Geist didn’t have a plan of his own to take down Hardin. He had the germ of an idea, maybe. The guy didn’t like to get his own hands dirty, clearly. It was a bad job to let some pack of amateurs do the hard part and just reap the rewards. Not against the rules, mind. Just frowned upon, unless you did it with exceptional style or hypnotism or something like that, although gimmicks were also generally considered gauche at best and a major risk of exposure at worst. He had once known an assassin who used as the basis of his contracts a series of stage magic old standards. All well and good, until you run out of the good ones. There’s only so many “saw-a-lady-in-half”s you can pull before you have to start resorting to embarrassing gags like “pulling a Black Mamba out of a hat,” which bring the whole tone of the profession down. The Astounding Malvolio hadn’t lasted long after that…

A Twisted Game: Chapter Four