Hamilton's brows are knit with a husbandly concern as he gently pats the back of his erstwhile wife, who had collapsed into an emotional, distraught embrace and plunged her face into his neck. After ignoring everything except soothing the woman for a few moments, Hamilton turnes his attention to the manager.

"Shepard. John Shepard. I think that would be best. She needs to lie down. This has been quite a fright for her, as you can see. We'll gladly accept your offer."

Hamilton leads Ariadne through the room toward the lobby as the manager quickly grabbed a key and led them up to the top floor. He shows them inside a room near the top floor that has a decent view of the Vegas Strip. It isn't the best room in the place, but it was nice enough. King sized bed. Table and chairs. Lots of windows. Large bathtub in the bathroom.

As the manager continues to apologize, Hamilton thanks him and gently closes the door. He stretches his arms above his head as he takes a few steps into the room.

"Not bad. Meaning, both your act and the room."

He grins as he stands in front of one of the windows.

Pulling up her turtleneck to better hide the unsightly scratches there, she moves to stand next to Hamilton at the window, smiling as she looks over a city overflowing with possibilities.

"If you can do better, by all means, Mister Shepard , let's see what you've got."

Hamilton waves off the name.

"A business deal gone bad- the name just came to mind."

Narrowing his eyes, he sees her trying to cover up the scratches on her neck.

"We'll talk about doing better in a minute. What's with those marks there?"

"Heh, you didn't see? I overplayed it a bit down there, in my death throes," she replies. "I guess it explains my fondness for turtlenecks. Scratches go away. Arrest records don't. I don't do anything half-assed, if it can be helped," she says, looking at him more directly.

Hamilton nods as he listens to her.

"I can respect that. So what happened in Seattle? Get caught scamming someone?"

"Repeatedly," she says, heading towards the mini fridge. Rustling around inside, she smiles, nut canister in one hand. "Macadamia nuts. I only ever see these in hotel rooms." Popping the lid, she tosses a nut two feet in the air above her head and then catches it on her tongue. Curiously adept for a woman who'd nearly choked to death on one not twenty minutes prior. Winking at Alexander, she underhands the can at him after replacing the lid, then busies herself making a couple doubles with the mini bottles she's found. By the time she leaves this room, everything she could fit in her purse would be gone. "I need to eat something substantial. Shall we order room service, or go out for a bite? Unless you've got plans for the evening, of course...?"

Hamilton grins and accepts the drink.

"Room service is tempting, since it could be comped- but I feel like Mrs. Shepard would probably be lying down to recover from her dreadful ordeal. I vote that we turn out the lights and slip out the back. We'll find a place to eat and starting talking about some business, huh? I didn't have any plans that can't be shifted. Just give me a second."

Slipping off his jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair, Hamilton heads to the bathroom. After a few minutes, he emerges looking more polished. His white shirt and tie are straightened and his hair has been made as tidy as it gets, though there's a certain waviness that resists total conformity. As he reaches out his arm to put his grey jacket on once again, Ariadne notices the shining revolver in a holster under his left shoulder.

"Ready to go?"

"Sure," she says, still eyeing the bulge under his coat. How had she not noticed it before? Picking up the room key and her purse, she hits the light switch as Alexander holds the door open for her. They enter the elevator in silence and ride it to the second floor, where they then take the stairs down to street level and leave through a side entrance. Once outside and being bombarded by the sights and sounds of the Strip, Ariadne puts voice to the question in her mind. "Do you kill people, Alexander? Are you...connected? Is that why you're in Las Vegas now, and why you left New York?"

Hamilton chuckles for a moment, hearing her question.

"No, I don't kill people. If I was the sort of man to be feared, then I probably could have stayed in New York. I barely know how use that thing..."

He light tapped the place between his shoulder and his chest.

"I, uh- had to beat feet out of New York for a much more mundane reason.

Although I'm tempted to let you keep thinking these impressive thoughts about me..."

He waited until they were alone on the sidewalk for a few moments with no one within earshot.

"I... was intimate with the Governor's niece. In the governor's mansion. When the governor was supposed to be looking after her..."

He couldn't quite suppress his grin as he walked along, hands in his pockets.

"Hmmmm. Trouble with the other gun, then," she says, grinning. "So what are your intentions here? Living a life of crime, or trying to go legitimate? Personally, I'd love to make a big score that would help me open a restaurant one day, but I suspect I can't walk away from the thrill of the take altogether."

Hamilton pauses for a moment, then reaches out to gently tug on Ariadne's elbow as he halts and looks out at the bright lights illuminating the streets in front of him.

"I don't know, really. I don't know if I can go legitimate. But between you and me, stranger...

He winks, but his expression goes serious- much different from his previous easygoing demeanor.

... I wonder whether I'm ready to climb the ladder again. Rebuild everything I lost in New York. Alone. I mean, you're probably the best friend I have here, and I'm pretty sure you were thinking about tricking me out of some money earlier today when you saw me.

He gestures out toward the city lights.

But then there's this? It's hard to resist, huh?

"Yes. Hard to resist." she says, staring at Hamilton's profile as he studies the lights. Before he notices, she turns away. "Your watch. I was going to lift it. Don't hold it against me, though," she says, bumping up against him. "Tell me you weren't going to do something similar."

He smiles as they keep walking again.

"Absolutely not. I would never."

He pauses a moment.

"I mean, I was going to seduce you. But I was going to be honest about it."

She laughs. "An honest seduction, you say! Well that's just lovely. But you can't seduce the willing, Alex," she says with frank honesty. "Look. There's one of those cheap steakhouses," she says, twining her arm through his and dragging him across several lanes of busy traffic. A bus slams on its brakes and honks loudly. She waves and smiles at the driver. "Sorry! Starving, here!"

Hamilton holds the door open for Ariadne as they exit the steakhouse with a somewhat sated appetite and a new partnership. Hamilton's new shoes click against the pavement as they make their way on the sidewalk through the rapidly cooling desert night back in the direction of the hotel. Hamilton takes a final look back  over his shoulder and grimaces as the restaurant fades from his view.

"You can do better. Much better. Particularly if we're working together. I've got a couple thoughts about different cons we could run together, if you're ready to talk some specific business."

He grins, playfully.

"I also want to talk about this screaming to the deities thing. I've made women scream to God before, but not more than one, as far as I can recall. Zeus? Thor? What's the story on the plural there?"

He walks alongside her, seemingly a bit distracted by his imagination.

"I'd like to hear those ideas. Particularly since the initial investment and overhead costs are completely out of my reach. I've been going it alone since I got here, both in business and deity communications," she says, without missing a beat. Alexander's shoe scuffs the pavement at that moment. Coincidence, probably. Or perhaps she'd just put a hitch in his giddyup.

He wasn't thrown off his balance too often- at least not in a conversation- but this woman seemed particularly adept at it. Still, that intrigued him and excited him more than it dissuaded him.

"Well. We can't have that."

She could hear the smile in his voice as he freed his mind from his imagination.

"Business before pleasure, though. Let me know if any of these sound appealing to you. And I just want to be clear... this is step one. I wouldn't mind conning rich folks- other rich folks- out of their money for as long as I live. But some of these are just to get some scratch together. Real estate is booming out here, and that's the business I want to be in."

He ticks off a few potential plans on his left hand as he walks.

"The first one is kind of connected to real estate, which makes it a bit more risky. But basically, it'd involve finding people who live in awesome apartments who are on vacation and advertising their place as 'for rent' while their gone. Get a key made, show a bunch of people the place and "rent it out" to as many people as you can, collecting all the down payments."

"Second- no. Not comfortable with that one, now that I think about it."

"Third would be this: you walk into some fancy ass place, crying about how you lost your precious such and such, offering a giant reward for it. You leave some fake contact information.  Then later on that day- maybe the next day- I show up and "find" whatever it is. The employees either tell me there's a reward or not- but either way, I demand to return it myself. Basically, they get greedy and offer to pay me part of the "real reward"- but then once they pay me we're gone.

"Fourth is that we fake something being more valuable than it really is, try to sell it for more than it's worth. Though I don't know much about particular things that would help here."

"Fifth is finding some rich guys, luring them into a hotel room with you, and then blackmailing them with some pictures. Wouldn't have to actually do anything with 'em, mind. Unless you're trying to make me jealous."

"Any of these jump up to you?"

"Keep all those on tap, no reason we can't do each and every one of them. I don't have much to lose, Mr. Hamilton. The faster I can build some sort of future, the better off I'll be. I'm the energetic sort...why not run scam one and three simultaneously? I could go to a five and dime and buy a handful of gaudy 'engagement' rings...wait, I believe I've heard that one done before. How about cameos? Something my great-great grandmother gave me, yadda yadda. Small income while the renters in the houses are getting turned over. Number four, I've got an idea there. I ran across a gallery back in Chicago when I took a bus out there, looking for a rare Sox baseball card. Maybe we could get a deal there, or, hell, just steal his shit. It was very good quality...I don't think the average Joe would know the difference. If you've got real estate ties, and we had enough artwork, we could set up a fly-by-night gallery right here in Vegas." She turns to him then, likely the most blunt woman he'd ever know. "Number five. You're not the jealous type. Territorial, perhaps. I'm willing to bet you've never been in love, or if you have, it was only once, a long time ago, and you'll spend the rest of your life trying to avoid that pain again. Am I close?"

He still smiled, but for the first time she could see something dangerous behind his eyes. But he blinked and it was gone- and he was somehow more present, more lured into the conversation like a big cat stalking a scent. Damn, she was good. 

"Don't need to be in love to be jealous, honey. Why don't we start on this cameo thing first? Maybe a couple rich hotels, that sort of thing? We'll place an ad for the apartment job at the same time. Maybe we'll head to Chicago when those two are done? Those three combined might be enough to get me- to get us- started in the real estate business.

Although, if you're going to play the part of some heiress willing to overpay for something, we've got to get you out of those clothes."

His eyes glanced over her as the hotel came into view.

"I believe I have just the thing...problem is, it's in my baggage at the fleabag hotel I've been staying at. The manager is looking for me...I haven't paid in days...but up until yesterday I've been able to slip in and out through a back window. I really need my things." One thing. The Sox card she scored in Chicago for her little brother Mal. It was worth several months of con jobs and was currently tucked behind a picture frame sitting on the cheap, scarred nightstand. Turning to Hamilton, she asks for help. "I know you're carrying. Maybe we can just...scare the guy a little?"