Matt Ruff - Bad Monkeys

In the middle of this tantrum he suddenly stiffened up, and I knew he’d finally sensed me watching him. “Over here, killer,” I whispered. He turned slowly in place until he was looking straight at me; I raised my good arm and gave a little wave. Then I ran like hell into the park.

About a hundred yards in, I stopped to look back. Deeds had already reached the park entrance, and was ripping a two-by-four off a sign on the park gate. I ran on, my cast banging against my ribs; when I looked back again, Deeds had closed about half the distance between us and was swinging the two-by-four in big warm-up circles.

I made a last dash downhill past a swing set and out the far side of the park, onto a street lined with houses. I went to a house near the end of the block, pulling out a key as I ran up the front steps. Deeds was right on my heels now—I’d barely got the door shut behind me when the pounding started. The lock splintered on the third blow, and gave way on the fourth; the door chain snapped and then Deeds was inside.

This time I was the one sitting in a dark corner of the living room. Instead of a baseball bat I was holding a double-barreled shotgun. I had it up and ready with both hammers cocked, the barrels balanced on my right wrist, my left hand on the triggers.

“You’re a dead woman,” Deeds announced. Then he blinked, noticing the gun, and added: “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No,” I said, “I’m not kidding. Now here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to drop that piece of wood you’re holding, and we’re going to go downstairs to the basement…”

“No,” Deeds snarled. “What’s going to happen is, you’re going to give me that fucking gun. You can either hand it over easy, or I can take it from you—but if you make me take it, I’m really going to be angry.”

I pulled the left-side trigger. The shot struck Deeds in the arm, knocking him back and tearing a big chunk out of his bicep. He grunted and dropped the two-by-four.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You want to start worrying about my feelings.”

Deeds cupped a hand to his ruined bicep. “You shot me!” he complained. “You’re crazy…” He glanced over his shoulder at the broken front door.

“You won’t make it,” I said. I stood up, and gestured towards the back of the house. “Basement door’s that way. Start walking.”

He moved slowly, hoping I’d come up too close behind and give him a chance to grab at the gun. When we reached the basement stairs, he slowed down even more and tried goading me: “I don’t know how you think you’re going to come out on top here, Jane. I mean, I know you’re not going to kill me.”

“Keep moving.”

“I know you’re not going to kill me. Maybe you’ve got the guts to pull the trigger, I’ll grant you that much, but you don’t want to go to prison, do you?”

“Keep moving.”

“Or are you stupid enough to think you can claim self-defense on this? Is that the plan? Tell the cops you had to do it, because of that beating I gave you? You think they’ll care about that?”

I wasn’t going to argue with him, but I couldn’t help myself: “I think they’ll care about those three kids you burned to death.”

“Those kids…So that’s what this is about?” He laughed. “Let me tell you something about those kids, Jane. I didn’t even know they were in the house that night. But their mother—my so-called girlfriend? — she knew. And I’ll bet the selfish bitch didn’t look back once when she was running to save herself…You want to pass judgment on someone, Jane? What about a mom who leaves her own kids to fry?”

“Shut up and keep moving. I’m not going to say it again.”

“All right, all right…But I’m telling you, Jane, I really don’t see this ending well for you. I don’t…”

He trailed off in mid-threat. We’d finally reached the bottom of the stairs.

The basement was lit by strings of hanging bulbs. Its floor had originally been wood, but the planks had been pried up and set aside, exposing bare dirt beneath. Here and there—four places in all—long, narrow holes had been dug in the dirt, filled in again, and sprinkled with lime. In between the water heater and the furnace a fifth hole had been started, but it was only half-finished. The handle of a shovel jutted out of it at an angle; lying facedown in front of it, one hand still reaching for the shovel, was the figure of a man.

“What the hell is this?” Deeds said.

“The greater of two evils,” I told him. “His name was Benjamin Loomis. He was a serial killer. Earlier tonight he had a heart attack. Died in the act—at least, that’s what the cops will think.”

“Died in the act of what?”

“Burying his last victim.”

Deeds turned and lunged for the gun then, but my finger was already tightening on the trigger.

“Bad monkey,” I said.

After, I went back into the park, and found True sitting on a bench near the swings. He wasn’t happy.

“I told you to choose one,” he said.

“One booklet,” I reminded him. “But I didn’t need your help to track Deeds down. He was in the damned phone book. And then when I went to take care of Loomis and found that shotgun in his closet…Well, I figured it was part of the test, to see if I had the initiative to take out both of them.”

“Did you really think that? Or did you kill Deeds because you wanted to?”

I shrugged. “Does it even matter? You said it yourself, they were both evil. The world’s better off.”

“Yes, but now there are discrepancies for the police to wonder about. Such as the fact that Loomis died several hours before Deeds.”

“They won’t be able to tell that, I bet. I mean yeah, if they came right now, while Deeds is still warm…But I don’t hear any sirens, do you? And once his body hits room temperature, it’ll be a lot harder to fix a time of death. That basement was cold as a meat locker.”

“And when they discover that Loomis’s other victims were poisoned, not shot?”

“So? Maybe Deeds wasn’t a normal victim. Maybe he found out what Loomis was doing, and tried to blackmail him, or just walked in on him somehow.”

“Somehow.”

“It’s a Nod problem. The police will believe that Loomis killed Deeds because it’s the simplest explanation. They’ll want to believe it, especially when they find out who Deeds was. Tell me I’m wrong.”

True shook his head. “This is not how we do things.”

“Look, you said you wanted to know what my priorities were. You want to give me grief for bending the rules? You want to blackball me for it? Fine. But we all make the world, right? And if that’s true, I’m not going to settle for just one bad guy when I can get two. I saw my chance and went for it, and I’m not sorry. I’d do it again.” I stopped there, worried about overplaying it, but after a minute had gone by and True hadn’t given me the chop, I went on, in a softer voice: “So do I pass the test? Am I in?”

Another minute. True sighed.

“You’re in.”

“WHAT’S THE PROBLEM THIS TIME?” she asks. “Did I screw up the body count?”

“No, your description of the scene in Benjamin Loomis’s basement was accurate,” the doctor says. “And there are details in your account, such as the fact that Deeds was shot in the arm, that were never released to the press. So it’s plausible you were there, or at least spoke to someone who was.”

“But…?”

“But, there’s no evidence to support the rest of your story. If Julius Deeds was a vicious gangster, you seem to be the only person who knew about it. There’s no record he was ever indicted for murder; no record of anyone committing an arson-homicide of the kind you say he was charged with; no record, either, of the beating you claim you received at his hands.”