Free CASINO SHUFFLE by J. Fields Jr. Page A

butler.   “Please put Miss Moon through to my desk phone.   Max, step over here, if you would.”
    “I’m going to talk to her?”
    “Yes,” said Antonio.   “If my intuition serves, she merely wants to apologize.   If she has a request, please pass her over to me.”
    The office phone rang, a single light blinking on the display.
    Max stared at it.
    Antonio and Sonny waited patiently.
    Inhaling sharply, Max picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”
    Shannon said, “I’m holding for Max, the butler.”
    “Hi, that’s me.”
    “Oh!   Great.   This is Shannon .”
    “Hi.”
    “I’m glad I caught you before you went to your other job.”
    Max paused.
    “Because I wanted to talk to you.   About what happened.   Are you feeling okay?”
    “Sure, I’m fine.”
    “Did your pants dry out?”
    “What?   Oh, yeah…my pants are,” he glanced over at Antonio and Sonny, “…my pants are much better now.”
    “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.   By taking off my robe.   I should have warned you or something.”
    Max shrugged.   Waited.   Then replied, “That was fine.   Really.”
    “You’re not angry?”
    “No way.”
    “You’ll stay with me this weekend?”
    “Stay with you?”
    “Be my butler?”
    “Be your butler?”
    “Well, the butler for me and Brandon, though he has his tour manager Marty to boss around and will probably ignore you most of the time.   He doesn’t do it to be mean.   He’s just focused.   Driven.   You know.”
    “Hello, Miss Moon.”
    “Who’s this?”
    “This is Antonio.   Max just handed me the phone.   He was called away suddenly.   Did you have a request?”
    “Max isn’t there anymore?   I was just talking to him.”
    “I’m afraid he was called away.   The tournament.”
    “Right.   He doesn’t like me, does he?”
    “Of course he does.”
    “Can you put me through to his cell phone maybe?”
    Antonio paused.   “You didn’t have a request?”
    “I was just talking to him about being our butler this weekend.”
    “Ah, I see.   We haven’t had a chance to discuss that internally.”
    “I trust Max.”
    “I’ll pass that along, Miss Moon.”
    “I have a good instinct for people.   It’s from being around a lot of scumbags.”
    “I can see where that might hone ones perceptions.”
    “He didn’t set off my scumbag detector.”
    “That’s most reassuring.”
    Sigh.   “Can you have him call me later?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “He’s standing right there, isn’t he?”
    “There is only myself and a butler named Sonny Wu.   We are the only butlers in the near vicinity, I assure you.”
    “Okay, okay.   So you’ll be by soon to arrange the dinner tonight?”
    “I’ve already contacted my favorite in-house chef.   He’s preparing an initial menu for your approval as we speak.”
    “You’re the best.”
    “I’ll call your suite before I arrive.   Until then, have a nice evening, Miss Moon.”
    He replaced the receiver and checked his watch.   “Time to go to the tournament, Max.”
    Max and Sonny followed Antonio as he strode toward the office door.
    “What did we decide?”   Max looked toward Sonny.   “Did we decide anything?”
    Sonny frowned.   “I don’t feel closure.”
    Antonio rested his hand on the doorknob.   “We have to move ahead with the final option.   I feel it’s our only recourse.”
    “Final option,” said Sonny.
    “Which one was that?”   Max asked.
    “The one I didn’t want to mention,” said Antonio.
     
     

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    Ang Wang knew from experience that most casino surveillance didn’t pay attention to hotel cameras.   But they were probably looking for him so maybe they were paying attention.
    Big whoop.
    He had spent fifteen minutes by the elevators with his duffel bag; head bowed over a casino brochure about jogging trails, waiting for someone to come off the elevator and walk in the direction he needed to go.   If security was watching for