“That ain’t no game dog,” said Potter. “Coon ain’t no dog man, neither.”

White had Trooper, brown with a white mask and golden-pink eyes, on a short leash attached to a heavy-ringed, wide leather collar. Trooper’s ears were game-cropped at the skull. White, of average size and dressed similarly to his friends, moved toward the car, opened the back door, and let the dog in before getting inside himself.

“S’up, fellas,” said White.

“Coon,” said Little, looking over the bench at his friend. Others thought White’s street name had something to do with his color, dark as he was. But Little knew where the name had come from. He’d been knowing Coon since they were both kids in the Section Eights, back in the early nineties, when White used to wear a coonskin hat, trying to look like that fool rapper from Digital Underground, that group that was popular then. There was the other thing, too: White had a nose on him, big and long like some cartoon animal. And he walked kind of pitched forward, with his bony fingers spread kind of like claws, the way a critter in the woods would do.

“Gimme some of that hydro, Dirty.”

Dirty was Little’s street name, so given because of his fondness for discussing women’s privates. Men’s, too. Also, he loved to eat all that greasy fast food. Little passed the blunt back to White. White hit it deep.

“Your champion ready?” said Potter.

“What?” said White.

It was hard to hear in the car. Potter had the music, the new DMX joint on PGC, turned up loud.

“I said, is that dumb animal gonna win us some money today?” said Potter, raising his voice.

White didn’t answer right away. He held the smoke down in his lungs and let it out slow.

“He gonna win us mad money, D,” said White. He reached over and massaged the dense muscles bunched around Trooper’s jaw. Trooper’s mouth opened in pleasure and his eyes shifted over to his master’s. “Right, boy?”