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.