North Las Vegas

North Las Vegas functions as a remote meeting place and temporary refuge in Doc Sportello’s investigation. Puck Beaverton’s whereabouts lead there, and Trillium Fortnight’s private reunion with him turns the city into a point of contact between Doc and the men he is trying to reach.

A destination beyond Doc’s immediate reach

When Doc asks after Puck, Osgood can offer only North Las Vegas; he does not know the address, and the text notes that if he did, he would already have gone there. The uncertainty keeps Puck out of reach without making his location wholly mysterious: the city is a lead, not yet a meeting.

Trillium’s secret visit

Trillium later admits that she had Puck’s telephone number all along and had kept calling until he finally answered. Close to dawn, she went to the address he gave her: an apartment over a garage in North Las Vegas, beside a vacant lot full of brittlebush. Puck and Einar were there, drinking beer and talking about their rankings in machismo as well as who would sing melody and harmony in “Wunderbar,” from Kiss Me, Kate.

Trillium is vague about the reunion’s details, but Doc gathers that it lasted for some time. At one point Einar thoughtfully stepped out to buy beer, leaving the reunion to continue. Her visit is not simply a piece of information about Puck’s address: she has concealed the contact from Doc until after seeing Puck herself.

A proposed meeting place

Puck suggests that Doc meet him and Einar at the Kismet Lounge in North Las Vegas, with the two men planning not to arrive until after midnight. Trillium offers to take the car, ostensibly to run errands, and Doc is left to consider a meeting whose timing and location are set by Puck’s preference for safety. North Las Vegas thus shifts from an uncertain report of Puck’s whereabouts to a deliberately chosen rendezvous point, while the late hour and guarded arrangements preserve the distance between Doc and the men he seeks.