“We have a head count for this weekend.”
“Go on.”
“Three confirmed.”
“And the others?”
“Still deciding.”
Forenzi frowned. He’d been hoping for better results.
“Which three?”
“Sara Randhurst. Moni Draper. Frank Belgium.”
Forenzi rubbed the stubble on his chin, and his eyes drifted across his laboratory. Besides his patient, and the various pieces of equipment, there was a large, glass apparatus on a stainless steel table, which looked like something out of a mad scientist movie. It was currently distilling a batch of Serum 3.
That serum, Forenzi knew, was going to win him a Nobel Prize.
Some believed that most of humanity’s conflicts, be it person-to-person or country-to-country, were based upon one possessing something the other one wanted. Land. Oil. Water. Food. Religious and political differences were used as excuses to dehumanize the enemy and grab their resources.
But Forenzi knew that this greed was bolstered by another, even more base and powerful emotion.
Fear.
Mankind reeked of fear.
This fear led to distrust, and ultimately to hate.
Being able to conquer fear meant a fresh start for the world.
“Let me know if the situation changes,” he said, then hung up.
Of the three who signed on, Dr. Belgium interested him most. A molecular biologist, he would recognize what Forenzi was doing here. It would be refreshing to talk to someone who could grasp the magnitude of this invention. Who would understand it.
He turned back to his patient, whose eyelids had drooped in sleep. Forenzi yawned sympathetically.
“You’re exhausted, my friend. So am I. We can continue the therapy tomorrow. Sleep well.”
Forenzi left the lab, walking into a hallway that looked more like a tunnel in a coal mine than the basement of a mansion. The floors were crumbling concrete, the walls lined with stacked railroad ties. There were wood ceiling braces every five meters, and Forenzi wouldn’t have doubted the bare 60w bulbs hanging from them were older than he was. As he passed beneath one, it buzzed and flickered.
One of the many ghosts of Butler House, demanding attention.
Forenzi paid it no mind. Instead, he took the hall to a fork, went right, and headed for the veterinary clinic. As he approached, he heard some lone trilling, and recognized it as Gunter’s.
Forenzi’s spirits dipped, and his pace quickened. He entered the clinic through the metal push door and beelined for Gunter’s habitat, which was situated to the right. It was several cubic meters in size, with a window of clear, unbreakable Plexiglas, the interior foliage meant to mimic a Columbian forest, with twisted, dead tree branches and fake plants.
The Panamanian Night Monkey watched his approach while upside down, hanging from a limb. Gunter was large for an A. zolalis, nearly three pounds in weight. His bushy brown fur was mottled with blood, and his enormous red eyes stared at Forenzi dispassionately.
“Gunter… Gunter… what have you done?”
Of course, Forenzi already had the answer to that. Gunter’s two cagemates, capuchins named Laurel and Hardy, were dead on the fake grass in the habitat. They’d been dismembered and eviscerated, their insides strewn across the bathing pond and staining the water pink.
“You just can’t play well with others, can you?” Forenzi shook his head and tsked.
Gunter stared, unmoving.
Aphobic.
Forenzi picked up the clipboard next to the habitat, recorded the event, and then flipped through the previous five months to get an accurate count.
“This makes twenty-eight,” he said. “You’re a regular little monkey serial killer.”
Gunter grunted, as if agreeing.
Forenzi left a note for the morning help to clean the cage, and order more monkeys. Serum 3, for all of its potential, still had some kinks to work out. There was undoubtedly a broad line between fearless and homicidal, but Forenzi hadn’t found it yet.
“I think we’ll lower your dosage,” Gunter said. “Maybe then you’ll be able to make friends.”
Gunter continued to stare, and Forenzi wondered how much the night monkey actually understood. Besides the expected changes to Gunter’s amygdala, the primate’s frontal lobe had also enlarged, increasing his intelligence. Forenzi wondered, half-joking, if one day Gunter would become so smart he’d solve the dosage problem himself.
Gunter dropped from his upside-down perch, startling Forenzi with the sudden movement. Without taking his big eyes off the doctor, he reached for a dismembered capuchin leg and began to gnaw on it.
“Apparently I don’t need to feed you, either,” Forenzi said.
Gunter grunted.
There was a great crash from above, and a small plume of dust drifted downward. Both Gunter and Forenzi stared at the ceiling.
Directly above them was Butler House. At this time of night, it should have been quiet.
But it rarely was.
“I wonder if monkeys have ghosts,” Forenzi mused. “Perhaps your friends Laurel and Hardy will visit you tonight, Gunter. And they probably won’t be pleased with the whole murder-dismemberment-cannibalism debacle. But then, that wouldn’t scare you, would it, Gunter? Nothing scares you at all.”
Forenzi wondered if he should mention Gunter during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, since the animal had been essential to his research.
If so, perhaps the multiple killings should be downplayed. Or left unsaid.
“Goodnight, my friend. And don’t eat so quickly. You’ll choke.”
Forenzi left the lab, turning off the overhead florescent lights so his experiment could dine in the dark.
Chicago, Illinois
Tom
After four hours of troubled sleep, Tom reached for his cell phone next to the bed and hit redial.
It went straight to Roy’s voicemail.
Peering at the nightstand clock, he judged 8am to be late enough to call Roy’s ex-wife. Tom located the number in his address book, and she picked up on the second ring.
“Hi, Gladys. It’s Tom Mankowski.”
“Is Roy with y’all? Fool missed his visitation time with his daughter.”
Hell. Tom went into cop mode. “Does he do that often?”
“Not without calling he don’t. And he didn’t call. She was really upset, Tom. I was, too. I had plans. Tell him we’re both extremely disappointed in him. He hook up with some hoochie mama and lose track of time? Now he’s playing you to smooth things over?”
Hoochie mama? “I don’t know where he is, Gladys.”
“Really? This isn’t a game?” Glady’s voice had shed its ghetto attitude, and Tom sensed the concern.
“Apparently he’s been missing since last week.”
“A week? Oh, Jesus, Tom. I… what do we do?”
“I’m going to look for him, Gladys.”
“Thank you. Please keep me posted, okay?”
“Sure thing. And if you hear from him, please call.”
“I will. What should I tell Rhonda?”
Double hell. Rhonda just turned five. Old enough to wonder where her daddy was.
“I don’t know, Gladys.”
“You think it’s one of his old cases? Or a new one?”
“I don’t know. Did he mention going anywhere to you?”
“No. Nothing. He usually calls the day before he picks up Rhonda, which was supposed to be Wednesday. But he didn’t. His phone goes straight to voicemail.”
“Did he say anything about a haunted house? Or a reality show? Or getting some money?”
“I haven’t heard from him since he took Rhonda to a Cubs game, over two weeks ago. Do you think… do you think he might be…”