People talk about how badly “Washington’s NFL Team” is doing and your husband uses the words “unwatchable.”

The long-hair grey with jaundiced eyes and matching teeth closes in on me. I think it’s in poor health. Old-timers always say, ‘It is a good idea to maintain a stare. They’ll chicken out.’ It’s a bad idea to have one in your face, too.

I remember from my old days. I am better now. There are two kinds of people who hike Runyon Canyon. Those who hike Runyon Canyon and those who are hoping to find a private enclave in the woods to score or shoot up or meet a stranger. There was also once a severed head found not too far from where I am right this moment. So to murder could be added to that list. Although I am not sure the murder occurred exactly here.

“Thanks, hon,” Ruth said. She retrieved two dollars from the register and stuck it in the long pocket at the base of her apron. “Sweet girl,” Ruth said to one of the men at the counter, leaning over in his direction. The man adjusted his ballcap with his thumb and forefinger and resumed the tale he’d been telling when Isabel had interrupted to order.

So I have come here to ask you a question, one to decide your fate. Back there, and Rosario pointed behind him again, they want to toss you in jail. And if I’m honest, Ivanchenko, if you disappoint me, I will let them. I don’t have a problem with letting the dogs eat you from the guts on out if that’s what it means. You defaced my brother’s life, you know?

The jogger, an ultra-fit man in his fifties, dressed expensively in body-tight black Spandex and color-shock pink-and-yellow Nikes, swept down North Lombard, keeping to its straight center line as if his life depended on it. Eyes trained forward, he no more saw the couple and their dog, the woman picking up her paper or the waiting schoolkids, than they saw him, not really, not until he dropped.