We stopped again at the same bus stop, to confirm our direction, and found the same group still there, the same woman. She approached the car rapidly and started jabbering.

"Let's go," I said. "We don't have time."

We were back on the highway, heading back over the river and about twenty minutes from the airport. After suburbs and scenes of abandoned industry, we passed a mile of tiny shanties, stuck together it seemed, all low to the ground, built with scraps of lumber and corrugated steel.

"We still have too much," I said.

We would get rid of everything else here, everything we could find, though we didn't have time to stop and personally hand any of the money to the shanty-dwellers. I pulled my backpack from the backseat and grabbed most the Estonian money inside. I left a few bills, as souvenirs for Mo and Thor.

"How much is it?"

"All of it," I said. "We're leaving."

I crumpled it into a series of small orbs. About $3,000 worth.

"Do it," Hand said.

I heaved it out the window, toward the shacks, as we sped by doing 50 mph. It landed in the shrubbery between the road and the buildings.

I took all of the British pounds from my sock. Every window was open. I crumpled again and threw. The wind was everywhere and the bills swirled into the car and slapped our faces. I threw again.

"This is the -!" Hand yelled something.

"What?" I yelled. My head was out the window, watching the money loop and leap. I threw again. This time the wad undid itself mid-flight, bursting like a pinata, the money swirling in our wake. The truck behind us swerved to avoid it.

I found a stack of Moroccan bills and threw them. And Estonian money – everything. And in a minute it was gone, and it was so small, and at the real Riga airport, we careened past the security guys, again in their orange snowsuits, and slept en route to Denmark.

We had an hour in the Copenhagen airport. There had been no flights over the North Pole and Hand had taken it hard. In the Danish airport, customs: "Is this your first time in Denmark?" "Yes." "Well then I welcome you!" I found a phone and called Mom. As I dialed, a Japanese man walked by with a Hello Kitty bandage on his eyebrow.

"So who got the cash today?" Mom asked.

"An old peasant man."

"Oh good. Peasants are good."

"And we threw some out the window of the car."

"To more peasants?"

"We didn't see the people. We were passing a shantytown near the airport. It was endless. It looked fake almost."

– Mom I'll take you with me. You'll meet me down here and we'll go. We'll keep going south. I have some money left and we'll get rid of it.

"And you threw the money out the window."

"Right. British money, mostly. It was cold."

"That reminds me. Someone left the windows open here."

"What?"

"I came home from the market and the house was almost flying with wind. Everything was moving! This was Dorothy's house, Will. And I thought to myself, Who would have come and left all the windows open? And my brain gave me one person, a certain Will H.-"

"Mom."

– You'll meet me and we'll go.

"Well, I guess we'll leave this one a mystery, won't we?"

– It's so hard to listen to you, Mom. You don't even know. Can't you hear me catching my breath? You haven't even seen me since. Mom, you don't know what they did to me.

– 

– I haven't given you anything of substance ever, my mother. I will give you something. I will take you in this world, the fourth world, whatever the hell it is. You don't know how close I've felt so many times this week. My heart's been shaking and popping, Mom. It's so strange. But I feel good. I've got a good running start now. It'll be so good. I'm going to get you and take you and we'll go fast.

Hand's face appeared next to me, anxious.

"I have to go," I told her.

– We're flying over the ocean. Mom: over the ocean!

I hung up. The airport was full of glorious clean-smelling people. This had to be the richest and most magnificent airport in the world. Hand and I got in the security line.

In front of us a family, or some sort of large group, was saying goodbye to a man of about thirty, they doting and sad and he excruciatingly handsome. First a man, older and balding, hugged him and whispered something. Maybe the uncle. Then a young girl, sixteen, reached up – the handsome man was tall – and hugged him and kissed him. Then a boy, about thirteen, reached up and hugged him and kissed him. There were four women about his age there, too, and they each stepped in and held him tightly, then stepped back again. Then they all did it again, in order, this time with more kissing. Finally, there was his mother, it seemed, who I hadn't seen at first but who now threw her arms around him, kissing his neck and whispering in his ear. It was, the whole scene with all of them, almost lewd – such affection! – but then wasn't lewd at all.

Hand and I had to get on different planes.

"I'm glad we did that," he said.

"It was a good week," I said.

We shook hands and said goodbye.

There was a vacant seat between my seat, 13C, and a grandfather's, by the window, and we both stretched our legs. When we dozed we knew our feet were touching but neither bothered to shift. I forgot my Churchill on the plane and I don't remember being at Heathrow; I was there, wandered around and sat waiting for three hours. I connected and slept sitting upright in my aisle seat and landed in Mexico City in the morning, with a spinning and newly-risen sun.

WEDNESDAY

I needed cash and looked for traveler's checks. None in my backpack, none in my pockets. I checked again. Nothing. I had given too much away. I was an idiot. I had no money. I knew there was nothing in my ATM card for three more days. Jesus.

In one pocket I found 2,000 dirham. I brought it to the Mexican currency exchange desk.

"We don't take second-tier currency," the man said. I could have said something about the peso but said nothing.

I remembered my shoes. I sat down on a bench and took them off. Under one sole was an American hundred-dollar bill. Under the other sole was an envelope, folded twice, with $1,000 in traveler's checks. Deliverance.

But it was soaking wet. My traveler's checks, now in Mexico, were still soaked from the Baltic Sea, from when I'd fallen through the Latvian ice. On the bench's small side-table I laid them out to dry, all ten checks.

As I waited, porters and travelers glanced at me and my setup. I was, it seemed, playing solitaire, or that memory-concentration game, with my money. I smiled weakly.

A group stood watching me. It was a family maybe. There was a young girl, twelve maybe and molded quickly from baby fat, and she had a plan. She approached me, followed by the rest.

"Hello," she said, in English. "How are you?"

I told her I was fine.

"Good," she said. "Can I… can I ask you questions?" She had a notebook at her chest. Behind her were five huge smiles. A father, mother, little brother (also a pudgy one), and maybe an aunt and uncle? They were all watching, a few steps back.

I asked her if this was for school. "Para escuela?" I said.

She smiled and nodded. Her brother, who was now right behind her, nodded, too. He looked like a kid I knew when I was little, a tubby tan boy named Carter.

"Is this your first time to Mexico?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

She checked a box in her notebook.

"What is… your name?"

"My full name?"

She wrote something down. She continued.

"Have you ever had Mexican food?"

"Yes. Many times."

She thought my name was My Full Name. I almost laughed. You could see her outy bellybutton through her too-small shirt, hippos dancing across her stomach.