“Shoulda known. Only corn-pone dizzy nuff ta wanda in he-ah.” It is a deep bark, barely audible above the commotion of horns and rattling percussion. “What? Things ain’t workin out fo’ ya in Dee-troy? Ha ha.” Smokey may have extended an olive branch rather than a sword, but his words retain the sting of a man who wants him dead. The hitchhiker did many rotten things in his short time here, but he can’t recall a single offense with which old Smokey could fault him. The hitchhiker is pretty sure of that. Tone of voice notwithstanding, he is grateful, and relieved, at the belated recognition.

“Don’t get all excited. Just passin through, Smokes.”

The man’s eyes grow white in an instant.

“You ain’t gonna suss me wi dat cracka shit. You he-ah me honkey?” The defenses are back.

“Sure thing, sure thing.” The hitchhiker’s promise dies in a whimper. It doesn’t matter because the invisible band has flared back up –and the girl onstage with the boa has been replaced with another toffee-colored girl, this time armed only with a fan- and Smokey is already ushering the hitchhiker into a rear dressing room. Anyone else would have quickly learned his lesson about avoiding back rooms in Vegas. To people like the hitchhiker, however, that is the only reason to be in Vegas.

The room is small but electric with activity. The walls are yellow in an unintentional way, and peeling. The carpet is so worn that it remains only a single layer of woven yarn. Its color is indistinguishable- unless one can imagine the exact shade of disgusting. The musk hanging in the air is similarly an indecipherable mix of female softness, fear, and cream of grits.

No one can focus on the décor, however, because the room is entirely taken up with the flashes of bare, female body parts. All of them are stolen from a spectrum of nutmeg and chocolate, which contrasts all the greater with the bright feminine colors –tope, rosemary, cherry blossom- that comprise the few garments lazily thrown over the dark, dripping flesh.

The women part the way to mark Smokey’s path. He doesn’t seem to notice the wobbling buttocks or jiggling breasts that scamper from him like so many exotic fish disturbed in mid-swim. Smokey’s powers of concentration, as with all ‘good’ criminals, are impervious to the base desires harbored by most men. Besides, what is there to get all bothered about when he can have any combination of leg, tit, and ass in that room as he desires? All he has to do is say the word. He knows it, the men out front know it, and God help the girl in here that doesn’t know it as well. He ushers the hitchhiker to a clamshell-backed chair in front of a cracked vanity mirror and gestures for him to sit.