“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 phone 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.
She always served us with an enigmatic smile, somewhere between shy and seductive. I’d like to think she saved that smile only for me, but that just wasn’t true. The smile was for every man with a badge and I was simply lucky enough to fall into that category.
She flirted. I flirted back. As the days and months passed, the sexual innuendo grew. So did the rumors about her being a badge bunny. I didn’t want them to be true, but I didn’t kid myself that they weren’t.
“What do you think?” I asked Anthony Giovanni one morning, motioning over at Lauren three booths away, pouring coffee.
He glanced over his shoulder, watched her for a moment, then turned back to me and shrugged. “I got no time for ground balls.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He tore into his French toast. “She’s like taking ground balls in practice, man. Nothing spectacular.”
If anyone would know, it would be Gio. His tall frame, olive skin and dark, Italian hair made it easy for him to meet women.
I watched her finish with the customers three booths away and move our direction. She made a show of sliding the last three feet on the tiled floor. Whenever she did that, my stomach clenched in fear that she’d fall and douse us all in hot coffee.
“Everything good here?” she asked, her eyes locked on my face.
Gio grunted through a mouthful of French toast.
She looked away, reaching for the small plate that my English muffin had been served on.
“Thanks,” I said.
She smiled at me, all shy and seductive, and glided away.
I looked back at Gio. “How is that batting practice?”
He shook his head as he swallowed his food.
“That’s what you said.”
He finished swallowing and took a gulp of his coffee. “Jesus, Sully, do you ever quote people in your reports? Because if so, I’ve got some serious doubts about your accuracy.”
I didn’t answer. Just looked at him.
He shook his head. “I said it was like taking ground balls in practice. Not batting practice.”
“So what? It’s a baseball metaphor either way.” I got to thinking about the metaphors we used as kids. First base was kissing, second base was fondling upstairs, third base fondling downstairs and a home run was the whole enchilada. Everybody knew what those metaphors meant, unlike Gio’s ground ball statement. “But what the hell is it supposed to mean?”
“Connor,” he said, pushing his plate away, “if I’ve gotta explain it to you, what’s the point?”
“The point is, try speaking English.”
He smiled. “You understood me just fine.”
The next morning, Gio was off. The traffic in the diner was slow and Lauren lingered at my table.
“Where’s your friend?”
“Gio?”
“Him and the other one,” she said.
She meant my best friend, Anthony Battaglia, who usually joined us for breakfast, too.
“Both on their days off,” I said.
“They’re both Italian, huh?”
I smiled. “Let’s see. Both named Anthony. One’s a Giovanni, one’s a Battaglia. Yeah, I think that’s Italian.”
“Shut up,” she said playfully, giving me a flirtatious tap on the shoulder.
“We’re all Italians,” I said.
She cocked her head at me for a moment, then dropped her eyes to my nametag.
“O’Sullivan?” she said. “That’s not Italian.”
“It’s not?”
“You’re Irish.”
“Ah, lass,” I said, putting a bit of the homeland lilt into my voice, “you’re far too smart for me.”
She beamed at me. “I’m smart, but not too smart for you.”
Her directness surprised me. I liked it, but for some reason it made me slightly sad. I tapped my near-empty cup of coffee.
“You won’t be able to sleep if you drink any more of that,” she said.