Matt Ruff - Bad Monkeys

“Jane,” the doctor prompts her.

“It’s a free country,” she finally says. “You talk about whatever you like.”

“All right…Let’s start with what didn’t happen. Your brother wasn’t swept up in some comical marijuana raid. And despite what you seemed to be suggesting in our last session—”

“I didn’t suggest anything.”

“—he wasn’t in an accident. Your mother thought you had done something to him—that’s what she told the 911 operator when she first reported him missing, and it’s why she attacked you in the police station. But she was wrong, too. According to witnesses, your brother left the community garden in the company of a man whose description matched that of a recently paroled felon, a convicted child molester and suspected child murderer named John Doyle.

“A child molester,” the doctor says. “But I doubt the police would use that expression in front of a fourteen-year-old girl, particularly one who was wracked with guilt. They’d probably just refer to him as a bad man…or a bad monkey.”

She still won’t look up, but her lips curl in a bitter smile. “Theory number 257,” she says. “Jane’s psychotic break begins with euphemism.”

“Well you tell me, Jane: is it just a coincidence that all your missions for the organization somehow involve threats to children or young men?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Something else I found interesting…” He lays a hand on the folder. “The reporting officer: Buster Keaton Friendly. That really was his name…But you’ve been lying about yours, haven’t you? Or at least, not telling the whole truth. Charlotte is your middle name. Your full name is Jane Charlotte—”

“Don’t,” she says, at last raising her eyes to meet his. “Just don’t. That’s not my name. She made that very clear.”

“She?”

“My mother. Last thing she told me before she sent me packing, I wasn’t ever to use that name again. Which was ridiculous, since it wasn’t her name either, it was my goddamned father’s, and she hated him almost as much as she hated me…But that didn’t matter, she said. What mattered was it was Phil’s name, so it couldn’t be mine. She said she’d kill me if she ever caught me using it: ‘I’ll choke the life out of you,’ quote unquote. So no, I wasn’t lying.”

“OK. But the story you first told me about your brother and the marijuana patch. You do acknowledge now that that was false.”

Sighing: “Yeah, I acknowledge it.”

“And the other encounters with your brother over the years—his visits with you in Siesta Corta, and your relationship once you’d returned to San Francisco—”

“That stuff was all true.”

“Jane…”

“I mean, OK, he wasn’t really there, but the conversations we had, the advice he gave me…Look, I knew Phil. I might not have liked the little shit, but I knew him, he was my brother, and I know what kind of person he’d have grown up to be, if…So those conversations I told you about, they were genuine. They were accurate.”

“But he wasn’t really there.”

“Yeah, all right, no.”

“Because he’s dead.”

“No!” She bristles. “That’s not true.”

“Jane…”

“Even the police could never say that. They never found a body. They never found anything, and Doyle—”

“Jane, the man was implicated in the killing of two other children. I’m sure you want to believe your brother survived, but—”

“No! I mean, yes, I wanted to believe that, and for years belief was all I had, but now, now I know. Phil’s alive.”

“How do you know that?”

“For Christ’s sake,” she says, “what do you think this whole story I’ve been telling you is about?”

“You found your brother?”

“Yes.”

“In Las Vegas.”

“Yes…Only I didn’t find him, exactly, I mean I haven’t seen him, but I know he’s here. And I know what really happened to him.”

“And what did happen to him?”

“Well, Doyle took him. That part’s true. And it’s probably also true that Doyle wanted to kill Phil, the same way he killed those other kids. But he wasn’t allowed to.”

“Who stopped him?”

“The other bad monkeys, of course.”

“The other bad monkeys.”

“The ones who put him up to it,” she says. “The anti-organization. The Troop.”

TRUE WAS WAITING FOR US AT A roadside diner just outside the Vegas city limits. A waitress with a name tag that read HI THERE! I’M JANE! took us to his booth, then hovered while Wise decided between the blueberry and the chocolate-chip pancakes. I spun my wheels, impatient to ask the question that had been gnawing at me for the past three days; but when the waitress finally left us alone, True beat me to the punch.

“It’s time we had a talk about your brother,” he said.

“Fine. Let’s talk. Let’s start with the fact that you know about him. You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And you never thought to mention it? Like when you were recruiting me, maybe? ‘By the way, one of the reasons we think you’ll be really good at hunting down scumbags is because one of them took your brother.’”

“That is one of the reasons we thought you’d be good at it, as a matter of fact.”

“Then why not say anything?”

“If I’d told you we knew about your brother’s kidnapping, you’d have wanted to hear what else we knew. Then I would have had to lie, which I don’t like to do, or put you off, which would have made us all unhappy. You’re a difficult enough person to deal with when your wishes are being granted.”

“Why would you have to lie to me?”

“To preserve operational security.”

“You mean this operation? It’s got something to do with Phil?”

“Yes.”

“Then Phil is…He’s alive? He’s OK?”

“He’s alive.”

I must have blanked out for a minute, because suddenly Jane the waitress was back with our breakfasts. When she started talking to Wise about syrup flavors, I gave her the eyes of death and said: “Fuck off. Now.” She did, and I turned back to True: “Tell me everything.”

True prodded one of the eggs on his plate with a fork, dimpling the yolk. “Omnes mundum facimus,” he said. “We all make the world…And we, the organization, try to make it better. Have you asked yourself yet whether there might be another organization, devoted to the opposite goal?”

“What, a bunch of people trying to make the world worse? No. It wouldn’t make sense.”

The yolk broke and started bleeding over True’s plate. “Why not?”

“What would they get out of it? I mean, OK, it can be fun to cause trouble, and there are people who get off on destruction in a big way, but you can’t build an organization around that. When bad people work as a team, it’s for something like money, or power.”

“You’re saying that evil is a means to an end, never an end in itself. But what if evil was more than just a label for antisocial behavior? What if evil was a real force working in the world, capable of drawing people to its service?”

“I already told you, I don’t believe in God.” Then, anxious to get to the point, I said: “But what do I know, right? You’re saying this anti-organization exists?”

“It exists,” True said. “We believe it has always existed, in one form or another. In its most recent incarnation, it styles itself the Troop.”

“The Troop? Like a monkey troop?” I started to laugh, but then I remembered: “Arlo Dexter’s notebook.”

“Yes. Until we recovered the briefcase, we couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a coincidence, but it’s clear now the Troop recruited Dexter.”