He’d been in the tub for about half an hour and was just topping it up with more hot water when the bathroom door opened and a cheerful voice said, ‘Fancy place, this, ain’t it?’
Lex almost drowned in his own bath water. For there in the doorway stood Jesse, hat tipped back on his head, a bottle of beer in his hand and a stupid grin on his face.
‘Oh my Gods, what are you doing here?’ Lex spluttered, utterly horrified. ‘I told you to stay out of sight on the ship!’
The cowboy shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, I only take orders from you when it suits me to, kid. Besides, we ain’t even playing a round right now. I’m an outdoorsy sorta bloke. I can’t stay cooped up on that ship for an entire week; I’ll go barmy.’
‘You didn’t even manage one afternoon!’ Lex snapped, grabbing a nearby towel and wrapping it around himself as he stood up in the bath. ‘Everyone thinks you’re dead! What if someone saw you coming here? Did you even think of that?’
‘Relax,’ Jesse replied. ‘I didn’t stroll through the streets. Her Ladyship transported me right here to the room. No one saw nothing.’
‘No one saw anything,’ Lex corrected, being deliberately obnoxious in his anger. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of a double negative before?’
‘Can’t rightly say that I have,’ Jesse replied, completely unruffled. ‘Say, I didn’t notice that liquor trolley there before.’ And, with that, he turned away from the bathroom and walked back into the lounge.
Scowling and grumbling to himself, Lex stepped out of the bath and hurriedly got dressed. When he went into the living room, the cowboy was sprawled on one of the armchairs drinking beer from one of the crystal-cut tumblers.
‘I made it quite clear to you before we started this thing that, if you agreed to take part, you were going to have to take orders from me. I told you that was a condition and you agreed to it before you put the Binding Bracelet on!’
‘Well, I guess I wasn’t exactly telling the Gods’ honest truth when I said that,’ Jesse replied with a shrug. ‘I was in prison, kid, and you were my ticket out. I would’ve said whatever the heck you wanted to hear to get myself outta that cell.’
Lex glared ferociously at the cowboy. ‘You… you’re a blaggard, that’s what you are!’
‘Yep. But you knew that before you picked me and you gone went and did it, anyway.’
Well, there was no arguing with that. Lex had known full well what Jesse was, almost from the very moment he saw him. That was precisely why he had wanted him as his companion, and probably would have done even if it hadn’t been for Dry Gulch House. There were ways to work around this. As long as Lex paid Jesse for each round they won then he could guarantee that the cowboy would at least try. And there was no denying that he had been useful in the first round. Right up until the end, anyway.
‘You can stay because it suits me that you do,’ Lex said eventually. ‘It means I won’t have to sneak back to the ship so that we can eat together. No one will know you’re here as long as you stay put in the room and we keep the door locked at all times. In the meantime you can make yourself useful and start teaching me how to be a cowboy.’
‘Yeah, about that-’ Jesse began.
‘If you go back on your word and refuse to do it then, Gods help me, you’ll be sorry!’ Lex snapped.
‘Settle down,’ Jesse replied mildly. ‘I’ll do it. I was just gonna tell you that it’ll never work. I mean, look at you. You’re a skinny city kid.’
‘I was brought up on a farm, actually,’ Lex said coldly. ‘Besides, I’m not asking you to teach me how to be a cowboy; I’m asking you to teach me how to fake it.’
‘I just don’t think it can be done, is all. But if you wanna take a stab at it then knock yourself out, by all means.’
‘I’m a fast learner,’ Lex replied. ‘Just you wait. I’ll show you.’
‘While we’re on the subject, I don’t think the Sword of Life is real, neither.’
‘Well, the sword is none of your concern,’ Lex replied. ‘All you have to do is get me into Dry Gulch House. And if you manage that then I’ll… I’ll give you a bonus payment of two hundred pieces of m-gold.’
Jesse narrowed his eyes suspiciously. ‘You’re making a lot of promises about rewards, kid, but I ain’t seen so much as a single dollar yet. How do I know you’re good for it?’
‘I’m a thief,’ Lex replied. ‘I can get you your money easily.’
Jesse shook his head. ‘You’re also a liar. I ain’t buyin’ it. I can recognise another rogue when I see one. I want my payment handed over to her Ladyship with promises from you and from her that, if I play my part in this circus, I’ll get my reward at the end of it. Without that I won’t go another step further. I’ll walk out that door right now and show the world I ain’t dead.’
‘You wouldn’t have the nerve!’ Lex sneered, despite the fact that he knew full well that Jesse absolutely would make good on his threats if it came to it. ‘Why must I always be plagued with the most vexing companions?’ he moaned. ‘I’d be better off on my own. I’d be better off if you were dead! If the Game allowed it, I wouldn’t take a companion at all.’
But for all that he was making a tremendous fuss about it for the look of the thing, Lex was not overly bothered. It was simply a matter of learning how to handle a person. He’d learnt how to handle Mr Schmidt in the last Game and he would learn how to handle Jesse even easier because all the man seemed to care about was money. And for a talented thief like Lex, money really was no problem at all.
‘I assume you’ve no objection to valuables in lieu of payment?’ he said, deliberately choosing a fancy legal term in the hope that Jesse wouldn’t understand it.
But the cowboy just said suspiciously, ‘What sort of valuables?’
Lex shrugged impatiently. ‘I don’t know. Diamonds or something.’
‘Diamonds would be just fine,’ Jesse replied, still looking suspicious. ‘Just so long as you don’t try and fob old Jesse off with fake ones. Got some in your pocket, do you?’
‘No, not yet. But in a posh hotel like this there’s bound to be rich women carrying their jewels about with them. I bet I’ll be able to get you your payment from the very first room I break into.’
His fingers were itching again. Being in posh places like the Majestic always had that effect on Lex. There were, after all, countless valuable things just there for the taking. He wouldn’t have done it for Jesse alone, but the thought of carrying out a theft now really rather appealed to him. That pickpocketing business at the Sea Volcanoes teashop had been nothing more than keeping his hand in: something so ridiculously simple that it had barely been fun at all. Pinching something from a hotel room in the Majestic, on the other hand, would be wonderful fun, because it was bound to be at least a little bit of a challenge. He needed to keep his hand in as the Wizard, too, after all. This would be an entertaining diversion amidst all the schmoozing he would be expected to do at the welcome dinner later.
‘Yes,’ Lex said decisively. ‘I’ll obtain your payment tonight. After the dinner.’
‘Pull that off,’ Jesse said, eyebrows raised, ‘and I would be impressed.’
‘Lovely,’ Lex replied. ‘Nothing matters more to me than impressing you! Now, if you’re quite satisfied, can we get on with this cowboy thing?’
‘All right,’ Jesse said. ‘I suppose I can start the lessons on faith. For now. If you wanna pass yourself off as a cowboy, the first thing you need to learn how to do is play poker.’
‘Poker?’ Lex repeated, pulling a face. ‘Are you sure that’s what we should be starting with? Shouldn’t we be doing… I don’t know.. gun-shooting or knife-throwing or tobacco-chewing or something?’
‘Here?’ Jesse asked, eyebrows raised. Lex had to admit he had a point. The posh, pristine suite probably wasn’t the ideal place to learn how to throw a knife.
‘Don’t make no difference, anyhow,’ Jesse said. ‘Even if we were on the ship I woulda started with poker. It’s the lynchpin, see? Much more so than all that other stuff. I mean, you’re not planning on challenging anyone to a duel, are you?’
‘Good Gods, no!’
‘Well, as long as you stay outta trouble, that stuff won’t be as important to you as the everyday stuff. Things like learning how to play poker, chew tobacco and drink coffee black.’
‘I already drink coffee black,’ Lex replied.
‘Not like this you don’t,’ Jesse said with a grin. ‘I’m talking about coffee that’s been brewed for so long in a
