The British Airways 747 was on time, but it made little difference, as he took the usual two hours or so to pass through Customs and Immigration in Los Angeles.

He liked LA. Not in the way you were supposed to though. He wasn't much enamoured with all the freeways and the cars, the endless jams and the sprawl for miles. Perhaps, these days not many were. He'd rarely been to Disneyland, Universal Studios or any of the other more-run-of-the-mill tourist attractions. He'd stayed in all the best hotels, such as the Beverly Wiltshire and the Biltmore. Service and comfort had been more than acceptable, but they had not impressed him, as they lacked the charm of the best American hotels, like the Copley in Boston or the St. Francis in San Francisco. They also had none of the high-tech kitsch of others.

What he liked about LA, was that it was the gateway to many of the things that he had read about and seen in his childhood. Not the films of Disney and the cartoons of Warner Brothers. Nor the general addiction to American culture, so beloved of the young all over the world. Perhaps, it was because deep down he was an unreconstructed romantic, LA to him was the centre for some of the technological marvels of the twentieth century. Not the normal ones, that had improved the lot of man, but those that had been created against the odds, by men of vision. There was the Spruce Goose, the amazing leviathan of a flying boat created by the megalomaniac, Howard Hughes, the ocean liner Queen Mary and the giant telescopes at Palomar and Mount Wilson, to start the entries in a long list. A few hundred miles to the east there were the great dams on the Colorado river.

Not all had been a success. Many had never made a profit in conventional terms. But then grandes projets, all over the world are not those for investors with faint hearts and small wallets.

***

Just as Muslims go on their pilgrimages to Mecca, all good computer people once in their lifetime must go to the Great Computer Exhibition, COMDEX, which takes place every November at Las Vegas.

As ever he had not booked and that meant he would find getting a flight to and a room in Vegas difficult, so he had done what many are forced to do and had hired a car in LA. Although, it would mean a boring five hour drive on the Interstate highway through the Mojave Desert, he much preferred it, as it meant he would at least have a car at COMDEX. Something that few managed, unless they booked the year before.

It was dark, by the time he left the sprawl and pollution of the city and started the gentle climb towards Barstow and then on to Vegas. Cars and trucks were few on the road and he was maintaining a fast pace, in excess of the posted limit of sixty-five. His constant companion was the talk-radio, which he switched from station to station as he got further from LA.

If you had asked him where he had spent the night he would only have known that he had slept well at an Holiday Inn, somewhere around Barstow.

The service was pleasant, casual and quick and ten minutes after arrival, he was lying on his bed, thumbing through the thirty or so television channels. Here barely a hundred miles from the town, that had given the world a large proportion of its best and most entertaining, funny or exciting films, you had access to all of its worst television. It puzzled him, how you could take, a white girl from New York, a black from Houston or an Hispanic from LA, and they would all look like Barbie. They would all sound the same too, when they presented the same bland and boring programmes, that lacked any depth or comment of any consequence. He wished that some entrepreneur would just beam in one of the British channels undiluted from a satellite. But then that depth and comment would be very much against American tastes, style and political correctness.

***

The time difference of eight hours, between London and California, meant that he was wide awake by four and on the road by just after five, after one of the most amazing culinary disasters of the world. The orange juice had the most gorgeous colour, but tasted sweet and bitter at the same time, the tea was little more than dirty water and the eggs and bacon had probably been cooked when Nixon was President.

Two hours later, he was approaching one of the most bizarre and tasteless sights in the western world. As the dawn broke, lights of all colours appeared in the distance. A few minutes later and a vast brick and concrete riverboat, festooned with lights, banners and gambling-dominated advertising appeared at the side of the road. It was matched by an equally vulgar western town on the other side. Both were crowded with people, even at this early hour.

Welcome to Nevada! You can gamble on the way in and you can lose your shirt, if you've got it on the way out!

***

In the drive through the desert, his thoughts roamed. Not about the purpose of the trip to COMDEX and the other things that really should be occupying his time. He thought about Catherine and her death, his mistress, his guilt and grief and how it all fitted together into this new phase of his life.

The bad memories of Catherine and her awful, selfish family were fading. Her death had released them from him and he was just left with the good times, first as his secretary and then the few later, when she was his wife. He remembered the time, seven years ago, that they had made this self-same trip together. They had leisurely enjoyed the tourist sights of LA, whilst staying at the Wiltshire. They'd shopped in all the best places on Rodeo Drive and they'd eaten in all those restaurants supposed frequently by the stars. Not that they had seen any! After five days, they had driven the three hundred miles and seen the Great Exhibition, and the shows and sights of Vegas.

Was it on that first trip, that he first saw the problems that were to haunt them for the rest of their marriage?

Catherine had not shared his enthusiasm for much they saw. She had liked many of the sights and pleasures such as the studios, hotels and shops of LA, but could not understand his passion for the wonders of science, engineering, architecture and the natural splendours of mountains, sea and desert. Never in the rest of their troubled marriage had she ever accompanied him on a business trip.

He thought too of his mistress. Guilt and grief had meant he had not contacted her since Catherine had died.

He had not called and he had not written. Perhaps, he should at least send his customary postcard, which she could pin to the door in her kitchen. Perhaps, he should do the decent thing and at last go and live with her or get her to live with him. But he was frightened, after his first disastrous attempt at marriage. He vowed that when he got to Las Vegas, that the first thing he would do, would be to send that postcard and then later he would write one of his long letters to explain all of his tortured and complicated, thoughts and feelings.

***

Las Vegas is an oasis in the desert. An oasis of what is another matter.

As he descended down on to the flat arid plain, where the city stands in the middle of nowhere, he smiled at the paradox as such as himself visiting this great temple to gambling. He was not averse to the odd bet on the horses, as that was a calculated judgement. But all of the games such as roulette, craps and blackjack left him cold and how any sane person could put even their loose pennies into a fruit machine was totally beyond him. Still it meant that with all those rooms for all those stupid gamblers, that Las Vegas was the only place, where the Great Exhibition could be held, at a reasonable cost for all of the visitors.

He had not reserved a room and would do the usual Eddie Murphy trick from Beverly Hills Cop. Approach the dimmest receptionist in any of the smart gambling hotels and in your best fake upper-class English accent, tell some cock and bull story about how your reservation has been screwed by a travel agent. When they feel sorry for you, then say they must have a room for an unexpected high-roller or superstar like Frank Sinatra, and as he's playing Atlantic City at the moment, surely he wouldn't mind if you had his room.

***

By twelve that morning he had registered at COMDEX, visited the first of many of the main exhibition halls and had secured a room in the Desert Inn. He had also bought that important postcard.

As ever his booking method had worked and he was now in an expensive and very comfortable split level suite, with a bedroom on a raised balcony above a living area. Both were lavishly furnished in a light camel colour, highlighted by plenty of panelled wood and stainless steel. He felt, it was fairly tasteful for the town and certainly was much more pleasing on the eye, than some of the garish and over-the-top rooms he had secured in the past. He unpacked his clothes, showered, changed his shirt, called Wendy for any news and looked-up some of the Companies he thought he at least ought to visit, after having come halfway around the globe.

But first he needed some lunch, so he progressed back into the public rooms of the hotel, through the various gambling saloons, with their endless tables and slot machines, to a quiet bar on the Strip itself that he knew was a quiet haven and served a passable steak.

***

The waitress, was dressed in her typically Las Vegan uniform of short skirt, high heels and low cut top. It fitted her well and with long blonde hair and a better than average face, most of the men in the restaurant were contemplating what they would like to do to her that night. He joined them in their admiration and watched her wobble away on her heels, wondering how Americans despite being all for legal rights and correctness, always get waitresses to dress as they do. As he turned back from the cabaret to the catalogue, bookmarked by the postcard, his eyes were caught by a vaguely familiar face two tables away.

He couldn't place the short, thickset man in his late fifties, as he sat eating his lunch of a burger and a cold beer. He thought he was probably a customer or salesman from the past. He was certainly from the computer side of his life, as why would he be here. But where and when they had met before he could not remember.

He didn't have to wait long to find out. The man rose, smiled, walked towards him and then extended his hand in greeting. The smile grew to a laugh and their hands met strongly.

'Fancy meeting you here!' His voice had a distinct Scottish accent, probably from the Edinburgh side of the imaginary wall that divides the east from the west of that country. 'You don't remember who I am. Do you?'

'I'm sorry but I don't.' He was trawling his mind for a memory. 'Can you give me a clue?'

The man had now moved his meal across and both were now sitting at the same table. 'Portsmouth, at least ten or more years ago!'

Now he knew. 'Staples, isn't it? Derek Staples.' It was all clear now. He had been the manager at GEC in Portsmouth, who had bought one of the original small computer database systems. These had been one of the foundations of his original company, that was to net him a comfortable fortune, when he had sold out four years later. As the particular product, had been developed in 1981, Derek's figure of at least ten years since they had last met, was probably correct.

'It's funny you know, but I've been looking for you for a couple of months now. In fact, you're rather elusive.' He laughed to himself. 'Then, I come all the way to COMDEX and one of the first people I meet is you.' He laughed again. 'I've got a company, that has a project and a proposition for you, which I hope you will find acceptable.'

Copyright 1999 by Ewart Higgins