Destroyers of the Lost Garden (The Lost Garden Trilogy Book 3) (10 page)

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The Swashbucklers

An adventure novel by

K.T. Tomb

(read on for a sample)

Chapter One

People say that James Brown was the Godfather of Soul, and that’s true enough. But if the Godfather of Soul had one soul in the world to thank, a kingmaker, then that would probably be Padraig McMillan. You’ve never heard of him, but if there was a major record label merger, or a genre defining development in soul, you could thank Paddy for it. Word had it that Gordy Jr. even sought his advice before starting Motown. Every time you heard a Supremes record, “Please Mr. Postman” by The Marvelettes, anything by Smokey Robinson, or the entire Marvin Gaye back catalogue; a couple of cents found their way to Padraig McMillan.

The way Padraig told it, he’d bedded more famous singers than any money-man in Detroit; back when Detroit meant something other than dilapidated buildings and the ghosts of the motor industry. Of course, he said, he never allowed them to sleep with him
before
they cut the records; that would be unbecoming of a righteous man. That said; if they felt grateful enough after they were climbing the charts, he wasn’t going to turn down Diana Ross. Whether or not he had really made it with every female hit singer in Detroit was a secret that Paddy took to his grave at age 84. Naturally, the McMillan family members were sad, but the Old Man had been a hard-drinking cigar aficionado with a penchant for cocaine in his youth, so the only surprise was that he had lasted that long. Emphysema took him; this giant of Soul Music, who for a short decade or two was the coolest man on the face of the earth.

Naturally, Manny McMillan, youngest of seven great-grandchildren, hated his fucking guts. It was bad enough, in his mind, to be the youngest in a family of vastly over-achieving all-star suck-ups but what was the point in being so ridiculously wealthy if all you did was go and toss it all away on getting a solid educational foundation’. It’s what his grandfather had told him every day for the last five years. His relatives a doctor, a lawyer, an assistant D.A, the vice president of an industrial equipment manufacturing company, an actor currently leading in an opera in Rome, and a major league baseball player. Only his baseball playing cousin, Ronnie, was remotely cool. That had nothing to do with him playing ball, baseball was for dorks. He was just a cool guy, didn’t give Manny any shit for living his life. Not like Gramps.

Manny felt that, since he had a family- backed credit card, a life of ease was no less than   deserved. At twenty-four years old, he had very few interests outside swimming, Xbox, parties and, of course, the one thing that he felt admiration for was his grandfather’s legendary prowess in  the acquisition of beautiful women. His older sisters and cousins didn’t get it at all; they worked 60 hours a week covered in blood and gore, or neck deep in lawsuits. What’s the point when you had the means do what you want? The best thing about hearing the reading of the Old Man’s will, was that he would surely no longer be accountable to his parents for explaining the escalating credit card bills. He didn’t know if it would be property, cars, or just cold, hard cash, but he was sure he was in for a fortune.

Manny, of course, was wrong.

He sat slouched in the office of J. William Wright & Sons, lawyers to the McMillan family over the past half century, watching the first light winter in upstate New York settle on the windowsill. The somehow, still not dead, J. William Wright Sr. nasally reeled off a list of property, cars, cash, rights to Motown songs, stock options in at least two dozen blue chip companies, and some inexplicably valuable works of art by guys named Pollock and Rothko, there were pictures to illustrate what they were. Manny decided if these hacks could just paint a load of blocks and splotches, maybe he could do that. Art looked easy and chicks dig it. He was in a half daydream involving Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson, when someone calling his name brought him back to reality.

“To my youngest grandson, Emmanuel,” the antiquated lawyer said. He looked like he was about to keel over from standing up so long. “I leave my briefcase and the contents therein.”

Manny waited. Maybe the old buzzard had died on his feet, or he’d had a stroke mid-sentence. Nothing happened for a moment, and Manny was sure his heart had stopped beating in anticipation during the pregnant pause. The lawyer cleared his throat.

“This concludes the last will and testament of Padraig Murray McMillan, recorded on this day…”

Manny’s hearing was suddenly impaired by blood rushing into his ears. His heart had not stopped after all, actually it was now racing. Maybe the Old Man had left him something valuable in his case. Something special, that he didn’t want the other descendants to know about, in case they got jealous. Part way through his second daydream in as many minutes, he was again interrupted, this time by the perpetually disappointed face of his father. The rest of the family was getting up to leave. His father’s eyes were a little downcast, not that Manny could fathom why, having just inherited a private island and everything on it. He was graying at the brow and losing his hair at a staggering rate, though he was still on the right side of fifty and looking at him caused Manny to unconsciously run his hand over his own shaved scalp. He hoped he didn’t end up bald like that. His father was looking more like the aging Sidney Poitier by the day; his broad, wrinkled forehead jutted massively and what used to be a neck was more of a continuation of shoulders. Like his father, and Grampy Padraig, Manny shared their cruiserweight build. It was a constant reminder to him that he too would find himself going to seed early, unless he continued going to the gym and the pool.

“Son, I know you’re not happy. Just give Gramps the benefit of the doubt. He was a smart man, smarter than you and I put together. Mr. Wright has the briefcase here.”

His father sighed slightly. His gut sagged with the motion, reminding Manny to do some sit ups later.

Manny forced a smile.

“It’s okay, Pops. I’m sure he’s just playing around with me. I mean, he wouldn’t leave me out completely, right?”

His father smiled the same smile as his son. Despite all the things the McMillan family was capable of doing better than most,faking happiness was not one of them.

Chapter Two

The briefcase was in decent condition, considering its apparent age. Manny could vaguely remember it being on his Gramps’ opulent yet stylish desk in his Hamptons residence, back when he could barely see over the mahogany lip. The leather had faded, and he could see where his grandfathers’ fingers had worn patches in it. Manny waited until he was at home -well, the apartment his parents paid the rent for, in Greenwich Village -before opening the clasps to inspect the contents of the case. He had been anticipating this day since he had been old enough to understand that money was what made the world go round. To his chagrin, there were no diamonds, bundles of cash, or keys to an Aston Martin in there. What Manny found instead, was a piece of carefully rolled yellowed parchment, and a rewritable DVD in a plastic sleeve.

His name was carefully printed on it in marker. Padraig’s hands had shaken quite badly towards the end of his life, and it was evident here. The straight lines of the M and Y were terribly crooked. First, Manny unrolled the parchment, which was tiny, no bigger than his palm. It bore a crude drawing in ink. It looked like… a crappy cheap treasure map. Like the ones Manny and his brothers had made as kids, staining paper with old tea to get that worn out look. He had the urge to throw it in the fire he had going in the fire place, but settled for crumpling it a bit and tossing it on the couch.

As he pressed the ‘open’ button on the DVD player and slid in the disk, Manny felt a little numb. When he clicked play on the remote, he wasn’t surprised to see his grandfather appear on the screen. He looked better than he had at the end, but still old. The video had been recorded probably a year ago; no, a year and a half, judging by the warm spring garden that could be seen over the shoulders of Padraig McMillan, as he sat at his formidable desk.

“Hello, Manny.”

Manny fought the urge to say hello back, then immediately felt stupid for thinking it.

“You’re probably quite upset with me at the moment, but just let me tell you something; tough shit. You’re a bum, and I don’t waste my money supporting bums. Now, that’s not to say I decided to disinherit you. You’re still the youngest in the family, so I think that maybe you just need a little motivation so you can stop being such a bum. I want you to know that I instructed my lawyer to keep an eye on you, in case a miracle happened after my death, and you turned out to be doing something with your life. It’s not important what it is, I don’t care if you’re trying to make money or if you’re volunteering at the homeless shelter but my hope is, you’re doing something, and if that’s case, Mr. Wright has instructions to make a proviso in my will to look after you. If not… well, you’re hearing me talk to you now, so I guess that explains all you need to know about it.”

The Old Man, in his familiar eccentric tweed jacket, half-moon spectacles and full grey beard gave a coughing laugh that betrayed the onset of the disease that would take his life just over a year later.

“Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever read anything in your life other than Playboy, but if you had picked up any of the books in your father’s library, or, say, asked any of us old bastards about where you came from, this next part might sound familiar. You’re going on a little trip and it ain’t no vacation.”

Padraig placed the briefcase that was now in Manny’s possession onto his desk. Manny really didn’t want to go to Detroit. He had been there once, and regardless of what the Motor City had once been in the sixties, it had fallen far from its former glory.

His grandfather was speaking again, “I want you to take good care of this case. I bought it for ten dollars back in fifty nine. Probably the oldest possession I’ve got, apart from the antiques and who gives a shit about them; your grandmother collected that crap. Inside it you should have found a map. The map is of a place where the McMillan family has a lot of history, but I doubt you ever heard of it, because it’s not the kind of information you find in the tits and ass publications.”

That bastard is enjoying this, Manny thought. Mocking me. I’d like to kick
your
ass, you dead old fart.

“This is the island of Montserrat. Now, us McMillan’s used to live on Montserrat, no doubt some distant fork of the family still does. The Irish McMillan’s settled there as indentured workers, working hard and saving their money. They also mixed in with the slaves there. In the middle of the nineteenth century, some old grand pappy of ours came into some land, citrus groves and such. Round about the same time, the Europeans and colonial Americans were getting good at hunting down the last of the professional privateers- pirates, to you and me- and it so happened that old Cormack McMillan was out in his lime grove one day when from up on his hill, he saw a ship coming into port, sails all torn up, looking like it’d been savaged fiercely. On a small island like Montserrat, this was big news. Everybody who was anybody went down to the docks, and who should step off the boat?”

The old man paused, and gestured towards the camera.

“I don’t fucking know.” replied Manny.

“Of course you don’t fucking know” said his grandfather on the TV screen, “because you’re a bum and you never asked me about anything important except what you could get. The guy who steps off the boat turned out to be none other than Captain Boysie Marlowe, one of the last pirates to sail the Caribbean. His time was up, and he knew it. He’d had his rear end handed to him by the French; his boat was done, and most of his crew was dead. He was running for his life, and there weren’t many places left for pirates to go. Now, Cormack was scared, like everyone else. He knew that if Marlowe and his pirates wanted to, they could make real trouble for everyone on the island; there wasn’t much law enforcement in them days, and none of your internet or mobile phones to call for help. So Cormack, being as smart as a McMillan can be, invites Marlowe into his home, gave them drink and food and quarters, and they got to talking. Marlowe, of course, wanted to get off Montserrat as quickly as possible, but his boat wouldn’t make it to the next island, let alone to South America where he would have a chance of escaping a hanging. Cormack had a boat, not a big one, only a mail runner, but it could just work. Marlowe said, ‘I could just take your boat, but you have shown us kindness, so I’ll trade you something for it. I can never return here for fear of my life, and I shall need the gold in my old ship for sure. I will trade you this map, which will show you where a great wealth is on this island, in exchange for your little boat.’ Now, Cormack didn’t much care for sailing, but what he did care about was his friends and family not getting any trouble from these pirates, so being a sensible man, he agreed. He didn’t think there was any such treasure, but if it got the pirates off Montserrat, so be it. The deal was done, Marlow left, and Cormack never told another soul about the deal he made with the pirate. Not until he had failed to find the loot, of course, and was too old to go looking anymore and he told his sons. And they tried, and failed, and then
their
sons came to America, and then it came to me.”

The old man had spoken for so long his throat was parched, and his voice cracked. His hand trembled as he sipped water, cleared his throat, and continued.

“I was going to go check it out myself, not that I needed any treasure there might be but out of interest, before I got too old to do it. Then round about ninety-five, the volcano there blew up, buried half the island, the old McMillan lime groves and all. It’s still smoking away out there; you can’t even get to the mountain anymore without official dispensation from the authorities. So, Manny, you have a chance to prove yourself. Maybe you’re not the smartest or most talented McMillan there’s ever been, but you’re still a McMillan, and that’s got to count for something. Go find out what this is all about. Earn your inheritance, and earn the right to be in this family. I’ve left you some notes and an open plane ticket in the inside pocket of this here briefcase. See you in hell, kiddo.”

The scene abruptly ended. Silence blossomed in the apartment. Manny, who had gotten to his feet without realizing it, swayed slightly as conflicting thoughts battled for dominance in his mind.

“Bullshit! You old fuck!” He spoke to no one.

Alone in his rooms, Manny didn’t have to fake a smile for his grieving family anymore.

“I wait my whole life to come into this inheritance, and you’re fucking with me from beyond the grave? You sick bastard! Sorry for existing!”

He picked up the briefcase and tossed it against the wall, dislodging a large mirror hanging there, and granting him seven years bad luck to go with the twenty-two he felt he had spent already. The briefcase had landed open, inside to the floor. Cursing his own stupidity at giving himself a chore to do, as he swept up broken shards of mirror, Manny gingerly picked up the briefcase. A slash ran from one end of the silken interior fabric to the other, across the inside pocket where through the tear, Manny could see the envelope which he knew contained plane tickets to an Island he had never heard of and didn’t care about.

There was another piece of paper there. He plucked it out, and unfolded it. In a bold typeface, five lines of some kind of awful poetry.

Colors blind the eye.

Sounds deafen the ear.

Flavors numb the taste.

Thoughts weaken the mind.

Desires wither the heart.

Manny was too furious with everything, his family, and himself to bother puzzling out anymore of this cryptic nonsense. Leaving the broken mirror where it lay, he grabbed a beer from the kitchen. He felt he would need several.