by Dave Barry
It was that badass face that Trevor was showing to Seth and Cyndi as he emerged from beneath his log structure. He was standing up, showing his full height, which was more than five feet, although his powerful arms still reached almost all the way to the cage floor. He was covered in long, unkempt reddish brown fur.
He was advancing toward the intruders, and he was clearly pissed off.
Cyndi had stopped screaming, but only because she was now too terrified to breathe. She was clinging to Seth, a little behind him. Seth was also terrified, but, being the guy in the situation, he felt an obligation to pretend he wasn’t. He held his hand up and told Trevor, “Stay!”
Trevor, who was unfamiliar with “Stay!” and not inclined to obey commands anyway, continued to advance.
“OK,” Seth whispered to Cyndi. “We need to back up toward the door. Slowly.”
“OK,” said Cyndi in a hoarse, squeezed-throat voice.
They started backing up. Trevor kept coming. He had dropped down a little, walking on both his feet and his huge hands, still showing his teeth. He was moving faster than they were. He was going to get to them before they got to the door.
“Oh God,” whispered Cyndi.
Seth flashed the light into Trevor’s face.
Trevor, blinded by the brilliant light, turned away.
“Go!” said Seth, turning, pushing Cyndi toward the door.
They stumbled toward the door. Seth grabbed it and pulled; his clump of grass had prevented it from latching, so it swung open. He pushed Cyndi through the doorway and followed her, pulling the door behind him.
In his haste, he did not notice that the grass clump was still jammed against the frame.
Outside the cage, Seth and Cyndi stood for a moment, breathing hard.
“Jesus,” said Cyndi.
“Yes,” agreed Seth.
“What is that thing? A gorilla?”
“I dunno. Gorilla, baboon, one of those things. Definitely not friendly.”
“Definitely not.”
Warily, Seth approached the cage bars, shined the light inside. The beam found Trevor sitting near the pile of clothes, facing Seth and Cyndi. He was holding something to his face, sniffing at it. Seth put the light on it.
“Oh no,” he said.
“What?” said Cyndi.
“No no no. No.”
“What?”
“That thing has Tina’s ring.”
“No.”
“Yes. Look. See the red thing he’s holding? That’s the box. The ring’s in there.”
“Oh man.”
“Yeah. I think I have to go back in there.”
As if on cue, Trevor bared his teeth.
“Or maybe not,” said Seth. “Jesus. What the hell am I gonna do?”
“OK,” said Cyndi. “Here’s an idea. In the morning, the people who run this place, they’re going to be arriving here, right? Like the animal handlers.”
“Right.”
“So you come back in the morning, first thing, so you’re here when they get here. You explain what happened, how the gorilla ripped apart your suitcase and got hold of the ring. Then a handler goes in there and gets it back.”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
“Thank you.”
Seth looked at his watch. “So, for now, I guess we should go back to the hotel.”
“I guess.”
They headed away from the cages, back to the side gate leading to the pathway around the fence. They didn’t need a code from this side of the gate; they simply pushed the latch and it swung open. They exited without looking back. So they did not see Trevor make his way over to the cage door and give it a tug, as he had thousands of times before.
The difference was, this time it opened.
29
As it happened, Primate Encounter did have a night watchman, of sorts. His name was Artie Kunkel, and he had been forced to take the job after a spectacularly unsuccessful career as a real-estate investor left him deep underwater on four houses.
Artie hated the watchman job. He hated the animals, hated the smells, hated being out in the middle of nowhere alone in the dark late at night. He was not supposed to carry a gun, but he did anyway, having bought one for $35 from a guy in the parking lot of a Party City in Hialeah. It was a .25 caliber pistol of the type sometimes called a Saturday night special. The entire training Artie had received on it came from the seller, who told him, “You have to push this thing up before you can shoot it.”
Artie had not shot his pistol so far. But he was glad he had it, and he always carried it with him on his rounds. He was supposed to make his rounds every hour, but in fact he did it only once per night, preferring to spend the rest of his shift watching Internet porn on the Primate Encounter office computer.
Artie disliked making rounds because the animal stink was worse near the cages, and the animals seemed to hate him as much as he hated them. Especially the orangutan. It went batshit whenever Artie walked past, showing its teeth, jumping around, making weird noises. Artie sometimes drew his gun when he passed that cage. Lately he had taken to stopping and pointing his gun at the orangutan, imagining what it would be like to shoot it. He would have loved to have a reason to shoot it. He hated the fucking orangutan.
On this night, Artie has just finished watching a video titled Classy Redhead BBW Takes It Up Ass on Piano. He looked at the wall clock and decided it was time. He cleared the computer’s browser history, rose, stretched, burped, farted. He patted his windbreaker pocket, felt the reassuring hard angular mass of the pistol.
He headed for the exit, pausing at the door to fart once more. He preferred to do his farting in the office. When he was finished, he headed out the doorway.
Artie Kunkel on patrol.
30
Wendell and Marty were still barefoot on the beach behind the Ritz-Carlton. Marty was on his back, staring up at the fat full moon, now high in the sky. Wendell was on his cell phone talking with Mr. Woo, the owner—for the time being—of a Chinese restaurant in North Miami Beach called the Majestic Rooster.
Marty and Wendell had done some research, Googling best chinese restaurant miami. After reading a bunch of reviews, they had settled on the Majestic Rooster, which apparently had a sensational dong bo pork. By the time Wendell called, the restaurant was closing for the night, the last of the customers paying their bills. Wendell had asked to speak to the owner.
Mr. Woo proved to be a tougher nut to crack than Stan of Stan’s Pizza. For one thing, Mr. Woo had never heard of Wendell Corliss or the Transglobal Financial Capital Funding Group. For another thing, Mr. Woo did not want to sell. He had, in fact, hung up on Wendell before Wendell had gotten a chance to really get into negotiation mode.
A less determined man might have at that point given up on the Majestic Rooster and pursued another target, such as the Imperial Moon Harvest or the Jade Dragon Bamboo Palace. But Wendell Corliss was a man who did not accept failure. He was also a man who was very fond of dong bo pork.
So when Woo hung up on him, Wendell immediately placed a call to Shanghai. He spoke to a friend and business associate of his who happened to be the most influential banker in China, and thus, basically, the world. That man had in turn placed a call to Beijing. And so it was that less than twenty minutes after Mr. Woo had hung up on what he believed to be an annoying drunk, his personal cell phone rang and he found himself speaking to the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China. The Paramount Leader had politely yet firmly urged Mr. Woo to be receptive to Mr. Corliss, in the spirit of friendship and cooperation between nations, as well as for the continued well-being of Mr. Woo’s many relatives still living in the People’s Republic.
Thus when Wendell called the Majestic Rooster the second time, he got a completely different Mr. Woo, a can-do Woo who was eager to find ways to accommodate Mr. Corliss. Although he had not been planning to sell his restaurant, he quickly came to see the benefits, especially when Wendell offered not only an extremely
generous cash purchase price but also the option of staying on in the position of CEO of what would become the Majestic Transglobal Rooster.
The tricky point in the negotiations came when Wendell stated that one of the conditions—the key condition, really—was that a takeout order of dong bo pork be delivered within forty-five minutes to the beach behind the Key Biscayne Ritz-Carlton. Mr. Woo said he was very sorry, but he did not think that was possible. He could make the order himself, but that would take at least thirty minutes. That left fifteen minutes for the delivery and, with the Saturday-night traffic, there was no way to get from North Miami Beach to Key Biscayne in such a short time.
“Just make the order,” said Wendell. “Have it at the front door of your restaurant in thirty minutes.”
He hung up the phone and turned to Marty, still lying on his back. “Marty,” he said.
“What?”
“Do you see any reason why a helicopter couldn’t land on this beach?”
Marty thought about that, staring at the moon.
“No reason at all,” he said.
31
Seth and Cyndi reached the Escalade, still shaky from their encounter with Trevor. They had opened the doors and were about to get in when Seth said, “Maybe I should leave a note, in case they get here before we do in the morning. I could tell them to call me, tell them it’s urgent.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Cyndi.
“Do you have something to write with?”
“I think so.” She dug around in her purse, produced a pen. She looked in the glove compartment and found a Wendy’s wrapper. “You can write on this.”
“Great, thanks,” said Seth. Leaving the car door open, he started toward the front entrance. Cyndi, not wanting to be left alone, followed.
Neither of them noticed the dark shambling shape coming around the corner of the fence.
At the front gate, Seth handed the flashlight to Cyndi, pressed the paper against the wall. “Can I use your phone number?” he said. “I just remembered, my phone’s broken.”
“Sure.” Cyndi gave him her number. Seth started to write.
“FREEZE!” shouted Artie Kunkel.
Cyndi screamed and dropped the flashlight. Seth dropped the pen and Wendy’s wrapper.
“Put your hands up where I can see them!” said Artie, this being a command he had heard used by law enforcement personnel on television.
Seth and Cyndi raised their hands. Seth said, “Listen, this isn’t—”
“Shut up!” said Artie, emerging from the shadows next to the main entrance. He was holding the gun out in front of him with both hands, also as seen on television.
“You don’t need to point a gun at us!” said Cyndi. “We’re just trying to—”
“I told you to shut up!” said Artie. “Now, what the hell is going on here?”
“Do you want us to answer?” said Seth.
“Of course I want you to answer.”
“Well, how come you keep telling us to shut up?”
Artie ignored that, as it was accurate. “What are you doing here?” he said.
“OK, listen,” said Seth. “One of your gorillas has my wedding ring.”
Artie frowned. “What?” he said.
“My wedding ring—actually, my fiancée’s wedding ring—was in a suitcase behind the gorilla cage.”
“A suitcase?” said Artie.
“Duane left it there,” said Cyndi. “You know Duane? He helps out here sometimes with the snakes. He was here today because one of them ate a lady’s backpack.”
“The gorilla did?” said Artie.
“No, the snake.”
“Then why do you keep talking about a gorilla?”
“No, no, wait,” said Seth, waving his arms to clear the air of confusion.
“Keep your hands up!” said Artie.
“They are up,” said Seth. “I’m just waving them.”
“Well, stop waving them!”
“OK,” said Seth, holding his arms still. “Please just listen to me. My fiancée’s wedding ring was in a suitcase, and the gorilla got into it.”
“So now we’re back to the gorilla.”
“Right, the gorilla,” said Seth. “Just forget about the snake, OK?”
“I’m not the one who brought up the snake,” said Artie. “You’re the one who brought up the snake.”
“Actually,” said Cyndi, “I brought up the snake. I was just trying to ex—”
“NEVER MIND ABOUT THE SNAKE!” said Seth, fighting desperately against the urge to wave his arms again. “The point is, the gorilla has my fiancée’s wedding ring and I’m just trying to get it back, OK? That’s all that’s happening here.”
Artie frowned, thinking hard. There was something fishy about this story, something that didn’t add up. What the hell was it?
Suddenly it came to him. He smiled what he believed was a hard-bitten smile.
“Nice try, asshole,” he said.
“What?” said Seth.
“There is no gorilla here,” Artie said triumphantly. He knew this because, out of desperate boredom, he had read every sign in Primate Encounter at least fifty times and he knew he would have remembered a gorilla. He was about to explain this to the suspects the way detectives sometimes did on television when they had cracked a mystery. But when he opened his mouth, what came out instead of an explanation was more of a girlish scream.
Because it was at that moment that Trevor attacked.
Trevor had been observing the humans from the darkness of the parking lot. He recognized all three of them. Two of them had just been in his cage—the male, whom Trevor on principle did not like, and the female, whom Trevor found intriguing.
But the human who most had Trevor’s attention was the other male. Trevor knew him very well and disliked him intensely. He was the one who came to Trevor’s cage every night and threatened him from the other side of the bars. He was making the same threatening gesture now.
But now there were no bars.
And so Trevor launched himself at Artie, coming out of the darkness with a bloodcurdling howl, teeth bared.
Artie, still screaming, had about a second to react. And react he did, in the form of closing his eyes and pulling the trigger.
The gunshot terrified everyone about equally, including Artie. Seth and Cyndi both had the same reaction: Run. They turned and sprinted into the parking lot. Trevor, after being stunned for a moment by this terrifying new noise, did the same, taking an arcing path to the side of Seth and Cyndi, moving considerably faster than they were. Another shot rang out, then another, then another. Artie’s eyes were still closed, but, given his marksmanship skills, this actually increased the chance that he would hit somebody.
Trevor, a fast-moving blur in the dark, reached the Escalade first, going around to the far side, looking for safety. He saw the passenger-side door open, as Cyndi had left it, and darted inside, clambering over the front seat into the second row, then the third, huddling down in the footwell, seeking safety from the awful sounds.
Seth and Cyndi, who had not noticed Trevor, reached the Escalade just as a fifth shot rang out. This one, by random chance, actually hit the car, putting a hole in the left rear door.
“Get in!” said Seth.
Cyndi raced around to the passenger side and hurled herself into the seat, slamming the door as Seth slid behind the wheel and started the engine. A sixth shot rang out as Seth yanked the shift lever into drive and stomped on the gas pedal. The Escalade shot forward, rear tires spewing dirt. Seth wrestled with the wheel, fighting to keep the SUV from slamming into the PRIMATE ENCOUNTER sign support as it swerved, screeching onto the road, almost going into a ditch on the other side, before Seth got control of it. Straightened out now, he accelerated, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“Yes,” said Cyndi.
“That guy is insane.”
“Yes.”
“And that thing
. . . what was that?”
“I think it was the same gorilla, or whatever it is, we were in the cage with. It must have got out.”
“Did you see if it still had the ring?”
“I didn’t get a good look.”
“Shit.” Seth pounded the steering wheel with his palm. “If that thing is running around loose in the woods with Tina’s ring, I’m never going to get it back.”
“Should we go back and see if we can find it?”
Seth shook his head. “Not with that maniac back there with the gun.” He shook his head. “I have totally, totally, screwed this up. Totally. I’m going to have to tell Tina I lost the ring.” He pounded the steering wheel again. “I’m an idiot.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes.
Then Cyndi said, “Do you smell something?”
32
The suite’s door buzzer sounded.
LaDawne, dozing on the sofa next to the snoring Wesley, sat up with a start and looked at her watch. “Who in the world is that this late?” she said.
Wesley continued snoring.
Another buzz.
“All right! All right!” said LaDawne, rising and heading for the door.
Another buzz. Insistent.
“All right,” said LaDawne, opening the door. “You don’t need to—”
Brewer was pushing past her into the room, Castronovo right behind him.
“Hey! Don’t you touch me!” shouted LaDawne. “Wesley, wake up!”
Wesley opened his eyes, saw the Tinker Bells, sat up.
“Who are you?” said LaDawne. “What are you doing in here?”
“Hotel security,” said Brewer.
“You can’t just come in here like that.”
“Yes we can.”
Castronovo was drifting over toward Wesley, the two big men eyeing each other.
“What do you want?” said LaDawne.