Dagger Key and Other Stories

by Lucius Shepard

  He rebelled against the thought, tempting himself with the prospect of Asia, of new possibilities, yet he felt the pull of a more powerful temptation. How easy it would be to surrender. What was he giving up? Paranoia and solitude, hookers and barflies, no plans for the future but those of escape. A life without significant challenge or involvement. An emptiness that would feel far emptier without Grace. He kept expecting that he would resist these arguments, yet the longer he sat there, the more seductive they seemed. He tried to weaken them with doubt. His belief that he could learn to manipulate the doors—wouldn’t death make of him, as it had of Grace and the rest, a befuddled, energy-less soul incapable of functioning? Then he recalled how he and Grace had interacted inside the house. She had been angry, afraid, but full of vitality. Of life. The two of them together might form a battery that would provide sufficient strength to manage an escape. And what if there were more than two? He had seen—what?—fifty or sixty people in the house, and there had to be more. The energy he and Grace generated might infect the rest. Some of them, anyway. They might be able to overpower the uglies. And if they could do that, together they could determine…

  That he could entertain these fantasies, a post-mortem revolution, an overthrow of minor-league demons…Fuck! Next he’d be accepting Jesus as his personal savior. He went into the bedroom and pulled his suitcases from beneath the bed. Out of here now. That was the only agenda that made sense. He began to pack, though not in his usual painstaking style. Balling up shirts and stuffing them in. But gradually his pace slowed. The sheets smelled of her. She was real. Nothing could change that. She was real, the house was real. And however frail the foundation supporting his guesswork, everything he had seen and done was real. He had followed a trail of intuitive decisions and they had led him to the lake, to Grace, to this moment and to these speculations, which his instinct judged sound, and though the logic of the world prevailed against his judgments, he could not refute them.

  Leaving his bags open, he returned to the front room. Trees and shrubs and shoreline were melting up from the half-dark, and as they grew sharper, shadowy branches evolving into distinct sprays of needles, the margin of the lake defining itself in precise gray etchings, the things of the world came to seem increasingly imprecise to Shellane. Their precision a clumsy illusion, a poor reflection of the simpler albeit more daunting order he had detected in the house, as if death were simply a refinement of life. He settled back into the chair. Noon approached. Soon a blue Cadillac would come grumbling along the lake road. Soon he would cook breakfast, take a shower, make a plan, erecting a structure that had no other purpose than to repeat itself. He saw himself as he had once been. Rock and roll days. Girlfriend sobbing in a corner of that dingy, brain-damaged apartment in Medford. Him yelling, shouting, because he had no self-justification that could be spoken in a quiet tone or a reasonable voice. The quick drug hit of a score, adrenaline rushes and gleefully desperate escapes, and afterward sitting in a nondescript bar with nondescript men, laughing madly over drink at the skill, the guts and brains required to risk everything for short money in the service of greater men who watched them like spiders watching trained flies and smiled at their ignorance. Walking like a ghost through Detroit. Brushing past the world, touching it just enough to envy its unreal brilliance. Was that it? A life like so many bits of rusty tin threaded onto a gray string? These days of Grace cancelled out every moment of that dreary, heatless past. He put his hand on the telephone, let it rest there for several minutes before lifting the receiver and dialing, not because he was hesitant, but rather stalled, lost in a fugue from which he emerged diminished and uncaring.

  A man’s voice spoke in his ear. “Yeah, what?”

  “You recording this?” Shellane asked.

  A pause. “Who’s asking?”

  “If you’re not recording, start the tape. I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”

  Another pause. “You’re on the tape, pal. Go for it.”

  “This is…” Shellane had a thought. A wicked thought, another addition to his Book of Sin. But damned once, damned twice…What did it matter?

  “You still there?”

  “My name is Avery Broillard,” Shellane said. “I work at the Gas ’n Guzzle in Champion, Michigan. In the Upper Peninsula, about an hour’s drive west of Marquette.”

  “No shit? How’s the weather up there?”

  “I can tell you how to find Roy Shellane.”

  Silence, and then the man said, “That would be extremely helpful, Avery. Why don’tcha go ahead and tell me?”

  “It’s tricky…the directions. I’ll have to show you. I work until seven tonight. Can you have somebody up here by seven?”

  “Oh, yeah. We can handle that. But, Avery…whoever the fuck you are. If this is bullshit, I’m gonna be very upset with you.”

  “Just have someone here by seven.”

  After hanging up he had a moment’s panic, a twinge of fear, an urge toward flight, but these found no purchase in his thoughts. He sat a while longer, then set about making breakfast. Fried eggs and ham, toast, and his last wedge of apple pie.

  Shortly after six o’clock that afternoon, a dark green Datsun parked about a hundred feet off along the access road. Shellane pictured Gerbasi crammed into the front seat—the rental car options in Marquette must not have been to his liking. He considered going out to meet them, but though he was eager to have done with it, he was so enervated, worn down by depression, feelings of loss and anxiety, his eagerness did not rise to the level of action. At a quarter to seven the doors of the Datsun opened and two shadows moved toward the cabin, one much bulkier than the other. They vanished behind trees, then reappeared larger, at a different angle to the cabin, like ghosts playing interdimensional tag. Shellane could have picked them off, no problem. He was in an odd mood. So lighthearted that he was tempted to hunt up the nine-millimeter and destroy the men who were intending do what he wanted, just as a prank on himself; but he couldn’t recall where he had put the gun. He heard whispers outside. Probably arguing over whether to shoot through the window. Gerbasi wouldn’t go for it. He enjoyed the laying on of hands. That was his kink. The fat bag of poison wanted you to commune with him before he did the deed. Over thirty years of murdering people who had not necessarily required it, life had been kind to him, except socially. For some years now he had been in love with a woman who shared a house with a guy who claimed to be a gay political refugee from Cuba, a story that scored him few points in the neighborhood, but lent his bond with the woman an innocence that placated Gerbasi, who remained oblivious to the fact that he was being cheated on in plain view. It was amazing, Shellane thought, what there was to know about people.

  The door blew inward and Gerbasi’s associate, a light-heavy who must have taken a pounding in the ring—ridges of scar tissue over his eyes—before entering this line of work, posed TV-cop-style with his shiny gun and grunted something that Shellane did not catch but took for an admonition. Then Gerbasi hove into view. Spider veins were thick as jail tattoos on his jowls, and the bags beneath his eyes appeared to have been dipped in grape juice. His breathing was wet and wheezy, and his muted plaid suit had the lumpish aspect of bad upholstery. The lamplight plated his scalp with an orange shine. He waddled three steps into the room and said, “This don’t seem like you, Roy. Just sitting here waiting for it.”

  Shellane, his flame turned low, had no reply.

  Gerbasi snapped at his helper, telling him to close the door. “What’s going on with you?” he asked of Shellane.

  “I surrender,” said Shellane.

  “The guy Broillard, he claims he didn’t call us.” Gerbasi’s eyes, heavy-lidded, big and brown like calf’s eyes, ranged the tabletop. “Know anything about that?”

  “Broillard? The Gas ’n Guzzle guy? He called you about me?”

  Gerbasi’s stogie-sized forefinger prodded Shellane’s laptop. “Somebody called. Broillard says it wasn’t him.”

  “Maybe he had a
change of heart,” suggested Shellane.

  “Maybe you set his ass up.” Gerbasi gave him a doleful look.

  “You didn’t hurt him, did you?” Shellane failed to keep the amusement from his voice.

  The light-heavy chuckled doltishly. “He ain’t hurting no more.”

  “I figure you set him up,” Gerbasi said. “But why would ya do that and still be hanging around?”

  “Don’t think about it, Marty. You’ll just break your brain.”

  “Maybe he’s got cancer,” offered the light-heavy.

  “Worse,” said Shellane.

  “What’s worse than cancer?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Gerbasi said to the light-heavy; he removed a long-barreled .22 from his shoulder holster.

  “Truth,” Shellane said.

  “Y’know, you look way too satisfied for a man’s gonna be wearing his brains in a coupla minutes,” Gerbasi said. “You waiting for rescue, Roy? That it?”

  “Why don’t you just do your business.”

  “Guy’s in a hurry,” said the light-heavy. “Never seen one be in a hurry.”

  “Who cut your face?” Gerbasi asked.

  “Just do it, you fat fuck!” said Shellane. “I’ve got places I need to get to.”

  “Hear that shit?” said the light-heavy. “Motherfucker’s crazy.”

  “Nah, he’s got an angle,” Gerbasi said. “Man’s always got an angle. Don’tcha, Roy?”

  Shellane smiled. “I live in certain hope of the Resurrection.”

  Gerbasi gave his head a dubious shake. “Know what I useta say about you? I’d say Roy Shellane runs the best goddamn crews of anybody in the business, but he’s too fucking smart for his own good. One of these days he’s gonna outsmart himself.” He seemed to be expecting a response; when none came, he said, “I think maybe that day’s come.”

  A bough ticked the side of the cabin; the light-heavy twitched toward the door. Shellane was beginning to understand why Gerbasi enjoyed playing out these scenes—he wanted the fear to grow strong so he could smell it. But though Shellane was not free of fear, it was weak in him, and he thought he must be proving a profound disappointment to Gerbasi.

  “You look to me like a man who’s holding good cards, but don’t know he’s in the wrong game,” Gerbasi said.

  “Do I have to fucking beg you to shoot?” Shellane asked.

  “Hey.” The light-heavy came up beside Gerbasi. “Maybe he’s wearing a wire.”

  “He was, they’d already be down on our ass ’cause of what’cha said about Broillard. But something ain’t kosher.” Gerbasi let the gun dangle at his side. “Tell me what’s going on, Roy, or I’m gonna hafta give ya some pain.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you do. You understand? I don’t give a shit about anything.”

  Gerbasi said, “No, explain it to me.”

  “If you had a soul, I wouldn’t need to explain it. You’d feel the same as me. You’d be sickened by what you are.”

  “I told ya the guy’s crazy,” said the light-heavy.

  “You don’t shut your goddamn mouth, I swear to Christ I’m gonna put one in ya,” Gerbasi told him.

  “Jeez!” said the light-heavy. “Fine. Fuck…whatever.”

  “The man’s tired of living,” Gerbasi went on. “That’s all he’s saying. Right, Roy?”

  “Right.”

  “Remember Bobby Sheehan? Man just looks at me and says, ‘Fuck you, Marty.’ Not like he was pissed off. Just weary. Just fed up with it all. I asked, man, I said, ‘Fuck’s wrong with you, Bobby? This how you wanna go out? Like a fucking sick dog?’ And he says, ‘A sick dog’s got it all over me. A sick dog don’t know what’s making it sick.’ It’s kinda like that, ain’t it, Roy?”

  “Fuck you, Marty.”

  Gerbasi stepped around behind Shellane, and a weakness spread from the center of Shellane’s chest outward, resolving into a chill that coiled the length of his spine. He fixed his eyes on the door, but he seemed to see everything in the room, and he sensed his isolation, the gulf of the surrounding dark with its trillion instances of life. Spiders, beetles, roosting birds, serpents, badgers, moles, fish streaming through the dim forests of the lake bottom. Every least scrap of vitality enviable to him now. Somehow from that darkness he managed to summon the image of Grace’s face. The brightness of her olivine eyes struck deep into him, calmed the fluttering thing that was his life, and filled him with acceptance. This was the end to which he had come. This woman, this unstable chair, this badly hung door, this shabby room drenched in orange lamplight. He felt he was falling forward into a dream.

  “You wanna say a prayer?” Gerbasi asked. “I’ll give you a minute.”

  Shellane did not answer, absorbed by the particulars of his vision.

  “You hear what I said, Roy? Want me to give you a minute?”

  “Now would be good,” said Shellane.

  In the beginning there was the memory of pain, a pain so vast and white it seemed less a condition of the mind and body than the country of his birth. But it was only a memory and did not afflict him for long. There followed a period of vagueness and confusion, but as he walked, moving through the dark, fogbound country of his death, he came to think that death had not left him much the worse for wear. He recalled what Grace had said about the process and realized that he, too, was coming to feel stronger, more settled in his head…and yet he also felt strangely out-of-sorts, plagued by an ill-defined sense of foreboding. He presumed this feeling would intensify once he reached the black house, and that it contributed to the low energy and aimlessness of the house’s residents; but he told himself that none of them had been informed with such clear purpose and determination—he believed this would shield him to an extent from the effect. And when he saw the gabled roof rising from fog and the black fist protruding from the wall, even after he opened the door and was drawn inside, he remained hopeful, focused on his intention to find Grace, to escape with her. Where they might escape to…Well, that was not something upon which he had expended a great deal of thought. The potentials of the afterlife undoubtedly incorporated worse places than the house, and should they manage to reach a better one, what would they do then? He recognized there were many things he might have considered before acting. Matters of personal as well as metaphysical consequence. But they involved questions best answered by both him and Grace, and so would have to wait judgment.

  It was not a room into which he was admitted upon opening the door, but a corridor that appeared to be endless, an unrelieved perspective of black doors and black walls, black floors and ceiling, the surfaces of the boards shiny like newly exposed veins of coal. He received a distinct impression of menace from each door he passed, and he wondered if his ability to apprehend such a psychic reek had been enhanced by his mortal transition. He walked for what must have been twenty minutes. The black perspective continued to recede. If there was an end to the corridor, he had made no appreciable progress toward it, and he realized that he would have to pick one of the doors and deal with whatever lay behind it. But before he could choose, Grace spoke from close behind him, giving him a start, just as she had their first morning on the beach.

  “Hello, Roy,” she said.

  She was standing no more than fifteen feet away, two of the lanky gray hominids crouched at her side, flanking her like faithful hounds. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, but otherwise she was as always, dressed in jeans and a sweater. Her attitude, however, betrayed no hint of anxiety, and her smile was an act of disdainful aggression. She absently trailed the fingers of her left hand across the scalp of one of the uglies, and it trembled, rolling its sunken eyes toward her.

  “Grace…” Stunned, unable to match her coolness, her poise, with anything he knew about her, Shellane was at a loss for words.

  “Roy!” She spoke his name in a husky mockery of passion and laughed, her laughter lasting a touch long to be the record of any wholesome emotion. That laugh resolved some of his questions. Not in
detail, yet it supplied enough of an answer to make him suspect that his view of her was based on a fundamental misconception.

  “Thanks for getting rid of Avery,” she said. “That was sweet of you.” Her tone grew chilly. “All your self-involvement is such a shuck! You’re too much of a coward to admit you’re a conscienceless bully, so you contrive moral dilemmas to hide the truth from yourself. I knew you’d find a way to kill him. It’s who you are.” She gave her hair a toss. “Actually, things couldn’t have worked out better. I can’t have Avery, but I’ve got someone like him to play with. You’ll be much more amusing. Avery wasn’t a deep thinker, but you…you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to understand where you are and what’s really happening. Am I merely an unhappy woman who’s been empowered by death, or was Grace a facade, a disguise used by a creature beyond your comprehension? You’ll drown yourself in that crap.”

  Shellane remained speechless, unable to believe that he had been so wrong about her. She looked away, as if made uncomfortable by his stare.

  “Come on,” she said after a while. “You must have known deep down no one could love something like you.”

  “This…us…It was all about revenge?”

  “You say that as if it were trivial. Revenge is beautiful. I can speak with authority on the subject. Haven’t you been hurt by anyone? Didn’t you want to fuck her up? Tear her life apart…like what she did to you? If you’re not feeling that now, you will be soon, I promise. Don’t underestimate the value of revenge. I imagine the thought of it is all that’s going to keep you sane in the years ahead.”