Pop! Goes the Weasel

CHAPTER Seventy

I was at the National Zoo by ten to nine. I was thinking that the zoo was actually pretty close to Dr. Cassady's apartment at the Farragut. Was it a coincidence that I was so close to Shafer's shrink? I didn't believe in coincidences anymore.

I called Patsy Hampton before I left the car, but she didn't pick up this time. I didn't beep her - this wasn't an emergency, or not so far.

I knew the zoo from lots of visits with Damon and Jannie, but even better from when I was a boy and Nana used to bring me, and sometimes Sampson, who was nearly six foot by the time he was eleven. The main entrance to the zoo was at the corner of Connecticut and Hawthorne Avenues, but the old Monkey House was nearly a mile diagonally across the grounds from there.

No one seemed to be around, but the gardening-staff gate was unlatched - as the caller said it would be. He knew the zoo, too. More games, I kept thinking. He definitely loved to play.

As I hurried into the park, a steep horizon of trees and hills blocked out the lights from the surrounding city. There was only an occasional foot lamp for light, and it was eerie and frightening to be in there alone. Of course, I was sure I wasn't alone.

The Monkey House was farther inside the gates than I had remembered. I finally located it in the dark. It looked like an old Victorian railway station. Across a cobble-stoned circle there was a more modern structure that I knew was the Reptile House.

A sign over the twin doors of the old Monkey House read: WARNING: QUARANTINE - DO NOT ENTER! More eeriness. I tried the tall twin doors, but they were securely locked.

On the wall beside the doors I saw a faded blue-and-white sign - the international pictograph indicating there was a phone inside. Was that the phone he wanted me to use?

I shook the doors, which were old and wooden and rattled loudly. Inside, I could hear monkeys starting to scream and act out. First the smaller primates: spider monkeys, chimpanzees, gibbons. Then the deeper grunt of a gorilla.

I caught sight of a dim red glow across the cobble-stoned circle. Another pay phone was over there.

I hurried across the square. Checked my watch. It was two minutes past nine.

He kept me waiting the last time.

I thought about his game-playing. Was this all a role-playing game to him? How did he win? Lose?

I worried that I wasn't at the right phone. I didn't see any others, but there was always the one locked inside the old Monkey House.

Was that the phone he wanted me to use? I felt frantic and hyper. So many dangerous emotions were building up inside me.

I heard a long, sustained 'aaaaahhhh', like the sound of a football crowd at the opening kickoff. It startled me until I realized it was the apes in the Monkey House.

Was something wrong in there? An intruder? Something or someone near the phone?

I waited another five minutes, and then it dragged on to ten minutes. It was driving me crazy. I almost couldn't bear it any longer, and I thought about beeping Patsy.

Then my beeper went off, and I jumped!

It was Patsy. It had to be an emergency.

I stared at the silent pay phone; I waited a half-minute or so. Then I snatched it up.

I called the beeper number and left the number of the pay phone. I waited some more.

Patsy didn't call me back.

Neither did the mystery caller.

I was in a sweat.

I had to make a decision now. I was caught in a very bad place. My head was starting to reel.

Suddenly the phone rang. I grabbed at it, almost dropped the receiver. My heart was pounding like a bass drum.

'We have her.'

'Where?' I yelled into the receiver.

'She's at the Farragut, of course.'

The Weasel hung up. He never said she was safe.