The Book With No Name (21 page)

‘It’s not a guy who looks like Elvis, is it?’ asked Dante. This old hag was giving him the creeps.

The Mystic Lady’s face screwed up into a contorted frown. ‘
What do you know of him?
’ she hissed.

‘Well, we think he may have killed Marcus,’ whispered Kacy.

The old lady leaned forward over the table, keeping her voice low. ‘Don’t you two watch the news?’ she croaked. ‘Elvis is dead.’

‘No,’ laughed Dante. ‘This was just a guy who
looked
like Elvis.’

The fortune teller shook her head in a condescending manner. ‘Where do you two live?’ she inquired.

‘Why?’ Dante was a little defensive. Kacy, however, was happy to part with a little information.

‘We just moved into a motel yesterday.’

‘Were you in a place called Shamrock before?’

‘Yeah. How’d you know that?’ Dante asked. This Mystic Lady – this
fortune teller –
was really coming up with the goods, unlike so many of the others Kacy had dragged him to see in the past. The old woman leaned back in her chair again and flashed a toothy smile at him.

‘Because I watch the news and I listen to the radio,’ she said. ‘That’s where they found Elvis’s dead body this morning.’

‘
Excuse me?
’

‘The man you spoke of, who looked like Elvis? Well, he’s dead. Sounds like he tracked you down, but so did someone else. Looks like Elvis was the big loser. His body was found in
your
old apartment block. Could’ve been you two just as easily.’

Dante wasn’t happy. In fact, he was starting to feel a little light-headed. This latest news had shocked him. Worse, it worried him. A lot. Someone had tracked down and killed Elvis, possibly because of the blue stone in the necklace he and Kacy had acquired. But there was also another possibility. The suitcase that Kacy had stolen from one of the other rooms just after she had robbed Marcus the Weasel. What if someone was looking for that? Getting rid of the stone was a good idea, but getting rid of the suitcase was not an option. It had contained one hundred thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills. Dante didn’t know which was the more sought after, the hundred grand or the precious blue stone. Either way, hanging around in Santa Mondega for much longer was not a good idea.

‘Fuck. Come on, Kacy, let’s get outta here. We can pawn that fucking stone before it’s too late.’

‘You got it, baby.’

The Mystic Lady had no need to look into her crystal ball to know that she would never see Dante or Kacy again. The forces of evil had a nasty habit of tracking down all those who had been in contact with the Eye of the Moon, and they would stop at nothing to retrieve it. These two kids would be lucky if they lived to the end of the day.

When Kyle and Peto had booked into the Santa Mondega International Hotel they had been highly impressed by the courtesy of the staff. The manager had insisted that a porter should carry their luggage up to their room for them, but even then, and despite the pleasant nature of both the manager and porter, Kyle had made sure he kept a tight grip on the black suitcase they had brought with them. He had assured the manager that it weighed less than a bag of feathers, and contained only a prayer book and a pair of sandals.

One thing that Kyle had stressed to Peto over and over again was the importance of not trusting anyone they met. So although they had both really wanted to trust the hotel staff, they had insisted that no one should touch the suitcase except them. Once the porter had left them in their room they had made a point of hiding it under the bed. As Kyle informed Peto, the last place anyone would look for something valuable was under the bed. Kyle clearly hadn’t watched enough television. If he had, he would have known that this was the worst place to hide anything valuable. Any chambermaid or porter looking to steal from the hotel’s guests would always look under the bed first.

Only now was Kyle beginning to understand fully why Father Taos had overstated his strictures about not trusting anyone, and the necessity for being extremely careful not to let the suitcase out of their sight. Kyle had followed the wise old monk’s lead and overstated the point to Peto. Now, however, and as much as he hated to admit it, on this occasion the novice wasn’t to blame. It had been Kyle’s idea to hide
the suitcase under the bed. He had wrongly assumed that locking the door of their hotel room behind them when they set off for the Tapioca would be sufficient. With the result that there was now nothing under the bed. No suitcase, and more importantly, no hundred thousand dollars in used bills that had been inside it. They had been robbed, and they had no idea by whom.

‘Kyle, who would do such a thing?’ asked a visibly upset Peto, checking under the bed for the thousandth time, just in case the suitcase really was there and they had missed it by some freak of chance. Kyle had no idea either.

‘From what I’ve seen of the world outside Hubal, just about anyone could have done this. No one seems to have a conscience, or any idea of what is right and wrong. We are in serious trouble, Peto. This money was all we had to trade with in the outside world. Now we will have to become thieves like everyone else if we are to get the Eye of the Moon back.’

Peto could not believe what he was hearing. Giving up his pointless search, he threw himself down in a chair by the window. Kyle was advocating breaking the code by which they had lived their entire lives. And this was his
first
suggestion, too. He had come up with no other ideas. This was serious.

‘But that would go against the code,’ he said, horrified. ‘That would contradict everything we have been taught.’

‘Yes, it would,’ Kyle mused. ‘But that, my friend, is probably what happened to all the other monks who ever left Hubal to go on missions. It is why none of them are fit to return and live among us. I think we are now seeing the true sacrifice of being the ones chosen to find the Eye.’

‘There must be another way to get the Eye back without stealing. There must be!’ Peto insisted.

‘Do you really think anyone is going to help get it back to us for free, when they could sell it and get fifty thousand dollars from someone else?’ He ran a hand over his face, briefly rubbing his tired eyes. He went on, ‘No, Peto, we have no choice. We must put aside all we have been taught. We will have to break every one of our sacred vows if we are to get the stone back.’

‘Does that mean we should start drinking, smoking, swearing, gambling and sleeping with fast women?’ Peto asked.

‘You’ve been watching too much of that television, Peto. I don’t think we’ll need to break those particular vows. But lying and stealing, we may just have to commit crimes such as those,’ his brother monk replied.

Kyle was now sitting on the large double bed under which they had hidden the suitcase full of money. He had buried his head in his hands. Breaking the sacred laws of Hubal … this was not what he had intended when he had set out, although he had been aware it might possibly be a job requirement.

‘Well then, surely if we’re going to break one vow and be banished from Hubal for ever, we might as well break them all and be done with it?’ Peto reasoned. ‘Besides, I’ve already shot one scum— person in the face and killed him.’

‘That doesn’t count,’ snapped Kyle. ‘That was an accident.’

For once, Kyle seemed not to be in control of his emotions. Peto had not seen him like this before. The older monk was clearly distraught at having lost all their money, and the thought of breaking even one of the vows he had followed all his life was making him feel even worse. Peto, on the other hand, was quickly coming to terms with the idea of breaking rules. If the truth be known he was actually relishing the opportunity. With that thought, he was immediately up on his feet.

‘Fuck it, Kyle, where’s that minibar?’ he asked defiantly.

‘Whoa! Steady on there, Peto,’ said Kyle, also jumping to his feet. ‘I said we
might
have to break some vows. You’ve already cursed, but let that be as far as it goes for now, hmmm? If you end up lying and stealing and being banished from Hubal because you were trying to reclaim the Eye of the Moon, then, and
only
then, can you think about breaking other vows, such as the one forbidding the drinking of alcohol.’

Peto looked crestfallen. He had seen all the drunk men in Sanchez’s bar and had rather fancied trying the whole
experience out for himself. He knew in his heart that Kyle would never have let him touch the minibar, but just to be thinking of such a thing made him feel more alive, somehow. Saying ‘Fuck’ had been surprisingly liberating, too.

‘You’re right, Kyle, of course you are. Hear me out, though. If we’re going to get the Eye back from whatever slime— bandit has hold of it at the moment, wouldn’t it benefit us to have an idea of what it’s like to be them? You know, to get inside their heads?’

‘Sure it would, but getting drunk is not at all what I had in mind.’

‘So what do you have in mind?’

‘Let’s stick to our strengths.’ Kyle did at least look as though he was concocting a plan, much to Peto’s relief. ‘Hand-to-hand combat, whether it be mugging somebody or just fighting for money. That has to be our first plan.’

‘Do you seriously think we’ll get back our hundred thousand dollars by mugging someone?’

Kyle put his hands on his hips and looked up at the ceiling for inspiration. ‘No, probably not, but it’s a start,’ he said. ‘We don’t have any money right now, so that might have to be our first option.’

‘And what is our second option?’ Peto asked, the realization that they wouldn’t even be able to pay for their next meal finally dawning on him.

‘We don’t have one. We shall have to mug some people, then we can take whatever money we get from that, and – er – put it to use. I overheard someone in the Tapioca say that there is a travelling fair on the edge of town. As I understand it we can speculate with our money there to accumulate more.’

‘You mean gamble?’ Peto’s eyes lit up.

‘No. That would be breaking a sacred vow. We will speculate with our money in an attempt to accumulate more wealth, not for our benefit, but for the benefit of mankind.’

‘I like the sound of that,’ Peto said, smiling.

‘Good. Now let’s watch some more television for a while and see what else we can learn about the outside world before
tomorrow’s eclipse.’

‘Okay. What’s on?’

‘
Weekend At Bernie’s
.‘

‘Sounds good.’