“Some,” Dixon agrees. “But less than you believe…The beginning was real,” he explains. “But after the Arlo Dexter mission, Cost-Benefits became concerned that it was too dangerous to leave you running around loose, even under close surveillance. True began pressuring me to kill you and be done with it. Ultimately I convinced him to accept an alternative. We gave you to the Scary Clowns. Everything that has happened to you since you met Robert Wise has been simulated.”
“Simulated,” she says. “You mean the Ozymandias facility…The diner…Vegas…?”
“Dreamscapes and ant farms, all of it.”
“No way! That…They can’t do that!”
“Love will be pleased his illusions were so effective. It turns out I owe him an apology. When I first saw the script his people had prepared, there were a number of plot twists that I was sure would give the game away. But the Clowns’ understanding of human gullibility is greater than mine.”
She thinks about it. “X-drugs don’t exist?”
“Drugs that allow you to stop time and fly around like a martial-arts superhero? No, they don’t exist.”
“Well, that’s embarrassing…So if the scene at the diner never happened, that means—”
“True and Wise are both still alive,” he says. “Oh, and Love didn’t have a heart attack.”
“What about John Doyle?”
“Bad Monkeys killed him twenty years ago.”
“And the bad Jane?”
“Roberta, actually. Roberta Grace. My protégée. She’s already back at Malfeasance, preparing to use what we’ve learned from you to weed out the Troop’s other moles.”
“And what about him?” she asks. “Is he really my brother?”
“Yes. And he really does work for the Troop. But really, he works for the organization.”
“How? He was ten when they took him. Don’t tell me you recruited him before that.”
“No, and we didn’t recruit him afterwards, either. He came to us. The Troop’s indoctrination specialists had done their best, but your brother proved to be something they never planned on. Incorruptible.”
“Incorruptible!” She snorts. “The little shit just didn’t have what it takes to be a bad monkey, that’s all!”
“You asked on the day we met, what it is that I want,” Dixon says, ignoring her outburst. “The answer is: to demonstrate the futility of evil. You and your brother, each in your own way, have helped me do that. But your part of the demonstration is over now.”
He opens his coat to reveal another NC gun. This one does not resemble a toy. It’s black, and its dial has only two active settings. Dixon draws it from its holster, then turns to Phil and asks with uncharacteristic deference: “May I?”
“No,” Phil says. “She’s mine.”
“Of course.” Dixon hands off the pistol, and brushes his palms together as if wiping away dust. “Good-bye, Jane Charlotte,” he says. “We won’t meet again in this life—or in the next, I hope.” He leaves the room.
“Prick,” she says, as the door shuts behind him. Then she looks at Phil and her demeanor softens. “So, little brother. I guess congratulations are in order.”
“Are they?”
“Don’t be a sore winner, Phil.”
“You think this is winning for me, Jane?”
“Bad monkey dies, good monkey lives to fight another day…”
“That’s Dixon’s victory,” he tells her. “Dixon took for granted that you passed the shibboleth tests by hiding your true self. I was hoping that there might be another explanation.”
“Oh my God,” she says. “You actually thought I might be good?”
“Conflicted, let’s say.”
“Oh my God…You wanted to redeem me.” She shakes her head in wonder. “How has the Troop not seen through you yet?”
“The answer to that is simple enough. Evil people are easy to fool.”
She laughs. “Guess I can’t argue with that. Still, I don’t know what the hell you were thinking. After what I did to you…”
“About that,” he says. “I know I probably can’t trust your answer on this, but I have to ask: When you gave me to them, was that…Did you hate me?”
“Was it personal, you mean? Eh, not so much…Mom was personal,” she says. “Definitely. But with you, well, it was a little personal maybe—you were my brother, after all—but mostly it was just, what did Dixon call it, ‘a truly extraordinary sin’? Yeah. I guess I do have a weakness for those.” She looks over at the door, not too hopefully. “So listen, I know you can’t let me get away clean, but is there any chance I can talk you into giving me a thirty-second head start?”
“Sorry, Jane.”
“Fifteen seconds, then. Come on, Phil, you said you wanted to save me. I could still have a change of heart.”
“If you do, you’ll have to take it up with God. How do you want it?”
“Yeah, OK…I’ll take the stroke. Less painful than the heart attack, and maybe I get a nice light show on the way out.”
He nods, and fixes the dial on the CI setting. He takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly.
His efforts to steel himself are a fresh source of amusement to her: “Jesus, Phil, I’d have shot you ten times already.”
“Sorry,” he replies, but still he hesitates. She watches him, drawing strength from his ambivalence. As the gun comes up, she is calm, and her final words are almost kind.
“It’s all right, little brother,” she says. “I’m ready. Send me to Nod.”
Ackownledgments
FIRST, THANKS TO THE USUAL SUSPECTS: my wife, Lisa Gold; my agent, Melanie Jackson; and my editor, Alison Callahan. Thanks also to Lydia Weaver, Olga Gardner Galvin, Jeanette Perez, Matthew Snyder, Harold and Rita Gold, Kathy Cain, Charles McAleese, Michael Hilliard, and my unpaid P.R. staff at Queen Anne Books: Patti McCall, Cindy Mitchell, Tegan Tigani, Lillian Welch, Hilary Vonckx, Torrie Marshall, Hollis Giammatteo, Mary Helbach, Irene Piekarski, Anne Wyckoff, and Nichole Mogen.
Louis Collins and the Book Club of Washington were my test audience for the first draft of Bad Monkeys’ opening chapters, and their positive response convinced me that this was indeed the book I wanted to be working on. Jennifer Smith, Christopher Bodan, and Zoe Stephenson read the finished manuscript and cleared up a few lingering questions. Zoe Stephenson also double-checked my Latin, and John Crowley triple-checked it. Anna Leube helped me with my German. Josh Spin answered my off-the-wall medical questions with his usual aplomb. Philip K. Dick, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, David Simon, Lawrence Sutin, Neal Stephenson, David Friedman, Bruce Schneier, Jan Harold Brunvand, Neil Steinberg, and the Reverend Jack Ruff provided inspiration, insight, and/or clever anecdotes. Thank you all.
In the muse department, thanks to Pamela Sue Martin, Liz Phair, and Evil Willow.
And finally, thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts, whose grant of a Literature Fellowship helped buy me the time I needed to finish this novel. The government may not fight evil, but it does have its moments of grace.
About the Author
MATT RUFF WAS BORN IN NEW YORK City in 1965. His father was a hospital chaplain who descended from a line of peaceful Midwestern dairy farmers; his mother was a missionary’s daughter who grew up battling snakes and scorpions in the jungles of Brazil. Between the two of them, he received an interesting moral education.
Ruff published his first novel, the cult classic Fool on the Hill, in 1988. His most recent novel, Set This House in Order, won the James Tiptree, Jr., Award, a Washington State Book Award, and was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He is also the recipient of a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship.
Ruff lives in Seattle with his wife, Lisa Gold.
Visit Matt Ruff on the web at www.bymattruff.com.