Gus Keller watched as Taran Tula rearranged herself in her dress, reached behind her to pick up the rifle, and carried it with her back to the chair she’d been occupying before their intimate interlude had begun.
“All right, Mr. Largo,” she said. “I’m a big believer in luck myself. Once you feel you’re luck has gone, it’s best to give up the job. So I’m going to let you off. I’ll even buy your ticket tomorrow.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Keller said, a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
“I thought so,” Taran said, her voice hard. “So, where do you want to go?”
Where did he want to go? Somewhere that had a hospital that could treat amnesia cases, obviously. Somewhere where he’d be…all alone…
“I want to go somewhere where you’ll go with me,” he said, urgently, approaching her again. “Let’s get out of this, please. I tell you I’ve got a feeling, and when I get a feeling, it invariably comes true. We’ve both got to get out of this.”
She stared at him, out of her beautiful blue eyes.
“Jeez, you are in a funk, Mr. Largo,” she said. “This…this isn’t like you.”
Keller sat back on his heels, defeated. “What am I like?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t remember who I am,” he told her, quietly.
She stared at him. “What?”
“You remember …you remember, last week…or however long ago it was, I had that crack on the head? Well, since that time, I can’t remember anything. I don’t remember who I am!”
“And so, you don’t remember killing fifteen people in cold blood?”
“No, I don’t remember it!”
She continued to stare at him, an expression on her face that he didn’t understand.
“You don’t remember who you are,” she said slowly. “So…you don’t’ remember who I am, either?”
“No,” he said.
To Keller’s shock, she began to laugh delightedly. She was laughing at him. How dare she laugh at him when he’d been bearing his soul. He reached out towards her, intending to shake her and stop that laughter, but she reached up with her leg, planted her foot in his chest, and shoved him backward. As he regained his footing he heard the sound of the rifle being cocked, and stood up to see her standing up also, the rifle pointed right at him.
He felt a cold chill go through him. Her face was impassive, but he knew that she at least would have no compunction in pulling the trigger.
“What are you going to do?” he asked quietly. “Kill me?”
“Not at all. And I’m sorry I laughed. I wasn’t laughing at you, believe it or not. So just calm down, and sit down.”
Keller took a deep breath, and sat down. He watched as Taran Tula eased the hammer down, then set the rifle aside.
“It’s not even loaded,” she told him.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
She glanced around the room. “This is one time in my life I’m sorry I don’t drink. You look like you could use one.”
“I bet there’s a decanter somewhere in this house.”
“Yes…stay here, and I’ll go roust out some whisky or something.”
She walked out of the room.
Immediately Keller got up and strode over to the rifle. He hefted it and looked at it futilely. Hell…how was he supposed to tell whether or not it was loaded? There were no bullet chambers, like in a revolver. He’d just have to take her word for it that it wasn’t loaded.
Keller dropped back into his chair and rubbed his face.
That was interesting…he remembered stuff…if not his own name…he remembered how to play the piano. If he’d been an assassin, why didn’t he remember how to load, or unload, a rifle?
Was that part of his problem…a reason why the amnesia was staying on so long? Had he hated being an assassin so much that he was blocking everything that had to do with that career…including the simplest things like unloading a rifle?
And what about Taran Tula…. What was she thinking? As an amnesiac assassin who didn’t want to kill anymore, he could be of no use to her.
What was she thinking right now?
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