by AnonYMous
Jensen was untroubled by the other man’s attempts at intimidation. He had seen something else, something that had grabbed his attention far more than the desperate probing of the Lieutenant.
‘Scraggs …’
‘What is it, Jensen?’
‘Look out!’
‘What? AAAARGH!’
Scraggs wasn’t quick enough to react to the warning Jensen had offered. The scarecrow was upon him in a flash. It leapt up from its position slouched in the wheelbarrow and thrust its maggot-riddled straw face right into his. Its arms wrapped themselves around the back of his neck, causing him to lose his balance and footing. From where he had been crouching behind Jensen on the bales, he was sent tumbling to the ground with the scarecrow on top of him, clinging to him like a cheap suit. Scraggs continued to scream as he fought desperately to fend off the flailing limbs of his attacker. Its face was embedded in his neck, causing a horrible prickling sensation against the soft skin beneath his chin.
In his terror, Scraggs had dropped his gun. After several seconds of rolling wildly from side to side to keep the evil-looking straw man from biting or scratching him, Scraggs eventually managed to push it to one side and roll away to his right, where he succeeded only in knocking a stack of bales loose. The stack wobbled before falling on him, one heavy bale causing no small amount of pain as it banged against his forehead. This was followed by the most painful moment of all. The mad cackling. Scraggs recognized it instantly. Somers! He had one of those irritating laughs, and he was laughing it now, loud and long.
Scraggs pushed the fallen bale off his head and sat up. The scarecrow was lying flat on its front where he had thrown it during the struggle. Jensen was where he had been before, tied up and sitting on a bale of straw. Standing in front of him, outlined by the moonlight flooding in through the now open doorway, was Detective Archibald Somers.
‘Scraggs, you really are an asshole,’ Somers mocked. ‘My partner here has been tied up and left for dead, and you, you prick, you start interrogating him. You must have shit for brains.’
‘You fucking asswipe, Somers,’ Scraggs bellowed as he climbed to his feet. He was furious at the humiliation he had just suffered. Somers had obviously sneaked in after him and thrown the scarecrow at him while his guard was down. Bastard!
‘You’re the asswipe, Scraggs,’ said Somers smugly. ‘What I did to you is no worse than what you were doing to Jensen. Now untie him before I set that refugee from The Wizard of Oz on you again.’
The crestfallen and embarrassed Lieutenant Paolo Scraggs reluctantly did as he was told. He took his time, and gained a certain amount of pleasure from ripping the sticky tape off, knowing that it would hurt.
‘Thanks, Somers,’ said a greatly relieved Jensen. ‘How did you know I was here?’ He began to rub his wrists, then opened and closed his hands several times to try to ease the stiffness and pain in his fingers.
‘Well, I gotta tell you, partner, I was strugglin’, but then this clown …’ he pointed at Scraggs ‘… this total fuckin’ loser used the police frequency to call the Captain and tell him he was outside the barn and should he go in and get you.’
‘That so?’ said Jensen, turning to Scraggs. ‘How long were you waiting outside for before you plucked up the guts to come in and get me, you fucking moron?’
Scraggs stepped back, looking round to see if he could locate the pistol he’d dropped.
‘Hey, I was just following orders, okay?’ he said sheepishly. ‘I didn’t know you were in trouble.’
‘Some fuckin’ detective you are,’ Somers muttered. ‘Come on, Jensen, let’s get out of here. I think we both need some sleep. We got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, and word is the Bourbon Kid has been seen in a bar called the Nightjar.’
‘Yeah? Has he killed anyone else?’
‘A few. I’ll tell you all about it on the way.’
‘What about Annabel de Frugyn?’ asked Jensen standing up and rubbing his sore wrists.
‘Funny you ask. I’ve had a really crappy evening myself, but the one bit of good news is that I got an alias for her. She’s known around town as the Mystic Lady.’
‘The Mystic Lady? What’s she, a fortune teller or somethin’?’
‘Yeah.’
‘She any good?’
‘No, fuckin’ awful. Wouldn’t see Christmas coming if she woke up in bed with Santa Claus.’
Fifty
After a restless night spent alternately dozing and worrying about the day ahead, Dante had done a good deal of thinking. The first thing he had decided was that it would be best if Kacy met up with him after he’d done the deal with the monks. Although he didn’t expect them to try to double-cross him, he wasn’t taking any chances.
He had chosen his fancy-dress costume for the Lunar Festival with the meeting in mind. To make himself look a little tougher he had picked out a Terminator outfit. The guy in the fancy-dress store had done the hard sell on him and told him it was actually one of the outfits Schwarzenegger had worn in the first movie. Dante was pretty sure the guy was bullshitting him, but he wanted to believe it was true, so he chose to. And it worked. It made him feel that little bit extra cool. He actually felt something like a tough-guy, walking around in the black leather outfit and the cool shades. He also had a pistol concealed inside the jacket, just in case things went wrong. No point in taking unnecessary risks. He could easily run into some fruitcake who fancied making a name for himself by picking a fight with the Terminator.
Kacy had agreed to wait for him at the motel, but she was keeping her costume a closely guarded secret. She wanted to surprise him, so he was kind of hoping it would be something very, very sexy.
The sun shone brightly overhead as Dante cruised into town in his newly acquired yellow Cadillac. The morning sky was clear and blue, giving not the slightest indication of the darkness soon to come. He turned the car radio on and was pleased to hear the song ‘My Sharona’ by The Knack. Driving along with one of his favourite tracks playing just added to the good feeling he had. And damn, did he look cool! He couldn’t remember ever feeling quite as cool as this. As he drove through town everyone took a second look. After all, it wasn’t every day you saw the Terminator cruise past you in a yellow Caddy.
Every single person Dante laid eyes on that morning was in some kind of fancy-dress costume. There was the killer from the Halloween films on one street corner, intimidating people by begging them for money. Just a hundred yards further down the road he caught sight of a couple of guys dressed as nuns beating the crap out of another man in a big blue spongy outfit with red shorts and a red hat. What the hell was the world coming to when Papa Smurf couldn’t wander the streets without being mugged by a couple of angry nuns?
It was only eleven o’clock in the morning and there were a lot of drunks around already. For a festival, it was certainly bringing the worst out in everyone. Dante had been warned that many of the local hoods saw the festival as an opportunity to commit crimes while in disguise. The last thing he needed was to get mugged while carrying around the Eye of the Moon. He was also worrying about Kacy, who was looking after the suitcase containing the hundred grand that they had stolen. She was all alone back at the motel. She would be feeling vulnerable, and probably pretty scared, too.
As he slowed up and stopped for a red light at a crossroad empty of cars he found himself taking deep breaths to keep calm. In about twenty minutes this deal would be done. He would be rid of the cursed blue stone, and more importantly he’d have another ten grand to add to the hundred grand he and Kacy were planning on spending freely over the next few months. Dante had plans for them to travel around Europe taking in all the sights. He knew Kacy would love the idea, because she had passed up the opportunity to go travelling around Europe when she hooked up with him several years earlier. Now was his chance to pay her back for her faithful devotion. As long as he could stay alive through this one last day in Santa Mondega.
Looking around as he waited for the light
to change, he saw a stunning blonde dressed as Marilyn Monroe in a shiny pink dress standing on a street corner on the other side of the junction. She was attracting the attentions of two guys dressed as the Blues Brothers. There was also a big Elvis lookalike hanging around on the corner opposite them. This was the Elvis from the late sixties or early seventies. He was wearing a shiny red shirt with white tasselled sleeves and a pair of red flared trousers that had a thick yellow stripe down the outside of each leg. His eyes were hidden behind a big pair of the King’s traditional sunglasses. Judging by his sharp side-to-side head movements it looked like he was checking out the streets, waiting impatiently for someone to arrive and give him a ride somewhere.
When Elvis caught sight of Dante in the yellow Cadillac he stopped and stared real hard at him for a few seconds. At first Dante thought it was because he was impressed by his outfit, and so behind his shades he tried to give the solemn stare that Schwarzenegger used in the Terminator movies. But then the paranoia brought on by carrying a precious stone around in a stolen car took hold of him. What if this Elvis freak recognized the car? What if it was his? And why was he heading towards Dante right now in a real hurry? Fuck it. Time to jump the red light. No point in hanging around waiting for this big angry-looking Elvis dude to come and make trouble.
As he pulled away, the Caddy’s rear tyres screeched loudly, drawing more attention to him than he would have liked. It felt as though half of the population of Santa Mondega was watching him as he roared through the stoplight, almost causing an accident as a crappy old shit-brown station wagon crossed in front of him at the junction. Dante didn’t have the speed of thought nor the patience to try to get out of the way. He left that up to the driver of the station wagon, who duly obliged. The driver (a man dressed as an Egyptian mummy, wrapped in white bandages from head to toe) waved his fist in anger as his car nearly rolled over on to its side after swerving to avoid the bright yellow Cadillac. Dante didn’t need to look back to know that he had pissed the driver off. That’s one more person out to get me, he thought as he sped off.
His priority now was to get to the Nightjar and meet the monks as quickly as possible. No more cruising round town in the most conspicuous stolen car in the history of auto theft.
Fifty-One
Jefe decided that a visit of his own to the Mystic Lady was about the only chance he had of discovering the whereabouts of the Eye. He didn’t have the first fucking clue where it was, and he now only had an hour to find it before the eclipse. He needed the mad old woman to come up with the goods in a big way. If she could help him find the Eye of the Moon he could sell it to El Santino, as agreed. That way he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for Carlito or Miguel to shoot him in the back. And, almost as important, he’d be able to afford the repayments on the new Porsche he was driving.
He had left Jessica getting ready back in their hotel room. He didn’t have the time to wait while she squeezed herself into the rather sexy Catwoman outfit she had rented. It didn’t exactly complement the Freddy Krueger costume that he was wearing, not that he was complaining. She looked hot in a catsuit, and he couldn’t wait to meet up with her later for some fun and frolics. All he had to do was survive the morning. He needed a giant stroke of luck, and he was hoping the Mystic Lady could provide it.
He pulled up outside the odd-looking House of the Mystic Lady and was surprised to see the front door already open. He had been to visit her two weeks earlier, and had remembered her bleating on about making sure he shut the door behind him when he entered and left. She didn’t like having it open because, she claimed, evil spirits could enter the place.
Jefe was hoping to prove that the fortune teller did indeed have talent after Jessica had expressed to him her disappointment at the information offered to her the night before. He was a great believer in what the Mystic Lady had to say. Ever since he had seen the undead with his own two eyes, he had opened his mind to such matters as the supernatural, black magic and, of course, fortune telling. He had found the Mystic Lady to be pretty accurate on his previous visit.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to be much help this time. It was evident to Jefe as soon as he entered the house that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t so much the horrible mess that gave it away, or even the overturned chairs on the floor. No, it was more the look of the Mystic Lady. She was sitting in her usual position behind her table, but she looked very, very different. The reason for this was because her head was missing. It didn’t look as though a sharp blade had sliced it off, either. It actually looked like it had been ripped off by someone of incredible strength, such was the mess that remained, somehow, in the tall-backed chair. There was also a considerable amount of blood sprayed all over the walls and over the pages of a book on her desk.
Jefe didn’t spot her head until the door slammed shut behind him. It was hanging on the back of the door. The eyes were gone, and from what he could see so was her tongue. There was a mass of dried blood covering the lower half of her face, as if it had spurted out from her mouth and had spent much of the night slowly dripping down her jaw towards the floor.
Although he wasn’t about to perform an autopsy, Jefe did take a slightly closer look at the head. He discovered that it was impaled on a coat peg which was pushing up into the old woman’s brain. Dressed as he was, like Freddy Krueger, he knew it wasn’t a good idea to be hanging around near a dead body. It didn’t help that he was carrying a horribly sharp ten-inch knife about his person, not to mention a couple of concealed pistols and enough ammunition to establish a dictatorship.
He left the House of the Mystic Lady convinced that this was a sign of a bad day ahead. Then, in the blink of an eye his luck changed. He had not even reached his shiny silver Porsche before he saw his old yellow Cadillac drive past. The driver was a young man dressed in a Terminator outfit, and he seemed to be in a hurry. Only seconds earlier Jefe had thought he had no leads to work with at all. But he hadn’t forgotten one vital piece of information he had picked up. Sanchez had mentioned that someone driving a yellow Cadillac had wasted his brother Thomas, and could have had something to do with the death of Elvis the hitman. This was the only sniff of a lead Jefe had but it had to be worth following up. Anyway, he was a desperate man. Dashing over to his Porsche, he jumped into the driver’s seat, started the engine and then, as discreetly as he could, raced up the road in pursuit of the big yellow car.
His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that it drowned out the sound of the Porsche’s engine. This was it, all or nothing. Don’t lose that yellow Caddy, Jefe, he thought to himself. Don’t lose it, no matter what happens.
He tailed it for about a mile before the driver finally pulled up outside the Nightjar, of all places. Jefe pulled in behind. His mouth had gone dry and his heart was beating louder than ever. It was only a half chance – in fact, it wasn’t even that – but there might be something to be gained from this guy. He just wasn’t sure what.
The Terminator got out of the car and walked up to the bar’s front door. Jefe sprang from his Porsche without a second’s hesitation and followed him along the sidewalk.
‘You won’t get in there, my friend,’ he called out, in as friendly a voice as he could manage. ‘They’ve shut the place down. A coupla monks turned into vampires and got blown away by Rodeo Rex last night.’
‘What?’ The Terminator looked shocked, which was hardly surprising, especially if he didn’t believe in vampires.
‘It’s just what I heard, man. Probably not true,’ Jefe quipped as he walked up to the surprised young man in the black leather. When he was near enough so that no onlookers could get a close view of what was going on, he pulled one of his guns out from the waistband at the back of his trousers and pressed it into the guy’s ribs.
‘What’s your name, son?’ he growled. ‘Dante.’
‘How d’you feel about livin’ for more than a few seconds, Dante?’
The young man took one
look down at Jefe’s gun. It wasn’t every day you had a Freddy Krueger lookalike pointing a gun at you, but then, this was no ordinary day.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘I’m wonderin’ what you’re doing drivin’ around in my old yellow Cadillac,’ Jefe replied.
‘Oh. Er … I just bought it off a guy this morning.’ A note of panic had crept into his voice. Arnie would not have approved.
‘Bullshit. Get back in the car. We’re going for a drive. There’s a coupla people who are gonna want to meet you.’ Dante took a step towards his car, but was stopped in his tracks by Jefe’s gun in his ribs.
‘Wait a second. Turn around. Put your hands on your head.’
Dante did as he was told. Jefe pushed him up against the door of the Nightjar and began to frisk him. The first thing he found was the concealed pistol, but then he found the one thing he wanted more than any other, Jessica included. The Eye of the Moon. He pulled it out from the inside pocket of Dante’s leather jacket and clasped it tightly in his hand, gazing upon it like a mother laying eyes on her newborn baby for the first time.
‘Oh my. Fucking jackpot!’ he said. There was a note of awe in his voice. ‘You got a lot of explaining to do, Terminator boy.’ He chuckled, then added, ‘Oh my God, you just made my fuckin’ day.’
Fifty-Two
Sanchez was delighted with his choice of costume. He looked pretty damn cool, or at least he thought so. He had chosen to dress up as his all-time hero (after Rodeo Rex) – Batman. He had also insisted that Mukka should dress up as Robin so that they could be a dynamic-duo double act behind the bar. He knew Mukka wasn’t overly thrilled at having to do this, not least because of the costume. (The fact that he was a head taller and a good deal broader than Sanchez didn’t help matters, either. Boy Wonder my ass, he thought.) Where Sanchez had a Batman outfit like the one Michael Keaton had worn in the Tim Burton movie, his cook had been stuck with the Robin outfit from the camp sixties TV show. The ribbing he was getting from customers was pretty relentless. Everyone had a comment to make, generally an unfunny one, but a comment none the less. It wasn’t even midday yet, either, so there would be plenty more derisive remarks coming his way.