Dagger Jameswood Enters the Fouth Dimension

By David Kunin

"Dagger Jameswood Enters the Fourth Dimension" is a science-fiction detective story. The quirky hero faces multiple, ultimately life-threatening challenges on his way to learning how to enter the fourth dimension. It's a fun read with a light touch on the sci-fi, eccentric characters and a great adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Kunin
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215360248

David Kunin

David Kunin is a retired hospice RN living in New York City. He publishes his short fiction and essays on his Substack "Off The Cushion." Dagger Jameswood is his first published novel.

Book preview

Dedication

To my son

Acknowledgments

First, to Edwin A. Abbott, for his 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. He introduced us all to a great way of visualizing dimensionality.

To Rudy Rucker for his novel Spaceland, which was a very fun read and a great inspiration.

To Humphrey Bogart as Phillip Marlowe and all the other great film noir detectives from the 1930s and 40s.

To my partner Rosario, for her love and support.

Introduction

The initial inspiration for this book came from 3 pages I wrote about 20 years ago and then promptly forgot about. This was a time in my life when I had the ability to start many projects and complete none.

One day, about 5 years ago, I found the document on my computer. I read it with fascination. It was about some guy sitting in a shithole of an office and answering his phone as Dagger Jameswood. Who was this person? Who was the mysterious woman calling him? Why did she want to hire him? I didn’t know what was happening, but I decided to find out. And so I discovered (invented?) the answers to all these questions and uncovered the story. By the time it was done, I had written a novel.

I sent the manuscript to about 15 agents, to see if anyone was interested. No one was. Perhaps I should have sent it to 15 more, but I was tired of that task and wanted to move on. That was all well before the pandemic. The novel went back into deep storage on my computer.

In this, the auspicious year of 2023, I am resurrecting my work and publishing it online. Now you can discover, like I did, what happens when Dagger accepts his first assignment.

I hope you enjoy the story.

CHAPTER 1

As I stared at my four cinder block walls that Tuesday morning, I knew where I was: a windowless office on the second floor of a shit-hole of a building near the Staten Island ferry.

I remembered how and when I decided to become a private detective. It was just hard at the moment to remember why.

But when my old-fashioned, plug-in-the-wall dial phone rang suddenly, breaking the sound of my fingers drumming on my desk, I knew exactly who I was.

I grabbed the receiver, waited until the third ring, hoisted the phone to my ear and said, Dagger Jameswood.

Hello, Mr. Jameswood. The woman's voice at the other end was silky and smooth, and made my groin start to tingle. I like that in a voice. She sounded breathy and hot, and I thought I could get lost there forever. I like that even more.

I asked what I could do for her.

She told me she needed someone who could be discreet.

My eyebrows shot up. I assured her I could.

She said she needed someone who was willing to work long and unusual hours, possibly dangerous, possibly...very dangerous hours.

My eyebrows lowered slowly and my eyes squinted. I assured her I could.

She said she could only offer me $1000 a day. Would I take it?

My eyebrows were up again. I’ll need to meet you first.

She was silent for a moment. Then she was silent for another moment. That made two moments, and she was headed for a third.

I said, Are you still there?

Yes, Mr. Jameswood. I'm still here. I just, she hesitated. Then she whispered into the phone, I just don't think it's uncommonly wise for me to come directly to your office. Mightn’t we – perhaps - meet somewhere else?

Like where?

I'm sure I surely don't know, Mr. Jameswood. I really do need your help.

My heart went out to this broad. I suggested a cute little diner on Tenth Avenue, and told her they had good coffee.

She seemed to lighten up a bit, and agreed. She said she could be there at 2.

I opened the otherwise empty top drawer of my desk and glanced at the little battery-operated clock I kept there. I would have 20 minutes to make the ferry and take the train uptown. I told her how to recognize me: I'd be at the end of the counter, wearing a beige trench coat and a brown fedora, reading a book about sacred geometry.

She sighed. I only hope I'm doing just the right thing, she said.

My eyes opened wide. She sounded sad. She sounded lonely. She sounded like she could use a friend. Her voice was soft and low, like a dark, quiet road that went a long way deep into the woods. I was hooked, but I knew I had to sound tough.

Listen, doll, I told her, It's a Tuesday. Nice time for a cup of coffee. We'll meet, we'll talk, we'll see what's goin' on. If things don't seem right to either one of us, well, that'll be that. I'll pay for the coffee. But if we decide to work together, then the coffee's on you, and we take it from there. Whaddya say?

She had another one of her silent moments. Jesus! I thought maybe I would have to take up meditation again if I was going to spend time with this dame, listening to her silences.

She said, OK, Mr. Jameswood. Thank you so much. My name is Jillian. I'll meet you there.

She hung up.

That last thing she said sounded just like a normal voice. She could have been anyone. Jillian. I was disappointed. I was fascinated. I listened to the dial tone for a while, and then hung up, but I couldn't take my hand off the phone.

I felt like I had gotten on a roller coaster, and I was getting strapped into my seat. If I wanted to get out, if I didn't want to go for this particular ride, now was the time.

Now was the only time.

I knew myself well enough. If I actually went to that diner and met the woman who had that voice, that Jillian, it would be far too late to change my mind about getting involved. That's the part of the roller coaster where your car lurches forward and rolls slowly ahead until it latches onto a chain, and there's a jolt as you tilt up suddenly to a forty-five degree angle. Then you start getting pulled slowly to the top.

Nobody's getting off at that point.

Nobody's getting off, and there's nothing much left to do besides hold on tight and hope the ride doesn't kill you.

CHAPTER 1

Well.

I had my first job.

My hand was still on the phone when it rang again. This ring startled me even more than the one before and I lifted my hand off the phone without picking up.

Between the first ring and the second, there were three solid knocks on my door. I looked up, astounded.

Then the phone rang a second time.

There was more happening in the past two minutes than had happened in the 6 months I had rented this office. I didn’t know why it had gotten so busy all of a sudden, but it was way more interesting than staring at these four dumb walls and listening to my fingers drum the desk.

Come in! I yelled out.

The phone rang a third time.

The door opened and about six feet and eight inches of the tallest, widest woman I had ever seen stood in the doorway. My mouth literally dropped open. She had to bend over and duck her head to come inside the office. Once she was in, she closed the door behind her and walked the one step from the door to my desk, and towered over me in a way that I had never been towered over before.

I had never seen any woman that large and was not at all sure I wanted to get to know her. She was between me and the door and I was suddenly nervous and didn't like the way I had arranged the furniture.

As the phone rang again, I picked up and spoke into it while looking this giant woman straight in the eye.

Dagger Jameswood. Please hold.

I placed my hand over the receiver and let my hands rest on the desk. I started to notice things about this woman. Her hair hadn’t been washed for a while, and whoever had cut it might have done a better job than an untrained monkey, but I didn’t think so. To say her clothes weren’t clean would be misleading. You might get clothes that dirty if you had been living in a dumpster for a month. I was repulsed by her appearance.

But her breathing was calm, and her eyes were clear. In fact her eyes were quite beautiful: pale green, with specks of yellow, and a kindness in them you don’t often see in the city. I liked staring into those eyes. We were both silent. I kept waiting for the smell from those filthy-looking clothes to drift over, but it neve happened. I was surprised.

She just stood there.

I brought the receiver back to my ear and she watched me while I talked. Here’s what she heard me say while I was staring right back into those amazing eyes:

Dagger here.

Is that right?

Three? You can't eat three.

It better be good, McGooney.

He said one more thing, and then he hung up. It made me a little nervous, because Catso doesn't scare easy.

Catso McGooney was a psychic informer I was cultivating. I paid him in cheesecakes. He was in his mid-thirties, lived in a dilapidated house in Brooklyn with his mother, and was usually too scared to go out on the streets. He claimed to be a vegan, but whenever I pointed out that eating cheesecakes meant he wasn’t a pure vegan, he usually told me to mind my own goddamn business. He was tall, prematurely bald and about as skinny as a man could get, except for a stomach that looked like someone had put a basketball under his tee-shirt. I guess those were the cheesecakes.

Like I said, Catso lived with his mother. She was even skinnier than him. She had all white hair, except for one streak of black, and watched about as much television as a human could watch. I think she was there for the first show that was ever broadcast, and just kept the TV on ever since. But whenever Catso used the phone, I know she listened in. Here’s what Catso had said:

Dagger, I got something.

Yeah. It's important. Worth more than three cheesecakes.

That's not the point. Just come as soon as you can.

Please. Dagger. This isn't a game. As soon as you can.

He hung up.

I hung up.

Once again, my hand remained on the phone.

I was still being towered over by this enormous woman. I motioned for her to take a seat; there were two wooden chairs against the wall, and she pulled them both over with her enormous hands, and sat down on both of them, half and half.

I nodded to her.

She nodded back to me.

Who the hell was this? And why had she come to my office?

CHAPTER 2

I asked the giant woman if I could get her a cup of coffee.

She nodded no.

That was good, since I didn't have any coffee.

I asked her, Is there anything I can do to help you?

She nodded yes.

I waited for her to speak, but she just sat there.

I decided to just sit there too. If this was a day for silences, then so be it. I had learned how to meditate over ten years before. I hadn't actually done any meditating since then, but still, I figured I could wait her out.

She was sitting very upright. Wow! She was so tall, even sitting, that if I stood up, our eyes would be at the same level.

She didn’t look to me like she had too many thoughts going through her head. That could mean one of two things: either she was very stupid or she had reached some kind of deep enlightenment. I never could figure out why it’s so hard sometimes to be able to tell the difference.

The seconds ticked away and became a minute.

Somewhere during the second minute of our staring at each other, I could see she was in for the long haul. I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair. This woman was sitting like a mountain, solid and squat, not a flinch, not a fidget, not a flicker, not a wiggle.

I shifted again in my chair and cleared my throat.

After nearly two minutes of us looking at each other, I realized suddenly I did not have time for this. I had 15 minutes to catch the ferry if I wanted to get to that diner by 2 and meet Jillian, and I really wanted to get to that diner by 2 and meet Jillian. While a different Tuesday morning would have been just perfect for staring at this stranger, it was not gonna happen today.

Listen, I said. Whoever you are, I thought I was going to be able to wait for you to speak, but I don’t really have time for that. Either you tell me what you want with me, or you'll have to come back some other day. I’m leaving in five minutes. And when I lock that door, you gotta be on the other side of it.

She nodded.

I realized from the way she didn't move that she was going to use most of her five minutes.

Damn! I should have said two.

Or one.

Shit.

I had wanted to floss my teeth in the bathroom down the hall before this meeting at the diner. I had eaten a large bowl of popcorn for breakfast, and my teeth pointed in enough directions to catch most of what I didn’t swallow. I had never flossed in the men’s room on the ferry, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

I was about to re-negotiate for a new departure time when she started to speak.

I know direction. You learn.

Her voice was so simple. So clear. It rang like a bell.

It sounded like the feeling you get when you’re in the dark with only a candle, trying to light a match from a wet pack, and then you suddenly hit it just right and you now can see what’s around you. How the hell did clothes that dirty and a haircut that bad end up in the same package as those amazing eyes and that sunshine voice?

Hmm.

A direction to learn.

What the hell was she talking about?

She was still quite peaceful and her eyes never left me. I was surprised to be overcome with a huge wave of irritation. My racing mind was on display and I guessed she was just watching me getting lost in the thoughts running through my head. I almost decided to just let them come out of my mouth pretty much as I felt them.

But instead I decided to change tack.

What's your name? I asked her.

Fi.

Fi? I repeated. Fi? You mean like Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum?

She paused and looked slightly puzzled. I no knowing that name.

Well, it was clear now that English was not her first language. Where are you from? I asked her. What language do you speak?

Fi never once took her eyes from me. She said, Learn direction.

What direction are you talking about? I asked her.

She shook her head slowly from side to side. That not how.

Then Fi stood up. She was truly enormous. I felt my mouth drop open again and I quickly closed it. She placed the two chairs back against the wall. She turned to look at me once more. I return with you. More time we need, she told me.

I nodded as if this was a normal thing for a gigantic stranger to say to me on a Tuesday morning. After getting a phone call from some dame named Jillian and hearing that Catso had three cheesecakes worth of intel, what was strange about a giant woman telling me I needed to learn a direction?

Fi's giant paw opened my