The Devil's Graveyard (37 page)

Truth was, Sanchez was a good deal more nervous than Elvis. The King had performed onstage countless times before. There were few things he enjoyed more than being in front of an audience. Sanchez, on the other hand, was edgy for all kinds of reasons. If Elvis did great and won the contest, what would it mean? Would the zombies swarm in, and if so, would they try to kill everyone? Or just the people in the audience? And if Elvis lost, and Julius-the-James-Brown-impersonator won, then what would that mean? Would the hotel really crumble and be sucked into the pit of Hell?

Sanchez was not, by any measure, a cerebral man. Nor even a particularly rational one. All the speculation was making him extremely anxious. So he did what he always did when nervous. He headed for the restroom with the intention of filling his hip flask with piss for the next unsuspecting victim. He did this with a certain amount of trepidation, given what he had experienced there, but he was banking on his belief that, in a hotel like the Pasadena, the place would have been restored to order hours ago.

The corridor leading to the men’s washroom was deserted, as was most of the rest of the hotel by this time. Everyone seemed to have made for the auditorium in order to watch the final sing-off and the declaration of the winner of the competition. The washroom was empty, too, and Sanchez was pleased to see that someone had come by and cleaned up the mess from earlier. The pool of blood that had spilled out of the stalls and on to the floor was gone, as were the corpses of the dead singers. Almost as important, the horrendous smell had gone too, which was quite a relief. He locked himself away in stall four and, with a remarkably steady hand, began pissing into his silver hip flask. It was a skill he had mastered over the years, and in spite of his nervous state, his aim was dead on. It was a very satisfying piss, too. As he was finishing he heard someone else walk into the washroom and unzip his fly, preparatory to taking a leak at one of the urinals.

Sanchez screwed the lid back on his flask and unlocked the door of the stall, then made his way over to the washbasins to give his hands a quick rinse. He paid little attention to the man pissing at the middle urinal as he placed the flask down beside of one the basins and flicked on the hot faucet. As he began to rinse his hands in the warm water, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the other man was staring at him. Without wishing to do anything that might suggest he was eyeing up another man who was urinating, Sanchez slyly turned his head to see who it was.

Their eyes met for only a second. As fractional moments of time go, however, it was more than enough. Sanchez grabbed his hip flask and ran for the door, giving the urinals a very wide berth. The man taking a piss was Invincible Angus. And he’d seen and recognized the hapless bar owner.

‘Wait up, you fucker!’ Angus roared. ‘I want my twenty fuckin’ grand!’

Sanchez didn’t have the twenty grand. All he had was a hip flask full of piss. He’d have to sell a heck of a lot of it to make twenty thousand dollars, and generally speaking, his piss went for about three dollars a shot on a good day.

As he charged out through the washroom door, he heard Angus zipping up his fly.
Now wash your hands!
he thought. But he didn’t think that Angus would, somehow.

SHIT!

The washroom door was heavy and didn’t instantly spring shut behind him after he dashed through it. It made a slight creaking sound as it ground slowly to a close. Sanchez didn’t have the time to waste pulling it shut behind him. In a blind panic he rushed back towards the main reception area. It was a good fifty-yard run to reach the glass double doors at the end of the corridor that led to the lobby. And when it came to running, Sanchez was about as fast as he looked. Which wasn’t very fast at all.

He reached the glass doors, slammed into the left-hand one and barged it open. In his panicked state, his legs weren’t following the instructions from his brain as quickly as he would have liked. He lost his footing and fell through the open doorway and on to the floor in the reception area. As he climbed back to his feet he saw that, back down the corridor, Invincible Angus had come out of the washroom and was aiming a gun at him. Without waiting to watch him squeeze the trigger, Sanchez took a quick look around for his best escape route.

BANG!

Angus raced out of the washroom without bothering to wash his hands after hastily curtailing his piss. He first looked left, then right where, in the distance, he could see Sanchez getting up from the floor. The fat bastard had obviously tripped over after flying through the glass double doors at the end. Angus wasted no time in pulling his gun from inside his long trench coat and pointing it down the corridor at the troublesome, thieving little jerk. Without taking time to aim accurately, he fired a shot.

BANG!

The glass in the left-hand door shattered. The bullet had gone right through it and looked like it might have caught Sanchez in the shoulder, because the tubby bastard spun around just after climbing to his feet. If he had been hit, it couldn’t have been much more than a graze, because he didn’t stay around to chance a second shot. Angus saw him dart off to the corridor on the left that led to the bar. He immediately set off after him. No way he was he going to let the thieving dickwad get away from him again.

He raced down the corridor in pursuit. When he reached the doors at the end he leapt through the frame of the one that had been destroyed by his shot. His boots crunched down on a sprinkling of glass on the floor on the other side. Feeling several shards sink into his boot he readjusted his landing, bouncing into a kind of triple jump. Once he was sure he was clear of all the glass he glanced down at the heel of his right boot and saw a large shard of glass sticking out of it. Stopping momentarily, he reached down and pulled it out. Fortunately the heel was thick and the glass hadn’t penetrated through to his foot. He tossed the shard of glass aside and watched it slide across the marble floor. It stopped just short of the front entrance, for some poor unfortunate to step on later.

The reception area was completely empty. Not a soul in sight. Although it seemed odd that there were no receptionists on duty, Angus took account of the fact that he’d warned them earlier about the army of zombies headed their way. He had also just fired a bullet into the reception area. Combined, those two factors probably had a good deal to do with the lack of people around the place. He glanced about wildly to find Sanchez. The fat fuck had gotten quite a head start on him now.

Catching Sanchez was his top priority. He needed to know where the bastard had stashed his twenty grand, and if that wasn’t possible, then killing him would be a pretty good consolation prize. If he got his cash advance back, then he would have enough to pay back a decent chunk of the debts he owed. And maybe there was still a chance of claiming the fifty thousand dollars from Nigel Powell for killing Sanchez. But first he needed to catch him. Where the hell had he gone?

Charging off down the corridor towards the bar, Angus was surprised to find that Sanchez was already out of sight. The corridor ran on for about fifty yards before opening up into a large hall area with the bar off to the right. He figured Sanchez must have made it to the end and headed for the bar.

When Angus reached the end of the corridor he once again found no one in sight. The hall was completely empty now that everyone had headed into the auditorium for the final. In the bar on the right all the tables and chairs were unoccupied. The only living thing that remained was a lone bartender wiping down the bartop, a blond-haired young man in his early twenties wearing the standard uniform of black pants, white shirt and red vest.

‘Where the fuck’d he go?’ Angus bellowed at him.

The bartender didn’t answer, but tilted his head towards a door behind the bar. Angus nodded at him and ran over to the side of the bar where a section of the bartop was hinged to let staff come and go. He lifted the flap, letting it crash down onto the top, and ran through the gap in the bar. With rather more care he slowly pushed open the door at the back of the bar that led to the kitchen. He peered through it, wary of being ambushed by Sanchez. Had he known of the other man’s legendary cowardice he wouldn’t have bothered, but caution was something he’d learned very early on in his career as a hitman.

The kitchen was also empty. The staff had all gone, most likely to watch the show. They had left behind a godalmighty mess, though. Six-foot-high food trolleys were scattered around intermittently, and there were numerous worktops still covered in food, dirty plates and cutlery. But there was no sign of Sanchez.

Angus looked around the room for any other escape routes Sanchez might have taken. There was only one other exit from the kitchen, over on the far wall to Angus’s left. It was a white door with a circular glass porthole set in it at eye level. Watching his step, he carefully but swiftly crept over to it, holding his pistol at the ready in case Sanchez showed his face. When he reached the door, he turned the handle only to find it was locked. That could mean one of two things. Either Sanchez had gone through it and locked the door from the other side. Which was unlikely.

It was far more probable that his quarry was still in the kitchen. Somewhere.

Just a few hours earlier, Emily had felt quite comfortable about being in the final. Armed with the knowledge that the four other finalists had also been pre-selected, she felt less guilty about how she’d come to be there. She had got to know Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain, Otis Redding and even James Brown reasonably well. But with the first three dead and the fourth, James Brown, most likely responsible for their murders, she had some new finalists to meet. Freddie Mercury and Janis Joplin had been friendly and welcoming, and she had hit it off with them both straight away. She was also fairly confident that she could beat them.

The two new finalists to whom she had not yet introduced herself were Elvis and the Blues Brother. Right now, Elvis was out on the stage, singing for all he was worth. Acutely aware that she needed to stay among people, in case she was targeted by the killer, Emily took the opportunity to introduce herself to the Blues Brother. She’d seen him making for the backstage area a minute or two earlier, so she headed back there to find him.

She found him alone, sitting in one of the well-upholstered chairs in the corner, eating some chicken wings from a paper plate on his lap. There was a coffee table in front of him and another comfortable chair on the other side of it. As the chair was empty, Emily wandered over to introduce herself, though she hesitated for a moment. He was still wearing his sunglasses, so it was hard to tell whether or not he welcomed her approach.

‘Hi, I’m Emily,’ she said, smiling and holding out a hand.

The Blues Brother had a mouthful of chicken and hurriedly swallowed the last few chunks. ‘Hi, I’m Jacko,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I won’t shake your hand, if that’s okay. Got greasy fingers.’