“I’ll send one of my guys wi’ya. So don worry bout your precious car. An you,” staring right into the hitchhiker. “It’s up to you who ya wanna to ride with, but we’re goin now.”

With that, Smokey makes his exit and it seems like half the club follows him out. Really, it’s only those in the immediate vicinity, but his departure certainly has an impact on the other patrons. A ripple effect occurs. People become aware that something significant is happening. They strain to check it out and that causes others to take notice and inspect, and so on. In this case, there is an unseen but widely felt drain on the energy in the room. The music retains the same canned and syncopated commotion, but someone could be forgiven if they no longer wanted to be smothered in the no-longer bearable swamp of bodies and breath.

For the few women employed to lend a sexual charge to the place, Smokey’s departure is bitter-sweet. He no doubt weighs heavily in their professional duty, and makes demands that have no other option but to be fulfilled. They also feel the other side, the loss of that intangible spark, when he is gone. Imperceptibly and as one, the girls’ shoulders slump forward and they release the little bit of air they were holding in, so their bellies take on their more rounded, natural form. As far as they are concerned, the night has already ended. It is only a quarter past three.

The hitchhiker looks at the driver. The driver motions back. They and the skinny, black accomplice left with them – only a teenager really- have to make the stealth passage back down the alley. The diminutive gangster makes an effort to take the lead. He strikes a comedic affect in his hurried steps and a suit that hangs off him as it once did the rack it was nicked from. A rhythmic swoosh swoosh swoosh of flopping pant legs is indistinguishable from the labored breath of the teenager. They come back off the walls even louder, counting each step like a flustered metronome.

At the end of the alley, they can see the pickup truck sitting alone, apparently unharmed, less than thirty yards away. There are no lamps around, but everything flits with excited silhouettes. The sheen from the not-too-distant strip –the dance of its marquee lights and the jungle of fluorescent tubes- casts a haunting, not to say gloomy, glow over the unspoiled desert spread out before them. It seems that the city first swallows the land with its light, before pushing out with more casinos.

The three climb into the pickup. It pulls out in a dusty donut, not towards the shrill mayhem of Freemont Street but out into the expansive darkness. The night closes over them and it’s as if they were never there.