Foxe snorted. “That’s an understatement. I never thought I’d see Mr. Marine so gone over a woman.” He smiled for a moment before he oriented himself. “You heard about the cartel involvement?”
Lance nodded. “Veracruz Cartel, supposedly a big fucking deal in Mexico. I heard the guys who attacked Jenna and Lynn the other day were verified members. All of which means this PJasshole who keeps sending hitmen after people has to be at least a middle man in the same organization.”
“I heard all that, too,” Foxe confirmed. “We got the real street name for PJ after we rescued the women yesterday, you hear that?”
Lance paused, mouth hovering over his burger. “I did not. Share.”
Foxe’s lips twitched but he complied without argument. “Bonito pájaro,” he said, his rough Spanish ironically abrasive against the phrase that translated, of all things, into “pretty bird.”
Lance chewed his next bite while he mulled the name over in his mind. He hadn’t expected to recognize it—cartels and their ilk hadn’t been his focus in Okinawa. But there was something nagging at him about it nonetheless. He rolled it over, repeating both language versions in turn.
His impression was their knowledge of this PJ character was minimal, but they knew the man had some weight. Enough to send numerous grunts on daylight hits. He was involved in the trafficking. Between the fact that his name had come up at the scene of Jenna’s abduction, where Deputy Parker had taken her, and the shit Sheriff Parker had spewed to Lance directly on the same day, the Parkers at least—if not the department—were involved, too. Might even have information on who PJ really was. But all they knew as true fact was that PJ had weight, and he liked his birds. Trained them, seemingly.
“Fuck,” Lance muttered as something struck him so abruptly, he nearly choked on the last of his burger.
“Problem?” Foxe asked, leaning forward.
“I might be nuts,” Lance started.
“Not might.”
“Fuck you, too.” Lance reached for the onion rings. “First time we heard the name PJ, Jon was being attacked by the guys whohit me. One of ‘em told him how PJ ‘loves his birds’, because the guy had come along with a fuckingattackbird of all the goddamn things, and Jon had to put it down.”
Foxe blinked. “You mean, like, some kind of magic vulture thing?”
Lance deadpanned him. “What the fuck have you been watching since you retired?”
“Well, what the hell am I supposed to picture when you say that?”
“A blue jay,” Lance said, repeating what Jon had told him. “A normal-sized, normal-everything, motherfucking blue jay.”
Foxe stared at him long enough for Lance to devour three more onion rings. Finally, he shook his head. “Nah. Jon missed something. That has to be it.”
Lance snorted. “Jon? Miss something? In a fight? Please, please suggest that to him in person. I’ll fucking pay you.”
Foxe shot out his leg in a swinging kick aimed at Lance’s uninjured shin. “Shut the hell up. An attack blue jay? I don’t know, man. I know we’ve seen some shit, but that’s….”
Lance shoved the last pair of onion rings into his mouth, licked the crumbs from his fingers, and put all the packaging into the bag. “I know. It’s nuts. But it came from Jon, so I’m taking it as true until I know otherwise.”
“Shit,” Foxe muttered, drawing out the word and scrubbing a hand across his bald head. “We gotta dodge birds now?”
Lance shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Maybe there was just the one and Jon’s made a mortal enemy? It’s just a theory.”
“What theory?”
“This PJ guy has some kind of connection, or ability, with birds,” Lance said. “Because how else does one fucking get a blue jay to attack on command?”
Foxe stared at him, arms limp in his lap, for several heavy seconds. He rolled his jaw to the left. Then to the right. His browpinched. His shoulders slumped in visible defeat. “Shit. I guess that does make the most sense.”
“Out of everything we’ve come across so far, anyway,” Lance added. Crazy Ella flashed through his mind and he almost amended his statement, but he bit the words back. To his knowledge, she was the only divine entity he’d ever encountered, and she’d come to him. So, he was considering her an anomaly until further notice.
“Birds,” Foxe muttered with a shake of his head. “I ever tell you my mama was afraid of birds?”
Lance felt one side of his lips twitch up. “She see that old movie?”
“Nah. Lived on a poor farm that didn’t keep its crop well, and the bugs attracted birds. She always swore anything that could be so deceptively beautiful, so easily soar out of reach, and so swiftly decimate life, was the work of the devil.”
Well, that was the first time Lance had ever heard birds described as devil creatures.
