Niki stared at her for a moment, then shook her head. She really didn't want to know. "Well, there's really no accounting for taste, I guess. Vegas, you said."
Bedford nodded. "Regarding the…ethics?"
"Like you said, it's not the FBI's job to look into that," she said with a shrug and pushed from her seat. "Thanks for your time, Dr. Bedford. I'll show myself out."
Chapter Seven
Taylor abhorred paperwork. He hated bureaucracy in general, but paperwork was a particular pet peeve of his.
He could acknowledge that people who made their living making sure everything was up to code were the bedrock of everything that made modern society livable, and he even appreciated that.
That didn’t change the fact that he hated it, though. More than a few had gone on record as saying that men like him were fossils and relics of an archaic past who were only necessary in this day and age because most people weren't stupid enough to throw themselves in the line of fire like he did. He could appreciate that too and accept that there was some truth to it.
Courage and stubbornness were often mistaken for stupidity since all three resulted in one standing one's ground against insurmountable odds or putting oneself into the line of fire, to begin with.
He didn't think their train of thought lacked merit.
In the same way, he appreciated the need for bureaucrats and pencil-pushers in the world while he hated the fact that he needed to be a part of their world in order to get anything done.
In all honesty, he felt more drained after a morning spent finalizing all the paperwork for his budding business than he had after three days in the Zoo. He needed a drink and food and thankfully, lunch was the opportunity for both.
Of course, he had more business to look into during the meal but this particular aspect was something he actually looked forward to.
As he still hadn't had time to rent a car, another Uber ride dropped him off at the Luxor, where Bungees had said he wanted to meet. He had never thought of the man as a gambler in any sense of the word, which explained his confusion as to why he had asked to meet at one of the better-known casino hotels on the Strip.
Either way, he was more curious to see what exactly his old friend was doing there than he wanted to avoid the touristy spots in the city, so he tipped his driver and stepped inside the pyramid-shaped building. He moved past the front desk with enough purpose to make sure that none of the bellboys and desk clerks had any reason to stop him. From there, he headed into the casino where he could see his friend waiting for him at one of the many, many bars to be found on the floor.
When they had been drunk on one occasion, Robert “Bungees” Zhang had defined himself as “Jet Li, but a little chunkier and with less hair.” He had then proceeded to say it wasn't racist because he was a Chinese-American and used the definition himself.
Taylor wasn't a fan of the description, but it was appropriate. He did like most Jet Li films, and there were a couple of traits that matched Bobby to the man—except for the fact that he was built like a tight end with powerful shoulders and thick arms that distracted from the bulge in his stomach and waist areas.
Bungees shaved his head religiously and left only a bushy mustache to make him distinctive, which explained the second half of his description.
In fairness, it did make him hard to miss in a crowd. He was only a few inches shorter than Taylor was, and he looked bigger too. He had gotten into playful fistfights with the man and had repeatedly underestimated both the power behind his fists and the speed at which he could move.
The lesson had finally sunk in and he wouldn’t make that mistake ever again. At least not while he was sober.
Thankfully, he was equally easy to see with his bright red beard and hair and his height. Bobby peeled away from the bar, spread his arms, and wrapped him in a hug tight enough to drag a groan from him as his ribs protested the strain.
"It’s nice to see you again too, Bobby," Taylor grumped when he was finally lowered onto his feet. "It’s been a while. What…a year?"
"A little more than that since I turned my papers in and headed Stateside," his friend said, returned to the bar, and ordered beers for the two of them. "You know, I couldn't stand to be out there anymore with people getting killed and fucked over by the corporate assholes who run the place in the background. I'd made a fucking mint while out there, helping them research their damn suits, so I bugged out."
"Fuck them." Taylor scowled, shook his head, and picked up the tall, frosty glass that had been placed before him. "Have you done anything interesting lately? You know, besides being the star of your own TV show?"
"Fuck no." Bobby chuckled. "I've gone to great efforts to make my life very uninteresting, and I intend to keep it that way."
"Is that why you're considering leaving the auto shop that has you working as the star of your own show?" Taylor raised an eyebrow.
"First of all, I'm not the star. I'm one of the stars," Bobby retorted acidly. He sounded like he had taken this issue up with others, and often too. "Secondly, they don't even pay us that well for appearing on the show. Obviously, the owner takes home a solid chunk of cash, but the way he's worked it out, we're still hourly and he only pays us time and a half per hour that we're on camera. And it's not like he does it so he pays us for the hours when they have the camera crew in the shop and then adds the half for everyone who was on the job. No, this bitch decides he'll actually look at the footage they've collected and literally times us to see how long we're in front of the camera and pays us for that."
"He sounds like a prolapsed asshole to me." He wasn't merely agreeing with his friend. The kind of people who underpaid their workers were the kind who deserved the same level of hell as those who answered their phone calls in the movie theater.
"Damn right." Bungees shook his head vehemently. "I've looked for a way out for a while and sure, there is any number of folks out there who wouldn't mind having someone with my resume on their team. The problem is they're generally not the kind of folks you want to work for, so I was simply waiting for the right offer to come along before you showed up."
He nodded. "Well, I would like to have you on my team. I have the property to start on the business now but I need to work on it a little before it's ready for…you know, large-scale work."
"I can dig that," the man said. "I have to say, it's good to see you out of that literal hellhole. After everything you've been through, you deserve a little uninteresting living too."
"I appreciate that." He patted him on the shoulder and downed the rest of his beer. "Now, what say you we get food and I can show you the full pitch, eh?"
"That sounds good to me." His friend returned the pat a little harder.
"Which brings me to my next question, I guess." Taylor inspected their surroundings, eying the slot machines dubiously. "Why the fuck did you choose a fucking casino for our lunch, anyway?"
"Excuse me!" a woman near them shouted and covered her son's ears. "Would you gentlemen please avoid using such foul language?"
Bobby laughed and shook his head. Taylor, for his part, curled the fingers of his right hand onto a loose fist and jerked it back and forth.
"The kid's not supposed to be on the casino floor anyway," he retorted. "Look at the fucking rules."
The woman was too flabbergasted to speak, and the two men decided to beat a hasty retreat before she had a case of the vapors.
"So?" Taylor asked.
"So what?"
"About why you chose a casino for our lunch meeting?"
"Oh, right," his friend laughed. "Well, casinos don't like to advertise it, but they want to make sure you spend all your money in the building. To encourage that, they make the drinks and food ridiculously cheap so you keep on gambling with as little a pause as possible. Their lunchtime buffets are the best." Bungees stopped a moment. “Well, some of them do still. Others require you to take a mortgage out on your home.”
"Okay," he said and narrowed his eyes.
"Okay, where the fuck else will you find somewhere you can eat all you care to for a couple of hours for the low, low price of twenty bucks a pop?" Bobby demanded.
"Come on. The big TV star is skimping on food?" he asked, his tone joking.
"Don't hate. It's good food. I can and I will make the most of the cheap, good food they provide. Do you think it's easy to maintain a bod like this? It takes a ton of exercise and a ton of calories to keep me, and from the looks of it, you—well-muscled, paragon of manliness that you are—have a similar battle to maintain muscle mass."
"If you say so" Taylor shrugged his powerful shoulders as they purchased their lunch passes, which included a free pass for beer, wine, or select cocktails for only an additional fifteen dollars. They both selected that option, quickly chose their food from the buffet provided, and headed toward the tables.
It was still early enough that most of them were empty, but it was filling up slowly. The place would be packed in about an hour.
"So," Bobby said once they had made inroads on their meals. "Why don't you go ahead and give me the pitch?"
Taylor looked at him for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "It’s not much of a pitch to make yet, I don't think," he said and wiped his mouth. "I intend to offer you better than what you're currently getting so will need a little input from you first. What kind of hours do you work? How much do you make?"
"Oh." The man grunted, took another mouthful, and chewed and swallowed quickly. "Again, I'm hourly, so it's basically as much work as I can get in. I've worked between forty- and sixty-hour weeks. I like what I do, and they do pay overtime at the shop, so I've made around… Well, last year, I pulled in a little over sixty grand in total."
"That's not bad. I think I can beat that, though. You wouldn't work on cars with me, though. Well, not exclusively anyway, but we could probably take custom jobs if they pay enough. We'll work on mech suits, power armor, and body armor, for the most part."
"They're the top of the current tech, so there's not really any way to beat that," Bobby nodded. "I have to admit, I’ve missed working on the suits, whether the entry-level ones or the power mech. Seriously, telling people how to use their fucking parking brakes while having a camera in my face all fucking day has worn on my last fucking nerve."
Taylor leaned back in his seat. "They've made the kind of advances in the tech that you wouldn't believe."
"Oh, don't get me wrong, I have kept up with the advances." His friend turned his attention to a pile of chicken wings and dug in. "They have these conventions that show off all the new tech, and I've chatted with the folks still in the Zoo to see if they have anything interesting to show me. But what kind of clientele are we talking about here? I can't imagine that there are enough people who have mech suits here in the States for you to make a living from it. At least not until those second-amendment guys get them to start selling to civilians."
"I've thought about that," Taylor admitted. "I've looked into the repair charges they have had to pay in the Zoo over the past couple of years and compared them to the prices of doing the repairs in the states. Not only are the parts cheaper to get here, but it will be cheaper for them to ship their suits and mechs out for us to work on."
"What happens when the corporations with a monopoly on what happens there lower prices to compete with you?" Bobby asked.
"I've researched it, and even if they lower the labor price, the cost of shipping that many parts would still force them to keep their prices above ours," Taylor explained. "Besides, you and I both know they make most of their money from repairing and replacing the mass orders the various governments in the area generate, so they won't bother trying to adjust for our rates. I've already been contacted by a few of my friends in the various merc companies that work out there, and they're ready to send us their suits in need of repair as soon as we've set up shop."
"That's always good news, I guess," the man said, leaned back, and folded his arms. "Where have you decided to set up shop, anyway?"
"A premises on the east side of town. Come on. I can show you."
"Are you crazy?" Bungees slapped his palm on the table and laughed. "We still have time on our lunch passes and I won’t let mine go to waste."
Taylor shook his head and called one of the waitresses to bring him another beer. He had done well on the admittedly decent food, but he didn't have the appetite his friend had. If it were up to Bobby, they would have bought the 24-hour passes.
But he had a business to run and a potential employee to inspire, and he chose not to be too pushy as the man headed to the buffet to refill his plate.
Bungees understood what had happened to people in the Zoo. He had actually made a handful of trips in when they needed mechanics to move with the teams to repair the suits that constantly broke down back in the day.
His companion returned with another heaped serving of what looked like seafood this time. "Can I ask why you picked Vegas, of all places?"
"You already did," he replied, his eyes narrowed. "And I already answered."
"I wanted you to answer with a straight face and in person," the man responded and suddenly looked serious. "Was it the loose women or did you come because you missed me?"
Taylor laughed aloud. "Honestly, I want to stay as far away from any potential apocalypses as possible and hopefully scratch out a living.”
His friend gave him an eye. "You know that deserts don't stop the goop, right?"
"Maybe not, but a desert is better than a lush, tropical area with tons of biomass. At the very least, it’ll maybe slow it a little," Taylor pointed out. "And that's all you can really ask for. Now, finish your food. We have a full day ahead of us and I'd like to get started."
Chapter Eight
He had thankfully made sure they didn’t drink enough to render them unable to drive. It was the kind of thing he had down to a science by this point. Even so, neither he nor Bobby had come in their own vehicles, which compelled them to hire someone to drive them to the hotel where Taylor was staying.
"Why didn't you bring a car to the casino?" Taylor asked when they were on their way to the hotel.
"Come on. Parking there is fucking expensive," Bobby reminded him and shook his head. "They make the money they lose on the cheap food and drinks any way they know how."
"Yeah, by having people gamble, right?" he said and looked around. His folks liked to take him and his brothers and sisters to Atlantic City and said it was as good if not better than Disney World in Orlando.
Once he was old enough, he’d actually thought about whether they might have lied to them. He’d never really reached a conclusion because part of him could see why they truly believed that might be the case.
For a kid, Disney World would be a magical experience but for an adult, the magic faded somewhat and all it was for them was a long day in the sun while surrounded by the bad costumes of beloved childhood characters. The rides could be fun, but that didn't make up for the uncomfortable heat and the thousands of people there to share the experience as well.
That wasn't to say it couldn't be a great experience so part of him also blamed his folks for lying to the kids. But he could understand why they had avoided the place. And honestly, Orlando had actually been quite a blast when he thought back on it.
But Vegas was nothing like Orlando. Well, no, that wasn't quite right. Vegas was like Orlando but turned up to a hundred, and everything came to the fore in the casinos themselves. Given where it was located in the middle of the Mojave, he had to admit it was an impressive sight.
Built mostly on money from organized crime, it was still a monument to what could be done if you wanted to make a profit without having the government interfere too much. It was the same spirit he tried to establish his own business on.
Admittedly, the laws were far more stringent now than they had been in the fifties and sixties, but there was still enough for him to work with as he headed off into this new adventure of his.
They reach
ed the hotel, and Taylor took Bobby into the underground garage where his truck waited for him.
And there she was, as sleek and black as the darkest darkness with the kind of improvements only people who loved machines could make.
Technically, he wasn't actually a mechanic, and his engineering degree helped him more with the delicate work that powered the armor and mech suits. Cars were comparatively antique and still retained the kind of machinery that had made the world go round in the past century.
But there was something strangely comforting when he worked on vehicles, made them go, made them work, and most importantly, made them better. The truck he'd purchased had been in a bad way, and after two months of tinkering and making her his own, she was something to see.
And Bobby could appreciate that. He uttered a low whistle when Taylor lifted the hood to give him a view of the V10 engine beneath it.
"You got your hands on a V10 diesel?" the man asked and ran his fingers lovingly over the engine. "I didn't think they made these babies anymore. They are tough to get to work but once you do, they last for fucking ever."
"I don't think they make them anymore either. Emission laws being what they are, it's hard for them to make anything this powerful that doesn't have an electric motor."
"Doesn’t it?" Bobby sounded surprised.
"There's one in the back, but that's mostly to run all the electronics so the engine isn't overloaded," he explained. "But I think my piece de…however the fuck you pronounce that, is the transmission."
"Oh, yeah, automatic transmissions in the diesels are a pain in the ass." His friend leaned closer for a better look. "Oh… I see what you did there…connecting a manual to the electric motor in the back, and from there…"
"Yeah, programmed as an automatic for when I don't feel like changing the gears myself," he said with a chuckle.
Hired Killer (Cryptid Assassin Book 1) Page 7