The Ape Man's Brother by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online

were doing a lot.
    At first, I was elated, thinking I had found the camera before any photos could be taken. Then it occurred to me that the only reason I knew someone had been in the room was the cologne. A strange thought passed through me. What if, with my senses dulled, I had missed somebody having entered our room before, when they weren’t wearing cologne? The camera could have taken many photos, and it only had to have its film replaced from time to time, something that could easily be done when we were out of the room. What if there were already photos of us?
    I pulled the camera out and showed it to The Woman, who gasped. You see, there was some part of us that played like this was all a momentary fling. That when it came right down to it, all was right with her and The Big Guy, or soon would be, but that camera made us realize otherwise. We knew he didn’t know and that things weren’t right between them, and if he saw photographs of us together, it might be too much for him. He might turn savage, or even do something to himself. He just wasn’t right anymore.
    “Perhaps it’s blackmail,” The Woman said.
    I nodded, thinking perhaps that was it. I suppose The Big Guy could have had someone do it, to check up on us, but that didn’t seem likely. Unlike me, he never learned guile. I learned it when we lived in our lost world, and I had perfected it in civilization. Maybe whoever had set this photographic trap would want money instead of showing it to The Big Guy, but I tell you, right then I had a hunch who it was and what it was about. It came to me like a tick crawling into my arm pit that Red was behind all this, that he had hired someone to follow us, and to plant that camera, and what he wanted wasn’t money. He wanted revenge.

[12]
     

Y eah, I hadn’t thought of Red in ages, but right then I knew down deep in my bones, it was him, and what hit me the hardest was that there was something for him to find, something he could let The Big Guy see so that it harmed his pride and took away the only reason he had allowed himself to be hoodwinked into coming to this world.
    The Big Guy trusted us, especially me. We had been brothers since he was a baby. Right at that moment I felt the way I should have felt all along. Like a traitor.
    I smashed the camera on the floor.
    But you know what? I still went to bed with The Woman.
    The next day that lion bumping film was released and seen in private by a number of newspaper men who reported on it. It wasn’t seemly for it to be shown to the public, and wasn’t, at least at that period in time. But it was written about, and a few stills were published in the rags, and though they weren’t explicit, it was clear what was going on. Shots of the dead lion facing us, its tongue lagging out of its mouth, The Big Guy clutching its tail, lifting it into position for… Well, it was obvious. There had been the rumors before, but now there was the film. I told you how it is with money, how it offered lots of insulation. But The Big Guy took a hit with the public. Not that he cared, but that’s what happened. Our two movies were removed from circulation, and even to this day they are seldom shown, and only on late night television.
    But the day it hit I found out about it in the morning paper. I tried to hide it from The Woman, but too late. She saw it. It made our souls and stomachs sink, and you would think we would just lock our hotel room door and hide. Or maybe at least have the guts to somehow talk to The Big Guy, own up to what we had done, and try to commiserate with him over the news, though that part about the lion probably didn’t bother him the way it would others. For him, that was an accepted ritual. And once, it had been for me as well.
    As I said, you’d think we’d do that, commiserate with The Big Guy, but we didn’t. We took the cowardly way out and tried to make things better for ourselves. We went out for a drive. It’s not that we weren’t