“An your wife?”

Checkmate: the driver’s face goes dead. It was already white between the reflection off the snow caps and the smoky underbelly of the clouds.

“Paula, she’s dead.” He should just say it. Then this bastard can come out and pony up to whatever warped game he’s set out on in the first place. The driver gives pause to ask himself, “weren’t I juss the one tryin ta get something outta him?”

He still isn’t sure what it is he wanted to hear from the hitchhiker, and it occurs to him that maybe the hitchhiker isn’t retaliating at all. He could innocently be asking after his wife, since it was him that mentioned the in-laws. The driver had become so caught up in his own suspicions that he automatically assumed the hitchhiker was doing the same; but an innocently posed question doesn’t bring the type of eager anticipation that has so evidently staked a claim on the hitchhiker’s face.

“No wonder this scumbag has to play Thai-pen footsies, or whatever it’s called. He can hide an expression to save his life.”

If the driver had followed that thought, he might have realized how literal it is. Instead, he reverts to a time-honored form of deception: the snippet of truth.

“She’s back in California.”

“Well I don’t assume you’ll be gone too long. You got no bags!”

The driver decides to take this as the light-hearted quip that the hitchhiker meant it to sound.

“Ah, plenty a things fer me up in Michy-gan. Plenty. A. Things.”