A thin olive-skinned man with a salt-and-pepper pompadour that looks as if it were sculpted by a patient hand and then left to survive a storm, he carries himself with a dancer's economy and a conjurer's timing. His red and blue silk shirt is immaculate at first glance, but closer inspection reveals tiny repaired tears, faint scorch-marks at the cuffs, and threadbare seams hidden beneath the sheen. He wears his clothes like a performer who knows exactly when to be seen and exactly when to vanish. His face is narrow and striking, with sharp cheekbones, a faint scar crossing one eyebrow, and hands that seem too elegant to have ever done honest labor, though the calluses on his fingers tell a different story. The most unexpected thing about him is a pair of plain wool work boots, mud-stained and stubbornly practical, as if a laborer had borrowed the body of a virtuoso and never returned it.