Chapter 412

“You sure?” I asked Ash.

“I’m sure,” he nodded. “Jacob is- He’s practically a nudist in his spare time. I had to ask him not to follow his coworkers with his personal instagram account because he posts from ‘naturalist retreats’ on his days off. Zero body shame, and he’s been talking about wanting to go to a ‘special beach’ somewhere in Croatia or something, so I’m sure he’ll jump at a chance to bump up his vacation fund.”

“OK,” I nodded, giving our head concierge a pat on the arm. “What have you been thinking about the other project?” I kept the question even more cryptic than I had asking about the dealer I needed - I’d decided that if I was looping in Ash on the big Festival project, I could trust him for the stupid poker party one too and I’d struck out with my feelers on other Dealers who might have been interested. Ash didn’t have direct supervision over any of the casino floor, but he was a front and centre figure for the hotel, and was a social guy, so he had plenty of connections throughout the staffing.

“I’ll start running the numbers tomorrow and put together some thoughts,” he said, getting a little smirk on her face as his eyes roamed the main entry concourse, watching his front desk staff handling checkouts, his bellhops striding along with people’s luggage, and even the valet service guys through the big glass doors and windows fronting the building. “How heavy-handed a discount do you want to try and give for the rooms?”

“Treat the weekend as a loss-leader,” I said. “Not a full comp for the whole thing, but consider every VIP as a major gambling whale and the projected staff as no-profit. We’ll get the pitch through with raw numbers, but we’ll make the money back with return visits for the experience.”

“If that’s how you want to plan it,” he nodded. “I’ll send you some prelim numbers by tomorrow night. What do you have going now?”

“I’m meeting with a Promoter,” I sighed. “And if he falls through I might be a little fucked.”

“Oh, you’re the person who was looking for one last night,” Ash said, connecting the dots. “I saw something about it going around but I mean, I don’t know anyone who is still active. I used to back when I was at the MGM, but you know that business - hustlers always looking for the next big jump. All my old contacts would be dead.”

“I figured, or I would have come straight to you first,” I agreed. I still felt a little blessed that the Vasoseh didn’t have a nightclub for us to need to deal with. “Alright, I’m going to go wait over there and check some emails if he comes in and asks for me.”

“Sounds good,” he nodded, already starting to drift towards the front desk across the open concourse. A guest seemed to be getting a little frustrated, likely with their bill.

I let him go and headed over to where I’d nodded, one of the more quiet nooks between a couple of pillars where there was a semicircular bench. It was technically an advertising space for the gallery and Tracy kept up prints and other advertising for her latest showings, but it had become the natural ‘Staff waiting for a non-guest’ waiting area.

Easing myself down onto the stone bench, I let out a sigh and scrubbed my face once with my hand before pulling out my phone and checking my messages and emails. I was 75% sure that this Jay-Shawn guy would show up since he’d come with a recommendation, but he was still a Promoter. They weren’t exactly known for their professionalism, and the ones that did have it often moved on quickly to more stable jobs and careers.

My emails were pretty standard fare - one new potential client wanting to price out the Vaso ballrooms for a wedding that I offered a few meeting times over the next couple of weeks, one confirmation from maintenance that they’d be ready with the lift on Monday morning for the main ballroom so that we could take care of some of the decor that the MADD fundraiser luncheon (how they still had enough people around Vegas to fill the entire ballroom, I couldn’t figure out), and three emails that I was CC’d on but didn’t need to deal with personally.

My messages were a different matter. Now that I wasn’t officially on ‘Me Dude Bro’ time, the girls were back to communicating with me like before. It was a relief, in some ways, but also a bit much. Cass and Terra were both sending me occasional picture updates of their packing process, and Cass let me know they were going out for dinner with some of Terra’s local friends for a Farewell Dinner. Becca kept things short, letting me know Wanda was doing OK that morning and she took the hurting woman out for brunch before they were due to meet with Brodi just after lunch. Leia had been up late with her roommates after we played games and was just waking up now, and she’d sent me a cheeky mirror picture of herself about to get into the shower, her hair up in a shower cap and seemingly only wearing a barely-long-enough towel. The second picture proved it wasn’t quite long enough after all as the plump bottoms of her ass cheeks poked out the bottom as she stuck her tongue out teasingly.