Miriam watches him. He thinks about it. He's probably thinking, I can take her, or I'll lie, I can always lie. But then all the gears and pylons and tumblers fall into place, and he makes his decision.

With nimble fingers, he works at the combination lock on the metal case.

The lock releases with a pop.

He opens the lid, and Miriam sighs.

Inside the suitcase are little baggies, each piled atop the next, each no bigger than a coin-purse or a snack bag. But these baggies don't hold Oreos or spare change. In each is a baby's fist of little crystals, like broken quartz or shattered rock candy.

Miriam knows what it is. She hasn't tried it, but she's seen it.

"Meth," she says. "Crystal meth."

Numbly, Ashley nods.

"Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me how this giant fucking suitcase of drugs made its way into your hands."

He sucks in a hard breath through his nose. "Okay. You want to waste time? You want to get us killed? Fine."

INTERLUDE

Ashley's Story

Jimmy DiPippo was my weed dealer in high school. He was a rich kid anyway, but the weed only made him richer. He had a used BMW, a nice watch, a couple gold rings. He was a nice guy, Jimmy, but rich or not he was dumb as a bag of retards, and smoking all that weed didn't help. Well, last year I was… passing through my hometown… and I heard through the grapevine that Jimmy was still around, that he was still a dealer and still about as sharp as a tree stump.

Naturally, I figured we'd catch up, and I'd dick him out of some money.

I track him down at this party. Some girl's house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the middle of the suburbs of Scranton, which is about as awesome as it sounds. House party full of teenage assholes, for the most part – beer bongs and regular bongs and some kid with a super-bong made out of a World War Two gas mask, and bad techno music and dudes in sweetsmelling frat cologne. Just some shithole party, whatever, no big deal.

I find Jimmy out on the patio, smoking up this cute little hottie and her lunkhead fat-ass linebacker boyfriend, trying to sell them some weed, and I say hey, and he seems surprised to see me, too surprised, nervous surprised. But I don't think much of it, because Jimmy's always been itchy-twitchy. Sweaty, too – kid looked like a drowned rat in high school, and he wasn't much different now. Sweat was soaking through the band on his longbrim cap, the hat pulled cockeyed like he was some kind of hip-hop suburban hero, and I figured if you reached down the waist of his pants – which hung around the crack of his ass, thankfully covered up by his tighty-whities – you'd find his balls were floating in a swamp, too.

I let him finish his deal, then we stay outside and head to the patio furniture by the pool to play catch-up. He tells me he's still dealing, he's doing well for himself, and I tell him I'm a Wall Street broker in the big city, and I don't know why he believes me. I'm convincing, I guess. I was always convincing. Plus, him, dumb, you know the drill.