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"How ever do you afford all this high living on a policeman's pay, Matthew?"
"Don't start being a bitch, Penny."
"Sorry," she said, sounding as if she meant it. "I'm curious. Have you got some kind of an expense account?"
"Not for this, no," Matt replied. "What were your parents doing here?"
"Daddy likes to gamble here."
Why does that surprise me? It shouldn't. He apparently is no stranger in Las Vegas. But why the hell is he gambling? With all his money, what's the point? He really can't care if he wins or loses.
"You didn't say anything, before, when I told you we were coming here."
"I didn't want to spoil your little surprise. You said we were coming here, you will recall, before you made it clear that whatever you had in mind, it was not rolling around between the sheets with me."
"I want to get a look inside the gambling place."
"That shouldn't be a problem."
"You still hungry?"
"Always," she said.
"Come on then, we'll go have a drink at the bar and then have dinner."
"And save that for later?" she asked, pointing at the champagne.
"We could have it now, if you would like."
"I'd really rather have a beer," she said. "If you romanced me like this more often, Matt, you'd learn that I'm really a cheap date."
"Economical," he responded without thinking, "not cheap."
"Why, thank you, Matthew."
She walked past him out of the bedroom and to the corridor door.
They sat at the bar where Penny drank two bottles of Heineken's beer, which for some reason surprised him, and he had two drinks of Scotch.
The entertainment was a pianist, a middle-aged woman trying to look younger, who wasn't half bad. Much better, he thought, than the trio who replaced her when they went to a table for dinner.
And Penny was right. The food was first class. Penny said she remembered the Chateaubriand for two was really good, and he indulged her, and it was much better than he expected it to be, a perfectly roasted filet, surrounded by what looked like one each of every known variety of vegetable. They had a bottle of California Cabernet Sauvignon with that, and somehow it was suddenly all gone.
"If you'd like, we could have another," Penny said as he mocked shaking the last couple of drops into his glass. "And have cheese afterward, and listen to the music. I don't think the gambling gets going until later."
The cheese was good, something the waiter recommended, something he'd never had before, sort of a combination of Camembert and Roquefort. They ate one serving, spreading it on crackers and then taking a swallow of the wine before chewing, and then had another.
Penny said she would like a liqueur to finish the meal, and he passed, saying he'd already had too much drink, and instead drank a cup of very black, very strong coffee.
When he'd finished that, Penny inclined her head toward the rear of the room.
"It's over there, if you want to give it a try," she said.
Matt looked and saw a closed double door, draped with red curtain and guarded by a large man in a dinner jacket.
As they walked to it, Penny leaned up and whispered in his ear: " You did remember to bring money?"
"Absolutely," he said, although he wasn't really sure.
