I pushed my tickets toward the woman, and she produced a bin of flimsy metal rings with plastic jewels at the center and a box of chocolate poker chips from the glass prize case. I pointed to the candy and she counted out four of them, paused, then reached in and added one more piece to the pile. I unwrapped one and let the chocolate melt slowly on my tongue. On my way out I tucked a business card into the screen of a Mortal Kombat console.

I held out cards to anyone I passed, chanting Tarot cards palm reading, tarot cards palm reading until the words lost their meaning, my mouth just making the same shapes over and over again. I watched people take cards then drop them on the ground a few steps later. At first, I tried to look people in the eye, tried to show them something about myself: That I was, like Des said, the real deal. That they could trust me. That I wanted to help. Some people took them, thinking it was an offer for a free drink or free Italian ice, like the other shops handed out, and then crumpled the cards in their palms.

After an hour of walking I still had more than half of the cards to give away. I stopped in front of the darkened doors of the Taj Mahal, where signs warned against trespassing. Des and I had gone to the liquidation sale, before they closed their doors for good. Men loaded the chandeliers into moving trucks and workers pried light fixtures off the walls. In every room, tables were stacked with empty cocktail glasses and giant serving platters, shelves full of clothing irons and telephones, piles of Bibles shucked from the drawers of bedside tables, and towers of metal champagne buckets. In another room, a cluster of disco balls sparkled in a corner. An entire hallway was lined with mattresses from the hotel, most of them covered in stains. It made me realize how easily the casinos, places I thought were fixed and permanent, could be reduced to debris.

I turned around to walk south again. A drunk man slurred at me—Heyyy, baby—and a pair of women shook their heads as I approached, as though I was holding out a spider or a mouse. I thought I had imagined it when I heard a girlish voice calling my name. “Ava? Ava?” After the jitney ride yesterday, I second-guessed everything I heard.