I went in 1995, Spenser did in 1996. He tangled with mobsters, I on the other hand took a couple of pictures and bought a T-shirt. If you have been, you will recognize it in this passage from Robert B. Parker’s Chance, if you haven’t, after reading this you won’t need to go – it will be safer, no mobsters, and easier, you can find images on Flickr! and buy a shirt online.
On the Strip the dry desert night air was full of people and cars and lights, thick with the smell of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, and deodorant spray and hair spray and mixed drinks and cologne and desperation. There was a lot of energy on the Strip but it was feverish, the kind of energy that makes you sleepless, that makes you drive too fast, and chain-smoke, and drink heavy. The Strip was coked with people from Keokuk and Presque Isle and North Platte. It wasn’t like it was supposed to be. It wasn’t the adventure of a lifetime, but it had to be. You couldn’t admit that it wasn’t. You’d come too far, expected too much, planned too long. If you stayed up later, played harder, gambled bigger, looked longer, saw another show, had another drink, stretched out a little farther…
In Chance I did get a Spenser’s Rule, but it was un-numbered. There were a couple other crimestopper reference’s too – early in Chapter 20:
“This is Detective Cooper,” the gray-haired one said. “I’m Detective Sergeant Romero, Las Vegas Police Department.”
“You know I’m a famous detective, and you came here looking for crimestopper tips,” I said.
“Never heard of you,” Romero said, “until we found your card at a crime scene.”
“Pays to advertise,” I said.
And this at the end of Chapter 32:
If I couldn’t find Abbey Becker in Needham, Massachusetts, I’d turn in my file of Dick Tracy Crimestopper tips. As I started back across the bridge to New Bedford, I was calling information on my car phone.
