No Simile Intended
From Cryptonomicon:
“The taxi stops. The driver turns and looks at him expectantly. Randy thinks for a moment that the driver has gotten lost and is looking to Randy for instructions. The road terminates here, in a parking lot mysteriously placed in the middle of the cloud forest. Randy sees half a dozen big air-conditioned trailers bearing the logos of various Nipponese, German and American firms; a couple of dozen cars; as many buses. All the accoutrements of a major construction site are here, plus a few extras, like two monkeys with giant stiff penises fighting over some booty from a Dumpster, but there is no construction site. Just a wall of green at the end of the road, green so dark it’s almost black.”
I reread this paragraph a couple of times, struggling to figure out the simile. Then I finally realized there wasn’t any. He meant real monkeys.