I, Zombie

Part 1 of an Epic Tale

"And stone cold sober, as a matter of fact."

"Don't move," said Atomic Girl.

I couldn't. Alternating waves of terror and prurience had me rooted in place. Being a practical sort, I took that moment of abject terror to admire Atomic Girl's perfect breasts—36D, I'd guess. And she had a body shaped by—venturing another guess here—years of dancing in strip bars. I figure that every Weekly story has to mention breasts and strip clubs at some point or another ... so here I am, savage reader, putting it all up front (pun intended), just for you.

"Yeah," said Elton John. "Don't move; don't even breathe. It'll make it easier for me to ... kill ... both ... of YOU! Lord, have mercy on the criminal!" He cackled maniacally and raised his jeweled arms to the heavens in triumph.

"You so much as muss up his hair, bitch," said Atomic Girl, "and I'll give you two cups fulla of Philadelphia Freedom. They'll find your entrails scattered halfway up the Yellow Brick Road. And you"—she gave me a sideways glance—"quit eyeballing my tits."

"I can't help myself," I said, my voice a sleepy, rum-infused rasp. "They're too dazzling."

This may have been the first time I'd ever been caught in the crossfire between a Grammy-winning 1970s relic and Las Vegas' first and only super-heroine, but this wasn't the first time I'd stayed awake for 24 hours. In July 1984, I stayed up all night because I wanted to know what it felt like to be a zombie, but I faltered early. In October 1993, I spent a restless night hunting down a cheating girlfriend in one of Summerlin's cookie-cutter neighborhoods. At the 24-hour mark I stood in front of her new boyfriend's house, sang The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" at the top of my lungs and passed out on his front lawn. It wasn't heaven, but it was close.

In the years that followed, I strived to combine sleep deprivation and substance abuse in exciting new ways. I documented one such event, a 24-hour stand at the fabulous Double Down Saloon in December 1997, in the pages of Las Vegas Life, which is probably where the Weekly's editor, a man I respectfully call Mr. Doodles, got the idea of giving me the second-most irresponsible assignment he's ever handed down.

Atomic Girl and Elton John advanced on each other, fists clenched. Even now I'm trying to recall what my exact thoughts were at that moment. Maybe I was wondering if both Atomic Girl and Elton shopped at Serge's Showgirl Wigs. Maybe I was remembering when rock was young. Or maybe, just maybe, I was thinking about how my day began.

I don't pull all-nighters in Seattle. Since I left Vegas two years ago I've been getting lots and lots of sleep: up to 10 hours a night sometimes, even having consumed the state-mandated eight cups of coffee daily. Sleep deprivation was just a phase for me, like Republicanism or frottage was for you, and I wasn't interested in going back there.

But that was before the Weekly offered me money. I may have my integrity, but when a Las Vegas alternative weekly offers you money to spend 24 hours awake on the Strip, and throws in a room at Caesars Palace on top of that, you don't invoke the I-word. You hop on a plane, fly to Vegas and rent the most ridiculous goddamned car you can find.

I chose a bright orange 2004 Mustang, hereafter known as "The Orange Roughy," which got three miles to the gallon but had the heart of an alligator once it got rolling. From the moment I sat behind the Roughy's wheel, visions of serious drag racing against serious drag queens danced in my head. By the end of that night, I knew, I would race the entire cast of La Cage and get away with their hubcaps.

By the time I drove the Roughy off the rental lot, it was 7:30 p.m. on the warm evening of June 2. I'd agreed to have dinner with my parents before I started the all-nighter at midnight—less than five hours after my plane landed. I reasoned that I'd be able to get a couple of hours of sleep after dinner, which I knew wouldn't be nearly enough to completely rest me, but I knew how my body worked: If I could convince myself that I'd slept, even for a short time, I'd fool my circadian clock into thinking that a new (albeit dark) day had begun.

But my parents live at the Lakes, and I'd forgotten that some parts of Las Vegas are almost 40 minutes distant from other parts. Suffice to say that I didn't get to Caesars Palace until 11:30 ... and by the time I was checked in, I had a scant 10 minutes before midnight and the arrival of my friend, the writer of erotica and bosomy knockout Elaina L.

I lay down on the bed and thought, for a moment, that I could perhaps catch an hour of sleep and begin the day at 1 a.m. Thursday; I thought that it really wouldn't make any difference when I got started, as long as I put in my full day. But that seemed like cheating, and besides, I was too wound up to sleep ...and at 12:01 exactly, Elaina walked through the door, gave me a hug, slapped me gently upside the head and started lecturing.

"Put it off until tomorrow," she said. "You have this room until Friday, right? Start this at midnight tomorrow"—she glanced at the time on her phone—"Forgive me, at midnight today, and stay up until Friday night instead."

"Can't do it," I said. "I have record a piece at KNPR that day, and I don't want to miss First Friday at the Funk House. Those places are off-Strip."

"You can't leave the Strip?" She frowned. "Not even to go to Larry's Villa, or Cheetah's, or Mr. Lucky's?"

"No, those are OK. I can hit the topless clubs and the Hard Rock because those are places that a tourist is likely to travel to from the Strip."

"Stupid idea. What else can't you do?"

"I can't spend more than 15 minutes in this room at one visit. Just enough time to take advantage of all the luxuries a private bathroom can afford."

"Who in the hell can shower and masturbate in just 15 minutes?" she asked the ceiling. "Don't be an idiot. Do this tomorrow."

"Nuh-uh," I said. "It has to be like that commercial." And I told her about a Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority ad I'd seen recently, in which a couple sheepishly approach a desk clerk—named "Raoul" or "Lipshitz" or something equally stupid—and admit that they've lost their bags because they've been at the tables since their plane landed a few days ago, and—oopsie-daisy!—they had just plain forgotten to check in.

When I finished, she gave me a pitying look and asked, "How many hours have you been awake already, as of this exact moment?"

"Fifteen hours and change," I said. "Let's have a drink before I have a chance to really think about this."

We went downstairs to the Shadow Bar to get started. I've always had a soft spot for the Jerry Bruckheimer-movie feel of the SB. Here, against a backdrop of flair bartenders and topless women gyrating to "Milkshake" behind backlit scrims, a guy could really gather his thoughts, plan heists or negotiate arms deals.

(At this time, I want to say that my stay at Caesars Palace was exemplary, and the staff friendly and helpful; they didn't even get that riled up when I tried to sit at the baccarat table dressed only in swim trunks and one black glove, nor after I tackled a member of the housekeeping staff and demanded all the Neutrogena soap they had. If the hotel should come off as sounding like anything other than a fine place of lodging, chalk it up to the hallucinations I suffered as a result of staying up 26 hours past my bedtime.)

I squeezed into an empty spot at the bar and ordered two Cuba Libres and a pair of Sapphire martinis for Elaina. I'd just reached for my wallet when someone tapped me on the shoulder, too hard—and I turned to see a corpulent, slack-faced fortysomething in a Dragonfly bowling shirt and gray fedora hat. He was trying to grow a Vandyke, but it seemed to be leaning somehow; either that, or the rest of his face was leaning the other way.

"That would be my spot," he said, gesturing to the chairs I was standing between.

"Don't get pissy," I said. "I'm just ordering."

"You'd better not take my space. I've been sitting there for three hours now." And I noticed that he was with two women, both easily 20 years his junior: one a pigtailed brunette in a black camisole and black Capri pants, the other in a pink Betty Page glitter wig, white miniskirt and matching baby-T with "ELTON" spelled out in jeweled studs on the chest. Both were drunk down to their very silicone.

"You're not sitting there now, are you? And I don't want your space at the bar," I said, "nor in society."

"Who are you?" He stepped in into the gap between the barstools, blocking my exit. "Where the hell do you come from, where it's OK to come to Vegas and ruin other people's good time?"

"I'm from Seattle, these days," I said, and pushed him back. "But I'll bet that I've spent more time in this town (and probably sitting at this bar), than you and your friends combined. So what say you step right off so I can order my goddamn drinks?"

He tried to intimidate me with a tough stare, but I wasn't having any of it; I even started sipping my Cuban while staring him down. Finally, he turned his back and stomped away, muttering.

I carried the drinks over to our table, and Elaina asked, "So, what was with Mr. Flyover and his hired guns?"

"Damned if I know," I said. "But it'll go into the piece, I promise you. With a few embellishments, perhaps."

"Such as?"

"Oh, maybe I'll give him more of a slimeball cast ... say he was wearing an ill-fitting pimp's hat and had an oiled chest. Maybe the girls will turn out to be corporate spies for a large media concern. Once it's in my head, I can do anything I want with it."

"Are you sure? Is that ethical?"

"Sure it isn't. But it ain't illegal, and that didn't keep us from doing it in the Weekly during the early days. Those were the days; half the issue was gonzo, and half the staff imaginary. Got good with the characters, too. After a while, even I started believing that Zoot Suitcase and Victoria Mysteriosa existed."

"Who wouldn't, with realistic names like those?" She smiled. "Hallucinations, all righty. What was the downside to this ... to this inflammation of the pseudonym?"

"The downside was, I was only making something like $200 a month. Even with all those names in the masthead, it was still just three jackasses writing the entire paper, and there were fewer nightclubs in those days, which meant less ad revenue ... Though if the IRS should happen to read this piece, I only made $50 a month."

"Nevertheless, a true Golden Age," said Elaina, sipping her cocktail.

"Stephen Glass bless us, every one," I said, and that was the end of that. For the next hour or so I queried Elaina over recent Vegas happenings, and she threw me the spellout:

"The Glass Pool Inn is gone, just gone ... First Friday's doing great, hysterical prudes notwithstanding ... They have to test the monorail for one million billion hours before they let anyone ride it, and that's not even a number ... Fremont Street's being bought up by gearheads and Maloof wannabes ... We've got honest-to-God cage fights, I swear to you, I think Wesley Snipes has fought in a couple ... The Huntridge is still going, sure, but just try to get a decent cup of coffee in this town without going to a chain joint ... Oh, I don't know if you've noticed, but Elton John's playing here on Celine Dion's off-nights."

"I saw that," I said. "He even has a store here, for all your Elton John needs."

"I'll just bet that you have Elton John needs," she said, waving down the waitress.

"Yeah. I need for him to have retired long before he got to this point. I still have some fond memories of Elton's songs, y'know—I don't need to hear them Danny Gansified. They shoulda given Celine's off-nights to Jim LeBoeuf or Monti Rock, or maybe even Social Distortion. And I need for him to quit pretending he's not bald. He was bald in the 1970s; I was there. He can't sneak that rug past me."

"Yeah, no shit, huh? Though, actually, I hear his show's actually pretty good"—and before Elaina could finish, the woman in the pink "ELTON" shirt landed on the table between us and jabbed a finger into my chest.

"Take it baaaaaack," she said.

"What have you got against Monti Rock?" I asked.

"You know what I mean, you asshole. You were putting down Elton John. He's a ... a musical genius and this town is lucky to have him."

"That logic cuts both ways," I said.

She pushed herself up and fixed me with one sober eye. "For the insult you've laid on Elton John tonight, I curse you to hear his music everywhere. You'll hear his melodies in elevators. People will speak his lyrics to you in conversation."

"Thanks for stopping by," said Elaina, and shoved the woman away from our table with the heel of her boot. "And do say goodbye to Jackie Collins over there, too. You two look like two monkeys seducing a football."

The woman stared hard at Elaina, but Elaina didn't flinch or even stop smiling. Finally, she turned her glare back on me, raised a finger to me and said, "Until you've redeemed yourself." And she wheeled around to return to her party, and promptly passed out.

"You goddamn freaks!" the fedora man yelled. "What kind of nerve does a goddamn Seattle tree-hugger have to come down here and insult this town?"

"Listen here, scumbag," said Elaina. "I live here, and I agree with every word he says."

The room more or less froze solid somewhere around that time, and a bouncer laid a hand on the man's shoulder and said, "I'm going to have to ask all of you to leave. We can't have this kind of thing happening in here."

"We were leaving anyway," I said. "We're going to a real strip club, where there's total naked public humping and such."

The bouncer nodded and smiled. "I would," he said, and turned to deal with the fainted girl. She had revived, and her head lolled from side to side wildly—until she managed to lock me in her sights, and she raised a trembling hand in an accusatory point.

"Soon," she said.

"If Elton's got friends like that, he's in more trouble than I thought," I said to Elaina as we walked out into the casino.

"Yeah, that was fun," she said. "Let's go to the Peppermill, before Celine sends her posse downstairs for a go."

I had the valet bring up the Roughy, and as I tipped him I could have sworn he said something that sounded like "Hakuna Matata."

"It was your imagination," said Elaina, as we drove past Wynn's new joint. Looking at the construction site, I saw something I've not seen in Vegas for years: a real, live streetwalker.

"It can't be," I said. "I haven't seen a hooker on this part of the Strip since Jerry Keller's day."

"No, no ... she's got to be," Elaina said. "Note the white pumps. Those are the hooker equivalent of safety orange." And with that, we pulled into the Peppermill's parking lot and walked inside. The dining room was undergoing construction, so we adjourned to the Fireside Lounge, where the addition of plasma-screen TVs has utterly and completely wrecked the vibe of the finest make-out bar ever devised by the throbbing loins of man.

"It ain't right," Elaina sighed. "I'm gonna miss hunting the horny black toad, lemme tell you."

I had no idea what she meant by that, but nevertheless, we each ordered a Scorpion and dunked our heads into the fishbowl-sized glasses to absorb every last drop. By 3:30 in the morning we were both pretty sloshed, singing the Olivia Newton John libretto from "Xanadu" at the top of our lungs, and the bartender cut us off.

"We should hit the topless bars now," I said, "while we can still tell two breasts from four."

We hailed a cab to Cheetahs, where we got a series of atypically unremarkable dances, then cabbed over to the OG for more of the same. Every girl in the joint seemed to be lost in thought, and one of them even asked me to help her write a paper on bell hooks.

"I know you used to be a writer in this town—we met through Robin Leach a couple of years back," she explained. "I just can't remember what, exactly, you wrote, and I've got this paper due—she flipped over and thrust her feet onto my shoulders—"that maybe you can help with. Are you gonna be in town tomorrow night?"

"If Elton John doesn't kill me," I said.

"By the way, if you're writing about this," she said as I handed her a tip, "make sure that you write bell hooks' name all in lowercase. You'd be amazed how many times the male-dominated media gets that wrong, if they can be bothered to mention her at all."

"There's some kinda ennui taken hold of the Stripper Corps tonight," said Elaina, as we left Larry's Villa. "And it's total and complete suck-ass, if you ask me."

Undeterred, we went to the Hard Rock, and Mr. Lucky's, for breakfast. I wasn't even hungry, but ordered a cup of coffee and veggie burger anyway, so I could have an excuse to stare out into the casino at its never-ending parade of baseball-capped, goateed guys and immaculate college girls in form-fitting camisoles. They reminded me that I was 10 years past the age I could appear on reality television shows, 10 years past the age I could order drinks named for sex acts, 10 years past the age I could, oh, stay up all night just for the hell of it.

"Penny for your thoughts, Rocket Man," said Elaina ... and I noticed for the first time that particular Elton John song, playing in the casino.

"How 'bout that," I said. "Oddly enough, I was just thinking that this evening hasn't been terribly interesting. I think I may tell Mr. Doodles that the story didn't pan out, refund the money for the hotel room, whatever. The people I'm seeing right now aren't terribly different from the people you see in casinos at prime-time; I'm not getting the whole 'slice of life' thing that he wanted."

"Is that so?" she asked, taking a sip of her coffee. "Who was cursed by an acolyte of Elton John not six hours ago? And whose song is playing on the Hard Rock's PA right now?"

"No one will care. I haven't seen anything as spectacular as the Double Down's morning bleaching. Getting through that was like surviving nuclear war." I sighed. "I shoulda just taken Doodles' photo assignment instead."

"Photo assignment?"

"He wanted me to write pieces of fiction based on classic Vegas photographs. I haven't written fiction for a long time." Elaina considered for a moment.

"OK. I have decided, just now," Elaina announced, "that to add interest to your current story, I'm going to get my left nipple pierced, just as soon as my friend Ben wakes up."

"Aw, you don't mean that."

"I do. After we leave here, I'm going to go up to your room and get a couple hours of sleep, then I'll get my nipple pierced in the inimitable Ben way. Just my left, though. I got leisure plans for the right nipple this week."

"Say 'nipple' one more time," I said.

"No," she said.

I agreed that Elaina's left nipple would indeed help jump-start the story. We paid the bill and sauntered out of the casino with a quick stop at the Sid Vicious slot machine—$20 down the tube, you wanker. We stepped into the sunlight, blinking fast enough to make the world look like eight-millimeter film.

"I used to race the sun home," I said. "Y'know, I'd leave the Double D or wherever just before sunrise and I'd race the sun to my apartment. Most times I'd beat it."

"Not today," said Elaina. "Today, you say good morning to the night."

A cab pulled up to the porte-cochere, and a well-dressed threesome spilled out. The guy was dressed in a black, well-cut single-breasted suit and looked amazing; the two women with him were in silk cocktail dresses and looked like celebrities.

I elbowed Elaina as they walked into the casino and said, "See? There's at least one cat here who's not dressed like Michael Moore."

The man stopped short, turned and looked at me. His girlfriends did the same. The look on their faces was indescribable; the closest I can come is drunken, bemused, lusty dementia.

The man elbowed one of the girls and pointed at me.

"The Elton guy," he said. And with that, the three of them turned and walked into the casino.

Elaina was unimpressed.

"Sheesh, it's a running gag," she said, and hailed us a cab to Caesars.

At 6:30 in the morning my eyes started playing tricks on me. Elaina and I baby-stepped through the Caesars casino, feeling the onset of double-strength hangovers ... and just inside my peripheral vision, I saw a stunningly beautiful blonde standing in the Seahorse Bar, sipping a martini and wearing only a torso-sized mushroom cloud. The pillar of fire rose majestically from her, um, swimsuit area and turned into a cloud of smoke that curled in on itself and concealed her breasts.

She waved in my direction, but at that exact moment Elaina stumbled and fell, and after I'd helped her up the mushroom-cloud woman was gone. In fact, the Seahorse Bar was closed and deserted.

"Think I tripped over a Wookie back there. I'm still standing, right?" Elaina asked as I got her on her feet. "What do you see over there, handsome?"

"Nothing," I said, and nervously looked around for a film crew.

As soon as we got into my suite, Elaina stripped down to her panties and crawled into bed. "Wake me at 9," she said, and fell asleep before I could acknowledge her.

I changed my T-shirt and jeans, fastened my MP3 player to my hip, put on my headphones and glanced at my watch: 6:52 a.m.

In eight minutes, I realized, I'd pass the 24-hour mark. Lovely.

I took an elevator down to the casino. Elton was playing on the monitor, but there was no sound, and even if there were I couldn't hear him over the Pixies.

The elevator doors opened just as I sang, "Slicin' up eyeballs, ah ha ha ho." Waiting on the other side of the elevator doors, I was momentarily shocked to discover, was one of the women from the Shadow Bar, the pigtailed brunette. She didn't look the least bit surprised to see me, and started talking to me before I'd gotten the headphones off.

"... across the street," she said.

"What?" I said.

"We need to talk right now," she said. "We can go to that place across the street, the one that serves pie."

"Pie?" I said, perking up. I didn't want to talk to her, but if there was a place where I could get decent pie in Vegas at 7 a.m., I was all about it. "Where? Who's got the pie? Tell me."

"They have pie at O'Somethings. Y'know, that casino across the street."

"What, you mean O'Shea's? The place with the cheap-assed well drinks and the Subway? You're outta your skull, lady. They don't serve pie, unless Burger King's still making turnovers, and that's hardly the same thing. Look, I have to go."

"They have pie," she said, and pushed me against the wall and slid a hand up my shirt. "Come have pie with me and talk. But mostly, let's have pie."

"No, thank you," I said, grabbing her hand gently and pushing her away. "I'm trying to watch my crabs."

"What? You mean carbs, right?"

"No, no. I mean crabs." It was kind of an asshole thing to say to her, but I was too tired and too drunk to consider anyone's feelings.

If she understood me, she didn't show. Without a word she started digging around in her purse, found a gum wrapper and scribbled a phone number on it with an eyebrow pencil.

"Look," I said. "I'm sure you're a swell girl, but I've got a gal in Seattle. I met her at Niagara Falls; you wouldn't know her ..."

"My name's TC," she said, "and you'll want to call me, so don't throw this away." She folded the gum wrapper in half, then quarters, then eighths, 16ths ... she folded until the wrapper was a hard, silver pellet and she poked it into my hand, closing my fingers over it.

"Thanks," I said. "I'll use this to grow a beanstalk." I turned and walked away at speed, daring to steal a look over my shoulder at 20 feet; she made the call-me gesture with her thumb and forefinger.

Holy shit, I thought. Pie.

The casino floor was deserted. The tables were empty but for a handful of dealers; banks of slot machines were roped off; a cleaning crew shampooed the angst out of the carpet. Far off, a coyote howled.

This was the magic hour few have seen with their own eyes: Las Vegas had hit the wall. I'd remembered this phenomenon; it only lasted about 45 minutes a day. By a quarter of eight, families would begin to materialize, looking for breakfast ... but for now, it was just me and the guy spraying the quarter slots with copious amounts of disinfectant.

I closed my eyes and savored the feeling, imagining that Vegas had been destroyed by nuclear war and I was the only survivor, and I had but 45 minutes before the giant irradiated cockroaches would emerge from their hotel rooms and form an impenetrable line around the food court. But I was only able to sustain the image for a minute or two before I got terribly bored and walked back through the casino and out onto the Strip.

The morning was like a thousand summer mornings I'd known: stiflingly hot and uneventful but for the freaking joggers, who didn't seem to understand that they were completely off the program, at least for a couple of days. In my head, I started composing a paragraph about the joggers—misguided souls who were gamely trying to run the secondhand smoke out of their lungs and Bombay Sapphire out of their veins—but I gave that up in short order, because I didn't care.

In fact, aside from that Elton John business and Elaina's pending nipple breach, I didn't feel inspired by anything that was happening around me. True, Vegas is conducive to all-nighters, but they have to happen on their own; they can't be planned and regulated. I'd done plenty of fun all-nighters in this town, packed with lotsa laffs and sex; why couldn't I write about those instead? Why couldn't I just go back to my room and crawl into bed with Elaina? Why couldn't I just give up this stupid freaking assignment?

I considered my options. My girlfriend back home was probably awake; I could call her and ask if she would mind if I hopped into bed with the half-naked dominatrix currently sleeping in it and slept off this job. I could call Doodles and tell him that I wanted out. I could catch a cab and get the Orange Roughy back from the Peppermill.

And at that moment, I reached the curb and looked up to see O'Shea's, directly across the Strip.

"Pie," I said aloud, and waited for the light to change. I'd find the girl and talk to her for a while, kill some time that way ... then I'd take Elaina to Diversity. And then—oh yes—I'd go back to the room and sleep until checkout time, drive to the Weekly offices to reimburse Doodles for the room and ask him if he had any more bright ideas.

I made a beeline for the rear of the casino, noting that they taken down that wonderful "Carter Beats the Devil" banner that used to hang in the stairwell entrance of the Movie and Magic Museum. I briefly considered climbing the stairs and taking a cue from Glen David Gold, howling "CARTER ... THE GREAT ... IS ... EVERYWHERE!" into the casino, but dismissed the idea almost immediately: I'd probably be arrested, and that would only keep me awake longer still.

The food court at the back of the casino was deserted but for one man. I walked around the table to get a better look at him—a balding, 40ish man with a pale and very English countenance and absurdly large, round, red-tinted sunglasses. Like me, he was wearing headphones. Unlike me, he was eating a slice of pie.

He looked up and smiled, took out his earbuds.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," I said, cheerfully. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but where did you get the pie?"

"Ah, where indeed?" he said. (I was correct in guessing that he was English, though I couldn't place his dialect.) "I really shouldn't say; they're not supposed to be selling it at this hour. Besides, in my experience, it's always best not to ask where a good thing came from, but to simply enjoy it. You know, whatever gets you through the night."

"I hear ya," I said. "Well, thanks anyway ..."

"Hey, you know, I've got way more pie than I can eat, here," he said. "I'd be happy to share it with you, if you're interested. It's elderberry pie."

"That'd be great," I said, taking a seat. "I don't think I've ever had elderberries before."

"Well, they're better as a wine," he said, "though this pastry chef has got a way with them."

He put a generous slice onto a china plate, handed it to me, and raised his own plate in salute: "To your first elderberry experience. My name's Robert, by the way. Robert Zimmerman."

"Geoff Carter," I said, as we clinked plates together. "Thanks, man."

"Hey, no bother. Man needs pie, and I've got more than I need here."

Lifelong friendships have been forged on much less. We ate and talked and ordered coffees (mine with Irish, his without) and talked some more, and after about a half-hour I realized that I'd made a friend, and silently marveled at how easily friends could be made in Las Vegas. All it takes is one commonality, just one—because there's no turf to defend, no social structures to bridge, no names to drop. If you're here and I'm here, that makes the both of us Las Vegans, and that means we have plenty in common.

Robert said he played piano at Caesars; that was his job. I thought of asking what he thought about Elton, but he asked about my job and we got sidetracked:

"You've been awake for how long?" he asked, incredulous.

I looked at my phone. "Just over 25 hours. I've got 16 to go."

"You're going to stay up for 41 hours ... just to file a story for an alternative newsweekly?"

"Yeah, but I try not to use that word when describing what I do."

"Alternative?"

"News," I said. "But if it means anything, I don't think I'm going to finish the assignment. It hasn't been terribly interesting so far, and I'm ill-equipped to write about this town in the way people actually want to read about it."

"How do you figure?"

"Hrm. Let's say that there's a guy from Blender poking around here, on assignment. You think he gives a damn if Vegas' residents have good coffee to drink? That they don't have decent public transportation? That our Rem Koolhas-designed Guggenheim is about to be converted into a theater by Andrew-f--king-Lloyd Webber?"

"I'd dare say not."

"You're damn right. And you know something? He shouldn't care. Take away the casinos and nudie bars and Paris Hilton and you get Ely. But I know that other stuff, and I do care, and that's gonna color whatever I write. I haven't been away from this town long enough to blind myself to what's happening off the Strip, and that's a liability."

Bob gave me a knowing smile, and took a long sip of his coffee. I could tell that he was about to pitch me on something.

"What if there was no 'off the Strip'?" he asked. "What if I told you that there was a way that the level of comfort we enjoy in the casinos could extend to the very borders of this town? What if I told you that I know a way that you would never have to look another strip mall or sawtooth road again?"

"I'd say, 'Thank you, Bob, but I solved that problem by moving to Seattle.' Those checkbook activists keep Wal-Mart in the boonies, where it belongs. The only trade-off is that I have to pretend to give a crap about voting."

"Oh, I can solve that little problem, too. I could make it so you can walk your line of near-complete voter apathy without having to worry about local school boards getting loaded up with bible-thumping bigots. In fact, I could get rid of the local school boards. And the local schools."

And for the next 20 minutes, he breathlessly detailed his vision of a hedonist's utopia—a place where no one under the age of 21 would be allowed to live, a place where gay marriage and hemp and prostitution would be completely legal. A place with its own currency, its own moral code, and even its own anthem, which would be written by—wait for it—Elton John.

"And you were doing so well," I said, standing up from the table. "Look, Robert, I can't talk about this stuff anymore. This Logan's Run shit is fun to talk about, but it's never gonna happen, OK? This is a good Mormon town."

"It'll happen," he said neutrally. "I'm gonna quit talking and take action now. You're sure you don't want to jump on the team and come on in for the big win?"

"Um, yeah, I'm sure. Thanks for the pie and all, but I gotta go back to Caesars and sleep this off."

"Well, in that case, you should have this," he said, handing me a business card.

I read the name on it: ELTON HERCULES JOHN.

"All right," I said, "I've officially had enough of this. You're not Elton John; Elton John wears a hairpiece. And there's no frigging way his middle name is 'Hercules,' Robert."

"You'll see," he said, smiling. "Look, I've got to cut out. Don't try to follow me ..."

"Oh, fer chrissakes."

"... Don't try to follow me, because I have a chopper waiting." He rose gracefully from the table and said, "We'll be in touch. We've got some other things to suss out, you and I. Like your friend with the mushroom cloud for swimwear."

Fortunately, I was too tired for the shock to register on my face; I just stared at him blankly.

"You should've been a poker player," he said. "You could whup the afro off Gabe Kaplan. By the way, this is for you"—he handed me a rolled-up magazine—"to keep you entertained while your friend gets her nipple pierced. Cheers, mate."

He walked away with a spring in his step, whistling "Hakuna Matata," and I looked at the cover of the magazine he'd handed me. It was the Las Vegas Weekly, and the headline on its cover read: "Can Richard Abowitz Spend 24 Hours in a Strip Club?"

All at once the blood rushed back into to my head, and I ripped the issue in half. The impersonator was long gone.

"Goddammit, you screwed me, Doodles," I growled into the phone. "You sandbagged me, and I'd kinda like to know why."

"Hey, Geoff!" said Doodles jovially. "How's the assignment going so far?"

"Well, 20 minutes ago it was merely pointless. But now that you've allowed Abowitz to urinate on the order of my world, it's pointless and stupid. How many of these 24-hour assignments did you hand out? Am I to be followed up by some yahoo's '24 hours in a refrigerator box?' '24 hours in Ben Affleck's ass-crack?'"

"Calm down, Geoff. I think—hey, are you in the bathtub?"

"I'm in Caesars' pool," I said, and I was. Immediately after the Elton encounter I ran up to my room, changed into my swim trunks, swiped a tattoo magazine from Elaina's bag, ran downstairs again and climbed into the pool without even waiting for towels. An attendant saw my mad dash and dutifully ran over to see if I needed assistance; I asked him to retrieve four large towels and two Cuba Libres with a dash of bitters. He seemed wary until I slipped him a twenty. I got my towels and drinks inside of three minutes—a new personal best.

"You're sitting in the pool and talking on the phone?" he asked, chuckling. "How many medallions are you wearing?"

"I had to take them off to put on the Weekly's leash and collar," I growled. "Richard's piece, you were saying?"

"That's right. As I was saying, Richard's piece is substantially different from what you're doing."

"Darn tootin' it is," I said, writing "R-A-B-O-W-I-T-Z" across my knuckles. "The difference being is that his piece will have a Dylan reference in it and mine won't, 'cause I'm not writing one. I'm sending you a check for this room, driving out to Henderson to wake up Abowitz and kick his ass."

"Let's not be hasty," said Doodles. "Before you dance the Yuen Wo-Ping through Las Vegas' journalistic community"—I gave an indignant bleat; he ignored it—"why don't you tell me what you've got so far?"

I told him, though I downplayed the Elton incident; I told him I'd met "an impersonator" and that we "hadn't really talked about much." I wanted out of the assignment, I said, "and there's not a goddamn thing you can say that will keep me in."

"How'd you like Richard's piece?" he asked.

"Damn you," I said. "I'm not going to be the second installment in your '24 Hours' franchise. You want that kind of nonsense, call Joel Stein."

"It might be fun for you to hit some nightclubs," he said. "You know, about the time that your sleep-deprivation symptoms become acute."

I had a quick flash of the mushroom-cloud girl; the image sapped my resolve.

"I ain't doin' this," I said, unconvincingly.

"Then, when you're finished," he continued, "you can get a good night's sleep, come to the office in the morning, and hunt Richard and me down like dogs. If you've still got the yen to do so."

"You bet your sweet bippy I will, smart guy. I'm gonna finish this thing, and then there's gonna be 200 years of blood and suffering."

"Sure, that sounds great," Doodles said. "And then lunch? My treat."

"Go to hell," I said.

"Don't forget the nightclubs," he said, and hung up.

I threw the phone into my bag just as Elaina walked up beside me, sleepily.

"You're all wet," she said.

"Where did you get the swimsuit?" I asked. She wore a very tasteful, backless one-piece that showed off her tattooed roses. The ink matched the color of the suit perfectly.

"What, this old thing? I keep a swimsuit at every hotel for emergencies," she said, easing down into the water next to me. "But that hardly seems important now that Elton John's gunning for your ass."

"Why would you say that? I asked, trying to avoid discussion of my morning rendezvous.

"Because 15 minutes ago, just after you left the room, I got a wake-up call from a man claiming to be our beloved piano man. Said he'd had a breakfast meeting with you and that you'd turned down an offer to be his henchman, and that there would be consequences ... yes, that's the exact words he used."

"Schmonsequences," I said.

"Oh yeah, it's all fun and games to you," Elaina said, "but then, you'd be ignoring the two girls from last night. He said that they were his advance team."

"Advance team for what?"

"Dunno. But they're advancing on us right now," she said, pointing towards the Neptune Bar, where TC and her friend, still in her pink wig, were sipping Cuba Libres and smiling.

"Yoo-hoo!" TC called.

"All right, here's what I'm gonna do," I said. "I'm going to get out of this pool, and run up to the room, whimpering like a whipped pup. You cover for me, and meet me up there in 10 minutes. I'll call us a cab and we'll go pick up the Roughy and go to California. "

"Oh, come on," Elaina said. "They look friendly enough in daylight, and the brunette is cute. We've got a hotel room for two more hours; I'm loopy enough to do anything. You do the math."

"Look, I've slept with my share of crazy partners in my day. I don't mind if they keep pace with me, eccentricity-wise. But at no point," I said, stepping out of the pool, "can they pull ahead."

"Your girlfriend in Canada, hm?"

"Seattle," I said, picked up my bag and turned to leave. "But that's not the only reason."

"Quit bein' so gosh-darned PG-13!" Elaina yelled after me. "This is the new Weekly we're talkin' about! Sex sells, Carter!"

I stumbled to the casino doors, took the elevator to the room, showered and changed within seven minutes—another personal best, with or without a half-bottle of rum and two Irish coffees in me. Elaina arrived in the middle of this burst of industry and calmly pulled on one of my Guayabera shirts, a wide-brimmed straw hat (where in the hell did she get that?), a pair of flip-flops and vintage Ray-Bans. She looked like a mafia wife.

"Ready when you are, Morrissey," she said.

We cabbed down to the Peppermill and I gave Elaina the keys to the Roughy. She pulled onto the Strip with a stylish burn of rubber and cranked up the New Pornographers.

"We coulda gotten some back there," she said. "I just want you to realize that you passed up an opportunity to watch three girls going at each other. Isn't that, like, the highest level of enlightenment that Alpha Male can hope to achieve?"

"Been there," I said. "Back in my Copioh days, I had a two-girl thing with (NAME DELETED) and (NAME DELETED). It was fun for a half-hour or so, but I started losing focus after a while, and I excused myself, went to the living room and read the paper."

Elaina shook her head sadly. "Look what Seattle's done to you."

"Say, we just passed Diversity."

"Yeah, we sure did."

"Well, isn't that where the piercing happens?"

We pulled up to the Sahara stoplight. Elaina smiled, turned to me and gave me her Clockwork Orange look.

"I'm gonna introduce you to a friend of mine," she said.

At 9:30 exactly, we stood in front of the door of room 4300 at the Palms. Elaina was still smiling, but her brow furrowed a bit.

"Listen, honey," she said. "I like this guy, but he's kinda scary. Part the first: his name is Ben, he'll even introduce himself as Ben, but he wants to be called 'Doc.'"

"Why not?" I said. "I'll call him anything he wants. How about 'Nikita'?"

"No dice; it has to be 'Doc.' You call him by his real name and he'll just ignore you. Part the second, and this is important: If he starts getting too out of hand, I'll say 'Hey, sweetie, let's you and me get weird,' and you get me outta there as fast as you can, understand me?"

"What in the hell kind of guy is this?"

She put a finger on my lips. "It's for your story. Believe me, it'll be worth it." She knocked on the door, and a full minute later, it was answered by a towering, drug-addled man with a shaved head and an electric-blue Fu Manchu beard. He was naked except for a lobster bib.

"Barbara?" he said.

"It's Elaina, you prison-bitch Pokemon. I called you about the piercing, remember? I strongly suggest you put on a hair net, or I'm gonna hafta call the health department." Elaina pushed him back inside and gave him a shove in the direction of his luggage, splayed open on the bed.

Almost immediately after I checked out the contents of his luggage—bong, black jeans, assorted Dragonfly shirts —I looked around and realized, to my dismay, that he was exactly the kind of man I thought he was: the room was stacked three-deep in barely legal porno mags and festooned with malt liquor bottles.

A surfboard decorated with Mark Ryden characters leaned against the TV stand. A goddamned surfboard.

"What was that safe phrase, again?" I asked.

"This is Geoff Carter," said Elaina, ignoring me. "Geoff, meet Doc Parsley."

"Ben," he said, grasping my hand firmly. "Call me Ben."

"Sure," I said. "Hey, Ben—are you going surfing? 'Cause we're kind of at low tide right now ..."

"So am I gonna poke you, or what?" he said, facing Elaina.

"My right nipple, Doc. But first you're gonna make us some of those Cuba Libres of yours. My friend here loves his Cubans."

"All righty," he said. "But only if you call me Ben."

"Make the freaking drinks, Doc." Elaina pointed sternly at the mini-bar. He shrugged and got to work cutting the limes. I tried to engage him in conversation—"So, Ben, y'like Vegas' beaches?"—but he ignored me; he spoke only to Elaina, and only to say, "Aw, you don't have to call me Doc, honey. It's Ben!"

I walked over to the window and flopped down in a chair. I desperately wanted to sleep; fencing with Elaina's wingnut reminded me that I was too tired to deal with anybody. He brought my drink over and motioned me to taste; it was exceptional, one of the best Cubans I'd ever had.

"You added gin and bitters to a Cuba Libre," I said. "I thought I was the only person on the planet who did that ... Doc."

"You can call me Ben, amigo," he said, bright and shiny. "I must have read the same Paul Harrington article you did. In fact, I think it was one of your articles that told me to read Harrington."

"Really?" I asked, honestly surprised. "You read one of my pieces?"

"I read all your Vegas stuff. You're not very good, but occasionally you tell me something I don't know."

I had something between a "thank you" and "f--k you" all made but not spoken. I swallowed it and walked over to Elaina, who was putting my Guayabera shirt on a hanger.

"We're not staying," I said. "Why are you doing that?"

"I don't want it to get wrinkled," she said, hanging it in the empty wardrobe. "Even if we're only here for—is 20 minutes okay by you?—I don't want it to get wrinkled, because I care about you, lover. And your shirts."

"Thank you on behalf of Fidel Castro. Who the hell is this ass-hat?"

She pulled me close as if she were going to kiss me, and whispered in my ear: "He was a doctor until his drinking got him fired. I met him when I went in for my annual ..."

"Don't say it."

"There was nothing Cronenbergian about it, I assure you. He wasn't that much the rummy then. But I liked him enough, and we dated ..."

"Sweet zombie Jesus."

"... We dated for about two weeks and broke up when he tried to tilt the balance the other way. As you're well aware, sweetness, there are passengers and there are drivers. I don't ride."

"So you dated and broke up over who got the business end of the crop. Why in the hell are you letting him stick a needle in you?"

"Three reasons. One, he does first-class piercing and tattoo work. Prison-trained, y'know—that's an, um, exacting customer base. You oughta let him work on you, too; his prices are very good, and he's cheap. You just gotta ignore that whole he's-not-licensed thing."

"Even if Dirk Vermin weren't in this hemisphere," I started to vent, and she put a finger on my lips.

"Two," she continued, "he owes me five grand, and we've arranged for him to work it off in skin art. Three—and this is a big one—he always has the best drugs. Such mortal drugs he has. He'll have you believing you've got a horse's (reproductive organ). Or maybe that only works on me."

"I'm screaming and leaving now," I said. "Y'want cab fare?"

"Please don't go," she said urgently, and pushed me on the bed as if we were having a good time. She straddled me and bent down to whisper again: "Don't leave me here. I'll get us out of here, I promise. With the password, remember? I'll take care of both of us. Just don't leave me here alone." And she bit my ear just as the creep leaned over us and said, "You can do whatever you want; it's fine by me. The maid comes and does the bed whenever I ring for towels."

Elaina gave me a smile and mouthed "stay." She pushed herself up and said, "So, when do we draw some blood, son?"

"Are you in a hurry?" he asked, frowning.

"No," Elaina said, with fingers crossed behind her back. "But my friend here has been up for, like, 40 hours already, and he can't sleep before midnight tonight. Concussion, you know."

"Really?" Doc asked. "You poor bastard. I hope the drink doesn't wipe you out."

"It won't," I said, though the room twisted terribly as I sat up. "I just need to sit up, is all."

"Goooooood," said Ben-Doc. He made a whistling sound like a bomb being dropped, which would have unnerved me had a wave of euphoria not hit me at the exact moment I sat up straight. Castrato choirs sang in my head; yellow and aquamarine diamonds seemed to explode before my eyes. To paraphrase the novelist Thom Jones, it felt better than having all my birthdays at once.

"I feeeeeeel good," I said.

"I knew that you would feel better once you sat down," said Elaina. "You look like you just crash-landed in a Hollywood nightclub. So, Bozo, you ready to let the air outta me?"

"Sure thing," said Ben-Doc. "Lemme get together my accoutrements."

At this point, savage reader, your observer broke down; I can't for the life of me remember exactly what happened next. Elaina told me later that my head was lolling from side to side, a process she arrested by slipping on my headphones and hitting random. I do remember hearing James Lileks' industrial swamp-boogie remix of Howard Dean's "barbaric yawp," and howling along with the good doctor: "We're goin' to California! We're goin' to California! We're goin' to California! Yeeeeeaugh!"

And ... I remember speaking to the mushroom-cloud girl. She seemed to drift in through the open window and sat down in a chair facing me.

"I'm not the first," she said, lighting a cigarette from her lap. "I only held the office during the late '50s. I passed the power down, and that was that. I don't know who has it today. But I hope she's a blonde, too."

"What?" I said.

"It's OK that you're a little slow on the uptake, kid; you've had a long night. But you've got to get your head and ass wired together, because Elton's gonna try to take over tonight. The town's in chaos—it's nothing but nightclubs for frat boys, these days—and he sees an opportunity. He sees a chance to slam a lid on the whole town and call it an amusement park, some kind of bass-ackwards EPCOT. But you can cut him off at his past."

"How?" I asked.

"Dance with me," she said, taking me by the hand, "and I'll tell you." And the yellow-and-aquamarine nightclub lights brightened, and Ben-Doc slapped Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" on the turntable, while Elaina shook her stuff on a podium atop the television set. Even though the Zeppelin song isn't a tango, we danced a tango anyway.

"I can't dance," I said, but she shushed me and whispered in my ear much as Elaina had just minutes ago. But she didn't tell me anything about Elton John, as she said she would; instead, she talked to me about writing—how I should prioritize my fiction over my money writing, how I should write the 24-hours story I was working on and how—if I should get the urge—I could tell her story, if I were so inclined.

"Can we not talk about work? For once, I'd like to have fun in Vegas without having to think about how to make it sound fun to other people."

"That'll never happen as long as you keep taking second position," she said. "Besides, your Vegas writing may end up doing some good today. Dip me."

I did, and we kept cutting the rug. We danced to Parliament, Roxy Music, Melt Banana, Sparks, Bethurum Collective and even the Vermin, though the dancing didn't always match the beats: we waltzed to the Dead Kennedys, did a rude bump-and-grind to Interpol, pogoed to Elton John's "Grow Some Funk of Your Own."

"I gotta sit down for a minute," I said after we did the Goth-on-a-string shake to "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love." "After all, I've been up for, what, 27 hours?"

"More like 33 hours now," said Elaina. The mushroom-cloud girl was gone, and the room was neutrally lit again. Ben-Doc was fussing around in the bathroom.

I suddenly grasped what had happened.

"I slept, didn't I?" I asked.

"Sort of," she said. "I told Ben to drop a Xanax into your drink, but he said he couldn't go through with it because you looked too messed-up already. But then you kind of hunkered down on the bed, and it looked like you were sleeping for about 10 minutes or so ... until you started singing."

"Singing," I said numbly.

"My guess is that you were singing along with the music on your headphones. You sang some George Clinton and Bryan Ferry stuff, a Led Zeppelin tune, and even an Elton John song that I didn't know, but Ben did. He said it was one of his favorites."

"'Grow Some Funk of Your Own,' right?"

"Yup. And you kept on singing until a few minutes ago, when you started mumbling a bunch of stuff that I couldn't quite make out. Then you asked how long you'd been awake, and here we are. You don't feel like you slept?"

I didn't know how I felt, precisely, but I knew I was still tired. "No, I don't think so. If I did, it wasn't very restful."

"Oh, well," said Elaina. "Can't fault a girl for trying. Anyways, we're about ready to do the piercing, if you're up for it. It was nice to have some time to catch up with this tall drink o' water," she said, gesturing to Ben-Doc; he'd emerged from the bathroom with a tool box, some bandages and a bottle of pink stuff. "We haven't had this much time to talk since we broke up, and we've ironed out a few things. Something about your constant serenade mellowed us right out."

"Geoff," said Ben-Doc, "you're groovy like a Fellini movie. I never guessed while I was reading your crap that you had such exquisite musical tastes. Anybody that loves both Elton John and Louis Jordan is rock solid in my book. I hope you don't mind that I put down your words at first. From now on, when I read your stuff, I'll know where it's coming from. You've got a real gift there, man."

"Um, thanks, Ben," I said.

"No, thank you!" he said, and turned to Elaina. "You never told me this guy could sing! So, baby—you ready to do this?"

"Ready, Freddie," sang Elaina, pulling her swimsuit down to her belly. In less than a minute, Ben-Doc swabbed her breast with some of the pink liquid, drew a bead on either side of her nipple with a felt-tip pen, poked a barbell-shaped stud through it and slapped a bandage over it.

"I wouldn't put that swimsuit back on," he advised. "I've got a pair of sweats you can wear with Geoff's Guayabera shirt."

"I'll go change," said Elaina. She grabbed my shirt out of the wardrobe, took the sweatpants that Ben-Doc offered her, and said, "I thank you, gentlemen." And she went into the bathroom and shut the door.

"Was that all there was to that?" I asked of the quick-and-easy mutilation I'd just witnessed. "It happened awfully fast."

"Well, that's the whole town, isn't it?" Ben-Doc grinned. "An hour of buildup and 45 seconds of near-equal payoff? I think I read that in one of your pieces. That actually makes sense, now that we're friends. It sounds exactly like you, man!"

I didn't have it in me to tell him that he'd confused me with someone else; that I'd never say anything that general about Vegas. I noticed a copy of Literary Las Vegas on the floor near the bed, which explained his confusion: He'd probably cribbed the quote from one of the authors inside—Michael Ventura, perhaps.

I reached down to pick up the book and noticed that he'd marked a page with a postcard. The image on the postcard sent a jolt though me: A blond showgirl with a look of joy and rapture on her face, her arms thrust triumphantly towards the heavens ... dressed only in a cardboard cutout of a mushroom cloud. The real thing exploded behind her, way off in the distance, but she didn't seem to pay the explosion any mind.

"This ... this girl," I stammered. I flipped the card over and read the caption: Miss Atomic Bomb, 1957.

"Oh yeah, that's Atomic Girl," said Ben-Doc. "I picked that one up at Bonanza Gifts. She was the only superhero this town's ever had. Boy, could we use her now, what with all these goddamned reality shows running the town into the dirt."

"Atomic Girl?" I asked. "How come I never heard of her?"

"My dad told me about her," Ben-Doc shrugged. "It's not a story the old-timers tell to people who weren't born here—no offense, man. He said that she was created during the atomic bomb tests of the 1950s, possibly by Howard Hughes—using the DNA of Jane Russell, of course. She battled, y'know, adversity and shit."

He went on to tell me how his father said that Atomic Girl had "protected the town's ragged glory" by defending Vegas against UFOs, brigands, foreigners, Foreigner (the "Head Games" tour), the dreaded "Star-Boobied Sneetches" and a "mutant army of 200-foot-tall Joseph Smiths. Mean as hell. Dad says that every once in a while one of them will rise up and kill off a bunch of independent coffeehouses."

Then, in August of 1990, Atomic Girl vanished after "Wynn gave her some kind of ultimatum. Said it wouldn't be fitting for a 'family destination' to have a super-heroine whose destructive power was derived from her knockers."

I shook my head wildly. "Whazzat?"

"She had electric boobs," he said. "And a mohawk, too. You know, you oughta put this in the magazine."

Next week, the conclusion: Mysteries deepen and so do the drinks ... Elton and Atomic Girl meet for the final confrontation ... life and death at the karaoke bar ...