Dagger Key and Other Stories

by Lucius Shepard

  “Battery acid in they fuel. That way, if they want to test the motor, it going to start right up. But if they go to running, they won’t run far. I slip out early in the morning and take care of it.”

  “You coming back home after that?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I find a spot up in the hills and sleep.”

  Emily looks doubtful.

  “Don’t worry. Nothing going to trouble me with Annie around.”

  She idly rubs his shoulder, appearing distant.

  “What you thinking?” he asks.

  “I’m hoping that Jenry and Palace don’t have to bear this burden.”

  Resentment sparks in him, and he shifts away from her touch.

  “Something wrong?” she asks.

  “I wish you spare some of that hope for me.”

  “What you talking about?”

  “You always thinking about the children. Seem like you got nothing left over.”

  She gapes at him, gets up and walks off a couple of paces, then turns back. “You must be crazy! I your wife, Fredo. I with you ’til the end. But I’m their mother, too. And you they father. You want them to have Annie with them all their days? Is that what you saying?”

  Fredo says, “I expect Annie going to be with them one way or the other.”

  “Not and you sell these three pieces! Once the treasure gone, she gone.”

  “That’s just what my daddy say.”

  “And his daddy before him, and his daddy’s daddy. They all been saying that from the back time ’til now.”

  “Sometimes I feel that way, but just because a thing a tradition, that don’t mean it true. Other times I think Annie never let go. She going to hold onto that dagger ’til the last days.”

  “Don’t you be telling me that!”

  “I can’t help it. That’s how I feel.”

  “No, don’t be telling me that!” She confronts him, hands on hips. “You just vexed about Annie, and you pitying yourself. And you trying to get me to pity you. But you don’t want that. The day I come to pity you, that’s the day I stop loving you.”

  Shocked, he looks up at her.

  “I’m serious,” she says.

  “I can’t believe you say something like that, after all these years.”

  She drops to her knees in the sand, puts her hands on his knees. “Fredo, I just trying to get your attention. You know I love you, but there’s days when it seem you got too much Jesus in your head.”

  “You going to start blaspheming now?”

  “If that what it take to get you straight,” she says. “Jesus don’t have to live in this world. We do. Like it or not, when time tough, we gots to be hard, even if it sinful.”

  Fredo hangs his head and digs in the sand with the toe of his shoe, his thoughts circulating between the good sense of what she’s said and his views on personal salvation.

  “We counting on you to be hard, Fredo. The boys and Leona, we all counting on you.” Emily sighs and pushes up to her feet. “I gots to go back in before Philby steal us blind.”

  “I’d pass through hell for this family,” he says. “But I no want to get stuck there.”

  Emily’s fingers brush his shoulder, startling him, and he glances up.

  “Want me to wake you when I come in?” she asks. “Or I can sleep down with Leona.”

  In her face, beneath the worry and agitation, he finds what he has always found when she looks at him. “Yeah, wake me,” he says. “I leave the lamp burning for you.”

  Palace is dribbling a soccer ball in front of the shanty, a skinnier, eleven-year-old Fredo, but with his mother’s dark eyes, and Jenry, a well-built fifteen-year-old with Emily’s African features and coloration, and his father’s blue eyes, is lying in his parents’ hammock, listening to dancehall on a battery-operated CD player. He’s a strikingly handsome kid and he knows it. Seeing him, Fredo is tempted, as usual, to take him down a peg. He considers bringing up the gas-sniffing incident, but limits himself to saying, “Turn that mess off.” Lately it has been difficult for Fredo to warm up to Jenry, and he’s had the thought that his son may be growing into someone he does not much like; but Jenry is still a child, still salvageable, and Fredo understands that this is the reason he has to go with Annie, to fund that salvation. That both makes him feel more kindly disposed to Jenry and amplifies his resentment of the situation.

  Jenry lets the CD play, then—just as his father is about to repeat his instruction; he’s learned how to time these things—he switches it off and climbs from the hammock. He’s wearing his school uniform, as is Palace. Short-sleeved white shirt, dark blue trousers and matching tie. He shoves his hands into his pockets and leans against the wall, the generic pose of the layabouts who hang around Tully’s shop.

  “Mama say you had a visit from Annie,” he says in a challenging tone, as if daring Fredo to deny it.

  “Change out of them clothes,” says Fredo. “You got to keep them fresh for school.”

  Jenry loosens his tie. “I want to go with you.”

  Fredo grunts in amusement. “There a long walk between what you want and what going to happen.”

  Palace, the soccer ball under his arm, comes into the room, and Fredo tells him to change his clothes, saying he’ll start supper going.

  “Why can’t I go with you?” Jenry asks, and Palace says happily, “Roxy Tidcombe already fix us sandwiches over the resort.” He giggles. “Her cat purring for Jenry.”

  Jenry gives him a scornful look.

  “Go on,” says Fredo. “Change them clothes. Your mama’s got enough to do without washing ’em every day.”

  He stretches out in the hammock and closes his eyes, listening to the boys bickering in the back room. Palace: “You the one tell me about Roxy!” Jenry: “Did I tell you to spread the news around, too?” Fredo’s thoughts slow, but he does not sleep, hovering just above sleep’s surface. A breeze pushes open the door, the rusting hinges squeak. Through the doorway, a narrow band of the sea appears to billow like a blue-green scarf drawn between earth and sky. Footsteps behind him, and Jenry steps into view. He asks again about Annie and Fredo, less irritable now, says, “Your mama needs you to help out while I gone. The time come soon enough you going to learn about Annie.”

  “How soon?”

  Fredo swings his legs over the side of the hammock. “You remember that toy you wanted a few years back? That robot with its eyes light up and it shooting sparks?”

  “That were six, seven years ago,” Jenry says defensively. He’s clad in a pair of shorts and has a cheap gold chain about his neck, the links showing like golden stitches against his black skin.

  “We told you it were a piece of trash, but you had to have it. And once you get it, it fall apart in a week. The eyes don’t light and the sparks burn your arm. Wanting to know Annie’s like wanting to get your hands on that robot. Ain’t no pleasure at the end of it.”

  “So you say. Maybe I feel different.”

  “What you want to argue with me for? Your mama need you—that all you gots to know.” Fredo comes to his feet, stretches, then with a sudden movement grabs Jenry by the back of the neck and tickles him with his free hand. “What you going to do now, huh? How you going to argue with this?”

  After a brief struggle, which veers between play and actual ferocity, Jenry breaks away. He seems about to smile, but instead glowers at Fredo.

  “Back off with the attitude, mon,” Fredo says. “Okay? I got a long night ahead of me, and maybe a long day to follow. I could stand a break.”

  Jenry’s expression degrades into sullenness, and Fredo busies himself rummaging in the tool box that sits atop a dresser, searching for a large plastic syringe and a set of lockpicks.

  “Roxy Tidcombe, huh?” he says. “That one pretty gal. She what we call back in my day pure glamity.”

  “She okay,” Jenry says. “But she holding out on me.”

  Fredo grins at him over his shoulder. “And here I thought you grown into a grindsman.”


  “Seem like all she want to do is give me a car wash.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t complain and I was you. Lots of girls that way at first. They afraid of catching a big belly.”

  “That how it were with you and mama?” Jenry asks sneeringly. “She give up her puni straightaway and you never get no car wash?”

  Something like anger,

  but stronger,

  something of the old blood,

  Annie’s blood,

  surges through Fredo,

  and he has to close his eyes

  against the sight of his son

  until it has passed,

  gripping the wooden handle

  of the tool box

  so hard it cracks.

  “Get on down to the café,” he says. “You can ask your mama about the car wash and you got the courage. Take Palace with you.”

  “It Friday night, mon! I got better to do,” Jenry says, and Palace, who has obviously been eavesdropping, comes to the door and says, “I ain’t finish my schoolwork!”

  “What kind of schoolwork they give you on a Friday night?” Fredo asks.

  Palace glances away, a sure sign he’s fishing around for a believable lie. “I got a book to read.”

  “Read it at the café,” says Fredo. “Jenry can do your share of the chores. When you done with reading, then you can do his.”

  Both boys complain and he says, “I ain’t going to tell you again.”

  He stands in the doorway, watching them walk down the hill. Emily’s right, he thinks as his anger fades. Jenry may be already lost and Palace won’t be far behind. Contemplating this, Fredo shakes his head ruefully and spits. As they reach the foot of the hill, Jenry shoves his brother, knocking him off his feet, and starts jogging along the road toward town.

  A moonless night; thin clouds reduce what stars there are to a scatter of dim white points. Fredo steals along Treasure Cove’s pier, his footsteps hidden by the slop of water against the pilings. The watchman is asleep on the beach in a cabana chair, his rifle resting across his knees. His dory is drawn up on the beach, the outboard tipped up out of the sand. A fresh creosote smell from the pier overwhelms all other odors. From its seaward end, the bungalows are almost indistinguishable in the dark—vague white shapes mounted against the hill, like lumps of mashed potatoes. Fredo climbs over the railing onto the deck of the cabin cruiser and locates the hatch covering the engine. Using a penlight to see, he picks the lock and slides off the cover. He draws battery acid into the syringe and squirts it into the fuel, repeating the process; then he slides the cover shut and locks it. The door to the cabin is open, and that astounds Fredo. These people must have no idea where they are, he tells himself. He disables the radio and makes a quick search, finding a flare gun and a revolver in a cabinet. He renders the flares unusable and, after emptying the revolver, decides it will be safest to drop it over the side. This done, he hurries along the pier, clambers into the rocks above the resort, and curls up on a ledge to sleep.

  He wakes in bright daylight, worried that he’s missed his appointment. Entering the bar, he spots Klose and Selkie sitting by the window, dirty dishes in front of them. They’re dressed in shorts and tank tops, and Fredo thinks that they more resemble a brother and sister than a husband and wife. He threads his way among tables, drops into a chair across from them. With a petulant frown, Selkie says, “We thought you were not coming.”

  “I had some business, but I here now,” Fredo says. “You have the money?”

  “I will collect it from the bank this morning,” Klose says. “And the cross?”

  “I fixing to get it this afternoon.”

  “Then all is in order?”

  “We got things to talk about, but I’ll order me some breakfast first.” Fredo gives Vinroy a wave. “You making out a damn sight better than me, so this on your tab.”

  “There is no guarantee of that,” Selkie says with a degree of irritation. “We must smuggle the cross into Germany. We must find a trustworthy buyer. Boah! Too much can go wrong!”

  “The poorer you are, the more you got those same problems. We both taking a gamble, but if you win, you crazy rich, mon. That cross, even and you sell it cut up for the stones and the gold, it worth millions. Like that English fella on TV used to say, you be having champagne dreams.” Fredo makes a disgusted noise. “Me, maybe I get my kids off the island. Nothing much else going to change. But if I try to sell the cross for true value…and it my property, mon! It come down to me all the way from Annie.” He slaps the table angrily. “If I asks for millions, you think I be getting it? Hell, no! You can’t count to ten before I’m lying in a ditch somewhere with my throat slit and some bastard already rich rolling into his bank and everybody smiling upon him, saying, ‘Have a chair, sir,’ and ‘Ain’t you looking splendid this morning, sir,’ all because he stole a poor man’s property.”

  Having listened to this outburst, Klose seems abashed—he clears his throat and looks down at his coffee cup; but Selkie maintains her expression of sleek, sulky discontent. It’s evident to Fredo now, if it hasn’t been before, that she’s the ruler of the marriage. It’s also evident that her perversity colors the couple’s actions. Klose is merely a drone and she’s the one Annie will have to watch.

  “What for you, Fredo?” Vinroy, looking crisp in his navy shirt and white shorts.

  “Fry me up about ten of them little sausages and wrap ’em with some rolls. For now, let me have some hotcakes.”

  “Coffee?” Vinroy asks.

  “Yeah, mon.”

  Vinroy inquires whether the German couple would like a refill of their coffee, and Selkie says, no, they have to be going. Vinroy stacks their dishes and, once he’s gone, Klose says, “You said you would have instructions for us.”

  A wave of fatigue washes over Fredo. He sits up straight, blinks against the sunlight chuting through the glass. “I be at your place around nine o’clock. At eight-thirty, you sit down at the kitchen table and stay there. Don’t make a move until I say so. Leave the door unlocked and the window shade open so I can peer in. Wear what you got on now. That way I can see you ain’t carrying no weapon. Keep the money close by. I don’t want you have to go into another room to fetch it.”

  “Would you like us to put our hands in the air?” Selkie lays the sarcasm on thick, but Fredo gives her question its due.

  “Maybe, and I see something not right,” he says. “Do what I say, everything go smooth. But let me tell you this much. You ain’t dealing with no bobo tonight, so have a care.”

  After Selkie and Klose leave, Vinroy brings Fredo’s food, the sausages and rolls wrapped in a tin foil packet. “I seen you scaling down the rocks earlier,” he says. “What you doing way up there?”

  “Wasting time,” says Fredo. “I used to crawl up there when I a boy and spy on the water.”

  Vinroy looks perplexed. “What you expect to see?”

  “Seen manta rays out past the reef.”

  “I ain’t see no mantas for years.”

  “None left to see, I reckon.”

  Fredo spreads butter and blackberry jam on his hotcakes and cuts them into little bites. His thoughts turn to Selkie as he eats, but he pushes them aside and recalls

  a big shadow coasting

  through aquamarine water

  over white sand,

  rising explosively,

  hidden by spray,

  and then revealed for an instant,

  the great rubbery body aloft,

  strange monstrous beast

  flapping black wings of muscle,

  peering into unaccustomed light

  with eyes opposed like a hammerhead’s,

  crashing down, making a splash

  like a depth charge,

  becoming once again

  a big shadow coasting

  through aquamarine water

  over white sand.

  A young American couple sits at an adjoining table; they talk about mix ratios and the woman
’s new rebreather. Her hair is the color of a fresh honeycomb, bleached to straw in places by the sun. She has an easy laugh, health insurance, a future. For a change, Fredo is too preoccupied to envy her beautiful blond life. He ladles more preserves onto his plate, dips a bite of pancake in it, savoring the sweetness.

  Long ago, after the murder of Mary Reade, before Annie conceived her first child, she was in the habit of walking into the hills, carrying with her a bottle of rum. There she would sit in a secluded spot and drink herself blind, grieving, weeping, lamenting the sins of her young life. That spot, shadowed by banana trees and sabal palms, is near the top of Dagger Key’s tallest hill, a weedy notch some twenty feet wide and twelve feet deep. Bromeliads, ferns and vines festoon walls of dark conglomerate rock; and, matting one section of wall, is a mass of vines that have been interwoven with dozens of cowrie shells, bits of ribbon and oddly shaped pieces of driftwood. Fredo doesn’t know who tends the notch. It must be tended, he thinks. The ribbons must fade, the shells must fall away as the vines wither; yet the vines are always green, the shells white, and the ribbons unfaded whenever he comes. It seems unlikely that an islander would be responsible—most recognize the notch to be a duppy place and keep their distance. Many of those who have trespassed will testify to having night terrors for months after the fact and rarely return.

  Maybe, Fredo thinks, it’s Annie.

  That was his father’s view. The first time he brought Fredo to the notch, he voiced the opinion that the vines were tended either by Annie or the Caribe wizard whose spirit has befriended her—or, perhaps, served her—through the centuries.

  Fredo arrives at the notch shortly past noon and begins drinking from a fifth of unrefined rum purchased at John Wayne’s. Though not usually a drinking man, indulging in a beer now and then, he has been taught that he has to open himself to Annie, to attune himself to her drunken grief, her guilt and rage. He can’t abide the taste of rum, but he forces the raw stuff down and soon grows bleary and addled. The sun veers across the sky when he looks up, and the fringe of vegetation that hides the notch from all but the most discerning eye appears to undulate with unseen currents.

  Mired in a complicated

  shadow of banana fronds,