He searches for Paula’s face but can only bring up the petrified, blood-splattered visage of shock and –could this be right?- anger at having been wronged. That is definitely not her. The driver’s fiancée, the warm-hearted woman he loved more than anyone, was nowhere in the frozen body he came home to this morning, half-sprawled and defiled on the concrete steps of their home. Nor will she be found on the hopeless streets of a gambling mecca.

Neither forward nor back will the driver find his stolen love. This thought leaves him empty, but in a lightheaded, almost-carefree kind of way. The driver’s on the verge of discovering the futility of all activity, since there is nothing he can do to bring back Paula. She was his reality. Without her, nothing feels real; a revelation at once liberating and frightfully soul crushing. The driver decides to inspect the hitchhiker once again, curious to see how his cagey passenger appears in this new light.

He can tell from the way the hitchhiker is fully propped up in his seat, rubbing his hands together like a fatso before a feast, that he has something in store once they reach town. His eyes are glazed over and filled with the electric oasis glittering before them. The hitchhiker is no longer in the pickup but several miles ahead, attending to both the mahogany tables of the glitzy casinos and the shabby felt of the rundown ones.

The driver follows him and thinks of how he might be able take a sizeable chunk of his cash and, giving his legs a good stretch with a quick trip around the casino floor, double it; maybe more. That would be after he loses the hitchhiker, of course. The latter is itching at his legs at the prospect of jumping out of the car and throwing himself into the dancing lights. All the better, the driver figures. Losing him will not be a problem; just open the door and watch him go.