The Book With No Name (49 page)

‘I just tried to call him. His phone was switched off, but I left him a message.’

‘Good work, Scrubbs. What did you tell him?

‘Not much. I just warned him to stay away from Somers, and call in if he gets the chance.’

‘Good thinking, too, Lieutenant. So what else have you found in this goddam book? Anything else about the other guy, Taos?’

‘Well,’ said Scraggs, pulling the book back towards him. ‘I was just getting to that. Seems he found the Eye of the Moon and lit out with it somewhere that Xavier couldn’t get his hands on it.’

‘Anythin’ else?’

‘Not really, sir, or not yet anyway, but I’ve barely scratched the surface. This book could take a few days to read, and I only started halfway through.’

‘Any mention of the Bourbon Kid?’

‘Nope, nothing. Not yet anyway.’

BANG!

Startled, both men jumped, then looked over to the front door, drawing their guns ready for action. Scraggs leapt up from his chair as if he had received an electric shock. That had
been a gunshot. Outside. Officer Quaid was no longer standing guard at the door, but his voice could be heard from out in the street, yelling, ‘Shit, it’s him.
Shoot!
Fuckin’ shoot!’

There followed an almighty burst of gunfire. From the sound of it, seven or eight weapons were being fired at once. The firing lasted no more than ten seconds. Then there was silence. Rockwell and Scraggs looked at each other ominously.

‘It was nice knowin’ you, Captain,’ said Scraggs, desperately trying to keep a firm grip on his pistol. They didn’t teach you anything in training about dealing with a combination of trembling hands and cold sweat.

‘We ain’t dead yet, Scrubbs. You keep your nerve an’ we might just get outta this alive.’

‘Nah, we’ve looked at the book, Captain. We’re fucked. And it’s Scraggs, sir.’

‘Shaddup. Someone’s coming.’

Both men kept their guns trained on the doorway, waiting for whatever might appear. They could hear footsteps walking slowly towards the entrance. The tension was unbearable. As the footsteps drew closer, so their trigger fingers tightened. A shadow appeared at the doorway, followed a second later by the staggering, bloodstained figure of Officer Quaid.

BANG!

Instinctively, through nothing more than blind panic, Scraggs had fired a bullet straight into Quaid’s chest. The uniformed cop’s already bloodied face took on a final look of despair and surprise at being shot by the Lieutenant, before he fell forward, crashing face first on to the floor.

‘What the
fuck
you do that for?’ Rockwell yelled, turning to see Scraggs with his gun still smoking in his hand. ‘That’s one of my best men, goddamit.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I thought he was someone else. I panicked.’

‘Well
fuck!
Go panic somewhere else, you dumb shit!’

Scraggs’s expression changed. His whole face relaxed as if every muscle in it had packed up and gone home.

‘Too late,’ he said quietly.

Captain Rockwell looked back to the entrance. Standing in the doorway was the man in the hooded trench coat. The Bourbon Kid. He had a sawn-off shotgun in each hand.

One to kill the Captain and one to kill the Lieutenant.

Dante and Kacy had raced back to the County Motel, the big Cadillac barrelling along the streets, its tyres squealing as it hurtled round corners. Getting out of Santa Mondega alive was number one on their list of priorities. Kacy estimated that they had no more than ten minutes to change clothes and check out of the motel before the police started blocking off the main roads, in and out of the city. She was desperate to see the back of this horrible place, and head back to the civilized world before their luck finally ran out.

They parked the yellow car outside their room and rushed inside. Dante put the chain on the room door and then closed the blinds, before taking a quick peek through them to make sure no squad cars had arrived yet. When he turned round, he saw that Kacy’s clown outfit was already on the floor. She was beside it on her hands and knees, reaching under the bed. Her pert bottom was sticking up in the air and wiggling from side to side as she tried to pull the suitcase full of money from its hiding place. Her modesty was preserved only by a thin black thong and matching bra that she wore on special occasions for Dante’s benefit.

When she eventually managed to drag the suitcase out and sling it across the floor towards him, she saw that he was standing motionless, gawking at her.

‘Baby, now’s not the time,’ she barked. ‘Get those clothes off and put something clean on, for Chrissakes!’

Dante knew she was right, but all the while as he threw his clothes off, he was doing his utmost to work out a way of convincing her that there was enough time for a ‘quickie’.

Kacy checked that the suitcase was still full of money and then zipped it up again. She then climbed up on to the bed and grabbed another, heavier, suitcase from the floor on the other side of it. Using all her strength, she dragged it up on to the bed with her and then unzipped it. Inside it were all the clothes they owned in the world. She pulled out a pair of blue jeans for Dante and threw them over to him.

‘Here, put these on.’

Dante was standing in just a pair of black boxer shorts as he caught the jeans. If he put these on, any chance of a quick fuck would be gone.

‘Kace, you better throw me some new boxers, too,’ he said in a serious voice.

‘You don’t need clean boxers. Keep the ones you’re wearing.’

‘Nah, Kace, we’d better get rid of
all
the clothes we’re wearing. The cops could check them for DNA. Best we don’t take the chance.’

Kacy stopped rummaging through the suitcase. ‘What? Why would anyone check your boxers?’

‘Dunno, but it seems dumb to take the chance. We should strip off everything we’ve been wearing so we can burn it later, just to be on the safe side.’

‘
Really?
’ Kacy didn’t sound at all convinced.

Dante nodded. He had a disappointed look about him as he pulled his boxers off and threw them on to the pile of bloodied clothes on the floor.

‘It’s for the best, Kace. Shame, though. Those were my favourite boxers. Here, chuck me your undies and I’ll put them on the pile.’

Kacy was still unsure, but Dante had a very serious expression on his face. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and anyway she didn’t know any better.

‘Come on, Kace, we haven’t got all fuckin’ day!’

As he seemed to be in such a hurry, Kacy figured he wasn’t just after a quickie, so she swiftly undid her bra and threw it over to him. Her breasts were as perky as ever, the nipples
pointing rather invitingly right at him. Then, from her kneeling position on the bed, she rolled over on to her back and slipped off the tiny black thong. She couldn’t have explained why, but she then flicked it over to Dante in a seductive manner, and winked at him with a cheeky smile.

Maybe it was the sight of his erect cock that made her want to tease him a little. Either way, it had the all too predictable effect. Dante’s eyes were out on stalks at the sight of her naked body. It didn’t matter how many times he’d seen it, every time was as good as the first. Faster than a speeding bullet, he was on top of her, his hands everywhere, exploring her body as if it was previously uncharted territory.

‘Dante, no! We shouldn’t. There’s no time,’ Kacy protested meekly, even as she ran her hands down his back.

‘Yeah, I know,’ he whispered, as he slipped his cock inside her.

Somers and Jensen were in the older detective’s recently acquired squad car, racing down the main street through the centre of Santa Mondega, when a voice crackled out of the police radio. It was the information they had been waiting for.

‘The yellow Cadillac you’re after has been spotted parked outside the County Motel on Gordon Street,’ said the voice.

‘We’re right on it, thanks,’ said Somers, speaking into the radio mike, which he held with one hand while steering the car with the other. He’d never had any truck with all that ‘Ten-four’ shit.

‘You think the Kid’s still there?’ Jensen asked from the passenger seat.

‘Dunno. But there’s a good chance the Eye of the Moon is there, and at the very least I’ll get my car back. And maybe the sonofabitch who stole it.’

He suddenly wrenched the steering wheel violently to the left without slowing down. They turned off the main drag and down a side street with cars parked along both sides. Somers put his foot right down on the gas pedal and sped along the centre of the road without a care for anyone foolish enough to be crossing it.

It took little more than ten minutes for him to get them to the County Motel. He had driven through countless back alleys and side streets, along the way swerving wildly not only to avoid oncoming traffic, but also several careless pedestrians.

The County Motel was a no-frills, run-down, thirty-room
establishment on the side of the main highway that headed west out of Santa Mondega. It was a good place for any out-of-towners to spend their first night in the city. The accommodation was cheap and the parking was free.

When they arrived, the parking lot was less than half full. Most of the vehicles parked in it were pick-up trucks or station wagons. There was no sign of any Cadillacs of any description, certainly not a bright yellow one. Somers parked the squad car in the middle space of a band of three vacant spots no more than twenty yards to the left of the main entrance. There was a vandalized sign over the entrance that read:

‘
WELCOME TO THE C UNTY MOTEL’.

Beneath the sign, a single concrete step led up to a pair of glass double doors with a hideous lime-green border around their outer edges.

‘I’m gonna head in to reception,’ Somers said, opening the driver’s door. ‘You wait here, and honk the horn if you see anything.’

‘Sure thing,’ replied Jensen, pulling his cellphone from his pocket as his partner climbed out of the car.

Somers walked hurriedly up to the double doors as Jensen turned his phone back on. He had left it off ever since Somers had rescued him from the barn, and maybe the scarecrow, the night before. The phone beeped several times within seconds of being turned on. A line of text came up on the screen.