"This is truly a wonderland," Bal-Simba said at one of their rest stops, awed by the explosion of colored lights and rivers of traffic around them. "Your world is indeed a fantastic place."
"Well, this is fantastic even by the standards of our world," Jerry said "Lake I told you, Las Vegas is unique."
"Is it all like this? The town, I mean."
"Oh no. Most parts of Las Vegas are really quite normal. It’s supposed to be a pretty nice place to live, actually."
"Will we go there? The normal parts, I mean."
Jerry looked at the twenty-foot-dragon and the giant black wizard dressed like a 1970s pimp. "Nooo, I don’t think so."
It took them several hours to reach the Towne Centre " hotel in the older
"Glitter Gulch" downtown casino district. By now it was full dark and so late Jerry was afraid they might miss the reception completely. An even bigger worry was Moira, who was obviously getting more and more run down. Even with more frequent rests she was nearly punchy by the time they reached the alley behind the hotel.
"Why don’t you wait out here?" Jerry suggested. Moira just nodded.
"Perhaps I had best stay too while you go inside," Bal-Simba said.
Jerry considered. Anyone who found Moira by herself probably wouldn’t ask questions. Bal-Simba, on the other hand, would be expected to answer them. While Jerry had he was much less sure of his ability to concoct a story that wouldn’t get him hauled off to jail by Las Vegas’ finest. Especially in the get-up he was wearing.
"I think you’d better come with me," he said. "Moira, you stay here. No, over here next to the dumpsters. Stay out of that yellow painted area, otherwise they’re likely to tow you away. If anyone comes by, just freeze like a statue. Pretend you’re not alive. We’ll try not to be too long." Moira nodded and sank down in the space beside the dumpsters.
Bal-Simba’s size and appearance may have attracted attention, but it made it remarkably easy for them to get an elevator. In fact as soon as the door opened on the first car the four tourists in the front row took one look at them and bolted. The other passengers pressed back against the walls, leaving them plenty of space.
They paused just outside the elevators and Jerry briefed Bal-Simba on their mission.
"Okay, this is going to be a little tricky since we’re not on the invite list. So we’ll just have to fake our way in. Act like you belong, smile a lot and be noncommittal."
"Will they not know we do not belong?"
"They’ll know we’re not on the guest list, but they can’t be sure we won’t do them some good. We only need a few minutes to find out if Taj is here anyway. Follow my lead. And remember, smile a lot and say as little as you can." Putting his advice into practice Jerry smiled at the people manning the table outside the door and picked up a press kit as if he was interested. Then they walked into a wall of noise.
If the show floor had been a madhouse, this was bedlam. Up on stage a lounge band was backing a female impersonator belting out torch songs. The place was packed, of course, and everyone seemed to be trying to talk over the band and each other. Along the walls four bars were going and a huge buffet table dominated the center of the room, complete with a melting ice sculpture of what was probably supposed to be an orchid. There were orchids everywhere. Clouds of them. Wreaths of them. Garlands of them. Orchids as boutonnieres, orchids as corsages. Orchids as centerpieces. And where there weren’t orchids there were crepe streamers in orchid purple and white.
Jerry parked Bal-Simba by the bandstand and set out to work the room in search of Taj. Trying to look inconspicuous, he jammed into the crowd around one of the buffet tables and scarfed a handful of shrimp. The crab claws were already gone he saw, so the party had been going on for a while. Meanwhile he scanned the crowd, hoping to see Tajikawa, or at least a friendly face.
He couldn’t see either and the more he looked the less likely it became. This wasn’t the right kind of party. The ratio of suits to ponytails was way too high and there was hardly a laptop open anywhere.
He was still scanning, looking for technical types amid the noise and chaos, when a perfectly coifed woman in a blue suit slid in next to him.
The woman smiled brightly. "Snarf mafoozle gleeber justik," she said.
"I beg your pardon?"
She leaned closer and raised her voice to be heard over the din. "I said what did you think of the big announcement?"
It occurred to Jerry that he was laboring under a severe disadvantage here. Not only didn’t he know what the "big announcement" was, he’d never even heard of Mauve Technology. And hadn’t the faintest idea what- if anything-it made. He thought about opening the press kit and actually reading it but he discarded the notion instantly. For one thing the light was so poor he wouldn’t be able to read anything and for another it would make him suspicious. He decided to play it safe.
"Really something. Pretty ambitious, isn’t it?"
"We have to stay on the leading edge. I’m sorry I don’t recognize your company name. Are you a distributor or a VAR?"
"Uh, we’re kinda a technology partner. Actually I was hoping to meet someone here. E.T. Tajikawa."
"Oh, is he with our West Coast sales office?"
"Uh, not exactly. Your software people know him."
"You wait right here and I’ll go see." With that she turned and dived into the crowd. Jerry made to follow her but before he could take a step, a large man in a suit stepped in front of him and stuck out his hand.
"Perry Jacobs," he boomed, "vice-president of sales." It was both a greeting and a challenge and Jerry was acutely aware of how little he fit with the business-suited crowd swarming around them.
Jerry smiled brightly. "Cantraf colgain esper jokake jon," he mumbled, as if it meant something.
"Glad you’re enjoying it," the other boomed. "Here let me give you one of my cards."
Jerry extended one of his. "Meeper gleeble ranamuck shusur."
"Yeah, I’ve gone through a pack of them, too," Jacobs boomed.
Meanwhile, Bal-Simba was enjoying himself, in a bemused sort of way. The singer, a Judy Garland impersonator, was taking advantage of his size and appearance by playing off him, flirting with him as he sang, flicking him with his silk scarf and vamping outrageously. When the number ended the singer blew Bal-Simba a kiss and scampered offstage. That was the cue for the band to take a break, and for the first time in several minutes Bal-Simba could hear himself think.
"I said, quite a show isn’t it," said a voice at his elbow.
The wizard turned and saw a small man in a bad toupee standing beside him.
"It is indeed," Bal-Simba agreed, which seemed safe enough.
"They’re going all out," his new acquaintance said. They missed the top of the IPO cycle, their quarterlies are off and if this doesn’t fly big they’re probably going to have to gobble up a couple of startups with good stories to save their offering."