The Medici Dagger

by Cameron West

  Mom, Dad, and the Hollister House in ’65. Mom, me, and the Hollister House in ’78. Ginny, me, and the Hollister House, tonight. Big thoughts.

  With one hand gripping the wheel and both eyes on the road, I rang the inn. A pleasant woman answered the phone. I asked her for two separate cottages. She reserved White Pine and Beechnut, just across from each other, under “Arthur Holmes.” Giving my real name didn’t seem prudent.

  I checked Ginny for a response. “You know what I think, Art?” she asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think you’re the most enigmatic man I’ve ever encountered.”

  “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “We’ll bookmark that for later. Do you want to know what else I think?”

  “Does it have to do with the Medici Dagger?”

  “I think your friend Archie may be our guardian angel—not just for the guns but in Milan as well.”

  I tromped on the gas till the speedometer read 92. Interstate 5 didn’t care. The Jaguar didn’t care. None of the L.A. motorists seemed to either.

  Ginny grabbed the dashboard. “Slow down. We’re illegally in the country and you’re wearing guns registered to Archie.”

  I backed it down to eighty although I really wanted to punch the pedal through the floor. “You may be right about him being the angel,” I said. “Damn it. He was disturbed enough to plant the guns, write me a note, and then lie about it when we showed up at his office. I made him lie to me, Ginny.”

  “Guilt. Good. A little introspection is a good thing.”

  “Oh Christ. I’m talking about Archie, not me. I told you how his son got killed. I put Archie’s tail in a crack the second I asked him to fix me up with a gun in Venice. I don’t feel good about it.”

  “I’m guessing Archie doesn’t want you to know that he killed someone to save you. We are alive right now because of that man.”

  “He’s my best friend.”

  “Say that again.”

  We were passing vineyards, miles of them. I wished I were one of those billion dusty grapes. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ginny watching. “Have you ever told Archie he’s your best friend?” she asked.

  I thought about it.“No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “That’s a given. Can you think of a single relationship that really meant something to you that wasn’t?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I love Archie as a friend, though. I do. I’m telling you I would do anything for him.”

  “I believe that. You’d spend your only day off for a year to help him fix that goofy car he drives.”

  “It’s a Humvee. You’re heading to the bookmark, aren’t you?”

  “So you’re lifting up the front of his Jeep with one finger while he’s under it with the wrenches and the two of you are talking about stunts . . . women. And everything is great until the conversation turns personal. At that very moment you drop the car on him, without even knowing it. Drop it right on his feelings.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this.”

  “Well, you can block your ears and scream, ‘Woop, woop,’ but I’m saying it anyway. On one hand you have all these amazing capacities— you can squash tall cities and leap locomotives—and on the other hand, you’re utterly and completely out of touch with human emotions. It’s not your fault,” Ginny added. “I’m not attacking you.”

  “Oh really? Because that’s exactly what it feels like to me.”

  “I hoped you’d say that.”

  I felt trapped. I was driving through Ginny Gianelli’s hall of mirrors and I couldn’t find my way out. “Why’d you hope I’d say that?”

  “Because you’renotbeing attacked. You just believe you are—that you’re going to get hurt at any moment, especially by people you care about. Right down to your bones, you believe it. It’s written all over you. Can you see it, Reb?”

  I was doing eighty on the interstate, but was stopped dead in front of Ginny.

  “I can see it,” I admitted.

  Ginny sighed with relief.“Now . . . you won’t like what I’m going to say next.”

  I gripped the wheel.

  “For a boy who lost his parents so violently, it was totally natural and even helpful for you to expect to be hurt at any moment. But tell me . . . how well has it worked for you as an adult?”

  I took a deep breath. Ginny did the same. I considered her question for another billion grapes.

  “You’re not to blame any more than Archie is for lying about being in Milan,” Ginny said. “Look at him. Here’s this resourceful person, a Vietnam vet. At eighteen, nineteen years old he probably saw and did absolutely atrocious things. When the war was through with him, he came out a changed man. Maybe got involved with some disreputable people. Somewhere down the line he had a son whom he probably didn’t know how to father, but whom he loved with all his big heart. Then, in a senseless tragedy, he lost him. And ten years ago, through a set of circumstances that involved nearly killing someone with his car, he began to project all of his unspent parental love onto an enigmatic young stuntman orphan. I ask you, can you blame him?”

  Ginny pulled her hair back and stretched in her seat as I considered her insight into Archie, and me.

  She looked out her side window and said, “My God, that’s a lot of wine.”

  Clicking on the radio, she started scanning stations. She stopped on Aretha singing “Respect,” and joined in for the backup vocals. Damned if she didn’t hit all the “sock it to me”s with soul. Awful lot of soul for an Italian girl from Staten Island. Sang in tune, too.

  As we crossed over to the coast road nine hours later, an untroubled moon illuminated the landscape. Redwoods reached toward the pinpricks of yellow in the distant galaxies, and crickets and crows scratched and swooped. We rolled on, ignored by all except for the odd raccoon whose retinas reflected our passing headlights.Finally, Little River appeared on the bluff, the shiny black ocean bobbing behind it. Though the full effect was lost in the darkness, it was still spectacular—the Mendocino coast.

  We pulled down a long tree-lined road to the Hollister House andstaggered out of the Jag. We checked in at the main building, a little dazed and buzzing from the ride.

  A jovial old man with a yellow Ben Hogan cap, a weatherworn face, and tan hearing aids welcomed us warmly.

  “Rodney Norcross,” he said, brushing dandruff off one shoulder of his brown sweater, “but everybody calls me Pop. Even the codgers who’ve been coming here since just after the war. That’s World War II, Harry S. Truman’s triumph, or his catastrophe, depending on how you look at it.” He inspected the registry log. “You must be . . . uh . . . Arthur Holmes,” he said to me.

  “That’s me,” I replied. “Art Holmes, sir.”

  “Thanks for the sir, son, but just Pop’ll do. Popadoodledoo.” He laughed a grab-your-suspenders laugh, showing well-made false teeth. Turning to Ginny, he asked, “And you are . . .”

  “Watson,” Ginny offered, filling in the blank. “Ginny Watson.” Pop slapped the book and laughed again. “How ’bout that? Holmes and Watson. You two answer an ad in the personals?”

  Pop winked at me. “I ’spect you’re gonna pay me in cash, Art, aren’t ya?”

  “Yup,” I said, pulling out my wallet, sharing the laugh. It was hard not to like the old barnacle. I handed him a thousand dollars. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here, Pop. Will this get us going?”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, taking the money. “I’ll hang on to it for ya. But what are you getting two places for anyway? Did you have an argument? Hell, I shouldn’t be asking. At least get a little closer while you’re here. How about Same Time and Next Year?”

  “You named them after the movie?” I asked excitedly.

  “What, you think I’m a dope?” Pop answered. “Course I did. Used to be one cabin, then I separated it down the middle. Now there’s two
of ’em. One’s Same Time and the other’s Next Year. They’re adjoining. Real nice. Way off over there by themselves on the cliff overlooking the water, and they just happen to be vacant. Only four hundred a night each. For you, seven-fifty for both.”

  Ginny gnawed her finger, waiting. She sidled six inches closer to me.

  Pop threw me a grin. “She’s hooked,” he said. “You got no choice, Holmes.”

  I agreed.

  Pop slapped the register again. “I’m a born salesman,” he said to the world. “P. T. Barnum got nothing on me. Better heavy up the down payment, Mr. Holmes. Another grand ought to do it, just in case you stay a while or wreck the place. You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “Course you wouldn’t. We haven’t had trouble here since Baby Face Nelson hid out in the old cabin.”

  Ginny’s eyes widened. “The gangster?”

  “Oh, I was a rooster back in those days,” Pop said, reminiscing. “I let him hole up here for a while just for the fun of it. Hell, he couldn’t have set foot on the property without me knowing about it, though naturally I never said that to the buttons. Yep, this place is Fort Pops, all right, the whole thirty-seven acres of it.”

  I handed him another thousand, which he fanned out like a card-sharp before stashing it with the other cash in his pocket.

  “That’s two thousand down for Mr. Holmes,” he said, making a note in the book. “I’ll get your keys, not that you need ’em. Nobody disturbs anybody in my sphincter . . . I mean my sector,” he chortled. “Must have forgot to take my Metamucil with lunch.”

  He escorted us to the front door, handed us a map with our adjoining cottages circled, tipped his hat, and wished us a very good night.

  Ginny and I hopped in the Jag for the last time that day and slowly wound our way down the gravel driveway to our rooms; I gripped the wheel tighter than normal, feeling a much-heightened awareness of her presence next to me.

  We extracted ourselves and our belongings from the car to the sound of pounding surf. The cottage was set among the trees, dividedin two, with weathered siding, a split-level roof, and brick chimneys on each side. An Abe Lincoln special, or a Cape Cod condo.

  I’d left the headlights on so we could see what we were doing. A cool breeze rustled the foliage, blowing a wisp of hair across Ginny’s moist lips. The thin fabric of her dress clung to her, showing the outline of her hips. I imagined tossing the keys into the woods, tearing her clothes off, and ravaging her right there in the headlights till the battery went dead, or I did.

  I extended my palm, both sets of keys in it. “Which will it be, Ginny,” I said as casually as I could, “Same Time or Next Year?”

  Ginny covered my hand with hers, a question in her eyes.

  I stepped back involuntarily. She closed the distance, sliding the fingers of her free hand into my pocket, pulling me closer to her. Her knuckles pressed against my hip. My pants felt too tight.

  I raised my eyes skyward, saw moonlight, dappled leaves.Stay clear. Get to the jungle.

  My eyes met Ginny’s.“No,” I uttered, pulling away.

  Her face pinched down. Tears welled up in her beautiful eyes. She wiped them away.

  “Give me Same Time,” she demanded, sticking a hand out. “I don’t know if I’ll be alive next year.”

  I couldn’t breathe. Just stood there stonelike.

  Silently, I let go of the key.

  twelve

  Iwas wrong about the Abe Lincoln thing. For one, the cottage had electricity. Running water, too. Half-shell sconces and brass lamps. Light-blue wallpaper, Berber carpet, and cushy chairs with braided piping. The place was furnished with a king-size bed and a velvety couch with embroidered pillows positioned in front of a black marble fireplace. Old books and stubby round candles were parked on the white wood mantel on either side of a rectangular wicker basket of silk flowers. An oval tin wood bin near the fireplace was stocked with split and seasoned birch. Abe would have liked it here.I called Mona, waking her up to tell her we’d arrived safely. She asked if I’d met Pop. I said yes and inquired how she knew him. She laughed a laugh that has no age.

  When I apologized for rousing her, she said the stars would have anyway, and besides, she wasn’t dreaming yet. We rang off. I washed up, feeling confused and ungrounded. After climbing into bed, I lit a candle.

  The image ofThe Repentant Magdalenflashed before me, making me melancholy. I thought of Ginny next door.

  “Swell dreams and a peach, Ginny,” I whispered, my eyelids falling.

  The next morning I awoke to rapping on my door. My eyes pried themselves open and squinted across the sunlit room. Out the slidingglass doors to my back porch, I viewed a small Renoir-like flower garden and what looked like the entire West Coast.We were on a bluff, all right—about two hundred feet up. And below it, deep blue—blue-whale blue—as far as a gummed-up eye could see. It was stark and serious, as if God had looked down his nose over his half-glasses, waved a finger, and thundered, “Okay, now put that there,” and sploosh, the entire Pacific Ocean got dropped right at the border of Little River.

  “You awake?” Ginny yelled.

  My candle had burned down in the night, leaving a hole in the middle surrounded by a vampire’s cape of wasted wax. Gone was my candle and the comfort of sleep.

  My mind flashed on the hang-glider stunt I’d done a few days earlier,diving unparachuted and unafraid. For a second I wished I could fly off the back porch and sail out over the vast Pacific, a faceless shadow to a lounging whale, too distant for it to know or care what I was.

  It was eighta.m.I pulled my pants on and stumbled to the door, the coarse carpet tickling my bare feet. I hesitated for a second before letting Ginny in. One more knuckly knock. The flip of a latch, the turn of a knob, and there she was, freshly scrubbed, keen-eyed, and lovely.

  She thrust a bacon and egg sandwich and a container of coffee at me. “I assumed you hadn’tgottenany,” she said sardonically.

  I didn’t answer, just stood there devouring the food. We stared uncomfortably out the sliding doors at the view. The only sound was the surf below and my occasional swallowing.

  “Tell me something,” Ginny said. “When you think of isolation, what painting comes to mind?”

  “The Mill,”I replied reflexively, referring to the Rembrandt of a lonely windmill up on a bluff overlooking a dark river.

  “Mmm,” she said.“The Mill.I’m not surprised.”

  I tossed the paper cup in the wastebasket, my stomach strangling my breakfast. “Ginny,” I said. “About last night . . .” I reached for her. She pulled away, turned her back to me, and started sobbing.

  I handed her a tissue from the box on the nightstand. She snatched it, leaving me with a torn piece.

  “You hurt me,” she said.

  “Please . . . let me explain. The last thing in the world I want to do is—”

  Ginny slapped me across the face. “Wake up!” she cried, as I stumbled back two steps. The sting of shame hurt more than my cheek.

  “What a waste of mascara,” Ginny sniffled, inspecting her Kleenex.

  Then she looked past me out the open front door. “There’s Pop. Let’s get the directions to Mona’s.”

  I slid the big Baggie with the two Leonardo pages and the translation under my T-shirt, tucked it into my jeans, threw on the double gun rig and my leather jacket, and followed her out.

  Pop was standing in front of the main house with a woman dressed in waitress garb. He spotted us and waved us over, shouting, “Holmes, Watson, front and center.

  “This is Sue Ann,” Pop announced. “Help me out. She’s bringing up two kids by herself. What do you think, I should give her a nice raise, right? Of course.”

  He noisily chewed a piece of candy from a gold box of Godiva chocolates. “She gave me these to butter me up and it worked.” He grinned. “Smart broad. I mean girl. Aw hell, I don’t know.”

  “Broad,” Sue Ann jumped in, smiling at
Pop. She looked sturdy, but worn. Up near her collar, she wore a stickpin—a ceramic pig in a black top hat, smoking a stogie. I asked her where she got it.

  She told me she made them, sort of a side thing. “I sell them for twelve-fifty,” she said.

  “Will you take twenty bucks for him?” I asked.

  “Um. . . sure.”

  I handed her a bill. “Andy Jackson says hello.”

  Sue Ann passed me the pin and I carefully threaded it through Ginny’s lapel. She actually blushed.

  “Well,” Sue Ann said to Pop, tucking the bill in her vest pocket. “Must be my lucky day.” She strolled off toward the restaurant.

  Ginny pulled on her collar and went eye to eye with the pig. “Is there some cruel significance to your choice of gift?”

  “Not at all,” I said with utmost sincerity. “I may be a lot of things, but cruel isn’t one of them.”

  “I coulda told you that, Watson,” Pop said to Ginny. “Look at his peepers. It’s always in the peepers. Now have a chocolate. Both of you. Go on. Who cares if it’s morning.”

  Ginny fished one out of the box and popped it in her mouth.

  “Chewy, huh?” Pop said.

  “Mmm.”

  “Holmes, pick one out for yourself. The ones with the Rice Krispies are good.”

  I did as he instructed.

  “Now, how about a stroll through the garden. I’ll go fix a fire in Watson’s room.”

  “Good idea, Pop,” I said. Ginny looked undecided.

  “Have it cracklin’ in fifteen minutes,” the old codger added, ambling away.

  “But we need directions, Pop,” Ginny shouted after him.

  Pop pointed toward the garden. “Elementary, Watson. You can’t miss it.”

  Ginny peered at me thoughtfully, a smudge of chocolate in one corner of her mouth. I headed into the garden. She followed.

  The path was bordered by large, pink-blossomed trees interspersed with just about every kind of flower a person could imagine. Pop’s garden was lush and sweet-smelling, a place where a hummingbird could make himself a good living, with a path just wide enough for two people to walk next to each other, arm in arm.