The Book With No Name Read Online Free Page A

you do,’ Kyle whispered to Peto, ‘don’t do anything to upset them. They look a bit nasty. Leave all the talking to me.’
    The two troublemakers now faced Kyle and Peto at adistance of only a few feet. Both of them looked unwashed, something confirmed by the fact that they smelled like it, too. The larger of the two, a man named Jericho, was chewing tobacco, a small brown streak of which was dribbling out of one side of his mouth. He was unshaven and sported the apparently obligatory insanitary moustache, and from the look of him might have been in the bar for several days without going home. His companion, Rusty, was a good deal shorter, but smelled just as bad. He had rotten black teeth that were out on display as he grinned at Peto, who was one of the few men in town short enough to meet him at his own eye level. Where Peto was the apprentice in his relationship with Kyle, Rusty was similarly the understudy of Jericho, a more accomplished criminal in local circles. As if to press home the point as to which was the senior party, Jericho made the first aggressive move. He prodded a finger into Kyle’s chest.
    ‘I asked you a question. What are you doin’ in here?’ Both monks noticed a certain gravelly quality in the voice.
    ‘Well, I am Kyle and this is my novice, Peto. We are monks from the Pacific island of Hubal, and we are looking for someone. Maybe you could help us find him?’
    ‘Depends on who you’re lookin’ for.’
    ‘Er – well, apparently the man we’re looking for goes by the name of the Bourbon Kid.’
    Complete silence enveloped the Tapioca. Even the propeller fan fell quiet. Then the sound of breaking glass came from behind the bar as Sanchez dropped an empty glass he had been holding. He had not heard anyone mention that name in his bar for a very long time. A very long time. It brought back horrible memories for him. The mere mention of the name made him shiver.
    Jericho and his sidekick knew the name, too. They had not been in the bar on the night the Bourbon Kid had shown his face. They had never seen the Kid. They had only heard about him, and about the night he had drunk bourbon in the Tapioca. Jericho looked at Kyle closely to see if he was serious. It seemed that he was.
    ‘The Bourbon Kid is dead,’ he growled. ‘What else do you want?’
    Knowing Jericho and Rusty as he did, Sanchez figured that Kyle and Peto had about twenty seconds left to live. Yet even that estimate looked a little generous when Peto picked up his glass from the bar and took a large swig from it. As soon as the liquid touched his taste buds he realized he was drinking something unholy, and instinctively he spat it out in disgust. All over Rusty. Sanchez came close to laughing, but he was smart enough to know that to do so wouldn’t be in his best interests.
    There was piss in Rusty’s hair, in his face, in his moustache and in his eyebrows. Peto had managed to spray it all over him. Rusty’s eyes bulged with rage as he looked at the golden-coloured liquid dripping down his chest. This was humiliating. Humiliating enough for him to want to kill Peto without another moment’s thought. In one swift movement he reached for the pistol holstered at his hip. His buddy Jericho was right with him, as he too drew his gun from its holster.
    Hubal monks value peace above most qualities, but they practise martial arts from childhood. To Kyle and Peto, therefore, taking out a couple of drunken thugs was child’s play (almost literally, given the monks’ upbringing), even if the men were pointing guns at them. Both monks reacted right on cue, and with bewildering speed. Without a sound, each ducked down and thrust his right leg between the legs of the man facing him. Each then hooked his leg behind his opponent’s knee and spun round. Taken completely by surprise, and bewildered by the speed of the assault, Jericho and Rusty managed no more than an astonished yelp as the monks whipped their pistols away from them.