by AnonYMous
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.
‘No. Can’t say I have,’ Jensen retorted. ‘And I’m not particularly fussed about hearing about it now.’
Carlito nudged Miguel towards their captive once again. ‘Tie him tightly to that stack of bales he’s on. Make sure he can’t move.’
Miguel got to work quickly, tying Jensen’s bound hands down at the back of the stack of bales. He clearly took great pleasure in being as rough as possible in doing so, too. When he had finished to his satisfaction, he stood back and admired his handiwork. ‘Tell him the story about the scarecrows,’ he said, grinning broadly at Carlito.
Carlito stepped forward and leaned over Jensen so that he could hear clearly, and feel the warmth of his breath as he spoke.
‘You see, Detective Jensen, and as you very well know, in Santa Mondega there’s a bit of a problem with the undead.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. And you’ve been barking up the old vampire tree, haven’t you?’
Jensen chose not to respond. Expecting this, Carlito carried on regardless.
‘You see, the undead in Santa Mondega aren’t just vampires, my friend. At midnight every night the straw people come to life for one hour … and they must feed. There’s nothing they like better than blacks, too. It’s why there are so few of your people in Santa Mondega. The scarecrows love ‘em, see?’ He held Jensen’s cellphone up in front of him and then dropped it into his lap. ‘I’ve set the alarm to go off at one o’clock, the end of the witching hour. If you hear it, it means you’re still alive and that the scarecrow likes you. If you don’t get to hear it, well then, that means you’re dead.’ Turning to go, he added, ‘So if he does wake up, tell Mister Scarecrow we said hello.’
Carlito and Miguel were laughing as they left the barn. As he stared into the empty straw face of the scarecrow that stared blankly back at him, Jensen could hear them smugly congratulating themselves all the way back to their car.
A couple of comedians, the pair of them, he thought. Scarecrows coming to life at midnight and feeding on the locals? Ridiculous.
Forty-Seven
Jessica had arranged to meet Jefe in the Nightjar, but when she got there she was unsure whether or not she wanted to go in. The place looked open, all right. The lights were on, inside and out, but it also looked empty. Jefe had assured her the bar would be buzzing right through to sunrise. That did not appear to be the case, however. Right now, the Nightjar looked totally dead from the outside. There was no music playing and no sound of voices, either. There wasn’t even a single soul wandering the streets outside in a drunken stupor, as one would expect at such an hour. The question going through Jessica’s mind was Why? She had to know just why this place was so quiet, when it was supposed to be brimming with hardcore drinkers at this late hour.
She walked up to take a look through one of the Nightjar’s tall but narrow dark-tinted windows. She had to press her face right up against it in order to see anything clearly. Through the dark glass, all she could make out was that there was one man sitting at the bar, drinking. There was no sign of a bartender or any other customers. More importantly, there was no sign of Jefe.
Jessica took a moment to weigh up her options. She could head off down the road to the Tapioca to see if Jefe was there, or take the plunge and go into the Nightjar and ask the man at the bar if he had seen the bounty hunter anywhere. She was just about to make her decision when she noticed the blood all over the floor. She also noticed that the man at the bar had spots of blood sprinkled over his bare tattooed arms.
As if he could sense he was being watched through the window, the man turned round and looked right at her. He didn’t smile, he didn’t glare,
he just looked at her. Jessica figured this was her cue to make like a tree, so she stepped back into the dark where he couldn’t see her any more. She figured Jefe must have gone to the Tapioca. That was the only place that would still be open and serving drinks. If she couldn’t find him there, then it was a safe bet that he had gone back to the hotel room that she was now sharing with him.
Rodeo Rex had been drinking on his own for about an hour. No one had dared to come into the Nightjar since the vampire-slaughtering incident. Even those who didn’t know what had happened had been wise enough to take one look through the window and then continue on their way down the road to the Tapioca. The bartender hadn’t shown his face since Rex had told him in no uncertain terms to get lost. He had remained out back, or maybe even gone to bed.
The barman’s absence was not something that Rex was overly concerned about. He had just killed two former Hubal monks who had turned into vampires, and he had done it in front of an entire bar full of people. Fact was, chances were high that more than half of the clientele in the Nightjar were vampires. The sight of him killing off Milo and Hezekiah would have been enough to scare off any other members of the undead, as well as any normal folks. This guaranteed one thing, though. It would increase the chances of a visit from more of the undead. They would come back in greater numbers, that was for certain.
What was not certain (but was what Rex was hoping for), was an appearance from the Lord of the Undead. Killing the Dark Lord would pretty much finish the job off in one go. The rest of the undead would most likely fuck off to another town. They were cowardly creatures, all of them. If they knew that Rex had killed their leader, then they wouldn’t hang out in Santa Mondega for much longer. The population of the town would be significantly reduced overnight.
No matter how much he drank, Rex couldn’t get rid of a sense of unease. Ever since he had spotted what he had learned was the Bourbon Kid at the coffee bar in the boxing tent earlier in the day, he had felt extremely uncomfortable. His mind drifted back to the day, several years earlier, when he had met the Kid for the first time. He’d had no idea at the time that the man he had challenged to an arm wrestle was in fact the Bourbon Kid. He had gone by another name at the time. What the fuck was it? Rex thought about it for several minutes without even coming close to remembering it, but it mattered not. The Kid was now in the same town as him once more, and a chance to exact revenge was on the cards.
On their previous meeting Rex had stumbled across the Kid in a run-down, smoky old bar situated in what passed for the red-light district of Plainview, Texas. The Kid was taking on all-comers at arm wrestling and winning each bout comfortably, earning a tidy sum in the process. Rex gladly threw down some money and challenged him. He had expected to win easily, as he had every other test of strength since his early teens. But something had gone horribly wrong. His opponent (who, as he had only discovered today, turned out to be the most wanted man in Santa Mondega) had put up a superhuman show of defiance for almost forty minutes in an arm-wrestling bout that had since become an urban legend. It had attracted literally hundreds of spectators. The longer it went on, the more spectators appeared and the more money exchanged hands as people gambled away their hard-earned cash on the outcome.
It had looked as though the bout would go on all night, for both men refused to give an inch. That is, until eventually, as if he had become bored, the Bourbon Kid let his arm go limp and Rex slammed it down on to the table for the most satisfying victory he could remember.
It was then that things had taken an ugly turn. This man, who had not said a word all through the bout, refused to let go of Rex’s hand. Instead of releasing his grip, he tightened it. And tightened it. Then he tightened it some more. Rex remembered the pain inflicted upon him every time he looked down at his metal hand. The Kid had squeezed so hard that every bone in Rex’s hand was crushed, leaving him in absolute agony. Afterwards, without offering his congratulations or even an apology for his post-bout actions, the Kid had simply got up and left the bar. Rex had used his good hand to pick up his winnings and had then driven to a hospital where, to his horror, and despite his sometimes violent protests, his crushed hand had been amputated in order to save him from losing most of his arm. That day, he had sworn revenge on his adversary if he ever saw him again.
Over the next few months that followed the incident he had constructed a metal hand for himself in order to ensure that the next time their paths crossed it would be the Kid with the broken hand. Normally, when he’d had a few drinks and thought about that day the recollection made him angry and bitter, but today it just served to fuel the unease he felt. Something was about to go down in Santa Mondega, and it was going to be big. He was certain of it.
Killing a couple of vampires should have lightened his mood quite considerably. The kill seemed to have gone just fine, but something about it felt incomplete. Moreover, his sixth sense was telling him that his evening’s killing was not yet over. Worst of all, he had this horrible feeling he was being watched. At one point he had turned round and seen a woman’s face staring in at him through the window. The face soon disappeared back into the night, but there had been something about it that tugged at his memory. It had looked familiar. He was sure he had seen the woman somewhere before. But where? He had recognized the Bourbon Kid instantly, but this girl, her face was one that he just couldn’t place. He had met hundreds of pretty young women in his time, and even from the brief glimpse he’d had through the window, this was one of the prettiest. Unfortunately, he had consumed so much whisky by now that he couldn’t figure out where he knew her from. He was confident he’d work it out in the morning, and he decided that the fact that he couldn’t resolve it now was a good indication that it was time to stop drinking.
Berkley, the bartender in the Nightjar, was still annoyed at the way he had been spoken to by Rodeo Rex, but he knew better than to fuck around with someone who could kill vampires as efficiently and ruthlessly as the giant man sitting in his bar. He watched television in the back room for about two hours while, out at the bar counter, Rex drank away for free. Every once in a while there would be a brief burst of shouting and the noise of a chair being thrown around. Berkley figured this was either Rex scaring off other potential customers, or just getting drunker and trashing the place for fun.
There had been one particularly loud and boisterous ruckus about half an hour ago, which had sounded very much as though Rex was giving another vampire a good pasting. Since then there had been complete silence. Not even a squeak from any of the rats that frequently scampered about in the bar area. Half an hour of peace and quiet was just enough to imply that Rex might have finally gone home for the night. Berkley therefore decided to risk it and see if it would be safe to go back out to the bar area and lock up.
He poked his head around the door and looked into the barroom. As before there was just the one man sitting at the bar, only this time it wasn’t Rodeo Rex. It was someone else, someone worse.
Far worse.
Berkley felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Perched on a stool at the bar was a hooded man. The bartender recognized him instantly. He had seen this man just once before in his life. Five years ago he had come in and killed everyone in the bar, except the by then terrified Berkley. Rumours had flown around that he had long since been killed, but these rumours were obviously nothing more than wishful thinking. Sitting at the bar of the Nightjar was the Bourbon Kid. No question about it.
‘The service is real slow in here tonight,’ the Kid said, lowering his hood to reveal his face.
He had not changed much since the last time Berkley had seen him. His hair was slightly darker and his face was a little more leathery, perhaps from spending a lot of time in the sun. There were no two ways about it, though, this was definitely the Bourbon Kid. And that, Berkley concluded, was not a good thing. There was an awkward moment during which he didn’t know how to respond to the Kid’s observation about the speed of the service. He almost felt
that it would be polite to thank the other man for not killing him five years earlier, but somehow he thought that might only put ideas into the head of this somewhat unpredictable individual.
Berkley surveyed the devastation in the barroom behind the Kid. Tables and chairs were broken and lying upside down all around the floor. There was still blood everywhere. One Godalmighty mess to clean up in the morning, he thought. If, of course, he was lucky enough to be alive in the morning, what with the biggest mass murderer in local history sitting in front of him. Best not to keep this fellow waiting.
‘Oh, yes. Sorry, what would you like, sir? All drinks are on the house this evening.’
‘That’s good. An’ that bein’ the case, I’ll have bourbon. And make sure you fill the glass.’
Oh fuck! This is what started it last time. Berkley thought back five years to the Kid’s last appearance in his bar. He had served him a glass of bourbon without giving it any thought at the time. After all, how was he to know that the guy had a bit of a drink problem? The second the Kid had finished his bourbon he went beserk and blew everyone away, except for Berkley, who he insisted should carry on serving him drinks for another hour or so. Even when truckloads of armed police officers arrived, the Kid had been unfazed. He took time out from drinking to deal with them, until such time that they just couldn’t find any more cops with the guts to show up. Berkley had spent a lot of time ducking below the counter to escape stray rounds, occasionally bobbing up to refresh the Kid’s glass.
Whatever had happened five years ago, though, Berkley didn’t have the nerve to keep the Bourbon Kid waiting now, so he poured him out a glass of his best bourbon over a couple of ice cubes. ‘So what have you been up to?’ he asked, simply because he thought it might delay the Kid drinking his drink.
The bar’s only customer picked up his glass and took a long hard look at its contents. It was the finest bourbon in the house, and to a man with such a fine appreciation of the stuff it must have looked like gold dust.