A little voice in me disputed that suggestion, saying that things were going so nicely, it would be a shame to screw them up so soon in the relationship.
“Not that there is a relationship,” I said to my reflection, getting out a razor and shaving cream. “It’s just physical pleasure. Nothing more. No emotional entanglements.”
My reflection looked skeptical at that.
“I’ll tell her,” I said later, when I was pulling on my shoes and checking to make sure I had my wallet and passport. “I’ll her the truth. Then she won’t have to feel guilty about me feeling guilty, and she can wrap those gorgeous legs around me with abandon.”
The production company had chosen a hotel that had a banquet room, which was where our first night’s dinner was held. I scanned the room for Paulie, but didn’t see her. I intended on waiting around the door so that I could be there when she arrived, but Rupert beckoned me over. Reluctantly, and with an eye on the door, I wound my way around the tables to where he sat with the other English team.
“This is Dixon,” he said, introducing me. “Dix, I told Stephen here that you’d be able to help him with a spreadsheet.”
The man in question smirked. “Would you mind terribly? The hub here insists that we keep our plans ordered, so that we can check them off as we get to them,and I can’t get the damned thing to do anything but clump the text up as a wad.”
I gave Rupert a telling look, which he ignored. He mumbled something about saying hello to one of the personal assistants and headed off while I took the seat next to balding Stephen. I glanced at the other two men, unsure of which was the husband. “Er... hello. Nice to see some fellow countrymen. I don’t think we met earlier?”
“No, we were present for the first night’s dinner only,” one of the other two men said, “and fittings of course.” He was dark haired, with a beard and thick black glasses, looking like a stereotypical geek.
“We had plans, you see,” said the third, a man whose origins were probably somewhere in the Caribbean, if the slight accent was anything to go by. “Hub three wanted to go to Atlantic City quite badly.”
“Hub three?” I asked, confused as hell.
“We’re polyamorous,” Stephen said with a bright smile. “We’re all married to each other. I’m hub three, Sanders is hub one, and Sammy is hub two.”
“I see.” I looked at the tablet, squinting at the tiny window of spreadsheet. I made it bigger and tried to decipher the jumbled text.
“We shock ever so many people back home when we tell them,” Sanders (dark hair and glasses) said with obvious complacency. “But here no one will turn a hair to us.”
“Except for the fact that we’re the villains,” the last one said. By process of elimination, I figured he must have been Sammy. “People’ll have a thing or two to say about us because of that—don’t you know?”
I managed to get the text spread out so that it was readable. The words I saw there and the ones spoken had me looking up in surprise. “You’re the villains?”
“Yes, isn’t it exciting?” Stephen beamed at me and ruffled his fringe of light brown hair until it stood on end.“We’re ever so thrilled to have the part, and as I said, the hub—hub two—wants to keep our list straight so we don’t repeat ourselves.”
“I think,” I said, setting the tablet down, “I’m going to need this explained to me. I wasn’t aware we were assigned specific roles. I thought we were just racing.”
“Oh, we are,” said Stephen. “Didn’t you see that movieThe Great Race? We’re the villains just like Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk were the villains. We’re here to win the race at all cost, and we will do whatever it takes to do so.”
“But that was a movie,” I protested.
“Yes, but this is TV,” Sammy pointed out. “It’s almost the same thing.”
“Even if we ignore that, we’re still left with the fact that this race is based on a real one, one in which there were a handful of people traveling around the world, and I don’t recall hearing anything about any of them being self-declared villains.” I looked from one to another of them. They all stared back at me with blithe indifference.
“It’ll make for good TV,” Sammy insisted. “Roger thinks it’s an excellent idea.”
“Then he’s insane if he thinks I’m going to aid and abet you attempting to sabotage my team or any other team.” I held up the tablet. “These plans are downright actionable.”
“Oh, they’re not that bad,” Stephen said, waving away my concern. “It’s not like we’re going to hurt anyone, after all. We’re not psychopaths! We just want to throw a few spanners in the works.”
“Nice ones,” Sammy agreed, nodding. “Ones that slow people down.”
“That’s cheating,” I said, my voice rife with disbelief and outrage.
Sanders shrugged. “There’s nothing to stop any of you from throwing spanners in our works, you know.”
“Only the fact that we value good sportsmanship and common decency,” I snapped, and thought seriously of handing the tablet back when a thought occurred to me.
“Now, don’t take that attitude,” Stephen said in a voice that I assumed was meant to be soothing. “It’s all part of the reality TV game, Dixon. You need to open yourself up to the sorts of shenanigans that go on in front of the camera. You’ll see—our plans will spice things up just enough to keep you all on your toes and to provide for some truly epic footage.”
