Dagger Key and Other Stories

His smile acted on me like a goad, and I sprinted toward him. He flicked out a macroweb, but the strands dissolved as they touched me, and I knocked him off-balance with a glancing blow to the cheek. He recovered quickly and reached into his trouser pocket—for another weapon, I assumed. Before he could withdraw his hand, I struck him hard in the neck with my fist, and then again flush on the jaw. He fell backward, cracking his head on the banister, and went down. I stood over him, waiting for him to stand. His eyes were open, lips parted. Dark blood was pooling beneath his head, spreading across the marble floor. I knew he was dead, but I hunkered down beside him anyway and touched my fingers to his throat, hoping to detect a pulse. Yet at the same time I exulted in the death of my old tormentor, Tacque Thibault.

“Oh, David! What will you do now?”

Amorise was pointing a small caliber automatic with a chrome finish at me. Joan stood at her shoulder, her expression horrified.

“You can wait for the police here if you like,” said Amorise. “Or if you prefer, you can make a run for it. But I can guarantee that the authorities will meet you at the ferry dock.”

I wiped my fingers on my slacks to clean them of McQuiddy’s blood and glared hatefully at her.

“There’s something you may want to factor in to your decision,” said Amorise, descending the stair—she gestured at me to move away from McQuiddy and I complied, retreating to the door. “Running will certainly lend the appearance of guilt. If you stay, you might be able to justify a plea of self-defense. Of course the validity of such a plea will depend upon my testimony. And I’m certain I’ll be too distraught for several days to be clear on the details of what has happened here. Perhaps in the interim, you’ll consider how you might influence my decision.”

Once again I was astonished by the neatness of her scheme. I recalled Villon’s fragmentary history, how he had been charged with murder and released once it was established that he had acted in self-defense. Had he begun writing “The Testament” while incarcerated, and changed his mind after his release? So I suspected, and I suspected further that Amorise had been instrumental in obtaining that release, and that when he had failed to complete the Text, she had subsequently managed to have him indicted for another capital crime, which she then managed to have commuted. She was duplicating those events to a nicety. The Sublime Act was halfway to being complete.

“For example,” Amorise went on, “I might testify that I’d been having difficulty with your machines and called you here to make some adjustments. I might say that poor Carl had tampered with the machines with the idea of killing you. He has a history of enmity with you. You caught him in the act of sabotage. He attacked you and you defended yourself. Who knows what his specific motives might have been? An emotional entanglement, perhaps. It’s well known that he was attracted to Joan.”

I tried to catch Joan’s eye. Concern was written in her face, but she refused to look at me. I believed she wanted to help me, but could not, being under Amorise’s thrall.

Amorise kneeled beside McQuiddy and to my surprise, still pointing the gun at me, she kissed him on the mouth. She closed her eyes, as if savoring the kiss, and then smiled as if enjoying a subtle aftertaste. The kiss had been brief, not at all like the one she had given me at Emerald Street. I imagined the soul must quit the body more readily than it entered, and that McQuiddy’s sour scrap of vitality now was lodged in some secret cavity within Amorise’s flesh.

“It may cross your mind to try and take the gun from me,” she said. “Let me assure you, I’m an excellent shot. I won’t kill you, but I will happily cripple you. It’ll make your self-defense plea slightly more difficult to justify. But I can always say I was confused—I thought you had attacked Carl and realized too late what the actual circumstances were.”

I did not hesitate in making a decision, for in truth there was no decision to be made. She had walled me off from every possibility but one.

“I’ll wait for the police,” I said.

All the events of this world are liable to a variety of interpretations. I have always understood this, but only lately have I come to recognize the absolute rule of this truism, and the corresponding impossibility of penetrating to the heart of any action. Either there is no heart, no immutable center, or else the ultimate nature of the universe is a profound ambiguity that will not admit to certainty. I believe the nature of the Sublime Act reflects that essential imprecision, that core deceptiveness. Evidence of this may or may not have been presented me on the third day of my incarceration in the King County Jail, when I received a visit from Amorise LeDore.