Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

like the public part of being the wunderkind of Las Vegas, “Prince Midas,” the “Man with the Twenty-four Karat Luck,” “Golden Boy,” or whatever else the chic media tagged him whenever they needed another splashy article to separate their ads. Nor did he appreciate the endless gossipy speculation that had him sleeping with every good-looking female east of the Pacific Ocean, but he knew that the prurient interest came with the territory of being the bachelor owner of the biggest, most successful resort casino in Las Vegas.
    Besides, the constant speculation about his private life was free advertising for the Golden Fleece.
    The electronic unit that had descended from the old personal data assistants vibrated discreetly at his waist. Since he had turned off his normal paging number, he knew this call was urgent.
    He pulled out the hand-size unit and automatically decoded the message as it scrolled across the window. It was from the pit boss who oversaw the baccarat tables. One of the Japanese “whales”—someone who could and did drop a million dollars gambling—was riding a winning streak. Six hundred thousand and counting. Did Shane want to change dealers before the shift ended in hope of breaking the whale’s luck?
    Shane sent back a negative reply. It had been a while since the Golden Fleece had had a big winner from Japan. In the long run, the free publicity more than paid for the losses.
    Letting the party shriek and gyrate around him, he continued scanning his call log. Risa had tried to reach him several times. She wanted to talk to him, but not enough to put in the override code.
    Smart lady. But then he already knew that.
    He opened his e-mail and saw that the Portuguese chef was having a fit over the shellfish that the Golden Fleece’s suppliers flew in daily from various seaports around the world. Too many of the Penn Cove mussels had cracked shells. The New Zealand green mussels looked gray. The Boston clams were too big. The scallops were too small. The raw oysters tasted like snot.
    Shane snickered. He had always felt that way himself about uncooked oysters. In his opinion the only thing worse than a raw oyster was a cooked one.
    A flick of his thumb brought up the next message. This time it was the wine steward who was complaining. The French supplier was gouging. The Italian supplier was sending inferior labels. Napa Valley wines were too expensive for the quality. Would he consider substituting some of the fine wines from the Southern Hemisphere?
    Shane bit back an impatient curse. Part of the trouble with running something like Tannahill Inc. in general and the Golden Fleece in particular was that employees worked round the clock and expected him to do the same. But unlike his employees, Shane didn’t put in only one eight-hour shift per day. He put in two and then some.
    He should delegate more. He knew it. He just hadn’t gotten around to it.
    The third message made him smile. The new firewall he had recently set up around the computer nerve center of Tannahill Inc. had not only stopped four probes cold, it had sent a lovely little virus he had designed back along the same path the hackers had used to break in. Right now at least four hackers were looking at piles of trash that had once been expensive computers.
    Rot in hell , he thought cheerfully. He should have put the redesigned firewall in place months ago, but he hadn’t had time. He hoped nothing important had slipped through the old firewall.
    The programming/hacking skills he had learned from his father—and pursued later to get even with the bastard—often came in handy. If Shane hadn’t been more interested in people than electronics, he would have dived into a computer long ago and never surfaced. There was a Zen state about creating new ways to interface human and computer that fascinated him. The only things that appealed more to his restless intelligence were the quirks and pangs of humanity as revealed in timeless, eternal golden artifacts.
    “Shane!”
    Automatically he put away his hand unit as he turned in answer to Risa’s call. She was pushing through the crowd toward him, wearing the same clothes she had in L.A., which meant she had been as busy since they landed as he had. With the humorous recognition of one Type A+ for another, he made a mental note to tell her to delegate more.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked.
    “My job. You’re not answering your pager.”
    She had also been curious as