The Aussie turned on the high swivel chair, holding her green nails up to the light. She seemed proud, triumphant, like a haughty cat.

Their eyes never met. She stared at the checkered floor while he looked pensively at the walls. The Aussie gave off the impression that she was impenetrable. She didn’t move. She just sat on the high swivel chair all day long, preening. Now she waited for the callow intruder to move out of her space.

Lethe lingered in the lobby, unaware of the Aussie’s negative vibes. He turned his attention to the surfing posters. He knew his mission; Louie wanted him to find drugs. But he hesitated. Why were there bars on the windows?

He briefly looked out at the dusty streets. Beyond the scintillating lights of the famous Las Vegas Strip was the city itself-a mass of empty storefronts, rundown casinos, liquor stores and 7/11s. The colossal casino-hotels stood out in the distance from the East and West sides, as if in a separate sphere, like the emerald city of Oz. The barren landscape receded from Boulevard’s yellow-brick road and became the makeshift construction of low-income housing, grimy enclaves, and rows of dilapidated houses falling into the ground.

The people on the street had a red-eyed sleep-deprived anxiety. Occasionally you saw them swatting imaginary flies and mumbling to themselves. Some carried bottles of malt liquor as they stumbled past stop signs and street corners. The seediness of Las Vegas was the part of the very fabric of its society. It didn’t show up self-consciously as in other cities like a festered sore. Nor did it flaunt itself on the periphery. The seediness made up the living core of the population.

The people didn’t wear a lot of clothing, especially the children who ran around in tank tops and short shorts. They rode swift little bicycles up and down the alleys with a rattling noise like empty coke cans. Little black girls did dance numbers on the sidewalks, grinding their hips and pumping their shoulders with intensity.

He was only catching his breath. Once he realized the Aussie was sending text messages to her friends and not paying attention to him, he pushed open the door. The air was like cane sugar. A low sky fanned out behind the storefronts and concrete housing blocs, extending into the desert emptiness. The festive, delirious voices of the Strip could only be faintly heard.

A swirl of smoke rose from a distant factory and sputtered into the horizon. Underneath the burnt orange evening sky, a basin of tattoo parlors, porn shops, liquor stores and pawn shops huddled together. There was some frenzied activity around the stores, swinging doors, jangling bells, and a line of bums leaned against a wall. The bums talked in a language only they could understand–something between a mumble and a croon. Shady men went in and out of the porn shops. Loners picked up cases of beer and hard stuff from the liquor stores. Loudmouthed bimbos hung on brutes with big, fancy watches. Their phlegmy voices called out to Lethe as he went by.

Turning a blind corner, Lethe caught the glare of a seedy nightclub. He blinked twice, three times. Prostitutes rocked back and forth on high heels. They played with their costume jewelry and stuck out their fishnet thighs.

“Crackhead,” he thought he heard them say.

Louie was wrong. Nobody was standing at the bus stop, waiting for him. No crack dealers ready to make a buck. No swaggering, gold-toothed pimps. Did Louie purposely mislead him? Did Louie want Lethe to get mugged?

“But the busses must be running,” Lethe said out loud. “Every city has busses running at night.”

“Maybe I’m lost.”

Now the Backpacker’s Inn seemed like a faded memory. He wasn’t even sure if he could find his way back. The streets in this part of Vegas deteriorated into rubble and ash. You couldn’t even call them streets. They were stretches of abandoned housing and more torn, vacant lots. “Maybe I should turn around,” he thought.

“Or maybe this is where you find crack.”

Gnarled palm trees huddled at the end of the block. A light shone from an all-night Laundromat but the place was dead inside. “I could go in there,” Lethe muttered to himself.

Past the Laundromat, concrete buildings rose up again like stacks of giant Legos. “I really should turn around,” he said to himself.

Once Lethe commenced a job, it was extremely difficult for him to let go of it. This was the compulsive urgency that consumed Lethe, the grim fascination which seduced and overpowered him. Now that he’d left the Inn and had been walking in one direction for over an hour, it became an obsession: he had to find drugs. And though the city of Vegas was mysterious and threatening, he hurried his pace and his legs gave way to a manic flight. Soon his heart beat incredibly fast and the adrenaline was being released into his spine.

A tall figure with an enigmatic presence stepped out of the shadows. It made itself apparent like a festive peacock spreading its wings. “Well lookie here,” the voice rang. “It’s Richie Rich.”

The man was wearing a pearly-white suit and a red hat with a feather in it. Under a row of date palms, the two of them ducked their heads together in a manner of secrecy.

“What kind of drugs can you get me?” Lethe asked.

“Well, how’s that for introductions? My name’s Sonny. Emperor of Seventh Street and Swallowtail Blvd.”

“I’m Lethe.”

The date palms rustled above their heads.

“I’m goin’ to take care of you tonight, Mister Lethe. First off, step into my office plez.”

“Your office?”

“Behind that fence over there.”

Lethe gave the stranger a questioning look, and followed him behind the fence.

“Now how much green you flashing?”

“Uhhhh . . . I need to see the stuff first.”

“Don’t fuck with me, boy.”

“Trust me I got the money. Me and my uncle are at one of those big, expensive hotels. And I know where he keeps his gambling money.”

“How am I suppoz’ to trust you if you ain’t showin’ me nuthin’?”

Lethe took out the forty bucks. “See I got cash-”

“And what if I slit your throat right here?”

Lethe looked frightfully at the stranger.

“Boy, you tryin’ to play me or something. This aint’ McGyver. This the streets an’ on the streets you better be tellin’ the truth.”

Lethe didn’t answer.

“Okay, I’m going to take you to Mammon’s house. We’ll see what he says.”

“Who’s Mammon?”

“He’s like a god in this town. People worship him. Come on, let’s go. Cops are driving round-”

Sonny took Lethe back through the lower west side, parading his pearly-white suit and shedding his presence on every block. He knew where he was going, had memorized all the nooks and crannies long ago. He turned down alleyways, slipped through gaming halls, ran up stairwells and Lethe followed at his heels.

Finally they came to a dusty street with a few boarded-up houses. One of houses at the end of the street was buried in rubble. The others were on the verge of a major tear-down. A solitary lamp cast a weak glow on the remaining structures; the rotten wood of the houses emanated the transparent hue of poisonous mushrooms. Sonny led Lethe to house no. 108.

“We’re here,” Sonny said, making a giant leap onto the front steps.

Lethe snagged his finger on the wire screen door, and a tiny drop of blood squirted into the apartment.

At least he had made it this far.

(Table of Contents)