The car came up behind us. It took me a second to figure out what was going on. Diane had a ten-or twenty-yard lead on me—she’s a fast runner, she was a gymnast in high school—and I started running with all this goddamn money bouncing around, but I couldn’t keep up. I was telling her to wait for me, and yelling at her not to run, because it would only make things worse, incriminate us or attract their attention, although she did have a point. The car kept slowing down, because the road was in terrible shape. I was running as fast as possible, Diane’s white pants disappearing in the dark in front of me, the money bouncing around everywhere in my shirt. Lights from the hotel loomed in front of us now, the car bounding into those barrel-size humps and potholes, its headlights leaping across us and up into the trees. I could hear the thumping of the engine—it was an old jeep and it sounded like a washing machine—but the noise came both from right behind me and from far away, echoing through the woods. I was chugging now, gaining on Diane. I could see the hotel guard, asleep in his shack.

We got to the gate and the guard sat up. The car pulled up alongside us, and the two guys looked over at us, and we looked at them. The guard had a shotgun. He went and spoke to the driver. Then they turned around and drove away. I had been happy back there at the blackjack table, beating the slit-eyed dealer, but with the sudden heat and the run down the road, the airplane food and the funny smell of this fertile jungle, I wanted to puke.

We were staying in a bungalow beside the main building, one of a row of cottages in the trees along the beach. Diane went into the bathroom without a word. I was so freaked that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want that cash in there with us, so after she went to sleep I walked around back, behind the cabin, and buried the money in the sand. It was dark.

Then I got into bed. I listened to Diane breathe. I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not, and I’d become afraid of that lately, of not knowing—and of how it didn’t matter. We hadn’t had sex since Thanksgiving. Diane said her ass was too fat. We hadn’t enjoyed each other’s company now in a long time, and before this trip there were nights when we didn’t speak. Earlier that day, standing in line at the airport with all our luggage, she said to me, “I’m fat. I feel ugly.”

I said, “We’re going on a great vacation, so try to have fun.”