"I don't suppose you could change into a Learjet or something practical."
Coyote shook his head. "Just living things: animals, bugs, rocks."
Sam reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out the box of breath mints, and handed them to Coyote. The trickster raised his eyebrows in query.
Sam said, "Eat those. I can't handle dog breath through an eight-hour drive."
Part 3
Quest
CHAPTER 23
Pavlov's Dogs and the Rhinestone Turd
Las Vegas
The only distractions from the noise of his own mind were desert-dried roadkills, thrown retreads, and road signs reflecting desolation. Sam drove, smoked, and fought drowsiness by worrying about how he would find the girl. The trickster slept in the passenger seat.
Sam had been to Las Vegas three times before — with Aaron — to see championship boxing at Caesar's Palace. Two hundred dollars bought them seats at nosebleed altitude, closer to the moon than the ring, but Aaron insisted that there was nothing like being there. Without binoculars, following the progress of the fight was like tracking down a rumor. Sam usually watched the women and did his best to keep Aaron calmed down.
As soon as they walked into a casino Aaron started. "This is my town! The lights, the excitement, the women — I was born for this place." Then Aaron would drop a couple thousand at the tables and suck free gin and tonics until he staggered. In the morning Sam would drag Aaron out of a tangle of satin sheets and hookers, throw him in the shower, and listen to his long lament of remorse and hangover as he lay in the backseat of the car with a jacket over his head, whining the whole way home about how he would never return. Aaron never failed to fuel the greed machine and was always dumbfounded when it juiced him of his hope.
It was the machine that fascinated Sam. While Aaron ground himself through the velvet gears, Sam watched the workings of the most elaborate Skinner box on the face of the Earth. Drop the coin, hear the bell, see the lights, eat the food, see the women, hear the bell, see the lights, drop the coin again. The ostentation of the casinos did not create desire for money; it made money meaningless. There were no mortgages in a casino, no children needing food, no car needing repairs, no work, no time, no day, no night; those things — the context of money — were someplace else. A place where people returned before they realized that a turd rolled in rhinestones is a turd nonetheless.
Sam saw the glow from Las Vegas rising over the desert from thirty miles out. He poked Coyote in the leg and the trickster woke up.
"Hold the wheel," Sam said.
"Let me drive. You can sleep."
"You're not driving my car. Just hold the wheel."
Coyote held the wheel while Sam punched buttons on the console. The screen of the navigation system flickered on. Sam punched a few more buttons and a street map of Las Vegas lit up green on the screen. A blip representing the Merecedes blinked along Highway 15 toward the city.
"Okay," Sam said, taking the wheel again.
Coyote studied the screen. "How do you win?"
"It's not a game, it's a map. The blip is us."
"The car knows where it is going, like a horse?"
"It doesn't know, it just tells us where we are."
"Like looking out the window?"
"Look, I'm going to have to sleep when we get to Vegas. I don't even know where to start looking for Calliope."
"Why don't you ask the car?"
Sam ignored the question. "I'm going to get us a room." He dialed information on the cellular phone, got the number of a casino hotel, then called and reserved a room.
The exits off the highway were marked by names of casinos they led to, not by the names of streets or roads. Sam took the exit marked Camelot. He followed the signs down the surface streets lined with pawnshops, convenience stores, and low-slung cinder-block buildings under neon signs that proclaimed, CASH FOR YOUR CAR, CHECKS CASHED HERE, MARRIAGES AND DIVORCES — TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR DRIVE-THRU WINDOW.
Coyote said, "What are these places?"
Sam tried to think of a quick explanation, but was too weary from lack of sleep to tackle the concept of Las Vegas in twenty-five words or less. Finally he said, "These are places where you go if you want to fuck up your life and you don't have a lot of time to do it in."
"Are we going to stop?"
"No, I seem to be fucking up at a fine rate of speed, thank you." Sam spotted the pseudomedieval towers of Camelot rising above the strip, multi-colored pennons flying from standards tipped with aircraft warning lights. He wondered what the real King Arthur (if there was a King Arthur, and who was he to question the truth behind myth?) would have thought about the casino named after his legendary city. Would he recognize anything? Would he cower in fear at the sight of his first electric light? Flush toilet? Automobile? Would he be reduced to a pathetic Quixote attacking this place where chivalry was a quaint marketing idea? Or would the Once and Future King lay eyes on a leggy keno girl and raise another lance to lead the knights of the Round Table in a charge? The women, Sam decided, would be Arthur's touchstone, and his downfall.
He shot a glance at Coyote. "When we get there you're going to see a lot of women without a lot of clothes on. Stay away from them."
Coyote looked surprised. "I never touch a woman who does not want it-"
"Don't touch!" Sam interrupted.
Coyote slouched in his seat. "Or need it," he whispered.
Sam drove the Mercedes over a giant drawbridge and stopped at the valet parking station where a dozen young men dressed like squires were scrambling around unloading cars, filling out slips, and driving cars away.
"This is it," Sam said. He popped the trunk and got out, leaving the engine running. A warm desert wind washed over him at the same time a young man ran around the car and held out a numbered slip of paper. "Your ticket, milord."
Sam dug in his pocket for a bill to tip the kid, but found nothing. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't have any cash on me. I'll get your name and leave a tip at the desk."
The kid tried to force a smile and failed. "Very good, milord." He jumped in the car and slammed the door. Sam cringed and tapped on the window. The window whirred down; the kid waited.
Sam leaned in and read the kid's plastic badge. "Look, uh, Squire Tom, I really will leave a tip at the desk for you. We left in a hurry and I forgot to get cash."
The kid waited, gunning the engine.
"There's an alarm remote on the keys. Could you turn it on after you park it? One chirp is armed."
Squire Tom nodded and pulled away. Sam heard him say, "The pox on you, Moorish pig," over the squeal of the tires. How authentic, Sam thought. He watched the Mercedes disappear around the corner and wondered why valet parking always made him feel as if he had seen his car for the last time.
Coyote stood across the lane waving to the car. He looked over. "Moorish pig?"
"The dark skin, I guess," said Sam. He led Coyote past a half-dozen squires and an overweight guy in a purple-and-yellow jester's outfit with a radio on his belt and a badge that read, Lord Larry, over another drawbridge, and into the casino.
Trumpets played a fanfare as they crossed the threshold under a brace of huge broadswords. A jolly electronic voice welcomed them to Camelot. Sam spotted a woman in a peasant dress by a sign reading, Ye Olde Information. The badge she wore, next to a magnificent display of cleavage, read, Lusty Wench Wendy. Sam pulled Coyote back and approached the girl.