Insane City (24 page)

thick clump of grass. He wedged it between the door and the frame to keep the door from closing and

latching shut behind him. Then he stepped inside the cage. Cyndi followed, not happy about going inside

but not wanting to stay outside alone.

The musky aroma was stronger inside the cage. Seth, with Cyndi staying close behind, walked back

along the cage wall to where his clothes were strewn. He played the light beam over the scattered

garments, kicking them aside. They were damp and reeked an eye-stinging odor.

“I don’t like this,” whispered Cyndi.

“It has to be here,” said Seth, his eyes on the cage floor. “It
has
to.”

He moved a little deeper into the cage, sweeping the flashlight beam back and forth across the floor.

“I
really
don’t like this,” said Cyndi.

“You want to wait for me outside?” said Seth.

“No. I want us
both
to be outside.”

“I’m sorry but I gotta do this.”

They were nearing the log structure. The flashlight beam fell on a wadded clump of clothing near its

base. Seth stepped closer. The musky aroma was very strong now. Seth reached out his foot to probe the

clothing.

A noise.

It came from the log structure, a low rumble.

“What was that?” said Cyndi.

Seth raised the flashlight, swept it across the structure, the beam illuminating the logs right to left.

Seth caught a glimpse of something as the light swept past it. He stopped the beam, moved it back.

Cyndi screamed.

27

“I don’t want them to get hurt,” said Mike Clark. “I promised Tina they wouldn’t get hurt.”

Brewer and Castronovo nodded. They were in the lobby, sitting on some chairs in a quiet corner.

Brewer said, “So what do you want us to do?”

“First, I want you to take them out of the room,
quietly
. I don’t want a scene. And be careful. Tina

said there are some other people in the room, too. More black people. Apparently my idiot future son-in-

law has a fucking United Nations going on in there. And
I’m paying
for this.”

Castronovo said, “You want them out, too?”

“Yes, definitely, get them out. I don’t care how, just don’t make noise about it. I don’t give a shit

about them. Just get them out of the hotel.”

Brewer said, “What about the Haitians? What do we do with them?”

“That’s trickier. The most important thing is, I don’t want them to be connected with me or Tina’s

wedding. I don’t need some asshole do-gooder immigration lawyer somehow finding out my name is

connected with these people and going to the newspaper with some sob story about how the big mean

billionaire Mike Clark had these poor Haitian boat people arrested. They
should
be arrested, for God’s

sake; they’re breaking the fucking law. But I don’t want this thing blowing up into a PR disaster that ruins

the wedding. So there can be
no connection
between them and me, understand? I want you to take them

out of Miami, drive them north. Past Boca. Maybe to Delray Beach. Or north of there, but at least that far.

Drop them off near the water, somewhere where the cops will find them. They’ll get picked up and it’ll

look like they came ashore there. Even if they say they were down here, nobody’s going to believe them.

How would Haitian boat people get into the Key Biscayne Ritz? So that’s the plan, OK?”

Castronovo and Brewer nodded.

“One thing,” said Mike. “If Tina asks you about this, tell her you took the Haitians to the federal

immigration authorities and they took them into custody. That’s what I told her I was going to do. They’ll

end up getting picked up by the feds anyway. I just don’t want anybody connected with me to be directly

involved.”

Brewer said, “What about Seth? Does he know we’re going to be doing this?”

“He’s not in his suite. Tina said he’s out right now.” Mike’s tone of voice made it clear he did not

want to discuss that matter any further.

Castronovo said, “Do you care when we do this?”

“Soon as possible without creating a scene.”

“OK,” said Brewer, looking around. “Best time is early morning, not too many people out.”

“All right,” said Mike. “Just get it done. I want them gone.”

“They’ll be gone,” said Castronovo.

28

Your mature male orangutan is not a looker. His head is dominated by huge cheek pads—

wide flaps of black flesh that extend outward from the face, surrounding it and joining at the forehead,

forming a sort of hood over the eyes, which are deep-set and absurdly close together. The nose is small,

almost dainty; it’s perched high over a wide, purse-lipped mouth, beneath which is a scraggly beard and a

huge chin pouch. These features give the male a moon-faced, dopey, comical appearance. Until he feels

threatened or angry. When that happens, he will open his mouth—which is much larger, and much more

powerful, than a human mouth—and reveal a fearsome set of teeth, dominated by long, fang-like canines.

Then the male orangutan does not look comical at all. He looks like a powerful, badass animal capable of

inflicting great harm, which he is.

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