by AnonYMous
As Sanchez, the monks and the ringmaster stood in the ring discussing the lack of opponents, there came a huge roar of engine noise from the back of the boxing tent. It was loud enough to silence the crowd, and every head turned to see a massive Harley-Davidson cruise through the entrance and into the tent. The crowd parted as the Red Sea had done for Moses and the Israelites. The bike was one of the good old-fashioned choppers, like those Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda had cruised around on in Easy Rider. It was well cared for, too. Its owner obviously loved it because it looked as good as new. The silver paintwork shone and the chromeplate gleamed, as if the machine had just come straight from a showroom, while the great V-twin engine was obviously tuned to perfection, for it purred like a contented cat.
For the locals in the tent, however, the Harley itself was not half as exciting a sight as the man riding it. He was known well in these parts. The ringmaster recognized him at once and was quickly up in the centre of the ring, whipping the crowd up into a frenzy. There was plenty more money to be made, the day was still young, and the giant of a man riding the chopped Harley-Davidson was, quite literally, throwing his hat into the ring. A huge brown Stetson flew over the crowd and landed by the feet of the ringmaster, who picked it up and put it on in place of his top hat.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he howled into his mike, ‘will you please welcome the man we’ve all been waiting to see. The greatest living bare-knuckle fighter, the greatest the world has ever seen … The one … The only … Rodeeeeooooooo Rexxxxx!’
To say the crowd went crazy would have been an understatement. Kyle and Peto weren’t sure what to make of all the fuss, but like everyone else they had been pretty impressed by the man’s entrance. His Harley cruised on up to ringside, its rear wheel flicking up sand and dirt from the ground into the faces of everyone within a five-yard radius, before slowly drawing to a halt. Rodeo Rex revved the engine a few times more for the crowd’s enjoyment, before quickly shutting down and dismounting slowly so that everyone with a camera could get a picture of him.
And he was big. Seriously big. This was the largest man Kyle or Peto had ever laid eyes on. Every inch of him was muscle, his massive frame entirely devoid of fat. He wore a tight black Helloween T-shirt that was probably a couple of sizes too small; in fact, it was so tight that from a distance it looked like a large tattoo. He also wore a black leather glove on his right hand but, oddly, not on his left. His blue denim jeans were ripped at the knees and were tucked tightly into his half-length black boots. Once he was off the bike and on his feet it became clear just how big he actually was. He stood roughly six feet five inches tall with shoulder-length shaggy brown hair held in by a black headband that crossed his forehead. He looked as though he could have been a professional wrestler on TV, only he was too scary-looking even to be one of the bad guys. Kids wouldn’t just be frightened of him, they’d have nightmares about him. Every night. In fact, even grown men might quite possibly have nightmares about this guy.
There was only one reason for Rodeo Rex to be in the boxing tent, and that had been evident from the outset. He jumped straight up into the ring, swinging his great frame over the ropes, and bounded over to the ringmaster, embracing him like a brother. He then grabbed hold of the microphone and greeted his audience.
‘You all come here to see me kick some ass?’ he boomed.
‘YEAH!’ screamed back the crowd.
‘Then in the immortal words of the great Marvin Gaye … Let’s get it on! … Oh baby, let’s get it on!’ he bellowed, waving his arms in the air.
The bookies were almost crushed under the stampede that followed. People clustered round them, shouting and holding twenty-dollar bills out to them. Not so many people were betting on Peto this time, and the bookies were offering all kinds of different odds.
Sanchez had seen Rodeo Rex fight before and although he thought Peto was absolutely mustard, he fancied Rex to win. Kyle could see this in the excited-kid look on the bartender’s face.
‘Is this man some sort of idol?’ the monk asked Sanchez who was grinning like a lovesick schoolgirl.
‘Nah,’ said Sanchez. ‘This guy’s the real thing. This guy’s a fuckin’ legend. I ain’t never seen him lose. An’ I tell you something else: I never will.’
‘How many times have you seen him fight?’
‘Fuckin’ hundreds, man. Back your friend Peto to lose. This guy could really hurt him.’
Peto overheard Sanchez talking to Kyle and came over to join in the conversation.
‘I’ll beat this person easily, Sanchez. Have you not been watching me fight? None of these men is a match for me. They’re all drunk or unfit, or both, and they lack the self-belief required to beat me.’
Sanchez knew Peto was good, but he didn’t like the young monk’s chances at all against the giant bare-knuckle fighter. And besides, Sanchez loved Rodeo Rex – he was his hero. He liked Peto, too, but if the young monk beat Rex then it would shatter the invincible image that the great man had built up in Santa Mondega over the years.
‘You won’t beat this guy. You’re good, kid, but he’s the best. Do yourself a favour, back yourself to lose in the first round and then go down the first time he hits you … An’ stay down. You got me?’
Peto and Kyle dropped lightly down from the ring and walked away from the crowd, who were all straining to get closer to Rodeo Rex. They found a quiet spot just beneath their corner of the ring. Looking down at them, Sanchez could tell from the looks on their faces that they still believed Peto would win. He was right, too. Kyle and Peto saw this as a good opportunity to make a lot of money on the gambling side of things, something they had quickly come to enjoy. They spent a few minutes huddled together, discussing tactics, before Peto finally climbed into the ring and Kyle disappeared into the crowd to find a bookie. He returned after a couple of minutes and joined Peto in the ring.
‘Did you get the bet on?’ the latter asked, as they waited in their corner. Sanchez, worried, climbed down and set off to find one of the eager youths to place a bet for him.
‘You bet I did,’ Kyle winked. ‘And I got pretty good odds, too.’
To their surprise, just before the fight was due to start Rodeo Rex bounded over to their corner to have a word with his opponent. None of Peto’s previous opponents had done anything like this, and as a consequence both were extremely wary of what the big man might want.
‘You two are Hubal monks, right?’ The words that came from Rex’s mouth in a surprisingly civilized tone were completely unexpected.
‘Yes, that is right. How did you know?’ asked Kyle, surprise making him sound unintentionally condescending. This was extraordinary. A man who looked as though he spent most of his time drinking, fighting and generally leading the very opposite of their ascetic lifestyle would not normally have heard of the Hubal monks.
‘Met your kind before. Good fellas. Very good fighters, too. Should be a good match.’
Peto was equally taken aback, especially by how well spoken this giant was. Well spoken and well educated in equal measure, it seemed.
‘Thanks. Um, when did you meet Hubal monks before?’ he inquired politely.
Rex took in a deep breath through his nostrils and then blew it out through his mouth, as if he was blowing smoke rings with fresh air.
‘Years ago now. I kinda guess you’re in town for the same reason they were back then.’
‘What reason is that?’ asked Kyle, intrigued to find out how much Rex actually knew.
‘Eye of the Moon. Been stolen again, I’ll bet. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Maybe,’ said Kyle checking Rex’s expression for any sign that he might be trying to make fools of them. ‘How do you know about the Eye?’ Again, although he hadn’t meant to, he managed to sound condescending.
Rodeo Rex smiled. ‘Let’s just say we’ve got a common interest. How about we get together, go for a drink after the fight? I think maybe we can help each other.’
‘Sure,’ said Peto
quickly. ‘We’d like to go for a drink, wouldn’t we, Kyle?’
‘Certainly,’ Kyle agreed. ‘We would be delighted to join you for a drink, Mister Rex.’
‘It’s just Rex. Or Rodeo Rex. Never Mister Rex. Never.’
Then, to loud cheers from the crowd, he bounded back across the ring to his own corner and raised his arms in the air in a pre-celebration ritual of his forthcoming victory.
Thirty-Two
Dante and Kacy had watched the fights with mounting interest since Hammerhead’s defeat. Kacy liked the little bald guy who had destroyed first him and then the five other opponents who had dared to challenge him. Dante wasn’t so keen. He wanted a bodyguard who was going to frighten people off just by his appearance. This wasn’t their man, and besides, something had started to bother Dante.
Actually, a couple of things were bothering him. Firstly, everyone in the boxing tent seemed to know each other in one way or another. Secondly, and far more importantly, it had occurred to him that there was more than one reason why he was beginning to dislike the man they called ‘Peto the Innocent’.
‘Kacy, look at that Peto guy and his friend who looks just like him. What d’you notice about them?’
‘Well, they look like each other,’ said Kacy, teasing him lightly.
‘Goddamit, I can see that. But what else do they look like? I mean, come on, two little bald guys wearin’ orange robes and baggy black pants. Doesn’t that say anythin’ to you?’
‘They’re colour-blind?’
‘No, babe. They’re monks. Look at ‘em. They’re fuckin’ monks. Tough bastard monks, too! I say we get the fuck out of here. These guys could be here to kill us. That nutty old lady said to get rid of that stone before we got ourselves killed. And so did Bertie Cromwell.’ The realization that, for once, Dante had been quicker than she to take caution set alarm bells ringing in Kacy’s head.
‘My God, you’re right,’ she paused for a moment in thought. ‘Unless maybe we can sell the necklace to them?’
‘No chance,’ said Dante, shaking his head. ‘The Prof seemed to think we could get a fair few thousand for it. You’ve seen how tough these monks are. If we tell them we’ve got it they’ll tear our heads off and take it from us. Let’s just lie low and then try an’ sell the stone at a jewellers or antique store tomorrow. Then we just get the fuck outta town.’
‘But what about getting a bodyguard?’
‘I’m goin’ off the idea. It’s too risky, I reckon. Everyone here seems to be chummy with everyone else. I say we lie low. Don’t reckon no one here can be trusted.’
‘Okay. I trust you, though, Dante. I’ll always trust you. You say let’s go, then let’s go.’
And they went. Right before the fight between Peto and Rodeo Rex was due to start. The paranoia brought on by all they had heard about the Eye of the Moon was really beginning to take effect. Dante was convinced that just about everyone in the boxing tent was surreptitiously watching them. It felt as though everyone knew what they were carrying on them. In his suspicious state of mind everyone seemed to be looking at Kacy to see what it was that she was wearing around her neck. Even though the Eye was concealed beneath her white T-shirt, both of them felt like it was out on show for everyone to see.
Fortunately, it wasn’t. They had already been warned that there were a number of people who would kill them to get their hands on the stone. On their way out of the boxing tent they passed by one such person, a hooded man who would have killed them in a second if he had laid eyes on it.
Thirty-Three
The Santa Mondega City Library was, quite simply, enormous, although why such a shit-hole of a place needed, or deserved, such a resource baffled Miles Jensen. For a start it had three floors but, more impressively, each floor was the size of an athletics track. There were aisle upon aisle of books stacked on shelves all the way up to the thirty-foot high ceilings. Each floor had a pleasant reading area set aside from the book stacks, with free coffee available from a group of extremely friendly waitresses who would be over in a flash if any customer should need a refill.
Jensen had given himself his own personal guided tour of the library. It had taken almost an hour, but as a lover of the written word he had found it no great hardship.
If only there were libraries like this everywhere, he found himself thinking.
Finding an untitled book by an anonymous author was obviously going to be difficult, and the fact that he didn’t even know if it would be in the fiction or non-fiction section wasn’t going to help matters. In some respects, knowing that this Annabel de Frugyn character had already borrowed the book made his job easier. It meant that his only option was to ask at the information desk if they knew what the book was about, rather than go hunting for it himself unaided.
The woman at the reception desk was petite, blonde and in her late twenties. She wore a plain white blouse and an unfashionable pair of thick-rimmed spectacles. Her hair was scraped back tightly into a bun and she wore no makeup, but in Jensen’s opinion she looked like she would scrub up pretty nicely. The old ‘Why, but … but you’re beautiful, Miss Carstairs’ routine, when the heroine takes of her glasses or lets her hair down, came to mind. Supermodel potential in the right hands, in fact. Maybe she knew this and was trying her best to hide it in order not to attract the wrong sort of attention in so august a place as a library. Maybe it was a library rule that she should hide her good looks, or maybe only Jensen could see how pretty she was. Unfortunately, beauty, as they say, is only skin deep, and this woman gave Jensen a frosty stare as he approached her, suggesting she didn’t welcome his presence.
She was sitting behind a teak-coloured desk in a reception area that looked like a bar, only instead of beer and spirits behind her, there were books and computers.
‘How can I help you, sir?’ she asked wearily, as if it was the thousandth time she had uttered the phrase that day. To be fair, it probably was.
‘I’m looking for a book,’ Jensen answered.
‘Have you tried the butcher on the corner of Dunn Street?’
Oh great. A comedian.
‘Yes. They didn’t have the particular book I was looking for, though, so after asking at a carpet store and a joke shop I decided to try the library.’
The lady (who according to the nameplate in front of her was called Ulrika Price) didn’t take too kindly to Jensen’s return of service. Sarcasm was the only form of attack she had against customers who asked stupid questions, so it galled her to have one respond in an equally irritating manner.
‘What’s the name of the book you’re looking for, sir?’
‘I don’t know, I’m afraid. You see it’s …’
‘Author’s name, please?’
‘Well, that’s just it, you see. It’s listed as being by an anonymous author.’
Ulrika Price raised her left eyebrow. She was clearly not amused, and for a few seconds she waited for Jensen to admit that he was joking and give her a sensible answer. He watched her expression change from one of resentment at what she considered to be a bad joke, to one of great disappointment and frustration as it dawned on her that he was deadly serious.
‘Oh God,’ she sighed. ‘Is it fiction or non-fiction?’
Jensen smiled and shrugged. Ms Price closed her eyes and slowly put her head in her hands. This woman looked as though she had had a hard day and it was only now reaching its pinnacle.
‘Can you just check on your computer files? I believe a lady called Annabel de Frugyn currently has the book out.’
Ulrika Price looked up and her face lightened just a little.
‘So you’re not a total wiseguy, then?’ she quipped.
‘Not even a little,’ Jensen said, offering a smile that he hoped would be returned. To his surprise the previously agitated Ms Price grudgingly smiled back. Her eyes even betrayed a hint that she might be warming to Jensen’s calm assurance. This chick’s into me, he thought. Could make things a little easier.
The libr
arian began tapping away on a keyboard positioned out of view beneath the desktop. She typed without looking at her hands, instead fixing her gaze on a monitor on the counter just to her right. Jensen was unable to see what was coming up on screen, but he hoped she would turn the screen around and reveal the results of her search. Alas, she did not. She obviously hadn’t warmed to him quite that much yet.
‘You’re right,’ she said, sounding unsurprised. ‘Annabel de Frugyn does have a book out at the moment, and it has no title on our records and no named author.’
‘Good, that’s what I thought,’ said Jensen. ‘So can you tell me what that book is? What section it would be in, or what category it would come under. Otherwise, is there anyone who works here that would know anything about it?’
‘Yes, sir, I can. But only if you are a member of this library, and I don’t believe you are. I’ve been working here for ten years. I know almost all the customers, and I’ve never seen you before.’
‘Well, I can assure you I am a member Ms Price, My name is John Creasy, and I borrowed two books only last week.’
The smile disappeared from her face. She tapped away at her keyboard a little more and then began to frown at her screen. If things were going according to plan she would be seeing the library records for John W. Creasy, a fictional character Jensen had entered into the library’s database from his own laptop the night before, just in case he received any resistance such as this. He had borrowed the name from the character played by Denzel Washington in the film Man On Fire. It was one of the aliases that Jensen sometimes used, and he had all the identification to back it up, including a library card.
‘Do you have any identification? And your library card?’ Ms Price asked.
