by Frank Zafiro
“It’s okay. I know where it is. At least, I’m pretty sure.”
I punched his arm. Hard.
He yelped. “What was that for?”
“Ye woke me up in the middle of the night to go on a wild goose chase?”
He pulled the car up to Hunt Manor and parked near the servants’ entrance. “It’s not a wild goose chase,” he said petulantly, rubbing his arm where I’d hit him. “And I woke you up because I need your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Help digging,” he said. “And probably some help carrying things out to the car.”
“Ye needed some manual labor, is all?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s more than that. I was hoping that you could help me find a buyer.”
I stared at the bespectacled Yank. “You’re the bleedin’ scholar, lad. I’d think ye’d be able to locate someone interested.”
He squirmed in the driver’s seat. “I thought that maybe with your connections-”
“What connections?”
“With Sinn Fein,” he said.
I resisted the desire to slap him. “Do ye realize that ye can get a fella in a lot of trouble by saying something like that? It’s a fine lucky thing that there’s just the two of us in the car here.”
He swallowed. “I didn’t think you’d mind me mentioning it. I mean, you whisper about it sometimes when we’re at the pub having a drink.”
“Jaysus, lad!” I shook my head in wonder. “The pub’s a safe place. Only patriots there.”
“Oh.”
“And those connections aren’t criminal,” I said. “It’s not the Mafia that ye’ve got there in America. We’re a political cause, lad. We’re patriots and freedom fighters, not criminals. We’re underground to avoid persecution at the hands of the English, not to sell drugs or steal things.”
“Sorry.” He hung his head. “Like I said, you’re the only one I could trust.”
I sighed. “Ah, don’t be little baby about it. I’ll help. But it’ll have to be an even split.”
“Of course.” He smiled, delighted. “Half and half.”
I shook my head. “No. Three ways.”
“Three?”
I nodded. “Aye, three. Ye. Me. And the cause.”
He pursed his lips, apparently doing the math. “Okay,” he finally agreed. “Fair enough.”
I clapped him on the arm. He winced.
“Let’s go get a mummy, then,” I said.
“One more thing,” Dex said quietly.
“What?”
“There’s supposed to be a curse.”
“Ah, of course. Always a curse.” I shook my head, focused on what I would do with my share of the money. What me boys would do. We might reverse Michael Collins’ folly and take back the whole of Ireland with that kind of money! “Look, ye’re not going to frighten me with some scary talk about curses.”
“It probably is just talk. But there’s been a startling amount of coincidence regarding unexplained death where Ahwere’s grave robbers are concerned.”
I sighed. “Lay it on me, then. Who died?”
“All of them.”
“Come again?”
He nodded. “Everyone on the expedition died within three years.”
“How?”
“A variety of ways,” Dex said with a shrug. “One was murdered. One committed suicide. Three died of disease. Another went missing.”
I waved my hand. “Bah. Coincidence. Like ye said.”
“Randal was the last to go. He had a terrible bout of pneumonia.”
“Nothing frightening about that.”
“In July?”
My eyebrows shot up. “All right, that’s a little strange. But this was seventy years ago. People weren’t as healthy.”
“I agree.”
“So ye don’t think there’s a curse?”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe in curses.”
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “Then why are we even having this conversation?”
“It’s part of the history of the whole thing. I thought you should know.”
I muttered a curse in Old Irish.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I said now I know. Can we go get the mummy now?”
“Sure.”
We got out of the car. Dex led me to an outbuilding, where he used his key to enter. “Grab that,” he said, pointing to a pick.
I did as he asked. “Don’t ye want a spade as well? I thought we were digging a hole.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s buried. I think it’s behind a wall.”
Now I knew why he called me. It wasn’t just my connection to the resistance. Dex would struggle to carry the pick for any distance, much less swing it. He needed my muscle, plain and simple. Under normal circumstances, that’d likely piss me off, but tonight I shrugged it off. A pile of mummy money and a free Ireland were more important.
“What is everyone going to think when they see us walking around carrying a pick?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” he answered. “Most of the family lives in the main estate outside London. This is more of a summer home for them.”
“What about servants?”
He shook his head, leading me out and closing the door behind us. “All contracted out, except for a couple of house staff. Both are old and both go to bed early. Besides, we’ll be working clear on the other side of the manor from them.”
“Ye’ve got this all worked out.”
“I’ve been thinking it through for weeks. Ever since I figured out the cryptogram and where Randal hid Ahwere.”
“Weeks? How’d ye sit on it for that long, lad?”
He smiled. “I had no choice. I had to wait for Penny to leave and head back to school and for all the maintenance crews to finish with the repairs around the manor and the landscaping.”
“Must’ve been like sitting on a pile of snakes.”
“It was,” he said, opening the door to the servant’s entrance. “Like sitting on Egyptian asps, actually.” He giggled like a schoolgirl.
“And why didn’t ye tell me sooner?” I asked. “I could’ve spent the time getting connections together.”
Dex blinked at me. “Uh…”
“This isn’t like moving rifles or something, lad. I could’ve used the lead time.”
Dex hesitated. “I was…just being careful.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. Maybe he wasn’t such a foolish Yank, after all. I clapped him on the shoulder. “Careful’s good,” I told him. “Now let’s go.”
I followed him inside. He led me unerringly through the kitchen and into the main entrance room. The manor was silent except for the tick of a large pendulum that swung inside a twelve-foot clock in the corner of the room. The place was a marriage of opulent heritage cut into stone and contemporary wood, carved and oiled. The fireplace on the far wall gaped open with enough space for me to stand in. Hell, three of my mates could’ve joined me in there. Carvings of stone lions adorned the hearth. A wide, sweeping staircase led upstairs.
“Feckin’ English,” I muttered.
Dex didn’t respond to my comment. He led me through the room and down a hall. I passed an open door. Through the doorway, I saw walls of shelves filled with books.
I stopped. “That the library?”
Dex looked over his shoulder, pausing. “No, it’s the bathroom, Sean.”
“Ye don’t have to be a smart ass about it.”
“Well, geez. Look at all the books. What did you think it was?”
I shrugged. “Who knows with these occupiers? Maybe this is just the small library, not the main one.”
“It’s the only library in the house,” Dex said. He stepped to the threshold and pointed to a desk in the corner. Stacks of tomes and scattered papers dwarfed it. “That’s where I do my work.”
“Fascinating,” I grunted, but my eyes swept over the tall bookshelves in wonder. “That’s a lot of books.”
>
He nodded, delighted. “That’s why he was able to hide the information so well. Scotland Yard didn’t have time to go through every single book in there, looking for clues. They didn’t even have enough cause to do it, anyway.”
He turned and headed down the hall. I followed.
Near the end of the hallway, he unlocked another door. A set of stairs yawned in front of him. He disappeared through the threshold and into the darkness.
After a moment, I followed. When the door swung shut behind me, I jumped a little in the pitch black.
“Dex?” I whispered.
A weak, yellow light blossomed. Dex’s shadowy face appeared just beneath me on the stairs.
“I put the lantern here last night,” he explained in a whisper.
“Can we jes’ get on with it?” I snapped.
He looked hurt, but turned and headed down the stairs.
I swallowed and took a deep breath. All his stupid rambling about curses must’ve put me just a wee bit on edge. And why the hell were we whispering, anyway? No one was going to hear us in a million years. I shook my head and followed the yellow glow downward.
After a short distance, the stairwell opened into the wine cellar. Rows of dusty bottles adorned the shelves.
“Now this is a collection a man can admire,” I told Dex.
We passed through the wine cellar and through another door into a storage room. A few boxes were stacked against the wall, along with a couple of pieces of furniture shrouded in a dusty white sheet.
“Is this it?”
He nodded, pointing to a far wall. I followed his finger, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.
“Give me the lamp.”
He handed it to me and I walked to the wall. It was made of stone and mortar. The wall looked the same as the other three to me.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Dex.
He nodded excitedly. “I’m sure. I got a copy of the layout for this manor. This room is supposed to be thirty feet long. But it’s only twenty-two.”
“Someone may have made a mistake. It’s not like they were keeping good records when this place was built.”
“No, they didn’t. But they did later on. And in 1847, Thomas Hunt commissioned a surveyor to do a layout of this manor. He wanted to add on, but never did. Still, the layout was completed and kept in the family papers. It says thirty feet long.”
“Maybe it was non-standard feet. Things weren’t as exact in the old days.”
Dex shook his head. “No, the measurement for a foot was standardized by then. And the plans I saw were hidden. I came across them in one of the books I found when I worked out the cryptogram. The official plans were forged. Those plans have this room at twenty-two feet long.”
“What are you saying?”
Dex pointed at the wall. “I’m saying that Randal Hunt hid Ahwere behind that wall, which he built when he came back from Egypt.”
“No way, lad. The Peelers aren’t that bright, but they’d see a brand new wall.”
“Not if they spent the first month searching the estate outside London,” Dex said. “And not if servants stacked items up next to it and cluttered up the room.”
I frowned. “I don’t know.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” He glanced at the wall.
I shrugged. “Oh, what the hell,” I said.
I swung the pick.
The metal of the pick end bit into the stone with a resounding pink! and bounced off. I set my jaw and swung again. After a few solid swings, I broke off a chunk and that started things rolling. Mortar and stone flew with each swing of the pick. Dex stood behind me, watching. From time to time, he stepped forward and swept the rubble aside with his foot.
After twenty minutes, I’d worked up a healthy sweat. I could taste the stone and mortar hanging in the air in the dull yellow light. The hole was the size of a football and about three inches deep.
Dex watched me impatiently while I paused to catch my breath. I lit a fag and took a deep drag. I blew the smoke in his direction. “Are ye sure about this? This looks like nothing more than a thick wall to me.”
“I’m sure,” he insisted.
“Because I don’t want to burrow half way to the Irish Sea here.”
“It can’t be much farther.”
I stared at him while I finished my smoke. I flicked the butt away. “Better not be,” I said and resumed swinging the pick.
Half an hour later, the pick struck a loose rock and it toppled backward and disappeared.
“What was that?” Dex asked as soon as he heard the sound.
I wiped my brow. “I’ve broken through. Feckin’ Jaysus, boyo! Ye were right. There’s something here.”
“Widen the hole,” Dex instructed.
I took a couple more swings at it and knocked out a hole the size of my head.
“Let me look,” Dex said, lifting the lamp and stepping forward.
I moved aside, breathing heavily.
Dex held the lamp next to the hole and peered in. He was quiet for a long while. Finally, I asked, “What is it? What do ye see?”
He didn’t answer.
“Dex! Did ye hear me, lad? What do ye see in there?”
His voice was reverent. “Wonderful things,” he whispered.
I waited as long as I could stand. Then I took the lamp and pushed him aside. I looked inside.
A small golden sarcophagus lay on the floor, surrounded by golden cups and trinkets. Pottery vessels lined the floor next to the golden sarcophagus like sentries.
“Is that all gold, do ye think?”
“Pure gold,” Dex said.
“What are those things lined up next to it?”
“Her internal organs.”
“Her guts are in those?”
“Her kidneys and lungs. Things like that,” Dex said, his voice brimming with excitement. “But not her heart. That stayed in the body.”
My eyes danced over the golden sarcophagus.
“Millions,” I whispered.
“Let’s widen this hole,” Dex directed me.
There was no let’s about it. I widened the hole with swings from the pick. Now that I’d broken through, each swing knocked away large chunks. The hole grew quickly.
“Careful,” Dex ordered. “Don’t knock the stones into the sarcophagus. You’ll devalue it.”
I clenched my jaw at his tone, but adjusted my swing. The remaining stones fell to the left and right of the hole.
Once the hole was man-sized, I stepped back. Dex took the lamp and crept through the opening. “I feel like Howard Carter,” he whispered back at me. “It’s like we’re in the pyramids themselves.”
It felt more like the cellar of an English lord’s manor to me, but I didn’t say a word.
Dex ran his hand along the sarcophagus. “It’s cool,” he said in a hushed tone. “Cool as death.”
I considered him for a moment. Then I asked, “Do ye have your cell phone with ye?”
He gave me a distracted look. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure.” He handed it to me and returned to examining the contents of the little chamber.
I dialed my best mate, Brian. He answered on the third ring.
“That you, Sean?” he asked.
“Aye. Is Niall with ye?”
“Aye. We’re having a pint or two. Ye going to join us?”
“No. I need yer help with something.”
“Anything. Ye know that.”
“Who are you talking to?” Dex asked.
I held up my hand to quiet him. “Can ye come out to the Hunt estate outside of town?”
“That English bastard? Why?”
“I’ll explain when ye get here. Bring Niall. And yer brother’s truck.”
“All right, but it better be worth the trip. Margaret Delaney’s been here tonight and she’s been giving me a look for the last half hour.”
“It’s worth it,” I assured him.
He rang off.
I put Dex’s cell p
hone in my pocket.
He was staring at me. “Why did you call them? We don’t need any help.”
“I need the help,” I said. Then I hefted the pick and took a sharp swing. He managed to get his arm up, but the length of the pick end made it a moot gesture. The metal drove into his skull with a wet thunk. He collapsed to the floor like a sack of taters.
With a wrench, I pulled the pick free. I leaned the instrument in the corner of the burial chamber. Grabbing him at the ankles, I dragged Dex inside, too, shoving him into the far corner.
Before I headed upstairs to wait for Brian and Niall, I nudged Dex’s slack body with my toe. “Ye might not believe in Egyptian curses, Yank, but I’ll bet ye damn well believe in Irish ones now, don’t ye?”
I cast a glance at the golden sarcophagus and felt a shiver run up and down my back. The tale of all the men from the Egyptian expedition who died rang in my ears.
“Ah, feck it,” I muttered. “We all die someday. ‘Tis better to die under an Irish sky, fighting for freedom. Besides, no Egyptian curse could be any worse than having the English around for the past few hundred years.”
I turned, grasped the lamp and headed upstairs.
Connor O’Sullivan
Gently Used
I never knew her name for sure, not for the longest time. She called herself by every variation of the name Laurie that I’d ever heard. Sometimes it was Lori, other times Laura. Her nametag said Lauren when I met her, though, so it was always my favorite.
I first saw her across six booths, serving a pair of drunken college students who’d probably been at the restaurant since the bars closed. We were there for breakfast near the end of a graveyard patrol shift. About 0430, the calls for service taper off. Officers who have been running from call to call all night long finally get a chance to take a breath, grab some coffee or maybe even some French toast and start writing up reports.
Part of what attracted me to her, now that I think about it, was the way she was able to still look so hopeful at the end of a long shift, as if the sleepy dawn held a new life for her. Something better.
I don’t know. It might have been the way she brushed a lock of loose hair behind her ear when she took an order, not knowing how beautiful it made her. Of course, it could have been her lovely rack, too.