As they round the last switchback, Guy punches the brakes. Everybody lurches forward—Atlanta has to brace herself so she doesn’t smack her head on the dash. Guy whips the car into the middle of a three-point turn.

“Hell with this,” he says. “This is a bad idea. I’m not doin’ it.”

“Wait!” she yells. “Wait.” The car stops in the middle of the road, pointed perpendicular. “I’ll leave the gun in the car. I’ll hide it in the backseat. Happy?”

Guy is silent for a moment. Then: “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” He reverses again, points the car once more in the direction. “Turnoff is up ahead.”

The drive to the Farm takes them down a bouncy track of limestone gravel, the Scion ill-made to handle the dips and bumps. Atlanta’s teeth rattle as they pass a tall-grass meadow to the left and, on the right, a boggy tract of trees—sunlight caught in the surface of murky pools.

Soon they start to see the No Trespassing signs. All hand-painted on boards that are nailed to the trees. “TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. BEWARE OF DOG. TURN BACK. FUCK OFF.”

They pass a guy in a backward John Deere hat pissing against a weeping willow.

That’s when they get to the fence. Chain-link. Topped with coils of razor wire. The gate’s locked by a loop of heavy-gauge chain with a padlock that’s so big you could beat a horse to death with it.

The car sits there, idling. “What do we do now?” Atlanta asks.

They don’t need to wait long for an answer. The willow-pisser comes back from his bathroom break. He heads around the front of the car, comes up on Guy’s side, and raps on the window with the back of his knuckles.

Guy buzzes the window down. “’Sup?”

The guy peers in the window. Midforties, maybe. Pitted cheeks like he once had real bad acne. His left eye is tight behind puckered, puffy skin—scar tissue not suffered by the other eye. He takes off his tractor cap, runs his fingers through a length of greasy brown hair. “Fuck ya want?”

“Here for the Show,” Guy says.

“Uh-huh.” But Winky doesn’t budge, just keeps staring in the car, both eyes lingering on Atlanta.

Guy reaches gingerly into the console compartment, pulls out a big freezer baggie, which is in turn filled with a bunch of smaller Ziplocs, each one packed with a variety of pills. Little blue ones, little pink ones, capsules the color of chocolate milk. He shakes it. “I’m here to make a deal. Guillermo Lopez.”

“You’re cool,” Winky says. But then he snorts and starts chewing on something. Phlegm, maybe. “But these two? They’re not on the list.”

“That little shithead in the back is my brother—”

“Hey!” Shane protests.

“And her, she’s an associate looking to buy a dog.”

“This ain’t fuckin’ PetSmart, pal.”