Janet Evanovich: Plum Spooky

“He can’t do that overnight. Munch said he had four BlueBec rockets sitting on pads.”

“A rocket that size can be trucked out fairly easily. Most of its weight is in fuel. I just don’t know why we aren’t seeing it. I suppose he could camouflage a single rocket if he put it in a stand of pines. And he might even be able to hide an antenna array. What we should be seeing from the air is command central. He needs a place to house his men, track his rocket, plant his transmitter. And he’d need a generator. Why aren’t we seeing all that?”

“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong part of the Barrens?”

“No. Everything he does is in the same area. I know Banger Road and Marbury Road.”

“Apparently, they have everything in place to send up the sounding rocket, except for the barium. They’re waiting on the barium.”

“I talked to Cuddles. He said it would be in late tomorrow.”

I OPENED MY eyes and looked at my alarm clock. It was seven A.M. and the phone was ringing. Diesel reached across me and answered it.

“It’s for you,” he said, handing me the phone. “It’s the Batcave.”

“This is Gene in the Rangeman control room,” a guy said. “I’m going to patch you through to Hal.”

A moment later, Hal came on. “I hope I’m not calling too early,” he said, “but a new monkey just showed up, and he’s wearing a scarf.”

“What kind of scarf?”

“It’s a scrap of material tied around his neck. Like decoration. Like you see on a dog sometimes. It’s made out of hippie material.”

“Tie-dye?”

“Yeah. Real bright colors. Like what you see in the house here.”

“Hang on to him. I’m on my way.”

I returned the phone to the nightstand. “Hal said a monkey just showed up.”

Diesel was already out of bed, getting dressed. “I heard.”

“How could you hear?”

“I have good ears.”

“I was talking to him on the phone!”

“I can’t find my shoes,” Diesel said.

I took clean jeans and underwear from the laundry basket and headed for the bathroom. “Under the coffee table. Just like always.”

“We’ve been living together too long,” Diesel said. “I’m not the man of mystery anymore. Your mother washes my underwear, and you always know where my shoes are.”

“You’ve never been the man of mystery. Ranger’s the man of mystery.”

“Then who am I?”

“You’re Diesel.” And just being Diesel was more than enough.

DIESEL AND I had breakfast sandwiches and coffee to go. Carl was in the backseat of the Subaru with a breakfast sandwich and a bottle of water. Our hope was that Gail had managed to tie a scrap of her skirt around the monkey’s neck and set him free. And that somehow we could get the monkey to lead us back to Gail. We’d brought Carl along as translator.

“This is going to be embarrassing,” Diesel said.

“What?”

“Talking to a monkey in front of Ranger’s man.”

“How about if I tell Hal we need to talk to the monkey in private?”

“I know Carl seems rotten enough to be human sometimes, but I’m not completely convinced he understands anything we say.”

“He can play Super Mario,” I said to Diesel.

“Yeah, but he can’t win. Mario keeps dying.”

Carl tapped Diesel on the shoulder. Diesel looked at Carl in the rearview mirror, and Carl gave Diesel the finger.

“I’m just saying,” Diesel said to Carl.

An hour later, we were on the dirt road that led to Gail Scanlon’s compound. It was early morning, and the Barrens felt benign. The sun was shining. It was in the midseventies. And there was no sign of the Easter Bunny, Fire Farter, Sasquatch, or the Jersey Dev il. Diesel drove into the clearing and parked close to the house, next to a black Rangeman SUV.

Hal came out of the house and met us in the yard. “I’ve got the new monkey in the cage,” he said. “It’s still got the scarf around its neck.”

We all walked to the cage and peered inside.

“The scarf looks like Gail’s skirt,” I said. “I saw the monkeys before Carl set them loose, and I can’t remember any of them having a neck scarf.”

“He doesn’t look very smart,” Diesel said. “He’s not even giving me the finger.”

“Can monkeys do that?” Hal asked.

Carl gave him the finger.

“Cool!” Hal said.

“So what do you think?” I said to Carl. “Can you get the monkey to take us to Gail?”

Carl looked at me and shrugged.

Hal opened the door to the enclosure, and Carl went in and sidled up to the monkey with the scarf. Carl picked something off the monkey’s head and ate it.

Diesel gave a snort of laughter.

“It’s a social ritual,” I said. “And you have no room to laugh. You were gobstruck by a guy who farted fire.”

“No way,” Hal said.

“Swear to God,” Diesel told him. “Fire came out of this guy’s ass like a blowtorch. I saw him burn down a chair.”

“Jeez,” Hal said. “I’d give anything to see that.”

“Stop the planet,” I said. “I want to get off.”

Carl did some chee chee chee and some whoo whoo whoo with the scarf monkey, and then they scampered out the door and ran away into the pine forest.

“Boy, he sure took off,” Hal said.

I nudged Diesel. “Okay, big boy, let’s see what you’re made of. Smell him out.”

Diesel grabbed my hand and pulled me into the woods. “I suspect that was sarcasm, but as it happens, I have a highly developed sense of smell.”

“Like a bloodhound?”

“Yeah. Or a werewolf.”

“Are you a werewolf?”

“No. I have it on good authority werewolves aren’t real.”

“What about the Easter Bunny?”

“His name is Bernard Zumwalt, and he’s originally from Chicago.”

“Santa Claus? Sasquatch?”

“They’re real. Sasquatch comes from a big family. They’re all over the place. Santa Claus is getting on in years. I don’t know how much longer he can keep it going.”

“I’m not taking the hook,” I said to Diesel.

“You were thinking about it.”

True. It was hard not to believe Diesel. He looked trustworthy. And “normal” had a tendency to expand in his universe.

“Are you sure we’re following the monkeys?” I asked him after a half hour of walking on pine needles and struggling through underbrush.

“I’m sure we’re following them. I’m not sure they’re taking us to Gail.”

We were on an ATV path, and the next moment, we stumbled into the Easter Bunny’s yard. He was back in his chair, wearing the same sad rabbit suit, and he was still smoking.

“Hey, Bernie,” Diesel said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s not Bernie,” he said. “It’s E. Bunny.” He took a long drag, pitched his stub of a cigarette onto the ground, and lit another. “Oh hell, who am I kidding, it’s Bernie. The bastards retired me, suit and all.”

“You don’t have to work anymore,” Diesel said. “This is the good life.”

Bernie nodded. “It ain’t bad. I get to sit here and smoke all day. Toward the end, they came in with all that no-smoking crapola. That was a bitch. You know what it’s like trying to sneak a smoke in a rabbit suit? It’s the shits.”

“Did you see a couple monkeys go past?”

“Yeah. One of them was wearing a scarf.”

After an hour, I was thinking everything looked familiar. “Have we been here before?” I asked Diesel.

“Yeah. The stupid monkeys are leading us in a circle. Bernie’s homestead is just ahead.”

“How did you know his name was Bernie?”

“I Googled Easter Bunny.”

“And it told you the Easter Bunny’s name was Bernie?”