If those two men had chosen a different spot to escape the music, if I had ordered room service instead of coming down for coffee, if I had lingered thirty seconds longer at the window — I might have learned the truth only the next morning, from a lawyer, after the funds were gone.

Instead I learned it from above, looking down, which was, I would come to think, exactly the right angle.

They had spent my whole life looking down on me.

For once, I was the one looking down, and I could see the entire board.

Chapter 9 — The Cup Falls

The cup slipped from my hand, tumbled over the railing, and splashed onto the marble a few feet from them.