moment, Jeremiah and Tess had stepped out and the elevator continued up to the fifth floor without them.
When Lex got to Room 512, he took out the key and let himself in. It was just a bedroom, and so not as nice as his own suite on the top floor, but still rather impressive, nonetheless. Lex walked in and left the door slightly ajar behind him. Margie probably wouldn’t notice her key was missing until she actually got to her room, and Lex didn’t really want her going down to reception and possibly returning with a manager to let her in, so he left the door slightly open. He would hear her approach in time to put down anything he shouldn’t have been touching and the plate of cakes he was carrying would constitute an effective excuse to explain his presence there.
As soon as he walked in, his eye fell on the large framed photo by the bed. He wandered over to it and saw that it was a picture of Margie with a thin little man wearing a monocle and a bemused sort of expression.
‘Dear departed Murray, I presume,’ Lex said.
Then he wandered away from the bed and towards the dressing table. There was a hairbrush there and several bottles of perfume. And there were several large brooches. They were all set with precious stones of various sorts and, taken together, would easily constitute Jesse’s fee. But it was all a bit easy and boring for Lex. So he wandered over to the wardrobe; if the room was anything like his, he knew the safe would be here.
Lex had some rudimentary experience with picking locks but, in actual fact, he had no need to try and do so this time. When he saw the keypad, the combination code jumped right out at him. There were letters and numbers on the pad so that guests could chose a numerical password or an actual word. Lex knew it couldn’t be anything other than ‘Murray’, even before he typed in the name and heard the click of the lock as it swung open.
He rolled his eyes. Wasn’t there anything that could challenge him anymore?
‘I’m too good at everything,’ Lex muttered irritably to himself as he rifled through the contents of the safe with one hand. ‘That’s my trouble. Too bloody good at everything.’
The safe was packed full of jewellery, most of which was extremely ostentatious, almost to the point of being gaudy. Keeping his ears strained for noise, Lex rummaged about until he finally found something he liked, for he sure as heck wasn’t stealing something ugly. But, finally, there it was at the bottom of the safe? a stunning string of grey pearls. They were extremely valuable and would easily cover Jesse’s fee and then some. Lex stuffed them into his pocket. Really, there was so much jewellery in there that the rich old biddy probably wouldn’t even notice that the pearls had gone. He took one of the little enchanted hats out of his pocket, anyway, and left it in the safe, for it wouldn’t do not to leave his calling card as the Wizard. He balanced the little hat on top of the remaining sparkly pile and then securely closed the lid of the safe with a snap.
He shut the wardrobe door and turned away just as Margie came bustling in. Finally: something to spice up the theft a bit.
‘Good evening, ma’am,’ Lex droned, lowering his voice and speaking in a sort of monotone. He held up the plate of cakes and said, ‘Compliments of Mr Lex Trent; he asked me to deliver these to your room as a gesture of his gratitude that you went to such trouble to look after him tonight.’
It had occurred to Lex at the last minute that it wouldn’t do simply to say that the kitchen had sent them up for no apparent reason. That would look far too suspicious, especially once the theft was discovered. But, this way, Lex himself could verify that he really had sent a bellhop up to her room with cupcakes, if Margie were to ask him about it later. He could be his own alibi, so to speak.
Of course, Margie instantly gushed all over the cakes and what a dear, dear boy that Lex Trent was. Lex left her to it. He’d intended to tell her that he’d found her room key on the floor outside the door but it didn’t even seem to occur to her that she hadn’t used it to get in. So he slipped it on to the coffee table as he walked out, strolling cheerfully away with the grey pearls in his pocket.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lex walked back into his own room to find Jesse cuffed to the bed, right where he had left him. He was gratified to see that the cowboy looked extremely uncomfortable and that he had twisted round on his side in an effort to rest his arm.
‘Well, it’s about time,’ Jesse said. ‘My arm feels like it’s gonna drop right off-’ He stopped mid-sentence, stared at Lex and said, ‘What the heck are you wearing?’
‘It’s called a disguise,’ Lex replied with exaggerated patience. Then he pulled the string of pearls out of his pocket and held it up to the light. ‘I got you these. They’re more than sufficient to cover the sum we agreed. If you try and get so much as one more piece of m-gold out of me then I’ll knock fifty off.’
‘Let me see them,’ Jesse said.
Lex walked closer to the bed and held the pearls out. Jesse took them with his free hand and examined them closely for a minute. Finally, he nodded, looked up at Lex and said, ‘These will do just fine. As long as Lady Luck keeps a hold of ’em for the duration of the Game.’
‘I’m disappointed that you don’t trust me,’ Lex said, holding his hand out for the stolen pearls. ‘But some people are just born that way, I suppose. It’s quite sad, really.’
‘Tragic,’ Jesse replied, replacing the pearls reluctantly in Lex’s outstretched hand. ‘Now let me outta these cuffs. My arm hurts like hell.’
‘I have to find the key first,’ Lex said. ‘Oh dear, I hope I haven’t lost it.’
‘You have, you little brat, and you’ll be sorry.’
‘Sorry is a word I only barely understand the meaning of,’ Lex replied, before turning on his heel and leaving, very much enjoying the fact that he was annoying the hell out of the cowboy. After an evening spent having to be so polite and likable, it was a welcome relief to finally be as obnoxious as he liked.
Of course, Lex knew exactly where the key to the handcuffs was. But he took his time finding it, anyway, because Lex Trent never did anything just because someone else wanted him to. There had to be something in it for him first.
‘Here we are,’ he said cheerfully when he walked back into Jesse’s room with the key. ‘False alarm. It wasn’t lost, after all.’
‘Ain’t that lucky for both of us,’ Jesse replied.
‘I hope you’re not going to sulk about this,’ Lex replied, throwing over the key. ‘My last companion sulked most of the way through the Game and it got quite tedious towards the end.’
‘Well, now, I guess I can’t really blame you for not trusting me,’ Jesse said as he unlocked the cuffs and freed his hand. He made to reach out for the glass of whisky at the side of his bed but it seemed that his arm was so numb that he clumsily knocked it to the floor instead. He scowled, looked up at Lex and said, ‘But if you ever handcuff me to somethin’ again, you little pipsqueak, I won’t take it half so amiably.’
Lex couldn’t help it. He grinned from ear to ear. A challenge! This was just exactly what he wanted.
‘I’ll get you another glass,’ he said, before turning back into the living room.
Lex ordered breakfast to his room the next morning. It was a bit awkward for, of course, he was supposed to be off his food and yet here he was ordering enough bacon and eggs to feed two people. But they had to eat. If anyone asked, he would simply say that the Goddess of Luck was joining him for meals. The Gods didn’t need to eat but they enjoyed doing so on occasion. And when they ate, they really ate, not having to worry about calories as mortal people did. If Lex put it about that the Goddess of Luck was spending a lot of time in the suite with him? trying to console him after Jesse’s death, or something? then no one would think twice about the fact that so much food was going up there.
Aside from the welcome dinner that first night, there were no other organised events the players would be expected to attend. This suited Lex as it would give him more time to focus on his lessons with Jesse. Lady Luck appeared in the bedroom shortly after they’d finished their breakfast and Lex quickly explained to her the new arrangement he had come to with the cowboy. Then he produced the pearls from his pocket and held them out to her.
‘So if you wouldn’t mind holding on to them until we’ve finished the Game? I know it’s a tiresome business but apparently Jesse doesn’t trust me to pay him when all this is over.’
