I cleaned up the monkey mess, sat them all in front of the tele vision, and tuned to the Cartoon Network. I nibbled on one last piece of pizza and called Morelli.
“How’s it going?” Morelli wanted to know.
“It’s average. Stole a truck. Blew up a house. Brought seven monkeys home with me. And now I have a naked man in my shower.”
“Yeah, same ol’, same ol’,” Morelli said.
“What’s new with you?”
“Pulled a double hom i cide. Shoveled dog shit off old man Fratelli’s lawn. Started drinking at three o’clock.”
“I assume Anthony is still with you.”
“He’s like a boil on my ass.”
I took a shower when Diesel was done. When I came out, he was in the kitchen. He’d removed all the monkey helmets and was studying them.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “It looks like a little antenna on the top, but I have no idea what it’s supposed to do.”
“Gail Scanlon rescued animals from labs. Hard to believe she would turn around and use them for experimentation.”
“She was a woman living alone in a secluded area. She didn’t have a phone. I don’t think she had a gun. She kept intruders away with a piñata. If she had something Wulf wanted, like land or monkeys, she’d be an easy target.”
“Why would Wulf want monkeys?”
“Don’t know the answer to that.”
“Wulf has Gail. Munch said they had her locked away and that she was serving a purpose.”
“Maybe she’s wearing a helmet,” Diesel said. “What are we going to do with the monkeys?”
“They’re watching tele vision.”
“They’re used to living in a habitat without flush toilets, and you just fed them pizza. It’s going to get ugly in here.”
“You have a point. We need something temporary until we find Gail. We can’t put them in a fenced yard because they’ll climb out. If we call animal control, they’ll put them in a cage.”
“Maybe they’ll put them in a big cage,” Diesel said.
Carl glared at him and gave him the finger.
“Carl doesn’t like that idea,” I said.
“How do you know which one is Carl? They all look alike.”
“Carl is wearing a collar.”
“Maybe we should give Carl a credit card and let him find a hotel room,” Diesel said.
“I have a better idea. I have a genius idea. We’ll put them in Munch’s house. He isn’t living there.”
“That’s really rotten,” Diesel said. “I wish I’d thought of it.”
We put all the boxes of cereal, cookies, and crackers in a bag and led the monkeys out of my apartment and down the hall. We herded them into the elevator and into the Subaru and drove them across town. Diesel walked through Munch’s house to make sure it wasn’t being used, and then we turned the monkeys loose.
I gave Carl the bag of food. “This should last you until tomorrow morning. The tele vision remote is on the coffee table in the living room. You’re in charge. Everyone’s house-?broken, right?”
Carl looked around and scratched his armpit.