"Would you idiots get out of the way?" Max shouted. "We're trying to get plastered here and we're in a bit of a hurry. Jeez, I hate getting caught in the middle of slow moving crowds. If we don't get a move on we're going to miss happy hour."

"That looks like a perfectly fine bar right across the street," Zeke said.

Max squinted his eyes and looked where Zeke was pointing. "Inebriated Isaac's Den of Getting Sloshed? No, I'm afraid I'm not allowed to go in there any more. For highly bullshit reasons, I might add. There's this new joint a couple blocks away that I haven't made myself unwelcome in yet. Let's go there."

Zeke had to dodge out of the way of two men in white lab coats walking in the other direction followed by an owl carrying a door on his back.

"Am I crazy or did that look like Dr. Octavius and his mad scientist friend?"

"Huh?" Max said. "All I saw was a bunch of obstacles between me and my well deserved inebriation. Speaking of which, can these people move any slower? Look for gaps in the crowd, would you? We need to get ourselves clear of this pedestrian jam. Why the hell are we walking, anyway? Where's Bobby? Didn't we contract him to give us unlimited rides in his rickshaw or am I just imagining things?"

"We left Bobby waiting for us at the edge of the desert and we kind of bypassed him when we teleported back here with your door, remember?"

"Oh yeah. I hope he's not still waiting there. Especially if he thinks that counts as time on the clock because it totally doesn't."

"We could always hire another rickshaw driver," Zeke said. "There are usually plenty of them around."

"Yeah, but I don't have a professional relationship with any of them. They might want us to actually pay them a fair wage. Nah, Bobby's going to have to get his act together and come find us somehow."

"How's he supposed to do that?" Zeke asked. "Quartzwater City is a pretty big place."

"If he's as good at his job as he claims he is, he'll find a way," Max said. "You really need to have a bit of a sixth sense if you want to stand any chance of making it in the cutthroat world of transportation services. Otherwise you're just some jackass hauling around an empty rickshaw and what's more pathetic than that?"

A donkey pulling an empty rickshaw came up beside them on the street. "Anyone need a ride?"

"See?" Max said. "Pathetic. All right, mister, I'll allow you to give us a ride. But make no mistake, this is only out of pity."

"All right!" The donkey shouted as Zeke and Max climbed into his rickshaw. "My first fare of the day. My name is Pete and I'll be your rickshaw driver today. Where can I take you?" He started to pull them forward.

"Just get us in front of this slow moving crowd of pedestrians and then you can let us out there."

Pete's face fell. "You want me to carry you like twenty feet? That's like a ten second ride. I'm not even sure I can charge for that."

"You would be both a criminal and a shyster if you did and I would have no choice but to report you to the consumer affairs bureau for predatory business practices. Now hurry up. The crowd's inching forward and if you don't hurry you might be forced to carry us twenty-five feet."

"Why don't we just have him take us to the bar?" Zeke asked.

"Because the bar's like 100 hundred feet from here and if he takes us that far he might actually be justified in charging us a little bit. Do I look like I'm made of floss? All right, it looks like we're past the crowd. You can let us out here, Pete. Nice knowing you, pal."

"I really need to start requiring a minimum charge for all passengers," Pete mumbled as they hopped out of his cart.

"Looks like some little old lady on a walker was holding everybody up," Max said as he looked back at the crowd that was now behind them. "I swear, why do they even let old people outside? They're just inevitably going to cause inconvenience for other people. I say just throw them all in little cages and let them wait out the incredibly brief amount of time they have left before they kick the bucket."

"Has anyone ever told you you're a horrible person?" Zeke asked.

"Oh yeah. My mother did all the time back when I was a wide eyed innocent little boy who believed the world was a magical place filled with joy and wonder. She made it very clear to me very quickly that I was a worthless, good for nothing waste of skin who would never amount to anything and that every little thing I did, no matter how pure my intentions, was both sinful and shameful. I internalized that deeply, but I've got to tell you, in spite of everything I think I turned out okay."

"If you say so," Zeke rolled his eyes.

"Of course now I've got to hear the exact same thing from my wife. It's almost as if I had such a deeply ingrained sense of self-loathing that I sought out a life partner who would continue to inflict the mental and emotional abuse I suffered through as a child on me so I could continue to be punished for my inherent rottenness for the rest of my life."

"Max, if you don't mind my saying so, it sounds like you could really stand to see a therapist."

"Nah, I've got a handle on it. I deal with my issues in healthy and well reasoned ways. Now let's drink ourselves into oblivion, shall we?"

"I've got to tell you I've been thinking about cutting back on the drinking just a teeny tiny bit," Zeke said. "I apparently made a pretty big fool out of myself in front of Sarah and Sadie and I don't even remember anything about it. It's got me thinking maybe I need to keep things a little more under control."

"Wait a minute, what kind of nonsense are you spouting right now?" Max asked. "Do you even hear yourself? If you don't remember anything about making a fool out of yourself, then how do you know it happened? Because a couple of broads said so? Maybe they've got ulterior motives. Maybe they're some sort of uptight prohibitionist teetotalers. Regardless, they're clearly untrustworthy and I wouldn't take their word for it. No, if anything it means you need to work more on your memory skills while drinking and the only way to do that is practice. They say you need ten thousand hours to master any skill. Have you spent ten thousand hours trying to remember stuff while you were drunk? I highly doubt it. Which makes it all the more important that we start putting in the hard work. We can start right now by getting smashed and trying to remember what happened five minutes ago. It's not as easy as it sounds. I bet most sober people can't remember in perfectly accurate detail what they did five minutes ago, so if you can do it while shit hammered, you're really going to be something impressive."

"I guess a couple drinks couldn't hurt," Zeke said.

"Exactly," Max said. "I bet it's extremely rare that anybody ever experienced physical pain just from swallowing two beverages. I mean, unless they're total wusses."

"I don't know, man. When I was in high school I could get a pretty nasty hangover the next day just from drinking one beer. I would call that physical pain for sure."

"So in other words you were a total wuss in high school," Max said. "Got it. I mean, no offense that doesn't exactly come as surprising news to me. You definitely seem like the type who got your share of wedgies in high school. Probably got shoved in a few lockers and picked last for a few sports teams as well, am I right?"

"I mean it might have happened once or twice, but it wasn't like an everyday thing. What, I suppose you were Mr. Cool back in the day?"

"I suppose you could say so. I mean, I was only captain of the gravity ball team and voted prom king four years in a row, but I'm not trying to brag or anything. It probably helped that I attended a very small school and there were only like three other dudes in my class. And to be honest two of them were some seriously hopeless dorks. No, my only competition was Freddy Swanson. It was a shame when he broke both his legs in that tragic pogo stick accident. No more dancing or gravity ball for him. I know some witnesses tried to claim they saw me tampering with it ahead of time, but I had a rock solid alibi what with my being in detention for destruction of school property that afternoon, but I'll have you know I was cleared of all charges. Including the destruction of school property charges, although between you and me, I was guilty of that one. That drinking fountain can suck it."

"Uh, okay," Zeke said. "I'm not sure what to do with that, but good on you. So anyway, I'm guessing this is the place you want to check out?"

They stopped in front of a pyramid shaped structure that was covered in bright flashing stripes of multicolored lights. A pink neon sign over the entrance read "Jerome's Joint." There were also a couple of spotlights shooting orange and green lights into the sky with blinding intensity.

"Yeah, this is it. You buying the first round?"

"I don't have any floss," Zeke shrugged. "I wasn't exactly planning on coming to Quartzwater City."

"For fuck's sake, man! You're just bringing this up now? What, were you just planning on freeloading off me? What the hell?"

"I feel like I might have mentioned it at some point," Zeke said.

"All right, I suppose I could spot you a couple drinks," Max said. "When we find this treasure hopefully tomorrow I'm going to be rich beyond my wildest dreams. But don't think that gets you off the hook. You're still going to owe me. With interest."

"Whatever you say, Max." Zeke rolled his eyes as they headed for the entrance.

They were stopped by a rhinoceros man standing by a velvet rope that was blocking their way in. "Whoa, fellas. I'm going to need to see some ID before you go in there."

"Are you being serious right now?" Max sputtered. "Do we look like a couple of punk-ass teenagers to you or something? I'll have you know we're a pair of grizzled alcoholics. Now step aside and let us do our thing."

The rhino clasped his hands together and cracked his knuckles. "I said I need to see some ID. Or you're not getting in here. And then you can either leave the easy way or the hard way. And trust me, you're not going to like the hard way. It's quite painful and messy."

"Can we just show him our ID's?" Zeke whispered. "It's not that big of a deal, is it?" He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "Here, mister. This is my driver's license. I'm not sure why I have one since I've never owned a car or been anywhere close to being able to afford one, but here you go."

The rhinoceros man studied Zeke's ID carefully. "You're not from around here. Tourist, eh?" He spat on the ground and then looked back and forth a few times from the driver's license to Zeke's face. "You look familiar though. Have I seen you before?"

Zeke recalled having a not so great run in with a rhinoceros bouncer at Ned's Discotheque on his first visit to Quartzwater City. He wasn't exactly an expert at telling rhinoceroses apart, but it seemed quite plausible this could be the same guy. "Nope. This is my first time coming here. Gosh, this place sure is big and exciting. I can't wait to tell all my friends about it back on the farm."

The rhinoceros scowled at him as he held onto the license for another moment before handing it back. "All right, how about you, frog?"

"I'll have you know I'm a toad, as you'll see when I show you my ID. I still think this is highly unnecessary, but fine. We'll do it your way. But only because I detest violence and only resort to it when absolutely necessary. And I don't want to have to pay the cleaning fees when they're peeling your carcass off the pavement." He fished around in his pockets for a moment while muttering to himself. He pulled out a few random objects like a yo-yo and a feather quill before finally emerging with a small red card. "Here ya go, pal."

The rhinoceros looked at it for a moment and read aloud "Alfred P. Moneybucks the Third."

"That's me," Max said. "And if you look where it says species, you'll clearly see it says 'Toad' so I believe somebody here owes somebody else an apology."

"What does the 'P' stand for?" the rhinoceros asked.

"Philleus," Max said without missing a beat.

"And what's your date of birth?"

"A gentleman never tells," Max said. "Now as you've probably realized from my name my daddy's loaded and therefore I'm super rich. Now give me back my ID or I'll be forced to sic the lawyers on you."

The rhino's face betrayed a tiny smirk as he handed the ID back to Max. "All right then, Mr. Moneybucks. And now there's the matter of the cover charge. Two canisters of floss. Each."

"Two canisters each?" Max sputtered. "To get into this dive? That's highway robbery!"

"Your daddy should be able to afford it," the rhinoceros man shrugged.

"I will not pay that kind of floss to enter your shitty establishment. Not because I can't afford it, but because of principles. I don't pay to get in anywhere. If anything you should be paying me to come in there and class up the joint."

"All right, well, have a good night somewhere else then," the rhino said.

"Yeah, we will!" Max shouted. "You can count on it. Come on, Zeke, let's ditch this place."

"Fine with me," Zeke said.

"Cover charges are bullshit," Max yelled over his shoulder as they walked away. "It's not like they've got some awesome band playing there like the Stationary Boulders or anything. They probably don't even have any live music, or if they do it's probably a bunch of untalented local yokels. Screw this place. The only problem is I'm not sure where else to go. You want to go around back and see if we can find a way to sneak in?"

Before Zeke could answer his attention was captured by an owl who came running up waving his wings at them spastically. "Are you Max and Zeke by any chance?" he panted.

"Who wants to know?" Max asked as he eyed the owl suspiciously.

"My name's Dennis. I was sent here by my boss Lothar. I think you guys have met him before. He's friends with Dr. Octavius."

"Dr. Octavius?" Zeke said. "I'm Zeke. This guy here is apparently Alfred P. Moneybucks the Third. What was that about anyway?"

"I've got a bunch of fake ID's," Max said. "They're crucial to my private investigating gig. Also sometimes they help me get into places I'm banned from, if I can convince the bartenders I'm not the same guy they eighty-sixed. Anyway, I'm Max. What does Dr. O want with us?"

"Uh, I don't know exactly but it sounds like a matter of some urgency. I think life and death were mentioned and possibly the fate of all existence. At any rate, they want me to take you back to Dr. Octavius's lab."

"Well, we can't do anything about the treasure hunt until tomorrow and I'm not sure where I can get something to drink in the immediate area," Max rubbed his chin. "I do have my spare flask I keep in my sock, so we're not shit out of luck as far as booze is concerned. I guess we'd better go see what the Doc wants. Lead the way, my good man."