“I told you to back off, didn’t I? Now you have to pay some consequences for disobeying. It’s your fault! There’s a pay phone at the old Monkey House at the National Zoo. The zoo closes at eight, but you can get in through the gardening-staff gate. Maybe Christine Johnson is there at the zoo waiting for you. You better get over there quick and find out. Run, Cross, run. Hurry! We have her.”

The caller hung up, and I charged upstairs for my Glock. I called Patsy Hampton and told her I’d gotten another call, presumably from the Weasel. I’d be at the National Zoo.

“Shafer’s still at his kid’s birthday party,” she told me. “Of course, he could have called from the house. I can see Silly Billy’s truck from where I’m parked.”

“Keep in contact with me, Patsy. Phones and beepers. Beeper for emergencies only. Be careful with him.”

“Okay. I’m fine here, Alex. Silly Billy doesn’t pose too much of a threat. Nothing will happen at his house. Go to the zoo, Alex. You be careful.”

Chapter 70

I WAS AT THE NATIONAL ZOO by ten to nine. I was thinking that the zoo was actually pretty close to Dr. Cassady’s apartment at the Farragut. Was it just a coincidence that I was so close to Shafer’s shrink? I didn’t believe in coincidences anymore.

I called Patsy Hampton before I left the car, but she didn’t pick up this time. I didn’t beep her — this wasn’t an emergency — not so far.

I knew the zoo from lots of visits with Damon and Jannie, but even better from when I was a boy and Nana used to bring me, and sometimes Sampson, who was nearly six feet tall by the time he was eleven. The main entrance to the zoo was at the corner of Connecticut and Hawthorne avenues, but the old Monkey House was nearly a mile diagonally across the grounds from there.

No one seemed to be around, but the gardening-staff gate was unlatched, as the caller had said it would be. He knew the zoo, too. More games, I kept thinking. He definitely loved to play.

As I hurried into the park, a steep horizon of trees and hills blocked out the lights of the surrounding city. There was only an occasional foot lamp for light, and it was eerie and frightening to be in there alone. Of course, I was sure I wasn’t alone.

The Monkey House was farther inside the gates than I remembered. I finally located it in the dark. It looked like an old Victorian railway station. Across a cobblestoned circle there was a more modern structure that I knew was the Reptile House.