Pop Goes the Weasel

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.
    My mind in a haze, I tripped over a dark slab of rock, went down on one knee. I cut my hands, tore my pants. Then I was up again, running through thick high bushes that grabbed and ripped at my face and arms.
    Animals all around the zoo howled, moaned, bellowed insanely. They sensed that something was wrong. I could make out the sounds of grizzlies and elephant seals. I realized that I had to be approaching Arctic Circle, but I couldn’t remember where it was in relation to the rest of the zoo or the city streets.
    Up ahead was a high, Gibraltar-like rock. I clambered up it to try to get my bearings.
    Down below I saw a cluster of cages, shuttered gift stores and snack bars, two large veldts. I knew where I was now. I hurriedly climbed back down the rock and started to run again. Christine was at the Farragut. Would I finally find her? Could it actually be happening?
    I passed African Alley, then the Cheetah Conservation Station. I came to a vast field with what looked like large haystacks scattered everywhere. I realized that they were bison. I was somewhere near Great Plains Way.
    The beeper in my pocket went off again.
    Patsy! An emergency! Where is she? Why didn’t she call back at the pay-phone number I gave her?
    I was soaked in sweat and almost hyperventilating. Thank God I could now see Cathedral Avenue, then Woodley Road up ahead.
    I was a long way from where I’d parked my car, but I was close to the Farragut apartment building.
    I ran another hundred yards in the dark, then climbed the stone wall separating the zoo from the city streets. There was blood smeared on my hands, and I didn’t know where it had come from. The knee I’d scraped? Scratches from swinging branches? I could hear the loud wail of sirens in the near distance. Was it coming from the Farragut?
    I headed there in a sprint. It was a little past ten o’clock. Over an hour had already gone by since the call to my house.
    The beeper was buzzing inside my shirt pocket.

Chapter 72
    SOMETHING BAD HAD HAPPENED at the Farragut. The burping screams of approaching sirens were getting louder as I raced down Woodley. I was reeling, feeling dizzy. I couldn’t focus my mind, and I realized that for one of the few times in recent years, I was close to panic.
    Neither the police nor the EMS had arrived at the apartment building yet. I was going to be the first on the scene.
    Two doormen and several tenants in bathrobes were clustered in front of the underground-garage entrance. It couldn’t be Christine. It just couldn’t be. I raced across a quadrant of lawn toward them. Was the Weasel here at the Farragut?
    They saw me coming and looked as frightened as I felt inside. I must have been quite a sight. I remembered that I’d fallen once or twice inside the zoo. I probably looked like a madman, maybe even like a killer. There was blood on my hands and who knew where else.
    I reached for my wallet, shook it open to expose my detective’s shield.
    “Police. What’s happened here?” I shouted. “I’m a police detective. My name is Alex Cross.”
    “Somebody has been murdered, Detective,” one of the doormen finally said. “This way. Please.”
    I