Insane City (25 page)

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?”