“Everybody just take a breath,” I said. “This is just a spirited negotiation, not Saint Patrick’s Day at the Old Shillelagh, okay?”

August Snow, UN peacekeeper.

“We’re not taking a dime of your money,” I said to Duke. “For whatever reason, I believe you. That being said, if I find out you are in any way, shape or form playing me, I will come back here and kick you so hard in the nuts you’ll have three Adam’s apples.”

“You can fo damn sure try,” Duke said.

I had to physically turn Tomás by his thick shoulders and push him through the front door of SoundNation.

5

5

The drive from Royal Oak back to Mexicantown was uncomfortably quiet and palpably tense. I had believed Ducane when he pleaded innocence. Tomás, on the other hand, wanted a collection of Ducane’s teeth stuck in his calloused knuckles.

I thought a nice capricciosa pizza and a couple Valentine Vodka martinis at Bigalora would appease the beast.

“Fuck that,” Tomás said. “And fuck you. Just take me to my truck.”

“Don’t forget to buy stamps.”

“Eat shit, cabron.”

Ten icy-silent minutes later, when I brought my car to a stop by the abandoned post office, Tomás finally said, “You was a marine, right?”

“Once and always.”

“And a cop, too, right?”

“At least for a minute. Where’s this—”

“Then you must be old enough to know tigers don’t change their stripes and leopards don’t change their spots. And that goes double for old gangster motherfuckers like Duke Ducane.”

I started to reply, but Tomás got out of the car—not bothering to close my passenger door—climbed into his truck, hit the gas and, tires squealing, headed home.

I just hoped he remembered stamps.

There are certain things one should consider when attempting to rebuild a picture-perfect childhood neighborhood from memory, most important of which is this: memory is almost always fragmentized, sanitized, demonized or wholly fictionalized by its constant travel companion and fickle lover, imagination.

Take for example the house next to my family home on Markham Street in Mexicantown: Long ago, it belonged to the Alvarez family. The children—Antonio (Tony), who was the same age as me, and his younger sisters, Alma and Antonia—were my playmates. The Alvarezes had had a scruffy-looking dog named Roy and a parakeet.

On Saturdays, the Alvarez kids were homeschooled in Hispanic history and culture by Mrs. Alvarez for two hours before they were allowed to play. My mother, much to my disappointment, adopted this practice when I was five or six.

The Alvarezes had been the first to welcome my parents, an interracial couple, to the house on Markham Street, bringing over homemade tacos, seasoned beans and rice. A much-appreciated gesture, considering Blacks and Mexicans haven’t always been the best of pals.