The Monkey House was farther inside the gates than I remembered. I finally located it in the dark. It looked like an old Victorian railway station. Across a cobblestoned 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. Is that the phone he wants 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 cobblestoned 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 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 o
ld Monkey House.
Is that the phone he wants 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.
Chapter 71
I COULDN’T IMAGINE why Christine would be at the Farragut in Washington, but he’d said she was there. Why would he do that if she wasn’t? What was he doing to me? To her?
I ran toward where I thought Cathedral Avenue was located. But it was very dark in the zoo, almost pitch-black. My vision was tunneling, maybe because I was close to being in shock. I couldn’t think straight.