SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE, lying on the bed, and it turns out I’m a little interested after all. Mimi senses this and presses her advantage.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she tells me. “You lie back, and I’ll do all the work.”

This is not as easy as it sounds. I’m still not feeling great, and not sure I can hold up my end. But Mimi takes her time, and before I know it, we’re off to the races, a couple of sweaty horses hitting the finish line together.

More or less.

“Imagine that,” she says, as she rolls off me. “You should be sick more often.”

“You did all the work.”

“Still, you were impressive.”

Mimi sits up and holds out the cardboard badge she took from Nigel. “Fornication in Prague hotel room is against the law,” she says in a terrible accent that sounds like a Russian who has spent too much time in Newfoundland. “You will have to pay fine.”

“It wasn’t fornication. You assaulted me.”

“Fifty American dollars or more sex.”

I do my best impression of being dead. “The fifty dollars.”

Mimi bends down and kisses my stomach. “You don’t have fifty dollars.”

I WAS HUNGRY by the time I got to Truckee. I had about three dollars on me. Maybe some change. A burger joint next to a Standard gas station was advertising an “American Meal”—burger, fries, and a soft drink—for $1.50.

“Seems a little high,” I told the girl at the window.

“Olympics,” she said. “Now we’re a tourist trap.”

I ate the burger sitting at a picnic table and took in the forest and the mountains all around me. I could hear the Truckee River, but I couldn’t see it. At that moment, I thought about getting into the car and driving into the rising sun. Nevada, Utah, Colorado. At that moment, the last place I wanted to be was home.

The last person I wanted to be was me.

I took my time with the french fries. I knew I wouldn’t have another chance to enjoy life like this for a long time. Thomas Blackbird Mavrias and his Plymouth Fury on their way to the stars.

I hit the restroom at the back of the café, washed my hands so that I wouldn’t get any french-fry grease on the car, and slid back under the steering wheel. I wasn’t in any hurry. I thought I’d head down to Lake Tahoe, drive around the Nevada side, maybe stop at one of the casinos, see if I could get in.

There was plenty of time to tour the lake and still get home before my mother got off work. Plenty of time before Dr. Philips and his wife returned from Hawaii.