Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - Jakes John. Страница 8

The policeman looked dubious. He and his colleague approached Caesar, studied him with stony-faced thoroughness. Caesar fought to subdue his own trembling; to appear docile, witless. He knew it was a matter of survival now, because the expressions of the officers said that they weren’t buying Armando’s explanation.

Neither was the murmuring crowd. Here and there, Caesar saw a hand pointing in his direction.

Making another desperate try to save the situation, Armando snatched a handbill from Caesar’s fingers.

“He’s a performing ape for my circus—here, look for yourselves. That’s why I dress him like a human—I have permission. Official documents—”

He started to search an inner pocket. The policemen didn’t seem interested. Their glances snapped back and forth from Caesar to the handbill’s blurry photo.

The first policeman returned the flyer. “A performing ape. He talks, is that right?”

“Talks? Why, no, officers, that’s impossible. Everyone knows apes are unable to speak—I am the one who made the remark you heard.”

Caesar watched Armando’s fingers twisting and turning the end of the leash. So did the two policemen, who were being joined by the four other helmeted men.

“Don’t you know it’s a criminal offense to show disrespect to a state official?” the second policeman said.

“Certainly, certainly!” Armando exclaimed. “Let me assure you that the remark was unintentional. Thoughtless! But being sentimental about animals, I—” His words trailed off as he gave a helpless shrug, which did not satisfy the officers at all. The first one said flatly, “It didn’t sound like your voice to me. Why don’t you yell it again and let’s make sure.”

Panic claimed Caesar then. He felt trapped. Armando pretended not to understand, still trying to use his smile, his cheerful professional manner to disarm the suspicious policemen.

“What? You want me to . . .? Oh, sirs, please. Isn’t my profound apology sufficient to—?”

“No,” said the first policeman. “I want you to yell. Good and loud. ‘You lousy human bastards.’ Let’s hear it.”

“But—but that’s not what I said at all!”

Raising his truncheon, the second officer stepped close to Armando. The truncheon gleamed with the gorilla’s blood.

“That’s what we heard, mister,” the policeman said.

Voices in the crowd backed his statement. The policeman lifted the truncheon. “Yell it and yell it now.”

Armando swallowed hard, started to protest again. His glance flicked from face to hard face. His mouth turned down at the corners. Drawing in a big breath, he shouted, “You lousy human bastards!”

The first policeman jabbed his truncheon into Armando’s side. He gasped as the officer said, “We told you to yell!”

This time Armando’s cry had a strange timbre—“You lousy human bastards!”—and with a start, Caesar realized that what he’d heard was a passable imitation of his own voice.

Fresh murmurs broke out, more of the curious joining and swelling the crowd every moment. Caesar’s hope leaped a little then. On many of the human faces, he saw doubt.

The policemen who had started the questioning exchanged looks.

“Could be,” was the hesitant opinion of the second.

But the first shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Arguments started in the crowd as people took sides. For a moment or so, Caesar thought the decision might swing in their favor. Then a burly waiter exclaimed to the man next to him, “You’re fulla shit, Max, it was that goddam ape!”

The waiter bulled toward the policeman to enforce his point. “I heard him and I heard him plain. The ape yelled it, not this greaseball in the fancy suit.”

At once, those who had leaned toward believing Armando became a minority. Caesar knew that many who probably weren’t at all certain were agreeing with the majority just because it was natural to think of apes—all apes—as potential troublemakers.

“All right, everybody shut up!” yelled the first officer. The crowd quieted. “I want to see hands. Who heard it and thinks it was the ape?”

Hands shot up, more than Caesar could quickly count. Sounding desperate, Armando said, “You’re wrong!” Then, louder: “You’re all mistaken! I have already admitted my behavior was inexcusable, and I’m deeply sorry. But I am the one responsible—”

“I think we’ve got evidence that says otherwise,” responded the first policeman. “So we’ll let headquarters decide.”

Armando’s cheeks blanched. “Headquarters?”

“Where you’re going for interrogation.” The policeman closed his finger’s on Armando’s wrist. The older man winced, started to struggle.

“This is grossly unfair! I have offered my apologies—pleaded guilty to an error in judgment—and you still refuse to believe me!” While he struggled and protested, the end of the leash slipped from his fingers, dropped to the pavement. The two officers warned him to calm down . . .

A woman screamed. Every head whipped toward the source of the cry. Aldo had somehow gathered strength for one last fight against the ravages of the injection. He was on his feet, swaying, eyes glassy as he clinked his chains. Any moment he might fall again—or whip a chain at someone’s head.

The waiters and spectators around him began to retreat, but the policemen and the two handlers moved in.

Aldo’s face was pain-wracked, a mess of drying blood and barely clotted wounds. Just one policeman stayed with Armando, holding his arm. No one at all was watching Caesar.

“Let’s take him from both sides,” one of the handlers said to the other, readying another injection. Warily, they began to edge toward the gorilla, whose fisted hands still waved back and forth, the dangling chains clinking—

It took Caesar only a moment to reach his decision.

He was the cause of Armando’s trouble. Therefore he must get his mentor out of trouble as best he could. He took a step backward.

Eyes alert, he watched for possible reaction. There was none. Every person in front of the building was concentrating on Aldo, whose eyes were slowly closing, then coming open again as he fought his drowsiness.

Aldo seemed to focus on the nearest handler. His shoulders went back, his right fist flew up, chain lashing. The handler screamed, “Now, Leo!”

Darting in beneath Aldo’s massive right arm, the other handler rammed the needle into Aldo’s side. He pushed the plunger home with his other palm. Aldo stiffened, howling.

The first handler leaped in, caught the whipping ends of both chains, gripped them tight. The policemen swarmed over Aldo then, truncheons crunching down. The officer holding Armando released him, to run forward to help. By then, Caesar had backed up seven or eight steps, in the direction of a narrow street that led off the Civic Center Plaza.

As the police piled on Aldo, Caesar pivoted, dropped the last of his handbills and bolted.

Armando saw the move. “Caesar, no!” You’ll only—” Too late. Caesar was already sprinting toward the chosen route of escape.

With one last glance at the pack of officers again bludgeoning Aldo to the ground, Armando made his own decision—and ran after Caesar full speed.

Caesar dodged around a strolling family; shoved aside a female chimpanzee who let out a chitter of alarm. Only a dozen steps to the corner—and escape down the narrow street where pedestrians were little more than blue shadows in the fast-lowering dusk.

Caesar twisted around, saw Armando chasing him. Further back, one of the policemen, grabbed by a frantic waiter, broke from the crowd around Aldo to shout, “Stop! Both of you halt!”

Caesar reached the building’s corner, plunged into the blue shadows of the avenue at a full run. Noise or commotion, cursing drifted from the plaza behind him. Then came the sound of hammering boots.

Puffing hard, Armando drew up with Caesar, who cried, “You shouldn’t have come!”