Fine, whatever, Miriam thinks. Guy gets old, gets sick, kills himself. She won't be sad. He makes it to old age, good for him. Most do. That's what she realizes. Most people make it into their sixties and die of some "old person" disease – cancer, stroke, heart attack, cancer, stroke, heart attack, on and on, forever and ever. Throw in a little diabetes. A dash of pneumonia.

Most people don't die young, at least not here in America. Tragedy is unavoidable, but in this country, it doesn't usually come in the way one dies but rather in the way one lives. Failed marriages, fucked-up children, abuse of self, abuse of wife, abuse of dog, loneliness, depression, loathing, yawn, whatever. Congratulations, she thinks, most of you douchebags and assholes are going to live your shitty lives well into your golden years.

Of course, this makes her job more difficult.

Ashley wants her to find a mark. A mark who will die soon, someone they can take for all he's worth. More important, he wants a place to squat. As it turns out, the house up in the middle of nowhere wasn't his; he just ganked the keys from some guy taking an airplane trip overseas. Took the house, settled in residence, hid all the framed photos. Instant bachelor pad.

He figures, if they can find someone who's going to die, who has money, and who has some crash-space for them while they're in town, perfect. He looked at her date book. It didn't have anything in it coming up soon enough for his impatient tastes. Ashley is hungry for more than just food.

So, he said, go somewhere with a lot of people.

Miriam offered: "A dance club." You get lots of people, most of them younger, a lot of them with risky behaviors. Cokesnorters, baseheads, unprotected sex monkeys, drunk drivers, the whole gamut. Ashley said no. Bus station. Let's hit a bus station.

Except, Miriam explained, that's not the best place, because at least half the people aren't coming, they're going. Which means, were she to find someone who was going to bite it soon, she and Ashley wouldn't be on-scene for the event, not unless they wanted to hop a bus to Des Moines. And nobody wants to go to Des Moines.

No, Ashley said. Ashley thought he knew the score. Thought he was so damn smart. She'd been doing this for eight years now, but he's going to tell her a thing or two? Straighten her out, help her to "up her game?"

Fine. Bus station, she conceded. Whatever.

And here they are.

Across the way, he looks impatient. Foot tapping. Head lolling back. Mouth open, catching flies, like this is torture for him. What an asshole, she thinks. Torture. For him.

Hilarious.

By now, she's tired and pissed. She steps off the curb to cross in front of a bus and –

He's on his cycle, a road bike with tires so thin they look like they were squirted out of a pipette, and he's got all his tight Lycra cyclist gear on like he's being sponsored by Goodyear or Kellogg's or some shit, and the tire hits a stone and he skids, flips, and then there's a screeching of brakes and a bumper crashing into him, shattering his hip, and his body (like a marionette whose strings were cut) slides up onto the hood and his helmeted head cracks the windshield and then everything's blurry and black and brain bleeding and