The Book With No Name (37 page)

‘Bullshit! You saw something. I think you should tell me what you’ve seen. I could get
nasty,
you know? NOW WHAT
HAVE YOU SEEN?’

The Mystic Lady jumped as Jessica shouted the last few words. She could feel her heart beating at an alarming rate. It seemed to be positively thumping against her breastbone in an attempt to flee her chest.

‘I … I saw the Bourbon Kid. He is coming here. He is coming to kill you right now. You should go. He could be upon us at any second now.’

‘
Really?
’ Jessica seemed astonished. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’ She was studying the Mystic Lady’s reaction closely to see if she was lying.

‘Yes. Honestly. That’s all I saw. Look, I don’t want that man coming here. Please, leave now.’

‘But why does he want to kill me?’

‘I don’t know. Now get out, for your
own
sake!’

Jessica stood up from her seat. This mad old gypsy had made it clear how keen she was to get rid of her, but she tried a last question. Very quietly, she asked, ‘Are you sure you didn’t see anything else … you know? … about me?’

‘No. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.
Please go.
’ There was a hard finality in her tone, and she was greatly relieved to see Jessica head for the door. The young woman didn’t seem especially scared by what she had just been told. She looked more confused than anything else.

‘Goodbye, Jessica,’ the Mystic Lady called after her. ‘I hope you enjoy the rest of the Lunar Festival.’

‘Yeah, thanks. Goodbye to you, too …
Annabel.
’

‘
Excuse
me?
What
did you call me?’

‘Annabel. That is your name isn’t it? Annabel de Frugyn?’

The fortune teller was very careful about giving out her name. It made her easily traceable by the taxman, for a start, so it was very rare for anyone not close to her to know it.

‘Yes. It is my name, but how did you know?’

Jessica gave the Mystic Lady a stare that suggested she too could withhold information when she chose to, but then answered anyway.

‘Jefe told me.’

As if that were her parting shot in an argument, Jessica swept aside the bead curtain, swung open the front door and stormed out in a fury. Much to the fortune teller’s annoyance she didn’t shut the door properly behind her either. It was very close to being shut, but even so it was still fractionally ajar. To a stranger unused to the door it would look closed, but Annabel de Frugyn knew the door well, and it wasn’t shut as firmly as she would like. Young people, in particular, had a habit of not closing the door properly, and at this time of night it was particularly unwelcome. There wasn’t a draught coming in just yet, but it was only a matter of time. Besides, she would have to lock it. If the Bourbon Kid really was coming, he would presumably pick up Jessica’s trail, and so by-pass the Mystic Lady’s tiny home. Even so, it would be foolish to leave the door unsecured.

Normally she would have got up and closed the door straight away, but she wanted first to remind herself quickly of the picture she had seen in the book. She reached down under the desk and lifted the black silk square from its resting place on the book and slipped it back over her crystal ball. That done, she reached back down under the desk and picked up the book. She opened it out on her table once more and tried to find the page with the drawing of Xavier on it. As she scoured numerous drawings on the pages, trying to find it, the gust of wind she had been expecting blew in from outside and turned a whole sheaf of pages for her. She had neither the time nor the patience for this irritation, so she got up to shut the door, which by now was almost fully open.

She took a step outside to see if Jessica was still in sight, in order to wave an angry fist at her behind her back, but there was no sign of her late-night visitor. There were no other strangers around either, and it was a relief to see that the streets outside were deserted for as far as she could see.

The wind had whipped up quite strongly and it took her some effort to shut the door. Once she had closed it she pulled the big rusty metal bolt across to keep it shut, then turned the
small silver key in the lock until it would turn no more and she was certain the door was secured. With a yawn and a stretch of her tired arms she turned back to the book.

There followed the awful moment when she realized that she was no longer alone in her home. Someone was standing directly in front of her in the middle of the room, between her and the book. She jumped in fright and surprise, and it took her a few seconds to calm down just enough to get her breath back.

‘How did
you
get in?’ she asked the imposing figure in front of her.

The intruder gave no verbal response to the question. For the next twenty minutes the only sounds that could be heard from within the House of the Mystic Lady were her screams, but these were mostly drowned out by the howling wind outside, which had now reached gale force.

Annabel de Frugyn’s screaming eventually came to an end when her tongue was ripped from her throat.

His captors had unceremoniously thrown Jensen on to the dirty, straw-littered stone floor after they had smuggled him safely into the barn in which he now found himself. Other than being in a barn, he had absolutely no idea where he was. The building could have been in the back garden of a house in the city centre, or it could have been out in the middle of the desert, for all he could tell. It was a very large barn with bales of straw piled up high against the back wall. There was no electricity, and it obviously wouldn’t be a good idea to use candles in an old wooden structure like this, so the only light came from the moon shining in through the open doorway.

The two big men kicked him a few times while he was on the floor, more to unsettle him than actually to inflict any pain. After a short but not too unpleasant kicking, they heaved him up, slung him on to a stack of bales and sat him upright against another stack behind him. One of them then forcefully removed the gag from his mouth, so relieving a little of his discomfort. At least now he could take a deep breath of air to help to calm his nerves.

Now that there was a little light, and he was able to breathe more easily, Jensen finally had a chance to take a good look at his two captors. Their faces were still half in shadow, but nevertheless he recognized them from photos he had seen of them in some of his top-secret government files. These were El Santino’s henchmen, Carlito and Miguel. Both of them wore black suits with black shirts under their jackets, as though it were a designated uniform. It was well known locally that these two men always worked together. Rumour
had it that they were homosexuals who hated to be parted and were fiercely loyal to each other. That loyalty was only surpassed by that which they felt for their boss, El Santino, who was said to be like a father to them. Indeed, there was a distinct possibility that he
was
a father to them. The pair of them were high on Jensen’s list of potential vampires. If El Santino was the head vampire, then these guys were his two high priests who did all of his dirty work for him. Their dirty work right now was either questioning Miles Jensen, disposing of his body, or both.

‘Right,’ said Carlito, whose body language and aggressive posture suggested that he was the more dominant of the two. ‘What the fuck were you doing hiding in the bushes outside El Santino’s estate?’

Jensen knew that he had to try to bullshit them first. They would probably know he was lying, but if he could get them to believe he hadn’t been staking out El Santino’s mansion, he had at least half a chance of getting out alive, or at least of stalling them until Somers worked out where he was.

‘My car broke down and I was waiting in the bushes to see if anyone might come along to give me a hand,’ he said, with a level of composure that surprised even him. ‘No one came, though. Not a single car came past. I was about to settle down to sleep in the bushes when you two appeared.’

There was no response from either of the two men for a few painfully long seconds. They both looked long and hard at him, studying his face, waiting for him to give away the slightest hint that he was lying. Having his hands tied behind his back was making it difficult for him to remain in the position they had placed him in, and he saw this as a good opportunity accidentally to fall over sideways, thereby alleviating the pressure of the questioning for a moment. Miguel quickly stepped forward from his position just behind Carlito’s right shoulder and sat him back upright again on the stack of bales and then gave him a slap round the face for good measure. Carlito stepped forward and placed a hand around Jensen’s mouth. He squeezed his prisoner’s cheeks hard.

‘Look, you dumbass black bastard,’ he said. ‘We know who you are. You’re a fucking cop, and your name is Miles Jensen.’ He let go of Jensen’s cheeks and pushed him backwards. The detective’s head thudded into the stack of straw bales behind him.

‘Oh, right,’ said a somewhat riled Jensen. The ‘black bastard’ comment had infuriated him. He was never one to tolerate racial abuse, especially not from a couple of goddam fags. ‘Well, I know who you are too,’ he warned.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. You’re fucking Carlito, and from what I hear you’re also fucking your friend Miguel. Leastways, that’s what the file says.’

Neither Carlito nor Miguel seemed in the least bit fazed by Jensen’s defiant attempt at wit. Worse, Carlito even smiled at him. ‘It’ll be Carlito and Miguel fucking Miles Jensen if you’re not careful,’ he retorted. ‘Now tell me, black boy, what were you doing staking out El Santino’s house? What were you hoping to find? And don’t lie to me. I can tell when people lie, so choose your answers carefully. Because every time you lie, I’ll cut off one of your fucking fingers.’

This was not exactly what Jensen had been hoping to hear. Physical torture of the digit-amputating kind wasn’t something he had had the misfortune to endure in the past, and it certainly wasn’t something he wanted to participate in now. In consequence, he chose his next words with care.

‘Nothing. And that’s exactly what I found. Nothing. So can I go now, please?’

‘Nope.’ Carlito pushed Miguel towards Jensen. ‘Check his pockets. See if he’s got any cameras or bugging devices on him.’

Jensen was treated to a thoroughly brutal body search by Miguel, who swiftly discovered his cellphone, his badge and his pager. He threw the pager to the floor, then passed the phone and badge to Carlito. ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked his partner.

‘Not working alone,
are you,
Detective Jensen?’ said
Carlito, staring at the phone in his hand. He flipped it open and flicked through its address book, then let out a contented sigh. ‘So, Detective Archibald Somers is your partner, huh? Well now, that
is
interesting. Has he told you his theory about the Bourbon Kid yet?’

‘Coupla times.’

Carlito laughed. ‘Yeah, he’s a character, old Somers, isn’t he? Always pinning everything on the Bourbon Kid. You know, he’s nearly got me believing it. He’s kinda passionate about it, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he is,’ said Jensen calmly. ‘And you know what else? He’s very good at his job, too. He’ll know I’m here. This place could be swarming with cops any minute.’

Jensen was bluffing and somehow he sensed that Carlito knew it.

‘Of course,’ the latter smiled. ‘Miguel, will you keep Axel Foley here entertained while I make a call to the boss?’

‘Sure. Be glad to.’

Carlito left the barn, tapping a few of the keys on Jensen’s cellphone as he went. For the next few minutes the detective sat uncomfortably as Miguel leaned over him, staring down at him like a caveman seeing a black person for the very first time.

Eventually, after about five minutes, Carlito came back into the barn pushing a wheelbarrow in front of him. Propped up in the wheelbarrow was a scarecrow. It was dressed in a black robe and a short black pointy hat, but its head was plain straw with no facial features whatsoever. Carlito pushed the wheelbarrow over towards Jensen, setting it down about three yards in front of the increasingly unsettled detective.

‘So, Mister Detective Miles Jensen, have you ever heard of the curse of the Santa Mondega scarecrow?’ he asked. Miguel blurted out half a cackle as if something Carlito had said was funny.