Games For Money- Chapter 2

The letter

It was after school. I was leaning against the wall. Malhaar was reading the letter I had given her during class.

“Wait a minute”, she said “you’re going to go?”

“What could it hurt?”

“It could be illegal, Robin.”

“You don’t know that and besides, nothing’s going to happen. We’re just going to pop in, see what its all about and then leave.”

“It could be unsafe.”, she said in a reluctant tone.

“Since when you care about that?”

“Ok, fine.”

“you’ll come?”, I asked brightly.

“Yes, yes.”

I smiled and turned around.

“So where is this Rose Villa?”

“Right down the 792nd road”

I turned the next corner and nearly bumped into a tall, stocky man.

“Oh, sorry sir”, I said quickly.

He said nothing but just gave us a long appraising look.

“you’re here for the games of money?”, he finally said in a slow drawling voice.

I nodded slowly.

“it’s down the road.”, he said, “I hope you two are up for it.”

I thanked him and ran the down the road with Malhaar right behind me.

“Wait a minute, there are four villas named rose villa!”, exclaimed Malhaar, “which one do we go into?”

“The one by the brick wall has roses but no shoes outside which means there’s no one there”, I said.

“So?”, she snapped, “we could be the only ones invited. Or we could be the first to arrive.”

“No, that’s not possible. For one thing, the time on the card said three o’clock sharp and it’s already three- thirty. For another thing, the card said, ‘games for money’. Games can't happen with only one party.”

She nodded and said, “so which one?”

I moved on to the next house and said “this one has shoes but no roses. The next one has no roses or shoes. And the last one has shoes but again no roses.”

“So? Which one?” she asked with impatience oozing out of her tone.

“This one”, I said with confidence, pointing towards the last house, “there may be no roses but there is a note.”

We scrambled up the steps. I ripped open the note which said- “Rose villa” and had a paper rose taped to it.

“Well, come on”, I said to Malhaar.

We knocked on the door which swung open immediately. A man in full black – black suit, black tie, black shirt, black shoes, even black gloves – stood there.

“Hello, children”, he said, “have you brought the letter?”

“Yes sir”, we said in unison.

“good”, he said, “let us begin.”