René Bellafonte had sold automobiles to men who owned islands, men who owned judges, and one man who, according to three separate newspapers, owned neither but somehow controlled both.

He knew money. More importantly, he knew the peculiar way money behaved when it encountered something it could not immediately possess. Real money did not shout. It did not ask for finance. It did not arrive wearing its bank balance across its chest. Real money simply leaned closer and quietly asked how soon.

At four twenty-seven on a Thursday afternoon, Miami was burning gold beyond the smoked glass of Bellafonte International Motorcars, and the most valuable automobile in Florida sat beneath six white spotlights in the center of René’s showroom.

Rosso Corsa.

Red enough to hurt.

The Ferrari Testarossa sat lower and wider than everything around it, its horizontal side strakes slicing across the doors like gills, its rear quarters swollen around enormous wheels, its black lower trim making the body appear to hover over the polished white marble. Beside it, René’s silver 308 suddenly looked delicate. The black Porsche 930 near the windows looked old. Even the white Lamborghini Countach parked beneath a chrome sculpture at the far end of the showroom had spent the last three days appearing faintly offended.

That pleased René enormously.

Nobody in Miami was supposed to have a Testarossa.

Nobody in America was supposed to have one.

Strictly speaking, almost nobody outside a very particular collection of Italians was supposed to have seen one.

René Bellafonte had one.

How he had acquired it was a story involving Modena, Paris, a freight company in Marseille that officially transported agricultural equipment, two bottles of 1961 Château Latour and a telephone conversation during which René had been required to promise never to repeat the name of the man on the other end. The Ferrari was not merely expensive. It was effectively unreleased, an automobile from several weeks in the future sitting in Miami while the rest of the world remained unaware it existed.

René stood beside it in a cream double-breasted linen suit and pale turquoise silk shirt open at the throat. He was forty-three, slim and deeply tanned, his swept-back dark hair beginning to silver at the temples. A narrow mustache sharpened an already angular face. Gold Cartier on the wrist, handmade loafers without socks, tinted aviators indoors because Miami had long ago ceased demanding explanations for such things.

A Gauloises burned between two fingers while his salesman Lenny tried unsuccessfully to convince a plastic surgeon from Coral Gables that the Porsche 930 would make him look younger.

It would not.

René knew this.

The surgeon’s wife knew this.

The Porsche probably knew this.

René was contemplating the Testarossa’s rear deck when the showroom door opened and a slab of Florida heat pushed briefly against the air-conditioning.

Then the door closed.

The young man who entered carried a black briefcase.

That was the first respectable thing about him.

The rest was wrong.

A faded red sweatshirt despite the heat, hood pulled up, dark sunglasses, jeans, casual shoes. Thick, tousled dark-brown hair escaped from beneath the hood, a loose fringe falling toward the glasses. A piece of gum moved slowly between his teeth.

René watched him cross the marble.

Not poor. René could identify poor at fifty meters.

Not rich in the conventional Miami sense either. No gold. No Italian loafers. No Rolex held deliberately outside a cuff. No woman twenty years younger trailing behind him. No cocaine confidence.

The young man walked past the Porsche without looking at it. The 308 received nothing. He gave the Countach perhaps half a glance.

Then he saw the Testarossa.

He stopped.

René watched his face carefully.

There it was.

Not awe.

Not greed.

Interest.

The distinction mattered.

René extinguished his cigarette and crossed the marble. “Mr. Maddox,” he said, extending a hand, his French accent still evident beneath twenty years of American English. “René Bellafonte. We spoke on the telephone.”

The young man shook it. His grip was firm without being theatrical. “Call me Chris.”

“Very well, Chris.”

Chris looked back at the Ferrari. “So that’s it.”

René followed his gaze. “That is it.”

Chris approached the Testarossa slowly, the briefcase still hanging from one hand. Most men circled exotic cars while looking at their own reflection in the paint. Chris looked at the car. Shut lines. Wheels. Intakes. Glass. Tires. He crouched beside the left rear wheel and studied it for several seconds before asking, “What pressure are you running?”

The question stopped René.

He had expected how fast?

Perhaps how much?

Not tire pressure.

René gave him the figures.

Chris nodded and stood. He walked around the rear, eyes following the width of the body before tracing the black slats across the engine cover. The gum clicked softly between his teeth.

René followed him. “You have driven a Ferrari before?”

“A couple,” Chris replied.

“What kind?”

“The fast kind.”

René stared at him.

Chris grinned.

The gum snapped.

René decided immediately that he disliked him.

Chris reached the driver’s door and looked through the glass. “Can I take it out?”

“No,” René replied.

Chris turned and laughed. “I haven’t even made my pitch.”

“You do not possess a pitch which ends with you driving this automobile.”

“You sure?”

“Entirely.”

“Then why’d you tell me to come down?”

René folded his arms. “To establish whether you were serious.”

Chris glanced around the showroom, chrome and white marble reflected across his sunglasses. Framed photographs covered the wall behind René’s desk: racing drivers, musicians, actors, businessmen and two gentlemen whose photographs had subsequently appeared on federal wanted posters. “And?” Chris asked.

“I have not yet decided.”

Chris looked back at the Ferrari. “How do I prove I’m serious?”

“You buy it.”

“Without driving it?”

“Yes.”

Chris laughed again. “That’s not happening.”

“Then neither is the drive.”

They looked at one another for several seconds. René had negotiated with Texans, Saudis, Colombians, New York financiers and rock stars who believed cocaine constituted a personality. Silence had made him a great deal of money.

Chris seemed perfectly comfortable with it.

Finally, Chris reached into his pocket, produced a set of keys and tossed them across the space between them.

René caught them instinctively.

Porsche.

He glanced through the smoked glass toward the parking area and found a 911 outside.

“Collateral,” Chris said.

René looked back at him. “You believe I am worried you will steal my Ferrari?”

“No,” Chris replied, the grin returning. “I think you’re worried I’ll break it.”

René said nothing.

Chris was right.

“Fifteen minutes,” Chris said.

“No.”

“Ten.”

“No.”

Chris nodded thoughtfully. “Fifteen sounds better.”

“You negotiate in the wrong direction.”

“I get that a lot.”

René looked at the Testarossa and then at Chris. There was something irritatingly relaxed about him. He had not asked the price. He had not asked how René had obtained the car. He had not produced a business card carrying the name of some corporation designed to sound important.

He had asked about tire pressure.

René exhaled through his nose. “Fifteen minutes.”

Chris smiled.

“I drive first,” René added.

The smile disappeared. “Then forget it.”

René’s eyes narrowed.

Chris held out his hand for the Porsche keys. “No hard feelings.”

He meant it. He was genuinely prepared to walk away.

René disliked that even more.

“You damage one wheel,” René said, “you buy the car.”

Chris’s grin returned. “One wheel?”

“One.”

“Deal.”

René returned the Porsche keys.

Chris lifted the briefcase slightly. “Can I leave this here?”

René barely looked at it. “Of course.”

Chris crossed to the desk and placed it on the floor beside the chrome leg. No ceremony. No warning. No reason for René to give it another thought.

René took the Ferrari key from his pocket and tossed it across.

Chris caught it one-handed.

“Fifteen minutes,” René reminded him.

Chris looked toward the red Ferrari. “Plenty.”

The Testarossa started with a hard mechanical churn before twelve cylinders caught behind them and settled into a metallic pulse that seemed to move through the leather seats and directly into René’s ribs.

René watched Chris.

The first start told you things about a driver. Some men immediately revved an exotic car because they wanted everyone within half a mile to know they had started one.

Chris did not.

He listened.

That was more interesting.

The air-conditioning fought the heat trapped inside the black leather cabin. Beyond the windscreen, Miami blazed beneath a cloudless late-summer sky, the afternoon light turning every piece of chrome outside into white fire.

Chris adjusted the seat, then both mirrors. He worked the clutch once, slowly, feeling its travel, and rested his right hand against the gear lever without moving it. The gesture was light, exploratory.

René fastened his seatbelt.

Chris noticed. “Good idea.”

René turned toward him. “Do not make me regret this.”

Chris selected first. “I’ll try.”

“That is not reassuring.”

Chris reached for the radio.

René frowned. “The engine is the music.”

Chris glanced across at him, then turned the radio on anyway. “Engine’s got competition.”

Static burst through the cabin. Chris rolled the tuner until a bright male voice materialized between two stations.

“Four thirty-two in the Magic City, and you’re riding home with Miami’s hottest, DJ Daz, right here on Wave One-Oh-Five. Sun’s high, temperature’s higher, traffic’s ugly on the Dolphin and beautiful everywhere else. If you’re moving, keep moving. If you’re not, I’ve got something to help. Brand-new Arion Wylde. Turn it up, Miami. The Only One Who Knew.”

Chris stopped tuning. “Perfect.”

Chris eased out the clutch.

The Testarossa rolled into Miami.

For the first three minutes, René Bellafonte wondered if he had completely misjudged Chris Maddox.

Chris drove beautifully.

He brought the Ferrari away from the showroom without drama, fed the throttle progressively and changed up at an almost offensively sensible engine speed. He gave the machinery time to warm, never forcing the gearbox, never loading the engine heavily. The steering inputs were small and clean.

Miami moved around them in color.

They passed a blue telephone booth standing beneath a palm tree, its glass panels flashing in the sun. A Fotomat kiosk baked in the center of a supermarket parking lot. Beyond it, a video store had covered its windows with enormous painted VHS posters, while next door a purple neon joystick marked the entrance to an arcade already busy with teenagers escaping the heat. GALAXY burned above the door in electric blue even though the sun had not yet gone down.

Arion Wylde’s warm voice rolled through the cabin.

Chris’s head moved subtly as he drove. Mirror. Junction. Pedestrian. Tachometer. Road.

René noticed everything because René had spent his life noticing everything.

“Second is stiff when cold,” René said. “Do not force it.”

Chris worked the lever through the gate and answered without looking away from the road. “I noticed.”

“You hesitated before selecting it.”

“I was feeling the synchro.”

René looked at him.

The shift was clean.

Outside, pink stucco gave way to mirrored office glass. A Radio Shack disappeared behind them, followed by a chrome diner with turquoise awnings and red vinyl booths visible through enormous windows. A waitress carrying a coffee pot stopped beside the glass and watched the Testarossa pass.

The song moved into its first chorus, shimmering synthesizers widening around them as the Ferrari slipped beneath rows of palms.

Chris tapped two fingers against the steering wheel in time with the snare.

René found himself relaxing.

Perhaps Maddox merely looked irresponsible. Miami was full of people who had learned to weaponize appearances. Perhaps the red sweatshirt and sunglasses were simply his version of René’s linen suit and Cartier.

The traffic light ahead changed amber.

Chris lifted.

A precise downshift followed. Then braking.

The Ferrari turned right onto a broad feeder road and Chris carried considerably more speed through the corner than René expected. The Testarossa settled onto its outside tires, held its line and surged forward as Chris unwound the steering.

René felt the pressure increase against his back.

Not frightening.

Not yet.

Just fast.

Chris changed gear as the guitar solo began.

René looked across at him. “Where did you learn to do that?”

Chris glanced briefly toward him. “Do what?”

“Drive.”

“Cars taught me.”

“That is not an answer.”

Chris smiled. “It’s the one I’ve got.”

The road opened ahead and Chris allowed the Ferrari another thousand revs before shifting. The flat-twelve changed character behind them, its mechanical growl sharpening into something harder and more urgent.

By the time Arion Wylde reached the final chorus, René was no longer explaining the gearbox.

Chris had stopped needing him.

Daz’s voice swept over the fading outro. “Arion Wylde, The Only One Who Knew. Oh, that is beautiful. And if you’re sitting on Biscayne wondering why your life doesn’t look like a music video, brother, you’re driving the wrong road. Now we’re changing color. Chloe Love. You know the name, you know the voice, and this one has burned through every request line in the building. Wave One-Oh-Five, Miami. This is Synthetic.”

Chris’s right hand closed around the gear lever.

René saw the movement. “Chris.”

Chris downshifted.

Then he floored it.

The Testarossa stopped being transportation.

It became an event.

René’s shoulders pressed hard into the leather as the flat-twelve climbed, the note behind them hardening from machinery into something animal. Chris held the gear until the engine was properly alive, shifted cleanly, and the acceleration came again.

René grabbed the edge of the seat. “Jesus Christ, Chris.”

Chris kept his attention on the road. “René, please. Language.”

René stared at him.

Chris grinned.

Chloe Love exploded into the first verse as the city began breaking apart around them. Video stores, arcades, liquor stores and burger joints became blocks of color between palms and telephone poles. A woman standing inside a blue phone booth turned at the sound of the Ferrari and watched it pass with the receiver still pressed against her ear. Two boys on BMX bikes stopped beside a convenience store, one pointing as the red machine tore past.

Chris braked.

Hard.

René’s body loaded against the belt, but before he could object Chris was already turning. The Ferrari took a set, front tires biting, rear following cleanly. Chris held a breath of throttle through the curve before feeding power back into the twelve cylinders as he opened the steering.

The movement was perfect.

René stopped speaking.

Chloe sang about voltage under skin while Chris approached the next bend faster.

He braked later.

René’s right foot pressed instinctively against an imaginary pedal.

The Testarossa turned.

This time the rear moved.

Barely.

A twitch.

Chris corrected almost before René perceived it, straightened the car and accelerated away.

René looked at him. “What the hell was that?”

Chris kept his eyes forward. “Rear moved earlier than I expected.”

“Yes, because you entered too fast.”

“No, I didn’t.”

René’s accent thickened. “Do not do it again.”

Chris did it again.

The next corner came with more deliberate weight transfer. The rear stepped farther this time and Chris caught it in one smooth movement, hands quiet, throttle balanced, the Ferrari returning to line without drama.

Chris nodded to himself. “Better.”

René stared at him. “Are you insane?”

“Not medically.”

“I am serious.”

“So am I.”

Something in the answer changed René’s anger.

He watched Chris more carefully.

The young man was not joyriding.

He was collecting information.

Each aggressive input answered a question. Brake feel. Turn-in. Steering weight. Clutch bite. Throttle response. Rear grip. Recovery. Gear spacing. He was building a map of the Testarossa one force at a time.

The chorus arrived.

Miami obeyed.

A strip mall detonated beside them in eighties color: pink bakery, blue laundromat, violet arcade, red video store, white-painted diner, yellow taxis beneath black palms. Neon tubing was beginning to wake in the windows as the sun dropped lower, weak against daylight at first, then growing stronger by the minute.

The Ferrari cut through it like a red razor.

Chris’s sweatshirt reflected faintly in the side glass. His dark sunglasses held the road in miniature. The gated snare punched through the speakers while the flat-twelve provided its own bassline underneath.

René hated how beautiful it was.

Then Chris overtook a Corvette and René remembered he was supposed to be terrified.

René gripped the door pull. “Slow down, Chris.”

Chris kept his gaze on the road. “We’re fine.”

“We are doing ninety.”

Chris’s grin appeared again. “Then why’d they put a hundred and eighty on the speedometer?”

“Decoration.”

Chris laughed.

René had begun sweating.

Chris had not.

The city thinned around them as Synthetic drove into its second verse. Warehouses replaced boutiques. Service stations stood farther apart. Motels appeared between empty lots, their signs waiting for darkness. Telephone lines marched beside the road in black parallel strokes.

Chris found another open stretch.

René saw the change in him before the accelerator moved. The shoulders settled. Mirrors checked. Right hand dropped to the lever.

René pointed at him. “No.”

Chris downshifted.

“Chris, I mean it.”

The synth-and-sax break arrived.

The Ferrari went.

René had raced once. Not professionally; he would never insult professionals by pretending otherwise. Club events in France, a little circuit time, enough to understand braking points and weight transfer, enough to recognize the difference between speed and stupidity.

That knowledge made this worse.

Chris was good.

Not enthusiastic.

Not brave.

Good.

The Testarossa devoured the straight while Chris looked far beyond the piece of asphalt directly in front of the bonnet. His eyes were already where the Ferrari would be several seconds later.

Real drivers looked there.

René knew that.

The song’s bridge began.

A roadside diner flashed past, stainless steel and cyan tubing beneath a rotating ice-cream cone.

Tomorrow.

René looked around the cabin.

That was exactly what he had brought to Miami.

Tomorrow had black leather and twelve cylinders behind your spine. Tomorrow had side strakes, pop-up headlights and a body so wide it seemed to require diplomatic relations with parking garages.

The world had not seen it yet.

Chris Maddox was hammering tomorrow down a Florida highway.

Chris braked.

René’s heart obeyed.

The music counted.

Three.

Chris downshifted.

Two.

He turned.

One.

René saw the grin.

“Chris, don’t you fucking dare.”

Come on!

Chris buried the throttle.

The Testarossa fired itself out of the bend, twelve cylinders climbing into the final chorus while René shouted something in French that had not been heard in polite society since the occupation.

DJ Daz was laughing when Chloe Love finally faded. “Chloe Love! Synthetic! If that doesn’t put voltage through you, check your pulse, Miami. Four forty-three, sun going down, heat still hanging around, and I’ve got one more before I tell you which parts of this city aren’t moving.”

René breathed slowly through his nose.

Chris glanced across at him. “You okay?”

“No, Chris. I am not okay.”

Chris eased the Ferrari into a long cruise. “Want me to stop?”

“Yes,” René replied immediately.

Chris looked toward him. “You sure?”

René opened his mouth.

Then stopped.

Ahead, the road stretched beyond the last heavy belt of development. Low buildings sat farther apart. Palms and scrub replaced glass and concrete. Above them, the sky was beginning its evening transformation, blue deepening overhead while the western horizon burned orange, magenta and violet.

The Ferrari hummed beneath them.

René looked at the instruments.

Temperatures good.

Oil pressure good.

Everything exactly where it should be.

Despite everything Maddox had done, René had not heard one missed shift. He had not felt one panicked correction, one ugly steering input or one genuinely uncontrolled moment.

Chris had pushed René’s irreplaceable Ferrari harder in ten minutes than René would have permitted almost anyone to push it in ten years.

But he had not abused it.

He had listened to it.

René understood that because it was what he himself did with machinery.

Maddox simply spoke the language more fluently.

René released the breath he had been holding. “No.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “No what?”

“Do not stop.”

Chris’s smile returned. “Thought so.”

Daz swept back through the radio. “Okay, Miami, you asked for it all afternoon and the phone lines are melting. So if you’ve got the windows down, turn it up. If you’ve got the top down, God help your upholstery. Power Ballad. America Power. Wave One-Oh-Five.”

A drum roll began.

Guitars rose behind it.

René looked at the road.

Then at Chris.

Chris reached up and pushed the hood from his head. Thick dark-brown hair sprang free, tousled and flattened in places, the fringe falling across his forehead above the sunglasses. He removed the gum from his mouth, folded it neatly into its wrapper and returned it to his pocket.

Both hands settled into position.

René noticed something else now. Something beneath the loose red sweatshirt when Chris shifted against the seat. Weight under each arm. The shape of shoulder leather. René had spent too many years selling automobiles to dangerous men not to recognize a concealed weapon.

Two of them.

He decided not to ask.

Chris looked across. “René, you might want to hold on.”

René tightened his belt. “Fuck you, Chris.”

Chris laughed.

The speakers shouted Whoa-oh-oh!

Chris downshifted.

Yeah!

The Ferrari detonated.

There were moments in René Bellafonte’s life he remembered as photographs. His father’s garage outside Lyon. His first Ferrari. His first million dollars. The first time he had seen Miami at night from an aircraft window and decided, before the wheels had touched American concrete, that this ridiculous glowing city would make him rich.

The next four minutes would never become photographs.

They moved too fast.

The Testarossa tore along the open road beneath a sky painted in radioactive bands of violet, orange and electric pink. Power lines rose and fell beside them. Palms became black strokes against the sunset. Gas stations appeared as islands of fluorescent white and vanished behind them before René could read their signs.

The speedometer climbed.

René stopped looking at it.

That helped.

Then he looked again.

That did not.

René tightened his grip on the door and shouted over the engine and music, “Chris, slow the fuck down.”

Chris tilted his head slightly. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Chris pointed toward the radio. “Can’t hear you.”

René knew perfectly well he could.

René watched Chris’s hands remain exactly where they belonged. At least the bastard had not taken the lyric literally.

The Testarossa thundered with it.

Now René understood the body.

At showroom speed the side strakes were sculpture. At this speed they were intent. The Ferrari settled into the road as velocity increased, steering alive in Chris’s hands. Tiny corrections. Millimeters. Nothing theatrical.

The road bent ahead.

René knew where he would brake.

Chris passed it.

René’s stomach tightened. “Too late.”

Chris braked.

René watched the corner approach. “Too late, Chris.”

The gear lever moved.

The engine barked.

Chris turned.

The Ferrari went exactly where he asked.

René’s mouth opened, but nothing emerged.

Chris glanced toward him for a fraction of a second. “Not too late.”

René wanted to punch him.

Instead, to his own astonishment, he laughed.

Just once. A shocked bark of exhilaration.

Chris heard it.

The grin widened. “Now you’re getting it.”

René pointed ahead. “Drive the fucking car.”

“Yes, sir.”

They tore onward.

Florida became neon Americana in fast-forward.

A roadside motel burned hot pink beneath a sign promising COLOR TV, AIR CONDITIONED. A blue telephone booth stood outside a gas station, the man inside turning as the Ferrari passed. A family at a burger stand looked up together, five faces rotating in perfect synchronization.

A video rental store occupied the end of a tired strip mall, its windows glowing violet beneath VHS, BETA, LASERDISC.

Beside it, an arcade burned electric blue.

PAC-MAN.

GALAGA.

DONKEY KONG.

Rows of cabinets flickered behind the glass like tiny windows into other worlds.

The Testarossa crossed their reflections so quickly the colors fused across the red bodywork.

Pink.

Purple.

Blue.

Then they were gone.

Power Ballad charged into the second verse while Chris worked the Ferrari through the gears, and René stopped thinking of the engine and music as separate sounds. The live drums hammered beneath the flat-twelve. Bright guitars rode above the mechanical howl. Warm analog synthesizers seemed to stretch all the way to the violet horizon.

René listened to the car beneath all of it.

Gear teeth.

Induction.

Tires.

Wind pressure around the mirrors.

The Ferrari was not fighting Chris.

That was the revelation.

A Testarossa sitting beneath six white showroom lights was incomplete. Pininfarina had drawn the shape, Ferrari had built the machinery, René had brought it across an ocean, but none of those things explained it.

This did.

Velocity explained it.

Chris understood that instinctively.

The road tightened. Chris lifted rather than braked, transferring weight forward before turning cleanly into the curve. The Ferrari carved through, settled, and accelerated away.

René watched his hands.

No sawing at the wheel.

No crossed arms.

No panic.

Everything measured.

Everything deliberate.

Everything precise.

That disturbed René more than recklessness would have.

A reckless twenty-something in a red sweatshirt was easy to understand. Miami manufactured them by the thousand.

Chris Maddox was something else.

He drove with the confidence of a man who understood exactly what happened when things went wrong and had decided to work the equation anyway.

The song reached its bridge. The massive drums dropped away, leaving a soft synthesizer swelling beneath the vocal.

Chris eased off.

For the first time in several minutes, the Ferrari breathed.

René realized his fingers hurt. He loosened them from the door pull and saw the temporary marks they had pressed into the leather.

The horizon ahead had become pure magenta beneath a deepening purple sky.

Chris flexed his fingers once against the steering wheel. “You raced.”

René looked at him. It had not been phrased as a question. “A little.”

“Where?”

“France. Club racing. Nothing serious.”

Chris nodded. “Explains it.”

René frowned. “Explains what?”

“You stopped yelling.”

“I realized you were not going to listen.”

Chris smiled. “That too.”

René studied him. “You know exactly what you are doing.”

Something changed behind the sunglasses. The grin remained, but it receded enough for René to glimpse what lived underneath it.

Calculation.

Chris answered quietly, “Usually.”

“Who taught you to drive like this?”

Chris looked back toward the road. “People.”

René waited.

Nothing more came.

He understood the boundary and left it alone.

The guitar solo arrived, huge and triumphant, climbing above the road as Chris checked the mirrors and began slowing.

René frowned. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You are slowing down.”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

Chris indicated, crossed into a broad opening, stopped and rotated the Ferrari smoothly through a U-turn.

Miami lay behind them.

The city itself was still distant, but its glow had begun to stain the horizon, pink above the buildings, blue below, purple where the colors met.

Chris accelerated back toward it.

René looked at his Cartier.

Four forty-seven.

A smile pulled unexpectedly at the edge of his mouth. “Fifteen minutes.”

Chris glanced across. “Told you.”

“You have not returned it yet.”

“Details.”

Miami came toward them.

The return felt different.

Chris still drove fast, but the interrogation was over. He no longer tested the brakes or deliberately shifted the Ferrari’s balance. He had learned the Testarossa.

Now he simply drove it.

René sat beside him and watched the city rebuild itself around them.

First came the isolated service stations. Then motels, warehouses, fast-food restaurants and used-car lots strung with triangular plastic flags. Traffic thickened. Telephone booths reappeared at intersections. A drive-in bank glowed beneath fluorescent strips, pneumatic tubes hanging beside each lane like something from a future that had already arrived.

Then came the neon.

Blue first.

A motel sign.

Purple around the entrance to an arcade.

Pink script above a cocktail lounge.

Red tubing framing a video-store window.

Miami was turning itself on for the night one transformer at a time.

The last of the sunset slipped behind the buildings, leaving violet above the palms. The Testarossa’s red bonnet caught each color and threw it away again. Blue became purple. Purple became pink. Pink became red.

Power Ballad filled the cabin with the final triumphant chorus.

Chris stopped at a traffic light.

René stared at him.

Chris noticed. “What?”

“You stopped.”

Chris looked at the signal. “It’s red.”

“You have discovered traffic laws.”

“I’ve always known about them.”

“Interesting.”

A white convertible pulled alongside them with four young women inside. One looked at the Testarossa, then Chris, then back at the Ferrari.

She smiled.

Chris smiled back.

René shook his head. “You are an idiot.”

Chris’s attention returned to the light. “Been called worse.”

“I believe this.”

Green.

Chris pulled away normally.

The convertible disappeared behind them.

Power Ballad’s guitars sustained while a crowd began chanting through the radio, and the Testarossa turned onto René’s boulevard. Its reflection traveled beside them through the darkened windows of closed stores, a red streak passing through rectangles of violet and blue.

They passed GALAXY again.

The diner.

The video store.

The blue telephone booth.

Everything they had passed fifteen minutes earlier.

Same road.

Same city.

Same Ferrari.

Yet René could not look at the car in quite the same way.

DJ Daz returned over the fading chant. “Power Ballad, America Power! That is how you get home on a Thursday, Miami. Wave One-Oh-Five, four forty-nine, and if you’re still sitting on the Dolphin, don’t blame me. I gave you the soundtrack.”

Chris turned the radio down.

The Testarossa entered Bellafonte International Motorcars.

Slowly.

Almost respectfully.

René looked at his watch.

Four fifty.

Exactly.

Chris guided the Ferrari through the open entrance and returned it precisely to the place beneath the six white spotlights where it had begun.

Handbrake.

Neutral.

Then he waited.

René watched him listening to the idle, just as he had at the beginning. Temperatures settling. Engine breathing. The final mechanical pulse of the machine after what he had asked from it.

Chris turned the key.

The flat-twelve stopped.

Silence filled the cabin.

Not ordinary silence. The enormous silence that followed something very loud.

René could hear the showroom air-conditioning beyond the glass. A telephone ringing in his office. His own breathing.

Chris opened his door. “That’s a hell of a car.”

René remained seated for another second before following him out. “That is considerably more complimentary than ’nice car,’ which is fortunate, because if you had called it merely nice after what you just did, I might have killed you.”

Chris grinned. “Thought about saying ’not bad.’”

René pointed the Ferrari key at him. “Do not push your luck.”

Lenny stood near the Porsche with the plastic surgeon and his wife. All three were staring at them. The receptionist had stopped with a telephone receiver halfway to her ear.

Apparently the Testarossa’s return had announced itself several streets away.

Chris tossed the key across.

René caught it.

He examined Chris for several seconds. The faded red sweatshirt. The dark glasses. Tousled hair. Calm breathing. The faint grin.

René’s own shirt was stuck to his back.

“Chris,” René said finally, “you are completely insane.”

Chris pushed his sunglasses higher. “Maybe.”

“There is no maybe. I have driven with racing drivers who frightened me less than you.”

“Yeah, but did they have better music?”

René almost smiled. “I despise you.”

“You’ll get over it.”

Chris turned back toward the Testarossa.

He walked around it exactly as he had before the drive, but now René understood what he was seeing.

Chris was not looking at styling.

He was reviewing data.

He stopped beside the rear quarter. “Brakes are better than I expected.”

René folded his arms. “Yes.”

“Rear gets light if you come off hard while it’s loaded.”

“Yes.”

“Second’s annoying cold.”

“I told you this.”

Chris looked across at him. “Gets better.”

“Yes.”

“Steering’s great.”

René nodded. “Yes.”

Chris stared at the Testarossa for several more seconds.

René had spent his adult life selling desire. He knew the moment before a buyer asked the price. The glance toward a wife. The clearing of a throat. The performance of indifference. The question about finance or delivery or whether perhaps there was some movement in the figure.

Chris did none of those things.

He looked along the Ferrari’s red flank, across the strakes and broad rear shoulder, and asked, “Do they do it in black?”

René blinked. “Black?”

Chris nodded. “Yeah.”

“You wish to order one in black?”

Chris looked at him over the top of his sunglasses. “Can you get it?”

René Bellafonte had built his career on never allowing the word cannot into his showroom. Whatever had been required to get the red car to Miami could be done again. Money, favors, freight, lies. Everything had a route if you knew the right people.

René straightened the front of his linen jacket. “Yes, Chris. I can get it.”

Chris nodded once and walked toward the desk.

Only then did René remember the briefcase.

It had remained exactly where Chris had left it.

Untouched.

Forgotten.

Chris picked it up and set it on René’s desk, then snapped both catches. The lid opened.

Two hundred thousand dollars.

Bundled hundred-dollar bills filled the case from hinge to lock, packed into tight, immaculate rows. René stared at the money. He didn’t need to count it. There was enough sitting in front of him to buy two of Maranello’s newest machines and still leave plenty to make the impossible happen quickly.

René Bellafonte had seen a great deal of cash in his life. Enough to recognize large numbers without counting them.

He looked into the briefcase.

Then at Chris.

Then back at the money.

Understanding arrived all at once.

For fifteen minutes René had believed he was allowing a prospective buyer to test his Testarossa.

He had been wrong.

The red Ferrari had never been the purchase.

It had been the audition.

Chris Maddox had not spent fifteen minutes deciding whether he could afford a Testarossa.

He had spent fifteen minutes deciding whether the Testarossa was good enough.

Chris looked once more toward the red Testarossa beneath the spotlights. A slow smile spread across his face. “Great, get me two. In black.”