Colm & the Lazarus Key

by Kieran Mark Crowley

  Eventually they finished up and Mr Jenkins brought their bags to the car.

  ‘He’d better not be expecting a tip,’ Colm’s father said.

  ‘Everything’s on the house,’ Mrs McMahon said.

  ‘I should think so too,’ Colm’s mother replied. She didn’t seem quite as taken with the Red House Hotel as she had been on first viewing.

  Before they got into the car Lauryn came over to say her goodbyes.

  ‘Sorry for the mess guys,’ she said.

  ‘No problem,’ said The Brute shyly.

  ‘Sorry about making you dive at the man like that,’ Colm said.

  Lauryn smiled. There were still some traces of dirt on her face from where she’d landed in the mud. ‘That’s cool. You knew he’d get the better of me, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry.’

  ‘I’d have done the same in your position.’

  ‘Is it gone do you think? The Key?’ Colm asked.

  ‘I talked to Peter, Mr Drake, before the ambulance took him away. He can’t believe that he didn’t realise the acid would destroy it. He said he’d misread the notes. The Key wasn’t a real diamond. It was made out of some special material. The acid would have dissolved it in seconds,’ Lauryn replied. ‘I still can’t believe you thought of it.’

  ‘Just luck,’ Colm said. ‘What’s going to happen here now?’

  ‘I guess the hotel’s not going to be re-opening for a while. I don’t think anyone will want to stay here once word gets round about a dangerous gangster turning up in the middle of the night,’ Lauryn said.

  ‘Would have been better if it was just rats here, not rat-faced men,’ said The Brute.

  Lauryn laughed and he turned bright red. ‘Good one. My gran is still in a bit of shock. She knew all the stories about the Key, but she never believed they were real. She does now. Kind of a weird night, huh?’

  ‘The weirdest,’ Colm said, but right now it didn’t seem strange at all. He knew that was just because of the tiredness. Once he’d had a couple of good night’s sleep he’d probably freak out about it. He smiled to himself.

  She shook his hand. ‘Thanks for everything, kid.’

  ‘Lauryn?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Please don’t call me kid,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks for everything, Colm.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he replied.

  ‘Wow, you sure are polite. Even after all we’ve been through.’

  She turned to The Brute. He wouldn’t look her in the eye.

  ‘See ya, tough guy,’ she said.

  ‘See ya,’ he mumbled.

  She winked at Colm then leaned forward and kissed The Brute on the cheek. Instant glow. Two hundred degrees of heat.

  ‘I-I-I …’

  ‘Bye,’ she said and ran back into the hotel.

  ‘Well, that was …’ Colm began, but The Brute interrupted him.

  ‘If you make a smart remark I’ll hit you so hard …’

  ‘No. You won’t. You won’t hit me.’

  The Brute looked at him. There was something different about his cousin. Something he almost … Oh no. He didn’t like him, did he? That’d be awful.

  They got into the car and his father drove off at some-where between five and seven miles an hour. Slowly, very, very slowly, the Red House Hotel began to fade into the distance.

  ‘Now, Michael,’ Colm’s mother said.

  ‘Huh,’ grunted The Brute.

  ‘What are we going to tell your mother? Because we can’t tell her the truth. She’d have my guts for garters,’ she said.

  The Brute pricked up his ears. Here was a chance.

  ‘I don’t know, Auntie Mary. I’d hate to lie to my mother. Unless we could come to some sort of arrangement of course.’

  Colm relaxed into the seat and closed his eyes. Yep, in less than an hour The Brute would be out of his life and things would be back to normal. Just him, his mam and his dad again. Within a minute he was snoring and even his cousin didn’t dare wake him up.

  Epilogue

  The car journey back to Dublin was long and boring and quiet. Just the way Kate wanted it to be. She was exhausted and didn’t mind the fact that Cedric hadn’t said a single word for over an hour. He hadn’t even complained when she’d smoked the last of her cigars and the acrid smoke had filled the small car. When he did speak it wasn’t what she had expected to hear.

  ‘I’m going on a diet,’ he said.

  ‘A diet? Why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ Cedric replied, patting his ample belly.

  ‘You’re fine the way you are.’

  Cedric lapsed into silence.

  ‘What are you thinking, Ced?’

  ‘Lots of things,’ he said, too tired to make a sarcastic remark. ‘The Lazarus Key was real. I hadn’t even considered that it might have been real. I should have. A good detective has an open mind, always expects the unexpected. What happened tonight …’

  ‘Nobody could have guessed what was going to happen,’ Kate said.

  ‘The Key brought that creature back to life. You didn’t see it, Kate. It was a horrible, wretched, pitiful thing. I’d prefer to be dead than to live a half-life like that.’

  ‘What do you think it was? A zombie?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’d call it. Giving it a name doesn’t change anything. I put those children in danger.’

  ‘You helped them when it counted,’ Kate said.

  Cedric grunted.

  ‘Listen, Ced. You did the right thing in the end and it’s all over now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s over,’ he smiled. They’d got out of there before the Gardaí had arrived. Nobody knew who they were and he was certain none of the adults or children were going to say anything.

  ‘What about the rat-faced man? Is he going to recover?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope. He’s a goner. The Ghost is no more.’

  ‘The Ghost? He was The Ghost?’

  ‘Yeah. Had to be. He had the time and money to come over here to search for the Key. He was powerful too, I could tell that when I met him. He was the most terrifying individual I’ve ever come across. Yep, he was The Ghost all right. He had all he needed, except for one important thing. Like everyone else he was going to grow old and die.’

  Kate got it. ‘But he thought that if he got the Lazarus Key he could live forever.’

  ‘He was wrong.’

  ‘Wow, you’re a brilliant detective.’

  ‘I am,’ Cedric agreed, already putting his mistakes behind him.

  ‘If he was The Ghost, then that means we’re safe, doesn’t it? I mean The Ghost was a secretive man. He’d never tell anyone his plans, so nobody knew he was over here. There’s nobody who’s going to come looking for him. We’re in the clear.’

  Cedric thought about it. She was right. They were in the clear. He could put all this behind him and start afresh. And this time he wasn’t going to make any mistakes. He was going to be the best detective he could be.

  ·•·

  12 Hours Later

  In a cabin in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, deep in the heart of America, a man sat on an old wooden chair, calmly waiting for the telephone to ring. He glanced at his watch just at the moment the phone chirped into life. Right on time. He smiled a thin-lipped smile. No one ever kept him waiting. He answered the call.

  ‘Speak,’ he commanded.

  The person on the other end of the line sounded nervous, jittery. ‘It’s bad news, I’m afraid.’

  The man felt the familiar rage bubbling just beneath the surface. He had a vicious temper, but had long since learned to control it. All it took was self-discipline and the man was the most disciplined of them all.

  ‘Should I go on?’ asked the voice on the phone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Smith is dead.’

  There wasn’t even a flicker of emotion on the man’s face. Nothing to show that this news bothered him. So that was it – his brother
was dead. The idiot. He was always too eager to put himself in the way of danger, the man thought. His brother was a stupid man – a stupid, little rat-faced man.

  They didn’t look like brothers. The man in the cabin was tall and had delicate, almost pretty, features. In spite of this people didn’t like him. Something about his eyes. Something that hinted at the cruelty that lay just beneath the surface. His eyes were colder than a shark’s.

  ‘Are you still there?’ the voice on the phone asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have some details. He passed away at the Red House Hotel, a small hotel in Ireland. His last known contact was a detective in Dublin. Cedric Murphy. And there were some guests and staff in the hotel. Six adults and three children. I have their names here. Will I read them out?’

  ‘No, put the names and details in an envelope and leave them in the usual pick-up spot. I’ll have them collected.’

  ‘Sorry for your loss.’

  The man hung up without replying. His brother was dead. What did that make him feel? Nothing. He didn’t love his brother. He didn’t even like him. But family was family. His death would be avenged. He wouldn’t allow the one who had caused it to get away with it. That wouldn’t be right.

  He rolled up his shirt sleeve and looked at the tattoo on the inside of his arm. The Lazarus Key. His brother had always wanted to find the Key.

  The man who was The Ghost stood up and stretched his arms. So, he was going to Ireland. All other business could be put on hold for now. He had a lot of work to do and it was only just beginning. First he would find the man called Cedric Murphy, then he would track down everyone who was involved in his brother’s demise and he would make them pay. He would make them all pay.