CHAPTER 18

I was, basically, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Except, instead of a blinking red nose, I had a crimson blush. Quinn Sullivan made my light blink on and off. You could guide a sleigh by it, or a private jet. It was a beacon of embarrassment, mortification, pleasure, turpitude, awareness, frustration, and, yes, anger.

At present, however, I was a normal shade of whitish-beige. I was listening with all outward attentiveness to Quinn finish up the presentation our team put together for the meeting: an overview of the security in place for Outrageous, a schematic of the new club in Vegas overlaid with identified weaknesses in current operations, a comparison of approaches to security management of the entire property, casino included, and so forth. It was a strong presentation. I knew it by heart.

And, partly because I knew it by heart and partly because it was Quinn delivering the presentation, I didn’t hear any of it. I spent the entire half hour trying to appear attentive to the content and rather than the fine, agile movements of the speaker, the cadence of his voice, the depth of his cobalt eyes, the shape of his...

I blinked, with purpose, and shook my head just a little in order to re-direct my thoughts. The room was dimmed for the presentation and for that I was thankful.

The afternoon up to this point had been somewhat of a blur. After Quinn left me standing outside by limo #1, Steven, Carlos, and Olivia’s limo pulled in behind ours. Carlos didn’t seem surprised to find me there by myself and warmly folded me into their group, helping me navigate hotel check-in. Really, all I had to do was follow him into the casino, he did everything else. He even handed me my key, told me what room number was mine and how to find the elevators.

We were then dispatched with instructions to meet back in the hotel lobby in one hour. I went to my room then did not much of anything other than frown, use the facilities, brush my teeth, look at the list of in-room TV channels, and then head back downstairs armed with my portfolio and iPad. Carlos and Olivia were sitting across from each other on large, golden, jewel encrusted settees. They weren’t talking; rather they were independently together, engrossed in the contents of their own cell phones.

I glanced around with not a little trepidation. Neither Quinn nor Steven were present in the lobby. Carlos noticed me first and they both stood in lagged unison as I approached. That was when I saw a third person, also standing in lagged unison but he also was still engrossed with his phone. He was normal height, a little taller than me, and had normal blondish-reddish hair and normal bluish eyes and a normal smattering of freckles- though light- over his cheeks but, strangely, not his nose.

Introductions were made swiftly; the unknown person was the nephew of the casino owner and the manager of the new club; his name was Alex or Adrien or Adien or Allen something like that. I was introduced rather formally as Ms. Morris, Senior Fiscal Project Coordinator and manager of the account. We shook hands. He may have smiled and held my hand a little too long; he might also have winked. I wasn’t in the mood to really notice anything about him.

Allen- or Adien or whatever his name was- was going to escort us to and give us a tour of the new club, the club for which we were to provide security, for which we’d prepared the presentation. I tried to push myself to feel at least some professional interest in the tour if not some normal inquisitiveness.

I was informed, by Olivia on the elevator ride up, that Quinn and Steven had a separate meeting with the client to go over the private account. A meeting I wasn’t invited to attend. I spared her a waxy, unconcerned smile.

The tour was fine. The club was fine, although it looked peculiar as it was empty of partygoers and was rather brightly lit by several west-facing windows. It didn’t look anything like Outrageous; it just appeared to be a typical nightclub; although, in its defense, they hadn’t yet finished decorating. There were several men, I assumed construction workers, coming in and out of the main space but I expended no mental energy noticing them.

We ate lunch at a black table near one of the windows. I didn’t notice the view of the Las Vegas Strip nor the landscape of rust-capped ridges and canyons beyond.

I drifted through these happenings, not tasting my food, speaking when spoken to, answering questions but not really asking any of my own. I was wholly uncurious which should have concerned me. But it didn’t.

There were a few more tours- the casino floor, the lock room, a few sections of the basement. Finally, after an indeterminable amount of time and banal chit chat, we were taken to a conference room and prodded with coffee, tea, and cucumber water. The club manager left briefly while Carlos and Olivia set up for the presentation; he pulled out a thumb drive and she placed hardcopy packets in front of each of the conference table’s large leather seats.

Then, in walked Steven and Quinn and, suddenly, my brain engaged. I started noticing.

In fact, I couldn’t stop noticing.

I noticed that he didn’t look at me or speak to me and seemed to sit in the seat furthest from mine.

I noticed that Carlos made all the introductions as the client entered- Mr. Northumberland- a tall, tanned, trim man in his fifties with black eyes and pepper hair. He owned the casino. His nephew, the one who was either called Aiden or Allen or Alex or something starting with ‘A’, entered the room behind him and an entourage of four more men and three women followed. I suspected their names didn’t matter. They weren’t making decisions; they may as well have been curtains.

There were some initial niceties- comments about college football, someone pointed out that it was hot outside, I was asked if I’d had a chance to spend any time gambling since we’d arrived. I wanted to respond that life was a gamble and we were all losers. Instead, suppressing my emo-moroseness, I replied in the negative and settled into my seat.

Then the presentation began. Though my color was normal throughout, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would say something or do something to set my Rudolf light blinking. The man had my button in his possession and he pressed it, repeatedly.

I couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Northumberland seemed very impatient- impatient to get the presentation started then, during the presentation, impatient to ensure that our security implementation would be completed by next month. He interrupted Quinn with some frequency asking questions like:

“How much time will that take?” and “Don’t you already have everything you need?” and “Is that going to delay the project?”

As the presentation ended Olivia stood and adjusted the lights in the room and Quinn requested that the casino staff open the packet in front of each of them. He took the group through the implementation plan, the timeline, the resources we would provide, the cost; suddenly he surprised me, and I guessed the rest of our team, by adding:

“These budget numbers are initial estimates. We’re planning an overhaul to our billing structure in order to provide corporate clients with a greater level of granularity. The next time you see the cost estimates and- for that matter- the invoices, they’ll have line item detail.”

Mr. Northumberland nodded with what I guessed was appreciation because he said, “That’s good, that’s good- just as long as it doesn’t hold anything up.”

Quinn assured him the changes would not preclude moving the project forward and then Quinn was discussing networking and wiring requirements of the space and the subject changed and I could only watch him with mystified incredulity.

I felt Steven’s foot tap against mine under the table and swung my gaze to meet his. He had this ability to enlarge his grey eyes and narrow them at the same time; it often impressed me. This was the look he administered; it was meant to dually convey surprise and suspicion. I shook my head, a very small movement, hoping he understood my silent communication: I had no idea why Quinn chose that moment to mention my idea about billing changes or why or when he’d one hundred percent decided that Cypher Systems was going to commit to the new software.

I did know that Olivia was also watching me; the daggers she was throwing with her glare were difficult to overlook, even in my peripheral vision. Instead of focus my attention on her knife wielding propensities or Quinn’s continuing recitation of the deal’s details or Steven’s sideways glances, I stared unseeingly at the two dimensional, top view diagram of the club space within my packet.

It was such a small thing, the new billing technique. It really was such a small thing. I doubted Mr. Northumberland or any of the lackeys presently really cared about line item detail on billing invoices.

But why had he done it? Why had Quinn even brought it up?

It was nothing. It meant nothing. Stop obsessing about it.

My eyes followed the lines of the AutoCAD derived blue print. I distracted myself by studying the digitally rendered topical design and comparing it to the tour we’d taken of the space earlier. This, as it turned out, was a very effective distraction.

I frowned, blinked, rechecked my examination. My frown deepened.

The schematic in the packet did not match the actual size, layout, or features of the club we’d toured that morning.

I must have sighed loudly or made some other overt outward sign of displeasure because the room became quiet; somewhere to the right a throat was cleared. I glanced up. Everyone was looking at me, including Quinn.