by Brian Hodge
Jamey quivered, was going to explode. Shower this white trash hell with chain links and splinters of wood.
Leno fisted his hands into the pockets of his slacks, stood up straighter with his deadpan poise renewed. “But this just keeps getting weirder. Now Duncan MacGregor’s got himself a lawyer and he’s suing Jamey Sheppard for identity theft.”
Jamey raged at the television until his wrath was spent and he lay exhausted. His eyelids grew heavy and he wanted to sleep. Dimly, he sensed that part of him felt close to shutting down, dying peacefully the way those trapped in blizzards lost feeling long before they froze to death.
From the television, steady chat and laughter, neither of which sounded entirely real. Somebody behind a big desk, somebody else in a fat photogenic chair. Lots of flashing teeth. The world goes on.
“And he called me an actor,” Jamey murmured.
It was a worthwhile reminder.
If he was ever going to get out of here, maybe he should start acting like one.
11
LOOKING back on the evening, Duncan MacGregor felt certain it would’ve turned out differently had it not been for the bowl of apples.
But it was the middle of September, after all, the orchards of Colorado sending tons of fresh-picked apples to market. Suppose Dawn had thrown this wee dinner party for four a couple of months earlier, and they’d had a big bowl of Georgia peaches sitting out instead. Totally different ending to the evening. Because it never would have occurred to him to wonder what this guy, this neighbor, this Kyle, would look like with a peach on his head. No, when it came to fruit perched on someone’s head looking like it was there for a dangerous reason, it was apples all the way.
Then again, Kyle was hardly blameless. Not when he does a thing like point to the wall above the brick fireplace, at what hung there mounted in a large steel X, and ask, “Are those real?”
“Well,” Duncan said, “they’re real sharp.”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean.” Kyle started laughing, a little drunk. His face was flushed from the mead they’d been drinking, with dinner and more afterward. He was one of those young guys that were as smooth-skinned as a woman, with cheeks that, when he drank, flamed so furiously red that he looked sunburned. “What I mean is…are they old? Like, are they originals?”
“Don’t I wish,” Duncan said. “If I could afford originals, we’d be living in a much bigger place than here.”
Which sounded good. Sounded upwardly mobile, goal-oriented. Truth was, he and Dawn had yet to pay a dime in rent or mortgage during the ten months they’d been squatting in this suburban Denver condo. And it wasn’t a question of being able to afford sixteenth-, seventeenth-century swords so much as it was knowing where he might be able to safely steal them. Museums weren’t nearly as vulnerable to a smash-and-grab as the average jewelry store, while private collectors tended to keep huge dogs lurking about.
“They’re modern reproductions,” Duncan said. “But that doesn’t mean they won’t hold up as well as the originals.”
“So when you get yourself a mood on to buy swords, where do you go?”
“The one leaning in from the right, that one I mail-ordered from a place in Atlanta.” On somebody else’s credit card. No need to share that. “The other one, I just got it over the summer. That Renaissance festival they have every year down in Larkspur? There.”
Kyle jacked his head around with an eager grin for Kayla, his wife. Kyle and Kayla—it was just too cute for words.
“That’s what we need. We need swords,” Kyle said. “Big Braveheart swords! Haven’t we been saying our front room looks like something’s missing? This is it!”
Kayla’s pug nose crinkled. Duncan hoped she would let this sour look do the talking for her. Whenever she spoke more than three words, the stainless steel stud set in her pierced tongue would click against her teeth like she was sending Morse code. Not the least annoying habit of anyone Duncan had ever encountered, and he bet by now that Kayla was totally deaf to it.
“I don’t think they’d go very well with the snowboards and stuff,” she clicked.
Kyle blew her off with a disdainful shrug. “Ah, what do chicks know.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what this chick knows,” Dawn said. Duncan saw her bristling. “That sword on the right? I know the name for it, which I bet is a lot more than you know about it.”
“The wavy one, you mean? Okay, so what is it?”
“It’s called a Flamberge. That’s French for ‘flame blade’.”
“Oh, like flambé!” Kayla piped up. “When they set your food on fire!”
“Yes! Aren’t you a quick little study!” Dawn said.
Duncan supposed it must’ve been around this point when he began picturing Kyle with an apple on his head. Ginger hair buzzed short, stubble hugging his skull the way moss hugs a stone, sideburns plunging down his jaw—Kyle’s was one of those streamlined heads that just seemed to beg for a little extra adornment.
As an experiment in normal living, the evening was looking more and more to be, despite their best intentions, a complete failure.
For months, Duncan had been thinking that it would come to this, that Dawn would start to miss aspects of her old life. Her transition from pampered brat to renegade had occurred in about as much time as it would take to twist a steering wheel around an unexpected corner. Fun for a while, she was slumming and he knew it. And while she’d shed her skin as a law-abiding citizen with the enthusiasm you might expect out of any rebellious daughter of privilege, you had to also expect that this new life was going to come up short here and there. That flashbacks would hit and she would find herself longing for things she’d never dreamed she could miss.
Like sitting around a table with new acquaintances. Food, drink, the getting-to-know-you chatter. Dinner parties. Tonight’s was his first—grim chow slapped onto trays in an Arizona county lockup didn’t count—and so far he was failing to see their appeal.
“Why’s the blade wavy?” Kyle asked. “Besides looking cool as shit, I mean.”
“Darrell, you want to field this one?” Dawn volleying it back to him.
And he definitely didn’t like this Darrell part of it. With the name MacGregor, he had all kinds of Highlander credibility going for him—surely his bloodline had flowed from the legendary Scottish outlaw Rob Roy—but Darrell was not the name of a guy with swords on his wall. Yet he was stuck with it. While Dawn had been talking with Kayla the other day out by the pool, “Darrell” had been the first name to pop into her head after she’d nearly blurted the truth, getting as far the “D” and committing herself.
Dinner Party Darrell, imagining his guests with apples on their heads.
“The Flamberge, it’s actually a rapier,” he said. “See how narrow the blade is? It was used for duels, so it has to be fast, and be able to cut and thrust. And in a duel, you look for an advantage, right? They used to think a wavy blade’d leave a worse cut than a straight blade.”
Kyle nodded. “Yup, I look at that and see a big steak knife.”
“Except it didn’t make any difference. The wounds weren’t any worse than from a regular blade.”
Now Kyle looked disappointed. “Bummer.”
“But it still wasn’t just for show,” Duncan went on. Enjoying this part of the night, at least. How often could he talk to Dawn about swords before she started looking as though she’d rather he fall on one? “While the duelists were parrying, when a normal rapier went clanging against a Flamberge, it’d drag along the wavy edge and lose speed. Plus it would send a vibration back down into the hand and arm of the other guy. If he wasn’t expecting it, it could really shake his concentration.”
Gazing up at the mounted pair over the fireplace, Kyle went open-mouthed and bright-eyed with a primal yearning. The swords did that to you. They called to you, offering up their handles. They turned back the clock and left you standing by a waylaid coach in the middle of an Old English road.
“I would
really like to know what that feels like,” said Kyle, almost a whisper.
Amused, Duncan caught a glimpse of Kayla’s face, mouth constricting into a maroon O. Panicked little shake of her headful of ringlets.
“Uhh, Ky? Ky,” she said. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“No, it’ll be fun,” Duncan told her. Or maybe it was the mead talking.
“Boys and their toys,” Kayla sighed. She wedged a thumbnail between nibbling front teeth. “But it’s how we met, Kyle and me.”
“Really,” said Dawn. Most non-encouraging tone you could imagine.
“Two winters ago, up at Copper Mountain, and Kyle, you know, he’ll be trying out for the Winter Olympics snowboard team, well, he kind of plowed into me one weekend and after I went off on him for being such an asshole he had to spend the rest of the day making it up to me.”
“Hey Kyle,” Dawn said, “how many casualties do they allow before you get barred from the Olympics?”
“I did it on purpose,” he fessed up. “Saw this most magnificent creature standing there and said to myself, ‘Whoa, I’ve got about two seconds to figure out a way to meet her or the opportunity is lost.’”
“So he took the most direct route he could think of,” Kayla glowed.
“Gosh,” said Dawn, “it’s all so…so second-grade.”
“Yeah, that’s what I love about him, he’s not afraid to still be a kid. How’d you and Darrell meet?”
“She was at this salon to get her hair cut a couple days before a wedding where she was supposed to be a bridesmaid.” Duncan jumping right into it before Dawn had a chance to dissemble, grinning at the way she looked suddenly petrified. “Then I came in to rob the place, but my partner and I got into a disagreement about the way he was treating some of the women there. And Dawn, on one level she was scared, but on another level she was sort of impressed by the way I wouldn’t let my partner get away with it, and since she probably didn’t realize until then how bored she was with her life, she took another look at me and thought, ‘Well, I never met anybody like him before, so what the hell.’”
“Yeah, that whole chivalry-is-dead thing,” she said, “it went right out the window for me in that moment.”
By now she looked merely surprised, cocking her head at him as if to say she couldn’t believe he’d actually told the truth. A calculated risk. Dawn had, these past months, become his screener before he met anyone, and he had to give her credit: It wasn’t always easy to ask someone if they’d caught American Fugitives the other night and make it sound entirely casual. Kyle and Kayla had aced the test: No, we never watch that stuff. It’s too depressing, all these maniacs running loose.
Besides, leave out the right details and it was mind-boggling what you could get away with telling people, because they weren’t used to hearing it. Just pulling their leg. Good one, Darrell—met during a robbery.
Kyle hefted the sword Duncan had given him. “What about this one? Any cool factoids about this one?”
“The design style is older, early sixteenth century. Based on Gothic architecture. The original’s on display in the Tower of London.”
And it too was a beauty, with a flared crossguard, and a handle wrapped half with wire, half with black leather, then capped with a large round pommel.
It occurred to Duncan then that no one had ever come after him with his own swords before. By invitation, no less.
In the middle of the living room, he took a stance before Kyle and raised the Flamberge, ready to block. Told Kyle step forward and take a swing at him, and while Kyle was timid at first he soon grew bolder, drunken grin spreading across his face as he chopped gracelessly down with the Gothic sword. Duncan parried with a clang, then came a brittle clatter as the blades dragged against each other, straight edge against cobbled. Kyle stepped back and nearly dropped the weapon to the carpet.
Duncan flicked the Flamberge’s tip an inch from Kyle’s chin. “And I believe, sir, the advantage is mine.”
Kyle laughed, looking sheepish and beaten while Kayla looked relieved.
“How good are you with these things, anyway?” Kyle asked.
“If anybody who really knew what he was doing came after me, I’d lose some organs, probably, but I’m hell on inanimate objects,” Duncan said. Then it was out before he could stop himself: “I could chop an apple off your head.”
Kyle stuttered with a fidgety laugh, then let it fade. “You seriously could, huh?”
“No, Ky. No.” Kayla reached for his arm. “This is a really, really bad idea.”
“But what do chicks know, right?” said Dawn. Not that she was making any moves to put a stop to anything. There was a legal term for this: tacit approval. It was a most splendid legal concept.
“You don’t understand, Kayla. I need this. This is exactly the kind of drill I need to give me my psychological edge this winter.” Kyle pleading his case now. “When I get ready to run that Olympic qualifier, I have got to be the master of my fears. I’ve gotta go all-out. No fear. This’ll help me with that. Darrell here, it’s like now he’s the newest member of Team Kyle.”
“But you could lose your head!” she screamed.
“Now you’re catching on! See, I go through this, I’m that much less likely to lose my head on the mountain, staring down the half-pipe.” Sagely, he nodded. “Fate. It was Fate that brought us here tonight. Remember that when they’re putting a gold medal around my neck.”
“If you’ve still got one.” Kayla whirled to Dawn. “Have you ever seen Darrell do this before?”
“You mean ever, or just after he’s had this much to drink?”
“No,” said Duncan, “I feel good. I feel steady.”
“I’m too young to be a widow!” Kayla turned on Kyle, tongue stud clicking like Morse Code. “Or if you think I’m spending my life taking care of a husband with brain damage, who can’t do anything but drool, you’ve got another thing coming!”
“Have you ever considered,” Dawn said to her, “that it might be too late already?”
“Where do you want me, where do we do this?” Kyle asked.
“I can’t watch this,” Kayla said. “I cannot watch this.”
Duncan took the Gothic sword from Kyle, then had him sit along the front edge of the sofa, dead center—ample room for a full swing and follow-through. He shoved the coffee table out of the way to clear a place to stand.
“Comfortable?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “But how about turning down the TV? It might throw off your focus.”
Duncan snagged the remote, hit the mute. “And do I even have to tell you not to start moving around?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Kyle said.
“Then I guess all that leaves is the apple.”
Duncan motioned to Dawn, in the dining room. She chose the sacrificial Jonathan from the bowl on the table and gave it an underhand toss. Duncan inspected it to make sure it wasn’t lopsided, that it would sit stable.
“Nice rigid backbone, now…”
He placed the apple on the crown of Kyle’s head, then stepped back, decided to go with the Gothic instead of the Flamberge. It had a longer hilt, a hand-and-a-half, enough for a stabilizing two-handed grip. He took a comfortable stance a bit to the right of Kyle, so the apple was sitting just past midswing. Kyle’s eyes widened as Duncan squared his weight and pivoted at the waist, slow-flexing to bring the sword in for a few test arcs.
Kayla had her back turned with both arms wrapped around herself. She stole a glance over her shoulder and cringed when she saw it about to happen, the charge in the air peaking—it was all in the breath and the sprung-steel tension in the arms and the eyes as sharp as a hawk’s, then the moment of letting go, taking a mental step back and watching yourself make it happen.
He swung—a level arc, a sweeping blur of steel, a swish of cleaved air—and returned to himself with the sword slowing on the far side of Kyle’s head.
And not one thing had changed, Kyle still wit
h ramrod posture and jittery eyes that rolled back and up as if he could spot the apple still perched uncut on the crown of his skull…
…and then it toppled, rolling down and bouncing off his shoulder onto the sofa.
“Kayla?” Kyle would not, could not, budge. His voice had become something between a creak and a quaver. “Kayla? Why does the top of my head feel cold…?”
She turned and took slow steps from the dining table, looking as though she might now be able to handle anything so long as she had a husband who still had a head instead of a geyser. She came up from behind him and peered into his hair.
“Why does the top of my head feel so cold, Kayla?”
The thread of blood seeping through his hairline was just now reaching one eyebrow.
Kayla reached for the crown of his head; her mouth went rubbery slack and her face ebbed the color of soft cheese. She pinched her thumb and fingertip together in the ginger stubble of his hair and, with great delicacy, as though plucking the green burr from a strawberry, lifted away a patch of scalp the size of a quarter.
Slowly, Kyle twisted to face her and raised both hands to his skull.
“Put it back,” he warbled. “Put it back putitback putitback.”
“I’m really sorry,” Duncan said.
“Oh Ky, honey.” Kayla began to back away his him, from his beseeching hand, forcing a peek at the raw fuzzy divot between her fingers. “No, just let me take care of this for a while, okay, just let me hang onto it.”
“I could wrap that to go if you want,” Dawn offered.
