Plum Spooky

TWELVE

WE SKIRTED A boggy area and stopped at the edge of a clearing. Not too far from us was a small, weathered house with a tin roof. A garden taken over by pumpkins sat to one side of the house. Beyond the house was a large caged habitat filled with monkeys. A long low shed was attached to the habitat. Carl wrapped his arms around my leg and wouldn’t let go.

“What’s with him?” Lula asked.

“I think he’s afraid of the monkeys.”

“No shit. There must be twenty monkeys in there.”

“I have a feeling this is Gail Scanlon’s latest cause. She probably rescued these monkeys from a lab or a zoo.”

“Don’t look like anybody is here,” Lula said.

We cautiously moved into the clearing and looked around.

“Those monkeys are wearing hats,” Lula said.

I moved closer and looked at the monkeys. Lula was right. They were wearing hats. Metal helmets held on by chin straps. A small antenna stuck up from the top of each helmet. They looked like some German monkey army left over from WWI.

There were no cars in the yard. No lights on in the house. Power lines ran through the woods to the house and monkey shed. It looked like there was a road leading out of the compound, just past the caged habitat.

“I don’t care about monkeys,” Lula said. “I care about a restroom. I don’t know who owns this place, but I’m using the facilities.”

She knocked on the front door to the house, and when no one answered, she tried the doorknob. Unlocked. We stepped inside and looked around.

“Anyone home?” I yelled.

No answer.

Lula used the bathroom, and I prowled through the kitchen and living area. The colors inside the house were bright, reminding me of Gail Scanlon’s clothes. There were lots of books lining the walls but no tele vision or phone. No computer. Basic pots and pans. Her appliances were old but ser viceable. A stack of mail addressed to Gail had been placed on a small desk. Notice of her brother’s death was on a kitchen counter. I didn’t see anything that would tie her to Munch or Wulf.

“I feel better,” Lula said, coming into the kitchen. “I feel like a new woman. I’ll feel even better when we get out of the enchanted forest. I’m gonna hotfoot it down the road on the other side of the monkey cage before it gets really dark and the Jersey Dev il goes on a rant.”

Sounded okay to me. The alternative was to go back the way we’d come, and I wasn’t sure I could retrace our steps.

“I don’t suppose you found a phone,” Lula said. “We could call a taxi if we had a phone.”

“No phone. And I still haven’t got ser vice on mine.”

We walked out of the house and froze. There were monkeys everywhere. The yard was lousy with monkeys in monkey helmets. They were shrieking and running in circles and jumping up and down. I heard Lula suck in air behind me.

“This here’s a monkey nightmare,” she said. “This is like that movie where birds were swarming all over the houses and crashing through windows and attacking people, only this is monkeys.”

Not exactly. These monkeys weren’t interested in attacking or swarming. They were interested in getting the heck away from the habitat. One by one the monkeys ran off into the woods. Only Carl was left, looking worried, standing by the open door to the empty cage. He had one hand on the door handle, and it was pretty obvious how the monkeys had gotten out.

“Think this is one of them born free things,” Lula said.

I thought it was more like one of those good thing I don’t have a loaded gun because I’d shoot myself things. I was supposed to look out for Gail’s animals, and now they were running loose in the woods. How was I ever going to get all those monkeys back?

Lula took off for the road. “I’m getting out of here before the monkey keeper shows up. I’m not paying for no runaway monkeys. I just used the restroom. I’m not responsible for this.”

Carl looked at Lula, and then he looked into the woods, where the monkeys had disappeared.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said to Carl. “Susan expects you to be waiting for her when she comes back.”

Carl gave me a thumbs-up and took off.

“Carl!”

“Maybe he needs a girl monkey,” Lula said.

I looked overhead. The sun was about to set. I didn’t have a lot of time to find my way out, but I didn’t want to leave without Carl. It wasn’t just that he was my responsibility. I liked Carl. Okay, so he was a pain in the ass sometimes, but he was my pain in the ass.

“I can’t leave Carl,” I said to Lula.

“Yeah, but you can’t stay, either. It’s gonna get dark, and we gotta get out of here. We haven’t got any phone ser vice, and there’s kidnappers and who knows what kind of lunatics in these woods.”

She was right, of course, but I had a sad stomach at the thought of Carl left all by himself in the woods. I called Carl one more time, and when he didn’t show, I reluctantly followed Lula down the road.

After ten minutes, Lula dropped the pace. “I can hardly see where we’re going. If it gets any darker, I won’t know if I’m on the road. Lordy I don’t want to wander off the road and have the Tree People get me.”

“If we can find our way back to the Jeep, we’ll be okay.”

“The Jeep’s out of gas.”

“Ranger will find us if we stay by the Jeep.”

“Yeah, but when?”

Knowing Ranger, he already had someone on the road looking for me.

“Hold on,” Lula said, voice low, eyes wide. “I hear that flapping again. Good golly, it’s the Jersey Dev il. I just know it’s him. He’s coming to get us.”

I heard it, too, but it didn’t sound like flapping. It sounded more like someone walking through the woods. The steps were evenly spaced, muffled by the dropped pine needles. Smosh, smosh, smosh, smosh. The walker was moving toward us.

There wasn’t a lot of cover. Our only option was some scrub brush bordering the narrow dirt road. I pulled Lula into the bushes, and we crouched and held our breath. Lula had her gun in her hand. The reality of Lula shooting is that she couldn’t hit the side of a barn if it was ten feet away. That’s not to say she couldn’t get lucky some day and actually nail someone. My biggest fear was that it would accidentally be me.

There was some weak light filtering onto the road. The smosh, smosh, smosh came closer, and a kid stepped out of the pines, onto the road. And then I realized it wasn’t a kid. It was Martin Munch dressed in baggy jeans, a gray sweatshirt zipped to his neck, and looking like a fourteen-year-old Opie Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show. He was alone, appeared unarmed, and he was smaller than me. I liked the odds. I waited a moment longer, hoping he’d get closer, but he suddenly stopped and looked directly at me. He turned without a word and took off into the woods, running flat-out the way he’d come.

I ran after him, crashing through the scrubby underbrush, following his zigzag path around trees. He was fast for a little guy, clearly familiar with this patch of woods. I could hear him panting in front of me, and I could hear Lula thundering behind me. I saw light ahead. If it was a road, and he chose to take it, I could run him down. I wasn’t an athlete, but I was in better shape than Martin Munch.

He broke out of the woods, and I momentarily lost him. I reached the road and looked right. Munch was on an ATV. He hit the start button and roared away.

Lula burst out of the woods and bent at the waist. “I’m dying. I’m a dead woman. I need something. Oxygen. A lung. Legal drugs. Hell, any kind of drugs.”

I pulled her back into the pines. “Catch your breath while we walk. We don’t want to be here when he comes back with his partner.”

“Was that Martin Munch?” Lula asked.

“I think so.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know where we’re going. I just know we can’t stay on the road.”

“What do you mean you don’t know where we’re going?”

“Look around. What do you see?”

“Nothing,” Lula said. “It’s black as a witch’s tit in here.”

“Exactly.”

“We could be walking in circles. We could be easy prey for the Jersey Dev il and the Tree People.”

Or worse.

“I don’t want to alarm you or nothing,” Lula said. “But I’m gonna have a freak-out. I’m feelin’ a freak-out coming on. I’m not a woods person. I need cement under my feet. I need a streetlight. I need a burger.”

“Don’t panic. This isn’t Alaska. This is Jersey. We’ll be fine. We have to just keep walking, and we’ll get somewhere.”

“Shush. Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“They’re talking again. I hear the Tree People talking. Feet, don’t fail me. I’m getting out of here.”

Lula took off in the dark and didn’t run more than ten steps when SPLASH.

“They got me,” she shrieked. “Help. I’m drowning. I’m a goner.”

Lula was floundering around at the edge of what looked like a cranberry bog. I squinted into the dark and reached out to her. “Grab my hand.”

“I got it,” Lula said. “Get me out.”

I planted my foot, the mud oozed over my shoe, and I went into the soup with Lula.

“I’m getting sucked away,” Lula said. “I’m gonna die. This is the end. The swamp monster got me.”

“You’re only in two feet of water,” I told her. “You’re not going to die. Not unless I choke you because you won’t shut up.”

I tried to stand, but the ground gave way, and I went down again. Hands grabbed me from behind and lifted me out of the muck. It was Ranger. He was up to his knees in swamp water.

“Babe,” Ranger said.

“How did you find me?”

He set me on solid ground and waded out of the water. “I heard Lula yelling. Half the state heard her.”

Two of Ranger’s men had slogged over to Lula and had her by the armpits, dragging her out.

Ranger took my hand and tugged me through the woods. “Talk to me.”

“Gail Scanlon called me and said Wulf had her locked away somewhere. She didn’t know where she was, and she was terrified. She asked me to help. I tried to get in touch with Diesel, but he wasn’t answering, so I called you, and I came looking for her.”

“Did you find her?”

“No. She wasn’t in her house.”

“What would Wulf want with Gail Scanlon?”

“I don’t know, but he killed her brother.”

We reached the road, and Ranger continued to lead me.

“Your Jeep is parked just around the curve in the road. I’m parked behind you,” Ranger said.

“I ran out of gas.”

“I noticed. Is anything else wrong with the Jeep?”

“Only everything.”

Ranger paused. “There’s a monkey sitting in the middle of the road.”

It was all dark shadow to me. “Are you sure it’s a monkey?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it wearing a hat?”

“Yeah.”

“Bummer.” I was really wishing it was Carl.

The men behind us were using flashlights. The beam swept across the monkey, and it ran off into the woods. We reached my Jeep and moved past it to the Rangeman SUV.

“I’ll send someone to get your car in the morning,” Ranger said, remoting the SUV doors unlocked.

Lula and I were dripping wet with mud and water plants stuck in our hair, caked onto our shoes. The temperature had dropped, and I was so cold my teeth were chattering.

Ranger wrapped me in his jacket and trundled me onto the Rangeman front seat. Lula and Ranger’s two men got in the back. Ranger climbed behind the wheel, blasted heat at me, and backed out.

We reached the Atlantic City Expressway, and four messages popped up on my phone. All from Diesel. All the same. Where are you? Call me.

I dialed his cell and told him about Gail Scanlon.

“Where are you now?” he asked.

“We’re on the Expressway. My Jeep ran out of gas in the woods, and Ranger rescued Lula and me.”

“Tell him I appreciate the help. And try to get him to pick up some dinner on the way home. A rotisserie chicken would be good.”

“That’s not going to fly.”

“Worth a shot,” Diesel said.

I UNLOCKED MY apartment door, stepped inside, and kicked my shoes off in the kitchen.

Diesel sauntered in and looked me over. “Am I allowed to smile?”

“As long as you don’t laugh out loud.”

“What happened?”

“It was dark under the pines, and Lula and I sort of fell into a swamp.”

“Where’s Carl?”

“He ran away after he turned all the other monkeys loose. And you were right about Gail’s house. It was the one you picked out from the aerial view of the Barrens. It was empty when I got there. I didn’t see any sign of struggle. Nothing to indicate where Wulf took Gail. Or why he took her.”

“Back up. Other monkeys?”

“About twenty of them in a habitat next to Gail’s house. They were wearing little helmets with antennae on the tops. Carl opened the door, and they all ran off into the woods.”

“Anything else?”

I told him about Martin Munch.

“Where were you?” I asked Diesel. “I tried to reach you when Gail first called me, but you weren’t picking up.”

“I had to solve a problem in Panama.”

“Do I want to know about the problem?”

“No.”

I carefully walked to the bathroom, trying not to dislodge any mud clods, and I took a shower. I blasted my hair with the dryer and put on some clean sweats. I went to the kitchen and looked for food.

“Have you eaten?” I asked Diesel.

“When?”

“Recently.”

“No.”

I considered my choices. Cereal, peanut butter, scrambled eggs, grilled cheese. Hands down, it was grilled cheese. I got everything going in the fry pan and Diesel stood pressed to my back, looking over my shoulder. “Is that for me?”

“Do you want it?”

“Badly” Diesel said.

“I’m talking about the cheese.”

“That, too.”

Diesel ate two grilled-cheese sandwiches, and I ate one. I was debating cleaning the fry pan or just throwing it away, and Morelli called.

“Just shoot me,” Morelli said. “Put me out of my misery. His wife doesn’t want him back. I don’t blame her. I don’t want him, either, but I’m stuck with him. I can’t get him out of my house. He can barely walk. I’m waiting on him hand and foot. The only thing he can do is work the channel changer. I’ve got a full-scale gang war going in the projects, and seventeen times a day I get a phone call from Anthony adding things to his gimme list. He wants lip balm. He wants bananas. He wants a TV Guide. He wants beer.”

“I’m really sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

“There is. I hate to ask you to do this, but I’m desperate. Can I have the gimme phone calls transferred to you for just one day? I have meetings up my ass tomorrow. I can’t keep taking these phone calls.”

“Sure. Have him call me. Do you know anything about the explosion at the Sky Social Club? Did they find any bodies inside?”

“One. Tentative identification is Doc Weiner. His two stooges were out front and were blown across the street but didn’t get hurt.”

I hung up and told Diesel about Doc Weiner.

“Why would Wulf blow up the building?” I asked Diesel. “If he wanted to get rid of Weiner, why didn’t he just kill him like Scanlon?”

“Hard to say with Wulf. He sees himself as a sort of avenging angel, but then he has a playful side.”

“Blowing up a building is playful?”

“It is if you’re Wulf.”

Diesel went to the dining room, retrieved my laptop, and took it to the couch. He turned the computer on and brought up the satellite map of the Pine Barrens. It showed a bird’s-eye view of trees, lakes, dirt roads, and houses dotted throughout the area.

“Here’s Marbury Road,” he said. “We turned off the paved road and eventually we took this dirt road. The road gets difficult to see on this screen because it narrows and becomes obscured by trees.”

I traced my route and was able to pick out Gail’s animal rescue compound. It was easy to see the exit road on the screen. I found the boggy area that tried to swallow up Lula and me, and the road Munch took on his ATV. The ATV road fed into a crazy quilt of dirt paths that crisscrossed and connected to about a hundred other dirt roads.

“Martin Munch could be living anywhere in the Barrens,” Diesel said. “There are single-room camps, junker Airstreams, and small ranch-style houses stuck everywhere. Some are legal and some are squatters. From what I know about Munch, he doesn’t require a lot. Electric for his computer and some basic amenities. Wulf, on the other hand, isn’t the type to rough it.”

“Don’t these guys need an evil laboratory somewhere? A lair where they conduct their dastardly experiments and mea sure magneto-type stuff with their stolen magnetometer?”

“I don’t know. It depends what they’re doing. One thing we know is that they have Gail Scanlon locked away, and she was able to use a phone.”