The Monkey Handlers

by G Gordon Liddy

  “Yeah. How’d it happen?”

  “For that, you’d need the police. Or, after four, she may be able to tell you herself.”

  “Right,” said Stone. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll just look in her door for a moment.” He turned and left.

  Ten minutes later, Stone turned the Mustang left off Blain Terrace onto Garden Street and was surprised to see Stephanie Hannigan’s yellow Prelude starting to turn into his driveway at number 182. He gunned the Mustang to come up behind her, and both cars were still moving down the driveway when he blipped his horn to draw her attention.

  Stephanie stopped under the porte cochere and stood by the door of her car, waiting for Stone. As he approached her, she said, “Oh, Mike. I’m so sorry about your aunt. I heard it on the radio while I was driving to lunch and came over to see if there was anything I could do.”

  Stephanie’s use of “Mike” wasn’t lost on Stone. He took it as a peace offering and accepted it gracefully by returning the favor. “Thanks, Neffie. I just came from the hospital. She’s hurt, and it’ll take her some time to heal—especially at her age—but they say she’ll be okay. I can’t talk to her until after four. She’s under. C’mon in. I’ll introduce you to my new roommate.”

  The word roommate sent an icy knife into Stephanie’s stomach. Determined not to show the hurt, she affected nonchalance with an airy “Sure.” Then she said, “What an extraordinary house! If it’s as interesting inside as it is out, I’d love a fifty-cent tour.”

  “You got it,” Stone said as he hit the doorbell. “If you’ll take potluck, I’ll throw in lunch—though it may be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and glass of milk.”

  “Brought up on them,” Stephanie said as the front door swung open. To her immense relief, Saul Rosen was standing there, left hand on the doorknob, right holding a kitchen towel full of crushed ice to the back of his right ear. He was dressed in jeans and a khaki military-style shirt, and he had the Browning pistol tucked into his waistband.

  “The hell happened to you?” asked Stone. Then, remembering Stephanie, he said, “Saul Rosen, Stephanie Hannigan. Saul’s my client’s brother. We’re rooming together for a while. Stephanie, here, is the mainstay of the public defender’s office.”

  “Which,” said Stephanie as they all moved inside, “will come as news to the public defender. Oh, Mike, the place is fabulous!”

  “Thanks,” said Stone. Then, addressing Saul, he said, “So what happened? And what’s with the nine mil.?”

  “What,” Stephanie asked, “is a nine mil.?”

  Saul answered her by pointing to the Browning, then said to Stone, “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you, ace. Your ol’ combat buddy screwed up. While I was taking a shower just after you and May left, someone got in here. I heard him—or rather his goddamn portable phone—got the 9 mil., and went down to take him for you. Only he took me. Damn near took my head off. Then ripped off your safe. Sorry, guy. Shit.”

  They walked into Stone’s office and surveyed the ravaged safe, its contents strewn over the floor. Stone carefully avoided stepping on them as he went to both windows and pulled the shades all the way down to cover them completely. Then he moved to his desk, took a torn-open business-sized manila envelope out of the letter rack, looked inside it, and announced, “It’s okay. They’re still here.”

  “You mean, what they were looking for in your safe was in the letter holder on your desk all the time?” Stephanie asked.

  “Yup. Last place they’d have looked for it.”

  “Where in your misspent youth,” asked Saul, “did you pick up that bit of trade craft?”

  “In my misspent American Lit class sophomore year in high school, when we studied Poe.”

  “The Purloined Letter.” Stephanie said it slowly, her look at Stone appraising. With a new respect in her voice, she said, “And I’ll bet you just pulled down the shades because you read Conan Doyle, didn’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wow.”

  “Would somebody mind telling a young Jewish boy raised in a kibbutz what this conversation’s all about?” Saul pleaded. “I mean, I spent most of my time studying the Torah and the rest of the Old Testament, but I don’t go around using a sling when I can get an Uzi.”

  Stephanie smiled at Saul. “In the nineteenth century, two great writers, Edgar Allan Poe, an American, and Arthur Conan Doyle, an Englishman, wrote mystery fiction on a common theme—finding the hiding place of something very important. Poe wrote about a stolen letter, and the detective he created reasoned that it would be hidden best in plain sight, where no one would expect to find it. That’s what Mike did with whatever it was the thief who hit you was looking for. Years later, Conan Doyle had his great detective, Sherlock Holmes, looking for the hiding place of a compromising photograph. He created a disturbance, a fire, then watched to see where the person who had hidden the photograph rushed to save it. That’s why Mike pulled down the shades—in case the attack on you and the safe was a use of the same ploy.”

  Stone grinned. “You got it, kid.”

  “So,” asked Saul, “what’d you save by being so well read?”

  “Something belonging to my client.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mike,” said Saul, “I’m her brother. You can say what it is.”

  “Mike’s right,” Stephanie said, defending Stone. “It’s privileged. He’s behaving like a lawyer.”

  “Yeah, well a lot of good it’s doing him and my sister, his client. First her place is ripped off and now your own office.… I’m sorry, Mike. That was outta line; my brains are still a little scrambled, but I took leave to help the Mike Stone I knew in Nam, not a lawyer.”

  “Forget it. You’re right.”

  “No, he isn’t, Mike,” said Stephanie. “In the restaurant, you didn’t have much choice. Here the choice is clear. You handle it like a lawyer. Call the police.”

  “Call them about my aunt, too?” Stone’s voice was cold.

  “What about your aunt?” Saul asked.

  “In the hospital. ‘Accident.’”

  They walked to the kitchen. “Party’s getting rough,” Saul said, holding out the ice-filled towel. It was soaked with his blood.

  “You better get that attended to,” Stephanie said.

  “I’ll be all right,” Saul grumped. He was still upset with himself for having been bested.

  “I don’t guess you saw the guy?” Stone asked Saul.

  “Nothing. Got a great look at the phone, though. When they try the phone, I’ll make a great witness.”

  Stephanie looked in the refrigerator and overhead cabinets, then busied herself making salad and sandwiches. The peanut butter and jelly she made for herself, for the men there was cold roast beef and some sliced boiled ham and Swiss cheese. As she worked, she listened to the two men talking.

  “You still didn’t tell me what you’re doing with a nine mil.,” Stone said to Saul.

  “Hey, I told you. I’m stationed in Washington, D.C., the murder capital of the United States. Only a lunatic would walk around town without a gun when every twelve-year-old has a piece.”

  Stephanie put the salad bowl and dishes out on the table, then handed Stone the roast-beef sandwich, Saul the ham and Swiss, and put the peanut butter and jelly at her own place. She was about to sit down when she suddenly said, “Oh, how stupid of me!” and switched the peanut butter and jelly over to Saul and took the ham and Swiss for herself. “No problem,” said Saul. He grabbed Stone’s roast beef and gave him the peanut butter and jelly. Quickly, Stone switched his peanut butter and jelly for Stephanie’s newly acquired ham and Swiss.

  “That was quick!” said Stephanie.

  The three of them started to laugh. “Which sandwich has the pea under it?” Saul challenged.

  “Quit changing the subject!” Stone laughed. “What are you doin’ packing?”

  “Ah, come on, Mike. I’m the assistant military attaché, an active-duty Israeli Defense Forces officer wi
th diplomatic immunity, which is almost as much immunity as being twelve. The P-Thirty-five is our issue sidearm, you know that. It’s the best nine mil. ever made.”

  “What about the new stuff with double action?”

  “You know better’n that, too. Two completely different trigger pulls for the first and second shot. No offense to you and Stephanie, here, but none of the new stuff is designed by gunsmiths. These days, they’re all designed by product-liability lawyers. Look at all the crap they’ve got stamped on the sides of the barrels: ‘Do not stick in your mouth and pull trigger; it could be hazardous to your health.’ That’s why the new iron’s loaded down with all those bells and whistles—so you don’t shoot yourself. Trouble is, you can’t shoot anyone else, either. Not for half an hour while you screw around with all the stuff they’ve put on there to defend against lawsuits. Christ, they’ve got regular safeties, magazine safeties, grip safeties, ambidextrous safeties, extended safeties, hammer-lowering levers, hammer blocks—”

  “This conversation,” interrupted Stephanie, “is way over my head and makes me nervous. Someone said something about a tour?”

  Stone drained a glass of milk, checked his watch, and said, “Sure. Plenty of time. Go lie down, Saul. When I go the hospital to see Mazie, you’re coming along to get that head looked at, not that they’ll find much inside it.”

  Saul waved them out of the room. “What’s a matter? Afraid I’ll sue? You should’ve told Charlie in Nam you were a lawyer and threatened suit. Would’ve scared the shit out of him.”

  As they toured the old house, Stephanie was struck by the beauty and craftsmanship that were products of an age that had more time to devote to handwork, and in which things were expected to last and were built that way. She stopped at the windows to admire the different views, especially Aunt May’s carefully tended flowers, and she hovered over the antique furniture pieces, displaying a knowledgeable appreciation that impressed her host. It was the latter interest that led her to discover which room was Stone’s.

  To Stephanie, there was something remarkably out of place in one of the bedrooms. At the foot of the bed was a massive chest, of obviously recent and relatively crude construction. “What’s that?” she asked.

  “What? Where?”

  “There, by the foot of the bed.”

  “Why? What about it?”

  “Well, the whole house is filled with fine old and antique furnishings. That looks like it was made last week, and not by Chippendale. It just looks a little out of place, that’s all. What is it?”

  “A sea chest. My sea chest. That’s genuine teak. Had it made for me in P.I. The Philippines. It’s got my gear in it, my old navy gear. This is my bedroom.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike. I’m sure it’s a wonderful sea chest. You just don’t expect to see one in a room like this. Why do you keep your navy things in it? I mean, why not put them away and keep your current things in it, where they’re handy, at the foot of your bed?”

  Stone stared at the chest with it’s heavy padlock, then turned to look Stephanie in the eye. “I haven’t opened that chest since the day I took off my navy uniform,” he said softly, adding almost as an afterthought, “I feel more comfortable with it right where it is.”

  “Could I see them?”

  “What?”

  “Your uniforms.”

  “Sure.” Stone laughed. “They’re in the closet, there. Plenty of uniforms, no suits!”

  “In the closet?” Stephanie’s confusion showed in her look. “Then what’s in the chest?”

  “I told you. My gear. Tools of the trade.”

  Confusion left Stephanie’s face and somberness moved in. “You just can’t let go of it, can you, Mike?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want to.”

  “Why haven’t you opened it since you left the navy?”

  Stone thought for a minute. “It’s a tool box. I haven’t had a need for those tools since then. What’s the big deal, anyway?”

  Stephanie felt uneasy. “I don’t know. I guess it’s the significance what’s in there seems to have for you. I mean, if you follow your own analogy further, the whole law library over at the courthouse is one big set of tools, too. But you don’t seem to feel the same way about it.”

  Stone’s voice took on a note of exasperation. “So, how am I supposed to feel? Look, I’m one of the best there is at using what’s in there. I can’t say the same about what’s in the law library, okay? What’s more, the stuff in there works. And I can’t say that a lot of the time about what’s in the law library, that’s all. I mean, I don’t see the problem here.”

  Stephanie’s legs felt weak. She was reacting emotionally, and she hated it. In an effort to recover, she sat on the end of Stone’s bed and faced him, then forced herself to speak calmly and rationally. “The problem,” she said, “is that you’re not being fair with yourself. You’ve only been practicing for a relatively short time. There’s no objective reason you can’t be as good a lawyer as you are a, a—”

  “SEAL,” Stone interjected.

  “Right. But you’re never going to do it if you keep disparaging your legal abilities and persist in these … mystical feelings about what you used to do. That’s over, Mike. You’ve got to keep this box closed, actually and psychologically.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? I just told you. You’ll never—”

  “I know what you just told me. Now give me the real reason.”

  Stephanie seemed to wilt. She struggled with her emotions for a moment longer, then gave in and said, “Because I’m afraid, Mike.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of you. Of what I saw in the restaurant. God, Mike, you didn’t have any of your ‘tools’ there, and look what you did. What would have happened if you had? I guess … I guess I don’t ever want to see what happens to you when you open this box.”

  Stone put his head back and drew a long breath through his nose, held it, then let it out slowly. He lowered his head and looked directly at Stephanie. “When a SEAL goes on an op,” he said, “he goes into isolation for from twenty-four to ninety-six hours. In isolation, he clicks on. When he comes back, he goes into isolation again, for debrief, after-action report and to click off. You’re right. You don’t want to see a fully rigged-out, clicked-on SEAL. You don’t want to be near one. But, so what? You could be married to one and never have occasion to see it. The only people who see it don’t live to tell about it. I told you before. I wasn’t clicked on in that restaurant. And that’s no box. It’s a chest.”

  Stephanie rose. “Freudian slip,” she said.

  “You think it’s Pandora’s box, don’t you?”

  Stephanie’s legs were trembling. Presently she said, “I know it’s an unfair comparison. When Pandora opened the box Zeus gave her, all the ills of humanity escaped. I just have this feeling that you’ve put every bad thing that ever happened to you in there. The other night, you told me some of those things. I know there must be more, especially from the war. I won’t ask you about them, Mike. It was curiosity that led Pandora to open the box.” She looked up at Stone. She was composed as she said, “So, please. Let it be. Don’t open it.”

  Stone regarded Stephanie quietly. “Well,” he said, “I haven’t yet, but if I ever do—and I’m not saying I will—but if I do, try to remember the rest of the legend.”

  “The rest of the legend?”

  “Yes. There was one thing, remember, that didn’t escape from the box.”

  “What was that?”

  “Hope.”

  10

  “I want you to Sue them, Michael. Sue the pants off them!”

  Aunt May, speaking from her hospital bed, was very much awake as Michael Stone and Saul Rosen, his head newly bandaged, walked through the door to her room.

  “Never mind all that, Mazie,” said Stone, going over to her bed to plant a kiss on her forehead, “first things first. How do you feel?”

  “How do I feel? How would you feel i
f you were hit by a bus? I feel rotten, thank you—hello, Mr. Rosen, thank you for coming—that’s why I want to sue!”

  “I don’t know, Mazie. The bus was right where it was supposed to be, and you weren’t. The question of liability here—”

  “I don’t mean the bus company, you young puppy! I mean whoever it was pushed me in front of the bus! And what happened to you, Mr. Rosen? Were you two boys horseplaying around in my house?”

  “No horseplay, ma’am. An uninvited guest slugged me while I was trying to chase him out of your house. Not to worry, I’m fine. Got an X ray says so. More important, what does the doctor say? How much more vacation is he gonna give you?”

  “He won’t tell me, but I told him I want to go home as soon as … In my house? Someone broke into my house? And what were you doing, Michael, while your nice young friend was getting his head knocked to protect my house?”

  “I was at work at the courthouse, Mazie. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right, ma’am,” Saul said, “I carried him all the way through Vietnam, too. I’m used to it.”

  Stone’s reaction to Saul’s needle was to sound a bit testy when he asked his aunt, “Can you describe the person who pushed you, Mazie?”

  “How can I describe him? I never saw him. He came from behind. But he must have been good-sized; it was a hard push! There were all kinds of people around, Michael. Someone must have seen him. The police will catch him, and you can sue.”

  “Maybe if we tell the police we think the guy was a client or a friend of mine, they might go all out and catch him,” Stone answered. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  Aunt May grimaced as she pushed the button to raise her bed to a higher position. The intravenous tube feeding into the back of her left wrist swung wildly. “Did the man who hit you damage my house, Mr. Rosen?”

  “Saul. Please. And no, aside from damaging Mike’s safe, everything’s okay.”

  “Needed a new safe, anyway,” Stone said quickly. Then he said, “Mazie, you don’t worry about the house or anything else. Just do as the doctors tell you so you can come home soon. We’re starving to death without your cooking. You don’t behave and do as the doctors say, Saul and I are gonna bring a bunch of girls in and have an orgy all over the place.”