Pop Goes the Weasel

lettuce.
    Shafer was still home, and of all things, a children’s birthday party was going on there, Patsy reported. “Lots of smiling kids from the neighborhood, plus a rent-a-clown called Silly Billy. Maybe we’re on the wrong track here, Alex.”
    “I don’t think so. I think our instincts are right about him.”
    I told her I would come over at around nine to keep her company; that was the time when Shafer usually left the house.
    Just past eight-thirty, the phone in the kitchen rang again as we were digging into the cold, well-spiced, delicious chicken. Nana frowned as I picked up the phone.
    I recognized the voice.
    “I told you to back off, didn’t I? Now you have to pay some consequences for disobeying. It’s your fault! There’s a pay phone at the old Monkey House at the National Zoo. The zoo closes at eight, but you can get in through the gardening-staff gate. Maybe Christine Johnson is there at the zoo waiting for you. You better get over there quick and find out. Run, Cross, run. Hurry! We have her. ”
    The caller hung up, and I charged upstairs for my Glock. I called Patsy Hampton and told her I’d gotten another call, presumably from the Weasel. I’d be at the National Zoo.
    “Shafer’s still at his kid’s birthday party,” she told me. “Of course, he could have called from the house. I can see Silly Billy’s truck from where I’m parked.”
    “Keep in contact with me, Patsy. Phones and beepers. Beeper for emergencies only. Be careful with him.”
    “Okay. I’m fine here, Alex. Silly Billy doesn’t pose too much of a threat. Nothing will happen at his house. Go to the zoo, Alex. You be careful.”

Chapter 70
    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 just 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 — 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 feet tall 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 had 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 of 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 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: W ARNING : Q UARANTINE — D O N OT E NTER ! 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 old 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?