“So how is rally so different from Nascar or Indy?” asked McGrath.

“Nascar, Indy, they go round in circles, always on tarmac. Same with Formula One. In rallying, we had to use production models. We could upgrade and modify, but we have to use cars the man on the street can buy. And we have to be good on gravel, snow, mud.”

“Why rallying?”

“I’m a farmer’s son. Lived miles from anywhere. Dad said if I stopped sliding cars around the farm, he’d take me karting. I had talent. Qualified for the senior British team when I was still a junior.”

“So why’d you stop? Why come here and sell cars?”

“I got married, had a kid. When you’re sliding upside down on your roof with a split gas tank pouring fifty gallons over you with no fire and rescue nearby . . . it’s not a family-friendly job.”

He knew he had to try and take more control of the situation, to ask McGrath about himself, to make the customer feel special. “You always been in the same line of work?”

Stick with the old faithfuls.

Dominic McGrath watched the gates of the Detroit Arsenal go by on 11 Mile. It made him pause before answering. He was at an age when a man reflects on the choices he’s made. Whenever he saw an army base or convoy on the freeway, it took his mind back to the only time he’d ever worked for someone else, if Uncle Sam could be called someone.

He’d signed up when his criminal activities were catching up on him in Detroit. Vendettas were closing in. But he’d joined just in time for the first Gulf War. That was some badass frying-pan-fire luck. And yet he’d excelled and still maintained his illegal sidelines. Black market ops. Staff Sergeant “BeeMO” McGrath: drugs, guns, import, export.

A war on, you say? I’ve always been at war, you stupid little farm-boy hobos. Now put those Berettas in that coffin and worry about spending the money we’re making before you’re in one too.

By the time he’d made it back to Detroit, things had changed. All the people who’d had it in for him were either dead or in the pen. And the cops had even less money than they had before. And when he thought how pitiful an army pension was, he knew he’d made the right decision to get the hell out.

It was the thought of a pension that had brought him to Winchester Auto Specialists and the man driving, north now, into the comfortable golf clubs and picket fences of the suburbs.

McGrath became aware of Spencer looking at him, clearly wondering if he’d heard the question, wanting to get the conversation skipping along. The question, after all, had been one of the salesman’s throwaways.

“Yep. Always,” McGrath replied.