by Suzie Nelson
“Sally? Sally Whitfield?” I almost shouted out her name and immediately felt like an absolute idiot. What on earth would my best friend from high school be doing in Vegas? This was probably some rich platinum blonde who was going to make me feel perfectly stupid for trying to talk to her. I was just about to turn away and pretend it was someone else who’d shouted out when the woman looked around and smiled.
“Jennifer Joker Blake! What on earth brings you to this place of sex and sin?!” she shouted and we ran to embrace each other right there in full sight of everyone and anyone who cared to look at the little spectacle we were creating.
“I can’t even recall the last time I made a joke!” I laughed.
“Don’t lie, you were always the class clown,” Sally replied, “although I must say you look like a movie star dressed to kill now girl!”
“Nah, this is just a casual outfit,” I joked, “you should see me when I really dress up for the evening.”
We promptly went over to the bar and Sally ordered herself a double Jack Daniel on the rocks. It was way too early in the day for me to have alcohol so I just ordered an orange juice. I felt so blessed to have run into my friend and I wanted to know everything she’d been up to since we left high school. Sally was always the girl who dated the hottest football player in school and she was also the captain of the cheerleading squad. I didn’t really have to wait long before Sally just laid it all out there as the whiskey started taking effect.
“You will be very happy to know that I’ve married into money,” Sally said and held out her hand to display the large rock on her finger. I didn’t know much about diamonds but it was definitely the largest diamond I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“Congratulations, I always thought you’d end up dating football players for the rest of your life,” I said and Sally just laughed.
“See? I knew you were still the same joker you’d always been.”
“Can I tell you something, Sally?” I asked and realized that I’d never really shared much about my personal life with Sally or any of my other high school friends, “I joked around at school so much just to keep myself from going crazy…not because I was such a happy person.”
“Don’t worry; you don’t need to tell me a thing about it,” Sally replied, “sometimes a girl gotta just put on a brave face and shut the rest of the world right out.”
I looked at Sally more closely and thought I saw a shadow of sorrow in her eyes as she spoke.
“Why would you say that?” I asked, puzzled.
“Well let’s just say my husband is not exactly the faithful type…I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t have been happier just getting knocked up by some football player and living happily ever after in relative poverty as he became a panel beater or something.”
It was quite a heavy statement to make so early in the morning and I got the feeling that Sally was not going to stop at the double whiskey she’d already finished. I was right; she ordered herself another double right away.
“So where is your rich hubby right now?” I asked.
“That is an excellent question to which I do not know the answer,” Sally replied and lifted her glass of whiskey to her lips to take a deep gulp. I realized that Sally didn’t really want to talk about her apparently troubled marriage so I didn’t ask any further questions.
We just sat there and talked about our high school days and laughed about some of the crazy things we did when we were younger. I realized I couldn’t exactly share with Sally what I’d been up to since I left high school…it's not like she would understand that I’d turned into some kind of gambling shark. It dawned on me that I was now very far removed from the girl Sally and all my friends had known at school. I was no longer a victim and I no longer needed to make jokes to lift my spirits. All I needed was to sit down at a Blackjack table and count some cards and make some quick money and the world was right as rain.
After about an hour Sally and I exchanged numbers and promised to call each other soon, but somehow I got the feeling that was not really going to happen. We’d both changed a lot and I didn’t feel like getting involved in Sally’s obviously troubled personal circumstances. I felt a little guilty for feeling that way, but it had been just too much of a reminder of my alcoholic father to see Sally knocking back those whiskeys so early in the morning. I decided I never wanted to have what Sally had; some kind of rich prick who threw money at me every now and then and treated me like I didn’t exist except when he wanted to screw me.
I thought of Francois and a little voice of doubt whispered in the back of my mind…he’d lied to me about where he was staying and I didn’t really know anything about him… Could it be that Francois was just like Sally’s husband? A man who hit the streets of Vegas every now and then to get his rocks off while his loving wife and kids waited in vain at home? God knows Francois could be Sally’s husband for all I knew!
I shook my head and tried to clear my thoughts. I was making too much of the whole thing and perhaps it was the added pressure of having to get together another $100,000 that was making my mind flip. I thought back to the previous evening and how thrilling it had been to win some money on a sheer gamble as opposed to skilled card counting. It was easy to understand how people got hooked on gambling and the adrenaline rush of risking it all for a win.
“You have to stay focused girl,” I whispered to myself as I walked slowly down the relatively empty Vegas Strip. I had that terrible feeling again that the Pit Boss at the casino the previous evening had latched onto the fact that I was not an ordinary gambler and I just hoped and prayed I was not going to be banned from all the casinos in Vegas before I could get together the rest of the money I needed. If one of the casinos decided to ban me I had no doubt the rest of them would shortly follow suit.
FRANCOIS
I’d had an early meeting with George Sanders, the general manager of Golden Nugget casino. He was literally the only member of the Golden Nugget’s staff who knew that I was the controlling shareholder of the casino and I’d impressed upon him the need to keep it that way for the time being. Apart from the fact that I was enjoying the whole undercover thing, I was also making great progress in identifying areas where the casino could be run more smoothly and profitably.
I asked George to hire some extra waiters to serve alcohol to the guests after the brainwave I’d had the previous evening while I watched Jenny gambling. George thought it was a very good idea. We also discussed some other general logistics and I felt satisfied that I was developing a really good feel for the day to day operation of the casino. I also instructed George to have a talk with the main chef and add to the menu of the Golden Nugget the delicious quail in red wine sauce which Jenny and I had had on our first date.
It was time to get down to business. I’d had another surreal text message exchange with Vivienne that morning and I could tell she was getting anxious to find out exactly what I had planned for the casino; not so much for the sake of making more money than the billions she already had in her bank account but more to ease her anxiety about the years getting ahead of her. She wanted to get the whole ‘casino test’ behind us and entrust the family fortune to me. Even though I knew that Vivienne was 100% behind my efforts, I still felt significant pressure as I knew she was the kind of person who could come up with a thousand creative ways of ruling my life, even from her grave, if I didn’t show her that she could rely on me to keep the family name and fortune intact after she was gone.
What concerned me the most, if that is the correct word, was the fact that the Golden Nugget was being run in an incredibly efficient fashion and there seemed very little room for obvious improvement, as far as increased financial gains and profits were concerned. Even though George was very positive about the prospects of my new ‘alcohol serving venture’, he estimated that the real gains we might expect from its operation would be negligible in the final financial analysis. He listed all of the measures he’d implemented over the past 5 years
of his tenure at the Golden Nugget and I could tell George was an excellent manager. He was a business graduate from Harvard and his management style was straight from the pages of every financial textbook you could hope to read. The only business training I’d ever received myself had been at the hands of Vivienne and I realized it would be impossible to improve in most of the areas that George was already running so smoothly in the casino. He hadn’t missed a trick or a single opportunity to make the casino run more profitably and it was going to be a mountainous, if not downright impossible, task to beat the previous financial achievements of the Golden Nugget; if that was to be my tactic in attempting to prove my worth to Vivienne.
I thanked George for his time and went back to my penthouse suite on the 17th floor to take a moment to gather my thoughts. I realized that I would have to start looking for alternative ways to turn the Golden Nugget business venture into a money spinner.
“Sometimes the answer is right there in front of you while you are looking everywhere else for it,” Vivienne had often said to me as she trained up my mind in the ways of becoming a billionaire businessman. I have to admit that her little sayings and flashes of wisdom were often on the money, pardon the pun, and I made a mental note to start looking around for that answer which might be lurking somewhere right within my grasp.
I’d tried not to think too much about the previous evening with Jenny after I got up out of bed that morning, as I didn’t want to sit through my meeting with the general manager with a hard-on, but now I started having those delicious flashbacks you sometimes get of a sexual encounter when you’re trying to shut it out of your mind.
I recalled in my mind’s eye how Jenny had looked as she lay naked on the hood of my Ferrari and I realized I would never get that incredible image out of my mind for as long as I lived. I’d never really been head over heels in love with anyone before so I couldn’t exactly tell what I was feeling for Jenny just yet...all I knew was that it was a fascination coupled with a near obsession. I’d always been in control of any relationships I’d had with beautiful women in the past, but this time it was slightly different.
I knew full well that if Jenny ever found out I was a casino boss this would probably spell the end of our relationship as she hated the casinos and anyone connected to the business. I’d received another email from Gary Tomlin, our private investigator, and in his report, he mentioned the fact that Jenny had been overheard, by another private investigator who had followed her around Monte Carlo’s gambling houses two years ago, that she ‘wanted to make every rotten casino pay for its sins.’ Gary had promised to get back to me with more personal information on Jenny Blake within a couple of days, as he was on his way to go and conduct surveillance on Jenny’s mother in Los Angeles.
I was caught between two fires. I knew I was standing to lose a family fortune of several billion dollars if I disappointed Vivienne, but in pleasing my avaricious grandmother and running the casino more efficiently I might just be digging an early grave for any chance Jenny and I might have of ever being together.
I decided to give everything at least one or two more days before I chose a specific direction for my future operation of the casino and my general approach to the unforgettable Jenny Blake. I knew that this was simply a postponement and avoidance of the issue, yet I hoped an answer might be found somewhere soon if I didn’t rush things.
One of the aspects I liked most about my relationship with Jenny was the fact that it had now become an almost automatic reality that we were seeing each other every day. This was not like one of those silly teenager relationships where you had to play games and disappear from the radar every couple of days to make your girlfriend miss and appreciate you more. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we found ourselves in Vegas and that this was not an ordinary way for two people to meet. Even if Las Vegas was not the most romantic place in the world, it still had some magic hidden on its streets and in the casinos that never closed.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, the popular saying went and I suddenly realized that the whole incredible thing between Jenny and I could easily be bound for a natural death once one of us, or both, had to leave Las Vegas. Once Jenny finally decided that she’d fleeced enough casinos on the Vegas Strip in her never ending quest for vengeance against all the gambling institutions of the world she might just leave me standing there like an infatuated fool and never spare me another thought afterward...
“Enough of these thoughts, I need to get to work,” I said out loud to myself and got dressed in a light green Armani suit for the day. It was quite cloudy outside and, apart from the fact that I felt it was time to get my professional swag on, the suit would also be warm and appropriate for the weather conditions. I went downstairs and took a walk through the entire gambling section of my casino. I felt pleased to see that all of the staff members were neatly dressed and ready to go. Once again, I was struck by the thought that there was very little room for improvement here and I left the casino to take a walk through the streets. The Vegas Strip was already bustling with early morning gamblers meandering their way through the maze of pedestrians and alluring casino sounds.
Sometimes the answer is right in front of you, I heard Vivienne’s voice whisper in my head one more time and I suddenly thought of the acrimonious phone conversation I’d had with Peter Parkin about the fact that I’d allowed Jenny to win so much money at the Golden Nugget’s Blackjack tables. I wasn’t quite sure why I thought of Peter in that moment, but it suddenly struck me that there was one very important difference between my conversation with Peter and the conversation I’d just had with George, the general manager of the Golden Nugget.
My discussion with George was about measures which might make an additional couple of pennies for the casino whilst my discussion with Peter had been about many millions of dollars. Sure, the money involved in my discussion with Peter was, strictly speaking, a negative entry on any financial sheet as it involved back taxes owing to the US Government, but I still thought that the greatest opportunity for substantial profits might lie in the area where the most money was at stake. I decided to give this whole aspect some more careful thought, rather than spending all of my time trying to add one or two extra dollars of profit by coming up with insignificant ways of improving the day to day running of the Golden Nugget.
I was looking forward to another evening out with Jenny and I was struck again by how natural our entire relationship had become over such a short period of time. Some of it remained slightly outside the norm, though, especially the fact that there seemed to be no real future for Jenny and me after Vegas if things continued along the path we were on right then. But somewhere between our easy chemistry and our uncertain future lay the possibility of a happy ending; all I had to do was look closely to find it.
I smiled at one or two pretty girls as I walked down the street, but this was not my normal seductive smile; it was more of a gentle greeting…my seductive smile was put away for later when I would be seeing my little gambling angel again for another magic evening in Vegas.
I had a song in my heart and a spring in my step and I’d never felt more alive in my entire life than I did right in that moment. Somewhere in the back of my head, a plan was being formulated by my subconscious mind and I had the feeling things were going to work out just fine. After all; what could go wrong now that Jenny and I had found each other?
JENNY
“So you’re scared of a little girl playing Blackjack against your expert dealers, is that it!?” I shouted at the Pit Boss as he continued to refuse me access to the Blackjack tables.
“I’m sorry, madam, I’m just following instructions from management,” the Pit Boss replied and Francois took me gently by the arm.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said and I walked outside with Francois trying to calm me.
“Fuck these casinos and their thieving management," I shouted once we were outside and for some reason, my words seemed to stri
ke Francois more intensely than I would have expected.
“Just calm down, my little angel,” he said and took me in his arms. I suddenly wished I could just tell him all about the whole incredible burden of getting money together for my mother’s operation, but I feared Francois might just think I was trying to scam him or beg for money so it was out of the question. It felt like time had finally run out for me and I simply didn’t know how I was ever going to win another $100,000 now that the casinos on the Vegas Strip had apparently caught onto my card counting tactics.
“I know you enjoy your Blackjack and I promise you I will find you another casino even if I have to buy it for you myself, ma chérie,” Francois said and when I looked at him and saw the earnest expression on his face. It made me feel better right away.
“I no longer stay at the MGM Grand,” Francois said, “My new hotel is just around the corner, the Golden Nugget where we first met. Let’s go there and just take it easy for the rest of the evening.”
I just nodded my head in agreement. He was finally coming clean with me and, if nothing else, the disaster of the evening had at least convinced Francois to take me to his real hotel room. I thought for a second about making a joke and pretending to guess correctly that Francois stayed on the 17th floor, but then thought the better of it. He would surely realize that I’d been spying on him; not a very cool thing for the lover in your life to do.
