The Book With No Name

by AnonYMous

  When she eventually managed to drag the suitcase out and sling it across the floor towards him, she saw that he was standing motionless, gawking at her.

  ‘Baby, now’s not the time,’ she barked. ‘Get those clothes off and put something clean on, for Chrissakes!’

  Dante knew she was right, but all the while as he threw his clothes off, he was doing his utmost to work out a way of convincing her that there was enough time for a ‘quickie’.

  Kacy checked that the suitcase was still full of money and then zipped it up again. She then climbed up on to the bed and grabbed another, heavier, suitcase from the floor on the other side of it. Using all her strength, she dragged it up on to the bed with her and then unzipped it. Inside it were all the clothes they owned in the world. She pulled out a pair of blue jeans for Dante and threw them over to him.

  ‘Here, put these on.’

  Dante was standing in just a pair of black boxer shorts as he caught the jeans. If he put these on, any chance of a quick fuck would be gone.

  ‘Kace, you better throw me some new boxers, too,’ he said in a serious voice.

  ‘You don’t need clean boxers. Keep the ones you’re wearing.’

  ‘Nah, Kace, we’d better get rid of all the clothes we’re wearing. The cops could check them for DNA. Best we don’t take the chance.’

  Kacy stopped rummaging through the suitcase. ‘What? Why would anyone check your boxers?’

  ‘Dunno, but it seems dumb to take the chance. We should strip off everything we’ve been wearing so we can burn it later, just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Really?’ Kacy didn’t sound at all convinced.

  Dante nodded. He had a disappointed look about him as he pulled his boxers off and threw them on to the pile of bloodied clothes on the floor.

  ‘It’s for the best, Kace. Shame, though. Those were my favourite boxers. Here, chuck me your undies and I’ll put them on the pile.’

  Kacy was still unsure, but Dante had a very serious expression on his face. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and anyway she didn’t know any better.

  ‘Come on, Kace, we haven’t got all fuckin’ day!’

  As he seemed to be in such a hurry, Kacy figured he wasn’t just after a quickie, so she swiftly undid her bra and threw it over to him. Her breasts were as perky as ever, the nipples pointing rather invitingly right at him. Then, from her kneeling position on the bed, she rolled over on to her back and slipped off the tiny black thong. She couldn’t have explained why, but she then flicked it over to Dante in a seductive manner, and winked at him with a cheeky smile.

  Maybe it was the sight of his erect cock that made her want to tease him a little. Either way, it had the all too predictable effect. Dante’s eyes were out on stalks at the sight of her naked body. It didn’t matter how many times he’d seen it, every time was as good as the first. Faster than a speeding bullet, he was on top of her, his hands everywhere, exploring her body as if it was previously uncharted territory.

  ‘Dante, no! We shouldn’t. There’s no time,’ Kacy protested meekly, even as she ran her hands down his back.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he whispered, as he slipped his cock inside her.

  Sixty-Two

  Somers and Jensen were in the older detective’s recently acquired squad car, racing down the main street through the centre of Santa Mondega, when a voice crackled out of the police radio. It was the information they had been waiting for.

  ‘The yellow Cadillac you’re after has been spotted parked outside the County Motel on Gordon Street,’ said the voice.

  ‘We’re right on it, thanks,’ said Somers, speaking into the radio mike, which he held with one hand while steering the car with the other. He’d never had any truck with all that ‘Ten-four’ shit.

  ‘You think the Kid’s still there?’ Jensen asked from the passenger seat.

  ‘Dunno. But there’s a good chance the Eye of the Moon is there, and at the very least I’ll get my car back. And maybe the sonofabitch who stole it.’

  He suddenly wrenched the steering wheel violently to the left without slowing down. They turned off the main drag and down a side street with cars parked along both sides. Somers put his foot right down on the gas pedal and sped along the centre of the road without a care for anyone foolish enough to be crossing it.

  It took little more than ten minutes for him to get them to the County Motel. He had driven through countless back alleys and side streets, along the way swerving wildly not only to avoid oncoming traffic, but also several careless pedestrians.

  The County Motel was a no-frills, run-down, thirty-room establishment on the side of the main highway that headed west out of Santa Mondega. It was a good place for any out-of-towners to spend their first night in the city. The accommodation was cheap and the parking was free.

  When they arrived, the parking lot was less than half full. Most of the vehicles parked in it were pick-up trucks or station wagons. There was no sign of any Cadillacs of any description, certainly not a bright yellow one. Somers parked the squad car in the middle space of a band of three vacant spots no more than twenty yards to the left of the main entrance. There was a vandalized sign over the entrance that read:

  ‘WELCOME TO THE C UNTY MOTEL’.

  Beneath the sign, a single concrete step led up to a pair of glass double doors with a hideous lime-green border around their outer edges.

  ‘I’m gonna head in to reception,’ Somers said, opening the driver’s door. ‘You wait here, and honk the horn if you see anything.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ replied Jensen, pulling his cellphone from his pocket as his partner climbed out of the car.

  Somers walked hurriedly up to the double doors as Jensen turned his phone back on. He had left it off ever since Somers had rescued him from the barn, and maybe the scarecrow, the night before. The phone beeped several times within seconds of being turned on. A line of text came up on the screen.

  1 New Message.

  After a frenetic and extremely passionate lovemaking session that had left them feeling extremely relaxed, Dante and Kacy had set about checking out of the motel. Since the moment she had allowed him to persuade her to remove her underwear, neither of them had been able to remember quite why they had been so desperate to get out of town in such a hurry. Sure, the cops might be looking for them, but with the number of dead bodies around that day, there would be potentially hundreds of avenues for the police to explore before they tracked down the two young lovers.

  They had packed their remaining possessions and changed clothes without feeling a fraction of the anxiety they had endured, pre-fuck. Dante was now wearing the blue jeans Kacy had thrown at him, along with an unexceptionable red short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt over a clean white undershirt. Kacy had thrown on a pale blue miniskirt and blue high-heeled shoes. Her outfit was topped off with a low-cut white T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of a blue 1966 Thunderbird flying off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

  After driving the yellow Cadillac round to the rear car park, they made their way back to the front of the building. Dante kept one arm wrapped tightly around Kacy’s shoulders. With all they had been through together in the last few days he felt more protective of her than ever before. She was more important to him than anything in the world, so he was keeping her close during their remaining time in Santa Mondega.

  The loved-up young couple were in good spirits as they arrived at the reception desk to settle their bill. Making an attempt at being discreet, they both wore sunglasses to cover at least a little of their faces. Kacy was wearing Dante’s Terminator shades, while he wore a pair of aviators that he had picked up from one of the bodies in the Tapioca. He didn’t feel the least bit guilty about this. After all, the guy had been dead.

  Carlos, the motel manager, was sitting behind the reception desk, with his feet up, reading a copy of Empire magazine. Even though Dante and Kacy were about to settle their bill and make him some money, he still didn’t welcome the intrusion on hi
s reading time. He was a short, middle-aged Hispanic with tufts of thick black hair around his ears but little or none on top. He compensated for this by displaying an extremely dense black moustache that grew from out of his large nostrils and down past the corners of his mouth.

  The lobby had a faint but unpleasant musty smell about it. Whether this came from the dirty maroon carpet, the decaying brown wallpaper, Carlos, or a combination of all three, was hard to tell. It was a small stuffy reception area only slightly bigger than the bedroom they had occupied. It had only one window, situated near the corner farthest from the desk. It was small and narrow, and its broken handle ensured that it couldn’t be opened.

  ‘Yo, Carlos, my man, we wanna settle up,’ said Dante cheerfully, throwing a set of keys over the reception desk at the manager. The keys hit the cover of Carlos’s magazine and fell to the floor. Disgruntled, he put the magazine down and took his feet off the desk, then reached down and picked up the keys. ‘What’s this?’ he asked suspiciously, holding them up.

  On the ring was the motel room key, but also a car key that he didn’t recognize. He fingered it free of the other key and the heavy metal tag attached to the ring.

  ‘It’s a thank-you gift for letting us stay here,’ Dante replied, smiling.

  ‘What the fuck is it?’

  ‘Take a look out the back window,’ said Dante, nodding at the small window in the far corner.

  Carlos got up from his seat and gave Dante a dirty look, then he smiled at Kacy and winked. He made his way over to the window and looked out. About twenty yards away in the private car park out back was the yellow Cadillac he had seen outside one of the apartments the night before. Just then it was the only car in the lot.

  ‘You’re giving me your car?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What’s the catch? It stolen?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ Kacy chimed in with a broad smile.

  ‘You might wanna get it sprayed a different colour though,’ said Dante.

  Carlos took a few seconds to think over the offer.

  ‘Might wanna get the licence plate changed, too?’

  ‘Might,’ Dante agreed.

  Carlos made his way back behind the reception desk and sat down. He flicked through the guest book and stopped at a page with a list of names on it. Halfway down the list were Dante and Kacy’s signatures and the details of their stay.

  ‘The room’s a hundred and fifty dollars,’ he said, looking hard into Dante’s sunglasses.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Dante leaning over the counter to get in Carlos’s face. ‘How about you give us the room for free as a thank-you for the car I just gave you.’

  Carlos closed the register and picked up his magazine, flicking back to the article he’d been reading.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Do you want the page of the guest book with your names and signatures on, too? You know, to take with you as a souvenir of your stay?’

  ‘Er, actually, yeah, that’s probably a good idea,’ said Dante. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That’ll be a hundred and fifty dollars, then.’

  Dante’s patience had worn thin.

  ‘Now you look here, you cheeky fuckin’ spick,’ he said spitefully. ‘I just gave you a fuckin’ car. Don’t push your fuckin’ luck.’

  ‘The price is a hundred and fifty. You don’t like it, you know what you can do.’

  Kacy felt the need to interject before Dante got them into any more trouble than was necessary. She jumped forward with a great beaming smile on her face and put her hands on Carlos’s desk, leaning forward to show a little cleavage as her arms squeezed her breasts together. Her welcoming expression seemed to say These are my tits. They could be yours … for a while.

  ‘You know what, Carlos? How ’bout you call a cab for us, while we count the money out for you?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Carlos, all the while staring down Kacy’s T-shirt with a wry smile on his face. ‘There’s a charge of five dollars for the call, though.’

  ‘Fuck you, you prick,’ Dante growled at him. ‘I’ll ring the fuckin’ cab myself. Come on, Kace, let’s go.’

  ‘Dante, please just give him the money. Just do it. It’ll put my mind at ease.’

  Dante was about to respond when a silver-haired man in a grey trench coat walked in. Carlos recognized the guy and greeted him immediately.

  ‘Good afternoon, Detective Somers,’ he called out cheerily, as if he was pleased to see him.

  ‘Hello, Carlos,’ said Somers solemnly.

  The detective walked up to the reception desk and stood alongside Kacy, giving her a quick smile. ‘Hello, miss. Mind if I just butt in ahead of you? It’s police business.’ He held his badge up.

  ‘Oh, no. I mean, sure,’ said Kacy replied nervously.

  She was praying that Dante would keep his mouth shut. It might already be too late. He had pissed off Carlos and now here was a detective standing right alongside them.

  ‘Carlos,’ Somers began, displaying a fake smile and slipping a twenty-dollar bill over the counter to the manager, who took it happily. ‘I’ve heard a rumour that you’ve got someone staying here who drives a yellow Cadillac. That Cadillac has been stolen, and the owner – who happens to be me – an officer of the law, wants his car back. He also wants to know the name of the driver, if you’ve got it to hand. Be good if you could help me here. Thanks.’

  Kacy watched as Carlos took stock of the situation. Why, oh why had Dante gone and pissed him off? Now they were in trouble again. She took a step back from the desk to try to catch her boyfriend’s eye. It was hard to tell through his dark aviator sunglasses if he was even looking at her. And if he was looking at her, she couldn’t read his eyes. Evasive action was required. If Carlos gave the game away, they were going to prison. The suitcase full of money, the stolen car, and probably the eyewitnesses from the Tapioca would see to it that they were in jail and poor once again. Not to mention in danger. Kacy didn’t trust anyone in this city, not even the cops. Especially not cops, although she thought the old guy actually looked okay.

  Carlos rubbed his chin as he considered his response to Somers’s question, at the same time quickly pocketing the twenty-dollar bill.

  ‘Yeah, there was a yellow Cadillac staying here. I remember the guy who was driving it. Real asshole, he was. Let me see if I’ve got his name in my guest book,’ he said, once again putting his magazine to one side and looking down at the register lying open on the desk.

  Dante took a step back from the desk too. ‘You know what, Carlos?’ he said pleasantly, stretching his arms as if he were tired. ‘We’ll come back later. Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t you go anywhere,’ said Somers grabbing hold of Dante’s arm tightly. ‘I’ll only be a minute. You an’ this pretty lady can wait, can’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ smiled Carlos, still looking at the guest book. ‘You can wait. This’ll only take a minute. Once I’ve given this officer the information he requires, I’ll get to you, don’t worry.’

  He flicked through the pages of the guest book again and stopped on the page with Dante’s and Kacy’s names on it. As he ran his finger down the list he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Kacy was moving away from the desk a little. He sat back and looked up, first at Somers, then, as if he were deep in thought, over at Kacy. He began to drum his fingers on the open page of the book.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Somers.

  ‘I’m just trying to remember somethin’,’ said Carlos, holding up a hand to signal to the detective that he’d be glad of a few more seconds of his patience. There was a distracted look in his eyes, as though he was desperately trying to remember something.

  Actually, he was staring at Kacy. Where Somers and Dante were standing at the desk, they were unable to see what he saw. Kacy, having moved out of their line of sight, had lifted up her T-shirt to confirm his earlier suspicion that she was not wearing a bra. Carlos stared contentedly at her magnificent breasts, marvelling at the pert pink nipples as he p
retended to be deep in thought. Eventually, after a satisfyingly long time, she lowered her T-shirt again and Carlos snapped out of his trance.

  ‘I remember now,’ he said, turning his gaze back to Somers. ‘The guy in the Cadillac was called Pedro Valente.’ He pointed to the name on the page of the guest book. ‘He checked out about twenty minutes ago. You might catch him, said he was heading out of town.’

  ‘You got an address for him?’ asked Somers.

  ‘’Fraid not. He wasn’t the kind of guy that had an address, and certainly not the sort I’d pester for one, either.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Somers, stepping back and staring at Kacy. ‘I might be back if I don’t find this guy. Thanks for your help, Carlos. And sorry to have stepped in and interrupted you, miss.’

  After admiring Kacy for a few seconds – she really was amazingly pretty, he thought – he turned to Dante to offer his appreciation.

  ‘You’re a very lucky guy,’ he said. ‘You take good care of that girl.’

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘Good.’

  Somers walked past Kacy and winked at her as he headed back out of the lobby to where Miles Jensen was waiting in the squad car.

  Dante reached into his back pocket and pulled out just over two hundred dollars. He threw it over the desk to Carlos.

  ‘Thanks, man, I owe you one.’

  Carlos shook his head.

  ‘Keep the money,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll call you a cab for nothing, and you can have the page from the guest book, too, in case the cops come back. I was only kidding earlier.’

  ‘Wow, thanks, man,’ said Dante, taking back the money Carlos was holding out to him. He turned to face Kacy and shrugged his shoulders to express his bafflement at the previously obstructive motel manager’s change of heart.