Excerpt from :
"A Week in Las Vegas"
D Bowden

After a leisurely dinner at a nearby buffet we went back to our hotel room to get ready for bed. We were still weary from our three-day drive to get to Vegas. Our second-floor room at the Tropicana was nice enough, done in a tropical motif of turquoise, green, orange-red and yellow. Prints of beach scenes and palm trees decorated the walls. I turned the air conditioning on high and crawled between the crisp white sheets. After hubby was tired of flipping through the television channels, we settled into bed for the night. It usually takes me a long time to fall asleep when on vacation, but I fell asleep right away. Suddenly, only an hour later shouts and noise of slamming around came from the next room. “Gimme my money Mutha fuckaaaaa!” someone screamed and there was the sound of thumping and crashing. More yelling: “I want my goddam money, Mutha fucka! Gimme my goddam money or I’m gonna kill you!” I thought to myself, ‘holy shit! This is what happens in movies like Scarface and Casino!’ We were afraid to get up from our bed. I reached over for the phone and it didn’t work! My imagination ran wild! Had someone cut the phone lines? We lay flat, not moving. Listening. My husband said not to get up. What if they started shooting? The cheap walls were paper-thin. I wanted to just leave and go home! Go camping, anything! After several minutes of the “war” going on next door, the Las Vegas police and hotel security showed up. “Open up, Vegas police, open the door!” Things suddenly stopped and got very, very quiet. Again, the policeman banged on the door next door and shouted “Police, open up!” Then there was the sound of a door opening and loud talking in the hallway. "What’s going on in there?” we heard another voice ask. “Nothing officer,” I heard a voice reply nervously. Then there was thumping around again and then the sound of feet traipsing in and out of the room. Then silence. We heard nothing more. I was too wound up to sleep the rest of the night.