Frowning, Hiram restored himself to full weight. Then he doubled it.
Then he doubled that.
Instead of trying to push Bludgeon away, he pulled him nearer, hugged him tightly to his ample stomach, and did a bellyflop onto the hardwood floor. It was the second time that day he heard bones crack.
Hiram climbed to his feet, panting, his heart trip-hammering away in his chest. He lightened himself and stood frowning down at Bludgeon, who was hugging his ribs and screaming. As he drifted up off the floor again, Hiram caught him by wrist and ankle and heaved him right out the open window.
He fell up. Hiram went to the window and watched him rise. The wind was from the west. It ought to blow him over the city, toward the East River, Long Island, and eventually the Atlantic. He wondered if Bludgeon could swim.
The bed was ruined. Hiram went to the linen closet. He paused with the sheets in his hand, shook his head, stacked them neatly back in the closet. What was the use? The night was almost gone, and he had so much to do-Aces High was supposed to be open for lunch, someone would have to supervise the repairs, and in a few minutes the dawn would be coming up, the start of a whole new day. He was too tired to sleep anyway.
Sighing deeply, Hiram Worchester went downstairs and began to cook. He made himself a cheese omelet and a triple rasher of bacon, fried up some small red potatoes with onions and peppers, and washed it all down with a large orange juice and a fresh-brewed pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain. Afterward, he was almost certain that he would live.
Around her the city was coming alive. Several million people performing the routine little actions that give form to a life. A litany of the ordinary, the mundane, the comfortable. And Roulette felt a stir of interest, a flare of anticipation. So humdrum when compared to the obsession that had ruled her life. But so restful in its simplicity. She thought she would start by brewing a cup of coffee. And after that? The possibilities were limitless.
There were still merchant ships headed for the Far East. It was still possible to get a cabin on one, though with this short a notice it had been expensive.
But it was done. Fortunato stood at the rail as they steamed out past Governor's Island and into Upper New York Bay.
The sun was coming up over Brooklyn. Underneath him the sea moved at its own pace, vast, balanced, fluid yet unchanging. It was the first of Fortunato's new teachers.