I felt the rabbit fur on the armrest and looked into the backseat, where Teddy had a small flat-screen television and DVD player. A copy of Goodfellas had been tossed on the backseat along with a sack of ranch-flavored Doritos.

“Why don’t you sell your car?”

“It’s a hell of a ride but ain’t no way close to 700 grand, brother,” he said.

“Your house?” I asked. “That mansion down by the lake with your dollar-sign-shaped pool? What about a loan on that?”

“Ain’t time,” he said. And very low, he said, “And I got three of them mortgage things already.”

“Oh, man.”

“What about J.J.?” I asked, dropping the name of our teammate who had just won two Super Bowls. “He’s got more money than God or George Lucas. You try and call him? He’d float you a favor.”

“J.J. and I ain’t that tight no more.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I owe him $80,000.”

“Jesus.”

“Don’t you go blasphemin’ in this car.”

“Why?” I asked. “You pay to have it baptized?”

We stopped at the corner of Claiborne, where on a mammoth billboard two hands were held together in prayer. Someone had spray-painted the words WHY ME? over the address of the church. Across the wide commercial street, I saw another billboard of Britney Spears. She was selling Pepsi. Britney hadn’t been touched.

“You’re deep in debt and can’t get a loan from anyone else,” I said. “Who is this Cash guy? Just kiss and make up.”

He didn’t even look over at me as he accelerated toward the Calliope housing projects. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crack a joke. See, Cash is a real humane individual.” Teddy licked his lips and wiped his face for the thousandth time. “Heard he once stuck a set of jumper cables in a man’s ass for spillin’ wine on his Italian leather coat. Up his ass, man. That’s fucked up.”