The server stopped at their table to inquire if they required anything more.
Scott asked for the bill.
Now it was time for Joyce to go in for the kill.
There was still half a bottle of champagne left in the third bottle.
“Once we polish off the last of our champagne, I’d love to join you in your room for a nightcap or some coffee,” Joyce purred. “It’s too early to call it a night.”
“That’s a lovely idea, Ellen. I’m actually staying in a suite with a separate entertaining section complete with a sofa and coffee table.”
The server arrived with the bill. Joyce smiled to herself when Scott brought out his wallet and paid with his credit card. This evening was evolving perfectly.
I gazed across the table at one of the loveliest women I’d ever met. Ellen had on the most alluring shade of lipstick that I’d ever seen. I wanted to lean over and kiss her passionately right now.
It seemed that in a short while I’d not only be sampling those luscious lips but perhaps even feasting on the whole banquet.
I suddenly realized that I was dying to use the men’s room.
“I’ll make a brief visit to the men’s room and then we can finish our champagne and wander back to my hotel. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
CHAPTER 25 (Epiphany)
I was almost giddy as I stood up and made my way to the washrooms which were actually just outside the restaurant near the rear hotel entrance.
It appeared that Lady Luck was about to grace me with the biggest jackpot of my life.
Ellen was so incredibly beautiful and seemed to really like me.
As I stood at the urinal luxuriating in the relief of a long overdue emptying of my bladder, a tiny contradiction in Ellen’s responses about where she worked popped into my mind.
This afternoon she had told me that she worked for an insurance broker but tonight she mentioned that her bosses were accountants specializing in bankruptcies and insolvencies.
While I continued to push out a steady stream of duly digested champagne, another discrepancy came to mind. This afternoon Ellen had told me that she had lived all her life in Los Angeles, but a few minutes ago she had blurted out that she grew up in a small town in Iowa.
Perhaps she meant that she spent all her adult life in Los Angeles. I thought about her precise words and recalled that she had specifically stated that she had been “born and raised in Los Angeles.”
Finally I had drained my bladder. That had to be the longest pee I’d ever had.
I washed my hands at the sink and began to anticipate the next phase of this dinner date. Having a nightcap in my hotel room probably meant that I was going to get lucky.
There was no one else in the men’s room.
I whispered “Lady Luck loves lawyers” to my image in the mirror and winked as I watched my image break out in a self-satisfied smirk.
I dried my hands and turned to head back to my romantic destiny.
As I reached the end of the long sink, I glanced quickly at the mirror.
At that precise moment I had an epiphany.
I stopped in mid-step and turned to look more closely at my image in the mirror.
It was shockingly apparent.
I was an ordinary bloke with less than average looks who was knocking on the door of old age. In less than a year and a half I’d be a senior citizen.
It was inconceivable to believe that this mousy specimen in the mirror had a gorgeous young woman sitting at his table waiting to ravish him back in his hotel room.
My mind began racing. Another major contradiction in Ellen’s conversations hit me like a ton of bricks.
This afternoon Ellen had said that she had never been to Las Vegas before. Tonight when we were well into our third bottle of champagne, Ellen mentioned that she had attended a country and western concert at Mandalay Bay just a couple of months before the mass shooting there.
It was impossible to escape the harsh reality.
Girls like Ellen never went out with someone like Scott Baxter.
I was somehow being set up. Ellen had approached me this afternoon in the casino and initiated our conversation. Tonight she apparently was stalking me at the same time that I was stalking her.
That clinched the deal. Ours had been no chance meeting.
I walked out of the men’s room. Instead of heading back to the Chart House, I headed in the opposite direction.
By now I was a bit paranoid. If Ellen intended to rob me, then she might have an accomplice waiting in the wings.
The casino was extremely crowded on this Saturday night.
I made my way as quickly as possible outside to the Fremont Street Experience.
In order to alter my appearance as much as possible, I removed my tie and stuffed it in the pocket of my pants. Then I took off my suit jacket and carried in on my arm.
In my inebriated state, it was impossible to determine for certain that no one was following me but if they were, I led them on a wild goose chase through Binion’s to Stewart Street where I then walked east the three blocks to the El Cortez.
When I got into the hotel through a secondary door, I took the tower elevator to the third floor and then found the long corridor back to my Room 321.
As I approached the bend in the hallway, I stopped and peeked around the corner to ensure that no one was waiting near the door to my room. The entire hallway was empty.
I entered my room and quickly checked to make sure that no one had broken in. Then I called the front desk and asked them to disconnect the phone service in my room. I also confirmed with the clerk that I had incurred no extra charges and that I could simply leave my key in my room tomorrow morning when I left. As an extra precaution, I mentioned to the clerk that I was concerned that I might have been targeted by a con artist. The clerk made a notation on my computer file that under no circumstances was my room number to be given out. I tried to persuade him to amend my name on the hotel records but he refused to do that.
I put a chair up against the door to prevent anyone from bursting in during the night without waking me up.
After another long pee, I undressed and climbed into bed.
If my intoxicated logic turned out to be completely wrong, then tonight I had passed up a golden opportunity to get lucky in Las Vegas with a knockout beauty.
CHAPTER 26 (Stood Up)
Joyce ran through in her mind the safest way to administer the knock-out drug to Scott Baxter. She would need to persuade him to have another drink and needed to ask him on the way there if he had any booze in his room.
It was almost amusing to watch stupid men in action. Baxter believed that he was going to score with Joyce back in his hotel room when in reality it was Joyce who was making the big score. The ten grand would completely pay off her most pressing creditors with plenty left over for cocaine.
Joyce wanted to use the facilities in the ladies room but opted instead to wait until she got to Baxter’s room.
She considered calling Willy now to let him know how the evening was progressing but didn’t want Baxter to catch her using her phone.
After a while Joyce began wondering what was taking Baxter so long.
She finished her own champagne and poured some of Scott’s into her glass.
More time elapsed.
Joyce began to worry that perhaps Baxter had passed out in the men’s can.
She threw back the champagne remaining in his glass and then went looking for him.
At the entrance to the men’s room, Joyce approached a young guy and asked if he could check to see if her boyfriend was passed out inside.
The chap came back out and informed her that the bathroom was completely empty and no one was in any of the stalls.
Joyce took one last quick but fruitless look for Baxter and then called Willy.
“I don’t know what’s happened. We were having a great time and were about to head back to his hotel room for a nightcap. Baxter excused himse
lf to use the men’s room and now he’s disappeared. The bathroom is completely empty.”
“Maybe he’s not as stupid as he looks and took off in order to stick you with the tab.”
“That’s not it. He paid by credit card before he went to the washroom. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“He must have suspected something. Wait around there for another few minutes. If he doesn’t turn up, then you may as well go home.”
“You owe me another thousand bucks for having enticed him to dine with me. That was our deal.”
“I suppose you’re right. I’ll bring you the money now. If you’re not outside the Chart House entrance when I get there, then I’ll assume that Baxter showed up in which case I’ll wait for your next call that he’s out like a light in his room.”
Joyce waited patiently. Willy arrived within five minutes and paid her the extra cash.
“I can’t believe that the boring little creep stood me up,” she moaned to Willy. “I was sure that I had him eating out of my hand.”
“Mr. Schenteck won’t be happy but we tried our best. Thanks for helping us out.”
Joyce walked outside and grabbed a taxi back to her apartment.
Just when you thought you understood men, something like this happens.
CHAPTER 27 (Sneaking to New Digs)
On Sunday morning I woke with a splitting headache at ten o’clock.
I showered, dressed casually and carefully packed my suit and other stuff into my sports bag.
In the cold light of day I wasn’t nearly as paranoid as I had been last night.
I went downstairs and checked out of my room properly. Then I walked out of the hotel and zig-zagged my way using multiple detours until I was certain that no one was following me.
At that point I went to the Downtown Grand and ate breakfast in their coffee shop.
My room was available when I checked in at noon. I used the name Harold Baxter to sign in. Harold was my middle name and I purposely didn’t pay the deposit in order to have the room phone activated. I was trying to remain under the radar.
This was a standard room with no sofa but it was very colorful and pleasant.
I used the smart phone and called Steve to find out if he’d heard anything from Schenteck. He had not. I didn’t mention my adventure last night even though I suspected that Guenther might well have been responsible for tossing sexy Ellen in my path.
I explained to Steve that I would attend at the land registry office on Tuesday to register the lien on the title of the factory being sold by the numbered company. I also recommended that we not encumber the office building yet. I told Steve that I highly doubted that Guenther would call me tomorrow before the deadline.
In order to protect myself a bit, I gave Steve the option of instructing me not to register the lien on the factory. Steve obviously wouldn’t get paid anything but at least he also wouldn’t step into the oncoming traffic of an enraged Guenther Schenteck.
Steve told me to go ahead and register the notice of pending litigation. He felt that he had nothing to lose and wanted to do at least something to get back at Schenteck for cheating him.
I remained in the hotel all day. It seemed safer to do so. No one on the planet, not even Steve, knew where Scott Baxter was now staying. Steve probably assumed that I was still at the El Cortez.
I purchased a Downtown Grand casino hat and sweatshirt in a souvenir shop on the main casino level and used those items as a rudimentary disguise.
I purchased a submarine sandwich and Pepsi from a vendor in the casino and ate supper up in my room.
Steve’s smart phone never rang.
On Monday I continued to keep a very low profile. With my disguise in place, I ate breakfast in the hotel coffee shop.
It was a rather long day. I read another novel on my Kindle E-Reader and glanced through the Las Vegas entertainment magazine that was in my room. I also purchased a Las Vegas newspaper and read it.
As expected, I heard nothing from Guenther. He was a vicious piece of work.
I sincerely hoped that my little plot to foul up his factory title would cause a torrent of grief to rain down upon his evil head.
CHAPTER 28 (Registration Day)
Tuesday was wet and cold. Rain was a relatively rare event in Las Vegas but today was miserable.
I had breakfast downstairs and then dressed as warmly as I could and caught a taxi to the land registry office.
I did a quick title search to ensure that nothing had changed since last week.
Then I registered the certificate of pending litigation against the title of the numbered company.
The rain had stopped by the time I left the registry office. I grabbed another cab back to my hotel.
In the late afternoon I sent off the email that I had composed last week to Andrew Ng, the in-house attorney for Advancitech.
I fully expected to receive a phone call or reply email right away but nothing happened.
I didn’t know what to think about that turn of events.
My faint hope had been that Mr. Ng would call me, discuss the matter and then put pressure on Guenther Schenteck to pay Steve in full in order to have the lien removed immediately.
I ate a full but moderately-priced supper in the coffee shop. The tab at the Chart House had been over $250 which was by far the most I’d ever paid for a meal. My innate frugality was now forcing me to conserve my money.
After supper I retired to my room. No one had called yet.
Dark thoughts began to fill my mind. Perhaps Advancitech was just as crooked as Guenther Schenteck. Ignoring my email might be a sign that they were looking out for their own self-interest. The email itself didn’t constitute any sort of lien so perhaps they discussed the issue and decided that it didn’t affect their purchase of the factory.
Tomorrow they’d all get a hell of a surprise when they tried to close the deal.
I had to smile to myself.
Although I had only been a small-time sole practitioner, I certainly would have done a preliminary search of title the afternoon before closing a multi-million dollar deal. The cost of doing the additional search was only a few bucks.
Sometimes huge law firms missed obvious opportunities to protect their clients. This deal was a case in point.
Their refusal to incorporate a tiny bit of cheap insurance would come back to haunt them tomorrow.
I went to bed at eleven o’clock.
The smart phone had been completely silent all evening.
CHAPTER 29 (Closing Day Blues)
The thing that bugged me the most when I was running my law office was last-minute problems on my deals.
I woke up on Wednesday morning and the first thing that came to mind was that today was going to be a very strange day.
Guenther Schenteck and Andrew Ng were soon going to find out how stressful unexpected glitches can be and I was going to be dragged in to a tense session of negotiations with both Schenteck’s attorney and whichever law firm was handling the factory purchase on behalf of Advancitech.
The first thing I did when I climbed out of bed was to check the smart phone for messages.
I wasn’t accustomed to using smart phones. I never had one when I was running my practice nor did I ever spring for any type of cell phone. It was just a quirk of mine that I didn’t want to be continually at my clients’ beck and call.
Handing Steve’s smart phone back to him couldn’t come fast enough as far as I was concerned now.
I had been constantly checking it to see if any messages had come in. That was no way to live.
It seemed appropriate to wear my suit and tie today but I dressed casually for breakfast which I ate in the coffee shop on the casino level.
It struck me that today was Valentine’s Day. I chuckled with the thought that Guenther Schenteck was definitely not going to appreciate the bouquet of shit that Steve and I were about to hand him.
I recalled from my long stint as a real estate attorney that t
he deals tended to close in the afternoon rather than earlier in the day.
Ontario had initiated an electronic registration system which now permitted lawyers to close the deals from the comfort of their own offices. Nevada still used the old system in which the attorneys for the buyer and seller met face to face in the land registry office.
The purchaser’s lawyer would do a last-minute abstract search to ensure that no changes to the property title had taken place since the full title search had been completed.
If that final search showed no problems, then the money and deed would change hands and the vendor’s lawyer would wait around until the deed had been duly registered. Then he or she could go spend the sale proceeds.
When the representatives for the two legal offices met today at the land registry office, Steve’s notice of pending litigation would be discovered.
What would happen next was probably too complex to predict. In any event, it was imperative that I be available at the registry office.
I was back in my hotel room by nine o’clock and changed in to my suit and tie.
I phoned Steve but he hadn’t heard anything yet either. We discussed strategy and I suggested that both he and I should head over to the land registry office and wait for the shit to hit the fan.
Steve agreed to pick me up outside the Downtown Grand in thirty minutes.
We arrived at the registry office at eleven o’clock. The place was relatively quiet. Real estate transactions tended to bunch up on the first or last business day of each month and most Fridays were also busy. Today was a Wednesday.
I did another search of the factory property. Our lien hadn’t been officially abstracted on the title yet but I found it duly registered in the day book which contained a list of all very recently registered documents.
Lady Luck Loves Lawyers Page 8