He took his suit jacket off. When he went to hang it through the grate, the cage swung, and the jacket fell, flapping toward the ground. One of the freaks caught it and put it on. Then she pranced around for her friends and the camera, strutting and melodramatically gesticulating in imitation of a man who takes himself too seriously.

Among the Mbuti people, nomadic hunter-gatherers of Zambia, the only specialization that is encouraged in members of the band who display the talent is miming, in order to lead the clownish ridicule that is the principal means of behavioral sanction in a group that functions without leaders. Donny was trying to remember what that anthropologist said was the best counter when he heard a phone ring.

His phone, with the ringtone he had adopted to know its sound amid a crowd, a ringtone ripped from his grandma’s favorite old lawyer show, to know when she was calling.

The possibility that he might pick up a stray signal was why he had left it on, constantly trawling for the network.

“That’s my phone!”

The phone kept ringing, a call he knew he needed to take, from the person he really came there to save, while the freaks he had helped secure their own freaky freedom laughed their asses off, repeating everything he said in a way that succeeded in making it sound ridiculous. It infuriated him, made him feel the panic spill over, and found him preparing to leap from the cage. He knew it was not as far as it looked, and that the guy he had seen fall hurt himself because he wasn’t paying attention. And what better way to frustrate the camera eyes’ efforts at ridicule.

There was Beret Girl, pulling his phone from his bag and looking around.

Then there was a group of older women. Some really old, some just grown-ups amid the mob, a few of them familiar faces. And one woman who was pretty young, at least on the calendar. Someone Donny realized he knew well, and knew to have an older soul. That was who took the phone from Beret Girl, pushed the button, and put it to her ear.

“Percy!” he said.

She was looking right at him while she talked on the phone.

“I’m sorry, he’s not available at the moment. May I ask who’s calling?”

The thing was, she already knew who was calling. And what was at stake.

24

Donny should have known something was up the night when Percy said to meet her at her house instead of the office. She had been talking a lot about how they needed a different strategy. He hadn’t appreciated just how different she had in mind.

“Is that a gun?” said Donny.