by Frank Zafiro
The gun. Where was the gun?
I felt around on the floor until my hand touched metal. My fingers wrapped around the grips. It felt like a .45. Probably Colt.
“Let him go, Laddie. I’ve got the gun.”
Laddie gave him a final squeeze and pushed him to the floor.
“Get the light.”
Laddie rose and flicked on the table lamp. The intruder lay face down on the carpet, gasping for air and clutching at his throat.
“You should have let me kill him,” Laddie said.
“There’s still time for that. First I have some questions for the lad.” I prodded him with the tip of the silencer. “Up with ye now. I’ve a question or two.”
He let out a rasping cough, but forced himself up to a sitting position. When he looked at me, his eyes widened slightly. His gaze swept up and down my body.
“Get a good look, lad,” I said. “Because if ye don’t answer my questions, this’ll be the last girl ye ever see in the nip. Ye hearin’ me?”
He looked me in the eye and nodded. When he met my gaze, I saw the fear in those eyes. Fear was a good thing.
“Good. Now what’s yer name?”
“Walt,” he sputtered, rubbing his throat.
“Fine name, Walt. Fine name.” I leaned forward. “Now, Walt, this next question’s a bit important. I need to know who sent ye.”
He paused.
I pointed the gun at his foot and fired.
The gun slide clacked. The silencer suppressed the crack of the explosion, but the concussive force of the round shook the room. The bullet tore into Walt’s foot. His eyes flew open wide in disbelief.
Then the pain set in.
Laddie immediately stepped forward with the pillow and pressed it against Walt’s mouth to suppress the screams. Walt’s face broke out in a deep sweat. Mucus flared out of his nostrils. His breath came in ragged gasps.
“Now do ye think I’m serious?”
He nodded frantically.
I motioned toward his foot. “A good doctor and a month of recuperation and that’ll be better. Leastways so ye can walk. Ye don’t look to me like much of an athlete, so I don’t imagine ye’ll miss the full use of it.” I swung the muzzle of the .45 toward his crotch. “But some things just don’t ever heal right.”
He shook his head rapidly left and right, terror mounting in his eyes.
“Are ye gonna tell me who sent ye?”
His motions changed to frantic up and down nods.
I met Laddie’s eyes. He moved the pillow away from Walt’s mouth.
Walt’s lips trembled. He stared down at his white tennis shoe as it slowly turned red.
“Who, lad?” I prompted him.
His eyes snapped to mine. “It was Niall. He’s my cousin.”
“I figured as much. And how did he know I was in Vancouver?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly.”
I raised the gun to his other foot.
“No, please!”
“Tell me everything you do know.”
Walt whimpered. Then he told me his pathetic story. Niall figured out I’d fled to Canada. One of his computer geek mates was able to access the flight itineraries out of Ireland. I was afraid of that. They must not have had time or resources to come after me in Montreal, but by the time I got to Vancouver...
“Why you?”
“Niall said he needed it done quick. Before you disappeared.”
“What name did he give you?”
“Name?”
“What name did he call me by?”
“Angela Quinn.”
“And?”
“And that your real name was Shae.”
No mention of Tara Kelly. Maybe that was still safe.
“All he wants is the money,” Walt said. “He said if you had it, I was supposed to—”
“I don’t have his feckin’ money,” I snapped at him.
Walt blanched and stopped talking.
“When were you supposed to call him back, then?”
“As soon as I...as soon as it was done.”
I glanced up at Laddie. His face was calm.
“Well, Walt, then I’d say ‘tis done.” I raised the pistol and fired a round directly into his forehead. His body flopped to the floor and lay still.
“We should go,” Laddie said.
“Do ye think?” I asked sarcastically.
He nodded, a slow smile spreading over his face. “Yeah. This is one of those situations that’s a little bit funny.”
We cleaned up as best we could and dressed. Laddie had fewer possessions than I did. His room was rented under an alias. We slipped out into the night. I was going to leave the .45 behind, but Laddie couldn’t bear to part with it.
“Besides,” he said, “you never know when you’ll need it.”
At my motel, I grabbed my bag. We took his tiny Datsun and drove to the other side of Vancouver before holing up in a Motel 6.
Inside the room, we sat at the small table in silence. I wanted to tell Laddie the story that got me here. How brokering a simple, if strange, deal had gone to shit. How Niall’s crew, the IRA and the cops all wanted my hide. But somehow, I think he understood it without being told.
I lifted the telephone and dialed Terry’s number from memory. Terry picked up the phone with a sleepy “hello.”
“Terry? It’s Tara.”
“Tara? How are you, lass?”
“I’m all right. You weren’t at the airport.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. But your Aunt Mary had a stroke. I had to take her into the hospital in Cranbrook. I tried to leave you a message at the airport—”
“I heard them call for me. I wasn’t sure I should answer.”
“I understand. Listen, I can come get you in the morning, I think. Will you be okay until I —”
I looked over at Laddie. “I might have a ride worked out,” I told Terry.
“A ride? How’s that?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. And I’ll see you soon.”
He was silent for a few moments. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll see you soon.”
I hung up the phone and returned my gaze to Laddie. “I have an uncle,” I said.
“That’s nice.”
“In Rossland.”
“Good.”
“We can hide out there.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, maybe. But we need some cash first. Enough to last a year or two.”
“A year or two? Where in the hell are we going to –”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m a good planner. Everything will go like clockwork.”
“What will?”
He held up the .45 and waggled it.
“Ye want to rob someone?
He shook his head. “Not someone. Something.”
“Stores?”
“Nope.” He smiled. “Banks, baby. We’ll rob banks.”
I stared back at him. I knew I couldn’t say no.
I knew I didn’t want to.
I’d found my new life.
Egyptian Eyes and Irish Lies
The trip out to the deserted farmhouse was bumpy and silent. The bumps came from the dirt road that tossed Niall’s small car about. The car lurched left and right and in and out of the deep ruts, rattling my teeth. The rust bucket creaked in protest with each jolt. I wondered again if the bottom would fall out before we reached our destination.
The silence was because I didn’t entirely trust the fucker Niall.
The car lurched to a stop at the end of the lane. Niall killed the engine and beamed over at me. “Are ye ready to see something grand?”
“If ye’re only trying to impress me to get into my knickers, save yerself the trouble,” I told him. “That’s not happening.”
He gave me a sly smile and said nothing.
I sighed. I wanted to tell him that one time—a drunken mistake, at that—doesn’t mean a pile of shite, but it wouldn’t do any good. He’d only smil
e wider.
“Why are we here?” I asked instead.
“Ye’ll see,” he said, pulling the keys from the ignition. Without a word, he opened the car door and got out.
I cursed in old Irish and followed him.
Niall strode to the front door of the faded, leaning farmhouse with confidence, his swagger more pronounced than usual. I walked behind him, more cautious. I didn’t think he’d be fool enough to take a girl out into the country and rape her, but with some lads, you never know. He’d have a surprise coming if he tried, though.
The windows to the farmhouse were all either broken or boarded over. The roof had fallen into disrepair. I wondered briefly how much of the interior remained dry when the rains came.
At the door, Niall paused. He gave a knock, paused again, then gave another series of knocks.
“Secret Agent Man,” I whispered sarcastically.
Niall shot a hard glance over his shoulder at me. “Mind yer tongue. This is serious business.”
“Oh, really? But a moment ago, ye were giddy like a schoolboy. Now, suddenly, it’s serious business?”
His eyes narrowed. “It’s for the Cause, lass. Now shut yer gob.”
“Go feck yerself.”
He turned around and took a step toward me. “Don’t think ye’re above getting yer pretty little arse beat.”
The door cracked open and a voice filtered out. “Brian?”
Niall’s jaw clenched. He pointed his finger at me and jabbed it in the air. Then he raised his eyebrows to ask if I understood his warning.
I figured the man takes himself far too seriously, but I nodded back to him all the same. It was more out of curiosity than anything. That and being in the middle of the nowheres with him and now a second man, too.
“Brian?” The voice behind the door repeated. The question was followed by a metallic click.
My ears pricked up at that. I’d heard enough gun hammers cocked to know the sound.
“No, lad,” Niall said, turning away from me. “It’s me. Niall.”
There was a pause, then the door swung open. “Get in here. Quickly.”
Niall walked through the door. I hesitated.
“Ah, feckin’ Jaysus. Ye brought her?”
I recognized Sean’s voice then. I’d have sighed again, except I knew that while I couldn’t always trust Niall, Sean was off his nut. And he had a gun, the plonker. I didn’t figure it wise to provoke him.
“Well, get yer arse in here, then,” he snapped at me. He waved his empty hand in my direction. Then he looked over my shoulder at Niall’s car. “Aw, fer Christ’s sake, Niall. Why don’t ye jes’ put out a feckin’ sign that says ‘Here Be Rebels?’ What’re ye thinking, parking right out in the open like that?”
“Dry up, Sean, and let Shae in.”
Sean rolled his eyes and waved me inside. I stepped through the door and into a musty living room. A lantern glowed on the mantel of the old stone fireplace. In the corner, I spotted a wooden box full of groceries and a sleeping bag. That wasn’t nearly so interesting as the coffin covered in a sheet next to it.
“Ah, Jaysus,” I murmured, a small spike of fear cutting through my stomach. “Don’t be telling me that the two of ye went and killed someone.”
“What if we did?” Niall said.
I motioned at the covered coffin. “Then I’d say it was right grand of ye to provide him with all he needs for a proper burial.”
Niall smirked.
I didn’t know why he’d asked me out to this farmhouse, but I decided it was time to get to the core of it. “If ye did kill someone,” I told him, “then that’s yer own feckin’ business. Ye don’t need to be bringing me into it.”
Niall said nothing.
I stepped closer to him. “And further, ye can drop the tough man o’ Sinn Fein pose. I’m not impressed.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “No, nor scared, neither.”
I gave him a hard stare. When you’re twelve and see your own father gunned down in the street outside his own house, it takes a lot more than some dramatic posing by a couple of pub-spawned patriots to shake a girl.
“She’s got a hard neck, this one,” Brian said. “And all this time, I just thought she was just some ride from the pub.”
“Shut yer gob,” I snapped, without looking at him. I continued to stare at Niall. “Now, do ye want to tell me why we’re here?”
Niall smiled the same goofy grin he’d flashed out in the car. “I’ll go ye one better. I’ll show ye the reason.”
With a flourish, he pulled the sheet from the coffin.
Only, it wasn’t a coffin.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, shocked.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Sean whispered.
I glanced over at him. He de-cocked the pistol and tucked it into his belt. Then he nodded toward the golden sarcophagus. “That there is a woman inside. Ahwere is her name.”
I turned back to the sarcophagus. The lantern light played off the intricate hieroglyphics painted upon golden exterior. The regal, stoic face of an ancient Egyptian woman stared up at the deteriorating farmhouse roof. Her black eyes spoke of ages gone by.
“How...?”
Niall pointed at Sean. “He’s the hero, lass.”
Sean smiled proudly. “All I did was see an opportunity for the Cause and take it,” he said.
My mind whirred. I tried to push aside the wonder that came with the beauty of this relic. I had to know what these two eejits were getting me into. With an effort, I tore my gaze away from all that lovely gold.
“Ye took it from a museum?” I asked. “Jaysus, lads, the Peelers will be looking for it high and low.”
Sean shook his head. “Feckin’ thing was hidden in the old Hunt estate. Goddamn Yank found it. We took it from there.”
“Still, won’t the Hunts report it missing?”
“Not likely,” Sean snorted. “They didn’t even know it was there. Feckin’ English pillaged so much treasure in the world, they forget where they hide it all.”
“That doesn’t seem right. Who forgets something like this?” I glanced back down at the deep dark eyes of the woman’s face.
Ahwere, Sean had called her.
“Look,” Sean told me. “The Yank said that one of them hid it there seventy-some years ago. I don’t think anyone else knew about it. He figured it out from some of the old papers the pillager left behind.”
“Who?”
“Randal Hunt. The Yank was studying the entire family –”
“The graduate student? The one from the pub?”
“Aye. Dex. He figured it out. He found it in a secret room behind a wall in the basement.”
“He tore down a wall?”
“I tore down the feckin’ wall,” Sean corrected. “Skinny bastard watched and played the boss. We found the mummy and hauled it out.”
“Who saw you?”
“No one that wasn’t involved.”
“What’d you do with the hole in the wall?”
“Hung a tapestry over it.” Sean smiled at his own ingenuity. “Then we stacked storage items in front of that.”
I nodded. That was good. If the family didn’t know about it, they might not discover for years that there was even a secret room in the basement, much less what had been inside. “Who all knows about this, then?”
Sean looked at Niall. I followed his gaze.
Niall motioned around the room with a twirling finger. “All of us. And Brian.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“No one else?”
“Aye, that’s what I said.”
“What about the Yank, then?”
Niall glanced over at Sean, then back at me. He shook his head. “Just us four, Shae. No one else.”
I felt a stab of pity for the young American scholar. I’d seen him at the pub once in a while. He was one of the few men that hadn’t tried to come onto me. I allowed a moment of silence for him, then mo
ved closer to the golden coffin. My fingertips snaked out and touched the cool metal. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
I sensed Sean at my side. “The Yank said it was cursed.”
“I’m sure.”
“Ye don’t believe in curses, lass?”
I shook my head.
Sean chuckled. “Dex, he said the same thing.”
I barely listened to him. Instead, I ran my hand across the golden surface. The incredible smoothness glided beneath my fingertips. Realizing that it was crafted thousands of years ago set my mind racing.
Sean cleared his throat. “So what do ye think?”
I swallowed. “I think it must be worth millions.”
“It’s worth,” Sean said, “whatever someone will pay for it.”
“And that’s where ye come in, lass,” Niall added.
After he laid out the plan, we huddled around the fireplace, each of us trying to draw warmth from the pitiful flames.
“If it gets any colder, lass, we might have to get naked and share body warmth,” Sean said.
I shot him a hard stare.
“To avoid dyin’ from the cold,” he added.
“I’d rather die,” I told him.
“Aw, come on,” Sean said. “It’s not like Niall here hasn’t seen you in the nip –”
My hand flashed out and grabbed him by the balls. I squeezed.
Sean gasped. His eyes filled with pain and surprise.
“Get this straight,” I told him. “This is going to be a business arrangement. Nothing more. We do a bit of business for the Cause and maybe make a touch of coin ourselves. But I won’t be putting up with any of this. Ye hear me, lad?”
Sean nodded frantically, his mouth hanging open.
I glanced over at Niall. “Same for you.”
Niall gave me a barely perceptible nod.
I let go of Sean’s yockers.
He drew in a ragged breath. “You bitch!” he grunted. He put his hand on the butt of his pistol to draw it.
Niall reached out and touched his shoulder.
“Let it lie, lad,” he said calmly. “Ye should na’ have said what you did.”
Sean glowered at me, but obeyed.
I looked back into the small fire. Now they knew where things stood with me. And I knew who was in charge.
We sat on the park bench, each pretending to read a copy of The Irish Times in the dim light of the streetlamp. I glanced up at the clock tower a block away. It showed five minutes of nine. I was due in the pub at nine.