Dagger Key and Other Stories

“What happened to me?”

“You were shot. The important thing is, you’re going to be fine.”

“Who shot me? Why…what happened?”

“I’ll tell you soon. I promise. You don’t need the stress now.”

“I want to know who shot me!”

“You have to trust me,” she said, placing a hand on my chest. “There’s psychological damage as well as physical. We have to go cautiously. I’ll tell you when you’re strong enough. Won’t you trust me ’til then?”

I asked her to come closer.

Something swam toward me through the gray. I made out a crimson mouth and enormous brown eyes. Gradually, the separate features resolved into a face that, though blurred, was indisputably open and lovely.

“You’re beautiful,” I said.

“Thank you.” A pause. “It’s been a while since you told me that.”

Her face withdrew. I couldn’t find her in the murk. Anxious, I called out. “I’m here,” she said. “I’m just getting something.”

“What?”

“Cream to rub on your chest and shoulders. It’ll make you feel better.”

She sat on the bed—I felt the mattress indent—and she began massaging me. Each caress gave me a shock, albeit gentler than the ones I had felt initially. Soft hands spread the cream across my chest and I began to relax, to feel repentant that I had neglected her. I offered apology for doing so, saying that I must have been preoccupied.

Her lips brushed my forehead. “It’s okay. Actually, I’m hopeful…”

“Hopeful? About what?”

“It’s nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

“I’m hoping some good will come of all this,” she said. “We’ve been having our problems lately. And I hope this time we spend together, while you recuperate, it’ll make you remember how much I love you.”

I groped for her hand, found it. We stayed like that a while, our fingers mixing together. A white shape melted up from the grayness. I strained to identify it and realized it was her breast sheathed in white cloth.

“I’m up here,” she said, laughter in her voice, and leaned closer so I could see her face again. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions? The doctor said I should test your memory. So we can learn if there’s been any significant loss.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m feeling more together now.”

I heard papers rustling and asked what she was doing.

“They gave me some questions to ask. I can’t find them.” More rustling. “Here they are. The first one’s a gimmee. Do you recall your name?”

“Jack,” I said confidently. “Jack Lamb.”

“And what do you do? Your profession?”

I opened my mouth, ready to spit out the answer. When nothing came to me, I panicked. I probed around in the gray nothing that seemed to have settled over my brain, beginning to get desperate. She touched the inside of my wrist, a touch that left a trail of sparkling sensation on my skin, and told me not to force it. And then I saw the answer, saw it as clearly as I might see a shining coin stuck in silt at the bottom of a well, the first of a horde of memories waiting to be unearthed, a treasure of anecdote and event.

Firmly, and with a degree of pride as befitted my station, I said, “I’m a financier.”

DINNER AT BALDASSARO’S

Though she herself was not beautiful, Giacinta had a beautiful sneeze. Scarcely more than a musical sniff, it seemed to restate the cadence of her name and was followed, in short order, by a giggle as she wiped a residue of white powder from the rims of her nostrils. She was thick-waisted, heavy in the thighs, with an undershot chin and breasts no bigger than onions. But her eyes were shots of dark rum, her pale olive skin held the polish of youth, and her thin face had a desperately merry quality. For all her flaws, I considered her quite a prize.

“This…” She scowled dramatically and pointed to the little heap of cocaine on the mirror in her lap. “No good! But I like! I like too much!” She made to hand me the mirror and a straw—the same she had used—and adopted a mischievous look designed to tempt me. I declined temptation and, in faltering Italian, explained that drugs were not beneficial to my health.

“Salute,” she said, correcting me—I had used the Spanish word for health, salud. Her eyes flicked across my body, as if inspecting me for signs of frailty. “Va bene.”

She dipped her head again to the mirror, face obscured by the fall of her chestnut hair.