Daily Scifi Shorts, Sketches, & Starts

Saturday, October 18 [2]

Assistant director of the Clark County Historical Society was a position that Soren Roshwald took pretty seriously. He was the senior member in terms of time served of a board of eleven; he'd been on the board since 1979. The director, a lawyer brought in by the mayor primarily as a fundraiser, didn't even live in Vegas, but as he was largely hands-off when it came to daily operations, he'd been tolerated by the board members and even embraced by some, Soren among them. "He's a young man who knows how to work in a hierarchy," Soren had said over lunch at the Petrorussian to Board Member Madeline Conley, another of the four Old-Timers, as the other, younger board members called them privately.
"Bullshit," Conley snorted. "The man's a whore who knows jack shit about this town." She'd had three Bourbon and cokes on a light lunch; even when she wasn't loaded, she knew how to speak her mind. "He's been in the job a year now, and I've still got ten blocks full of trash north of the Strat." It was Conley's pet peeve: the urban decay that separated the old strip from the new.
"Christ, Maddy," Soren replied. "He can't fix that. That's the same old zoning holds put in way back--"
"No, he could use some of that goddamn money, buy those bastards out." She threw her napkin on her empty plate.
Soren caught the eye of their server, who, he noted, had been watching them discreetly. He nodded to her and she moved forward with the check. "Your lunch today is complements of Mr. Reynolds, who regrets that he cannot be here to greet you personally, Mr. Roshwald," she said. She turned and nodded. "Dr. Conley."
"Oh, no," Soren said. "I'll take care of that." He laid down a crisp hundred dollar bill on the table. When he noticed Conley's raised eyebrows, he shook his head. "It's not 1983, Maddy. We can't just buy out permit holders and we can't let Little Tommy Reynolds buy us lunch anymore." At the mention of her boss' nickname--'Little Tommy'--which, it was well known, he hated and had forbidden to be uttered in his restaurant, the server smiled in spite of herself. She retrieved the hundred and tucked it into the leather binder that contained the $81 lunch receipt. "Thank you, Mr. Roshwald," she said, but the two board members were already on their way to the door.
Soren closed the passenger door after Conley and walked around the back, slipping behind the wheel of a year-old Lexus. "Where to, then?" he said. He was going back to the office for at least a couple of hours, but thought that Conley would call it a day after the drinks.
"Oh, take me home, Sor," she waved her manicured hand. "I've had all I can take for one day." He piloted the Lexus along a familiar route to a gated community south of the city and, after being waved through by a uniformed guard whose name was Henry, as they both well knew, he brought the car to a stop in the carriage turnaround of a two-million dollar house. "Come in for awhile?" she asked, her words very slightly slurred as the last drink she had slammed down took effect.
Soren knew better than to put her into a position to be embarrassed later. "No, I've got a pile of work," he smiled. "I'll see you tomorrow. "
Characteristically, Conley got out of the car without a word and walked to her door, where a uniformed man opened the door for her. When she was safely inside, he maneuvered the car onto the street and back towards town.