Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.

That David Simon could tell people with bricks in their hand to “go home,” and have no direct words of condemnation for the violence displayed by the police made me remember my friend Dashon — from Baltimore — who told me he would never watch The Wire because he believed it to be “copaganda,” since it was created not only by Simon but by longtime Baltimore police officer Ed Burns.

“For this,” said El Espinero, with an economical slide of his hand indicating all the visible circumference of the cruel llano.

He shall restore the lamb fourfold.