Curtis and Deangelo

You do a good job of creating characters through dialogue. I think the use of cuttin' words short works for this. (Oh, did I just do that? Mmmm Hmmm) I particularly like the bits of dialogue between the dealer and Curtis. His (Curtis) dialogue makes him sound like a man who thinks he really knows his stuff. ("I've been to a few places before. Some better than this, but Mr. Berry, let me say, I appreciate your ridiculous outfit.") Also the dialogue can be funny, which I always welcome ("Big bastards, like you see on Angus cows").

I also like the idea you're trying to go for. That Vegas makes people do think they normally wouldn't do for the worse. That it has some aura about it that makes people unable to control themselves.

I think these ideas get muffled by the confusion I got while reading the story. I know that there is a dad somewhere. I'm not sure if there are two though. Are Curtis and Deangelo brothers? Who is Bishop? What happened to Curtis bothering people? Are both dads (if there ARE two) in the hospital and one died? These are questions I kept asking myself as I read and I still don't know what is right.

I think it has to do with the dialogue. So good and bad with the dialogue. It does a good job of characterizing Curtis and Deangelo, but all of their conversations are very vague. I understand that they both pretty much know what happened so aren't going to be all, "Hey remember that one time my dad got in that car accident and almost no one died which was a miracle?" But they can't be on the other end of the spectrum and bring in names (Bishop) who we don't know and don't know how they relate to the two main characters and be incredibly vague. So my main suggestion is that you lighten up on the vaguness.