The Green Lama: Crimson Circle
Read The Green Lama: Crimson Circle Online
Authors: Adam Lance Garcia
Chapter 15: The Crimson Hand’s Revenge
Chapter 16: The Murder of Jethro Dumont
Chapter 19: Beneath The Mountain
Chapter 21: Succession & Legacies
THE GREEN LAMA
TM
: CRIMSON CIRCLE
by Adam Lance Garcia
Copyright © 2015 by Kendra Crossen Burroughs. All Rights Reserved.
The Green Lama™ is used by permission of Kendra Crossen Burroughs.
Dedication
For my mother, who showed me that the greatest heroes are women.
Prelude: Red Handed, 1935
HIS EYES cracked open, black and white spots slowly forming into color and light. A bare bulb sent a harsh cone of illumination over the table in the center of the room, the walls hidden in darkness. There was a vacant seat across from him; the leather cushion so worn down from constant use it had begun to sprout thick black hairs at the edges. His head throbbed, radiating pain worse than the arthritis in his right hand, sending bullets down his spine. Reaching over to crack his knuckles, he found both wrists shackled to the chair, the cold metal stinging skin. Panic clamped down on his throat and he let out a soft whimper as he struggled against his bindings. Then, as he began to remember the night’s events, his body sank back into his seat, a tremendous wave of disappointment washing over him. How had it gone so wrong, he wondered? So many years of planning, all swept away in a single night by, of all things, some Buddhist bastard dressed in jade. Anger boiled behind his eyes. No matter how long it would take, he would repay the Green Lama in kind.
A door opened silently behind him, a tall, broad shadow appearing on the wall in front of him. “Dr. Frank Pelham,” the shadow growled, a dog at the edge of its leash. “Or should I say, ‘the Crimson Hand.’”
A smile teased at the corner of Pelham’s lips. “The Crimson Hand,” how he loved the sound of it. Pelham half-turned his head toward the door and allowed himself a toothy grin, suddenly feeling more like the mastermind he really was. “One and the same. I’d get up and shake your hand but,” he rattled his handcuffs, “I’m a little tied up.”
The door closed and a thick manila folder dropped onto the table. “Lieutenant John Caraway,” the barrel-chested detective introduced himself, sitting down in the worn chair across from Pelham. His uniform was unkempt—Pelham guessed he had slept in it more than a few times. “I suppose I should thank you, Dr. Pelham. Because of you—and the Green Lama—I’m up for a promotion of sorts. They’re giving me something called the Special Crime Squad,” Caraway said. “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” When Pelham didn’t respond Caraway reached over and flipped open the folder to the top sheet. “I’ve gotta be honest with ya, Doc, with a resume as impressive as yours, I never woulda figured ya for the ‘take-over-the-world’ type. But I guess people like to surprise ya.”
Pelham responded with a nonchalant shrug. “‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’”
“You are
small
,” Caraway retorted, his eyes scanning over the folder’s contents. “Your rap sheet on the other hand... Where do we begin? The robbery of the entire town of Norton, New York? Kidnapping of Dr. Valco, Evangl Stewart and Gary Brown? The attack on Cleveland? That was a mess of a day from what I hear. Why you’d choose Cleveland is beyond me… Or maybe we should start with the Tri-American plane you shot down?”
“Did I now?” Pelham asked, leaning forward. “My memory is a little foggy. Tell me, Lieutenant, in that big pile of papers of yours is there anything resembling proof?”
Caraway’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Or perhaps we can begin with the events of last night—” he said just as the door to the interrogation room burst open, sending a cold wave of air into the room. Blinking as his eyes struggled to adjust to the light, Caraway stared at the thin silhouette.
“Lieutenant Caraway,” the silhouette said in a calm, bland voice. “Thank you, but I will take it from here.”
“And you are…?” Caraway asked as the silhouette walked up next to Pelham in two smooth, silent steps. Pelham tried to screw his eyes up to catch a glimpse at the new visitor, but all he saw was the shadowed edge of a chin and a black tie.
The silhouette took a long breath before he replied. “Above your pay grade, Lieutenant,” he said, sliding a folded sheet of paper across the table.
“What the hell is this?” Caraway unfolded the letter and read over it before slamming his hand down, making Pelham jump in his seat. “This is bullshit! We’ll see what Commissioner Horton has to say about—”
“Commissioner Horton is fully apprised of the situation,” the silhouette said, his icy voice sending chills down Pelham’s spine, gooseflesh spreading over his arms. But Caraway wasn’t intimidated, slowly standing so his powerful frame cast a heavy shadow over the table. His right hand was clenched, ready for a fight. The silhouette silently considered Caraway and sighed. “Lieutenant, my instructions come from the highest authority. In this instance, I want you to pretend you are talking to the voice of God and if you do not heed His word, I will ensure that His wrath is brought upon you. Do not worry, Lieutenant, I will only need a few minutes alone with your prisoner, and then it will be as if I was never here at all. Check with the Commissioner, you will see all is in order.”
“You stay right here, and I’ll make sure this is all in ‘order,’” Caraway growled, storming out into the hallway. Later, when Commissioner Horton would ask him to describe the silhouetted man, Caraway would admit he never once saw the man’s face.
“Dr. Pelham,” the silhouette said, closing the door behind Caraway. He walked over to the chair across from Pelham, his footsteps whispering against the floor. The man pulled the chair a few inches back from the table and sat down, his face just out of the bare bulb’s cone of light. The man crossed his legs and laced his fingers together; on his right middle finger was a silver ring with a golden Ω embossed in a field of black. “We have heard so much about you.”
There was something about that voice, so unremarkable and cool. Pelham had heard voices like it before. It was the sort of voice Pelham thought he had when he was the Crimson Hand, but it had never been this bone-chilling. But there was something missing…
There was no soul behind the man’s voice. This was the voice of a killer.
“And you are?” Pelham whispered.
“Technically speaking, Dr. Pelham, I am no one,” the silhouette said, smoothing out the wrinkles in his suit. “But for the purpose of our current discussion, you may call me Omega.”
“How…” Pelham cleared his throat, “…ominous.”
Omega let out a small, hollow laugh. “No more ominous than ‘the Crimson Hand.’”
Pelham chuckled nervously. “Very true.” He opened and closed his right hand, working out the pain, reminding himself that as long as he could feel that, he was still alive.
They sat in silence for several minutes. Pelham could hear his heartbeat thrum in his ears, moving in time with the slow clicks of the second hand on the wall clock. Minutes felt like hours as he strained to see the face beyond the shadowed veil. His muscles tensed up as Omega slowly reached into his coat pocket.
“You don’t mind if I smoke,” Omega told Pelham, pulling out a thin, chrome cigarette case and a matchbook. The cigarette case, though elegant, was dented and scratched, as if it had been dropped out of a two-story window; the letter “X” engraved in the center.
“Not at all,” Pelham replied, his voice no louder than a whisper, knowing full well he hadn’t been asked permission.
Omega placed a cigarette in his mouth, clapped the case closed and struck a match, the small flame failing to reveal the mystery man’s identity. Omega shook out the match and took a long, slow drag of the cigarette, a sound that reminded Pelham of a snake moving through the weeds. “We have taken quite an interest in you, Dr. Pelham,” Omega said with dragon’s breath. He placed the case and matchbook back into his jacket pocket. “Long before you decided to get… theatrical.”
Pelham raised an eyebrow. “We?”
“We,” Omega reiterated. “My predecessor would have probably been more discreet but we are short on time and neurosurgeons with your… diverse talents are so hard to come by in this day and age.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “A pity, really.”
There was pounding at the door, the doorknob twisting uselessly back and forth. “Open up!” a muffled voice echoed through. “Open up! This is Commissioner Horton. Whoever you are, you are not authorized to be in there. Open this door immediately or we will come in there with force.”
Pelham glanced back at the door; things were definitely
not
what they seemed. He sat up in his chair, hoping to exude some confidence, but his eyes only spoke of panic. He stared into Omega’s shadowed face. “Well, I can see this is something that goes well beyond the typical interrogation routine they show in the pictures, by God. So, why don’t we get right down to business?”
“Yes…” Omega hissed, an audible smile; the red embers of his cigarette reflecting in the black pits of his eyes. “Why don’t we?”
There was a loud
pop!
as the light bulb above them went out, drenching the room with darkness.
Pelham couldn’t help but scream.
Part 1: Conspiracies
HOW I MET the Green Lama was pure happenstance, a coincidence of time and place. A moment earlier, a moment later, I would have spent my life in unassuming wealth, married to some moneyed buffoon, a third or fourth generation man-child so obsessed with his own visage I doubt he would have given me the time of day outside of some hoity-toity social affair. But as the Fates—if they exist, and I would like to think they do—deigned it, a simple visit to a family friend set in motion a series of events that would completely alter all that I knew of the world, revealing both the beauty and the darkness that envelops every moment.
Because of the Green Lama I would find a love so substantial and complete it seemed there was nothing in this world that could stop us. There are plenty of poems about falling in love, but none of them could ever describe what it was like falling for Gary Brown. Nor am I a poet, so perhaps those words will never be said. All that mattered was that my love for Gary—and his for me—was the kind that... made us better.
I began clipping newspapers after my first adventure with the Green Lama. I still have them all collected in a thick and yellowing binder I keep hidden in the basement safe. I read through them every so often, always in the basement, always with the door locked. I’m not exactly sure why. Sometimes I tell myself it’s because I don’t want Marie to find it. Other times it’s because I don’t want them to find it. But perhaps it’s because I just want to wrap myself up in the memories alone.
The first is a headline from the Sun, (written in those big and bold block letters that always made me think someone was screaming while they typed it):
CRIMSON HAND CAPTURED!
Outside the most obvious points, the article itself was scant on details; and what details it had were mostly conjecture. There was no mention of the Green Lama because as far as the public knew it had been Lieutenant John Caraway who had taken down the mad Dr. Pelham. And for that matter, neither Dr. Valco, Gary, nor I graced the papers, which was for the best. I’m sure that had I been mentioned, my mother would have died of embarrassment.