Canaletto was at the end of the canal across a bridge filled with picture-takers and looked out on a large piazza surrounded by shops. It was seven o’clock and I stood at the entrance to a courtyard filled with tables, taking in the scene, waiting for Sally to arrive fashionably late, when I saw her waving to me from a table next to the railing, ringside on the piazza. People were streaming by in back of her and you would swear she was outside at a sidewalk table in Rome or Florence or Milan, not inside a Vegas hotel with air-conditioning.

It had been built ten or more years ago, at the start of the building boom in Vegas, and was the queen of the strip before the Venetian and the Bellagio came along. It was spectacular still. While most of the theme hotels had gone for miniaturization, a smaller Statue of Liberty or Eiffel Tower, the Capri had gone the other way. Its theme was the Blue Grotto and it had been built on a scale of one hundred feet of the Las Vegas grotto for every one foot of the real grotto to allow room for restaurants and shops along its banks. It opened onto a huge outdoor pool, of course, with a swim-up bar inside the grotto, and if you were dressed there were gondolas on a track to take you from the outside to the dock of the restaurant of your choice or the wedding chapel. The blue light was created by electricity, not by Mother Nature, and changed on a timer to violet, green and orange.

I looked out the window of my room at the strip below. It was now almost 3 a.m. and there were people everywhere. Frank Sinatra had it all wrong. New York was not the city that never sleeps, Vegas was. He should have known better. He spent enough time here. I closed the drapes and hit the sack. Ah, a comfortable mattress. Mary was right. It was a nice hotel and the price was right. I didn’t know about the tables, they must make their money somewhere. I thought about getting back up and trying my luck but I was asleep before the thought was finished.

“Sounds like my kind of place,” I said and started for town. “I’ll come back to pick up my stuff after I find a motel.”

“There’s even a Boot Hill and a Railroad Museum,” he called after me.

He was right about the season being over. The merchants looked hopefully out at me as I passed the few stores that were still open for business. I found Old Town without any difficulty and walked down the middle of the main street and there was not another tourist in sight. It felt like Tombstone at high noon with all the citizens hiding in their stores until the gunfight was over. I took a self-guided tour, going from store to store and sign to sign. It really was pretty interesting, especially because I had never heard of Virginia City, Montana, until a few hours ago.

Just like my friend in the garage said, there was a gold rush here. I wandered down the street to the store of Kiskadden and Company, where the vigilantes signed their oath, and imagined what the town looked like then. Not so long ago: no automobiles, airplanes, freeways, radio, TV, Internet or a million other things, only horses and buggies. It didn’t sound bad.

I saw the location of the first building in Virginia City, a bakery, between the Sauerbier Blacksmith Shop and the Bale of Hay Saloon. The saloon in turn connected to the Opera House, which was a thoughtful touch for the opera lovers in town. Across the street were the Green Front Hotel and the railroad depot. A voice behind me said, “Isn’t it just like I told you?”

I turned and it was Sam Culpepper from the garage.

“Yeah, it’s something to see all right,” I agreed.

That was a hell of an opening line and I tried to figure out what to say, but I didn’t have to answer because he kept on talking. “Best piece of ass I ever had, and I’ve had a lot of them,” he continued on. “She never stopped, just kept going and going like that fucking rabbit on TV, all you could do was hang on. Is that the way she was with you?” He smiled at me like we were talking it over in a bar and I almost nodded in agreement, remembering that first night with Mary. It must have shown on my face despite the blood and bruises from the beating because again he didn’t wait for my answer and continued on, “Yeah, she was great, wasn’t she? Like I said, the best I ever had, and I’ll bet she was the best you’ve ever had too, am I right?”

I just sat there, waiting for him to continue.

“I’ll never be able to do it again,” he said. “Look at me, nothing works below my belt, I can’t even crap for myself. That god damn pornographer, Larry Flynt, he got what he deserved, but why me? I go to Mass every Sunday rain or shine, I’m heavy in the collection box, I give lots of dough to the poor, I raised money to build the hospital here in Vegas, you name it and I’ve done it, and look what God gave me in return.”