“How do you drive out of Vegas with a million bucks?” Jim is in full flow. “Drive in with two million.”
      Someone on a barstool mentions the word ‘hook’. Jim picks up on it. “Hooker? Don’t say that word in here. All the girls will stand up.”
      Every drink here is served with a one-liner. “We had Sharon Stone down here while she was filming Casino. What a bitch. I served her a Baileys and she asked: ‘What kind of Baileys is that?’ So I told her: ‘There is only one kind and you’re drinking it.’ Jesus. What an idiot.”
      At the end of the bar, Terry is cracking up. Most people in Vegas worship celebrities. “Hey Jim, isn’t this where Robert De Niro and that other fella, Pesci, used to sit with Sharon?”
      “You got it. Good people. Used to drink Smirnoff straight up on the rocks.”
      Jim likes Terry. “He took 19 bullets once,’’ he says, “just to prevent his attackers walking away with the 20,000 bucks cash he had on him. What a guy.”
      There are other stories too – like the one about the two UFOs that collided head-on above Vegas in the fifties. “A tequila please, Jim. With a pinch of salt.”
      Welcome to the beautiful insanity of Atomic Liquors, where Dean Martin used to come to shoot pool away from the glare of the Strip and where Frank would send his busboy to pick up girls, booze (Atomic Liquors is a bottle shop as well as a bar) and other things that the patrons sold in silence. You’re downtown Las Vegas now. Each man for his own. Be afraid. The Strip may as well be in the next state.
      Sitting up at the bar tonight: A shabby brunette with a voice like a hissing snake, who must have a twin sister because later somebody who looks exactly like her but has blond hair is sitting on the same stool; an ageing cowboy in a Stetson whose chuckle starts gentle but turns into a spluttering hack if the joke is really funny; and a gang of obese homegirls who encourage each other in conversation like a coach encourages a football team – “Go girlfriend! Tear that man down!”
      It wasn’t always so wild downtown. Back in the day, it was relaxing. Atomic Liquors got its name because it was a good spot to kick back, suck on a beer and watch the spectacle of America’s atomic weapons testing programme out in the desert. Oh, how the Las Vegans liked those mushroom clouds. Oh, how proud they were to be the host city of the experiments. Back then, everything – bars, hotels, cocktails, gas stations – had the word ‘atomic’ in their name (many still remain). The truly hip gals all sported mushroom cloud hairdos. One of the stained glass windows in the Catholic Cathedral depicts the 1963 Las Vegas skyline featuring a nuclear symbol in the background.
      That was all before Jim turned up in Vegas. Atomic Liquors, he says, is the oldest bar in Vegas (it was built in 1936 by two Polish immigrants and called Irene’s Cafe until after the Second World War), but it’s relatively new to Jim. He was a military man in Florida for 30 years before he found a job here 13 years ago. Maybe he found a home away from home. All the patrons will tell you he’s the greatest goddamn bartender in the state of Nevada. And the local paper agrees – they just voted him ‘Most Accommodating Barman’.
      Accommodating to those invited in, that is. Around Jim’s neck is an electric buzzer that opens the door to whoever is outside. If Jim doesn’t want you in, he’ll mutter “No way” to himself and serve somebody already on the inside.
      The ageing cowboy is talking about magic. “Everyone in here is always talking about magic,” says Jim, “like that girl who said: ‘I can do magic – I can make a wiener disappear.’ That’s one trick I certainly ain’t never gonna do.” And then he says it again, three times over: “No way. No way. No way.”

The Atomic Liquor Store can be experienced at 917 Fremont Street, downtown Las Vegas.