Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(43)

Geronimo had two impressive mottled white gyrfalcons in perfect physical condition. Gyrfalcons were the largest of all North American raptors.

“You mean, how can a Black brother my age afford such a nice spread?”

“No, because you make a living offering protection to Denver bars. And don’t use that race crap on me. It won’t fly.”

Geronimo chuckled. He winked. “Yeah, okay, nature boy.” Then: “Jacinda’s from Chicago. Her mom invented Afro Chic. Ever heard of it?”

Nate recalled the name from tubes of hair-care goo that had annoyed him in his bathroom at home. “I have.”

“She sold it to Procter and Gamble a few years back and she gave all her kids a nice trust fund,” Geronimo said. “I hit the jackpot marrying her.”

“I know the feeling,” Nate said. “And now you’re expecting your first child.”

“Uh-huh. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that development.”

“Boy or girl?”

“We don’t want to know, but I’d guess that Jacinda will give in at some point and we’ll find out.”

“I’ve got a little girl,” Nate said. “Kestrel.”

Geronimo grinned at that. “Smallest falcon in the species. I like that. Does she boss you around?”

“She’s got me wrapped around her finger,” Nate said. “She’s another reason why I have to find Soledad and take him down. He frightened her and she hid from him. I don’t know what would have happened if he’d found her. I can’t even think about it.”

“So what about you?” Geronimo asked. “Tell me about your business now that you’ve supposedly gone straight.”

Nate did. He said the bird abatement business was growing every year and that Yarak, Inc. was getting calls from as far away as Southern California and Michigan to get rid of problem birds infesting farms, zoos, wineries, and large-scale industrial facilities. Liv ran the day-to-day operations of the business and Nate oversaw the deployment of falcons. They’d recently hired Sheridan Pickett as an apprentice falconer.

Geronimo asked, “Is it true that when you put a peregrine in the sky, all the shitbirds like starlings see it and run for the hills?”

“It’s true,” Nate said. “All they have to do is see the silhouette of the falcon in the sky. It’s imprinted into their DNA that if they don’t leave the area immediately, they’ll die a horrible death. Which they will. So that alone usually does the trick.”

“Amazing, man. It sounds like a good gig.”

“It is,” Nate said. “Which is why we need to find Soledad fast and recover my Air Force. He stole five peregrines, two red-tailed hawks, three prairie falcons, a Harris hawk, and a gyrfalcon. Twelve out of fifteen birds. He killed three and left them.”

Geronimo whistled and called up Tristan’s calculator app on his phone. He punched in a series of numbers and mumbled while he did it.

“Peregrines are worth fifty K on the black market . . . red-tails go for twenty-five K each, prairies and the Harris hawk go for the same, and an Arab sheikh will pay up to forty-five for a gyr like mine . . . that’s fucking four hundred and forty-five thousand dollars!”

“Yes.”

“Jesus. I’m in the wrong business,” he wailed.

“It’s not just that, as you know,” Nate said. “It’s the capturing of fledglings in the nest and years of flying them to the lure. Building up fourteen birds to a state of perfect yarak—well, it would take years to do it again. This guy stole our company and our livelihood. I can’t let him get away with it.”

Geronimo agreed.

“Tell me something,” Nate said. “You’ve got that patch on your coat and you seem to know a lot about antifa. How involved are you?”

Geronimo hesitated while he formed his answer. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I’m totally down with the movement. BLM—not antifa. Don’t get confused. BLM and antifa are in two different lanes and those lanes don’t merge, even though some ignorant folks think they do. Anyway, like I said, I’ve been pulled over for Driving While Black too many times. I get it and it pisses me off and I want to see progress made. But I’m not a follower. I’m a free man with a will of my own. I don’t go for the shit some of the BLM honchos go on about. But something bad is happening.”

“You asked Tristan about the choice of weapons that were put in the cache we found. What was that about?”

“Ah, you picked up on that.”

Nate nodded.

“That’s not the first street cache I ever found,” Geronimo said. “But this one was a little different.”

“Meaning what?”

“Well, it had the usual stuff: bats, rods, bricks, rocks, fireworks. That’s pretty standard.”

“Interesting,” Nate said. “Go on.”

“What this cache didn’t have were plastic shields for protection. There are usually shields there like the cops use. And in this case there were those axes. I’ve never seen axes before.

“Another thing,” Geronimo said. “That cache was untouched before we found it, even though there was street action going on downtown. Don’t you find that kind of odd?”