The Book With No Name (2 page)

The stranger looked hard at Ringo, ignoring the revolver at his head. ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘he didn’t kill me because he wanted me to come to this shit-hole, and find a
fat fuck
who goes by the name of Ringo.’

The overemphasis the stranger placed on the two words ‘fat’ and ‘fuck’ didn’t escape Ringo’s attention. Yet in the stunned silence that greeted this remark he remained fairly calm, at least by his own standards.

‘
I’m
Ringo. Who the fuck are you, Blondie?’

‘It’s not important.’

The two greasy lowlifes who had been sitting at Ringo’s table with him stood up. Each took a step towards the bar, ready to back up their friend.

‘It
is
important,’ said Ringo nastily. ‘Because the word on the street is that this guy, this stranger we’ve been hearing
about, calls himself the Bourbon Kid. You’re drinking bourbon, ain’t you?’

The blond man took a look at Ringo’s two
compadres,
then looked back down the barrel of Ringo’s gun.

‘D’you know why he’s called the Bourbon Kid?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, I know,’ one of Ringo’s friends called out from behind him. ‘They say that when the Kid drinks bourbon, he turns into a fuckin’ giant, a psycho, and he goes nuts and kills everyone in sight. They say he’s invincible and can only be killed by the Devil himself.’

‘That’s right,’ said the blond man. ‘The Bourbon Kid kills everyone. All it takes is one drink and he goes fuckin’ nuts. They say it’s the bourbon gives him special strength. Once he’s had a sip he always kills every muthafucker in the bar. And I should know. I seen it happen.’

Ringo pushed the muzzle of his pistol hard into the man’s temple. ‘Drink your bourbon.’

The stranger swivelled slowly on his barstool to face the bar again and reached for his drink. Tracking his movements, Ringo continued to press the gun to his head.

Behind the bar Sanchez stepped away, hoping to keep clear of any blood or brains that might get sprayed in his direction. Or the odd stray round, for that matter. He watched as the blond man picked up the glass. Any normal man would have been shaking so much he would have spilled half the drink, but not this guy. The stranger was as cool as the ice in his glass. You had to give him credit for that.

By now every man in the Tapioca was on his feet and straining to see what was happening, and every single one of them had a hand on his own pistol. They all watched as the stranger held the glass up in front of his face, inspecting its contents. There was a bead of sweat sliding down the outside of the glass. Actual sweat. Most likely from Sanchez’s hand, or even from the last person to have used the glass. The man seemed to be watching the bead of sweat, waiting until it had slid far enough down the glass that he wouldn’t have to suffer
the taste of it on his tongue. Eventually, when the drop of sweat was far enough down the glass that it wouldn’t come into contact with his mouth, he took a deep breath and poured the drink down his throat.

In the space of three seconds the glass was empty. The entire bar held its breath. Nothing happened.

So they held their breath some more.

And still nothing happened.

So everyone started breathing again. Including the propeller fan.

Still nothing.

Ringo pulled his gun away from the blond man’s face, and asked the question everyone in the bar wanted to ask: ‘So then, Blondie, are you the Bourbon Kid or not?’

‘Drinking that piss only proves one thing,’ said the blond man, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.

‘Yeah? And what’s that?’

‘That I can drink piss without puking.’

Ringo looked at Sanchez. The bartender had slunk back as far out of the way as he could, with his back pressed against the wall behind the bar. He looked a little shaky.

‘Did you give him a drink from the piss bottle?’ demanded Ringo.

Sanchez nodded uneasily. ‘I didn’t like the look of him,’ he said.

Ringo holstered his gun and stepped away. Then he threw his head back and began to howl with laughter, slapping the blond man on the shoulder at the same time.

‘You drank a cup of piss! Ha-ha-ha! A cup of piss! He drank
piss
!’

Everyone in the bar burst out laughing. Everyone, that is, except the blond stranger. He fixed his gaze on Sanchez.

‘Give me a fucking bourbon.’ There was quite a lot of gravel in the voice.

The bartender turned away, picked up a different bottle of bourbon from the back of the bar and began pouring from it into the stranger’s glass. This time he filled it to the top
without waiting to be told.

‘Three dollars.’

It was evident that the blond man was not impressed by Sanchez asking for another three dollars, and he rapidly made his displeasure clear. Faster than any eye could see, his right hand reached inside the black cloak and reappeared holding a pistol. The weapon was a very dark grey in colour and looked rather heavy in his hand, suggesting it was fully loaded. It had probably once been a shiny silver colour, but as everyone in the Tapioca knew only too well, anyone who carried a shiny silver firearm had probably never used it. The colour of this man’s pistol suggested it had seen a good deal of use.

The stranger’s swift movement came to an end with the pistol pointed directly at Sanchez’s forehead. This aggressive action was immediately followed by a series of loud clicks, more than twenty of them, as everyone else in the bar stopped watching the situation unfold, drew and cocked their own revolvers and drew down on the blond guy.

‘Easy there, Blondie,’ said Ringo, once again pressing the muzzle of his own gun to the man’s temple.

Sanchez smiled a nervous and apologetic smile at the stranger, who was still aiming the dark grey pistol right at his head.

‘Have this one on the house,’ he said.

‘Do you see me reaching for my fuckin’ roll?’ was the curt response.

In the ensuing silence, the blond man laid his pistol down on the bar next to his new glass of bourbon and let out a quiet sigh. He looked thoroughly pissed off now, and seriously in need of a drink. A proper drink. It was time to get rid of that nasty urine taste in his mouth.

He picked up the glass and put it to his lips. The whole bar watched, barely able to stand the tension of waiting for him to drink the contents. As if to torment them, he didn’t actually throw the contents down his throat straight away. He paused for a moment, as though about to say something. Everyone waited with bated breath. Was he going to say something? Or
was he going to drink the bourbon?

The answer soon came. Like a man who hadn’t had a drink for a week, he downed the entire contents of the glass in one mouthful, before slamming the glass back down on the bar.

Now
that
was definitely real bourbon.

Father Taos felt like weeping. There had been many sad moments in his life. There had been sad days, even sad weeks from time to time, and probably a sad month somewhere along the line. But this was the worst. This was the saddest he had ever felt in his life.

He was standing where he so often stood, at the raised altar in the Temple of Herere, looking down upon the rows of pews below. Today, though, was different. The pews were not as he liked to see them. Normally they would be at least half filled with the glum-looking faces of many of his Hubal Brothers. On the odd occasion when the pews were empty, he took pleasure in just staring at their neatness, or at the relaxing lilac-coloured cushioning that covered them. Not today. The pews were not neat, they were not even lilac-coloured any more. And most of all, his Hubal Brothers did not look glum.

The stench that filled the air was not completely unfamiliar. Father Taos had encountered a similar smell once before – five years earlier, in fact. It brought back sickening memories, because it was the smell of death, destruction and betrayal, cloaked in a mist of gunpowder. The pews were not covered in lilac cushioning any more, they were covered in blood. They were no longer what could be described as neat, they were a mess. And worst of all, his Hubal Brothers who were half filling the pews, didn’t look glum, they looked dead. All of them.

Looking upward, fully, fifty feet above him, Taos could even see blood dripping from the ceiling. The perfectly arched
marble vault overhead had been painted hundreds of years earlier with the most beautiful scenes of Holy Angels dancing with happy, smiling children. Now, all of the angels and all of the children were stained with the blood of the Hubal monks beneath them. It seemed as if their expressions had changed, too. They no longer looked happy and carefree. Their blood-spotted faces looked troubled, remorseful and sad. Just like Father Taos.

There were some thirty corpses slumped over the pews. Perhaps another thirty or so were out of sight beneath or in between the rows of seating. Only one man had survived the massacre, and that was Taos himself. He had been shot in the stomach at point-blank range by a man toting a double-barrelled shotgun. It had hurt terribly, and the wound was still bleeding a little, but it would heal. His wounds always healed, although he had come to accept the fact that gunshots did tend to leave a mark. He had received two other bullet wounds in his lifetime, both of them five years ago, both in the same week, just a few days apart.

There were enough Hubal monks still alive on the island to help him clear up the present mess. It would be hard for them, he knew that much. It would be particularly hard for those who had been here five years ago, the last time the smell of gunpowder had filled the Temple with its foul ungodly stench. So it was a comforting sight for Taos when two of his favourite younger monks, Kyle and Peto, entered the temple through the gaping hole that had once been a pair of huge arched oak doors forming the entrance.

Kyle was around thirty years old, Peto closer to twenty. On first sight they were often mistaken for twins. It was not just their appearance that was similar, but also their mannerisms. This was partly because both were dressed the same, and partly because Kyle had been Peto’s mentor for almost ten years, and the younger monk subconsciously mimicked his friend’s edgy, over-cautious nature. Both men had smooth olive skin and shaved heads. They were wearing identical brown robes, like those worn by so many of the dead monks in the Temple.

On their way to the altar to see Father Taos they had to endure the unpleasant and disconcerting task of stepping over a number of the dead bodies of their brothers. Unsettling though it was for Taos to see them in this situation, it provided him a small amount of comfort to see them at all, sufficient enough to quicken his heartbeat. It had been working at about ten beats per minute for the last hour, so it was a relief to him that it was at last starting to pick up speed and beat to a steady rhythm again.

Peto had been thoughtful enough to bring with him a small brown mug of water for Father Taos. He was careful not to spill any of it on the way to the altar, but his hands were visibly shaking as the enormity of what had happened in the Temple became clear to him. He was almost as relieved to hand over the mug as Taos was to receive it. The old monk took it in both hands and used most of his remaining strength to lift it to his mouth. The cool sensation of the water running down his throat made him feel even more alive, and was also a considerable help in speeding up the healing process.

‘Thank you, Peto. And don’t you worry: I’ll be back to my old self by the end of the day,’ he said, bending to place the empty mug on the stone floor.

‘Of course you will, Father.’ There was not a great deal of confidence in the shaky voice, but at least a certain amount of hope.

Taos smiled for the first time that day. Peto was so innocent, and so careful of others, that it was hard not to feel a little better about things now that he was here in the bloody shambles of the Temple. He had been brought to the island at the age of ten after a gang of drug dealers had murdered his parents. Living with the monks had brought him inner peace and helped him to come to terms with his grief and his vulnerability. Taos felt a great sense of achievement that he and his brothers had made Peto into the wonderful, thoughtful, unselfish human being that now stood before him. Unfortunately, he was now going to have to send the young monk back out into the world that had robbed him of his
family.