask you something, David. If you had the opportunity to create something miraculous, something that would ensure the continuance of a great tradition, but to achieve it you would have to risk everything you’ve worked for…What would you decide?”

  “It’s too general a question,” I said.

  “Is it? I think it’s the basic question you’re asking yourself, the one you’re trying to answer by coming here. But if you want specifics, let’s imagine you’re Francois Villon, and that if you surrender your soul to a woman, you will achieve immortality as a poet. What would you do?”

  “I don’t believe in souls,” I told her.

  “Of course you don’t. That’s why I phrased my original question as I did.”

  “I suppose,” I said after a moment’s consideration, “that I would like to feel comfortable with taking that kind of risk.”

  “Taking that kind of risk never bestows comfort,” said Amorise.

  “But I’ll consider that a ‘yes.’” She got to her feet and offered me her hand. “Are you ready?”

  A dozen questions sprang to mind, but they all illustrated a tiresome conventionality, and I left them unasked. I filled out a form, essentially a disclaimer, paid the fee, and Amorise ushered me into a small room in the back containing a surgical chair with arm and leg restraints. Once I had taken a seat, she handed me a cup half-filled with a bright green liquid, saying that it would put me to sleep. After I drank down the sweetish mixture, she leaned across me to secure the restraint on my left arm, her breast pressing my shoulder. She did not draw back immediately, but remained looking down at me.

  “Are you afraid?” she asked. The unreal clarity of her brilliant eyes—they made me think of the painted eyes on signs outside psychics’ doors.

  I was afraid, a little, but I said, “No.”

  She caressed my cheek. “You surrender your power so easily…like a child.”

  Before I could analyze this obscure comment, she kissed me on the mouth. A deep, probing kiss to which, dizzied by the potion I had swallowed, I could not help responding. It was such a potent kiss, I can’t be sure whether it or the liquid caused me to lose consciousness. When I woke, light-headed and groggy, I found the restraints had been removed and I discovered in my hand a business card advertising a club called the Martinique in South Seattle. On the back of the card Amorise had written the following:

  These are your codes. The first accesses Francois, the second is to exit.

  “Je t’aime, Amorise.”

  “Je te deteste, Amorise.”

  Those phrases, when I put them together with the kiss…they unsettled me. I suspected that Amorise had done something to harm me, or at least something that I might regret. I pocketed the card and stepped into the corridor. It was empty, as was the anteroom. I went back into the corridor and called loudly for Amorise. A petite blond woman poked her head out from another door and hushed me. In a calmer voice, I said, “I’m looking for Amorise.”

  “She’s with a client…Oh, wait!” She put a hand to her cheek. “I believe she had an emergency.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “Well, I’m sure she’ll be back.” The woman glanced at her watch. “No…maybe not. It’s late. She might not come in again until tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

  She started back into the room from which she had emerged. Inside, a woman was lying in a chair like the one in which I had been treated, different only in that a cylindrical machine mounted on the ceiling had been lowered to fit over the woman’s head.

  “The machine,” I said. “That provides the therapy?”

  “Yes.” The woman pushed me gently away. “Now please…I have work to do.”

  “There was no machine in my room! I think she did something to me…I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”

  The woman closed the door on her patient and said firmly, “All the rooms have machines.”

  “Not the room I was in!”

  She let out an impatient sigh. “Which room was it?”

  I pointed. “There.”

  She preceded me into the room.

  “You see?” I said, triumphant.

  She pushed a button on the wall; a section of ceiling slid back, and a machine like the one I had seen in the other room lowered to a point directly above the surgical chair.

  “She didn’t use the machine,” I said. “I have no memory of it.”

  “I have to see to my client.” The woman retracted the machine. “But I’m sure you’ll be happy with the work. Amorise is extremely capable.”

  “You don’t understand!” I said. “I think…”

  “Have you tried out what she did?”

  “No, I…”

  “Give it a try,” she said. “If you’re not satisfied, call and we’ll set up another appointment. You can ask for me. My name is Jane Eisley. Now, please…I do have to get back to my client.”

  The earthquake of ’19 had leveled downtown Seattle, and from the windows of my apartment I could see out across the rebuilt city, the skyscrapers replaced by green domes of glass silicate whose facets winked like emeralds, nested among gardens and stands of firs. The Emerald City. Perhaps it had been a foolish conceit on the part of the city fathers to remodel the business district after the nickname applied by an advertising agency, but I enjoyed the view it afforded. However, after pronouncing the phrase, “Je t’aime, Amorise,” I found the prospect trivial. Jewels like fat green bugs and not the subtle traps and trickeries of light that true gems embody. I wanted to stand in the sky above them and piss down the purest of criticisms. The century, I thought, aspired to be its own ornament, a bauble floating upon the bloody river of history.

  I had a thirst, but there was no wine in the apartment. I called Spirits, an environment of black leather booths and chrome ornaments in the subterranean levels beneath my complex that pretended to be a bar, and ordered a case of wine sent up. Shortly after I received it, while sitting by my window and trying to discover the characteristics of whatever it was that Amorise had done, my message wall bonged and the larger-than-life image of my ex-girlfriend Angelica Korn snapped into view. I had not talked with her for several weeks, and I saw that she had lost weight, her skin drawn taut from cheekbone to jaw. She had always struck me as somewhat clownish in appearance. Coarsely, commonly pretty, with her thick
eyebrows and an overly generous mouth. But there was nothing clownish about her at that moment. Her body language, formerly a vocabulary of exuberant head-tosses and giddy gestures, was restrained, elegant, and her steady gaze unnerved me. Instead of offering pleasantries, she said, “You’ve been down to Emerald Street. How was it?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said. “I didn’t tell you I was going, did I?”

  “You need to explore it,” said an off-screen voice.

  Carl McQuiddy stepped into view behind Angelica. A slim dark man whose goatee and receding hairline lent him a vulpine look. He was one of those who had recommended Emerald Street Expansions as a cure for my malaise. Yet had it been his recommendation alone, I would have paid it no mind. I didn’t care for him, and I had assumed Angelica felt the same. If the Devil were to need a lawyer, McQuiddy would be a perfect choice. His black eyes were cold and inexpressive. If anything, they seemed more so than usual that day.

  “Perhaps you should get out of the apartment,” he suggested. “Go someplace that will bring it out.”

  “Bring what out?” I asked.

  “The effect.”

  “Are you afraid?” The corners of Angelica’s mouth lifted in a half-smile, causing me to believe that her repetition of Amorise’s words was no coincidence. It angered me to think that she might be playing games, that she and McQuiddy were baiting me.

  “Afraid of what?” I said.

  “Whatever it is you’re afraid of,” she said. “Take my advice. You won’t remember much. Just scraps. So don’t waste time trying.”

  “Tacque Thibault,” Carl said. “Do you recall the name?”

  “No.” The name did sound a murky resonance, but I had no wish to say anything affirmative to him.

  He smiled thinly. “Yet your name is familiar to me.”

  “Are you trying to trip me out?” I asked. “That’s pitiful.”

  Carl turned his back. “See you tonight,” said Angelica, and the wall was restored to its normal white blankness.