The Fourth Monkey (4MK Thriller, #1)

by J.D. Barker

The four monkeys comes from the Tosho-gu Shrine in Nikko, Japan, where a carving of three apes resides above the entrance. The first covering his ears, the second covering his eyes, and the third covering his mouth, they depict the proverb “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.” The fourth monkey represents “Do no evil.”

Anything you could play at eighty years old while toting your oxygen tank and wearing pastel slacks would never be a sport in his book.

“Mizaru means see no evil, Kikazaru means hear no evil, and Iwazaru means speak no evil.”

“His name is Shizaru.” “He stands for do no evil,” Father said. “And that, of course, is the rub. Should someone see or hear evil, there is little one can do. When someone speaks evil, there is fault to be had, but when they do evil . . . well, when they do evil there is no room for forgiveness.”

“You wanna know the real kicker? When I was heading home that night I remembered we were nearly out of milk. I was gonna stop for some, but the market looked busy when I got close, so I let it go, figured I’d head back out a little later. Do you believe that shit? I lost . . . because I was too damn lazy to spend a few minutes in line.”

Porter frowned. “The room with the weird smell?” “Yeah. They’re feds. Maybe they can figure out where it’s coming from.”