Author's note: Hope you don't mind the contrivance with the names. I'm trying out the idea of changing the perspective of the story as we go along and thought this would be the least confusing way to go about this. I look forward to your comments!
PAIGE:
Life was going just fine for Paige up until her final month of high school. She was planning on going to nearby Biola University in the fall and from there embarking on a life that she wanted to balance between career and family.
One early morning in May Paige and her family woke up to explosions in the house followed by armed men bursting in and screaming, "POLICE! WE HAVE A WARRANT!"
Paige ended up handcuffed in her pajamas and locked in the back of a police car for four hours. To add to her humiliation she couldn't help but pee herself when no one would let her go to the bathroom.
Eventually one of the officers let her out and she was allowed to go back into the house, clean up, get dressed, and gather some of her things. Her phone and computer were seized which cut her off from her friends and family. Being eighteen the police didn't care what happened to her and they sent her on her way.
She ended up with a friend that night. The two of them watched the news and were horrified as Paige's ostensibly Christian parents were accused of running a massive Ponzi scheme to fund their upper middle class lifestyle.
Things went downhill from there. Her friends quickly ostracized her because the Ponzi scheme had either hurt their families or hurt people they knew.
Paige landed a job at a coffee place and found a cheap room to rent while she figured out what to do next. When she bought a phone at a grocery store to use to call friends and family it wasn't but a week before the police showed up and seized the phone. Her landlord promised to evict her if there were any more visits from law enforcement.
She needed to get out of town because she knew she'd never get on her feet with the constant possibility of the local police showing up to smash whatever progress she could make.
A trip to a pawn shop was in order and she sold her graduation presents. The diamond encrusted wristwatch and the one-carat diamond graduation ring yielded her enough money for a decent start in Las Vegas.
GARY:
Gary was twenty five. He had dropped out of MIT at sixteen and took a job with a defense company where he prospered. Four years later the company folded and he moved to Las Vegas to reinvent himself. His years of computer experience in the defense industry soon landed him a job at a casino working in their IT department.
The casino management was intrigued when he suggested using an unusual algorithm for managing the video slots. The algorithm would reduce the number of jackpots while increasing the number of payouts to make casino patrons feel like they were winning. When in fact the casino was winning. Best of all was the algorithm worked quietly and the gaming regulators never noticed it.
Gary didn't see any ethical problem with doing this. From his point of view it was just a matter of using code to improve efficiencies and outcomes for his employer.
Naturally, significant raises and bonuses followed for Gary.
Opportunities also followed. As the casino industry moved away from dealing with mountains of cash every day the need for secure and anonymous offsite counting houses diminished. Gary noted one day that his employer had shuttered their old counting house in an industrial area east of the airport. He made a play for the place because it had exceptional internet connectivity and was pleased when an executive came to talk to him about the proposal. Gary spoke at length about his plans and then made a purchase offer which was instantly accepted with a smile and a handshake.
The executive had orders from his bosses to take whatever Gary offered. Any loss would be written off on the corporate taxes. The main point was to keep Gary happy and to keep him employed with the casino.
The executive assigned a special member of the concierge staff to assist Gary with paperwork and with getting the counting house converted into the living space that Gary desired.
KHALID:
Khalid grew up in Kuwait and was one of the younger sons in a very wealthy and very powerful family. As a younger son he was not at all destined to take over the family business empire or even have a part in it. He was merely expected to live the life of a young, spoiled prince. He also had a reputation as a rogue and a schemer.
This wasn't enough for him. The young man was resourceful in the extreme but he also wanted to acquire the kind of practical life skills he knew he'd never be exposed to in Kuwait. So with the permission of his family he went to Saudi Arabia and joined their armed forces. The young man excelled and distinguished himself not on the battlefield but as a master of logistics. Whatever the military needed he would find a way to get it and he'd obtain it fast and discreetly.
When he completed his enlistment he indulged himself and journeyed to the magical realm of Las Vegas. Careful not to attract attention to himself he rented a modest apartment, bought a modest automobile, and enjoyed the pleasures the infidels would offer to him.
But soon enough he was bored.
One day he was dining at an upscale casino restaurant where he heard the executives at the next table discussing the challenge of finding a very special thing for a very special patron of the casino. Khalid saw an opportunity.
"I can get that for you. I can probably have it here tomorrow."
Every eye at the next table turned to him. One man, clearly a leader, spoke, "We can't find one so where are you going to find one?"
Khalid stood and waved his hand dismissively, "Where I find it is irrelevant. What matters is delivering what you need."
A discussion followed and the next day Khalid kept his promise. This led to a job offer and the casino appointed Khalid as their special concierge who would obtain anything for patrons or for the casino itself.
Khalid adopted the smart style of the 1950's Rat Pack. The image was very appropriate for Las Vegas and somehow it took the best of his Kuwaiti features and magnified them. Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra would have been impressed.
His views on women were very much the views of his homeland. To Khalid women were a commodity and this view made him uniquely capable for providing certain of his clients with their unusual needs.
PAIGE:
Having been in Las Vegas for six months Paige was barely making ends meet. She'd been careful to take jobs that didn't offer a regular paycheck for fear the authorities would use the information to track her down. She hadn't hit rock bottom, but she knew she wasn't far from there.
One of her survival strategies involved putting on a skimpy cocktail dress and crashing casino parties so she could get her fill of the free food. She didn't care for alcohol so she'd get a glass of water and dress it up with ice and a lime wedge to look like vodka on the rocks.
On a particular Friday night she had found her way to a party for a watch collector's convention. There were tables with all sorts of expensive watches and Paige was immediately tempted given how much money she'd made selling her graduation watch. Late in the evening she saw an opportunity and she decided to act.
GARY:
With Khalid's assistance Gary had transformed the one time counting house into a well hidden home in the middle of the industrial area. The interior had been transformed into a masterful blend of 1950's mid-century style and with all of the modern touches tastefully and seamlessly incorporated into the prevailing motif.
Gary had turned the basement vaults into a secure office for himself and he'd even made one of them into a guest suite...not that he ever expected to have guests.
The completed home was anonymously mundane from the outside while inside it was both tasteful and comfortable. The dreadfully thick, steel-reinforced concrete walls insulating the home from summer heat and winter's cold. Aside from four original skylights the home was completely windowless. The doors were heavy steel made of layered armor that would stop a round from a modern tank. No one could enter or exit without Gary's permission.
Gary was odd and he knew it. He knew he was autistic and while he made the most of it in his work he was also socially incompetent. This meant he'd never had a steady girlfriend mostly because he didn't understand or tolerate most of the nuances of male-female relationships. There had been a couple girls he'd fucked but the two of them left in short order. He didn't expect his home to attract a woman and so he built it out to indulge his own desires and no one else's.
Khalid had become a friend to him and one evening Gary got quite drunk and Khalid, who always drank tea, used this as an opportunity to explore Gary's views of the world. As their evening progressed Khalid would pour more Scotch for Gary and Khalid's questions became ever more personal.
Once he was properly primed Gary spoke freely about his pent up desires for women. Most Americans would have been mortified by Gary's desires but for Khalid most of what Gary had to say sounded like the typical desires of unmarried men in Kuwait. Khalid made note of his friend's specific and prurient desires.
KHALID:
It had been a busy day for Khalid. One of the casino patrons was known to desire kayinja bananas from Uganda and Khalid had them in the casino kitchen when the patron arrived. It was quite the coup for his casino to both know of the patron's desire and to fulfill it.
He was heading towards his office to check the last messages before leaving for the day when he saw the young woman in the security office. It was no surprise that she was crying and Khalid immediately estimated that she had been caught doing something wrong. He'd seen this kind of thing many times before.
Something about her caught his eye and he stopped to assess the young woman. The silver cocktail dress was one of the throw-away dresses from a discount store off the Strip. Her shoes were second-hand as evidenced by the marks of touchup paint on the white leather. Still, she had the hallmarks of someone new to Las Vegas, she wasn't a whore or she'd have a harder personality, and she was bereft of the tattoos that marked so many infidel women. She had sandy blonde hair and she was the right size and dimensions he'd been looking for.
Khalid walked into the security office unchallenged.
"Give me your arm." he ordered her and she complied. He inspected her arm and then the other.
"Now take off the shoes and let me see your feet." The girl complied and Khalid inspected her feet looking between her toes for tell tale signs of drug use. He found none.
Turning to one of the security officers he asked for the details of what she had done. The pricey watch on the officer's desk was evidence of her crime. The price tag was still on it.
Khalid asked the officer about the girl and if they'd identified her.
"Sir, my name is Paige..." the girl started to say.
Khalid turned to her with a face of rage, "I DID NOT SPEAK TO YOU! BE SILENT!"
The girl was less scared by his outburst than by how he immediately reverted to a calm discussion with the security officer. Khalid was pleased that his action had the desired effect.
Dismissing the security officer, Khalid sat down at the desk and looked at the information on the computer.
"Paige Wittington, age eighteen, wanted for questioning by both the Los Angeles Police and by the FBI. And right now you're in my casino stealing expensive watches."
