But how to thwart McGinty? That was the point. It would be easy simply to storm the monkey house, but that would result in Coffey's death. Perhaps he could gain admittance on the pretext that he was going to join the apes. But it would still be doubtful whether he could release Coffey and get him out unharmed. He could kill a single ape without much trouble, but only one at a time.
Next morning, when a keeper came by, Johnny asked him: "Wirr you terephone to Professor Ewing at New York University, prease?" The keeper thought a good deal of Johnny, and did so.
When Ewing came down that afternoon, Johnny asked him to get several good books on apes.
"What are you up to now, Johnny?" asked Ewing.
"I want to see if somesing can't be don't about Mr. Coffey."
"Have you a plan for rescuing him?"
"No, but maybe I get one."
"But how would you get them to let you out of here?"
"Zat wirr be your job."
"Me? What could I do?"
"Get zem to ret me out when ze time comes."
And that was all Ewing could get out of him. Ewing himself was worried; a slaughter of the Emancipated would be a serious blow to his own researches. So he returned in the evening with a bucket of coffee and an armful of books. He made some feeble joke about needing coffee to rescue Coffey, and departed, leaving Johnny sprawled out on a rock with his own personal reading lamp shining over his shoulder.
Next day the siege continued. One of the apes called out: "He's getting weak. You better send in some food."
But when a cop appeared with a lunch box, the apes chattered excitedly and refused to let the cop approach. They yelled: "Have to send it in by one of the animals. We don't trust you."
So there was another long delay. The female coyote finally agreed to carry the lunch box in. She reappeared in a great hurry, explaining that, once she was inside, the apes accused her of having run out on them after agreeing to join the plot, and, working themselves into rages, had tried to grab her. When she escaped, the apes had nothing to do but take their anger out on poor Coffey, who was pinched and pommeled unmercifully. Those outside could hear his yells, sadly diminished in volume.
Johnny, meanwhile, was deep in Yerkes' "The Great Apes," the chapter on "Affective Behavior of Chimpanzee: Behavioral Patterns of Emotion." He had thought of various expedients: taking a time bomb into the monkey house—no, that would have the same effect on Coffey and—what was more important—on himself. The same objection applied to tear gas. The devil, there must be some agent that would discriminate between apes on one hand and bears and mayors on the other. Drugs? Anasthetics? Poisons? Hypnotism? Threats? Promises? Nope.
Johnny resumed his reading, while outside the grotesque deadlock continued.
Then he had it."Smitty!" he bawled."Get Professor Ewing! Get Mr. Marone! Get Mr. Pound!"
Pound called to the monkey house: "Hey, apes! The smaller animals are all afraid to take your food in. O. K. if we send Johnny Black?"
There was a pause, and then the answer came back: "O. K."
Johnny plodded across the flagstones with a suitcase in his jaws. The suitcase supposedly contained fruit for the apes and more solid food for their prisoner.
The door swung open, just wide enough for him to squeeze in. It was obvious to him that they intended to let him out in their own good time. But he was confident of his ability to handle them all in a rough-and-tumble fight, if it came to that.
The little monkeys skittered uncomprehendingly around their cages. At the far end Coffey's huge form was tied to a cage bar by a steel chain around his leg. McGinty had no doubt stolen the chain and concealed it sometime before. Johnny couldn't help a grudging admiration for McGinty. Right behind Coffey crouched the recently emancipated chacma baboon, with his forepaws around Coffey's neck. Evidently his duty was to rip Coffey's throat out with his great teeth if anything went awry. Two of the chimpanzees, the orang, and the gibbon were at the windows. The other three chimps, including McGinty, squatted on the floor.
"Well, Johnny," said McGinty, "don't you wish you'd joined us: now? This is real fun."
"Yes," said Johnny."Can't I join you now?"
"No. Too late. I don't trust a traitor like you."
"Is zat so?" Johnny put the suitcase down and sat. on it."Zen I guess you don't want any food."
"You've got to turn over that food, or we'll kill the mayor."
"Go ahead," said Johnny."I never riked ze big fat srob, anyhow."
"What if we tell the people you asked to join us?"
"Zey won't berieve you."
"But the mayor heard you say so."
"If he's dead, he won't terr zem."
At this point the mayor wailed: "For Heaven's sake, Johnny, leave that grub here and go. It gives me the creeps, the way you talk about the advantages and disadvantages and virtues and risks of killing me."
McGinty said: "Suppose we take the suitcase away from you."
"Try it," answered Johnny, looking thoughtfully at his claws.
The apes retired to the far corner and muttered. Then they came back. McGinty inquired: "Do you really want to join us? Honest Injun, cross your heart?"
"I said so, didn't I?"
"And you'll forget all those arguments we've had?"
"Sure."
"All right." McGinty extended a hand. Johnny shook casually. He picked up the suitcase in his teeth and padded over to near the mayor. If he was excited, which he was, he didn't show it. The next few seconds would tell.
He pushed the snaps on the suitcase with his claws. Then he picked it up in his forepaws and inverted it. The top fell open.
Out onto the concrete floor poured two dozen live garter snakes.
Eight emancipated primates were watching. From eight primate throats there rose a simultaneous shriek of such bloodcurdling horror that even the cops outside jumped. And, like a flash, eight emancipated primates rose straight up, as if on invisible wings, to the very top of the cages, where the bars entered the ceiling. There the apes clustered in groups of two and three, hugging each other, trying to bury their heads in the center of the cluster, and screaming at the top of their lungs.
The garter snakes rustled on the floor. They tried to crawl, but could make almost no headway on the smooth surface. They went through all the motions, but stayed in the same place.
Johnny looked at the mayor. It was unfortunate that Coffey should suffer from snake phobia almost as violently as apes do. Had he not been chained, he might very well have hoisted his two hundred and fifty pounds to the tops of the bars as his captors had done. Being unable to do so, he had fainted.
Johnny looked at the chain. It had probably served to lead a terrier or Peke at sometime. But a chain that will restrain a dog may not be strong enough for a bear. Johnny hooked his claws into the links and heaved. Snap went the chain.
Presently Johnny appeared at the door of the monkey house with Coffey draped over his shoulder. To Pound he said: "He wirr be aw right. He doesn't rike snakes. Have ze keepers gazzer up zose snakes, prease. Ewing promised zem to me for supper."
"But," cried Pound and Malone together, "what about the apes?"
"Oh, zey are zere. You wirr have to scrape zem off ze ceiring."
"You've done it again, Johnny!" exclaimed Ira Methuen."If you keep on like this, I shan't have to do any more work. I can live on your publicity."
Johnny asked: "What wirr be done wiss ze Emancipated?"
"They won't be killed. But they'll be scattered. The zoo has arranged with other zoos to trade them for other animals, so there won't be more than one in any one place. Too dangerous to let them be together, they say. But, of course, you can have just about anything you want."
Johnny thought. Then he said: "What I want most is to go back wiss you. I want to be wiss somebody who reary understands bears."