It was the first she’d spoken, and we all turned to her.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “I’m so depressed.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “My poor monkeys. I couldn’t tell you about Martin Munch and his partner. They had my monkeys.”
“Your monkeys are okay,” I said. “We took their hel
mets off.” Most of them, anyway.
“I want to go home,” Gail said. “I want to see my monkeys.” She looked down at Carl. “Who’s this little guy?”
“This is Carl,” I said. “He’s sort of mine.”
We walked down the road in the rain. I expected to hear sirens and see fire trucks barreling down on us, but the road was deserted. Maybe they came from the other direction.
“I was scared,” Gail said. “I thought they were going to kill me.”
“Sorry it took us so long to find you. We didn’t know where to begin looking.”
“I should have realized they’d eventually take me to the mine,” Gail said. “The mine was Eugene’s big dream project. He was going to make his fortune with it, but it turned out to be a bust.”
“We couldn’t find any record of Eugene owning property in south Jersey.”
“It wouldn’t be under his name. He had a partner, and they bought it under a holding company. They had a fight over how the business should be run, and the partner disappeared and was never seen again. I try not to think about that too much. Eugene didn’t have a will that we know of, so I suppose I own his share of the mine with my sister now.”
It had stopped raining by the time we reached the bed-?and-?breakfast. Gail knocked on the door and explained that we needed a ride to her house. Moments later, a van pulled out of the garage, and we all piled in.
Gail was the first out when we stopped in her yard. She ran to the monkey cage and counted them.
“They escaped,” I told Gail, “but they almost all came back.”
Hal ambled over to us. “The monkey with the scarf came back,” he said to me. “I put it in the cage.”
“Did you send the monkey with the scarf to get help?” I asked Gail.
“No,” she said. “She just likes to wear a scarf. She’s always worn it. You probably just didn’t notice.”
Diesel gave me a poke in the side, and I poked him back.
“I told you it was stupid,” he said.
“I’m sure the others will return,” I said to Gail.
“The truth is, they’ve escaped before, and they always come back. They’re really clever when it comes to locks and doors.”
Hal looked relieved to see Gail Scanlon. His term as monkey man was almost up. Diesel, Carl, and I got into the Subaru and headed for the Expressway.
“I’m wet again,” I said to Diesel. “I feel like I’m always wet.”
“I have to say, I’m going to miss sleeping on top of you, but I won’t miss the Barrens.”
“So you’re leaving?”
“I always leave.”
“Do you mind always leaving?”
“Sometimes, but it’s what I do. I’m the job.”