“You got it!” said the Scarlet Lady. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world! You two are so much fun to be around!”
She opened her back door, and Molly and I picked up Scott and threw him into the back seat. The door slammed shut and the car drove off, with Jonathon Scott screaming soundlessly through the rear window.
“The Big Game isn’t till eight o’clock this evening,” I said. “We have some time to kill. Fancy a lie-down?”
“Yeah,” said Molly. “And afterwards, we can have a little nap.”
“Wicked witch,” I said.
She laughed. “You love it.”
“I couldn’t kill Frankie,” I said.
“Never thought you would,” said Molly. “But I would have. For what they would have done to you.”
CHAPTER NINE
Poker: It’s Not How You Play the Game; It’s How You Play the Players
I hate being nervous.
It doesn’t help, it doesn’t get you anywhere, and it just gets in the way of thinking how to do things properly. As the elevator carried Molly and me up through the hotel to the penthouse floor, I felt more nervous than at any other time on this mission. Because everything I’d done so far, everything I’d been through and endured, had all been leading up to this. The Big Game. My one and only chance to break the bank at Casino Infernale. If I won, if I pulled this off against all the odds, then I could stop a war, save any number of innocent lives, and strike a blow against an organisation I was learning to despise more and more. And, I could win my soul back.
But if I lost, if I screwed it up in the final stretch . . . it didn’t bear thinking about. So, of course I couldn’t think about anything else.
I looked at myself in the mirrored steel wall of the elevator. I thought I looked pretty good in my tuxedo. (Magically restored by Molly to all its former glory.) I looked ready for anything. Because that’s how my family trained me. To be a secret agent, to look just the way I needed to look for any situation. To show a mask and mirror to the world, and never let them see you’re hurting. So I was Eddie Drood, or Shaman Bond, as the situation demanded. Only Molly ever got to see the real me with all my defences down. And even then, only occasionally. Because when you wear a mask long enough, it gets really hard to take it off. The mask becomes your face. I looked at my reflection in the elevator wall and Shaman Bond looked back—shifty and cocky, always looking for an edge. Just the man I needed to be, for the Big Game. So why was I so nervous?
Eddie, or Shaman, or me?
Molly stood beside me, up for anything, as always. She looked magnificent in her new ball gown and she knew it. I don’t think she was nervous. I’m not sure Molly is ever nervous. I saw her scared, on Trammell Island, but then, she had reason to be. I knew how to deal with being scared—everything forward and go for your enemy’s throat. Being nervous, being unsure, is different. When you can’t plan your tactics because you don’t know what you’re getting into.
Luckily, my family’s Sarjeant-at-Arms had a simple answer for nerves: Shut the hell up and soldier.
I breathed deeply a few times, and made myself concentrate on the matter at hand. I had a lot to think about. All the souls I’d won, that I never really wanted, just so I could take a seat at the table at the Big Game. I had to win, because if I didn’t, everything I’d been through so far had all been for nothing. I glared at my reflection. I could do this. I could. I’d been through worse. But that was when there were just lives on the line, rather than souls. I had no armour this time, no backup, just me and Molly against the world. And I had to smile, despite myself. I’d bet on Molly and me, any time. She squeezed my arm reassuringly, and I smiled at her. I might not have my armour, but I still had her.
“Do you think anyone knows what’s happened down in the car park?” said Molly.
“I don’t see how,” I said. “No one in the Big Game should have heard anything. You disappeared all the bodies.”
“And cleaned up all the bloodstains and stuff.”
I grinned. “Always said you’d make a good housewife.”
She punched me lightly in the arm. “I also performed a full mystic sweep, to keep any of the hotel psychics from picking up on what happened. You didn’t even notice, did you? You don’t appreciate me; you really don’t.”
“Unless the hotel’s got a major league telepath stowed away somewhere,” I said. “This is Casino Infernale, after all.”
“Second-guessing never gets you anywhere,” Molly said briskly. “Just makes you nervous.”
“You were the one who was worried whether they were laying a trap for us at the Big Game.”
“You see? Nerves, worrying, second-guessing. And stop frowning like that; you’ll get lines.”
“It just bothers me,” I said, “that our standing at the most important Game depends on whether Jonathon Scott was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t told Franklyn Parris who I really am.”
“He wasn’t lying,” said Molly. “I would have known.”
“You ready to bet your life on that?”
“We are, aren’t we?” said Molly, brightly.
“I will never bet on anything else, ever again, after this,” I said.
The elevator finally slowed to a halt at the penthouse floor. Hopefully, we’d have more luck than the last time we were here, to burgle Parris’ office. The elevator doors slid smoothly open, revealing a corridor packed with heavily armed guards. Molly tensed, and I quickly put a hand on her arm to hold her still. I looked quickly around, but there were no Jackson Fifty-five anywhere. I very slowly and very carefully put my hand inside my jacket, brought out my invitation card, and held it up. Immediately all the guards lowered their guns, just a little. I stepped out of the elevator, doing my best to radiate confidence, and Molly was right there with me, glaring down her nose at everyone else. A small and svelte Japanese lady strode quickly down the corridor towards us, the guards falling swiftly back to get out of her way. She had long black hair, a calm and heavily made-up face, and wore a tight strapless little black dress. It was so still and quiet in the corridor, I could hear the soft tap-tapping of her shoes on the polished floor. She stopped right before us, and bowed to both of us, very politely.
“Hello and welcome to you both, Shaman Bond and Molly Metcalf,” she said, in a soft breathy voice. “I am Eiko. Head of hotel Security. I am here to escort you to the Big Game.”
“You know who we are?” I said carefully. “I don’t think we’ve bumped into you before.”
“I have studied both your files at length, Mr. Bond, Miss Metcalf,” said Eiko. “To make sure I know everything I need to know about you, to protect you more efficiently.”
“Of course,” I said. “How very reassuring.”
“Bet my file is bigger than his,” said Molly.
“Bet mine was more interesting,” I said.
“I think it best that all bets are saved for the Big Game,” said Eiko, diplomatically.
She turned and strode quickly back down the corridor, leaving Molly and me to hurry after her. The guards stood well back to let us pass, lining both walls.
“How long do these affairs usually last?” I said, to the stylised dragon embroidered on the back of Eiko’s dress.
“They take as long as they take,” said Eiko, not looking round. “Hours . . . days . . . it all depends on the players.”
“Why all the armed guards?” Molly said pointedly.
“All for your protection, of course,” said Eiko. “We have had to tighten security recently.”
“Why?” I said, because it would have seemed off if I hadn’t.