Two in the morning on Ninth, shutters down, every shopfront dark except one working streetlight at the far end of the block. Four cars stand nose-out in a row with the decals sanded off, and the man at the left end of them has his hands on his hips like the street belongs to him.

You came to the meet because you want in, and every racer on this side of town has said the same thing: nobody runs with the Ninth Street four unless Rashad Gaskins says so. He has been watching you since you parked. He does not wave you over.

Flat. He looks at you the way he looks at a car he is about to buy — the paint first, then the seams.

He comes off the fender as far as the coupe's door. Close up: a plain black headband holding cropped hair back, grease worked into the knuckles, a dark zip jacket with panels nobody bothered to print on.

Behind him the woman on the second car laughs at something, and the man in the white tank just watches you.

He drops the keys into your palm and folds your fingers around them with his own.