The Fourth Monkey

by J. D. Barker

“I’m not sure if she’s home. I haven’t seen her since this morning. She might be in her room.”

  Clair knelt down beside the woman, her eyes and weapon still trained on the hallway.

  “Miranda, right?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m going to untie you. When I do, I want you to get outside. You’ll see my car, a green Honda. It’s not locked. Climb inside and wait for the police to get here. Stay low, and keep yourself hidden until they arrive,” Clair said. “Do you think you can do that?”

  Miranda nodded.

  Clair made quick work of the cord around the woman’s feet while Nash untied her hands. When the housekeeper tried to stand, she wobbled, almost collapsing. Nash caught her and helped her find her balance. “Whatever he used could take a little while to work completely out of your system, so try to move slowly.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Miranda said, her face ashen. She steadied herself on the end table.

  “Take it slow,” Clair told her. “Help will be here soon.”

  They watched the woman follow the wall until she reached the front door and stepped outside into the darkening night. When she disappeared from sight, they both turned back and faced the staircase, weapons at the ready.

  86

  Porter

  Day 2 • 5:32 p.m.

  Porter ran his finger over the paint. It was still wet.

  The eyes were blue.

  He wanted to shout out Emory’s name but knew it would do little good other than give away his position. He also knew he should bag the eyes, but he didn’t have any bags. Porter knelt down. Bishop plucked them out whole, optic nerve and all. This wasn’t easy to do. Eyes popped rather easily, and it took a skilled hand with the correct tools to properly get behind them and remove them from the socket without damage. They appeared fresh. The blood had only begun to congeal and dry.

  Porter reached into his pocket and pulled out the cell phone. “Kloz? I’m inside. I found Emory’s eyes outside the emergency stairs on the first floor. Did you call for an ambulance too?”

  He heard nothing and glanced at the phone—NO SIGNAL.

  “Shit.”

  He placed the phone back into his pocket.

  His grip on the bat tightened as he stepped over the eyes and gently pushed on the door release, swung it open, and stepped into the stairwell. The beam of his flashlight rolled across dust and debris that hung in the air like a dry fog, and he had to fight the urge to cough. It was impossible to follow the trail through here. So many footprints converged on that first step, Porter couldn’t be sure how many people had traipsed through, but it could easily be dozens.

  Porter directed the beam straight up.

  How tall did Kloz say this building was? Had he even said? It appeared to be at least fifty stories from the outside. Porter wasn’t sure he could do that on his best day, let alone with a fresh stab wound in his thigh. He pulled the hospital greens down and got a better look at the wound. Although it was bleeding slightly earlier, it had stopped. His leg still throbbed, though. Damn near hurt more now than when the knife went in. From what he could see around the bandage and tape, the surrounding flesh was purple and black.

  Porter pulled the box cutter from his pocket and used it to cut a length of cloth from his shirt. He wrapped it around the existing bandage, securing it in place. He cut another piece and tied it tight just above the wound—not as restrictive as a tourniquet, but enough to slow the blood flow. Hopefully it would be enough to hold him together, at least for a little while.

  Porter started up the steps.

  87

  Clair

  Day 2 • 5:33 p.m.

  Nash took the lead and crossed the hallway in one fluid motion. Clair followed close at his back. The setting sun had not only pitched the house into darkness, but a fall chill had found its way into the air. The hair on the back of her neck and arms stood on end, and she told herself that was because of the cold too, but the pounding of her heart within her chest told a different story.

  The first step creaked under Nash’s weight, and she heard him swear softly. Clair squeezed his shoulder with her free hand. She heard the floorboards creak under her weight too and considered taking off her shoes, then figured it would probably be of little use in a house like this. Structures of this age tended to have wooden floors that groaned underfoot.

  They ascended slowly in an attempt to minimize the noise, feeling their way up the steps. When Clair’s fingers trailed into something moist on the banister, she stopped and brought her fingertips to her nose. There was no mistaking the coppery scent of blood. She had smelled it more times than she could recall, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  Nash stopped too and looked back at her, his face shrouded in shadows.

  Clair held up her fingers.

  “Blood,” she whispered, the word escaping on a single breath.

  Nash looked down at his own hand. Clair watched as he wiped the blood on his pants before continuing up the stairs.

  Her palms began to sweat, and the Glock grew heavy in her grip.

  At the top of the steps they found a landing with a hallway branching off in either direction. There was a bathroom directly in front of them. Nash entered low with his gun out front, confirming that the room was empty.

  Clair stood with her back to the wall, her own weapon pointing in from the hallway, until he returned to the landing.

  A small row of LED lights built into the baseboard illuminated the hallway, and they could see three closed doors down the left and a pair of double doors at the end of the hallway on the right. The walls were lined with family photos of various shapes and sizes. Clair assumed the double doors led to the master bedroom while the others belonged to guest spaces and Carnegie’s room.

  “Which way?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Master,” he replied, already moving down the hall.

  88

  Porter

  Day 2 • 5:33 p.m.

  Porter stopped just short of the third-floor landing. The small six-foot-by-four-foot space was littered with dust and discarded fast food wrappers. The walls were painted lime green.

  He heard a voice.

  With the bat in hand, he climbed the last few steps, swinging the beam of his flashlight back and forth against the thickening darkness.

  “Are you getting tired yet, Sam?”

  The voice was followed by a quick crackle, static, then silence.

  “Where are you, Bishop?” Porter said, his own voice sounding higher than he had hoped as the words echoed across the concrete.

  “I know you’re out of shape, but come on now, I’ve seen old ladies with walkers climb a flight of stairs faster than you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Maybe the exercise will do you some good, burn some of that gut away.” Crackle.

  Porter spotted the radio as he ascended and made the landing. A small black Motorola with a rubber antenna stood against the riser at the beginning of the next flight of stairs.

  When Bishop spoke again, a small red LED pulsed with his voice. “How about a little rhyme to pass the time? You up for that, Sam?”

  Sam picked up the radio. Bishop’s singsong voice crackled back.

  “Goose Goosey Gander, whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs and in my Lady’s chamber. There I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers, so I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs. Have you ever wondered what that nursery rhyme was about, Sam? I mean, it’s a little dark for kids, but tell it to kids we do. My mother used to love to tell me that one whenever we went up or down a flight of stairs.”

  Porter pressed the button on the radio and held the mike close to his lips. “I’m coming for you, you crazy fuck.”

  “Sam!” Bishop’s voice came back. “You finally made it. I was getting worried about you.”

  “Where are you, Bishop?”

  “I’m close, Sam. I wanted to wait for you. I knew you’d puzzle it out. You’
re the sharp one in your little band of misfits. It took some coaxing, but you got it. I’m so proud of you.”

  “I found the eyes. Is Emory still alive?”

  Bishop sighed. “I am so sorry I didn’t have time to wrap them for you. I was half-afraid a rat might stumble upon them before you got here and walk away with a tidy snack in its jaws. Not much I could do about that, but I’m glad you got here first.”

  Porter realized he should have covered them with something. He hadn’t thought about rats. “Where are you?”

  Bishop chuckled. “Oh, you’ve got a ways to go, I’m afraid. The climb can’t be easy with that wound. I’m really sorry about that. I hope I didn’t hurt you too bad, but I had to improvise. You and your friends really put me on the spot.” He dropped off for a second, then: “You best pick up the pace, Sam. We don’t have a lot of time left. Wound or not, you’ve got a lot of stairs in your future.”

  Porter started climbing the steps again. Standing still, even for such a short amount of time, had caused his leg to tighten up. He forced the muscles to respond and gritted his teeth when the pain came. With each step it felt as if the knife were back in his thigh, slicing through the muscle and fat. “Let me talk to her. You owe me that much. Let me know she’s still alive.”

  He was answered by a moment’s static, then Bishop’s voice echoed through the tiny speaker. “I’m afraid Emory is not available right now.”

  Porter rounded the corner of the fourth floor and kept going, his lungs burning.

  “So, did you finish it?” Bishop asked.

  “Finish what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Your little diary?”

  “Don’t mock me, Sam. Don’t you ever mock me. Mocking is an evil all its own, and one I’m not very fond of.”

  Sam wiped his forehead on the shoulder of his scrubs. “Your mother mocked you at the end. How did you like that?”

  “So you did finish.”

  “Yeah, I finished.”

  “My mother was an evil witch of a woman who deserved whatever happened to her,” Bishop said.

  “Sounds like your mother was one hell of a lay. She had everyone wrapped around her finger. The hot ones are always crazy.”

  “I see what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work, so put an end to the jabs right now,” Bishop shot back.

  “So they never came back? They just left you there?”

  A clicking noise came from the radio. It sounded like Bishop was pushing the Talk button repeatedly at a rapid pace, like a nervous tic. “Remember the matches? I burnt the house to the ground with Talbot’s people roasting inside. Figured I’d follow through on the gasoline Mr. Stranger and Smith spread around. The fire department called child services, and they took me to something called a residential treatment center. I spent two weeks there before I was placed with my first foster family. Nobody had a clue I’d set the fire. If Mother ever came back for me, I wasn’t aware of it.”

  “Sounds like she rode off into the sunset with that Carter woman and didn’t want her brat of a son tagging along on her Thelma and Louise fantasy. They never intended to bring you.”

  “I was better off without them.”

  “In foster care? I guess you’re right. If half of what you wrote actually happened, you grew up in one fucked-up household.”

  “Language, Sam, language.”

  “Right. Speak no evil. Sorry about that. I’d hate to violate one of your blessed father’s rules.”

  Fifth floor.

  “Your mother wanted your father to die that day, planned for it. She was done with him. Who was banging the blond guy? Your mother or Carter? Both of them? Hell, I bet that guy was tagging both of them while you played with your pecker in the corner.”

  “Language, Sam.”

  “Fuck you, Bishop. Hell is not a bad word.”

  Bishop took a breath. “Cursing of any kind is a sign of a weak mind, and I know you are anything but weak-minded. I bet you’ve already worked out a plan to get even with the guy who shot your wife. What was his name? Campbell? You walked away all calm and forgiving, but I could see the anger burning behind your eyes, the hatred.”

  “We’re not all out for revenge.”

  Bishop chuckled. “If I were to lock you in a room with him and you were assured there would be no repercussions for whatever you did, you wouldn’t hurt him? You wouldn’t put a bullet between his eyes? You wouldn’t take a knife and gut him from neck to groin and watch him bleed out? Don’t kid yourself, Sam. We all have it in us.”

  “We don’t act on it, though.”

  “Some do, and the world is a better place for it.”

  Porter snickered. “Maybe if you weren’t such a sniveling little twat of a boy, she wouldn’t have run off without you. Maybe the three of them would have included you in their little plan. You could have made a life with your new daddy and two mommies, and whatever the fuck they were hoarding in those safe-deposit boxes.”

  Bishop let out a soft laugh. “I bet your friends at the Fifty-First plan to leave Campbell’s cell door open tonight. Let you in through the back so you can have a little private chat with him. If they found him hanging from the rafters in the morning, would anyone really care? Nobody sheds a tear over the loss of someone like that. You deserve that, right? For what he did?”

  “What was his real name? The blond guy.”

  At first Bishop didn’t answer, but then his voice came back with a crackle from the speaker. “Franklin Kirby.”

  “Your mother and Mrs. Carter planned to run off with Franklin Kirby all along.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your father wasn’t part of that plan.”

  Bishop said nothing.

  “How did your mother and Mrs. Carter even know Kirby?” Porter was making small talk now. He didn’t give a shit about Kirby or the Carters or Bishop’s parents, but he knew as long as he kept Bishop talking, Bishop wasn’t hurting Emory further. He needed him to not be hurting Emory.

  Bishop clicked at the microphone again—five times, a dozen times. “Kirby worked with Simon Carter at the accounting firm in the operations department. I believe he was responsible for moving the money out. Most likely, the two of them planned to split the funds and keep the documents as collateral to ensure nobody came after them.”

  “Nobody’s going to chase after a few million dollars and risk information leaking that could take down their entire operation.”

  “Correct.”

  “But Kirby somehow double-crossed him, with your mother’s help,” Porter said. “His partner too. Just killed him like that.”

  “Simon Carter abused his wife. She saw a way out and took it. I think Mother agreed to help her, and the other man was collateral damage.”

  Porter felt a trickle of warmth on his leg and looked down; his stitches were bleeding again. He pressed his hand against his thigh and continued to climb. “You saw Talbot’s name on the vans, so you made the connection?”

  The line went silent.

  “Bishop?”

  “Father taught me to approach every situation with a well-thought-out plan. By sixteen I had multiple fake IDs. It’s easy to get your hands on them when you’re in the foster care system. I met my share of criminals in training from the moment I set foot in my first group home. I stayed clean though; I avoided the fights and the drugs. I focused on one thing—I eventually got a job working for Talbot. I was patient. Started as an intern and worked my way up. I was always good with computers, a gift I guess. It didn’t take me long to work my way into the IT department. I traced Simon Carter’s steps. He made it easy. All the files he stole? He backed up copies on their own servers. Left it right under their noses under the names of bogus clients. Within two years, I had everything he had put together and more. Mr. Carter had amassed information on dozens of criminals throughout the city, dating back nearly twenty years. Not only did he have detailed records of their crimes, but he also had accounting records for nearly every d
ollar exchanging hands. These were bad people, Sam. Everything from gambling to sex slavery. All of them connected, all of them working together, this underground of evil breathing like a living being. I spent my days working for Talbot and my nights piecing all of this together.”

  “You were living on your own at sixteen?”

  “I lived in a vacant tenement on the West Side. I shared the apartment with five other kids I had gotten to know in the foster system. Anything was better than the group homes. Don’t interrupt me, Sam. It’s rude.”

  “Sorry.”

  Bishop continued. “All of those criminals tied together like a spider web, every one, and there was one man at the center, one man with his hand in all of it.”

  “Talbot.”

  “Kirby’s partner may have pulled the trigger on my father, but all of those people were standing behind that gun,” Bishop said solemnly. “Talbot most of all.”

  “How many have you killed?” Porter asked, nearly out of breath as he rounded the corner on the ninth floor.

  “I’m not so pure anymore, Sam. But I did what needed to be done.”

  “You killed innocents.”

  “Nobody is innocent.”

  “Let me talk to Emory,” Porter asked again.

  Tenth floor.

  “Hey, you want to hear something funny?”

  “Sure.”

  A scream erupted from both above and the tiny speaker in Porter’s hand—a bloodcurdling scream of pain so jagged, he felt the ache under his own skin.

  “Better hurry, Sam. Chop chop.”

  89

  Clair

  Day 2 • 5:34 p.m.

  The door was locked.

  Nash twisted the knob again as if expecting a different result, then turned in frustration.

  Clair pressed her ear against the door.

  Nothing.

  Nash motioned for her to step back and leaned in, holding up three fingers.

  Clair understood.