Carl Hiassen - NativeTongue

"Cause it's out in public. That's how you do these things, extortions."

"Are you sure?"

The visitor paths through Monkey Mountain were enclosed by chicken wire, giving the effect that it was the humans who were encaged while the wild beasts roamed free. Bud Schwartz was uncomfortable with this arrangement. Above his head, screeching monkeys loped along the mesh, begging for peanuts and crackers that Bud Schwartz had neglected to purchase at the concession stand. The impatient animals – howlers, gibbons, rhesus and spider monkeys – got angrier by the second. They bared yellow teeth and spit maliciously and shook the chicken wire. When Danny Pogue reached up to give one of them a shiny dime, it defecated in his hair.

"You happy now?" said Bud Schwartz. "Damn, I can't believe it." Danny Pogue stopped to stick his head under a water fountain. "Don't they ever feed these goddamn things?" he said.

Above them, the gang of furry, shrieking, incontinent beggars had swollen to three dozen. Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue shielded their heads and jogged the rest of the way to the Baboon Tree, an ancient ficus in the hub of a small plaza. Bud Schwartz was relieved to escape the yammering din and the rain of monkey feces. With a sigh he sat next to a Japanese family on a concrete bench. A moat of filmy brown water separated them from the bustling baboon colony in the big tree. Danny Pogue said: "Know why they don't let the other monkeys together with the baboons?"

"Why not?"

"Because the baboons'd eat 'em."

"What a loss that would be."

"Let's go see Brutus."

"Danny, we're here on business. Now shut the fuck up, if you don't mind."

The Japanese husband apparently understood at least one word of English, because he gave Bud Schwartz a sharp look. The Japanese wife, who hadn't heard the profane remark, signaled that she would like a photograph of the whole family in front of the moat. Bud Schwartz motioned that his partner would do the honors; Danny Pogue had stolen many Nikons, but he'd never gotten a chance to use one. He arranged the Japanese in a neat row according to height, and snapped several pictures. In the background were many wild-eyed baboons, including a young male gleefully abusing itself.

Bud Schwartz was glad the children weren't watching. After the Japanese had moved on, Danny Pogue said: "That was two hundred bucks right there, a Nikon with autofocus. I got a guy in Carol City fences nothing but cameras."

"I told you," said Bud Schwartz, "we're through with that. We got a new career." He didn't sound as confident as he would've liked. Where the hell was Kingsbury?

Danny Pogue joined him on the concrete bench. "So how much is he gonna bring?"

"Fifty is what I told him." Bud Schwartz couldn't get the tremor out of his voice. "Fifty thousand, if he ever shows up."

In the parking lot, Pedro Luz and Churrito got into a heated discussion about bringing the IV rack. Churrito prevailed on the grounds that it would attract too much attention.

The first thing they noticed about Monkey Mountain was the stink, which Churrito likened to that of a mass grave. Next came the insistent clamor of the creatures themselves, clinging to the chicken wire and extending miniature brown hands in hopes of food. Churrito lit up a Marlboro and handed it to a rhesus, who took a sniff and hurled it back at him. Pedro Luz didn't think it was the least bit funny; he was sinking into one of his spells – every heartbeat sent cymbals crashing against his brainpan. An act of irrational violence was needed to calm the mood. It was fortunate, then, that the monkeys were safely on the other side of the chicken wire. Every time one appeared on the mesh over his head, Pedro Luz would jump up and smash at it savagely with his knuckles. This exercise was repeated every few seconds, all the way to the Baboon Tree.

The burglars – and it had to be them, greasy-looking rednecks – were sitting on a bench. Nobody else was around.

Pedro Luz whispered to Churrito: "Remember to get their car keys. They left the damn files in the car."

"What if they dint?"

"They did. Now be quiet."

Danny Pogue wasn't paying attention. He was talking about a TV program that showed a male baboon killing a zebra, that's how strong they were. A monkey that could kill something as big as a horse! Bud Schwartz was tuned out entirely; he was sizing up the two new men. The tall one, God Almighty, he was trouble. Built like a grizzly but that wasn't the worst of it; the worst was the eyes. Bud Schwartz could spot a doper two miles away; this guy was buzzing like a yellow jacket. The other one was no prize, dull-eyed and cold, but at least he was of normal dimensions. What caught Bud Schwartz's eye was the Cordovan briefcase that the smaller man was carrying.

"Get ready," he said to Danny Pogue.

"But that ain't Kingsbury."

"You don't miss a trick."

"Bud, I don't like this."

"Really? I'm having the time of my life." Bud Schwartz stood up and approached the two strangers. "Where's the old man?"

"Where's the files?" asked Pedro Luz.

"Where's the money?"

Churrito held up the briefcase. It was plainly stuffed with something, possibly fifty thousand in cash.

"Now," said Pedro Luz, "where's the damn files?"

"We give 'em to the old man and nobody else."

Pedro Luz checked over both shoulders to make sure there were no tourists around. In the same motion his right hand casually fished into the waistband of his trousers for the Colt. Before he could get to it, something dug into his right ear. It was another gun. A burglar with a gun! Pedro Luz was consumed with fury.

Bud Schwartz said, "Don't move." The words fluttered out. Danny Pogue gaped painfully.

Churrito laughed. "Good work," he said to Pedro Luz. "Excellent."

"I'm gonna be straight about this," said Bud Schwartz, "I don't know shit about guns."

The veins in Pedro Luz's neck throbbed like a tangle of snakes. He was seething, percolating in hormones, waiting for the moment. The gun barrel cut into his earlobe but he didn't feel a thing. Trying not to snarl, he said, "Don't push it, chico."

"I ain't kidding," Bud Schwartz said in a voice so high he didn't recognize it as his own. "You even fart; I may blow your brains out. Explain that to your friend."

Churrito seemed indifferent to the idea. He shrugged and handed the briefcase to Danny Pogue. "Open it," Bud Schwartz told him. Again Pedro Luz asked, "Where are the files?" He anticipated that the burglars would soon be unable to answer the question, since he intended to kill them. And possibly Churrito while he was in the mood.

Even the baboons sensed trouble, for they had fallen silent in the boughs of the ficus. Danny Pogue opened the Cordovan briefcase and showed Bud Schwartz what was inside: sanitary napkins.

"Too bad," said Bud Schwartz. And it was too bad. He had no clue what to do next. Danny Pogue took one of the maxi-pads out of the briefcase and examined it, as if searching for insight.

Pedro Luz's steroid-marinated glands were starting to cook. Infused with the strength of a thousand warriors, he announced that he wouldn't let a mere bullet spoil Mr. Kingsbury's plan. He told Bud Schwartz to go ahead and fire, and went so far as to reach up and seize the burglar's arm.

As they struggled, Pedro Luz said, "Shoot me, you pussy! Shoot me now!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Bud Schwartz spotted Danny Pogue running away in the general direction of the gorilla compound – moving impressively for someone fresh off crutches.

Just as Pedro Luz was preparing to snap Bud Schwartz's arm like a matchstick, Mrs. Kingsbury's chrome-plated pistol shook loose from the burglar's fingers and flew over the moat. The gun landed in a pile of dead leaves at the foot of the ficus tree, where it was retrieved by a laconic baboon with vermilion buttocks. Bud Schwartz wasn't paying attention, what with Pedro Luz hurling him to the ground and kneeling on his neck and trying to twist his head off. Meanwhile the other man was going through Bud Schwartz's trousers in search of the car keys.