They drove through the desert, looking for the abominable stake struck upon the scorched earth, The Casino El Rey.

"Another desert," Dion said.

"I hate deserts." The creosote passed by them, falling and bouncing back as they rolled over them.

Apollo stuck his leg out of the window of the car and puffed a cigarette, he felt the drag through his clothes, it felt nice even with the heat.

"Don't do that," Dion said. It didn't matter. He kept puffing and watching and idling in the car.

"We're older than this casino? Can you believe it?" He inhaled. "You'd think it'd take longer to build a sky-scrapper but Thomas Wolfe did it in a year. A year. Two decades ago."

He spat out the window and threw his cigarette and wiped his tongue on his palm. The nicotine was terrible tasting. Did he get the wrong brand? Gold label, wasn't it?

He kept licking his hand, he could feel Dion staring.

"I didn't know you were a cat," Dion said.

"I taste something bad," He said. "The taste of gross wealth."

"What are you? A communist?"

"I don't care what people do or make as long as it doesn't get in my way." He said. "But this is different. It tastes bad, literally. It feels bad. I don't think we're going somewhere nice or kind or moral."

"I don't taste anything and I don't feel any certain way. Are you sure it was just nicotine in that roll?"

"You can't taste it? It tastes sour. Vinegar, lemon, rancid too." Apollo rolled his tongue inside his mouth. A jackrabbit tried to outpace the car. The car rolled up and down ditches, the asphalt long since lost in the desert scape. The only reason they knew they were going the right way was by the signs every five miles, by the stray and forgotten cars sitting in open desert.

Who builds a kingdom twenty miles off Las Vegas. Who has that kind of ego? Thomas Wolfe does, that's who.

He spat out again as the shadow found them. It enveloped them, the giant mass. Apollo rubbed his eyes, to see if the piece of paradise in the gloomy yellow-orange of the desert was mirage or true vision. They approached, it sparkled. Black and gold and sleek. Little houses were scarce, there were mostly apartments and restaurants and loan shark shops like the unbridled fauna underneath a whale. For a moment, as they rolled closer and as the road appeared below them, it seemed like a monopoly board. And they were just at the first stop. A board filled with traps, with the real estate and walkway long since bought and sold.

They stopped, turned a right, they came into the mouth of the city, a large sign reading: Greetings from Casino El Rey, where everyone can be a king. The long stretches of dark road contrasted, harsh and painful against their eyes, against the drab desert.

"I'm excited," Apollo said. They looked around themselves, towards the neon lights flashing arrows pointing to strip clubs and storefronts and the Casino itself. Apollo opened the door but felt like closing it. He hadn't realized how hot it was, the rushing drag had fooled him. He came out with a newspaper then, waving against his face.

"I guess you can't be playing games all day. You'd need restaurants to feed you, motels to keep you, bars to drink your misery," A giant money sign flashed to his rear, a pawn shop and a loan exchange store. "And loan sharks to have you do it all over again."

"Are you sure we can do this? We aren't being used, right?" Dion scoped out, a haunted look on his face as he watched the zombie-look of the patrons.

"We can do anything," Apollo laughed, it seemed comical even to himself. "And whether we're being manipulated or not is irrelevant. We've got no choice, right?" Apollo said.

"I guess."

A man passed them, wheel in his hand and jack wrench in the other. He smiled and rolled it away. Others showed up to distract them, to offer their services. Car washers, car watchers, seedy folks who began to stink the place with their alcoholic stench.

"Fuck off," Apollo pushed one of them away. "Let's go."

Dion walked, hesitantly before running back. He gave a man twenty dollars, to Apollo's chagrin.

It was like that. The whole time, giving homeless and the poor money. And it was a lot of money spent, for the stretch to the casino was long and unpleasant.

It was like this all the way to the casino, where the giddy old men and women with their Hawaiian rumbled through with hope in their pockets. A casino, whose entrance was devised to be a golden crown, who upon entry from the self-moving doors, tipped to the side. Dion and Apollo looked at each other and then into the casino, into the noise of beeping and of losses and of crowd cheers. A loud carnival of noises, beeps, and tunes and dice rolls and ball rolls.

"Better luck next time, buddy!" A machine screamed at a woman who banged at the glass screen.

They wandered inside, towards a front desk and a young man staring blankly at checkbooks on his computer screen. Apollo hit the bell. The boy looked up, his eyes dead and tired. His lips, fat, his jaw a little slack.

"I know you," He said. "They told me to send you up."

An ornate key card was handed. A gold, black key card. They walked past the young boy, past the crazed gamblers, past the lewd women and cheating men, towards a glass-tube shaped elevator. They scanned themselves in. Waited, the doors rumbled. They looked at each again. And it opened, wide.

"Welcome," It said. The lights and noises all a flash against their faces. A disco-ball potpourri nightmare of light. [i]Welcome, Apollo stepped in, [i]to a schizo's dream.

♣

"Don't break anything." An old, box-jawed butler told them, he wore simple garments and plastic gloves and looked like a boxer made subservient. Or perhaps, a mobster. He had waited for them past the fifty floors leading up, the fifty floors Apollo had spent looking out towards the city and its topography. It was a hamlet, a village. And Mr. Thomas Wolfe was its dead king.

The butler handed them both latex blue gloves to wear. They walked through, on floor fifty-three (Maybe? He lost count). The first thing they saw, a hall full of doors and the inscribed numbers or what he thought were names. Most of them followed a different categorical naming pattern, gems. A room was named Saphire, another Emerald, another Diamond, and so on and so forth. There were elements too, platinum and silver and gold.

"I read about these in the pamphlet," Dion said. "They're VIP rooms."

"They're also not what we're looking for."

Past the rooms, as they went along the halls, was the main circular plaza. A sort of hub for every elevator and room and stairway. A piano sat underneath a chandelier light. Small crystals rattled at their entrance. The light shown off them was bright, accenting the mild peach colored room and the parchment colored tile. There were other people here too, fleets of workers who shuffled and busy-bodied and whom upon seeing the two, lined up with brooms and mops like knights with their swords.

"Look at all these suspects," Apollo said. They all stared terrified and wide-eyed.

"Come on, don't joke around."

"Who said I'm joking?" Apollo smirked.

"This way, sir." It was obvious the man was trying to contain anger and fear, he was shaking. But he pressed them on anyways, more obligated to duty than anything else. They followed him through the shark tank, past a little desk that was now empty. The papers were neat, the pen orientated at the top. In front of the big conference room was Aenea. She waited with folded arms and tapped along the floor. He couldn't tell for what exactly, if it was fear or anxiety or irritation. She shot them a glare.

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"We've tried to preserve the body as much as possible but..."

"But he's deteriorating, isn't he? It happens to Vicars too. They call it the devil's touch," he said. "The arcana inclined tend to rot faster."

"Right, so take your evidence and get as much as you can out of him. He won't be here long, I aim to bury him soon."

"Already?"

"Salome doesn't want it so, neither do her kids but I'll be damned if I don't get what I came for. To bury the b..." He said. "The man, to bury the man."

Apollo's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to say something but Dion grabbed his shoulder.

"Come on," He said.

"We'll see what we can figure out. We won't make any promises." Apollo told her as he was pulled away.

They opened the creaking glass doors. There was a corpse alright, he could smell it. It must have been going hot for a day or two. Apollo got some vapor rub from within his jacket, sticking his hand into his coat at first before realizing there was nothing special about it. It was just a normal pocket. A normal, regular persons pocket. The whole movement was odd, an affront to his old habits.

He put some of the minty grease on his nostrils and offered it to Dion who did the same.

"Let's not avert our eyes now, we're the only ones who can. God left this room a long time ago." Apollo came forward to the corpse sitting straight on his chair, the neck up and bending along the backseat of the office chair. His chest was exposed. The ribs, showing, the muscle torn, stabbed through and slightly slashed. Apollo reached into his coat again and revealed blue gloves (he only needed just the one though). He slapped it on. He looked at the injuries particular to the chest, dragging his finger along Thomas Wolfe's corpse. The flesh felt leathery under his finger. [i]He was an older man. Anyone could have told you that though.

His pointer finger followed the trail of injury to the top, to the neck of the corpse where it was marked and also bleeding. [i]Marked? Was his neck slit? A hand couldn't have caused this much blood. Piano wire, maybe? No, there's no cut at all.

It was hard to tell what made it, only that there were imprints on him and just as much blood as there was on his chest.

"He was stabbed, then his body was cut open. Somewhere along he was choked. I can't imagine he was choked first, what do you think?"

Dion had his hand to his mouth, he wanted to speak but gagged at the words. He looked away, completely, after a while.

"I think whoever did him in has a sick head." He said. His voice was quivering.

It didn't matter to Apollo, for better or worse. Though it might have made him see psychopathic, there was a pathological ambition here, a professionalism that made him immune to the sight of the scene. He put his gloved hand to his chin and almost rubbed it before he realized the blood and set it back down.

"You're right, he has a sick mind. It was definitely a passionate crime, that might have to do with the intent and nature of it."

He moved the chair, it sounded pained, loose. The chair seat wobbled. He looked at the table, there were signs of a struggle. Part of the glass top of the table was crack. His head rose to the statue in the corner of the room, some predatory animal with a missing fang.

"I've got some concepts on what happened," Apollo said. "Small things."

He walked around the room, imagining the footsteps. The actions. The passions.

"How many murderers do you think were here?" Apollo turned a picture frame of the family over.

"One?"

"Maybe," Apollo said. "Might be two. That might be why the guy is so bloody. Someone choked him, another stabbed him."

Aenea was watching this all. From outside, behind the glass doors. Her eyes following, cold and apathetic at the treatment of her fathers corpse. Apollo noticed it, felt it eerie. And disgusted with himself that he was so dispassionate as he was.

[i]It's not my fault, I've just seen so many people dead. It's not my fault.

She opened the door at last, tempted and walked past her father's corpse.

"Are you saying there were two murderers?"

"Or three, or four. Or one. Who knows. But it's important to keep all our options open." Apollo said. "Out of curiosity though, were there even two people available? Do you know who was on this floor at his time of death?"

Her eyes did not flare, she did not blink. She was strong, not in an honorable or noble way, but in that abominable analytic sense. Someone who had no feelings to get angry about. She stared at the body, unblinking. [i]Jesus, to her own dad too.

"My whole family was here. There were about twenty-five workers too, and perhaps half a dozen VIP guests."

"That's a lot of suspects. What about the upper or lower floors? It's not hard to imagine someone running in from there and killing him quickly."

"To be honest..." She thought, scratching her head. "Given the abilities of some of these people, it might be a worse number. I've seen some bodyguards...walk through walls... it's strange. I hope you're more used to it than me."

He wasn't. Even with all the years. And worse, she reminded him: these people were witches or people who associate with witches. They were all culpable.

"You said, back at the house, that you came here for a dinner," Apollo said. "Is that all though? There wasn't any other motivational factor present?"

"We were here to celebrate my father's retirement. He was to choose an heir," And that explained it, Apollo took off his glove and chucked it. It was sweaty, he rubbed his hand on his pants.

"When'd you all show up?" He asked.

"Most of us were here by Tuesday, father died on Wednesday the next day."

"The killer might not have planned the murder then, not with that small time frame."

"She said the lights went out, remember? And the building shook. That definitely sounds like something planned." Dion said.

"That might have been something done in the heat of the moment, too. Witches are capable spellcasters, it's not hard to believe they caused an earthquake by sheer passion and emotion of the act."

"I don't think any of my siblings are that capable."

"Who said we were just talking about your siblings?" He glared at her. "Do you have reason to believe that one of them was the murderer."

"No, they're just the first ones that came to mine."

He looked at her, readjusting his position, rethinking her naivety.

"And where were you Wednesday, again?"

"Apollo!" Dion nudged him.

"She hired me to investigate and I'm investigating. What's the problem? If she's innocent then it's best we get it out already, so I don't waste time in the future."

Dion stayed silent. They both looked at Aenea, who seemed unfazed, uncaring. Less than apathetic. Bored almost. "I wasn't here, most of my family would attest to that...I was the last one to come, I took a jet here six hours after my father's death."

Apollo tilted his head.

"So you found out last? About this whole thing? Why were you the first to request a detective."

"They did hire detectives. But I don't trust them. They're comfy with the family and I don't like that, might make them dishonest if they find something...unsavory."

"So you brought outsiders, huh."

"I brought people who might give me closure and who might not. What I really want is for you to get this over, one way or another." She sighed. "If you don't like that, you can still leave. I won't fault you."

"We won't be outdone by amateurs and phonies," Apollo said. Dion nodded.

He took his notepad out and wrote everything down, his pencil dragged and furious across the page.

"Where do you work at?" Dion asked. Apollo lifted his head, his pencil ready.

"I work in a pharmaceutical company. I was with investors, they can attest to it. So can my family. Didn't I say this already?"

Dion scratched his neck.

"Just trying to make small talk."

"Don't waste my time."

"Where do you work?" Apollo asked, sharp. The graphite made a scratching noise.

"You might have heard of it. Excel Grand, we deal with over-the-counter medicine mostly."

"Excel Grand..."Apollo wrote it, thought it, let it rumble against the inside of his skull. He remembered taking an aspirin with their logo on it, that one day Dion punched him and left him in a dumpster after that whole construction-site-demon business. He felt a headache forming.

"Any reason why you 'weren't invited'?" Dion asked, this time. Apollo wanted to nod as if to say, nice question.

She felt hurt. For once. Apollo looked up, he saw her face morph, reel back almost to the question. As if she had an allergic reaction to it, felt itchy with a kind of guilt towards that question.

"Is that information necessary for your investigation? All you need to know was that I wasn't here and I didn't have anything to do with his death and that's a promise as much as anyone can make."

Her tone was expedient, she wanted to get rid of the words as soon as they came out. Apollo raised his pencil and his finger, the notepad hung by the edge of the stump of his arm. It fell. His mouth opened, for another question, an intense look in his eyes. A craze, almost.

The phone rang. She sighed, in relief almost and looked at Apollo. He felt his mouth suck in, close.

"I need to go talk to some of card dealers. There's a problem at the poker tables, we can talk about this later. If we still have to, that is."

She left. Ran out almost, the doors didn't even have time to settle before she was down the elevator and gone.

"You see that?" Apollo asked.

"Yeah, I saw it," Dion said. "You made her angry."

"I got under her skin and that's good," He said. "Now I know what bothers her and what she wants to keep secret. And the only things worth keeping secret are important things."

"Do we really need to pry? She's got a strong alibi?" Dion asked.

Apollo picked up the notepad.

"We don't need to pry, but why was she so hostile?"

"Who knows? Does it matter?"

"It might."

"She has a right to exclude any details, personal ones especially."

"Dion," Apollo turned to him. "Our heads are on the line. We can't afford to care about other peoples feelings. You understand that, right?"

"I understand that I need to be civil when you refuse to be. You won't find me act like an ass like you, that's for sure."

"Good luck being civil," Apollo turned to the corpse. "That's a luxury for secured people. And we are not secure."

The dead wide eyes stared into the black tile, the milky-waved, black granite. Dion left, taking one look at the corpse, his hand on his mouth again.

Apollo stayed for a moment. Stayed and stared and wondered and felt. Imagining the nameless, faceless anonymous murderers. Imagining the struggle, the fight, the death.

[i]I've come to meet the children of a king, and I hate them already.

He opened the door. It shut. A maid, standing the corner, a little curious at the yellow tape and shushed words, stopped by the glass doors. She took one look and fainted.