The driver quickly runs out of change and moves onto bills. He has lost count, but figures he is safe as long as he sticks to the roll of ‘ones’ in his pocket. He never thinks to ask for change.

Drinks keep coming, although a single sip is enough of a distraction to miss an entire whip-around the table. That’s also why talking is shied away from; only grunts, exaggerated laughter, and pained moans when money is lost to the pot. Otherwise, it is the steady ‘click-click-click’ succession of cards being laid out on a deep forest felt.

The driver is surprised when the third glass of sickly syrupy liquor is placed beside him by yet another tightly aproned girl. This one is brunette and chubby. He doesn’t have time to look up, just a quick grunt and a dollar bill thrown her way without ever taking his eyes off the table.

Jack (hearts), Ace (hearts), King (spades), Ace (diamonds, if a sacrifice has to be made, it’s best to do so with the lowest card), Queen (spades), and so on, as fast as one can say them.

Despite the fact that each hand only takes a few minutes, an hour and three quarters have already passed. The driver glances at his neighbors watch while he empties his drink.

“Ay! Get a good look der, nancee boy.” A scruffy man with a thick accent and a thicker patch of chest hair coming through a half-buttoned shirt is breathing down on him with a citrusy stench of gin.

“What’s goin’ on?” The pink-suited man has to put a halt to play -it was his turn- to find out what the outburst is for.

“Dees sonnofabeech ees lookin at my cards.”

The driver does not have to stand up to feel the swim of drunkenness rise to his head. His only concern is whether he is up or down money-wise. It’s hard to tell. He won a number of medium-sized pots, but the speed with which the game forces one to constantly cough money into the middle makes it seem like much has been lost. To a slightly woozy eye, the pile of bills in front of the driver has neither grown nor shrank, at least not for a while.

The room is large enough for a few heavy wood tables, all of which are empty except for one in the back corner. There, the suited man and the hitchhiker are joined by three others; each ugly in his own way, but each better dressed than the next, though that may not be saying a lot.

The walls, or what can be seen of them in the glow of a single electric candelabrum, are paneled with braided gold trim. The color almost matches the salmon suit of the hitchhiker’s friend perfectly.

“Well curd’nated. He dresses to ‘mpress,” muses the driver, but not for long. He is overcome by the same stench that violated his mouth previously. He notices that each man at the table has a thick brown turd in his mouth, with an ember at the tip, like a warning light. There is one spot open, a faux Louis XIV chair, intricately carved but splattered with a cheap gold paint.

Nobody looks at him as the cards have already been dealt and every one is searching their hand, as if reading tea leaves for a message from beyond. No one says a word either; just the crackle of putrid cigars and the occasional creak of an imitation antique chair.

Though the oak doors have closed behind him, the driver knows he would have no difficulty getting out. If anything, standing there for as long as he is will only serve to get him sucked into the game sooner or later. It is beyond his comprehension why he doesn’t move, leave the malodorous room or the entire casino or Las Vegas itself, and get back on the road; but he doesn’t. There is a wooden squawk. It is either the back of his jaw as it pops back into place or the groan of a floorboard, underfoot, undercarpet, as he makes his way to the table. Either way, he’s in.

The game is Taipei Twostep. It’s face card only and it’s fast as hell. The men like to put in large stakes at a time, but no one says anything about a minimum so the driver plays with quarters until he feels he has the hang of it. Entire rounds go by and he can’t get the money out of his pocket fast enough.

Everyone is dealt three cards from the reduced pack of twenty (aces count as “Rooks”, one rank below Jacks). Going in turn, each person has to either trump the rank of the card played before him, or else match that card in rank or suit. Those cards that are matched remain on the table, while trumped cards go to the victor. In cases of a tie, each player keeps his card. Whoever completes a suit of face cards, laid out on the table, gets the pot. Whenever someone is trumped or cannot match his challenger, he throws his initial bet into the pot.

They walk along the back wall until they come to dual wood-paneled doors. There, the suited man meets two large men standing in guard of the door, one to each side. They meet him with unenthusiastic, very businesslike, kisses on the cheek.

“This’s sick,” thinks the driver. He turns to see who’s watching. A waitress is coming at him with a drink.

It’s not the same one as before: neither the girl nor the drink. She is prettier. Even red locks flow down almost to her breasts, which are also very nice. The waitress’s attire intimates that of the classic maid outfit. Instead of a white apron, it is hot pink. It stops short just of where her breasts snuggle beneath a tighter, black fabric. The driver is reminded of lederhosen, though he has never seen a pair in his life.

She meets his confused look, once it finally makes its way back up to her uncolored face, with a half-smile.

“Compliments of your friend.” She motions towards the men entering through the solid wood doors. He sees the two strongmen holding it open and looking at him with no clear expression. They are waiting, but obviously don’t care if he takes all day. The driver then looks at the drink handed to him. It is a very tall glass filled with a cola-colored substance. There’s an obscene pair of cherries floating with a few cubes of ice on the surface. He gives it a whiff. It smells fruity sweet.

The woman is still at his side, with her head cocked so that a few of her ruby tresses find their way down the opening of her top. Her tray remains outstretched in the same manner in which she presented the drink. The driver realizes that she is waiting for a tip, and drops a nickel unceremoniously on the tray. It rattles and twirls and is almost thrown off completely by the speed with which she turns around. The fair stockinged legs are striding their way back into the gaggle of thirsty gamblers, but the driver has already turned to face the back room, too hastily to catch the show.

The driver is looking at the hitchhiker but his mind is somewhere else, somewhere very far away from the casino. Only after he feels the soggy cigar paper between his own lips does he recall the hitchhiker’s look of pure insistence. Why had the driver capitulated so easily, not just now, but at everything the hitchhiker suggested?

“I owe this sonnofabitch nothing”: his warped, internal voice.

“There. Not so bad, hey?”: a voice from beyond.

The cigar is supposed to be the best, imported from a hard-to-reach hacienda up in the mountains of Cuba. To the driver, it tastes like he is smoking the moldy carpet below. In fact, he would rather do just that.

The driver’s face must be the illustration of aghast. He considers running back through the rows of machines and tables, down the stairs, out the grand entrance, past the ridiculous-looking doormen, getting into his pickup and flooring it all the way to Michigan. He wants to, but his feet can only follow in the direction of the two men.

He berates himself for a lot of things, and thinks: if I wanted the extra money so bad, I should have robbed and killed this sonnofabitch when I had the chance and dumped his body in the desert. It would at least have served as good practice. Now he finds himself lapping along like a puppy, and sucking on the foulest thing he had ever put in his mouth.

A few shallow inhales and he impales the cigar in the first ashtray. The man who gave it to him does not care. He is a few steps ahead, with the hitchhiker leaning in close, no doubt drinking in whatever bullshit the man has been so kind to puree and strain for him in advance. This man – the one who wears a suit that looks like it has recently been exhumed from a corpse, and who goes through the trouble, or worse, pays others to go through the trouble, of carefully shaving his head to the last whisker and waxing it to a sheen- is supposed to be a sixth or seventh founding member of America’s gambling haven. That would make the hitchhiker an elected councilmember. The driver does not regret that he is incapable of letting his hold on reality loosen to the point where any of this would make sense.

The first thing he notices about the man is his bald head. It’s not just bald in the way that so many men are. It’s completely bald, and shiny, like it gets waxed regularly. Nobody shaves their entire head, and they certainly don’t keep it in a permanent state of shine.

The man looks up at the driver as he approaches. His front collar is open wide, exposing some hairless blubber of the upper chest and neck. The oddly colored suit isn’t as clean as it looked from several yards away. The driver notices a thick ring of grime around his collar. It makes him squirm just to look at it, and he reflexively brings a hand to his own neck: damp from sweat, but nowhere near the magnitude of revolting as this man’s. The latter lunges forward a thick, leathery hand.

“Ah. The chauffeur!” The man booms in a surprising bass. Surprising because he comes up only to the hitchhiker’s shoulder, who himself can be no taller than five eight.

The voice is followed up with a staccato chuckle. He thinks himself funny, exposing what at first glance could be very dull gold teeth, but turn out to be rotting enamels. The driver continues to smell only the musk from the maroon carpet, but can easily imagine how badly this man’s breath must reek. Freckled on the inside of his lower lip are what the driver hopes to be bits of cigar. The fat lip curls out like a salted slug and is just as wet.

“Look, m’juss lookin fer a quick hand a two….”

“Don’t worry about it my friend. We’ll set you up reeeeeeal nice.” Out of nowhere, the man flicks him a cigar. The driver inspects the tip. It is chewed and flayed like someone has already gotten at it. Not just somebody, but a teething puppy, from the looks of it.

“Nah thanks. I don…”

“Ah, come on. Live a little.” The pink suited man already has his lighter out and is flicking it in the air, at nothing in particular. The driver purses his lips while his jaws click. He thinks how this man’s whole overly-pushy, constantly-interrupting act is going to get old real soon.
The hitchhiker is giving him an intent stare, as if the driver is on the brink of committing a disastrous diplomatic gaffe. Without thinking further, the driver brings the cigar to his lips. It is wet. He wants to spit it out, spit it at this disgusting gentleman who is reaching a flame to his mouth. He lights it with a disgusting smile.

Among fake palm trees and waitresses in neon aprons, the driver finds himself sunk among the weak and degenerate whom he hates, equal to them in every horrifying way. He thinks of how easily he could rule them, make them bow down, even kill them if he wished; but he doesn’t. His satisfaction will come when he brings about the death of only one man. If only finding him were as easy as a stroll around this horrible casino…

Passing painted-ivy columns and men staggering in dirty, three-dollar suits, the driver breathes in deep the musk of humanity. The shattered dreams that never had a chance, stifled lives, loved ones lost: they are all his now, too, and he can no longer look on at the other gamblers and trashy cocktail girls with feelings of superiority or contempt, but only the humbling burn of camaraderie. He sees himself in them all. He hurts as badly as the alcoholic, barely managing to stand over there, or the lonely widower hunched over a card table. Just like them, the driver has turned to a game of chance in the hope of easing his pain, except it’s not as benign as a throw of the dice or a spin at roulette.

The driver watches the rumpled back of the hitchhiker disappear among a row of slot machines. He is in a hurry for the back, and mumbles something about whoever is waiting there for him, for them. The driver figures it is just part of the hitchhiker’s overexcited state, or else he is off to see his friend: the sixth or seventh man to have founded modern-day Las Vegas, if such a title even makes sense.

The driver is reluctant but finally makes his way to the back wall. The crowd, a few men in soiled blazers and one old lady with long, ratty, gray hair that could easily be mistaken for a man’s, is not hard to get through. A young but unattractive thing with a tray asks him if he would like a drink.

“Sev' n'seven.” The driver barks without looking, but she is gone when he finally turns around. It makes him wonder if she was there to begin with. He thinks of what a horrible sentence it must be for a ghost to have to haunt such a grimy place for the rest of her days; serving drinks to ungrateful customers, no less. She must have done something awful during her time on Earth.

The driver looks around and it strikes him that not one of the gamblers is really there. A man in a hat stands next to a pillar and gazes at the driver. He’s not there. One of the greasy dealers looks up in mid-shuffle and finds the driver hovering over the edge of his table. He is not there. Further down the row, the driver rediscovers the old lady, munching her chops over a dice roll. In addition to her unkempt, straggly hair, she has no teeth. Both her and her teeth are not there. When he finally reaches the back wall through a gauntlet of slot machines, the hitchhiker is there with his back to him, talking to a dark man in a pink suit.

The driver, just inside the doorway, can the see the speckled heads of Koi fish –though he doesn’t know that’s what they’re called- peeking up beneath lily pads and the pond’s rippling surface. The air is thick with mildew.

The hitchhiker is half-way up the stairs. He nearly took the driver by the sleeve out of eagerness, but retained enough sense to pass it up in the last instant. He triumphs at the top, turning around to take in the gilded-but-rotting grotto and to goad the driver into hurrying up and joining him.

The driver has never like being rushed, and he isn’t about to let himself start now by having this half-wit tell him where to go and how fast. Taking a look over his shoulder as he strides up the last couple of steps, the driver realizes that palaces like this, as poorly constructed and gaudy in décor as they may be, are made for people like the hitchhiker: the gullible, perhaps those dangerously wanting to believe.

The driver would never express this opinion aloud. It’s not that he cares much for politeness or harbors an overriding concern to have others like him. The reason is as plain as a favorite saying of his dear old Ma: “Opinions’ll only git ya in trouble.” That was the only political education he ever received or needed, and it’s seen him through his first twenty-two years of life just fine.

This hesitation to express an opinion causes the driver to appear to be tolerant of those he has every right to hate. It is this convenient, though unintentional, veneer of tolerance that allows him to blend in with the model of difference-accepting, freedom-loving American from which he looks no different. Only deep down, the driver’s profound contempt for everyone grants him a live-and-let-live indifference. He is happy to watch everyone rape, kill, slander, betray, and fuck their neighbor, as long as none of the muck winds up on his shoes. That plan had served him well up until sixteen hours ago.