So much for making tonight the most memorable night of Jane Goodall’s life. On the other hand, as he thought about it, if Jane got handcuffed, hauled away in a paddy wagon, and spent the night in jail, that could very well be the most memorable night of her life, just not in the way that Jason intended. Here was Jason’s big chance, and he found himself growing very fond of Jane, only now everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Or a flaming dumpster.

He spun to face the monkey. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘freeze frame’?”

“Look around you,” the monkey said with a wave of his long hand. “Everybody is in a state of suspended animation. Game time is paused.”

Looking around him, Jason saw one table where a gold stream of champagne formed an arch in the air, but was completely still, while the cork hung in midair, as though suspended by an invisible thread. There was not a sound from the band, even though the trombone player’s cheeks were puffed out in mid-note, nor could Jason see any signs that anyone was even breathing. He found himself enjoying the sight of the woman who was a little too high on the juice, whose nipple slipped out of her dress, where it remained on display like a living statue.

“That means we’ve got time to go back to the bat cave and load up.” Hope crept into Jason’s voice.

“Yes,” the monkey said. “But you shouldn’t use the term ‘bat cave,’ which is dangerously close to copyright infringement.”

Jason got up from the table, and saw that Jane sat stock still, unblinking. The monkey accompanied him to the door, and Jason jogged down to the street.

“I don’t know why you’re in a hurry,” the monkey shouted after him. “We have all the time in the world. The game world, at least.”

Jason was faced with a problem. If everybody was frozen, how were they going to catch a cab to the rescue mission? It would take hours to walk there.

“Here.” The monkey pointed to a car parked on the street. “Pop the hood so I can hot wire it.”

Jason opened the hood and watched as the monkey reached in, broke a couple of wires, and tapped the bare ends together several times, making the engine cough to life. The monkey twisted the wires together at that juncture, Jason lowered the hood, and they got into the car, which Jason wheeled around in the direction of the rescue mission.

“Where’d you learn to hot wire a car?” Jason asked as he drove, only he found himself weaving to avoid cars that were stopped in the middle of the road.

The tiny capuchin monkey stood up in the passenger seat so he could see over the dash. “I don’t know how to hot wire a car; I just did what everybody does on TV, and because it’s a video game, it worked.”

In a half hour Jason and the monkey were back at the speakeasy. Jason carried a heavy duffel bag full of guns and ammunition. He opened the door of the speakeasy, and drew the bolt closed behind them. All the while, the doorman sat on his stool, staring straight ahead like a crash test dummy. Jason moved through the club, which was oddly silent, then made his way to the stairway, where a frozen employee stood with his hands crossed at his bladder. The monkey scampered up the stairs ahead of him and opened the door to a sweatshop filled with sewing machines on desks overlooking the alley. At the window, Jason looked down, and saw that he had a commanding vantage point covering the door to the speakeasy. He propped up his shotgun and got his automatics ready, cursing the fact that he’d only had one practice session with them, and still didn’t have a belt or holsters.

Satisfied that everything was ready, Jason went downstairs and sat in his seat beside Jane, who hadn’t so much as blinked. He slipped the palm sap over his hand and nodded to the monkey.

In an instant the band resumed playing, and the cork flew through the air while champagne bubbled over the sides of the bottle the waiter held. Pearl necklaces whipped around as flappers danced with men in suits, and glasses clinked together accompanied by excited cheers. He had thirty seconds until the cops and the RAPE squad came crashing through the door and brought the party to a terrifying end. But Jason swore he wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Excuse me, Jane,” Jason leaned over to speak amid the sudden bedlam. “But I’m going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Certainly,” Jane replied with a nod. She watched the dancers, tapping one slender foot beneath the table as the jazz music played.

Jason got up and moved briskly to the stairway, aware that the clock was ticking and the cops were converging on the place.

“Sorry,” the man at the foot of the stairs said, extending his hand to ward off Jason, “but the upper floor is…”

Jason batted the man’s hand aside and swatted the back of the security guy’s skull with the palm sap, which caused him to stagger. The dazed man clutched the curtains at the side of the stairs before he slumped over and hit the floor. Jason jogged up the stairs, then broke into a run into the sweat shop where his weapons lay at the ready. There was going to be an AA meeting, where the cops were going to meet the Auto Assault 12-gauge shotgun.

Jason grabbed his shotgun, threw open the sash and saw police vehicles with their lights blacked out approaching the speakeasy from two different directions. The paddy wagon led the charge from his right, moving in reverse toward the door. The moment the paddy wagon stopped, four RAPE goons, all of them as big as football linemen, hopped down from the back of the vehicle, carrying a battering ram in the form of a lead pipe filled with concrete, with handles welded to its sides. A squad car pulled up alongside the paddy wagon, and policemen got out with their Billy clubs raised. A line of squad cars parked on the other side of the door, each of them filled with four cops, who came out of their cars but didn’t close their doors, to keep from making any noise.

A crowd of cops gathered outside the door to the speakeasy, with their nightsticks at the ready. The mass of men in blue, plus the RAPE thugs in their suits, some of whom wore brass knuckles on both fists, gave the four-man battering ram team enough room to charge the door.

This was how you knew that the police and the politicians directing them had become corrupt. Rather than try to tackle the armed mob, led by Lucky Luciano, or the street thugs who were mugging citizens in the seedy parts of the city, tough work that entailed risk, the cops were raiding a bunch of unarmed citizens, for “crimes” like not wearing face masks, not social distancing, violating the curfew, violating the arbitrary closure of bars and nightclubs, and drinking alcohol.

The team of muscled men on the battering ram raced forward, when Jason opened up on full auto, firing alternating rounds of buckshot and slugs. The hailstorm of fire rapidly cut down the men holding the battering ram, which clanked on the blacktop as it fell. There was a moment of shock before the cops could process what was happening and react, and in that long moment Jason cut a swath through the huddled policemen. In their eagerness to raid a bunch of soft targets, who were unarmed and tipsy, the police got overconfident and violated a cardinal rule: never mass together, creating a vulnerable situation where any bullet fired or even a ricochet is going to hit someone, and is capable of passing through several people.

Multiple cops tumbled to the street, groaning in pain. Jason fired into the backs of those who turned and ran, scrambling in a panic back to their patrol cars as they clawed at their holsters in a frantic attempt to draw their service revolvers. He then punched rounds through the engine blocks of the squad cars, and easily ripped through the roofs of police cars where officers tried to shelter and draw their guns. The cops still didn’t know where the gunfire was coming from, but gradually realized someone was firing from above them. A slug tore through an engine block and bored its way into a cop who crouched beside the squad car next to the paddy wagon, placing his hands onto the hood so that he could fire at Jason. The policeman fell back from the squad car, clutching his side, and crawled toward the trunk to shelter behind the rear wheel and axle.

Jason pulled the trigger, aiming at a cop resting his gun on the roof of his squad car, but the gun clicked, signaling that his 32-round drum was empty. Several cops got emboldened by the clicking sound of a hammer falling on a spent cartridge and popped up to fire their guns. Jason threw the AA-12 into his duffel bag, and returned fire with his .45 automatic, placing carefully aimed shots, using the windowsill as an armrest. He dropped several cops before the others ducked back down. Someone ran in a crouch, zigzagging toward the battering ram, and Jason thought that the guy was either very brave or an idiot. A slug from the .45 plowed its way through the cop, who stumbled over the heavy pipe and lay groaning.

The slide locked back, indicating that the automatic was empty. Jason was reaching to pick up the other automatic when a mandrill swung in through the window with its mouth wide open and its fangs bared. Jason was so startled that he couldn’t pick up the other automatic in his panic and fell onto his back. The mandrill pounced, landing solidly on all fours on Jason, causing him to exhale with an “oof.” The colorful snout twisted and shot toward Jason’s throat. The young man reached into his jacket pocket to grasp the little snubby. He slapped his palm across the mandrill’s gaping snout, then fired through his jacket pocket with his left hand, emptying all five rounds of .38 special wadcutter slugs into the monkey’s chest at point-blank range.

The baboon staggered backward, and tried to scamper, but moved unevenly. Jason seized the other .45 automatic and fired repeatedly into the mandrill, blasting it through the open window. The simian rolled through the air and slammed onto the roof of a squad car, which had been riddled by buckshot. Jason quickly gathered all his guns and set them into the duffel bag. He got up and dashed to the door, leaving a mass of shotgun shells and .45 casings on the floor as he wove his way through the sewing machines.

Jason stutter-stepped down the stairs, and when he reached the ballroom he saw that the patrons and staff had only just recently become aware of a raid, and an armada of squad cars parked outside. The club was designed to be soundproof, so no one in the ballroom heard the gunfire of a small-scale battle raging outside in the alley. It wasn’t until the doorman flipped open the peephole to take a quick look outside that he realized that there was a raid in progress, only something had gone wrong.

“Out the back!” the manager shouted, who was echoed by the waiters. The band went silent, and the musicians were quickly packing up their instruments.

The crowd was being ushered to the back exit, which every speakeasy had, and Jason spotted Jane looking around her in confusion as she joined the crowd surging to the back of the room in the direction of the mirrored bar.

Still carrying his duffel, Jason pulled up alongside Jane. “Let’s go!”

She looked him directly in the face, studying him carefully, but didn’t seem to recognize him. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jason, of course.”

A smile broke across Jane’s face, and she threaded her arm through his as they joined the crowd and moved to the rear exit, which wound through a couple of buildings until they stepped out onto the sidewalk of a side street. They walked until they caught a taxi, and then headed back to the Jane Goodall Institute.

“Whew!” Jane let out a combined sigh and shout of relief in the back seat of the taxi. “That was sure exciting.”

“I planned to make your last night out on the city special, but it all went sideways.” Jason raised his hands palm up in a gesture of resignation.

“Regardless, that was thrilling.” Jane adjusted her brimless hat and clutched the pearl necklaces that fell to her navel. “Out in the field, I see some exciting events, like fights between chimpanzees, hunting, raiding, see some new aspect of chimpanzee behavior, but often it’s long, tedious hours just sitting and sweating, with nothing happening. In those moments, I’ll remember how exciting tonight was. And the pink gin reminded me of my dad.”

Jason hesitated to ask. “Is he still alive?”

“Yes, but he and my mother are divorced, and I haven’t seen him in years.” Jane gazed wistfully out the window.

“You know, Jane, earlier tonight, you looked right at me, but it’s like you didn’t know who I was. What happened?” Jason felt concern and rested her hand on his.

“I’m face blind.”

Jason looked at her, not understanding what she meant.

“I can’t recognize faces. One of the theories of the brain is that it is made up of components, each of which has a task, like recognizing faces, and that part of my brain doesn’t work.” She rested her other hand on top of Jason’s. “Imagine going through life not being able to recognize people when you see them, even friends and family. I learned to recognize people by their voices, or by their clothing, but I often find myself talking to people and not having a clue who they are.”

“That has to be tough,” Jason mused. “But wait, if you can’t see faces, how do you know that I’m not ugly?”

Jane smiled. “Your voice sounds handsome.”

Jason removed his hand from hers and rested his hand on her shoulder briefly. “I guess I’ll have to be happy with sounding handsome,” he said with a laugh.

“What’s in the duffel bag, and where did you get it?” Jane asked, looking down at the floor in front of Jason.

Jason debated making up a story, but simply replied, “I’ll tell you later.”

The cab pulled up to curb at the Institute, when Jane turned to him and lay her hand on his thigh. “Would you like to come up?”

“I’d like that very much,” Jason answered, while trying to appear nonchalant.