Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 20

Gus Keller lay on the bed, blinking up at the ceiling, waiting for the Tylenol to kick in. His throat fell sore, he must have coughed up some water. But that was nothing compared to his head. Not only did the back of his head hurt, but so did the inside of his head.

But maybe all that pain would go away if he knew who he was. Who am I? he thought. Who am I? Gus Keller? Mr. Largo?

Hell, there was an easy way to find out. Where was his wallet?

He sat up, slowly. Everything looked normal…nothing was spinning around. He was okay, just the aching head, and the fact that he couldn’t remember who he was, who that woman was…who the man called Jan was…he couldn’t remember.

Don’t panic, he told himself. It’s just because of your head. You’ll go to sleep tonight and when you wake up you’ll be fine. But tonight, find your damn wallet, and see what that says.

He looked around the room…this had to be the woman’s room – she’d gotten her kimono out of the closet, after all. Was it his room, too, though?

He looked into the closet – only women’s clothing. Fat woman’s clothing.

He opened a door into the hallway, walked down a ways and opened the next door. He didn’t need to visit the closet, there were shorts and a t-shirt tossed onto the bed, and tennis shoes and loafers on the floor. This must be his room.

He picked up the shorts, felt in the pockets. From one pocket, he drew out a small spiral notebook. From the other, a wallet.

Holding his breath, he flipped the wallet open. He didn’t recognize the face of the man on the license, but he looked up at the mirror on one side of the room…it was the same face. He looked down at the license again. August Keller.

He went through the entire wallet. Credit cards, a membership in an art association, in a chess club…every card with the name Gus Keller on it. A couple of $20 bills – American, and several 20AUS dollars.

No personal pictures of any kind.

Next, Keller turned to the spiral notebook. He opened it and looked at the front page.

In capital letters on the front page was written: Alain Pretorius

And below it:

Drowning?
Mugging?
Heart attack?

And below that…

LDK?

Keller stared at the list. What the hell? Why did he know that that last entry, LDK, meant “Long distance killing.” A sniper killing. Why did he know that? And what was this list?

Were they private detectives, trying to figure out how a man had died? No, that wouldn’t be it. Were they….killers…trying to decide how to kill a man?

That woman…so beautiful…she’d saved his life…she was a killer? He was a killer?

He must be.

With a sudden sense of urgency, Keller dropped the notebook and returned to the woman’s bedroom. He needed to know what her name was.

She hadn’t yet returned, and he breathed a sigh of relief as his eyes cast about. There was her purse. He pounced on it, looked inside, extracted a passport and opened it. The woman’s face, the name: Marguerite Zelle. Born, Rome, Italy, 1971.

He stuffed the passport back where he’d gotten it, and laid down once more on the bed.

So..he was Gus Keller. To her. To the men downstairs, he was Mr. Largo. And she was Marguerite Zelle. To the men downstairs, probably. But…what was she to him? It was probably complicated enough when he *wasn’t suffering from amnesia. But now…

Hell, his head was hurting…for more reasons than one, now.