"Yeah, old times," Maggie said wistfully. "Of course I miss it, but being the EIC has its moments, like right now. I have to admit, give this town a nugget and they'll run to hell and back to get to the nitty-gritty. Who the hell ever ran a headline like that with no story, just two pictures, some red arrows, and a question? No one that I can recall. I made the decision to double our print run tomorrow."

Seasoned reporter that he was, Espinosa agreed with his boss. "And we did it in color!"

Maggie looked down at the picture of the White House and next to it a full aerial shot of Las Vegas with a large arrow running from the White House to what looked like a particular casino. A second arrow ran from Vegas to the White House. A particular casino with no name.

"Joe, neither you nor I pretends to be a fashion maven, so I want you to take my printouts Ted has been feeding me via his BlackBerry to Mavis Riley and have her do a write-up of Lizzie Fox's wardrobe. That lady is so into fashion I want every woman in D.C. salivating when they envision the Silver Fox's clothes. Tell her I will allocate a full three inches of space above the fold. Four if she absolutely needs it but no more. Be sure you give her credit, the socialites in this town follow her fashion advice. You always want to keep them wanting more and more and more."

"What went down at the meeting last night?" Espinosa asked. "Did Ted fall asleep at one of the gaming tables?"

"Nothing that exciting. It was canceled at the eleventh hour. Seems the owner of the Babylon flew in, got his jockeys in a knot, and said he was too tired to conduct business at that hour of the night. It's on for this morning. All the players were in place, but nothing went down. Ted won two hundred bucks and Lizzie lost forty-five dollars. But something interesting is on the front page of the Sun this morning. Seems someone has it in for Mr. Cosmo Cricket. His Enzo Ferrari, which set him back a cool mil, was pretty much totaled in a parking garage. That's two cars in two days. Seems the guy is chewing nails and spitting rust."

Espinosa laughed. "Don't they have security cameras in those garages?"

"Well, yeah," Maggie drawled. "Vegas is the land of security, but for some reason the cameras were short-circuited last night. That's what happens when you're dumb enough to take up two spaces. Ticks off the next guy who can't find a space. Shit happens, Joe. Listen, I have to get up to the office. Find out who else is bugging out of here. You sure you don't want to take that five-dollar bet?"