Lacey always considered herself perceptive. She always knew which tourists would stop to take a picture with her – and tip well – and which would blow past. Tonight she was wearing her orange showgirl outfit, complete with enormous sparkly feathered headdress,  hoping to capitalize a little bit from Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” orange look.

Georgia had agreed to come out tonight and the two were milking the strip – Lacey’s favorite spot in front of the Paris casino. Even Jared’s janky Spiderman couldn’t put a damper on her mostly-genuine smile tonight. Joey turned up in his plush Bluey character suit. A few other mascot performers came and went – Lacey figured they could tell she and Georgia were owning this block and they decided to move on down by the Linq.

And then the Labubu showed up.

No, Labubu have been showing up on the strip for more than a year now. Joey got a big rip right in the ass of his Labubu costume and hasn’t had a chance to fix it yet, so a Labubu showing up shouldn’t have been odd, but this specific Labubu with its huge grinning gremlin face, and pointed ears, seemed off. Lacey could feel it.

He acted fine – Lacey knew it was a guy, she just knew. He interacted with tourists perfectly. There was even a moment when a tourist wanted Lacy and Georgia to hug the Labubu. So, right there in front of Paris, two sequined, orange-feathered showgirls hugged a Labubu – and everyone around tipped.

Lacey and Georgia were thanking everyone when Lacey noticed the Labubu had slipped away.

“Hey, where’d Labubu go?” Lacey asked Georgia.

“I… he.. it… was right here…” she looked around.

Lacey spotted a brown ear disappear around a corner. “There!” she pointed. “Follow that Labubu!”

And they took off as fast as their stilettos would take them – which, let’s be fair, as veterans of the Strip, they could haul ass in heels. Feathers waving, they came around the corner only to see the Labubu duck around another corner into a parking garage. “Jesus, where is this Labubu going?” she huffed. Then louder, “Hey, Labubu! Wait up!”

The Labubu did not wait up.

But these girls could move better than the Labubu costume and they cornered him by a service elevator.

“Hey, hold up, man!” Lacey panted as she tried to catch her breath. “We just want to give you your portion of the tips on that last shot.”

“Yeah,” Georgia added. “You were working those folks. You earned it.”

The Labubu shook its head then looked around frantically for a way out of the corner.

“Will you chill out, dude?” Lacey said. “Look, what’s your name? You’re new, aren’t you?”

The Labubu just seemed more panicked at their questions. Finally, he realized there was no way out and even in a big Labubu costume, seemed to sigh. He reached up unsnapped the head of the Labubu costume and removed it.

And he had no head.

Well, kind of. There was a head – but it was a translucent one and it was kind of washed out by the fluorescent light of the service area, and—

Georgia screamed, turned, and sprinted away.

Lacey and the translucent head guy watched wordlessly as she ran off screaming.

“Is… she going to be okay?” translucent Labubu guy asked.

Lacey nodded seriously. “Yeah… she’ll be fine. I’ve seen her do worse when a dude spilled beer on her.”

“Huh,” he responded.

“So, ghost, huh?” Lacey asked nonchalantly.

“You’re not terrified?” He asked surprised.

“Dude, I’ve seen some shit out here.” Lacey rolled her eyes. “You’re kinda cool, honestly. But what the hell are you doing out here? After I die, the last place I’ll be is on the Strip!”

“I’ve been… around town for a while… maybe… ten years…”

“Ten years?! Jesus! Can you not leave?”

“No, not really,” he said sheepishly. “I mean I tried after I realized I was dead… I can’t seem to get out of the desert. I go so far and then poof, I’m right back in Vegas. I got tired of just, you know, haunting. I managed to find this Labubu outfit and I figured it’d give me a chance to interact with people.” He demeanor brightened. “And it worked,” he grinned.

“And you’re good at it,” Lacey said nodding. “But why’d you duck out like that?”

“I… I figured you guys would want to, you know, talk.”

“You mean like this?” Lacey laughed.

“Just like this,” he said.

“Well, here we are. I’m Lacey, by the way.”

“Eddie,” he responded.

“Well, Eddie, you seem like a good guy – or ghost, as the case may be,” she patted his fuzzy arm. “You wanna get back out there and ham it up with a showgirl?”

“Really?”

“Put your head back on and let’s get out there before Jared slinks back in that ratty spiderman costume.”

And the orange feathered showgirl and the Labubu headed back to the Strip.

The elevators in the Horseshoe have an exceptionally frustrating “feature.” If you select more than three floors (in this elevator that services floors 5-15) it blanks all selections and suddenly no floors are selected. During the first day or two here I only noticed it sporadically, but as the conference breaks send many of us scurrying back up to our rooms at a moment’s notice, suddenly eight people are trying to select five floors and… chaos.

After the third time it deselected the floors selected, a woman explained, “It’s a feature to keep people from hitting all the buttons as they leave the elevator.” There was a collective “oh”… but it didn’t really help the frustration.

The woman took charge: “Alright, first three floors: anyone on 5, 6, or 7?” through this method she got the first three floors and as we hit each subsequent floor she asked whose floor was next and it really went well.

After the 11^th floor it was just myself and the woman and her daughter.

“That makes sense – the only three floor thing,” I said, breaking the new silence in the elevator. “And here I just thought it was haunted,” I quipped. Her daughter laughed, but the woman said, “Well, it could be that too, given the history of the place.”

She had my full and complete attention. “Oh? Tell me more…” I said as the elevator doors opened on floor 14 and the three of us stepped off.

“Well, you know the Horseshoe Casino used to be Bally’s, right?”

I nodded.

“And before that it was MGM Grand…”

“Right…” I didn’t see where this was going.

“Well, in 1980 there was a big fire here. Killed 85 people.”

I stopped. “Wait, here here?”

“Yeah, this very tower – the other one wasn’t built until after the fire closed the hotel.”

“So, you mean there’s ghost stories about this hotel, this tower? And we’re staying on the ‘fourteenth’ floor.”

She snickered. Her daughter looked quizzically at her. “Most buildings don’t have a 13^th floor – it’s superstition. But since this would technically be the 13^th floor…”

“Oh!” her daughter nodded.

“Anyway, yeah, the fire radically changed how they built buildings and hotels after that – there were no sprinklers, for example. The stairwells weren’t sealed, so the fire used the stairwells as virtual chimneys. Most of the people who died were trying to go down the stairs and suffered smoke inhalation.”

“Oh my god,” I said, “That’s terrible!”

“Yeah, the ghost hunter types say you can still hear phantom screams and cries in the stairwells of this tower.”

I stopped and stood silent.

“You’re totally going to go check out the stairwells, aren’t you?” the woman asked.

“Well, I mean, I write ghost stories! Of course I am!” I exclaimed as I reached my door and fumbled for my key.

She laughed. “Well, have fun and don’t blame me if you get a good scare!” she waved and she and her daughter walked straight through the closed door opposite mine.

Okay, I’m feeling better tonight than I was last night. Still feel like I’ve been through the wringer and it’s only day two of this trip. Alas…

Dolores’s coworkers never had anything bad to say about her. They really didn’t say much about her at all. She dependably handled the fourteenth floor of The Meridian since it opened five years ago. Never a complaint against her. Never late, never sick, never complained.

Her tireless work ethic hadn’t gone unnoticed. She’d been offered numerous opportunities for better assignments – “Would you like an assistant on your floor, Dolores?” “The company is opening a new property – very fancy. Would you like to work at that property?”

But she didn’t. She liked her routine. If anything, that’s the thing her coworkers couldn’t understand.

But none of that mattered to Dolores.

She punched in on Monday, October 20, changed into her uniform, re-stocked her cart and took the service elevator up to the fourteenth floor. Room 1403 was a mess – the guests clearly had too much fun and too poor aim. Dolores had pretty much seen it all, though, and while certainly a drag that early into her shift, it didn’t even make the top 50 worst rooms she’d cleaned.

Room 1410 and 1411 – adjoining rooms – were clearly ground zero for an epic bachelorette party. From the confetti cake explosion complete with icing welded to the walls, to hair extensions hither and thither and discarded false eyelashes like errant mascaraed moths these two rooms together sapped Dolores of all pep she had remaining. And that’s not even talking about how hard it was to remove the lipstick kisses on every mirror – seriously, what bulletproof material was that lipstick made of?

Dolores dragged through the reasonably clean 1412 – mostly just towels and sheets. Room 1413 was vacant, and 1414 and 1415 were likewise low-effort rooms – as if the universe had taken pity on her after the bachelorette bomb.

But when she tapped her keycard to 1416, she started grinning before the lock turned green.

As she pushed the door open, the television turned on by itself and immediately changed to Music Choice Pop Latino and the propulsive beat of “Soy Yo” by Bomba Estéreo started booming through the room.

“Ay, so that’s the mood you’re in?” she said aloud as she danced into the room, closing the door behind her.

As if in response, the rumpled bedding began rolling up itself and even the sheets released their grip on the mattress and joined the comforter on the ground. “Gracias, espooky,” she smiled as she collected the dirty linen. Casting the fresh sheets across the bed, as she tucked in the side she was on, the other side perfectly mirrored her movements with the sheets. “You’re so good, espooky!” As she vacuumed, the lights in the room pulsed to the rhythm of “Mi Swing es Tropical” as it played through the TV and Dolores danced behind the vacuum. The clean towels she’d set by the bathroom door replaced the dirty ones which helpfully gathered in a heap by the door. “Gracias otra vez, espooky,” she said again, her smile wide.

The song changed to “Mexico” by Mexican Institute of Sound, the beat infectious and undeniable. As Dolores dusted near the window, the curtains sashayed back and forth in time with the beat. “Muy bien, espooky, you’ve got rhythm.”

Just then, someone cleared their throat in the doorway.

Dolores turned; her supervisor stood in the doorway.

The curtains abruptly stopped, and the television turned off, the room falling into silence.

“Are you training someone new?” her supervisor said with a raised eyebrow.

“Don’t worry,” Dolores smiled. “They’re union.”