As I turned back to my drink the other gentleman spoke conversationally, “Don’t worry about Nicolai.”
I quickly turned to face him and noticed that, by the look on his face, he was in the middle of a strenuous mental debate. After a couple of moments he added, “It’s just that his wallet is tighter than an oyster’s shell. He also cannot abide people who freely share their wealth, even if you had a decent reason.”
Looking into the man’s eyes I replied, “He’s crazy. You know that right?”
“Yes, he is crazy. But aside from that he’s mostly a good person.” The man replied while still watching Nicholai’s back. Before I could respond to this apparent contradiction, he moved off and quickly followed Nicholai’s retreating form. Finally left alone, I turned my back on the bar and continued to scan the room. Once again taking in the room and its occupants my eyes fell upon the mystery man speaking with Nicholai and I thought of something that I should have thought of before.
A majority of these people were self-centered, spoiled millionaires, which made them entitled. And that entitlement certainly made them dangerous. Just like a shark in a feeding frenzy these children would never see past their entitlement if their money was stripped away from them. I was going to have to be even more cautious then I thought. That or Dempsey had arrangements to keep their baser desires at bay. That certainly made sense, I just wish I knew what it was.
The spoiled children and scattered professionals could wait, I needed to know about the room I was in. Armed with the knowledge that there had to be at least one door if not a pair I started walking along the wall searching for them. As I walked along the edge of the wall I thought about the way the room was shaped and filled out. There was another reason there had to be a door along this wall and that was because the room was quite simply a lounge. There was no possible way to rearrange the tables here so we could play. Which left me asking a couple of questions. First, where are we going to play? And second, where is that door?
By the time I had given the wall a cursory exam I had found nothing useful so I could do one of two things. Either I could keep looking for the door and announce to everyone that I was up to something. Or I could sit down at one of the tables and study my competition. It was not that difficult of a decision to make, I looked for a place where I could study the competition in relative privacy. Apparently I wasn’t the first one to choose that path.
With plenty of open tables to choose from I found one that allowed me to see a majority of the room, the occupants, and most importantly the entrance. Within moments a waitress came up and asked me if I needed anything. Looking at my glass I saw that it was mostly empty so I told her that I would need another martini from Simon. It took me another moment to convince her that it would be very beneficial for her to take the time to find Simon. I was pretty sure I didn’t actually threaten her, but I may have let her imagination do the work for me, the things I had to do in character.
I didn’t like how I treated her, but I couldn’t afford to make exceptions at least not with the staff. I finished my martini and started to examine the people more closely. I could spot the professionals in an instant. They were the ones drinking as little as possible and what they were drinking was either soda or water. They also blatantly didn’t care what the elite thought of them. In fact the only thing they did care about was collecting the money from the rich patsies. I could tell that a few of them were lumping me into that category, so I made no effort to dissuade them of the misconception. As far as I was concerned it would just make it easier for me to take them out of the game.
The room was just large enough that people would feel they had ample room, even when it was fully packed. That feeling would encourage everyone, or most everyone to spread out, which in turn would keep me from getting a reliable read on them. Fortunately, I was a jack-of-all-trades, I always knew something about most everything, especially if it had the potential to be useful. But just before I could start another trick the waitress returned with my fresh martini. Taking it I touched the surface of the drink in order to collect a taste. Though that was just for show, scrubbing the intoxicants out of the drink was just too important to forget.
I thanked her for her diligence with a fifty-dollar bill. It is amazing how easily cash can buy forgiveness, she departed with a smile. With my drink in hand I reached into my pocket and withdrew the monocle I kept there. As I poured a little bit of my body heat through a mental image and then into the glass I heard one of the chairs beside being pulled out. While I began to move my head to examine the intruder, I finished the slight transformation.
As far as intruders go I could have done much worse. The woman standing above me was quite striking. She was looking down at me with a very warm smile and before I could say anything she spoke with a silken voice and that contained just a splash of sweetness. “Would you mind some company?”
Chapter 4
Looking up into her grey eyes, I wanted to say no. I needed to use the modified monocle before the transformation dissipated, I had only poured enough heat into it for a little while. I never trusted people’s hands, especially in a place like this, where a single stray hand could broadcast my abilities to the wrong people. So I usually played things close to the chest in these circumstances. But as I took a moment to study those beautiful grey eyes I found my hand sliding the monocle back into its pocket. I didn’t stop the motion, not when the modification would last for only a few minutes. So why not talk to one of the players, especially one so beautiful.