Bad Monkeys (7 page)

I turned up the sound and sat there for about an hour with my jaw hanging open. Then my phone rang.

It was King Kong: “Hi there, Jane.”

Instead of being freaked out like I should have been, like I was
supposed
to be, I actually felt sorry for the guy, because the world had just turned upside-down and he obviously hadn’t gotten the memo yet. So I said: “Are you near a TV set?”

That wasn’t the reaction he was looking for. “Listen, you stupid bitch,” he said, “do you know who this is?” And I said, “Yeah, I know who it is, and I know you think you’re a badass, but the thing is, you’ve just been trumped.” And he went off, all threats and swearing, but I didn’t really hear it, because it was right then that the first tower went down. A hundred-ten-story building, and it turned to rubble right in front of my eyes, and I realized in this weirdly detached way that I was witnessing a mass murder.

On the phone, Deeds was raging: “Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me?” And I said, “Get fucked, killer,” and hung up on him. There was a moment right after I set the phone down when I thought,
That probably wasn’t too smart,
but then I looked back at the debris cloud on TV, and by the time the second tower collapsed, I’d put Julius Deeds completely out of my mind.

I took some more Valium and went for a long walk. Around noon I ended up at Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. By then all the planes had been grounded, and the city was quieter than I’d ever heard it—the only sounds were the wind and a few people crying. I was looking for
a place to light up a joint when I saw Phil. We didn’t say anything, just wandered off together and sat down to watch the day go by.

It was after dark when I finally went home. The drugs had worn off enough for me to start worrying about Deeds again, but by then I couldn’t remember whether that early-morning phone call had really happened or was just something I’d imagined. I was wary going into my building, but when I found my apartment door closed and locked, not kicked off its hinges, I figured I was safe.

I let myself in. My TV was on, and that seemed wrong, but I told myself not to be paranoid. I started hunting around the living room for the remote, and then the television shut off on its own, and Deeds said, “Hello, Jane.”

He was sitting in the darkest corner of the room, with a baseball bat across his knees. I looked at him, and the bat, and then at the door I’d just come in by, and he said: “You won’t make it.”

“OK,” I said, standing very still. And he said: “You were right about me being trumped. This morning when we talked, I had no idea. You know they say the body count could be as high as five thousand?”

“Five thousand…”

“Yeah. Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? Still, it’s not all bad news. My trial, for example: it’s been postponed.”

“Postponed?”

“Yeah. The courthouse was closed today, and the way things are, my lawyer says it could be months before I get a new trial date.”

“I’m happy for you,” I said.

“Oh, it’s not just good luck for me. It’s lucky for you, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” He stood up. “You’ll have time to recover.”

That’s my last clear memory from that night. I know I did try for the door, and I eventually made it—I was bleeding out on the landing when the neighbors found me—but not before he worked me over. He broke my collarbone, and my right arm in two places, and cracked or broke half my ribs. He also got in one really good shot to my skull—the doctors told me later it was a miracle I didn’t end up dead or a vegetable from that.

I was in a coma for ten days. I woke up in a darkened hospital room with a television playing somewhere nearby. Tom Cruise was talking about a priest who’d died giving last rites to a fireman at Ground Zero. Then Mariah Carey started singing that we all have a hero inside us, and I thought maybe
I’d
died, and this was hell. But the show went on, with more celebrities coming out to sing and tell stories, and there were calls for donations, and eventually I realized I wasn’t in hell, I was just in America.

The cops came around. I told them I didn’t know who’d attacked me. Then Phil came to see me, and I told him the same thing, but he knew I was lying. I told him to mind his own business.

I had another visitor, too. I first noticed him about a week after I woke up, and for a long while I wasn’t sure he was real. I was in a lot of pain, but because of the coma the doctors were nervous about drugging me. But I kept after them, and eventually they put me on a morphine drip. And I was floating on that when this guy showed up.

He was black, with a round face. He sat in a chair over by the window, watching me.

What made you think he wasn’t real?

The way he was dressed. He had on this cheerleader’s uniform: pink checked skirt, pink sweater with
OMF
across the chest, pink pom-poms, plus this wig—a
yarn
wig, like a pink mop head with pigtails.

That does sound a little strange. On the other hand, San Francisco…

Yeah, I thought of that too, but the other thing about this guy, nobody else seemed to be able to see him. The woman I shared the room with had end-stage brain cancer, so she was out of it, but there were nurses and doctors coming through all the time, and they never so much as glanced at him. I tried to draw attention to him without, you know, actually saying anything—if it turned out he wasn’t real, I didn’t want my morphine drip pulled—but no dice.

So finally I gave in, and tried talking to him: “What do you want?”

“What’s the magic phrase?” he said.

“What?”

“What’s the magic phrase?” He lowered his pom-poms and puffed his chest out.

“Omnes mundum facimus,”
I said.

“That’s it…Now look under your pillow.”

It took some major maneuvering, but eventually I slipped my good arm under the pillow. My hand closed around a coin.
The
coin.

I was more relieved than I could say, but I was also pissed off: “
Now
you show up? Where the hell were you when that asshole was beating the shit out of me?”

“That was an oversight,” he said, frowning. “Not my department, you understand, but I am sorry—it was a busy day, and details got missed.” He brightened again, and laughed. “‘Get fucked, killer…’ I like that. That showed spirit. Not a lotta brains, but spirit.”

“So why now?”

“Well I know you got hit in the head, but you are aware of recent events, right? The organization I represent—that that coin represents—is holding a recruitment drive.”

“You want me to help fight terrorism?”

“No! There’s people all over the country lining up to do
that
.”

“Well what, then?”

“Well the thing about one big evil taking center stage, it tends to draw attention away from all the other evils. So now somebody’s got to swim against the tide, to make sure those other evils don’t flourish from neglect. You could be a part of that, if you’re interested.”

“But why now?” I persisted. “Those other evils, they were always there, so why didn’t you come for me sooner?”

“Omnes mundum facimus,”
he said. “You looked up the translation for that, right? You know it doesn’t mean ‘Wait for further instructions’ or ‘Stand around with your thumb up your ass.’”

“No, but…”

“Let me lay another saying on you: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’ Now the implication is that the few are special—brave enough to answer the call, or worthy enough to be chosen. But there’s another way of looking at it. If many are called, and few are chosen, maybe that’s because most of the many have better things to do.” He shook a pom-pom at me accusingly. “You had a life. It was
hoped
you’d do something with it.”

“Great,” I said. “So you’re telling me you’re the booby prize?”

He laughed again. “I do like that spirit. I—we—can use that spirit. So the question becomes, are you willing to let it be used? Are you ready to be one of the few?”

“You know I am.”

“All right, then…Tomorrow night, between seven and seven-fifteen, you’re to go to the top floor of this building. Turn left out the elevator, and look for a door marked Examination One. If you come early, or show up late, it’ll be just an empty room. But if you come on time, you’ll meet a man named Robert True, who’ll tell you what the next step is.”

That was all he had to say to me, but still he sat there, watching me and smiling. “Go ahead,” he finally said. “Ask it.”

“OK. Why are you dressed like a cheerleader?”

“You know what a nondisclosure agreement is, Jane? This outfit serves the same purpose. What do you suppose would happen if you told the hospital staff about our conversation?”

“They’d cut off my drugs.”

“You got it,” he said, and winked. A few moments later a nurse came in and gave me a shot; I fell asleep, and when I woke up again, my visitor was gone. But the coin was still there, safe under my pillow.

The next evening, I made sure I was awake. At quarter to seven I hauled myself out of bed, and wheeled my IV stand to the elevator. I went up to the fourteenth floor and found Examination One, and at 7:01, I knocked.

“Come in,” a voice said.

Inside, the room was a lot like this one. Spare, I mean, with just a table and a couple of chairs. Robert True was standing when I came in. He was wearing a gray flannel suit that might have been stylish back when
Ozzie and Harriet
was a hit TV show; he was short, and heavy, and didn’t have much hair.

“Welcome, Jane,” he greeted me. “I’m Bob True.”

“Hi,” I said.
“Omnes mundum facimus.”

“That’s all right. I don’t need the magic phrase. But as long as we’re on the subject, have you worked it out yet?”

I had, finally. “It’s a comeback,” I told him. “To that thing people say when they don’t want to be blamed for a bad situation: ‘I didn’t make the world, I only live in it.’”

“Very good.”

“So that’s what you’re about, your organization? Making the world a better place?”

“By fighting evil in all its forms,” True said, nodding.

“Are you the government?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “Does the government fight evil?”

I thought about it. For some reason, the first thing that came to mind wasn’t the FBI or the justice system, but my last trip to the DMV. “Well,” I said, “it
can.
”

“Lots of things
can
fight evil,” True replied. “Cinderblocks, for example—if a cinderblock had fallen in Josef Stalin’s crib, the twentieth century might have been a bit more pleasant. Even if one had, though, I doubt most people would say that the
purpose
of cinderblocks is to fight evil.”

“So you’re not the government. What are you, then? Vigilantes? You hunt bad guys, right?”

“The organization pursues its goal through diverse means, most of them constructive. We employ Good Samaritans, Random Acts of Kindness, Second and Third Chances…” He went on, ticking off more than a dozen of what I eventually understood were division names, actual organization departments that fought evil in positive, life-affirming ways. My eyes must have glazed over, because suddenly he stopped and said, “Am I boring you?”

“A little,” I admitted. “So which are you, a Good Samaritan or a Random Actor?”

“I work for what’s known as the Cost-Benefits division.”

“You handle the money.”

“I help allocate the organization’s resources. Which are substantial, but still finite.”

“‘Resources’ includes people?”

“Of course.”

“Well then, if you know anything about people, you know I’m
not
a good Samaritan.”

“No,” True said, “I don’t suppose you are…” He placed a green NC gun in the center of the table. “You’ll recognize this.”

“The one I had last time was orange.”

“The one you had in Siesta Corta was standard issue. This is a special model.”

“What’s special about it?”

“We’ll get to that. First I have a hypothetical question for you. A test question.”

“OK.”

“There are two men, both evil. One is a former concentration-camp commandant, responsible for the murder of half a million people; he’s ninety years old, living in hiding in the South American jungle. The other man is much younger—barely twenty-five, in excellent health—and living openly in the middle of San Francisco. He’s only killed once so far, but he’s discovered he has a talent and a taste for it, and it’s likely he’ll kill again many times…though of course, the total number of his victims will never be more than a fraction of the commandant’s.

“The death of either of these men would leave the world a better place. You have the power to kill one of them—but only one. Whom do you choose?”

“That’s easy,” I said. “The young guy.”

“Why?”

“Because killing the Nazi is the obvious choice, and this is a trick question.”

“Clever,” True said, in a tone that suggested it was anything but. “Now how about a less glib answer.”

“In this hypothetical situation, I’m supposed to be you?”

“Someone with my job description, let’s say.”

“Then the answer’s the same. Kill the young guy.”

“Why?”

“His worst days are still ahead of him. With the Nazi, the Holocaust is already out of the barn—killing him might be more satisfying, but the net benefit is smaller.”

“What about deterrence?” True said. “Wouldn’t kill
ing the Nazi discourage other people from following in his footsteps?”

“It might, if it were a public execution. If I were the government, I could put him on trial for genocide and then hang him on pay-per-view. That might turn some heads. Trouble is, I’m not the government, I’m a member of a secret organization that dresses its agents like cheerleaders so people can’t talk about them. An execution that no one knows about won’t deter squat.”

“What about justice?”

“Is this a hypothetical
real
situation, or a hypothetical comic book?”

“And what about vengeance?”

“It’s fun. But it doesn’t have anything to do with fighting evil.”