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“Code,” Jem said, toeing DeVoy with the sneaker again.
“I need a hospital or some shit.”
“Code.”
“You gotta let me sit up. I can’t breathe.”
“You’re going to choke to death on your own blood if you don’t give me the PIN to this fucking phone.”
John-Henry rose to his feet, face fixed.
“Nine, nine, nine, nine,” DeVoy said. “Come on, let me sit up.”
A sole scraped the garage’s concrete slab, and both John-Henry and Jem turned. Emery stepped under the roll-up door, those dark straw eyes already reviewing, calculating. “Let him sit up.”
Jem opened his mouth.
“He’s not going anywhere,” John-Henry said.
After a moment, Jem set his jaw and stepped back.
As DeVoy scrambled into a sitting position, Jem unlocked the phone. It was an Android, the screen busted, with icons he didn’t recognize. Once he was sure he had access to everything, he shoved the phone in his pocket and turned his attention back to DeVoy.
“All right,” Jem said. “Let’s hear it.”
DeVoy touched his broken nose, flinched, and dropped his hand. Then, apparently possessed by a stroke of genius, he tore open the bundle of toilet paper and ripped several squares of paper from a roll. He wiped at his face, where the blood had slowed to a trickle.
“Hear what?” he mumbled from behind the paper.
“All of it,” Jem said.
“Wonderful interview technique,” Emery said.
“I’m handling this.”
“Oh yes, I can see that.”
“I told you to explain,” Jem said. “Start with the animals.”
DeVoy hocked a bloody loogie that barely missed Jem’s sneakers.
“Here’s the thing.” Hands on knees, Jem leaned over DeVoy. “You tried to sell me a bird. And when I showed up, I found all sorts of interesting shit. You had birds stuffed in the van. You had IDs. You had drugs. Jewelry. So, when a woman disappears, and we learn she had pictures of the same kinds of animals in her room, I start to get curious. I’m going to tell you one more time to talk about the animals. The next time someone asks, you’re going to be in cuffs, and you’ll have a murder charge hanging over your head.”
DeVoy was still clumping the toilet paper under his nose, and his hand stilled now. Outside, a diesel engine rattled to life, and someone gave a long, drawn-out cry of “Free pussy!”
After the sound of tires on gravel faded, DeVoy said, “What woman?”
“Yesenia Alvarez.”
“Don’t know her.”
“Wrong answer,” Jem said. “Face down on the ground, dumbshit. You can wait for the cops.”
“Hold on,” John-Henry said. He took out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and came closer. When he held the screen toward DeVoy, it displayed a picture of Yesenia. “Her.”
“Oh,” DeVoy said. “Her. I know her. What happened to her?”
“That’s convenient. You didn’t know her. Now you do.”
