“Pee-wee Herman,” Barbara suggested.

“You about ready to die, honey?”

“De Niro,” Larry said. “He’d be perfect.”

Pete raised an eyebrow and stroked his mustache. “Think so? He’s kind of old.”

“You’re no spring chicken,” Barbara said.

“Hey. Thirty-nine. Hardly counts as one foot in the grave.”

“Before you start losing your eyesight, you’d better watch for the turnoff.”

“I know just where it is. Never fear. I’ve got a natural instinct for these things. De Niro, huh? Yeah, I like that.”

“You’d better slow down,” Barbara told him.

“Don’t get your shorts in a knot, huh? I know exactly where we’re going.”

The van swept around a curve of the two-lane blacktop and shot past a road that led off to the left.

“That was it, smart guy.”

He leaned against his door and watched the road recede in the side mirror. “Naw.”

“Oh yes it was.”

“They never listen to us,” Jean said.

“That wasn’t it,” Pete muttered, stepping on the brake. The van slowed. He pulled onto the gravel shoulder, stopped, cranked his window down and stared back. “You really think that’s it, honey?”

“If you don’t believe me, keeping going.”

“Shit.”

“Maybe we won’tbe visiting a ghost town today,” Jean said, sounding amused.

Larry turned in his seat and looked at her. Smiling, she rolled her eyes upward. That expression was as good as words. What’ve we gotten ourselves into? Like Larry, she always got a kick out of the good-natured bickering that went on between Pete and Barbara. But they’d seen the arguments turn nasty, and had occasionally overheard quarrels that sounded truly vicious coming from the couple’s next-door house.

“Why don’t we give that road a try?” Larry suggested.

“It’s not the one.”

“Prince Henry the Navigator,” Barbara muttered.

“Maybe we should flip a coin,” Jean said.