Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

now?”
    “Last I checked, the chef you assigned to the whales when they arrived was wielding a knife over something raw and putting it on top of sticky rice. The croupier was trying not to gag on pickled fish while dealing the whales yet another losing round of baccarat.”
    “Which croupier? Finnigan?”
    “How’d you guess?”
    “He’s the only croupier we had on last night who has the skill to deal for whales, the charm to ease them out of public view if they get drunk, and the stomach to eat pickled fish at four a.m. just to keep them company. Slide one of my personal thousand-dollar markers into his pay envelope. Sometimes losers forget to tip.”
    Susan flipped open the side pocket of her purse and said a few quick words into the built-in recorder. “Anything else?”
    “Find out why we weren’t notified by other casinos about the presence of a new techno-team in town.”
    “Maybe we were the first they hit.”
    “Maybe. We’ll know soon enough.”
    Susan spoke a few more hurried words into the recorder.
    “What was the follow-up on the trash fire?” he asked.
    “Busboy was sneaking a smoke and tossed a butt in the trash bin.”
    “Ex-busboy.”
    “As of this morning, six a.m.,” she agreed.
    Shane made another circuit of the casino, noted that the woman’s hot streak at craps was holding and the crowd had tripled. Nothing attracted people like a big winner. Smiling, he headed toward the kitchen. Kitchens, actually; the Golden Fleece not only had its own perpetual all-you-can-eat buffet but also five world-class restaurants, each with its own kitchen staff and temperamental chefs.
    Before the days of the megacasinos, food in Vegas was cheap and plentiful, a loss leader for the casinos. Not any longer. Not on the Strip. Here the restaurants, like the hotels, were expected to show a profit along with delivering four- and five-star cuisine. It was part of the luxury experience that the biggest resort/casinos delivered to a wealthy international audience. Because the average visitor to Vegas only stayed three days and only gambled two hours per day, it was necessary to ensure that a hotel/casino’s guests didn’t have to go anywhere else for anything else—food, entertainment, high-end shopping, opulent spas, everything under one huge roof.
    And all corridors led back to the casino.
    The Golden Fleece wasn’t unique in its design. Every other megacasino funneled people into the gambling area. The profits from hotel, entertainment, shopping, and food varied with the season or the economy; the gambling odds didn’t. No matter what the window dressing, Vegas, like Monte Carlo, was about gambling.
    “What was the follow-up on the guest who claimed that the escalator jerked her off her feet?” Shane asked as they took a staff-only elevator down to the kitchens.
    “About what you’d expect. We ran the tapes, saw her ‘fall’ two or three times until she managed to attract attention, and then the fun began.”
    “Fun.” His mouth turned down.
    He expected the card mechanics and the cons, the petty grifters and the big ones. It was Vegas, after all. But the carnival of ambulance-chasing lawyers and senior citizens taking well-timed pratfalls in hope of hitting a different kind of jackpot really annoyed Shane. No matter how many times it happened, people didn’t seem to figure out that everything in the Golden Fleece but the toilet stalls and the guest rooms were under 24/7 camera surveillance.
    Shane glanced at his watch, wondered what had happened to the time, and mentally juggled his schedule. No matter how he tweaked it, he couldn’t fit in the kitchens this morning. In ten minutes he had an appointment with his curator. It wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting. Or a short one.
    It was past time for Risa to come up with a centerpiece for his Druid Gold show. He needed gold artifacts that could compete with the Fabergé exhibit that would open in the Wildest Dream on New Year’s Eve. The fact that, once again, Gail was going to a lot of expense just to get in his face didn’t change the reality of it. He needed a showstopper.
    And Risa was damn well going to find it for him.

Chapter 12
    Camp Verde
    November 1
    Morning
    G old lay in gleaming array across the frayed chenille bedspread that Cherelle had jerked over the rumpled sheets. There were twenty-seven extraordinary and eerie pieces of metal art.
    “What do you suppose they used this big ol’ thing for?” she muttered, staring at