Travis and the bug man approach the counter, where a Dairy Queen associate stands fussing with her beehive hair-do. “I’ll have a single, vanilla ice cream cone, and whatever me ameego here wants.”

“Just a cup of coffee,” Travis says sleepily.

“Jes a cup a coffee? I’m buyin, Chief. You can have whatever you desire,” M says, waving his hands in a long arc beneath the brightly colored menu, his wandering eye revealing the sparkle of a genie, his secret kept safely tucked away somewhere in his spray canisters.

“Yeah. I just want a cup of coffee.”

The bug man turns to the waitress. “He’ll have one cup of coffee.”

“I guess I heard him,” the waitress replies to the bug man who, completely ignoring the waitress, just whistles along with the mariachi band, rapping his fingers on the counter.

Turning to Travis, he smiles, “We have a lot of fun when we hang out, don’t we?”

Travis stares at him.

After a moment, the order arrives. Travis picks up his coffee and blows on it lightly. Turning, he discovers the four gangsters standing directly behind them now. The leader smiles, revealing a single, gold tooth. The bug man turns slowly, magically already aware of the presence, and looks the leader in the eye like a matador as the mariachi band rumbles.

“So, El Bugo,” the leader sneers with a thick Mexican accent, “I see you have come back to la Dairy Queen. How… unfortunate.”

“Well, well. If it isn’t you, Diablo. How’d you get out of jail so soon?”

Travis screws up his face. “You two know each other?”

The leader never takes his eyes off of M. “Manwell ere is a lawyer.” He jerks his head toward one of the smaller gang members, who smiles and looks down, screwing his foot into the floor. “Ee got us off on’a tek-nee-kal-itee,” the Diablo says.

“What a shame,” the bug man replies, licking his ice cream cone and looking over the rim of his glasses at Travis, innocently and unconcerned.

“Of course ju know, El Bugo, we are gonna have to keel you,” the Diablo says, cracking his knuckles.

“Is that so?” the bug man asks, surprised, resting his free hand casually on his stomach.”

“You know eet. But I ain’t jus gonna keel you, El Bugo. I’m gonna keel you special-like. And the Diablo reaches into his pocket and slowly withdraws a large cockroach, holding it up to the bug man’s nose as the mariachi band crescendos.

The waitress sees this and runs for the back door.

Read the whole thread: Showdown at the DQ Corral

Characters and Places: Dairy Queen, The Bug Man, The Diablo, Travis Fleeting