After being turned away at Encore by an Asian security guard, even though we had a perfectly legitimate appointment at the spa, (and because I was hallucinating as was Dave The Jew I must insist you read my previous blog “No Encore For Oliver” as even now it is too painful to delve back into that part of my seriously damaged gray matter) at Dave The Jew’s urging we went for an Oriental Foot Massage. This forty-dollar experience, which in fact was a full body massage, put every high priced spa I’ve ever been to, to shame. With knots, I did not even know that I had, purged from my body we headed back to Whiskey Peet’s fifty thousand square foot mansion.

            “Well shiiiiiiiit! You guys back already?” asked the rich, handsome, crazy, gun toting cowboy named Whiskey Peet I had come to know through Stan Peters—Hollywood’s scummiest and most powerful producer. “C’mon and play some poker I’ll stake you some more money if you need it.”

            “They wouldn’t let us in,” I said plainly, still hallucinating from the peyote Dave The Jew had talked me into taking. Whiskey Peet’s cowboy hat had stretched all the way to the top of the ceiling. I should add that the ceiling height of Whiskey Peet’s at Whiskey Peet’s as the private casino in Whiskey Peet’s home is called is about thirty feet high. “I really just want to take April upstairs and have sex in an attempt to get over the disgust and rejection I am feeling with respect to the events of earlier this morning.”

            “My boy, my boy! Your little philly is still up six million dollars. I think she’s played before. But if it’s okay with Stan it’s okay with me.”

            I turned to Stan. “Do you want me to finish that script?”

            He sighed. “It’s mostly yours’ and Dave’s money…so if it’ll help get that script done go fornicate away.”

            “Well boys it’s been a pleasure.” She stood looking hotter than ever in the same g-string and tiny bra she had been wearing when Whiskey Peet carried her out of the strip club Seamless for me. “I have to go take care of my man now.”

            The soft horsehair of the bedspread wasn’t even close to the tender skin of April’s inner thighs, which pressed against my oblique muscles in a manner that caused my loins to fill with all but the last pint of blood in my body. My head swooned with this awakening of my manhood. But as great as the sensation of her skin on my body or my being inside of her may have been, it was the smoldering look on her face that has been burnt indelibly into my oh so corrupt soul. Did I just say smoldering look? I’m a disgrace of a writer to use such a banal description. Tolstoy would take the time to describe every inch, every movement, and every nuance of her expression that was indeed the power that so completely penetrated my blood cells one by one until they reached the unbearable boiling point of ecstasy that I am trying to describe. Finally, a tremor of immeasurable magnitude rolled through my body into hers and then there was an embrace of each other so violent and so desperate that not one single molecule of the material world seemed relevant to our state.

            Three days later our bodies finally separated and we spoke our first words in all of those days.

            “I don’t want you ever to leave Las Vegas, Downtown Oliver Brown.”

            “Where am I?” I asked, feeling like I was awakening from the greatest dream ever.

            And then her body and that look and the dream continued.

            A day later we spoke again. “Promise me you won’t ever leave Las Vegas, Downtown Oliver Brown.”

            “Are you hungry?” I asked.

            Amazingly Whiskey Peet, Stan Peters, and Dave The Jew were all still playing poker in the same exact way that we had left them. They, unlike us, had been having food delivered, but agreed that it was a good idea to go out and have a bite to eat. Whiskey Peet was very impressed that April trusted him enough to leave her six million in winnings in his safe until we got back. He was so happy he gave her an extra full-length sable he had laying around.

            The driver of Whiskey Peet’s Rolls Royce Phantom stretch limousine with the sterling silver steer horns pulled into the side entrance of the new Encore hotel without incident. Our posse strolled into Encore and pretty much simultaneously arrived at the same conclusion—Encore was a really nice hotel. Now given my earlier experience I was inclined to want to find fault, but not being one to let my dysfunctional character interfere with my sense of integrity and honor I gave credit where credit was do.

            “I like it. Steve Wynn really knows how to build a hotel,” I proclaimed.

            “Shiiiiiit, it’s no Whiskey Peet’s but it ain’t half bad.”

            I turned to Stan. “What do you think?”

            “I like the way they used all the red glass.” He looked around for a moment. “And let me tell you there isn’t a girl working here that I wouldn’t bang. Whoever is running HR for this joint should be working for me.”

            I looked at April but didn’t need to ask. She whispered in my ear, “Why don’t you take the boys over there to the Eastside Lounge and I’ll get us a room.”

            Her lips crossed mine oh so lightly. “Okay, just text me the room number.”

            Seated in the Eastside Lounge I decided that I had found my favorite spot to sit in Las Vegas. The fact that Steve had the courage to build a lounge that looked out over the pool, meaning that you can actually see the outdoors from the casino, says it all. We sat and drank and smoked really good cigars. Then a huge windstorm came and began to blow the pool furniture into the pool. I wondered why the furniture hadn’t been secured.

            “Would you look at that,” said Dave The Jew.

            A crowd had begun to gather. The possibility of something blowing through the windows added a real thrill to our afternoon.

            Whiskey Peet pointed his cigar at the spectacle. “You see my boys! We can all build fancy buildings. But the trick is how you run them. The devil is always in the details.”

            Stan Peters gestured my way. “Drives you crazy, doesn’t it Oliver?”

            “What’s that, Stan?”

            “That people don’t care enough to do their jobs to absolute perfection.”

            I thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, but let’s face it Stan nobody is laying awake at night worried about what I think.”

            Stan laughed. “Oh Oliver, for being so smart you’re so stupid. Trust me plenty of people worry about what you think.”