Dagger Key and Other Stories

  “I was going to pass you off to another therapist,” she said. “But I’d like to treat you myself…if that’s all right.” She rested a hand on my forearm. “Do you want to hear what I have in mind?”

  “Sure.”

  “A poet,” she said.

  My face may have betrayed disappointment, because she said hurriedly, “Not an ordinary poet, but a poet maudit. A lover, a thief, a man who shed the blood of a priest. He lived six hundred years ago in France. Like your own ancestors, David.”

  “You can provide elements from a specific personality? I didn’t know that was possible.”

  She passed my comment off with a wave. “The man’s name was Francois Villon. Have you heard of him?”

  I said, “No,” and Amorise said, “Well, it’s not an age for poetry, is it?” She looked down at her hands, as if dismayed by the thought. “Villon was a cynic, but passionate. Sensitive, yet callous. A drunkard and an ascetic.”

  “I don’t believe any of those qualities are inborn in me.”

  “I’m certain that they are. Though the world has done its best to murder them.”

  I recognized that people in her line of work were gifted with intuition, capable of quick character judgments, but this intimation that she had some innate understanding of me, a knowledge that ran so contrary to my own—it seemed ridiculous. A silence shouldered between us, and then she said, “Let me ask you something, David. If you had the opportunity to create something miraculous, something that would ensure the continuance of a great tradition, but to achieve it you would have to risk everything you’ve worked for…What would you decide?”

  “It’s too general a question,” I said.

  “Is it? I think it’s the basic question you’re asking yourself, the one you’re trying to answer by coming here. But if you want specifics, let’s imagine you’re Francois Villon, and that if you surrender your soul to a woman, you will achieve immortality as a poet. What would you do?”

  “I don’t believe in souls,” I told her.

  “Of course you don’t. That’s why I phrased my original question as I did.”

  “I suppose,” I said after a moment’s consideration, “that I would like to feel comfortable with taking that kind of risk.”

  “Taking that kind of risk never bestows comfort,” said Amorise.

  “But I’ll consider that a ‘yes.’” She got to her feet and offered me her hand. “Are you ready?”

  A dozen questions sprang to mind, but they all illustrated a tiresome conventionality, and I left them unasked. I filled out a form, essentially a disclaimer, paid the fee, and Amorise ushered me into a small room in the back containing a surgical chair with arm and leg restraints. Once I had taken a seat, she handed me a cup half-filled with a bright green liquid, saying that it would put me to sleep. After I drank down the sweetish mixture, she leaned across me to secure the restraint on my left arm, her breast pressing my shoulder. She did not draw back immediately, but remained looking down at me.

  “Are you afraid?” she asked. The unreal clarity of her brilliant eyes—they made me think of the painted eyes on signs outside psychics’ doors.

  I was afraid, a little, but I said, “No.”

  She caressed my cheek. “You surrender your power so easily…like a child.”

  Before I could analyze this obscure comment, she kissed me on the mouth. A deep, probing kiss to which, dizzied by the potion I had swallowed, I could not help responding. It was such a potent kiss, I can’t be sure whether it or the liquid caused me to lose consciousness. When I woke, light-headed and groggy, I found the restraints had been removed and I discovered in my hand a business card advertising a club called the Martinique in South Seattle. On the back of the card Amorise had written the following:

  These are your codes. The first accesses Francois, the second is to exit.

  “Je t’aime, Amorise.”

  “Je te deteste, Amorise.”

  Those phrases, when I put them together with the kiss…they unsettled me. I suspected that Amorise had done something to harm me, or at least something that I might regret. I pocketed the card and stepped into the corridor. It was empty, as was the anteroom. I went back into the corridor and called loudly for Amorise. A petite blond woman poked her head out from another door and hushed me. In a calmer voice, I said, “I’m looking for Amorise.”

  “She’s with a client…Oh, wait!” She put a hand to her cheek. “I believe she had an emergency.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “Well, I’m sure she’ll be back.” The woman glanced at her watch. “No…maybe not. It’s late. She might not come in again until tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

  She started back into the room from which she had emerged. Inside, a woman was lying in a chair like the one in which I had been treated, different only in that a cylindrical machine mounted on the ceiling had been lowered to fit over the woman’s head.

  “The machine,” I said. “That provides the therapy?”

  “Yes.” The woman pushed me gently away. “Now please…I have work to do.”

  “There was no machine in my room! I think she did something to me…I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”