The Book With No Name (14 page)

‘Yeah, I know. It sounds ridiculous, and in fairness these magical powers are one of the greyest areas in a story full of grey areas. Apparently the holder of the stone becomes immortal for as long as it’s in his possession, although I guess I should point out that there’s less evidence to back this up than there is to support anything else I’ve told you.’ He waited a moment, wondering how Somers would take the next bit of information. ‘One of the other theories,’ he said carefully, ‘is that it controls the orbit of the moon.’

‘Interesting. That would make a little sense. With an eclipse coming up, a man who could control the orbit of the moon would be in a very powerful position.’

‘That’s right. Now think about this, Somers. If the holder of the stone can stop the moon from orbiting the earth during an eclipse, and the moon then remained stationary in relation to the earth, although rotating with it, at exactly the point at which it had been stopped, then the area of the earth covered in darkness by the eclipse would stay in darkness. For ever.’

Somers decided it was time to sit back down. He took
his place behind the desk and picked up a few of the photos he had been showing Jensen earlier. He studied them closely. This time, Jensen could see from his expression that he was looking at them in a different light.

‘I think I can now see what you see, Jensen,’ he said.

‘Really? What exactly do you think I see?’

‘You see people who will thrive in a city that is bathed in total darkness.’

‘“I see undead people”,’ said Jensen, mimicking the kid from the movie
The Sixth Sense.
’Walking around like regular people. They know they’re dead, mind you – the ones in Santa Mondega.’

Jensen could tell from the astonished look on Somers’s face that he had figured the whole thing out already. He was no slouch, this guy.

‘Vampires,’ Somers blurted out. ‘The one creature that would benefit from a city where there was never any sunlight
is a vampire
.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Jesus Christ. Why didn’t I ever consider this before?’

Jensen smiled. ‘Why would you? It’s a totally ludicrous idea.’

‘It
was.
But right now it’s making a hell of a lot of sense. If the Bourbon Kid is a vampire, then we’d better track him down before he gets his hands on that stone.’

Sanchez had heard nothing from Elvis. Even though he knew he might not get any news for a few days, maybe even weeks, he was still growing impatient, and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since Elvis had taken on the job. Nothing would convince Sanchez to change his mind and call Santa Mondega’s most feared hitman off the job. At least, that’s what he’d thought when he had given Elvis the unenviable task of exacting retribution on his behalf.

Then, typically, something happened to change Sanchez’s mind. He had an unexpected visitor to his bar. It was early evening when she walked in. He hadn’t seen her for some time, but here she was again. Sanchez couldn’t have been more surprised if someone had served him a glass of piss.

Jessica had waltzed into his bar as though she didn’t have a care in the world. She was on her own, and didn’t look as though she had been in any trouble. She certainly didn’t look like someone who had witnessed the brutal slaying of two people that very morning. In fact, she seemed very calm.

‘Coffee, please, bartender,’ she whispered as she took a seat at the bar. It seemed to Sanchez that she hadn’t recognized him, which was something of a disappointment to him.

‘Hello, Jessica,’ he said.

She looked up, startled by the notion that the bartender could possibly know who she was when she recognized neither him nor the bar she was in.

‘You know me?’ she asked, unable to mask her surprise.

‘Yeah. Don’t you recognize me?’

‘No. Have I been here before? It doesn’t look familiar.’

She looked around at her surroundings in complete bewilderment. If she had been to the Tapioca before it must have been a very long time ago, or it must have looked different, because the place was entirely foreign to her.

‘Yeah, you’ve been here before, about five years ago. You sure you don’t remember?’

‘Nah. I don’t have a very good memory. It’ll probably come back to me, though.’

Sanchez wasn’t sure what to make of her. Was she telling the truth? Did she really not remember? Had she some sort of amnesia? Only one way to find out.

‘So what have you been doing for the last five years?’

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘’Cos I remember what happened the last time you were in here. You made quite an impression.’

‘Yeah, that’ll happen,’ she said coolly.

Sanchez was taken aback at this sudden change of character. From being startled and unsure of herself only moments earlier, Jessica suddenly seemed arrogant and aloof.

‘Oh. Right … Um … How d’ya want your coffee?’ he asked her.

‘Free.’

‘Huh?’

‘I don’t care how the coffee is, as long as I don’t have to pay for it.’

Sanchez generally hated people trying to con free drinks out of him, but he was astonished to see Jessica awake and on her feet, and was eager to know what was going on with her, and what she might know about the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law. So he reluctantly poured her a mug of black coffee from the crusted old filter jug that had been brewing on a hotplate behind the bar for about four hours.

Jessica took a look at the dirty white mug of coffee and sniffed it after Sanchez slid it across the bar to her.

‘Hmmm. I hope coffee isn’t the lifeblood of this place.’

That’d be whisky and tequila.’

‘Good for you.’

Sanchez was beginning to take a very slight dislike to Jessica. Her manner disappointed him, because over the last five years he had imagined that, when she finally regained consciousness, she would see him as her saviour, a man she could trust. He wasn’t about to give up on her just yet, but her early attitude hadn’t exactly endeared her to him.

‘So, what’ve you been up to, Jessica?’

She took a sip of the coffee.

‘Why should you care so much, huh? Can’t a girl come in and have a coffee without the bartender hitting on her?’ She favoured him with a contemptuous glare.

‘I ain’t hittin’ on you.’

There was a certain defensiveness in the way Sanchez responded to the suggestion that he was hitting on her. Even he noticed it, and it made him blush a little. Of course, once he felt himself doing so it just set him off and he went the whole way and turned crimson. He needed to quit the room before any of the other customers noticed and began to jeer. The Tapioca’s regulars were always quick to jump on any sign of weakness. He turned on his heel and headed out back to find Mukka the cook. It was about time the big lump did a half-hour shift behind the bar. Goddam women, making him blush. Who the hell did she think she was, anyway? He was only being friendly. Bitch.

About two minutes passed before Mukka came out and took over behind the bar, and the first customer he had to serve was a big, angry-looking bastard named Jefe.

‘Bartender. Where the fuck is that scumbag Marcus the Weasel?’ he growled.

‘Marcus the Weasel? I don’t know who that is,’ the cook replied politely.

Jefe pulled a sawn-off shotgun from inside his black sleeveless jacket and pointed it at Mukka’s head. Now Mukka was a pretty big guy himself, but he was only twenty years old. He hadn’t really filled out yet, and he wasn’t very brave. One day he’d be a tough bastard, but that day was a few years off yet, and besides, he didn’t have a gun. He had a wooden
spoon that he’d brought with him from the kitchen.

‘Er, I still don’t know who Marcus is,’ he said nervously.

‘You got three seconds. Three … Two …’

‘Woah! Hold on!’ said Mukka, shaking his spoon at Jefe. ‘The boss, Sanchez, he’s bound to know who Marcus is. He’s just out back. I can go get him for you.’

‘Go get him then. But just remember this: I’m gonna be pointin’ this gun at you when you come back, and if you’re carryin’ anything other than that fuckin’ spoon, I’m gonna shoot you in the nuts. You got that?’

‘Uh, nuts. Yeah, got it.’

Mukka made his way rather apprehensively out back. Sanchez was sitting in the kitchen, watching the news on the portable TV in the corner.

‘Hey Sanchez, there’s some nasty-looking guy out here pointing a shotgun at me and asking about a guy called Marcus the Weasel.’

‘Tell him you don’t know anyone called Marcus the fuckin’ Weasel.’

‘I did, so he pointed the gun at my head and started counting down from three.’

Sanchez let out a deep sigh and pulled himself up out of his chair. His mood wasn’t getting any better. All the customers were getting on his nerves again today. Scum, every goddam one of them.

‘Sonofabitch,’ he muttered under his breath as he walked back out to the bar. It came as the day’s second great surprise to Sanchez when he saw Jefe. He was expecting Elvis to have blown the bounty hunter away by now. In fact, for a second he wondered if maybe the hitman had tried and failed, and that Jefe was now here to issue some payback. As always, though, he didn’t let his feelings betray him (apart from the embarrassing blushing incident of a few moments earlier).

‘Jefe, ain’t it? Whadda ya want?’ He was relieved to see that the other was no longer wielding the shotgun that Mukka had mentioned.

‘I want that fuckin’ weasel Marcus. Do you know where he is?’

‘Last time I saw him he was with you.’

‘Well, he ain’t with me no more. And my wallet and that expensive neck chain I was wearin’ last night ain’t with me, neither.’

‘Bummer! I s’pose he stole that nice car o’ yours, too, huh?’

‘Now what nice car would that be?’ asked Jefe, more than a little curious as to how a bartender would know what car he drove.

‘The yellow Cadillac. You got a nice yellow Cadillac, ain’t that right?’

‘How d’you know so much, bartender?’ asked Jefe menacingly, looking like he was about to pull his gun again and aim it in Sanchez’s direction.

‘Oh, I just overheard someone say that you drove a real nice yellow Caddy, is all.’

‘Well I don’t. I traded it a while back and bought a shit-hot Porsche, not that it’s any of your goddam business. Now, you seen Marcus, or what?’

‘No, I ain’t, but I’ll keep an ear out for you. He’s liable to come in here most nights, but if he’s ripped you off I guess he’ll stay away for a while.’

‘Know where he lives?’

‘Yeah, in the gutter with the rest of the local rodents,’ Sanchez replied. Then, unable to let the matter go, he asked, ‘So when did you sell the Caddy?’

His question went unanswered. Until now, Jessica had remained very quiet. Sanchez had noticed that she hadn’t even reacted in the slightest when he’d mentioned the yellow Cadillac. Maybe she hadn’t seen it at the farmhouse? Or maybe she had, but didn’t remember? Either way, she had been sitting quietly on a barstool, taking in the entire conversation between bartender and bounty hunter.

From her perch at the bar, Jessica had been particularly impressed by Jefe’s lack of tolerance for just about everything and everyone. Now seemed like the ideal time to make her presence known to him.

‘How much did this Weasel guy steal from you?’ she butted in, killing Sanchez’s question about the Cadillac stone dead.

Until then Jefe hadn’t even noticed her. He was about to tell her to mind her own fuckin’ business when he realized how pretty she was. ‘A few thousand,’ he said airily. ‘But don’t worry, little lady, he left me more than enough to buy you a drink.’ The spectacle of Jefe suddenly turning on what he imagined to be charm was, to Sanchez, an awesome one, if somewhat nauseating. On demand, he served Jefe with a glass of whisky and topped up Jessica’s mug with more coffee from the loathsome jug. Jefe casually threw him a bill and turned back to the girl.

For the next twenty minutes Jefe did his best to hit on Jessica, and in return she did her best to be hit on. Sanchez might as well have been invisible to them.
Typical.
All women seemed to be interested in was men with money, or arrogant men with no respect for them. Jefe was both of these things, although by the sound of it he might not be all that well-heeled any longer, thanks to Marcus the Weasel.