“Sidney?” she murmured, drawing one of the photographers aside with her. “Have you still got those shots you took when we were doing the big spread on this crew while they were stationed here? All of them, not just the ones we used.”
“Sure. Why?”
“Get them and see if you can find the tapes from their competition with the Red Eagles. Then meet me in viewing room two-pronto.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m not sure”-she smiled darkly-“but unless my intuition is failing me completely, I think there’s a story brewing on Lorelei.”
In a large penthouse, discreetly screened from the light shows in one of Lorelei’s lesser casinos, the holo-images of the Omega Mob were arrayed across the sunken living room like so many ghostly specters.
Watching them with her characteristically frozen stare, Laverna sat on one end of the sofa, so rigidly immobile she might have been taken for a part of the room’s furnishings. Specifically she almost reminded one of a floor lamp, as her skin was very nearly the color of the black baked enamel so often found on those appliances, and her long body was thin almost to the point of being skeletal. Still, there was an easy, elegant grace to her movement as she rose and walked to the closed bedroom door and rapped on it sharply with her knuckle.
“Maxie?” she said, raising her voice slightly to be heard through the door. “You’d better come out here.”
“What?” came the muffled response from within.
“It’s important,” Laverna said shortly.
Her message delivered, she returned to her seat without waiting for additional discussion or comment. She had voiced her opinion, and her opinions were rarely challenged.