Page 127

Hal caught it with his foot and grabbed Ashley’s arm in the same motion. He spun her against his chest and pressed the barrel to her head. She trembled but didn’t move.

“Now,” Alex continued, “start talking. Where do you get your stash? Who makes it?”

“And why on earth do I have to tell you anything?”

Covey wasn’t going to break. Alex could see it in his eyes — the man would smile through a bullet. Fine. He didn’t need Covey.

Alex turned his gun on Manny. “What about you, homie? You feeling chatty?”

Manny’s eyes went wide. He tried to sit up. Ken shoved him back down.

“I don’t make it…” Manny mumbled.

“Then what the fuck you doing here, foo?” Hal called across the room, tightening his grip on Ashley. “If you got that talon, you know better than to mess with Durden.”

“I’m just doing my thing, bro—”

“Bullshit.” Alex spat. “Every hermano I know swore off Durden after Paragon. And now you’re working for this cabrón behind their backs?” He nodded at Ken, who jammed the barrel harder against Manny’s skull. “I can go back and tell Rafael we’ve got a rat.”

“No!” Manny bellowed. His eyes darted across his face, unable to hold still. “Es El Búho.”

Heavy silence fell across the room. Owl.

“What about El Búho?” Alex growled, pushing down the sickening feeling churning in his gut that he was right all along.

“It’s him.” Manny stammered, the words tumbling in Spanish. “We get it from him. He’s really making it.”

“What are you talking about?” Covey muttered under his breath.

“If you’re saying Basa is the one cooking up this new shit”—Alex pointed to the box below Hal’s feet with his other hand—“I call that bullshit.”

“No bullshit, mano,” Manny breathed.

“How do you know?” asked Hal.

“I was there the other day, homie!” Manny sputtered so quickly that languages blended. “Luis or whatever was supposed to get it, but the boss was busy, so I went to get it! I never met the guy, but I heard from the homies. He Chino, right? I was at the fa–”

The shot was so sudden, Alex didn’t hear it. One second, Manny was talking. The next, he wasn’t anything.

Blood and matter sprayed across Ken’s face, his glasses, his chest. Ken dropped Manny’s body, and it slumped sideways, what was left of the head pooling red onto the tile.

The girls screamed.

Alex’s hand went numb around his gun. His brain tried to process the image and the sound in the wrong order—the sight first, then the crack, then the ringing silence.

Covey was already at Ken’s side. The pistol pressed into Ken’s cheek. Ken’s bloody hands rose slowly, his own gun clattering onto Manny’s body.

“I don’t like people talking behind my back.” Covey’s voice was soft. His smile was wide. Nothing about the two matched. “So let’s all speak English. This is America, after all.”

“Don’t shoot him,” Alex said, his gun locked on Covey’s forehead.

A muscle in Covey’s jaw twitched. The first crack. “Or what?”

“You shoot him, Hal paints the wall with your girl.”

Covey’s eyes flicked to Ashley trembling under Hal’s grip. Then back to Alex. The smile thinned. “Like that matters. You need her. You need me. You’re not killing anyone.”

“Try me.”