The Book With No Name (48 page)

‘Yeah it was him again,’ he said wearily. ‘He had a kid helping him this time, as well. Some guy dressed up as the Terminator. I think the two of them killed my brother and his wife. Probably killed Elvis, too.’

‘That guy?’ asked Somers, gesturing at the dead Elvis impersonator by the front entrance.

‘Nah, that guy was just some bum who walked in at the wrong time.’

‘Poor bastard.’

‘Yeah, him and a hundred others. So, you wanna drink or not, Detective?’

‘Sure. What’ve you got?’

‘Bourbon.’

Somers let out a deep sigh. The Kid was gone, but the bourbon was still flowing, as usual.

‘Fuck it. Go ahead, then.’

The exasperated detective walked over to where Sanchez had been standing and took a look at Jessica’s body. He picked up what was left of one of her arms so that he could check for a pulse.

‘I told you already. She’s
dead,
man,’ Sanchez called out from behind the bar. He was pouring a shot of bourbon into the only surviving glass, the one he’d been drinking from.

Just then a second cop, wearing a shiny silver suit, entered the Tapioca and clumsily caught his trailing leg on the body of the Elvis impersonator as he stepped over it. It was Miles Jensen, the black detective from out of town. Sanchez had met him a few days earlier when he’d dropped by to ask some pretty pointless questions about the killing of Thomas and Audrey. The bartender had told him nothing then, and wasn’t about to tell him anything now. He didn’t like cops at the best of times, but nosy guys with badges? – well, he had no tolerance for them whatsoever.

‘Jesus, what a mess,’ Jensen said, straightening after his minor stumble. ‘Another dead Elvis, hey? Shit, ain’t nobody’s got any respect for the King these days, huh?’

‘You wanna shot of bourbon too?’ Sanchez grunted.

‘What else you got?’

‘Nothin’.’

‘In that case I’ll pass, thanks.’

Jensen walked over towards Somers, who was now
crouching by Jessica’s body. He recognized the remains of Carlito and Miguel lying among all the glass, blood and shell casings as he stepped over them on his way to join his partner. It was comforting to know they were dead after what they had put him through the night before. But now wasn’t the time to reflect on that, for there seemed to be quite a few innocents caught up in this whole sorry mess. One of them was a young woman whose face Somers was covering over with a stained bar towel.

‘She alive?’ Jensen asked.

‘No, she’s gone. Everyone in here’s dead ’cept Sanchez,’ said Somers, standing up. ‘We’d better get Forensics in here. Maybe we can get word out and catch the Bourbon Kid before he gets too far away. According to Sanchez, he’s got an accomplice who’s dressed as the Terminator.’

Jensen was beginning to understand why Somers had spent the last five years trying to nail the Bourbon Kid. Some of these victims had families who shouldn’t have to see them like this just because some psycho couldn’t handle his drink.

‘I’ll go and tell the ambulance crews they can come in.’

‘No, it’s okay,’ said Somers, looking down at the body of a dead monk and tutting to himself. ‘I’ll do that. You stay here and get a statement from Sanchez.’

He walked up to the counter where Sanchez had placed his glass of bourbon. He took one look at it and grimaced.

‘On second thoughts, I’ll pass on that drink,’ he said. ‘Probably a bit inappropriate to be touching that stuff in the light of what’s just happened. In fact, some people might say it’s inappropriate to be serving the stuff, too. And for what it’s worth, you smell like piss.’

Somers walked out, still tutting under his breath every time he passed another corpse. He seemed utterly disgusted by the savage waste of innocent lives all around him.

Jensen felt bad that they had not made it to the Tapioca sooner. Maybe he could redeem himself and surprise Somers by becoming the first guy ever to get some decent information out of Sanchez. He picked up one of the wooden stools from
the floor and brushed the broken glass from it, then took it over to the bar and sat down.

‘So, Sanchez,’ he began, ‘smells like piss in here, don’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ the barman shrugged. ‘You really need a statement from me right now?’

‘No,’ Jensen smiled. Maybe now really
wasn’t
the time. ‘You can come down to headquarters tomorrow and give one then, if you want.’

‘Thanks, man.’

‘No problem.’

Jensen picked up Somers’s unwanted glass of bourbon and took a sip. It was warm and tasted like it had grit in it. The result was distinctly unrefreshing.

‘Christ! That’s stuff’s foul, man. No wonder this Kid goes nuts when he drinks it.’ As soon as he’d said it, he cringed. Could he really have made such an insensitive remark? Even in a place like this that was well used to tactless comments, it was a rotten thing to have come out with. He took a look at Sanchez’s face. The bartender was obviously not impressed.

‘Sorry, man. Bad joke.’

‘Forget it.’

Jensen didn’t want to outstay his welcome any longer than necessary, especially not if he was coming out with comments of such dubious taste. He stood up from his barstool and reached into his pocket. Sanchez stepped back uneasily.

‘All right, Sanchez, I’m just reaching for my wallet,’ Jensen smiled.

‘It’s okay, man. You don’t have to pay for the drink,’ the other man said.

Jensen pulled out his wallet and opened it. Then he produced a small red business card from it.

‘Here, take my card. My cellphone number’s on here. You can call me if you should remember anything, y’know … important… about the Bourbon Kid.’ He balanced the card on top of the half-drunk glass of bourbon. Sanchez picked it up and slipped it into his back pocket.

‘Sure. Thanks, Detective. I’ll keep that in mind.’

‘You do that. Take it easy, Sanchez.’

Jensen made his way over to the front entrance, once again accidentally snagging his foot on the dead Elvis impersonator. He looked back to see if Sanchez had noticed. He obviously had, because he was shaking his head. Jensen smiled at him through gritted teeth. How embarrassing. Sanchez must have thought he was a black version of Inspector Clouseau.

As it happened, Sanchez wasn’t thinking that at all. He was actually feeling sorry for the clumsy detective and decided to offer him an olive branch.

‘Hey, Detective, I just remembered somethin’,’ he called out. ‘The guy in the Terminator outfit, he’s drivin’ a yellow Cadillac.’

Miles Jensen stopped dead in his tracks.

‘You serious? A yellow Caddy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Shit, wait ’til Somers hears this,’ Jensen said, laughing to himself.

‘What’s so goddam funny?’ asked Sanchez.

‘Oh nothin’ really,’ said Jensen. ‘It’s just that Somers had his yellow Caddy stolen last night. He was fucking fuming, man. You shoulda seen him.’

Sanchez stood behind the bar, lost in thought as the detective walked out to his car. Somers owned the yellow Cadillac? What could this mean, exactly? Had Somers killed Thomas and Audrey? If so, did that mean he’d also killed Elvis? Before he could give the matter too much consideration, he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. Then he heard a cough.
It was Jessica.
He ran out from behind the bar and bent over her, quickly pulling the towel from her face. She was breathing again.
She was still alive,
albeit barely, clinging on by the skin of her teeth. The flesh seemed to have returned to her face, as if she was regenerating. This had to be a miracle of some kind. He had checked her pulse only a few minutes earlier and she had been dead. Then the old-guy detective, Somers, had checked her over, too, and confirmed
it. But now, suddenly she was alive again! Hell, Sanchez didn’t care how. He just knew it was up to him to look after her. This was a sign. A sign from God. They were meant to be together. This time he would nurse her back to health himself.

As he carried her limp body into his back room he heard the sound of the ambulances pulling up outside. He would have to hide her again, just like last time. No one could be trusted. If word got out that she was alive, the Bourbon Kid would come back for her. It might take another five years, maybe more this time, maybe less, who knew? But Sanchez would nurse her back to health.

And this time, maybe she would thank him for it.

Captain Rockwell stepped inside the House of the Mystic Lady to find Lieutenant Scraggs sitting behind a desk in a chair next to the one holding the decapitated body of the old woman. He was flicking through the pages of a heavy hardback book. Scraggs nearly jumped right out of his skin when he saw the Captain enter.

‘Goddammit, Scrubbs, didn’t I tell you not to touch anything?’ Rockwell growled angrily.

‘Yes, you did, Captain, but you gotta see this. This book explains everything.’

‘It fucking well better.’

Scraggs flicked back through a few pages and then turned the open book to face Rockwell, who approached the desk, all the while maintaining an icy stare at his subordinate to let him know how displeased he was at being disobeyed.

‘Right, what’m I looking at?’ he asked.

Scraggs pointed at the left-hand page. On it was a coloured drawing of two men with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Both were dressed in long robes, suggesting that they had lived hundreds of years ago, a fact made more likely by the crumpled yellow parchment of the book’s pages. One of the robed men was holding a golden chalice with red liquid spilling from it. Both looked serenely happy, almost ecstatic.

‘Sir, read the caption underneath the picture,’ said Scraggs.

Rockwell didn’t take kindly to being ordered around by Scraggs, but he read the clear black lettering quietly to himself.

Armand Xavier and Ishmael Taos found and drank from
the Cup of Christ in the Year of Our Lord 526.

‘Is that it?’ asked Rockwell. ‘What the fuck is this? I don’t get it.’

‘Look at the picture of the two men again, sir. Don’t you recognize one of them?’

Captain Rockwell looked closely at the picture again, concentrating more on the men’s faces this time. After just a few seconds he raised one eyebrow and looked at Scraggs.

‘The one on the left looks like that asshole Somers.’

‘That’s Armand Xavier.’

‘There any other pictures of him in here?’

‘Yeah. Check this out.’ Scraggs flicked over a whole lot more pages and eventually stopped at another illustration. This time the drawing showed a group of people. ‘You might recognize a few more of these, Captain.’

Again Rockwell studied the picture, which showed four men and a woman. Beneath it was lettered:

Dark Lord Xavier and his family – believed to reside in Santa Mondega, a city of the New World.

‘Dark Lord Xavier,’ Rockwell said, sounding more than a little confused. ‘But that’s Somers for sure, and those other three guys – that’s El Santino and his two gay sidekicks. This has gotta be some kinda fuckin’ joke.’

Scraggs shook his head. ‘I’ve been reading some of this shit, Captain. Mostly just the pages with pictures on, but from what I can gather, it’s saying that this Armand Xavier guy and his good friend Ishmael Taos drank the blood of Christ and became immortal.’

‘That’s ludicrous.’

‘Yeah, I know. But then, get this. They fell out over a woman, the woman in the picture, I guess.’

‘Who the fuck’s she?’

‘I think her name is Jessica. You see, according to the book, Xavier became frustrated at being immortal and not
being able to share his life with someone for all eternity. Then he meets this Jessica woman, and it turns out she’s a vampire or somethin’. So when she bites him, he becomes more than just immortal. He’s got the blood of Christ and the blood of a vampire running through his veins, so I guess technically he becomes the chief bloodsucker, or the Dark Lord, if you will.’

Rockwell had never heard anything so far-fetched in all his long, if undistinguished, career. Then again, maybe some things were beginning to make sense. He took a deep breath, then puffed out his cheeks as he emitted a deep sigh.

‘Shit, this can’t be right.’ He scratched his head and frowned. ‘But I guess it explains why a supernatural investigator has been assigned out here. I wonder if Jensen actually knows about this?’