by Sara Gruen
"Okay." Celia gathered up the newspaper. "Catch you later."
"Celia? Can you forward me those emails as soon as possible? I promised to send them to John right away."
"No problemo," said Celia, bounding out the door.
----
In the afternoon, Jelani began performing his trademark leaps up and backward off walls. Makena usually danced excitedly and egged him on with high-pitched squeaks. Today, she glanced over her shoulder and remained at the window to the courtyard, staring into the distance. Jelani went over and poked her in the shoulder, but instead of turning and wrestling with him, she ignored him. Jelani finally gave up and tackled Sam instead.
Isabel, who had been alternately pacing and checking her email to see if Celia had forwarded the incriminating messages, suddenly stopped, her internal alarm triggered--when Bonzi gave birth to Lola, she just sat quietly in a corner for four hours before standing and popping the infant out. Isabel pulled the desk chair around to face the television, and although it was not parallel, she sat down anyway. Her eyes never left the screen.
After a while, Makena wandered into the computer room and vocalized a series of peeps to Bonzi. Then she leaned against the wall. This was it--she must be in labor--and Isabel knew enough about Faulks to believe there wasn't a veterinarian hovering nearby. For all his proclamations about having an "ape expert" on staff, Peter was a behavioral and cognitive scientist, not an obstetrician. Neither was Isabel, but having been around when Bonzi was pregnant with Lola, she certainly knew more than Peter. Isabel considered rushing to the site, but knew that Faulks's people would never let her in. Isabel knelt in front of the television.
Bonzi, who had been ordering pizza for Jelani, spun on her metal chair.
Makena leaned against the wall and began signing: she banged the knuckles of one hand against her other palm. It was the sign for "bell," which was how the bonobos referred to Isabel.
ISABEL HURRY. BONZI MAKE ISABEL COME. ISABEL HURRY COME NOW.
Bonzi turned back to the computer and searched in vain. The computer in the lab had included a symbol for Isabel, distinct from the symbol for a bell, but this one did not. Bonzi's dark, callused fingers drilled down through every category, following each path to its end, and even then she did not give up. She started over, methodically searching for a way to order what Makena had requested.
Isabel dropped her head in her hands and wept. Makena, knowing she was about to have her baby, was trying to order her.
----
John was lying in bed, recovering from his sojourn with Amanda and periodically checking his email to see if Isabel had forwarded the messages from Peter Benton.
Ape House was on in the background. He got up to get a glass of water and noticed that Bonzi was sitting at the computer and that Makena was signing to her. The cartoon thought bubble above Makena's head read: BELL COME SOON. BELL BELL. MAKENA WANT BELL HURRY BELL SOON. BELL.
The sound engineers responded by adding Big Ben chimes to the soundtrack, but oddly, a bell did not appear on the shopping list. Bonzi seemed to be searching for something else, something that wasn't there. There was an urgency to Makena's signing that John hadn't witnessed before.
He forgot about the glass of water and sat on the end of the bed.
Makena sank down against the wall so that she was squatting, and adjusted herself into various positions. Then she simply began pushing. The other bonobos gathered around, craning their necks to see, and blocking the view from the ceiling cameras. Makena grimaced a few times, then reached down and pulled an infant to her chest, umbilical cord still attached. It was so tiny its head would fit in a teacup. The other bonobos cheered, peeping in excitement, and took turns having a look at the new addition. Minutes later, Makena reached down and delivered the afterbirth.
John watched breathlessly to see if the baby was alive. Makena kept readjusting its position, so he couldn't tell if the baby was responsible for any of the movements. When Makena finally cradled it against her chest and guided its mouth to her breast, it waved a tiny arm, with perfect, tiny fingers.
John stared in astonishment, feeling the deep ache of relief, but also something else, something more primal.
As Makena suckled her tiny infant, John laid a hand on the television screen.
32
The phones had been ringing off the hook ever since that ape squatted and spat out a baby. Because of the birth, the judge had agreed to hear PAEGA's legal petition the next day on an emergency basis, and the Internet chatter was that animal welfare groups were about to converge on Ape House in numbers that would make all previous activity feel like an intimate gathering.
When Faulks burst into the room, throwing the door forth with such force that its knob left a dent in the sage-green wall behind it, three of his seated executives braced themselves. The others remained slumped in defeat.
Faulks's eyes scanned those present. "Where is he?" he demanded. "I told you to get him here."
"He's on his way," said the CFO. "He had a couple of personal matters to clear up first. Something about peat moss."
"On his way isn't good enough. When I tell you to do something, you do it!"
"Unless I put him on the corporate jet, there was no way--" he glanced up at Faulks, and changed his mind. "Yes, sir."
Faulks paced back and forth for a few seconds, then stopped at the head of the table and slammed it with both fists. Water glasses, pens, and executives all jumped.
"How many long-term subscriptions did we get last night?"
He glared at each of them in turn. Only the director of marketing did not lower his eyes. He said, "The Prime Time episode didn't do very well, but we had a sharp rise after the baby was born."
"What?" said Faulks, his eyes wide. He took a seat at the head of the table. He was momentarily without words. "How big a rise?"
"Twenty-one percent."
Faulks's forehead crinkled in disbelief. "Twenty-one percent?"
The director of marketing nodded.
Faulks leaned back in his chair. "That's huge. Are any of the others pregnant?"
"Not that we know of."
"Huh."
Faulks thought for a while, and nobody interrupted him. He leaned forward and put his forearms on the table. After a moment, he looked back at the director of marketing. "You're sure it was twenty-one percent?"
The man nodded again.
Faulks considered for a moment longer, then pointed at the chief financial officer. "Okay. You, figure out whether these new subscriptions will cover the cost of what the fucking police department is asking. And you," he said, pointing to the woman with the blond chignon, "find out if the police even have a legal basis upon which to bill us. You," he said, pointing to a man with wet spots under his arms, "get in touch with the ape man--I don't care if you have to get him on the phone in the middle of a flight--and figure out what we need to do to fix everything in that legal petition by tonight. And just in case I don't like any of the answers I get, also get a list of places willing to take these things off my hands. Get offers. In case I'm not being clear, I'm not giving them away. I'm selling them."
The CFO cleared his throat. All eyes turned to him. "Sir, if I may ..." He glanced at Faulks to make sure the answer was in the affirmative. Faulks's steely gray eyes bored into him, so he continued. "I took the liberty of doing just that after the first Prime Time episode."
"Really," said Faulks. "And what did you find out?"
"A place called the Corston Foundation is willing to pay significantly more than anyone else I contacted. It's a research facility. They promise to be very discreet."
A crooked smile played at the edges of Faulks's lips. He nodded his head slowly. "So now we have a Plan B. That's good." He pulled his platinum Montblanc pen from his shirt pocket and pointed it at the CFO. "You have initiative. I like that."
33
At first, Isabel thought it was another episode of Ape House Prime Time, but a quick glance at the clock told her i
t was the wrong time of day.
A truck with a cherry picker pulled up alongside the outer wall of the building and dumped a load of peeled sugarcane--one of the bonobos' favorite foods--into the courtyard. When the apes went outside to investigate and celebrate its arrival, men swarmed the house commando-style, immediately closing and securing the doors that led to the courtyard.
Bonzi, Lola, and Makena--clutching her tiny infant--made for the highest point of the play structure right away, hiding within the top of the tubular slide, while Sam and Mbongo made a ruckus beneath. Jelani wasn't sure which group he wanted to be with, and alternated between screeching warnings at the shatterproof glass doors and scampering up to hide with the females.
Sam and Mbongo screamed and bristled, loping over and jumping against the window, smacking it with their palms and the bottoms of their feet as the men inside emptied the house. They carried out all the toys, blankets, and smaller objects, and then brought in dollies for the furniture. Only then did Isabel realize what they were doing. She called Marty Schaeffer:
"Do you see this? Are you watching?"
"I am."
The men used shovels and carts to collect the garbage and rotting food. Men with buckets swabbed the floors and walls and were followed by other men using push brooms and power hoses.
"Can they do this?" said Isabel.
"They can," said Marty.
"Will it ruin the lawsuit?"
"If they also address the dietary issues, yes. With surgical precision."
It was Peter. How could she have missed it? She had been so blinded by hope that it didn't occur to her that "taking good care of the bonobos" meant the court would not remove them from Faulks. Isabel grabbed the ice bucket from the desktop and threw up in it.
When she looked back up, Sam had stopped displaying. He stared intently through the doors. His eyes followed a specific target. He began signing: BAD VISITOR. BIG SMOKE. BAD VISITOR. The thought bubble suddenly disappeared.
Sam continued a flurry of signs, which were no longer being interpreted. He put his hand to his mouth and then flung it away as though tasting something awful. He tapped his lips with two fingers, touched his index fingers together in front of his chest:
BAD SMOKE VISITOR. ISABEL HURT. BAD VISITOR THERE. BIG FIRE.
Isabel leaned closer to the television, concentrating on the squares that showed the men at work. One of them shouted something to another, his lips shapeless and fat.
A memory, a flash: a man kneeling briefly by her head on the floor of the lab, mouthing the word "Shit!" with oversized rubber-band lips.
"Marty, I have to go," she said and tossed her phone on the bed.
The men installed a pallet-type floor that would allow water to drain through to the concrete, and were in the process of replacing all the upholstered furniture with new, non-moldy identicals, undoubtedly saturated with Scotchgard. Sam and Mbongo had retreated to a far corner of the courtyard and watched intently, with extreme distrust.
DIRTY BAD, signed Mbongo, scowling. DIRTY BAD, DIRTY BAD, DIRTY BAD.
And then, suddenly, the screen switched to static.
----
Celia arrived within minutes. Isabel reached into the hallway and yanked her into the room.
"Did you see that?" she said. "Did you see?"
"See what?" said Celia, glancing at the TV.
"Ape House! Sam and Mbongo just identified one of Faulks's cleanup crew as being there the night of the explosion. It wasn't the ELL. It was Ken Faulks's people! They identified the guy, right on the air. I recognized his mouth. They stopped airing, but not in time. It's got to be recorded somewhere, right? Right? Oh my God, what if they don't let the apes testify?" Isabel clutched a fist to her mouth and spun back to the television.
Celia didn't move. "I missed that," she said slowly. "But they don't need to testify, and it wasn't just Ken Faulks."
Something about Celia's tone made Isabel turn around.
Celia looked at her, long and hard. "Where's your laptop?" she said.
Isabel, whose heart was thrumming so hard she could feel it in her eardrums, went and got it. Celia sat down and took control. Within minutes they were looking at Peter's inbox--or rather, a mirrored copy on Jawad's server.
"I'm going to bookmark it for you. The password is 'huge enormous penis head,' all one word, lowercase. Joel's idea. I thought 'itty bitty swizzle stick' would be more appropriate, but I was outvoted." She pointed at the screen. "Jawad retrieved these today. Peter deleted these messages, but he didn't use Secure Delete, so although they weren't visible in his inbox, they still existed. Jawad got them back, then restored Peter's access to his account. For all he knows, his email was down because of a computer glitch."
Isabel shook her head impatiently, stabbing her finger toward the television. "I already know about the software. You're not listening! Something much bigger just happened!"
"Isabel, you're not listening. Or looking. Check out the time stamps on these emails."
Isabel did, and for an awful moment thought she might vomit again.
----
John was still staring at the television. Was it even possible? He had seen only a fraction of what Sam was saying before the thought bubble disappeared and the screen went blank.
His phone rang, and he groped for it without ever taking his eyes off the dead air. "Hello?"
She didn't even identify herself. She simply said, "You want a scoop? I'll give you a scoop. Faulks and my fiance tried to have me blown up."
An hour later, John walked back to the Buccaneer in a glazed stupor, having just seen the contents of Peter Benton's inbox. He had emailed himself the URL of the mirrored server before leaving Isabel's hotel room.
She was already trying to justify, to ameliorate, and it broke John's heart.
"They were supposed to wait until all the cars were gone from the parking lot," she'd said. "I guess they had no way of knowing I'd loan Celia my car." Although she seemed almost ready to forgive the near-murder of herself, she was entirely unforgiving when it came to the apes: "The charge was specifically designed not to reach their living area, but what if they'd been trapped? What if the thugs with the tire irons couldn't get in to release them? Most fire deaths are from smoke inhalation."
What she was telling him was huge. Massive. And for reasons more personal than John was comfortable admitting, he wanted to blow the story wide open. The problem was, he was going to need something more solid than messages sent through an anonymous email proxy. He needed to prove the identity of the person who had received and answered them.
34
The phone startled John. As he reached for it he caught sight of the clock: 3 A.M. Had the dog bitten Amanda? Had she been in an accident? What if Peter Benton or Ken Faulks had caught wind of the sting and done something to Isabel? Or maybe it was Ivanka--
"Hello?" he said.
"Is this John?"
"Yeah," he said, frowning. He reached over and turned on the light. "Who's this?"
"It's Celia Honeycutt. I'm a friend of Isabel's. We kind of almost met the other day."
John already knew who she was, both from the ELL video, and from the woman at Lawrence City Animal Control. "What's wrong? Is Isabel okay?"
"Yeah, Isabel's fine. I'm calling about Nathan."
"Who?" John said.
"You know, the guy with green hair."
"What about him?"
"He's in jail."
"Good," said John.
"No, it's not good. It's bad. Can you go bail him out?"
"What?"
"I can't call Isabel because she'd just tell me to leave him there."
"What makes you think I feel any differently?"
"You know what?" Celia said testily. "Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe you're not the nice guy Isabel seems to think you are. But you know all that information she gave you today? That no other reporter has and would kill to get their hands on? Guess where that came from. Me. I bet Catwoman would be very i
nterested."
John sighed. "What did he do?"
"Underage drinking."
"You don't get arrested for underage drinking. You get a ticket."
"He also had fake ID, and they claim he resisted arrest."
"Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
"Oh, come on, John. Please?"
John cradled his head in his hands. "How much are we talking about?"
"Fourteen hundred."
"Are you kidding? I don't have fourteen hundred dollars lying around."
"You only need to put up seven hundred. Gary put up the rest."
"Who?"
"A protester buddy of his. He already wired it."
John swung his legs off the side of the bed and sat up. "How'd you get my number anyway?"
"I took it off the desk in Isabel's room. Nathan wanted to call you to apologize for the breakfast thing."
John dropped his forehead onto his hand. He couldn't believe he was even considering this. "Okay," he said, standing and looking around for his clothes. "Who do I ask for when I get there?"
"Nathan Pinegar. And don't make any vinegar jokes--he's sensitive about it."
Pinegar? Nathan was a Pinegar?
A teenaged Pinegar?
John reached out to steady himself against a wall.
----
Behind the counter was a row of monitors, each showing the contents of a cell. Even the toilets were in full view. Nathan was curled on a narrow bed. John stared and stared.
"Can I help you?" the cop behind the desk finally said.
"Uh, yeah." John cleared his throat and stepped up. "I'm here to bail someone out."
The cop snapped his gum and looked suspiciously at John before answering. "Who?"
John had to swallow twice before he managed to utter the name. "Nathan. Pinegar. Him." John pointed.
The cop glanced over his shoulder at the monitor. "You paying cash?"
"Credit card."
"There's a bondsman down the street."
----
They didn't exchange a word until they'd left the building. Nathan slunk out a few feet behind him, shoulders hunched in what John now recognized was a teenage slouch.
When they got to the bottom of the steps, John stopped and glanced back at the building's faux Greek facade.
Nathan looked both ways down the street. "So can I go?"