'It's Terry Quinn.'

'Irish, right?'

'Uh-huh.'

'I never miss. Pride myself on that, too. Hey, you hear about the two Irish gay guys?' Tibbs frowned with theatrical concern. 'You're not gay, are you?'

'Listen-'

'I'm playin' with you, buddy; I can see you're all man. So let me ask you again: you hear about the two Irish gay guys?'

'No.'

'Patrick Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzpatrick. Ha-ha!' Tibbs cocked his hip. 'You lookin' for somethin' special today, Terry?'

'I need to buy a car.'

'I don't think I can help you, man. Just kiddin'! Ha-ha!'

Quinn looked Tony Tibbs over: pathetic and heroic, both at once. The privileged, who had never had to work, really work, to pay their bills, could ridicule guys like Tibbs all they wanted. Quinn liked him, and he even liked his lousy jokes. But in the interest of time, he thought he needed to set him straight.

'Listen, Tony,' said Quinn. 'Here's the program. I see something I like here and the price seems fair, I'm not gonna haggle with you over it, I'm just gonna pull out my checkbook and write you out a check, today, for the full amount. I don't want to finance anything, hear, I just want to pay you cash money and drive the car off the lot.'

Tibbs looked a little hurt and somewhat confused. Places like this were selling financing, not cars, and they were selling it at a rate of over 20 percent. The no-haggle bit seemed to knock Tibbs down a notch, too.

'I understand,' said Tibbs.

'Also, we go in that trailer there, I don't want to buy a service contract. You even mention it, I'm gonna walk away.'

'Okay.'

'Good,' said Quinn. 'Now sell me a car.'

Nothing stoked Quinn as they walked around the lot. Then they came to a small row of cars beside the trailer, where three old Chevys sat waxed and gleaming in the sunlight.

'What are these?' said Quinn.

'Eddie Rider's pets,' said Tibbs. 'He loves Chevelles, man.'

'They for sale?'

'Sure. He turns them over all the time.' Tibbs saw something in Quinn's eyes. He smelled blood and straightened his posture. 'That's a high-performance sixty-seven right there. Three-fifty twelve bolt.'

Tibbs pointed to a red model with black stripes. 'There goes a seventy-two. Got a cowl induction hood and Hooker headers, man.'

'What about that one?' said Quinn, chin-nodding to the last car in the row, a blue-over-black fastback beauty with Cregar mags.

'That's a pretty SS right there. Three ninety-six, three hundred and fifty horses. Four-on-the-floor Hurst shifter, got those Flowmaster mufflers on it, too.'

'What year is that?'

'Nineteen sixty-nine.'

'The year I was born.'

'You ain't nothin' but a baby, then.'

'Pop the hood on it, will you?'

Quinn got under the hood. The hoses were new, and the belts were tight. You could pour a holsterful of french fries out onto the block and eat off the engine. He pulled the dipstick and smelled its tip.

'Clean, right?' said Tibbs. 'You don't smell nothin' burnt on there, do you?'

'It's clean. Can I take it for a ride?'

'I got the keys inside.'

'How much, by the way?'

'I'm gonna go right to the bottom,' said Tibbs, 'seein' as how you don't like to haggle.'

'How much?'

'Sixty-five hundred. That's grand theft auto right there. Boss finds out I sold it for that, I might have to just go ahead and clean out my desk.'

'Sixty-five hundred is right for this car?'

'Sixty-five?' said Tibbs, pursing his lips and bugging his eyes. 'It's right as rain.'

Quinn chuckled.

'What's so funny?'

'Nothin',' said Quinn. 'This car rides as good as it looks, you got yourself a deal.'

Quinn met Strange for breakfast on Monday morning at Sweet Daddy's All Souls Paradise House of Prayer, occupying much of M Street between 6th and 7th in Northwest. The church was a modern, well-funded facility serving the community through religious and outreach programs, with a staff of motivated individuals who kept an eye on the grounds in what was a marginal neighborhood at best. Quinn parked his Chevelle in the church-owned, protected lot, and went to the cafeteria on the ground level of the complex.

Uniformed and plainclothes police, community activists, businessmen, parishioners, and local residents ate here every morning. The portions were generous and the prices dirt cheap. The staff's cheer and pleasant manner were fueled by religion.

Quinn built a tray of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and grits, and had a seat across from Strange at a long table where several other chairs were occupied by people of various colors and economic backgrounds. Strange was working on a plate of scrapple, eggs, and grits.

A white guy with a friendly smile named Chris O'Shea came over to the table and had a brief conversation with Strange.

'You take it easy now, Derek,' said O'Shea.

'All right then, Chris,' said Strange. 'You do the same.'

Quinn noticed that everywhere they went in D.C., people knew Strange.

'You ready to go to work?' said Strange, pushing his empty tray aside.

'What've you got lined up?'

'We'll hang out near Ricky Kane's house this morning. He lives with his mother out in Wheaton. If he leaves, we'll follow him, see how he fills up his day. Here.' Strange slipped a cell phone out of his jacket along with a slip of paper. 'Use this, it's Ron's. My number is on there and so is yours.'

'No two-way radios?'

'This is easier, man. And unlike a two-way, no one double-takes you these days if you're walking down the street talking on a phone.'

'Like all the other dickheads, you mean.'

'Uh-huh. You got yourself a car, right?'

Quinn nodded. 'Think you're gonna like it, too.'

Out in the lot, Strange laughed when he saw the Super Sport Chevelle with the racing wheels.

'Somethin' wrong?' said Quinn.

'It is pretty.'

'What, then?'

'You youngbloods, always got to be drivin' something says, Look at me. Ron Lattimer's the same way.'

'That Caprice you got looks exactly like a police vehicle. We got less chance of gettin' burned in mine than in yours.'

'Maybe you're right. Anyway, we'll take both of 'em, see how things shake out.'

Ricky Kane's mother owned a small house, brick based with siding, off Viers Mill Road on a street of houses just like it. The builder who'd done the community in the 1960s had showed little ambition and less imagination. From the activity he'd observed in the last hour or so, Strange could see that the residents here were what was left of the original middle-class whites and America's new working-class immigrants: Spanish, Ethiopian, Pakistani, and Korean.

Strange phoned Quinn, who was parked down the street at the next corner.

'You still awake?'

'I got coffee in a thermos,' said Quinn.

'Bet you gotta pee, too.'

'Now that you mention it.'

'You see our boy when he came out?'

'I saw him.'

'Another little punk with a big dog.'

Kane had walked his tan pit bull halfway down the block an hour earlier while Strange took photographs with his long-lensed AE-1. Kane, medium height, blond, and thin, was wearing a thermal vest under a parka, a knit watch cap, and oversized jeans worn low on his hips. He had a hint of a modified goatee on his bony face.

'Tryin' to be an honorary black man,' said Strange.

'He looks like every other white kid I see in the suburbs these days.'

'Yeah, till they figure out what it means to be a black man in America for real.'

'But this guy's got to be close to my age.'

'Uh-huh. He sure doesn't look like the same guy was on the TV interviews, does he?'

'Check out that car of his, too. Kane got rid of that shit-wagon Toyota.' There was a new red Prelude with shiny rims and a high spoiler sitting in the driveway of Kane's house.