“Ah prom’st Paula, ah owe it ta her.” The driver can barely hear his inner voice crying out, pleading to himself, when the thug’s baritone returns to briefly cut through the fog.

“The house cut. You played, you pay.” The miscreant is obviously amused by his little rhyme scheme. A menacing smile glosses over his lips.

Before the driver can answer, if he can dredge up anything to say at all, the pink-suited man is barreling over. It is unclear whether he comes as a peacemaker or reinforcement.

“Sal, Sal, back off de guy. I’m sure he din know.” It’s the short, dark-skinned man’s turn to beam at the driver. “Did ya?”

A shrug seems appropriate enough, so the driver barely lifts his shoulders in a show of restrained compliance, without ill will. His hands had been in his pockets. When he lifts them out, one is grasping a five dollar bill. The driver waves it over towards the pink-suited man. A fee of five dollars would mean that the driver won upwards of fifty bucks. That is a little over-generous, but the wad in his pocket probably amounts to thirty five or forty dollars. Five dollars off the top is erring on the side of caution and is more likely to leave this ridiculously pink-suited, bald-headed man, the sixth or seventh in line to the throne of Las Vegas, and his crones, happy.

The pink-suited man grabs it, almost as a caress, with a beefy hand and a cigar-stained smile. The driver turns once again and heads for the door. He is just stepping through when there is a crinkly-crack, like frail glass being crushed underfoot. With it, the dim light of the room cuts out. The back room is sunk in darkness.

Gruff voices ride over one another. The most recognizable one –accented, but coming out mostly as a squeal for all of its excitement- yells out, “What de hell?” and “Shit man, de money!” They are soon followed by a commotion of an overturned table and chairs and the bark of six gravelly voices, immediately behind the driver. Each one is exhorting the others to “grab the sonnofabitch”, “where da fuck is he?”, “grab ‘im!”, “at’s me, you idiot!”