He’d made one mistake, though. He’d once acted out of a powerful impulse, rather than calculation.

He’d been cruising down Sunset, stopped at a light, middle of the day, minding his own business. Okay, a little whacked on Skywalker OG. Then this blond chick, probably an actress, pulls up behind him in a BMW convertible, top down, sunglasses, red lipstick, white blouse, the whole bit. The light turned green and swear to God, she honked her horn like one split second after the light changed. He was a little doggy off the line, so what’d she do next? Dropped the hammer on the bimmer and, BOOM!, she was around him like he was a tourist and gone.

Pissed him off so badly that he had to hold on to the steering wheel with both hands to keep himself from shaking to pieces.

Took it as a sign.

The next sacrifice would be a woman.

A blonde. Most definitely an actress. They picked her up outside a yoga center on Melrose, hauled her up into the hills. They had a lot of fun with her before she died, begging them not to hurt her anymore.

But then . . . then the shit had hit the fan. They’d been lucky to get out of that one clean.

•   •   •

HE WOKE UP when Kristen said, “Look at this.”

They were dropping headlong into a deep, broad river valley, with a small town on the far side. “The Mississippi River,” Pilate said, in his most solemn voice. “The zipper on the United States of America.”

They went on a bit, and a sign said: “Missouri River.” Kristen glanced at him, but didn’t correct him. He said, “I meant, Missouri,” but still, it ruined it for him.

They stopped on the other side of the Missouri for a root beer and a cheeseburger, then pushed on into the evening, across the Minnesota line, camped out overnight at the Walmart Supercenter in Worthington.

From Worthington they went north on Highway 60 and then 71, running up a very long state, and pulled into Bemidji at two o’clock on a fine, sunny afternoon, ate more cheeseburgers and got some pork chops and beer and potato chips and headed north again, still on 71, to the intersection of 72, and then north all the way to Highway 11, where they ran out of state.

“That’s Canada, right there,” Kristen said, pointing out the window.

“Never been there,” Pilate said. “The USA is good enough for me.”

They took Highway 11 into Baudette, stocked up on food and beer, then turned around on Highway 11 and ran back east a few miles on the two-lane, following behind Chet on land that was as flat as a tabletop, but dark: dark trees, dark fields, past marshes, shallow lakes, small farms. Fifteen minutes out of town, Chet swerved off on a dirt track past a rusty mailbox that led through a narrow crack in the roadside tree line. Two hundred yards back, they came to a dirty white house surrounded by a dirt patch on which two dirty old Chevy pickups were parked.

Chet got out of the car and an old man came to the front door of the house, pushed the screen door open, and stepped out. He had a mustache over a three-day beard, watery blue eyes behind plastic-rimmed glasses. He was wearing overalls and rubber boots, and carrying a pump shotgun, a 12-gauge. He asked Chet, “Where’n the hell you been? And what do you want?”

“Been in Los Angeles, Pap. Worked on some movies.”

The old man looked at the other cars in the caravan and said, “Must not of made any money on them. What do you want, anyway?”

“We was hoping to use the campground for a couple of days, rest up,” Chet said. “We’ve been on the road for a while.”

“Well . . . Go on ahead.” The old man waved at a farther track that led away from the house into the trees. “Makes no nevermind to me.”

“Thanks, Pap. Can we use the water hose when we need to?”

“Yeah, I guess. Be sure you turn it off. And don’t bother me no more. And stay off the bridge.”

Chet walked out to where everybody could see him and yelled, “Follow behind. Road’s kinda rough.”

They all followed him down through the trees to a small lake, and a puddle of cracked blacktop at lakeside, where they parked, and piled out of the cars. A single phone pole stuck out of one side of the parking lot; a single strand of wire threaded through the trees, and ended at a box on the phone pole, with four outlets. At the other side of the parking lot was an outhouse, a two-holer, the first the Californians had ever seen.

The overhead line continued to the corner of the lake, jumped over a fifteen-foot-wide creek, and disappeared into the trees on the other side. A narrow wooden bridge crossed the creek under the wire.

•   •   •

“NOT GREAT, but I can live with it,” Pilate said.

They partied for the next three days. Couldn’t afford any more cocaine, but they still had the weed, and all the beer they could drink. They had more women than the men could keep up with, but the women, even if not all of them were entirely happy about it, would go both ways.

They also had to deal with the question of whether Minnesotans were actually aliens. Terry brought it up: “You know what? Everybody I seen around here has big heads. You seen that?”

They did, on their runs into town for food and beer: Minnesotans all had big heads. When they spotted a guy with a cowboy hat and a small head, they asked him if he was from Minnesota, and he told them no, he was from Montana.

“Food for thought, that’s what it is,” Pilate said.

On the morning of the second day, a white van bumped past them, crossed the bridge, and fifteen minutes later, bumped back out.

“What’s over there?” Pilate asked.

“Another campground,” Chet said. “Pap doesn’t want us disturbing the customers.”

“I can’t fuckin’ believe he has customers,” Pilate said.

Later that day, when he hadn’t seen anybody around, Pilate walked across the bridge and found another campground, with another phone pole with outlets, and three single-wide trailers up on blocks. The trailers were locked, and nothing was stirring around them. A garbage can sat near the entrance road, half full of trash, mostly food wrappers.

•   •   •

THEY WEREN’T LONG for Minnesota.

The first of three Juggalo Gatherings was coming up, in Wisconsin, and Pilate didn’t want to miss it. When they picked up the cocaine in Wisconsin, they could cut it by half, and still push it out to the Juggalos for twice as much as they paid for the uncut stuff. After three days, they left the campsite, never said good-bye to Pap, heading first for Duluth, then over to Wisconsin.

In Duluth, they rambled around town for a while, rodeoed at a McDonald’s for cheeseburgers, fries, and malts, then stumbled over a busy mall. Pilate ordered Ellen and Kristen and Linda to set up shop, and though they were doubtful, they found a spot where cross-street foot traffic might give them a chance.

Pilate, in the meantime, went inside the mall with Raleigh, to look around. They were still there when Bell went by at a jog, spotted them, turned around and came back and said breathlessly, “You know who’s here?”

“Who?” Pilate asked.

“That traveler chick who was with Henry. She’s out in the parking lot.”

“Shit. She could cause us some trouble,” Pilate said. “She’s probably looking for him. Or us.”

“Yeah, after that crazy fuckin’ Kristen told her that we cut his heart out,” said Raleigh. “She’s probably got the cops right behind her.”

Pilate said to Raleigh, “She doesn’t know your car, far as we know.”

“So?”

“So we sneak up on her, throw a bag on her head, and toss her in the car.”

“Man, she’s out in the parking lot,” said Bell. “There are eight million people out there.”

“No, there isn’t. Not really.” Pilate stood up, turned to Raleigh. “Let’s get your car.” To Bell he said, “Go tell Kristen to close up shop and get out of here. We’ll meet them over in Wisconsin. Tell them wait on the highway.”