“It’s ten mil, you fucking moron,” I said. “And I don’t have their money. But listen: I’ll hand deliver two mil of my money. Cash. All you have to do is—”

“No, see, you don’t understand,” Hayes said, walking toward me with a cup of coffee in each hand. “I would do this for free! Here’s the thing: life on the inside was hard, but it was made just a touch harder when I got served divorce papers. My kids—two sons and a daughter—they wouldn’t visit me or take my calls. My letters went unanswered. Next thing I know, my wife’s granted sole custody of the kids, and the nice brick Tudor with leaded glass windows in Palmer Park? Poof! Sold! Ah, well—here’s your coffee.”

He pitched the scalding hot liquid at my exposed genitals.

I screamed, bright shards of light corkscrewing into my optic nerves.

Hayes knelt and said, “So, see—I have no interest in your blood money. I’d be right here, right now, doing this for a Popeyes two-piece chicken dinner with red beans and rice.”

“I need . . .” I heard myself say with a wheeze

“What?” Hayes said, bending closer to me. “What do you need, Detective Snow? An intermission from our feature presentation? A go-potty break?”

“I . . . need . . .”

“Go ahead, sunshine!” He laughed. “Spit it out!”

“An eleven-letter word for the study of letters and spelling.”

Slowly, Hayes stood.

He took a sip of his coffee, then threw the rest at my chest.

“Oh, you a funny mothafucka, huh?” he said. “Let’s see you laugh this off.”

Right cross to my jaw.

Left cross.

Foot to the stomach.

Another right cross.

Barely conscious.

Spit out a piece of a molar.

“Orthography,” I heard myself say. “That’s the word! Now I need a five-letter word for asshole. Wait a minute. Is it—‘Hayes’?”

Hayes walked back to the small table behind the work lights. He unzipped a small nylon backpack, fished around inside for a moment or two, then walked back to me. My body begun convulsing from the cold on my back.

“You know,” Hayes began, “I’ve always wondered about you, Detective Snow. Half-Mexican, half-Black. Myself? Somewhere in the way-back woodpile, there’s an Irishman who couldn’t keep his pudgy shillelagh out of the molasses. But, well, like they say—an Irishman ain’t nothin’ but a niggah turned inside out, right? But you? Black and Mexican? How’s that work? Can you tell which side is which?” He held up a carpenter’s knife for me to see and slid the blade out a quarter inch. “Maybe I can help with that. I think maybe your Black side is—on the right.”

Slowly, he began carving.

Arcs of white electricity throughout my body.

I screamed and felt myself losing the battle to remain conscious. I wanted to lose the battle.

I must have mumbled something.