“Yeah,” Tomás said, pointing to a collection of plastic baggies and foil packets strewn on the cold ground. “Name it: coke, heroin, fentanyl lollipops, Mexican and Canadian Oxy knockoffs, bath salts, hemp vaping cartridges. Even got what looks and smells like Cambodian sticky-brick hash. Guess where I found these yahoos?”

I picked up one of the foil packets and looked at the cartoon sticker keeping it sealed. Our spongy friend who lives in a pineapple under the sea.

“I’m thinking near Detroit Cristo Rey.”

“What kind of a sick fuck sells drugs to kids who just learning algebra?”

“Apparently, these kinds of sick fucks.” I tossed the packet to the ground, put my shoe heel into it and gave a twist. “You done here?”

“Just about.” Tomás knelt by the man holding his ribs. Grabbing a fistful of the sobbing man’s bright chartreuse imitation Polo Ralph Lauren bubble coat, Tomás raised him so they were face-to-face. “I see you or your girlfriends hangin’ around Mexicantown again and I’ll wipe my ass with your faces. You understand me?”

“Yeah,” the man managed to say.

“I didn’t get that,” Tomás said, giving the man a hard shake. “What?”

“Yessir!” he said, then added in menacingly accented Spanish, “Sí, Señor El Sepulturero!”

Tomás released the man and stood.

“Still trying to get people to call you ‘The Gravedigger’?” I said as we walked to my car.

“It’s a cool nickname,” Tomás said. “Not so much in English, but in Spanish it’s badass.”

“You’re a man in his late fifties who wears custom-made orthotics and plays tea party and Candy Land with his granddaughter every chance he gets,” I said. “Why do you need a ‘badass’ nickname?”

“Does Tatina know what a buzzkill you can be?”

“Second time today a Gutierrez has brought up Tatina’s name,” I said. “You guys know something I don’t?”

“Nothing other than the fact that she loves you and you’re too much of a pussy to admit you love her back.”

“I want you to take a ride with me—”

“Yeah, but first you and me’s going out to Royal Oak to see Duke Ducane,” Tomás said.

I stopped and turned to Tomás. “You need to see Duke Ducane? Why?”

“’Cause them three fuck-bags I bloodied up said they got their shit from him.”

“Funny,” I said, seeing absolutely nothing funny at all about visiting Duke Ducane. “I was just on my way to see Duke myself. He’s been blackmailing Mr. Ochoa.”

“Up jump the devil.”

“Yep,” I said. “Up jump the devil.”

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