“Ms. Barrett, what do you think of Herb’s club?” British investor Timothy Stark swirled an olive in his martini glass. While the rest of the men had dressed casually for the event in open-collared shirts and sport jackets, Timothy was never less than perfectly presented. At fifty, his fit and trim frame was attired in a custom-tailored charcoal suit, and no amount of desert heat could wilt his French cuffs. “I still can’t believe he owns this establishment.”

He said establishment as if he’d just gotten a whiff of raw sewage.

She bit back a laugh. Timothy was afflicted with a chronic case of tight-ass-itis. Carnival was clearly not his scene.

It wasn’t Hannah’s either. She gazed through the glass over the main floor, fifty thousand square feet of crowded floor space designed to look like a Brazilian street. Lights and music pulsed across glistening skin. Girls danced on stages and in Plexiglas boxes on risers. Jugglers performed on stilts. At midnight, a parade would wind its way through the crowd. Afterward, a nightly samba competition tempted inebriated guests onto the stage. The club touted itself as wilder than the festival in Rio.

A waitress in a rhinestone-and-sequin costume in peacock colors approached and offered them a selection of hors d’oeuvres. Her headdress, a fan of blue speckled tail feathers, waved as she moved.

Hannah took a napkin and selected a piece of grilled meat on a stick. “Herb turned Carnival from a warehouse into a very successful club.”

Though the noise and flash wasn’t Hannah’s style, she appreciated the detail in the design. Every inch of the space pulsed with lights and color. Even the ceiling had been transformed into a starry night sky.

That afternoon, Herb Fletcher and a half dozen foreign investors had signed on a thousand dotted lines, committing to the purchase and refurbishment of the High Roller Casino. The tired casino hotel would be gutted and given a complete renovation to turn it into an exclusive luxury accommodation with another of Herb’s famous themed nightclubs. All parties involved hoped the endeavor would be as successful as Carnival and the other two hotels Herb had refurbished. Everything Herb touched seemed to turn into giant piles of money.

Hannah watched a side stage closest to the box. A drunken woman in a Snookie-tight skirt and sequined halter top climbed onto the platform, bent at the waist, and writhed. Oooh kaaay.

“What is she doing?” Timothy asked.

“I believe that’s twerking.” Hannah’s lips twitched as she suppressed a laugh.

“Tacky. Like everything else about this place.” Timothy plucked the toothpick out of his empty glass and ate the jumbo olive.