Chapter Two: Four Dollars’ Worth of Causality

Lu watched as the first passenger took a coffee. The number did not move. The second and third cups changed nothing. When the fourth was handed to the woman with the baby, she set it on her tray without drinking and gave Lu a thoughtful look. The fifth cup reached the white-haired man. He smelled it. “Yirgacheffe?” “Regular Americano, sir.” “A pity.” The old man lifted the cup. His wrist emerged from his suit sleeve. There was no silver transaction mark. But Lu noticed the way he held it. There was no tension in the web of his thumb, yet his fingers avoided the hottest part of the cup with perfect precision. It was not the cautious probing of a blind man. It looked like a sighted man performing blindness.