Vard was sitting on a suitcase full of money when I offered him an easy afternoon.
"Come downstairs with me," I said. "Sign where they tell you. I'll buy you something to eat on the way."
He bounced on the suitcase. One latch caught.
The casino's private box stood three steps above the gaming floor, behind a red velvet rope that no longer kept anyone out. I had ducked beneath it. Below us, empty card tables faced the great windows over the valley. A long card counter ran from the box steps almost to the rear wall. One table stood on its end halfway along the window side. Most of the windows were boarded, but the late sun came through the gaps and laid bright stripes on the floor. Beyond the rear wall, a pulley squealed.
Vard looked me over: green coat, reinforced knees, cuffs and a folded prisoner hood on my belt. His attention stopped on the paper-wrapped sandwich sticking out of my breast pocket.
"You brought lunch."
"I missed it."
He got the second latch shut, stood, and closed his right hand.
My skeleton gave way. I folded through the velvet rope, bumped down the steps, and arrived on the gaming floor in a shape the coat had not been cut for.
The sandwich landed several feet away. Pickle juice spotted the boards.
From behind the card counter, a young man in a blue waistcoat stared at me. He had one hand over his mouth. He lowered it just enough to say, "Dude, you must have broke like ALL your bones?"
I put my jaw back where it belonged.
"Oh, I break my bones all the time," I said, drawing my wrists straight. My fingers settled into their proper places, one hand after the other. I didn't flinch. I was watching a dark patch spread through the sandwich paper.
The young man made a small, unhappy sound as my shoulders returned to their usual arrangement.
"You can look away," I told him.
He tried. His eyes got as far as my right boot and came straight back.
Up in the box, Vard dragged the suitcase down from its chair. He had dismissed me so thoroughly that he was humming.
I straightened my back. Hips next, then legs. My left knee resisted for a moment; a fold of coat had caught beneath it. I pulled the cloth free, finished setting the leg, and got up.
The young man backed into the counter.
"Careful," I said. "I can't do yours."
He looked down at his own knee, then up at me. "What are you?"
"Expensive to insure. Is that your employer?"
"Since nine this morning."
"Long day."
"He said watch the front door. That's all he said. He didn't say anything about—"
Vard's suitcase stopped scraping.
I turned. He was standing on the bottom step with one hand on the handle, staring at me with the look people usually reserved for a bill they remembered paying.
"You should be down," he said.
"I was."
His gaze moved from my head to my boots. I let him finish. The reward notice had been specific: he had to see his victim and close his right hand. It also described what happened afterward. It hadn't mentioned a limit on how often he could do it. I had hoped for one.
Behind me, the young man whispered, "Should I get someone?"
"You're doing very well with the someone you've got."
Vard ran.
For a man who could do that to people, he was pleasingly ordinary about luggage. He banged the case against the velvet-rope post, had to turn sideways to get it past, and lost enough time for me to reach him.
Almost.
He glanced back, closed his hand, and I came apart again.
My forward motion continued. I hit the waxed boards on my side and slid past two tables, coat flapping behind me, until the brass foot of a roulette wheel stopped me.
That was worth remembering.
Vard had stopped too. He stood beside a card table, breathing hard, with the suitcase between his shoes. He hadn't expected me to travel so far.
Then he looked at the space still between us and took out his watch.
I began with my jaw again. It made conversation easier. Hands, shoulders, back. He watched my legs, waiting to see when they could carry me.
One of his suitcase latches had sprung during the run. While I worked, he tucked a roll of notes back beneath the lid. He never looked entirely away.
"Tavi," he said. "Bring the other case."
The young man behind the counter didn't move.
"Tavi."
"You said it was papers."
"It is papers."
"You said employment papers."
Vard pressed the lid with his knee. "Bring it."
"Stay there, Tavi," I said.
He dropped behind the counter. Vard could no longer see him. That seemed an excellent beginning to a new career.
As my feet straightened, Vard snapped his watch shut.
"Ten seconds," he said.
"You didn't have to watch."
He picked up the suitcase and backed toward the rear wall.
I stood. The casino settled around us: creaking boards, the little rattle of a loose window shutter, Vard's quick breaths. His fist remained closed at his side. He opened it slowly, ready for the next time.
From outside came a bell.
Tavi's face appeared at the end of the counter, low to the floor. "That's the car."
The rear wall had one narrow door, half glass, with DOWNHILL lettered above it. Beyond the glass I could see a small railed landing over the drop. A cable carriage was rising toward it, its roof emerging against the valley.
Vard had booked a private trip. The casino had been closed since autumn; nobody from the lower station would come up here to see who was using the ticket.
"How long does it wait?" I asked.
"A minute. Then they ring again. Then it goes. He was very particular about that when he ordered it."
Vard tried to pick up the suitcase with his left hand. It was too heavy. He transferred it back to the right, watching me all the while.
A row of tables separated my path along the windows from Vard's path down the center aisle. Both led to the downhill door. He was closer. He had brought most of a bank.
The carriage bumped against the landing. Through the glass door, its gate slid open.
Vard looked at it.
I moved.
He dropped the suitcase and raised his hand. I ducked behind the upended table, out of his sight.
There was a short silence.
"I'm still here," he said.
"So am I."
Tavi crawled to the counter's rear end, a few steps from the downhill door. He peered across at me, his blue waistcoat grey with dust.
"Doesn't it hurt?" he whispered.
"Not me."
"Any of it?"
"The coat costs a fortune."
He looked at the broad patches over my knees. They were a shade darker than the rest of the green wool.
"You do this on purpose?"
"Sometimes landing is quicker than the stairs."
My tailor had stopped asking. This was the coat's third lining. The first had survived a bell tower; the second had stayed on a brewery chimney after the rest of me went home.
"When he's looking at me, keep down," I said. "When he's wearing the hood, you can come out."
"And if he doesn't end up wearing the hood?"
"Give me a minute."
"The car only waits a minute."
"Then don't distract me."
He ducked. A moment later, one eye reappeared at the counter's edge.
I checked that the hood hadn't caught under my belt, then loosened its fold. The cuffs were still clipped beside it. Beyond the table, Vard's case scraped forward a few inches, stopped, then scraped again.
"Leave the case," I suggested.
"Come out."
"Leave the case and I'll think about it."
The scrape stopped.
Outside, the pulley gave a preliminary clank.
My heel squeaked on the wax as I leaned forward.
Vard said, very quietly, "Don't."
I ran.
Three strides behind the cover of the tables. Two more in the open, hard and fast. I aimed past him, toward the strip of floor inside the downhill door.
Vard braced his feet and set down the case. I was level with him when his right hand closed.
My knees went. I let the fall turn me onto my side, and the polished boards took over. The ceiling swept sideways. A chair leg passed close to my face. I slid the last few feet and stopped across the doorway, with my back against one jamb and my folded legs in front of the other.
The open carriage waited beyond the landing.
Vard stared at me. Then he looked up at the clock above the door.
I lay still.
For the first time that afternoon, I made no attempt to repair my jaw.
The departure bell rang.
Vard seized his suitcase. He had timed my last repair: jaw first, legs last. He could be inside the car before I got to my shoulders.
He hurried toward me, his face tight with calculation.
I watched his shoes.
He planted one on the landing beyond my crooked leg and lifted the other to follow.
I set that leg and lifted it across the doorway.
His trailing foot caught my straightened shin. He pitched forward, the suitcase hit the landing, and he landed on his hands and knees with his back to me.
My right hand came together. Then my arm and back.
I pulled the hood from my belt and leaned forward as he started to turn. The black cloth went over his face. I held it there.
He shut his fist.
Nothing happened to me.
"No," he said into the hood.
I restored my other arm. We wrestled across the suitcase. He tried to drag the cloth away; I caught his wrist, and the first cuff closed. Getting both hands behind him took longer, but I was close now, and a man trying to wrestle with luggage between his knees has already made several poor choices.
I closed the second cuff behind his back.
For a moment we were both breathing hard. My left leg was still folded under me. Vard's expensive watch ticked beside my ear.
"Ten seconds," he said.
I put my jaw right.
"Only if you want all of them."
The carriage gate began to close.
Tavi shot out from behind the counter and caught it with both hands.
"Now?" he said.
"Now."
I finished my left leg, stood, and got Vard upright. He needed help stepping over the suitcase. I gave him that much.
Tavi hauled the case in after us. The gate caught behind it. We had just enough time to find seats before the landing slid upward past the windows.
For a little while, Tavi said nothing.
The casino withdrew into the cliff face. From below it looked respectable: long windows, pale stone, a small terrace where people had once drunk expensive drinks while deciding whether they could afford another expensive drink. Vard sat in the middle of the carriage, hooded and cuffed, with his money wedged between his shoes.
I kept one hand on his shoulder. With the other I took out the reward notice.
"Prominent nose," I read. "Grey at the temples. Signet ring on right hand. Yes. You look much more cheerful in this."
"That's a drawing," Vard said.
"Good likeness."
Tavi watched me fold the notice.
"You left your finger," he said.
My little finger was pointing the wrong way. I set it straight and flexed my hand.
Tavi took a breath. This time it came out as a laugh, too loud for the little carriage. He pressed both hands over his face and laughed again.
Vard turned his hood toward him.
Tavi stopped for a moment. Then he looked at the cuffs, looked at my hand on Vard's shoulder, and let the rest of it out.
"Witness fee," he said at last.
"What?"
"You were going to need someone to say he did it. I saw him do it. Three times."
"You were working for him."
"Until you arrived. Very short employment. Mainly induction."
I considered him. He had kept the gate open. He had also brought the suitcase, which would make the people paying my reward considerably more pleasant to deal with.
"Twenty," I said.
"Thirty."
"Twenty-five."
He reached inside his waistcoat and produced a small parcel of sandwich paper.
"And I saved this. Only the bottom half got squashed."
He unfolded it. Bread, cheese, pickle. A little flat on one edge, but perfectly edible.
I looked at the sandwich. I looked at Tavi.
"Thirty," I said.
Vard made a disgusted noise beneath the hood.
I took a bite, chewed, and swallowed.
"I offered you lunch," I reminded him.