Everything here is about money; when it looks like it’s not about money, then it’s definitely about money. This is the second paradox. That the money too is both fictional and real, both exhilarating and tragic, both there and not there. The town itself embodies this, glittering and triumphant, but hidden away from prying eyes in the middle of an unforgiving desert. The one truly free market in America. Free of guilt. Free of shame. We cannot think of the fire without asking ourselves what role money played, how much of the night had its roots in those silly little disks of color-coded clay. The crowds in the casino hallways. The conversations in the cocktail lounge. The deals struck in elegant offices on the highest floors. The high-stakes Texas Hold’em in the upstairs poker room. You don’t spend as many years in Las Vegas as we have, treated daily to the sight of fortunes changing hands, without learning to question the nature of these things. We can’t help it.