The thug sitting next to Billy Constable stood, banged his head on the van’s roof, cursed, and then bent over so he wouldn’t bang his head again and slid the van door open.

Outside the air was full of gnats. Billy thought he heard crickets or something. And there was that rotten smell. Also Billy was sure there were snakes. He hated snakes.

“Mr. Sanseli, sir.”

“Yeah. What?”

“How am I supposed to get home?”

Giuseppe “The Chop” Sanseli did something he rarely did. He laughed out loud. “Be glad you’re still alive, country boy.”

The van’s door slid shut with a bang.

Retta Mae Wagons and Imam Rasheed Jamal flew to New York City on the imam’s very own black and silver G4 luxury airliner. Retta Mae Wagons spent most of the trip from Miami Beach to New York City under the imam. The imam thought he was a stud. None of the sex was even close to being good.

Retta Mae Wagons loathed the trip from beginning to end. She thought about things, something she seemed to be doing more and more lately. And she had plenty of time to do it. It was close to two hours from Miami to New York. Retta Mae thought about how sad her life had become. She thought about all the times she put herself to sleep at night thinking of ways to escape Rasheed’s clutches. But even if she did escape him, then what? She had gone over that possibility so many times she was tired of thinking about it.

As long as she was tethered to the damn imam, Retta Mae didn’t care if she won or lost on The Big Question. The one hundred million dollars meant nothing to her. Life meant nothing to her. If Retta Mae got on that program she wouldn’t care if she did well or badly. Who cared about living or dying? Who or what would she miss? With the exception, maybe, of Dannyboy Marley, she didn’t like anyone and didn’t know of anyone, other than maybe Dannyboy, who liked her. She never should have left Dannyboy Marley and the apartment he set up for her at Madison Avenue and Ninety-first Street.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Retta Mae daydreamed she was back in her apartment on Madison Avenue and Ninety-first Street. She missed the laughs she and Dannyboy had together. Laughs that left them with aching sides and gasping for breath. Retta Mae couldn’t remember the last time she ached from laughing. And the gang at Jackson Hole where she had her late breakfast and sometimes her lunch and dinner. Palamone and Bobby and Tony behind the counter, Tommy the owner and his son, Little Steve. And Big Steve, and the young kid, Georgie, who painted during his off-hours. He had given her a painting. She had hung it on a wall in her apartment. All nice people. All her friends.

Now she didn’t have any friends.