The Riviera’s seething fa?ade and the pink parabolas of the La Concha are behind him now. He passes gas stations and fast food joints done up in stuttering neon, new condos where old casinos used to be. SOUVENIRS T-SHIRTS GIFTS INDIAN JEWELRY MOCCASINS LIQUOR. Coming up on the Wet ’n Wild: dark and quiet, strange silhouettes against the Sahara towers. The onion dome of the casino just ahead, less Egyptian than Persian, less Persian than Byzantine. The boulevard’s west side is mostly empty lots, hibernating till the next boom. It’s dark enough here to see a few stars, Jupiter high in the southeast. Curtis feels vulnerable without his gun. He doesn’t like the feeling, or the fact that he’s feeling it.
The few people on the sidewalk are gathered in nervous packs, and Curtis scopes them in his periph, catching bits of conversation as they pass. Winsome Scientologist types shilling for timeshares. A clutch of staggering Ace caps, maybe the same guys from before. What asshole hits a hard twelve against a six? That clown cost me a hundred bucks! A sandwich-boarded street preacher screaming apocalypse at two hard-eyed motorcycle cops. A wedding party in full finery: mulleted groomsmen, plump bridesmaids in seafoam organza, the bride’s arm held aloft by balloons that catch headlights in their Mylar skin, a cluster of rolling eyes. Four Japanese girls with pink hair and funky glasses, bright-eyed and laughing, huddled like trick-or-treaters. A sunburnt panhandler, cane in one hand, coinpail in the other, and wraparound shades identical to Curtis’s own. IF YOU ARE MEAN ENOUGH TO STEAL FROM THE BLIND, HELP YOURSELF. A black kid who looks about thirteen, handing out leaflets for escort services. Azar é palavra que n?o existe no meu dicionário, y’know what I’m saying? A drunk in a rumpled seersucker suit who’s just pissed on a palmtree, pale dick still peeking from his trousers, foxtrotting an invisible partner across a parking lot, singing “It’s Only a Paper Moon” in a deep steady voice.
At the Holy Cow Curtis crosses to the opposite side and continues north. When the wind is right he can hear the rumble of the Big Shot and the High Roller up ahead, the screams of their riders. He’s too close to the tower now to take it all in at once: the inverted-lampshade crown, the spot-lit tripod base. He tries to ID the international flags outlined in neon above the marquee, then remembers that they’re all fake. Imaginary countries. All countries are imaginary, Stanley would say. That reminds Curtis of something else, something Veronica said, about why Stanley’s never been to Italy. He just never had a passport. Why never had? Why not doesn’t have?
A working girl is jogging down the sidewalk toward him—red wig, black fishnets, six-three in four-inch heels, probably trannie—trying to pull on a coat and hail a cab at the same time. She keeps looking over her shoulder at the Aztec Inn like she expects somebody to be after her, like maybe her trick just went apeshit, or she lifted his wallet, or his heart exploded while she was blowing him and she needs to make herself scarce. The look on her face says things are only going to get worse for her. Curtis steps out of her way, avoids eye contact.
A steady stream of taxis picks up and drops off at the casino’s porte-cochère: UNLV kids on double dates, Midwesterners in windbreakers and running shoes. The cabs all turn south when they hit the Strip again. Curtis slips off his ballcap as he steps through the entrance, tucks it in his waistband where the revolver ought to be, letting the brim dangle over his tailbone.
Ten bucks buys him a ticket for the elevators. It takes him a while to figure out where to go next, but once he does the wait’s not long. A walkthrough metal detector—a new Garrett machine—sits at the head of the line, just as Kagami said it would. Security officers hand-search bags and fannypacks, but this doesn’t slow things down as much as the photographer who’s snapping digital photos of everybody who’s headed topside. The guy in front of Curtis—drunk and swaying, handlebar moustache and BUCK FUSH T-shirt, cringing wife and two silent kids—won’t stop bitching about it. Typical Vegas, brother, he says to Curtis. They always gotta be selling you something.
They take the photos, Curtis says, so they have a record of who goes up to the tower. If one of us turns out to be loaded with Semtex and blows the joint up, it’ll make our remains easier to identify. If they can earn a few extra bucks selling the pictures as souvenirs, then I guess they might as well.
The guy laughs and looks at Curtis, but Curtis doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile, and the guy looks away and quiets down.
The observation deck is on the hundred-and-eighth floor, eight hundred feet up. The elevator takes under a minute to get there. Curtis is still early for Kagami, so he does two laps of the observation deck, clockwise and counterclockwise, yawning hard to pop his ears. The valley glitters to the mountains in every direction, sodium orange and mercury blue, crystals scattered in a pit.