Palm Springs Heat Read Online Free PDF Page B

taking
Fast Lane exclusively online ten years later. After that, the company expanded
into all kinds of moneymaking ventures, including the Toy Store, a resort in Palm
Springs and Rev.
    Lara stepped out of the elevator
and onto Astroturf painted with a giant number 50.
    “It’s football night,” Clay said,
as though that explained everything. Lara gave him a blank look. He pointed
toward glowing H-shaped neon tubes that dominated opposite ends of the room.
    “I thought Rev was all about
racing,” Lara said.
    “Thursday is racing night.”
    “I suppose you take all this out
and put in a racetrack every Thursday.” Lara said it with tongue in cheek. She
knew what went on at Rev. She just thought it would be best to act as if she
didn’t.
    “That’s exactly what we do,” Clay
said. “My marketing people suggested the name Rev to go with Fast Lane, but I
didn’t want it to be just about racing, so Sushma came up with the idea of
changing the décor from one night to the next.” Lara recognized the name of
Sushma Vishnuveda, a former Rotation member who had risen quickly in the past
few years to the highest echelons of the Fast Lane empire. “We can do
basketball, baseball, hockey—”
    “Hockey? Do the waiters have to
skate?”
    “That would be fun,” Clay
laughed, “but no, we put down acetate sheets that look more like ice than real
ice does. I know that sounds unbelievable, but it really does.”
    “Do you have a synchronized
swimming night?”
    “I’m not sure that would appeal to
the demo.”
    Lara scanned “the demo.” Every
table was occupied. She thought she recognized a face or two. Movie stars.
Athletes. At least one cable news anchor. She could see into the boxes whose
giant smoked-glass panels were open and revealed the private parties inside.
But no matter where they sat, people seemed to be enjoying themselves.
    The people especially seemed to
enjoy sneaking peeks at Lara and Clay as they walked across the floor. Lara
struggled to look comfortable in spite of her mounting self-consciousness, but
something must have tipped off Clay.
    “Maybe you’d rather go to my
personal box after all,” he said.
    It might be easier. Then
again, she didn’t want to make things too easy.
    “We can stay down here,” she said.
    “Great,” Clay said as they came to
the last empty table, under one of the neon goalposts. Clay pulled out a chair
for her. “So, is this what you thought the illustrious Rev would be like?”
    “I’d heard it was so…”
    “Opulent?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Ritzy? Swank? Classy?” He
pronounced “classy” as “cuh-lassie,” as though it had three syllables.
    “Classy sounds right.”
    “Tell me what you’re really
thinking.” His eyes so gleamed and his face looked so sincere that it was easy
to believe he meant it. “
    “I’m thinking it’s unbelievably
tacky.” Lara stopped. “Ooh. That was a little direct.”
    Clay laughed. “I like direct.
Besides, this place is tacky. So tacky, it’s cool.”
    “But all these people. They’re so…”
Her voice tapered away.
    “They’re so what?”
    “Rich. And famous. And successful.”
    “And, what? You think just because
they’re rich and famous they have good taste?”
    Lara laughed, which brought a
satisfied smile to Clay’s face as a waitress wearing a tight-fitting, low-cut
referee’s jersey and hot pants came to the table.
    “Are you ready, Miss Dixon? Mr. C?”
    “Oh, but I haven’t even seen a
menu.”
    “Menu?” The waitress looked to Clay
for an explanation.
    “We’ll both just have the special,”
he said. Lara agreed with a shrug. The waitress turned and snapped her fingers,
and a guy dressed as a stadium beer vendor lugged over a cooler full of
classic-recipe Schlitz and lager glasses on ice. He popped the tops of two
bottles and then, holding them by their necks in one hand, simultaneously
emptied them into two glasses he held in the other.
    “Wow,” Lara said, impressed.
    She and Clay