It was useless to try sleeping when my thoughts were swirling and twisting in my head like snakes on cocaine.

When the sun finally started coming up, I rolled out of bed and made coffee. There was no point in lingering in bed, struggling to get some shuteye when I was sure that it wasn't going to happen.

Evening eventually came, and Tony knocked at my door. It was time to leave for the airport. He drove in his rented car while with the radio on some questionable music station. We didn't talk. He was also tired; the dark circles under his eyes couldn't tell a clearer story.

We stopped next to the airport. Tony gave me a pair of sunglasses, and he just tossed a hat on his head. He said that wearing both would be suspicious. We saw the man about half an hour later while he was walking through security.

Tony looked at the bag and frowned.

"The fucker has it cuffed to his hand," he said. "Well, there goes my idea…"

I had no idea what Tony was going to do, and a part of knew that I wasn't going to like it. I didn't say anything. After all, I was the one that agreed to this in the first place. I just wanted him to be a bit more organized and not jeopardize our – MY - safety. We were dealing with priceless art and a man that I knew almost nothing about.

We followed the man to his hotel. It took an excruciatingly long time; the traffic was horrendous, and Tony had debatable taste in music and refused to change to something else.

"Finally," Tony said once we reached the guy's hotel. "I have a plan."

"Of course, you do." I scratched my head. It was going to go south faster than a guy with cement shoes tossed into the river. "What's the plan?"

He shrugged a little, nonchalantly, pretending like everything was rosy and great.

"I'll make him come downstairs and while I talk to him about ugh… I'll wing it, you go to his room and switch the bags."

"Sounds great," I said. "How are you going to make him come downstairs. Do you know his room? His name?" All of those were just unimportant bits of information that we could overlook, of course.

"I don't," Tony said. "But, your sugar daddy does."

"He is not; he's not… he is not my sugar daddy."

"Sure, pal."

He held his phone to his ear and waited. I thought that Arthur wasn't going to answer; it was probably 6-7 AM back home. He was undoubtedly sleeping.

He answered, and Tony smiled at me widely. He told Arthur everything we knew about our target, which frankly, wasn't much at all. Arthur asked us to give him about ten minutes. I wasn't sure what he could do in ten minutes, but the man was resourceful.

Five minutes later, Tony's phone rang. It seemed that Arthur King was more than resourceful. He told Tony the man's name and the man's room number, floor, and, just to brag about how good he was at gathering intel, his age, and marital status. He was, after all, a show-off in all areas of his damn life.

This was going suspiciously well, and I didn't like that. As a friend of mine once said, Murphy doesn't sleep, and if something can go wrong, it will.

Tony walked into the hotel first and talked to the receptionist, asking for the man. I walked a couple of moments later and, when the man was there, looking confused. I took the elevator to the seventh floor. His room was 706. And of course, the door was locked, and it had one of those fancy magnetic locks. Great. Not even Arthur could've told us that.

I looked around, feeling sweat gathering on my forehead. I was just a bartender, a regular guy that was not breaking into a man's hotel room to steal – STEAL – an invaluable piece of art.

"Sorry?" I heard a woman's voice, and I turned around just to meet the eyes of a cleaning lady. She was smiling brightly at me, and I smiled too, trying not to look like a guy stealing condoms from a drugstore.

"Ugh, hello," I said. "I ugh…" I gestured towards the door, doing everything I could not to freak out completely.

"Forgot key inside?" She asked chuckling.

"Yes," I said. "I forgot the – the card inside, and the door locked itself."

The woman chuckled and opened the door for me. I thanked her politely and walked inside. God, I was a criminal.

I glanced around the room, the man didn't unpack yet, and the bag was sitting on the nightstand, next to the bed. I almost tripped, trying to reach it. Once there, I switched the eggs and bolted out. The door locked behind me.

As I was walking out of the hotel, Tony saw me. He kept the man busy for a couple more minutes before following me back to the car.

"God, keeping him there was like trying to keep an ADHD cat entertained. You got the egg?"

"Yeah," I said and placed my hand on my chest. I felt like throwing up. "Let's go before I literally die."

"Nobody's dying," he said and started the car. I opened the bag and looked at the egg. It was identical to the one I had left in the hotel room. I touched it, nervously. Nothing happened.

"At least Arthur's gonna be happy," I muttered.

"I don't know how happy that man can be," Tony muttered, and it seemed like an odd thing to say. Arthur navigated through life, acting like problems were nothing more than pesky flies.

Back at the hotel, I felt nervous, anxious even. It was too easy. The whole thing was way too easy. Tony didn't mind me and said that it was probably some sort of aftershock from entering the criminal world. I wasn't a proper criminal. I was a mild criminal at best. Right? It wasn't even REAL theft. The guy had no way to tell that his egg wasn't authentic. Arthur said so. So if he didn't know, it didn't count. I couldn't be a criminal.

Hours later, while I was watching weird ads on TV, Tony knocked on my door frantically. I opened it.

"We gotta go," he said, and when I just stood there, dumbfounded, he shook me by the arms. "We. Have. To. Go. Now!"

"Alright, alright." I grabbed my phone.

"No packing, get your IDs, and let's go."

"Jesus, what's going on?"

"Ugh, yeah. It seems that ugh …someone's looking for us. It might be the egg guy."

"WHAT? How do you know that?

"I went out to get some smokes and saw some guys checking all rooms. They might not be looking for us, but I'm not risking it. Can you hurry?" 

We bolted to the rented car with just our id's and the cursed egg.

Then I realized that there was a cold metal pressed on the back of my neck. Fuck Tony and his plans and fuck Arthur too.