“What you’re really aiming for,” he said as their speed went past eighty, “whether you’re racing on the track or on the streets, is to be somewhere else.”

Fire escapes flew by overhead. Yesterday’s news, dragged up from the ground, billowed out behind. Tiny gaps between wall and dumpster loomed and passed like a sped-up film demo on perspective. McGrath found himself pushing his head back against the car’s headrest. He was going to be mightily pissed at Johnny Boy if this English sonofabitch killed him.

“Somewhere else?”

“Subconsciously competent, not thinking, on the limit of human and mechanical ability. But not going over it.”

He risked glancing around at McGrath, just to give more pizzazz to that final pearl of wisdom. When he turned back, things went wrong in a way they always did at high speed—quickly. Ahead, a pile of trash stirred and a bearded face appeared, freshly awake and wondering what that incredible wailing noise in its normally quiet alleyway was all about.

Spencer jerked the wheel and for a tiny instant, one of those nanoseconds the human brain seems able to create for itself while the rest of the world hurtles onward, they weren’t sure if they might hit the wall or the guy’s feet. A grumbling scrape informed them it would be the former. Spencer flinched, concentrated harder, and countered the humiliation with a joke.

“It’s a rare moment.”

The Lotus pulled up in the entrance portico of the MGM Grand. Spencer killed the engine. For a moment both men were quiet, assimilating the fact that they were now in Downtown, having been up in Macomb a short, short time before.

McGrath smiled, shaking his head as if to say that was quite a ride. He reached for his phone, looked at the screen, and then showed it to Spencer.

“So close, but people lose medals for less than that. Would have got a lot of attention if you’d hit that tramp.” He took back the cash.

Watching McGrath pocket the money he’d already spent in his head made Spencer a little resentful. Thirty-three seconds out. He’d got to thinking the guy might have been a little more flexible, that what was more important was the experience rather than contractual fulfillment to the letter.

“But I didn’t.”

McGrath nodded. “Detroit man through and through, and I never knew about that alley off Clifford.”

And Spencer never knew that that alley had ticked yet another of McGrath’s boxes. McGrath waved away the valet as he got out. He nodded toward the front.

“I feel bad about the fender.”

“It happens. Anything else you wanted to know about the car?”

McGrath looked hard at Spencer again, longer than the moment called for, eyes assessing again, belying the smile. He dropped the money on the seat.