Dagger Key and Other Stories

“Oh, I absolutely do.” Lucan removed his cape, folded it over the back of a chair. “It’s a natural pairing, you see. Liliana has gotten the better of this one”—he indicated Giacinta—“in an affair of the heart. Nothing else could have provoked such a reaction. It’s our duty to heal the breach between them.” He lifted a glass of wine, held it to the light to judge the color. “Lovely little town, don’t you think? Have you seen the murals?”

“A few.”

“Liliana took me on a tour this afternoon,” he said. “Really spectacular, some of them. But I feel they need a centerpiece, something monumental to provide them with an overall context.”

“Talk English!” Giacinta slapped my arm, demonstrating once again her shrewish side, a flaw she hastened to cover by conveying her frustration with being unable to understand what I was saying. She wanted to understand, she said, because…well, I understood, didn’t I? She gazed up at me adoringly. Lucan rolled his eyes and, taking Liliana’s arm, escorted her to the table.

At dinner, the four guests were seated all on one side of the table, Vid and Daniele bracketing Liliana and Giacinta; our side had a similar arrangement, Elaine and Jenay separating me and Lucan. By the time the seafood course had been served, Vid and Daniele were sneaking glances at one another over the top of the women’s heads, and Liliana was casting shy looks at Giacinta, who was grumpily toying with her shrimp risotto. They struck up a conversation during the main course, an excellent veal marsala, and, when next I noticed, while the waiters cleared away the dishes, the women were chatting amiably, as if there had never been the slightest bitterness between them—it was clear that someone had influenced Giacinta to be receptive to Liliana. Recognizing this, I was incensed. An overreaction, perhaps, but I had grown fond of Giacinta and felt protective of her.

“Now that Taylor has overcome his reluctance for the game, we can proceed,” said Lucan, dropping back into the Old Tongue. “I’d like first…”

“It’s not reluctance,” I said. “I simply find it jejune, this business of having guests at our dinners.”

Lucan arched an eyebrow. “Yet Giacinta carries your scent. You had sex with her. You had sex with the one you brought last time…and the time before that. You enjoy that part of it.”

“I’m prone to the same perversity as the rest of you,” I said. “I fuck them because they’re there to be fucked. Because their helplessness encourages me in some fundamental way. However, I don’t make a big deal about it. And more to the point, I haven’t used my influence on her tonight.” I pointed to Giacinta, who, unaware of our attention, was leaning toward Liliana, touching her forearm as she spoke. “This is someone else’s work.”

“Why, that’s damned impolite!” Lucan said, not trying to hide his smile. “Interfering with another man’s…what shall we call it? Dinner date? Catch of the Day? A cross between the two, I’d reckon. It verges on the criminal.”

“I know it was you, Lucan,” I said. “You’ve always abused your authority, even in trivial matters.”

“Very well! I admit it!” With a theatrical display, Lucan made as if to bare his chest so it might more readily accept my blade. “I’m the guilty one! The poor creatures looked so lonely, I felt compelled to give them a push.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“You don’t need my permission,” Lucan continued, “to return them to something approximating their former state. But you’ll be denying them pleasure, and there’s so little pleasure in their lives.”

I refused to look at him. “Degrade them however you wish. I won’t take part in it.”

“Let me make sure I understand you,” Lucan said. “It’s not our behavior in general you’re objecting to; it’s the formalization of that behavior. Yes?”

“That’s it basically,” I said. “Though we might do well to examine the entire range of our relationships with them. It seems we’re not doing ourselves much good by…”

“Must we always have this conversation!” Jenay threw down her fork in disgust. “You or Elaine trot out the same tired argument every time. It’s become as much a part of our dinners as Rappenglueck.”

At the sound of his name, the professor began mumbling—Lucan hushed him with a snap of his fingers.

“Are you insane?” I said to Jenay. “We never have this conversation. Each time we start to have it, you complain how tedious it’s become. I was thinking about this the other night. We haven’t done more than touch on the subject since Torremolinos, and that was nearly sixty years ago.”

“Is there anything new to say?” Jenay attempted to make the question rhetorical by framing it in an indifferent tone.

“I don’t know! Is there?” I put down my napkin and stood, stepping around to the opposite side of the table, walking behind the guests, who took incidental note of me, but not so as to subtract from their attentiveness to one another. “Let’s find out. Does anyone have anything new to add to the conversation that we never have?”