4/

"I bet I could easily unscrew the screws holding this window in place and slide down the side of the building." Mike glanced over at Delinda before looking back out the window, "Delinda's got on a dress, Mr. D's in a tie... we could use those as a rope to climb down. I mean, sure, Delinda will be in her underwear, but it's not like all of Vegas hasn't seen that before."

Ed slowly toed out of one of his shoes and picked it up and chucked it at Mike, hitting him squarely in the back of the head. Mike turned around quickly, rubbing the back of his head, "I can't believe you'd throw a shoe at a brother, Ed, that's just cold."

"So is suggesting that my daughter can parade around Vegas in her underwear." Ed remarked.

Delinda sighed as she ran a hand through her honey blonde hair. "Dad, I'm going nuts with boredom. Don't you have anything to do in here? You know, besides work?"

Ed sighed as he opened a few desk drawers. A few minutes later he produced a deck of cards and a set of chips. Upon the questioning faces of Mike and his daughter, he shrugged, "Sometimes I get bored and play solitaire and I don't like the computer version."

Mike blinked as he stood in front of the window he was trying to break, "You get bored?"

Ed silenced him with a glare as Delinda pulled up a seat and sat down in it in front of her father's desk, "Okay, so that explains the cards, but what about the chips?"

"State law dictates that I must always have a set of chips in my office at all times." Ed responded matter-of-factly.

His daughter rolled her turquoise eyes, "Whatever, Dad. This is us, not some assistants who make their living kissing your ass and believing every word that comes out of your mouth as gospel truth."

"You know," Ed said softly as he began to shuffle the cards, "for somebody who sometimes depends on the financial assistance of her parents to bail her ass out of retail messes, you sure are a smart ass."

Delinda grinned as she sat up, straightening her back, "I get it from my father."

"Yeah yeah," he said softly as he dealt the cards out. "Hey, Mike, get over here, I'll deal you in."

Mike glanced over at his boss and Delinda before going back to examining the glass, "No thanks, Ed, I'm determined to get out of here."

"Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike," Ed said with a sigh as he stood up. Walking over to his employee , he draped an arm around him. "Listen to me for a moment, those windows cost almost a grand each. You took a pay cut when you came to work up here,"

"Which, by the way, I'm still pissed about," Mike added.

His boss shrugged, "So, cry me a river. The point, Mike, is that it would take one and a half pay checks to pay for the window, should you break it."

Mike sighed as he looked around for a moment and nodded, "I'm okay with that, Ed." He grabbed a heavy statue from Ed's desk and Ed gripped his shoulder hard, causing Mike's knees to buckle, "Drop it," Ed said softly. Mike's grip tightened around the statue, which only caused Ed to tighten his own grip around his shoulder, "I said, drop it," he growled.

Mike's hand slowly let the statue fall as Ed released his shoulder. Grinning, he gave Mike a pat on the back and headed back to his desk. "That's cold, Ed," Mike said, "As in arctic freezing, colder than a well digger's ass cold."

Nessa leaned against the wall in boredom. She sighed deeply, muttering quietly, "Well, at least there isn't a full moon out tonight."

"You can say that again," Sam said as she joined her. Both women slid down the wall and sat down on the floor. "So did you hear? Ed is stuck with Mike again."

Her friend couldn't help but laugh as she shook her head, "That poor man, he never can catch a break."

"I don't know who I feel worse for, Ed or Mike." Sam said with a laugh.

"Definitely Ed," Nessa said, laughing with her friend. "So, how are the whales?"

"Getting restless," she responded with a sigh, "Kevin Bailey's talking about taking his action to the Palms, Mr. and Mrs. Moynahan from Denver are talking about going to Caesar's and Richard Franklin is threatening to go to the Luxor."

Nessa winced as she sighed, "I'm sorry, Sam. Hopefully they'll have things back up shortly. Look on the bright side, at least you aren't high on caffeine tablets."

"That's not funny," Sam said, turning to look at her friend, "Those made me crazy."

"Yes, I know, remember? You shot at me and Delinda."

Sam sighed as she stood up. "I'm going for a walk."

Nessa watched in silence as her friend walked around.

Mary sighed as she drank her lukewarm water. Looking around Mystique she noticed how quiet it was and it actually unnerved her a little.

"Hey," she jumped and gasped as she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning around, she saw Danny backing up, his hands held up.

"Jesus, Danny, you scared the crap out of me."

"I'm sorry," he said as he sat down next to her and looked around, "I don't think I've ever seen this place empty before."

Mary nodded, "Yeah, it's little creepy." She sighed softly and turned to look at her, "Any word on when the generators are going to be fixed?"

Danny sighed himself, "Just got off the phone with an electrician and he said they are working on it. Now I just need to work up some courage to call Ed and let him know."

His friend rolled her eyes, "Ed's locked up in his office, what is he going to do? Telepathically kick your ass? Just call him, I'm sure that he'd appreciate the update."

He reached into his pocket and fished out his cell phone, "Alright, here it goes," he said as he dialed Ed's number.

Ed reached for his ringing phone, "Yeah,"

"Ed, it's me, I'm down in Mystique."

Deline sighed as he sat down in his desk chair, "Good for you."

Danny rolled his eyes, "I got a hold of the..."

Ed cut him off, "Excuse me, but did you just roll your eyes?"

The ex-Marine just blinked as he looked at his phone and then brought it back to his ear, "How could you possibly know something like that?"

The former CIA agent just shrugged, "Eyes and ears everywhere, kid, remember that. Give me an update."

"Okay," McCoy sighed, "the electrician said that they are working on getting the generators up and running as soon as they could."

"Oh great," Ed remarked, "and in the meantime, the Palms will get all of our gamblers. I swear, if I don't start getting Christmas cards from the Maloof clan soon, I'm gonna start to get pissed off."

"Yeah, and that's something nobody wants to see, Ed."

"You gettin' smart with me, kid?"

Danny swallowed hard, "Wouldn't dream of it, Sir."

"Good," Ed said, "Keep me in the loop on what's going on. My casino doing okay?"

The younger man nodded as he looked around, "Yeah, people are just pretty much standing around, not much going on."

"Alright," the older man said with a soft sigh, "just sit tight, I guess. Keep an eye on Mary, Sam and Nessa, make sure they don't get into any trouble or anything. And I guess all we can do is just wait this out."

Danny nodded, "Yeah, how are Delinda and Mike?"

"Delinda's fine, Mike, on the other hand, is looking to break a window or something, but aside from that, it's nothing I can't handle."

"Yeah, I thought you told Mike to go see somebody about that?"

"I did, but it appears that he blew me off." Ed responded.

"Not a bright move," Danny stated.

"No," he agreed, "it isn't. I'm gonna let you go now. Keep me updated." Ed hung the phone up and looked around his office.

"So what'd Danny say, Dad?"

Ed stood up and walked around his office, stretching his legs. "Talked to the electrician and said the generators ought to be up soon."

Delinda nodded and Mike's head popped up. "Mr. D, I got an idea. Don't you have a key override? Maybe you can at least get us out of this office."

Ed's eyes grew wide and he walked back to his desk, opening up drawers and finally producing a CD-ROM. Grinning at Mike, he sat down at his desk at the computer and popped the disk in. After punching a few keys, they heard a click. Delinda walked over and pulled on the door, opening it.

"Hot damn! Score one for the valet!"

Ed laughed, "Good idea, Mike, I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier." He rose to his feet and started to head out of his office.

"Yeah, well, you were too busy setting off my pressure points." Mike responded as he walked out of the office, grateful to have some fresh air.