The Gentlemen's Hour

121

Monkey hangs by his arms from chains thrown over the steam pipe.

The man gives him another gentle nudge in the chest, and Monkey swings back and forth. It’s hot down in the building’s boiler room, but the man wears a suit, button-down shirt, and tie, and doesn’t sweat at all.

Monkey does. He’s dripping all over the floor, and the man is careful not to let it get on his leather shoes as he steps close, shakes his head, and says, “Marvin, Marvin, Marvin. They call you ‘Monkey,’ don’t they?”

“How do you know that?”

Jones smiles and shakes his head. “Monkey, I need you to talk to me.”

His voice is soft. Cultured and gentle, with the slightest hint of an accent.

“I did everything you wanted,” Monkey says.

True enough. After he arranged the meeting they came to his place—this gentleman and some Mexican gangbangers—put a gun to his head, sat him down, and had him erase all the records pertaining to Paradise Homes from the databank. Then they took him down to the basement, hung him from the steam pipe, and asked him how he came to be so interested.

“You haven’t told me what I want to know.”

“I did,” Monkey says. “I told you all about what Blasingame did. I told you all about Daniels.”

“But you haven’t told me with whom Mr. Daniels is working,” Jones says. “You seemed to indicate that he is a rather stupid man, unlike yourself.

He could not have put this all together the way you did.”

“He works alone.”

“Oh, dear, Monkey.” Jones shakes his head again, then reaches into his trouser pocket, pulls out a pair of surgical gloves, and carefully fits them on. “You are very clever with records, Monkey, and very thorough. You made one tragic error, though, in placing your faith entirely in them. You didn’t realize there are people whose names never appear in records.”

Then he reaches inside his jacket pocket and removes a thin, metallic rod, flicks his wrist, and the telescopic baton slides out to its full, one-foot length. “I believe it’s more or less a commonplace for a person in my situation to say something along the lines of, ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ Bad luck for you, Monkey. You see, I do want to hurt you.”

He does.