“It started out modestly enough. Just a million at first, but I kept on coming back for more and she kept on giving it. More money, more of the Reddman fortune. I was constantly tempted to leave and live high off what was in the trust but my mother was always there to implore me not to take a portion when I could have it all. So I stayed by Mrs. Shaw’s side, pruning her garden, accompanying her on her walks, telling her I needed more and more and more as recompense. And with the weakness of the redeemed she kept giving in. But it wasn’t enough. Some things can’t be bought with just money.

“There was a maid that worked the house, a sweet thing, innocent, really, until I was through with her. She was sent away when her pregnancy was unmistakable but I ordered Mrs. Shaw to bring the child to the estate and raise him to be my heir. Franklin. I didn’t want him to know I was his father but we worked together on the gardens and though he didn’t know, I knew that he was a Poole and that he would inherit the whole of the Wergeld Trust and become as rich as he would have been had not our fortune been stolen from us. But it wasn’t enough.

“He was still just a bastard, rich now, but not a Reddman. So I told Mrs. Shaw I needed one more thing, the most delicious thing of all. She said no and I insisted and she said no and I demanded and finally she gave in. She set it up for me, like a pimp. It wasn’t so hard to arrange, really. D. H. Lawrence did most of the work.

“Summer nights, sneaking into the Poole house, the two of us. I’d place garlands of flowers atop her head and drop rose petals on her sharp breasts. Now she is a pitiful wreck, Selma Shaw, but then she was different, earnest and beautiful. I loved those nights, our brutal strivings, loud enough so Kingsley could hear it all from his window. That was a gift in itself, but there was more. I loved her. Truly. Imagine that, finding love in the course of revenge. When she found herself pregnant she talked of running off with me, but then our child would have been a bastard and not an heir. I loved her, Victor, but what power does love have next to imperatives of the blood. So I turned her away and instead of running off with me she stayed at Veritas and bore Kingsley’s fourth child, a miracle child considering his operation, and, finally, the Pooles had burrowed their way directly into the Reddman line.”

“Caroline,” I whisper.

“And still it was not enough. ‘Get it back, Nat. Get back every cent.’ I would have stopped there, but my mother was insistent, urging me from her bed, plotting it all with me, telling me just how to do it, so that even after she died I had no doubts. It was simply a matter of pruning, like with any plant. Cut off some of the shoots and more precious sap flows into those that remain. I had to wait for Mrs. Shaw to die so that she wouldn’t upset the trust, which she still controlled, and she proved to be a hardy weed, but once she was gone I was free to prune. How fortunate that Walter Calvi came looking for Edward just when I was looking for someone like him. Jacqueline and then Edward. Paid for Robert too but Calvi disappeared before he could deliver. I am not too disappointed, Robert is such a sexual misfit that he’s sure to die heirless, leaving everything to my daughter. I had hoped we could unite the fortune in one family, in one heir, the final triumph of the Pooles, but somehow Mrs. Shaw discovered the two lovebirds and put an end to the affair. Even she had her limits, I suppose.”

He winks at me just then, he winks at me with the self-satisfaction of a clever boy who has just played a clever trick. “Still I figure we did pretty well, we Pooles, wouldn’t you say?”

Of all the stories I had heard in the dealings with the Reddmans and the Pooles, his is the most pathetic. He wants me to smile at him, to nod and acknowledge his success, but I see nothing more before me than a horribly failed life and I won’t give him what he wants.

“And now it is over?” I ask.

“Absolutely.”

“And you’re pleased with yourself?”

“Absolutely. More tea?”

“I intend to collect on my judgment, Nat.”

“Well then, I am going to disappoint you, because I no longer have one hundred million dollars.”

“The records show that more than that was channeled into the Wergeld Trust by Faith Shaw.”

“Yes, it was. As I said, she was trying to make recompense, poor deluded thing, but the money is not mine anymore. Just after her death, and before either of your so-called wrongful killings, I irrevocably transferred all but a few paltry million into trust for my son. He knew nothing of my plans, knew for certain of my guilt only after I had fled. The boy doesn’t even know that the Wergeld trust is his upon my death. So you see, Victor, I couldn’t pay it to you even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”

I stare at him for a moment, wondering whether to believe him or not, and suddenly I do. We had traced money, all right, but not all of what should have been there. The amount that had been transferred from the Cayman Islands to a bank in Luxembourg to a bank in Switzerland, through Libya and Beirut and back through the Cayman Islands, had been just about ten million dollars. I had hoped, somehow, in this meeting, to smoke out the rest and that’s what I have done. It is gone. To Harrington. Out of my reach. A despair falls onto my shoulders.

“There’s still ten million in your control,” I say, clutching at anything. “We know that.”

“Yes, that’s about right, maybe less. Enough to support me through my old age. I like it here, Victor. I like Canek and the country and this jungle and this river and my orchids. I like it here very much. It has become a home, but if you force me to move I will. Guatemala or Paraguay or the Seychelles if need be. Do you know the Seychelles?”

“Off the coast of Africa?”

“That’s it. They have offered a nonextraditable citizenship to anyone willing to pay ten million dollars to the government. They have some very exciting orchids in the Seychelles from what I understand, Madagascan epiphytes like the African leopard orchid and the spectacular Angraecum sesquipedale. If I must I’ll pay the money to them and live quite peacefully with my orchids under their protection. But then, of course, there’d be nothing left for you.”

“What are you proposing?”

“Stop. That’s what I brought you here to tell you. Stop your efforts to trace my money. Stop your lawyer in Belize City from continuing his suit. Do what you can to stop the investigation by the FBI. Tell no one you have seen me here and stop your efforts to hound me as if I were a common criminal. I like it here. I like the jungle. Go away and let me live here in peace and when I die I will provide that all of what remains of my money will go to satisfy your judgment. The interest the Swiss give is rather paltry, but I spend very little here and the amount will grow over time. Go away and leave me alone and someday you’ll get some money out of me.”

“And you would get away with everything.”

“I’ve already gotten away with everything.”

“It’s a rotten deal.”

“It’s the only deal I’m offering, the only way you’ll ever see a dime.”

I stare at him and think it over for a moment and then I take a long drink of tea.

“Do you know what evil is, Nat?” I ask.

He looks at me for a moment, bemusement gently creasing his face. “Failure?” he suggests.

I make a loud sound like a buzzer going off. “No, I’m sorry. Wrong answer.”