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left all that frantic hope behind me and turned onto an asphalt-slung back road only the cops, locals, and well-tipped cabbies knew about. Within five minutes I was coasting along Charleston Boulevard, the glitter of the Strip replaced by littered alleys and underpasses, where the unlucky huddled in wary groups rather than optimistic ones. These were the people tired of playing the fool, and the dichotomy between these two faces of Vegas was not lost on me.
    That was how I first spotted the homeless man pawing through a steel trash bin, his tattered duster whipping violently around his calves…on a wind-free night. He glanced up as my headlights arched over his graffiti-tagged domain, a giant rat reclining on two legs, beady eyes following my vehicle until the possibility of danger had passed.
    Two minutes later, as I turned onto an unpaved shortcut, another vagrant appeared—dressed similarly, no less—and half scuttled, half walked toward my racing vehicle, gazing right at me through the window as I passed. I trailed him in the rearview mirror, wondering at the way he followed my path into the middle of the road and just stood in the dust, watching as I sped away.
    I didn’t see the figure in front of me until it was too late. Tires squealed, the windshield cracked with a sonic boom, and a body careened over my roof, thumping and wheelingoverhead before disappearing into the inky night. Tumbleweeds scraped my doors like fingernails, rocks battered the tires and underside of my car, and I spun twice, carving dizzying whorls into the dry desert bed before miraculously coming to a rest without flipping.
    The pitch of night—complete on this barren desert side street—couldn’t mask the smell of burning rubber, or the ragged sound of my breath breaking in sharp spurts from my lungs. It took a moment to get oriented again, but when I did I found myself facing the direction I’d come. In the background were the circus lights of the Strip.
    In the foreground was a man crumpled on the desert floor.
    I began to shake. Then, before shock could set in, I began to move. Grabbing my cell phone, I pushed from the car, the screech of door against bramble arching in the air like a lonely cry for help. My headlights illuminated the person I’d hit, but it seemed to take me forever to run on jellied limbs and slide to a crouch beside him.
    I don’t know how I recognized him, perhaps it was the long coat, but even before I reached the crumpled figure I knew I’d find that beggar. The one I’d already seen. Twice.
    Multiple smells hit me at once. Pungent body odor, the man surely hadn’t washed for weeks; vomit, sour and smelling of the bottle; and something greasy, whether his hair or clothes or the dinner he might have unearthed from that trash bin, I didn’t know. There was another scent too, one I couldn’t name. I knew only that it was him, and I tried to ignore the voice in my mind telling me there was no way he should be here. That it was impossible. That I’d left him miles back in the dark.
    His face was turned away from the beam of my headlights, and a wiry beard kept me from seeing if a pulse beat in his neck, but his limp limbs were turned in impossible angles and gruesome directions. It didn’t look like an ambulance would be necessary. Shaking, I touched his skin for a pulse. I had just killed a human being.
    His head rocked, eyes opened wide, and he screeched in my face. I fell backward, gasping, and quickly scrambled out of reach. His cry hadn’t been one of pain. It even sounded joyous, like he’d made some sort of discovery. It sounded, in fact, like he’d cried, “Eureka!”
    He hollered again, this time drawing out the syllables, and I couldn’t tell whether he was laughing or crying, but that twisted, mutilated body began to shake. “Eu–re–kaaaa!”
    I reached for the cell phone I’d dropped, but was stopped by the man’s voice; throaty, strong, and surprisingly authoritative. “Don’t touch