The Book of Death (23 page)

The Reference section was full
of shelves that carried on all the way up to the ceiling, filled with hardback
books about all kinds of boring subjects. It was a blessing that the books were
sorted alphabetically by author name, well, more or less. He headed straight to
the first row of shelves and began scouring the spines of the books written by
authors whose surnames began with A. It seemed that the Reference section was
the graveyard for all the unclassifiable books that were dumped by Josh when he
didn’t know where to put them. Aside from not being in particularly good
alphabetical order there were also all kinds of non-referential books in sight.
Sanchez flicked through the titles until he came to one by Anonymous. It was
called Primary Colors. Scouring along the shelf to the right he saw several
more books, some with the name Anonymous along the spine and others with no
name at all. It baffled him how anyone could be so stupid as to go to the
trouble of writing a book and then forget to put his or her name on it.

There were varying titles, some
of which were further reference books in the “Gay Man’s Guide To…” series.
During his last visit to the library Sanchez had mistakenly picked up a copy of
The Gay Man’s Guide to Anal Sex and ended up borrowing it to prevent Ulrika
Price from noticing he was stealing The Book of Death at the same time. The
guide wasn’t due back for another week so he had left it back at the Tapioca.
In fact he wasn’t sure how he was ever going to get around to returning that
book, simply because of the embarrassment of being seen with it in public.

After scouring over a hundred
books, he finally spotted the familiar black binding on The Book of Death. The
title was written in a white font, which had faded quite badly. He felt his
heart race in his chest. This was it, the ticket to fifty thousand dollars in
reward money and a place in Jessica’s heart. If this didn’t impress her,
nothing would.

He pulled the book out from
where it had been wedged in by Rick the day before. Resting it on the edge of
one of the shelves he flicked it open at about halfway. It was definitely the
right book. It was full of names, just as he remembered. He flicked through the
pages until eventually he came to the one where he had written Jessica’s name
along with two others. Checking both ways along the aisle to see if anyone was
watching, he grabbed a firm hold of the page and tore it out of the book as
quietly as he could. He crumpled the paper up and stuck it into one of the
front pockets on his pants. Everything seemed to have worked out perfectly. He
breathed a sigh of relief and tucked the book under his arm, then he strolled
confidently back out of the aisle and out into the open area near the reception
desk. Josh was now sitting behind the reception desk. He nodded at Sanchez when
he saw him.

‘Find what you were looking for,
Detective?’ he asked.

‘Yes I did, thanks.’

‘Can I ask what it is, please?’

Sanchez thought about it. He had
nothing to hide this time. He wanted the world to know he had been the one to
locate the book. If by some chance anyone else tried to take the credit for
discovering it, he would have Josh as a witness. In fact, he decided, it would
be worth checking the book out in his own name, just to make things official.

‘It’s The Book of Death, by
Anonymous,’ he said. ‘Please log it against my account.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said Josh
reaching down to type on a keyboard in front of a monitor on the desk. Sanchez
waited by the desk to make sure he did it properly.

After a few seconds of typing,
Josh looked up. ‘It says here you already have one book out,’ he said frowning.
‘The Gay Man’s Guide to Anal Sex?’

‘Police business,’ Sanchez
retorted.

Josh raised an eyebrow. ‘Researching
the great buggery case from nineteen eighty-four?’

‘Are we done?’ Sanchez asked in
a firm voice.

‘Yep. When should I expect both
books back?’

‘When I’ve finished my research.
Good day.’

With The Book of Death tucked
firmly under his arm, Sanchez marched out of the doors and headed down the
stairs. The whole process had actually been much easier than he had expected
(aside from the unfortunate revelation about the buggery book). As he hurried
down the steps he contemplated what he would say to Jessica when he showed up
at the Casa de Ville with the book. He was so deep in thought that he barely
noticed the large gentleman dressed as Santa Claus coming up the stairs. The
two of them bumped into each other. The collision caused Sanchez to drop The
Book of Death. It bounced onto the edge of one of the steps behind the Santa
and then continued to bounce down the stairs to the bottom. Sanchez looked up
at the Santa who stared back at him with a look of surprise on his bright red
face. Both men spoke at the same time and uttered the exact same words:

‘Watch where you’re
going, ya fat bastard!’

The Santa actually looked pretty
fearsome, and Sanchez noticed specks of blood in his dirty grey beard. He also smelled
of stale booze, a smell Sanchez knew only too well. It’s how most of his
customers at the Tapioca smelled when they arrived for the day. Considering the
level of booze, Sanchez was surprised that the Santa was even up so early in
the morning. Whatever the reason, it was obvious that the guy wasn’t much of a
morning person because he looked about ready to rip Sanchez’s head off. His
face contorted with rage at the fat bastard comment from the law enforcement
officer. An apology of sorts was required.

‘Er, sorry,’ said Sanchez.
‘Didn’t realise you were a man of God an’ all that.’ He reached inside his
jacket and pulled out his silver hip flask. He held it out to the angry Santa.
‘Here, have some Christmas spirit on me,’ he said with a fake smile.

The Santa looked down at the hip
flask and eyed Sanchez suspiciously. ‘What’s in it?’ he growled.

‘It’s similar to eggnog, so
it’ll probably taste very familiar to the likes of you. And you can keep the
flask. Merry Christmas.’

The Santa took the flask. The
angry look on his face softened. ‘Merry Christmas to you too, officer,’ he
said. Then he carried on his way up the stairs.

Sanchez breathed a sigh of
relief and hurried on down to the bottom of the stairs where The Book of Death
had landed face down on the ground in a patch of dirt and snow just inside the
front doors. The dirt had most likely been brought in on the boots of the fat
angry Santa (who by Sanchez’s reckoning would be even angrier once he took a
sip from the hip flask). He picked the book up and brushed the snow and dirt
off the cover then headed back out into the street.

Up in the library, Josh was busy
trying to fathom whether or not Sanchez was really a cop or just a homosexual
who liked dressing up as a member of the Village People, when he was confronted
by the sight of an angry looking Santa Claus.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ he asked.

The Santa leaned over the desk.
He had an unpleasant smell emanating from his breath. ‘I’m looking for the
Reference section. Where is it?’ he asked.

‘Over there,’ said Josh pointing
over the Santa’s right shoulder. ‘Are you a member here, sir?’

‘No.’

‘In that case I’ll have to get
you to fill out a new members form once you’ve chosen a book.’

The Santa curled his top lip up,
revealing a fairly sharp set of teeth. He unscrewed the lid on a silver hip
flask he was holding and eyeballed Josh. ‘I’m looking for The Book of Death,’
he said in a husky voice unbefitting of a man so universally loved by children
the world over. ‘I’m told it’s in the Reference section. You seen it?’

Josh knew where it was all
right. Sanchez had just taken it away for official police business. So why did
this guy want it? Was he a criminal? And what was the big deal with The Book of
Death anyway? As Josh pondered his answer, the Santa took a swig from his hip
flask. A second later his eyes bulged open wide and he spat the contents out
over Josh’s face and shirt.

Josh reeled back and wiped the
spittle from his face. ‘What the fuck?’ he groaned, sniffing the liquid on his
hands. It smelled like piss. Normally that would have made him react very
angrily but looking at the size of the Santa he decided to show some restraint
and just answer his enquiry instead. ‘Sanchez Garcia has the book you’re
looking for. He just left. You probably passed him on the stairs. Short fat guy
in a gay cop outfit.’

The Santa was still retching
from the drink that he had just spat out. ‘What?’ he snarled.

‘Sanchez. He has the book.’

The Santa threw the hip flask at
Josh. It hit him hard on the forehead and some more of the contents spilled out
over him. A smell of piss filled the air. Sanchez’s legendary finest homebrew
had struck again.

‘I’ll fucking kill him!’ the
Santa growled.

By the time Josh had finished
wiping the piss out of his eyes the Santa was halfway down the stairs in
pursuit of Sanchez.

Twenty-Eight

JD had lost track of how long he’d
been on the road. His mind had been filled with numerous different scenarios of
how the journey might end. And what had become of Beth. He had no way of
knowing if she was alive or dead. All he did know was that he, JD, was not the
man to carry out any kind of rescue mission, or if necessary a revenge mission.
That was a job for the Bourbon Kid, the man he used to be. Others might look at
him and see the mass serial killer, but deep down inside he knew that he was
nothing of the sort. He was now a man with a conscience and more importantly a
soul. That soul was all he would have to bargain with in the Devil’s Graveyard.

The drive had flown by, much like the
scenery, until finally he found himself on a familiar stretch of road. He’d
been down this particular highway before, almost a decade earlier. The highway
still looked the same and the desert plains surrounding it were still barren
and desolate. The sky overhead was clear blue, a stark contrast to darkened
cloudy skies above Santa Mondega. As he sped down the middle of the highway all
he could hear was the roar of the engine on his dust covered black V8
Interceptor.

When he passed a burned out old
police car on the side of the road he knew he was close. It reminded him of a
high-speed chase he’d been involved in with the cops on his last visit to the
Devil’s Graveyard. He’d rammed several of their cars off the road and fired off
plenty of rounds at them, usually hitting his mark whether it be a tyre or a
cop’s face.

A few miles further down the road
he zipped past the decrepit and abandoned gas station with the imaginative
title Joe’s Gas and Diner. As it disappeared from sight in his rear view mirror
he slowed the car down. There was a crossroads up ahead.

The Devil’s Crossroads.

He eased off on the accelerator
and pulled over at the side of the road just before the junction and turned the
engine off. There was no one in sight. Not a soul. But this was definitely the
place to be. He had to cut a deal here. The kind that Robert Johnson had cut
with the Devil back in 1931.

He opened the car door and stepped
out onto the dusty highway. The silence outside in the Devil’s Graveyard was
eerie. Not the usual quiet one found anywhere else. There was a silent breeze
blowing, he could feel it on his face. But the only thing in the desert making
any kind of sound was him. His footsteps crunching on the gravel stones beneath
his black ankle boots offered the only evidence that he wasn’t in a dream.

The crossroads looked just as he’d
remembered it. The signpost that was supposed to show where all the turnings
led was missing, just as it had been all those years before.

So where the hell was the man with
the directions?

He
stood at the central point of the junction and looked around. If he remembered
correctly, the now non-existent Hotel Pasadena had been a few miles down the
road after a right turn. So where did the other turnings lead? He looked to his
left. There was nothing to see but more desert wasteland and some high orange
coloured mountains in the distance. It was the same in all four directions. It
was while staring out into this abyss that he heard the voice he’d been waiting
for.

‘I wondered when you’d be back,’
it said.

It was Jacko. The blues man.

His old acquaintance was walking
towards him along the middle of the road, from the East, carrying a black
guitar case.

The young black singer was still
wearing the black suit, fedora hat and aviator sunglasses that he’d been given
by the Bourbon Kid for his performance as a Blues Brother in the Back from the
Dead singing contest all those years before. He hadn’t aged a day since they
had last met, still looking every bit like the fresh-faced young musician looking
for his big break.

‘You owe me a pair of shades,’ JD
reminded him.

‘Nice to see you too.’

‘You know why I’m here?’

‘Sure.’

He was relieved to know that he
wouldn’t have to explain himself to Jacko (who, he recalled, could be quite a
tiresome and cryptic individual). The fact that Jacko was well aware of the
reasons for his reappearance in the Devil’s Graveyard didn’t surprise him. He’d
always suspected that their paths would cross again. It was a small matter that
both men had been only too aware of when they had last met.