Rough at first

The word 'chick' wasn't, Rick thought, a very good description of the mysterious 'Nancy Drew.'

"Must have been rough in school," he said when an obsequious security guard ushered him into the security chief's office.

Nancy sighed. "My staff tells me you needed to see me. So, you see me. Now tell me your problem or let me get some work done."

"I had problems with security last time I was here."

"Yeah? Maybe you shouldn't have come back, then."

"The problem was, they were being paid off by another player. Someone wanted me out of there and they had security do their dirty work."

"You'll forgive me, Mr. Peters, if I say that I think you're full of shit."

Without waiting for an invitation which, he suspected, wouldn't be coming any time soon, Rick sat in a chair in front of Nancy's desk and studied the woman.

At first glance, she didn't look tough. She also didn't look like a chick. She looked like an Asian grad student with big black glasses hiding serious intelligent eyes and some sort of peasant blouse that looked like it didn't hide much by way of a figure. Her slight accent might indicate she was born somewhere in Asia or possibly simply that she'd been brought up by an American Indian family.

"I didn't--"

Rick put his elbows on Nancy's desk. "Congratulations on your new job, by the way," he interrupted. "I'm sure you'll do a far better job than your predecessor. What happened to him?"

"He got another job," she said. "And I didn't invite you to sit down."

"No. But I'm going to forgive that oversight."

"Ohmygod, are you flirting with me?" She put on an angry face but Rick noticed that the pulse in her neck accelerated just slightly.

"I'll let you know if we get to that stage," he said. "In the meantime, I'm just verifying that security isn't going to be playing a role in determining the winner of tomorrow's poker tournament."

"Look, Mr. Peters." She leaned forward on her desk, unconsciously echoing Rick's position. "I don't know what you think happened when you were here last but our only interest is in making sure that we run a fair game and discourage any cheaters. It's poker, after all. The casino gets its cut no matter who wins. Why should we care?"

Rick didn't think anyone got to be head of casino security by being naive so he wondered what Nancy was trying to convince him of.

"This is your business so I'm sure you can think of plenty of additional reasons but the ones that come to mind are that someone could be paying you or your staff off; you could be doing a favor for a regular client because he'll bring his winnings back to the casino; or you could simply have someone fronting you. After all, security has cameras all over the casino. With an earbud in place, you could tell your front guy every card at the table."

"That... that's nonsense, Mr. Peters. If word got out that we did anything like that, we'd be ruined."

"And that would be a shame. Especially after you just took this new job."