Viewing her that way, seeing first her face, then a profile of her tits, then her jazzercised butt, Jimmy wished he'd been born with a body that may as well have been made of money. Then, instead of being one of the nooges getting squeezed in the casino, he'd be in the biz, like her. He'd put on a sequined g-string and parade around in one of the hundreds of Naughty-But-Nice, Direct-from-Paris reviews that played all over town. Wistfully, he took off all but her Egyptian hat with his eyes, then imagined the two of them doing it doggie style back in his hotel room. The fantasy lifted his spirits and on her next revolution, he stepped forward and grinned to attract her attention. Her beauty swept past like the beacon of a lighthouse; her gaze--worse than insulting!--looked through him in profound unrecognition. He seeped away.

Outside, the Vegas night was hot as a sauna. He stepped from the air-conditioned casino into the light of gladiatorial torches that blazed furiously, making the night hotter still.

The Dog was waiting for him in the shadow of a faux-marble chariot. By torch light, only its canine teeth could be seen. "Psst, pssst, Jimmy," it said, rising. "You're not gonna solve anything by pissing away my dog-food money." The runt came slowly out of the darkness.

Jimmy Diamond ignored it and began to walk. He was drunker than he thought--at least he'd scored on the complementary drinks. The booze had dehydrated him, though, and he wished that the moving sidewalk that had carried him past the flaming torches, past the holograms of Caesar and his nymphs and into the casino also went back out to The Strip. It had to be over two hundred yards away. He looked around to see what other suckers didn't have enough dough for even the shuttle bus, but found that he was the only one taking a hike up the long, long drive.

The Dog trotted to catch up, then stayed at his heel like an obedient pet. "You've no reason to be cross with me," it said.

Jimmy stopped abruptly. "Are you going to talk at the audition tomorrow?" he demanded. The Dog looked back with the stoic silence that only a dog could have. When it began to lick its own bung hole, Jimmy felt a great urge to kick it. He would have kicked it except high above, tourists were watching him as they were carried toward the casino by Caesar's moving sidewalk. "Welcome to my empire," Caesar's recorded voice said over a fanfare of trumpets.