it. If they followed it without showing themselves and waited for the
driver to park and get out … The engine roar grew steadily louder.
The vehicle was in the neighborhood, probably only a few blocks away.
Abandoning caution, trying to shake the pain out of my leg as though it
were a biting mongrel that could be kicked loose, I hobbled out of the
kitchen and hurried blindly through the monkeyless dining room. As far
as I could tell, none of the flea farms lingered in the living room,
either.
At the window from which I had watched them earlier, I put my brow to
the glass and saw eight or ten members of the troop in the street.
They were dropping, one by one, through the open manhole, into which
their comrades had apparently already vanished.
Happily, Bobby wasn’t in jeopardy of having his brain scooped out and
his skull turned into a flowerpot to beautify some monkey den. Not
immediate jeopardy, anyway.
As fast as flowing water, the monkeys poured into the manhole, gone in a
quicksilver ripple. In their wake, the tree-lined street appeared to be
no more substantial than a dreamscape, a mere illusion of twisted
shadows and secondhand light, and it was almost possible to believe that
the troop had been as imaginary as the cast of a nightmare.
Heading for the front door, I returned the spare magazine to the pocket
in my shoulder holster. I held on to the Glock.
When I reached the porch, I heard the manhole cover being slid into
place. I was surprised that the monkeys were strong enough to maneuver
that heavy object from the storm drain below, a tricky task even for a
grown man.
The engine noise reverberated through the bungalows and trees.
The vehicle was close, yet I saw no headlights.
As I reached the street, still working the last of the cramp out of my
leg, the manhole cover clanked into its niche. I arrived in time to see
the curved point of a steel grappling hook wiggle out of a slot in the
iron, extracted from below. City street-department crews carry such
implements to snare and lift these covers without having to pry them
loose from the edge. The monkeys must have found or stolen the hook,
hanging from the service ladder in the drain, a couple of them were able
to leverage the disc into place, covering their trail.
Their use of tools had ominous implications that I was loath to
consider.
Headlight beams flashed through the spaces between bungalows. The truck.
It was passing on the next street parallel to this one, behind the small
houses.
Although I hadn’t seen any details of the vehicle, I was sure Bobby had
arrived. The pitch of the engine was similar to that of his Jeep, and it
was speeding toward the commercial district of Dead Town, where we were
supposed to meet.
I headed in that direction as the roar of the truck rapidly diminished.
The pain was gone from my calf, but the nerve continued to flutter,
leaving my left leg weaker than my right. With the cramp threatening to
recur, I didn’t even try to run.
From above came the shearing sound of wings, cutting the air into
scimitar shapes. I looked up, ducking defensively, as a flock of birds
made a low pass, in tight formation, and vanished into the night ahead.
Their speed and the darkness prevented me from identifying their
species. This might have been the mysterious crew that had roosted in
the tree under which I’d placed my call to Bobby.
When I reached the end of the block, the birds were flying in a circle
over the intersection, as if marking time until I caught up with them.
I counted ten or twelve, more than had kept watch over me from the
Indian laurel.
Their behavior was peculiar, but I didn’t feel that they intended any
harm.
Even if I was wrong and they posed a danger to me, there was no way to
avoid them. If I changed my route, they could easily follow.
As they passed across the face of the descendent moon, traveling more