Here Comes Trouble Page 0,111
on his oldest and dearest friend.
Then another thought occurred to him. Wouldn’t have ever crossed his mind before, but that was before he understood the reality Dan was facing. Personally and professionally. What if…
“Maybe I’m the one with a proposition for you?”
Dan let his feet slide off the table and thump to the floor as he shoved himself out of the chair and scuffed back to the kitchen for another beer. “I already told you. Not interested.”
“I’m not offering a handout, or a loan for that matter. I’m offering a new business venture opportunity.”
Dan screwed off the lid of the beer and turned around, facing him fully for the first time.
Brett had to work not to wince as he caught the full scope of the damage someone had done to Dan’s face.
“What kind of opportunity?” He lifted his beer in a warning gesture. “Patronize me and I’ll kick your sorry, over-educated ass. So you better have a straight plan in mind and not some elaborate scheme to dump some of your money in my bank account. I work for what I have. We might not all have freak talent like you do, but I’m damn proud of what I built, what my father did before me. That means something.”
He crossed back into the room and dropped heavily back into the chair, wincing a little as he propped his feet up once again. Giving up all pretenses of pretending his face hadn’t been beat all to hell, he rolled the cold bottle over his cheek and groaned a little. “Go on,” he said when Brett simply sat there and watched. “I’m not gonna keel over from a little thump to the head. You know it’s hard. Take a lot more than a fast fist to put me down.”
“You gonna tell me what really happened?”
“Well, obviously, I got in a little fight. It was nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He propped the beer on his stomach. “Go on. What’s this amazing new deal all about? Funny how you didn’t mention it this afternoon, but go on, I’m all ears.”
Dan was a little drunk, more than a little pissed off, and a whole lot hurt. So Brett tried to rein in his own temper. He also tried not to feel sad. Dan didn’t deserve his pity. What he deserved was a good friend who could find a way out of whatever mess he’d gotten himself into.
“Actually, all the pieces just started falling into place today. Before I ran into you,” he added. “It’s still in the idea stage, but I think it has real potential.”
Dan tried and failed to maintain his look of casual disinterest. His body was still slouched in the chair, feet and beer propped, but his eyes had lasered in quite directly on Brett’s now.
Brett wondered if he was more impaired by alcohol or the fight he’d gotten into. Dan wasn’t what anyone would call a hothead. He wasn’t a gambler, either, that Brett knew about anyway. Running a football pool with some of his employees was about the extent of it. Dan had never gotten into the casino life, leaving that to Brett. He worked long hours, rarely took a full day off, and never took vacations. The occasional strip club night out with some of his crew maybe, but that’s about it.
In fact, if he wasn’t sitting there with a face that had been used as a punching bag, Brett would have discounted Maksimov’s comments as nothing other than trying to stir up some trouble to see what might shake loose.
“Well?” Dan prodded. “You gonna tell me what’s got your designer knickers all knotted up or not?”
“They’re Levi’s,” Brett said, trying harder not to get exasperated. He and Dan had their moments, but this was a snide side he’d never heard. “So, I found an old log cabin, up in the hills on a ride today. Falling down, abandoned, lot totally overgrown. Then, on the way down, I passed by an old farmhouse, barn, silo. Beautiful creek running through the property, wide open spaces. Looks like it’s been empty for some time now, too.”
“Fascinating. What has this got to do with us?”
“It got me to thinking, with the resort newly opened, over time, there will be a need for vacation housing, time-shares, as well as full-time homes for people who are drawn into the growing development, that kind of thing.”
“You mean the kind of thing we already have in Vegas?”
“I don’t want to build tract housing. Even ridiculously