“Smith, step into my office for a minute.”
“Sure, team owner boss. What’s up?”
“At the moment, my blood pressure. This expense report you submitted.”
“I give you a expense report for the team every week, sir. Just like you require.”
“It’s customary to wait until after the weekend’s races are over and all the expenses are known before handing it in.”
“I know, sir, but…”
“But what?”
“Well, we’ve incurred some extra costs this week that needed to be taken care of right away.”
“So I was informed at four this morning by an employee at the Clark County, Nevada Detention Center. They were quite delighted with all the overtime they’d be incurring while processing a few dozen payments for bail.”
“Um… I can explain…”
“Please do, although I suspect building maintenance will need a pressure washer to clean the floor when you’re done.”
“Why?”
“To get the bull… oh, never mind. All right, let’s go through this report. We normally send what, a dozen or so people to each race? Over the wall crew, couple of mechanics, race day personnel, transport driver and all that?”
“Yes.”
“So why are there seventy-three people at this race?”
“Well… a lot of them had family in the area. You know there are over 1.8 million people living in the metropolitan area…”
“Of Las Vegas. Place is crammed to the gills with Billy Bob’s cousins, I’m sure.”
“People do move, sir.”
“You won’t be able to without bionic limbs by the time I’m through with you. Now, about this hotel bill. An individual suite for everyone at the RitzoMuchoDinero?”
“It… was the only place with rooms available.”
“A city with nineteen of the world’s twenty-five largest hotels by room count and only the most expensive place had rooms available?”
“That one’s on me, sir. I should have booked earlier.”
“The only booking that’ll be happening soon is me trying to dodge the one being thrown at me by a judge.”
“But sir… I was able to negotiate a better rate.”
“$1,699 instead of $1,700 a night. I’m seeing a bright future for you in the Department of Defense procurement division, Smith.”
“I’d be honored to serve my country, sir.”
“We have enough problems. Back to this expense report. $38,000 in meals?”
“Well, with that many people…”
“This was for one day.”
“I can’t help it if the local restaurants charge a lot, sir.”
“Everyone was at a free buffet.”
“Oh. Well, there was a cover charge…”
“Yes, at the Wanda LaLustee and her WowWowGirls revue. $23,000 in tips?”
“The staff worked very hard.”
“I’m sure swinging around a pole is quite exhausting. Now, mind telling me why three-quarters of my employees were arrested in the wee hours of the morning?”
“Um… well, sir, it seems that there was a miscommunication concerning a place of business.”
“And what business connected with anything having to do with a race team is open at three A.M.?”
“Er… well, as you said last week we need to start producing more horsepower in our car.”
“Being consistently outrun by the jet dryers would tend to indicate the correctness of that statement. So naturally, being the devoted employees they are the team decided to fix that.”
“Yes.”
“At three in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“With a visit to what they thought was the Mustang Ranch.”
“It was a simple mistake, sir. They were thinking maybe studying horses would spark ideas on how to generate more horsepower.”
“Now I need to clean the horse plus the bull out of here. They actually are using that as their story?”
“Er… yes.”
“Right. How unfortunate there was the minor detail of said ‘ranch’ being just outside of Reno while my soon to be former employees were just outside of Las Vegas.”
“Well…”
“In Clark County.”
“Well…”
“Where the world’s second oldest occupation is illegal.”
“Well…”
“And the gang that can’t turn a wrench straight brilliantly managed to arrive five minutes before the place was busted.”
“Well…”
“Well what?”
“You should be thanking me, sir.”
“For WHAT?!!”
“For the great publicity we got this morning.”
“Publicity?”
“The Las Vegas City Council gave us a commendation for helping to balance their budget for the year.”
????? Evidently– nothing is happening ANYwhere in racing.