Not that much changed in Sin City. It was early afternoon when they arrived, and since it was a hot day in the desert, the Strip was swarming with people in T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops, hopping from one hotel to the next, all in the guise of having fun. The thoroughfare wasn’t bad at night when darkness muted the monoliths and neon reigned supreme. But in the sunlight, the gargantuan buildings dwarfed anything life-size, completely incongruent with the flat terrain beyond the glitter. There was beauty in the desert, but Vegas wasn’t part of it. The rental car had come equipped with GPS, and the address given to Marge by Detective Lonnie Silver of North Las Vegas PD put them in a strip mall away from the action. A wind had picked up grit and tossed it into the air. Marge felt a layer of grime on her face and a few pebbles in her shoes. The Italian restaurant was a storefront, and lunch seemed to be top priority, since Bruce Havert/Byron Hayes wasn’t suspected of anything. The tables were covered with checkered plastic and the seating was generic wooden chairs.
