“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?”
“Okay, so I asked around.”
“Who did you ask?”
“Flash. He has a friend at the DMV, and he looked up the rabbit’s license plate.” Diesel draped an arm across my shoulders. “Do you believe me?”
“No.”
Diesel grinned. “People believe what they want to believe.”
We ambled back into Bernie’s yard and stopped to watch Bernie blow smoke rings.
“Looks like you’re still following the monkeys,” Bernie said, squinting through the smoke at us. “You’re about three minutes behind them. And watch out for the Jersey Dev il. He’s been in a real bad mood lately.”
We walked about a hundred yards, and ran into Carl. He was sitting back on his haunches, looking dejected.
“Where’s the other monkey?” I asked him.
Carl looked up. The monkey was in a tree.
“What’s he doing there?”
Carl shrugged.
“This was a stupid idea,” I said to Diesel.