Somehow, though, I knew I wasn’t in any danger. There was a greater risk that he’d seize the opportunity to turn the knife or gun on himself, and I figured he had the right. But he didn’t strike me as suicidal, either.
He came out carrying a silver-handled walnut tray bearing a china teapot flanked by a sugar bowl and a little milk pitcher. There were spoons and cups and saucers as well, and he set everything out on the coffee table. I drank my tea black, while he added milk and sugar to his. The tea was Lapsang souchong. I can’t ordinarily tell one kind of tea from another, but I recognized its smoky bouquet before I’d even taken a sip.
“There’s nothing like a cup of tea,” he said.
I’d brought a pocket tape recorder along, and I took it out and set it on the table. “I’d like to record this,” I said. “If it’s all right with you.”
“I suppose it’s all right,” he said. “Really, what difference does it make?”
I switched on the recorder. “This is a conversation between Matthew Scudder and William Havemeyer,” I stated, and mentioned the date and time. Then I sat back and gave him a chance to say something.
“I guess you know everything,” he said.
“I know most of it.”
“I knew you’d come. Well, not you, not specifically. But someone. I don’t know what made me think I could get away with it.” He raised his eyes to mine. “I must have been crazy,” he said.
“How did it happen?”
“That boat,” he said. “That awful, awful boat.”
“The ferry.”
“The Magnar Syversen. They had no business keeping the damnable boat in service, you know. It was manifestly unsafe. You wouldn’t believe how many violations they uncovered. And do you know how many people were needlessly killed?”
“Eighty-four.”
“That’s right.”
“And John Wilbur Settle was one of them.”
“Yes.”
“And you held a policy on his life,” I said. “You’d bought it through a broker in Texas who specializes in viatical transactions. You’d already been a party to one such transaction, involving a man named Phillips.”
“Harlan Phillips.”
“You made money on Phillips,” I said, “and invested it in Settle.”
“These were good investments,” he said.
“So I understand.”
“Good for all concerned. For the poor men who were horribly ill and had no money, and for those of us seeking a safe investment with a generous return. I’m sorry, you told me your name but I don’t remember it.”
“Matthew Scudder.”
“Yes, of course. Mr. Scudder, I’m a widower. My wife had multiple sclerosis, she was ill for most of the years of our marriage and died almost seven years ago.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It was, I suppose. You get used to it, just as you get used to being alone. I worked for over twenty years for the same corporation. Five years ago they offered me early retirement. ‘You’ve been such a good and faithful employee for so many years that we’ll pay you to quit.’ They didn’t use those words, obviously, but that’s what it amounted to. I accepted their offer. I didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter.”
“And that gave you money to invest.”
“It gave me money that I had to invest if I was going to have sufficient income to see me through. Savings bank interest wouldn’t be enough, and I’ve never been comfortable with risk. You flew here, didn’t you? I’ve never flown anywhere in my life. I’ve always been afraid to fly. Isn’t that ridiculous? I shot a man dead in the street, I murdered him in cold blood without turning a hair, but I’m afraid to get on an airplane. Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous in your life?”
I tried not to glance at the tape recorder. I just hoped it was getting all this.
I said, “When the boat sank...”
“The Magnar Syversen. A floating death trap. You’d expect better than that from the Scandinavians, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, it was an accident.”
“Yes, an accident.”
“And that was relevant, wasn’t it? The policy you held on the life of John Wilbur Settle was for fifty thousand dollars, and if he’d stayed home and died of AIDS that’s what you would have received in the course of time.”
“Yes.”
“But because his death was the result of an accident...”
“I got twice that much.”
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
“Yes.”
“Because the policy had a double-indemnity clause.”
“Which I didn’t even know about,” he said. “I had no idea whatsoever. When the insurance company check arrived I thought they’d made a mistake. I actually called them up, because I was sure that if I didn’t they’d come around wanting the money back with interest. And they told me about double indemnity, and how I was getting twice the face amount of the policy because of the way Mr. Settle died.”
“Quite a windfall.”
“I couldn’t believe it. I’d paid thirty-eight thousand dollars for the policy, so I was already getting a very good return on my investment, but this was just remarkable. I had very nearly tripled my investment. I’d turned thirty-eight thousand dollars into a hundred thousand.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes.”
“So you entered into another viatical transaction.”
“Yes. I believed in it as an investment medium, you see.”
“I can understand why.”
“I put some of the proceeds in the bank and the rest in a viatical transaction. I bought a larger policy this time, seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“Did you first make sure there was a double-indemnity clause?”
“No! No, I swear I didn’t.”
“I see.”
“I never asked. But when I received the policy—”
“You read it.”
“Yes. Just, you know, to see if there was such a clause.”
“And as it happened there was.”
“Yes.”
I let the silence stretch, drank some more of my tea. The red light glowed on the side of my little tape recorder. The tape advanced, recording the silence.
“Some commentators have been very critical of viatical transactions. Not as an investment, everyone agrees that they’re a good investment, but the idea of waiting for a person to die so that you can benefit financially. There was a cartoon I saw, a man walking in the desert and vultures circling overhead. But it’s not like that at all.”
“How is it different?”
“Because you just don’t think about the person that much. If you think of him at all you wish him well. I’d certainly rather have a man enjoy one more month of life than that my investment mature one month sooner. After all, I know he’s not going to live forever, that much is a medical fact, and both my principal and the interest on it are guaranteed by the irreversible biological progress of his condition. With both Harlan Phillips and John Settle, why, I knew they were going to die, and within a fairly certain period of time. But I didn’t dwell on it, and I didn’t wish it sooner.”
“But with Byron Leopold it was different.”
He looked at me. “Do you know what it is to be obsessed?” he demanded.
“I’d have to say I do.”
“If the disease were to run its course and he to die of it, I would get seventy-five thousand dollars. If he should happen to be struck by a car, or slip and fall in the bathtub, or die in a fire, then I would receive twice that amount.” He took off his glasses, held them in both hands, and stared at me, defenseless. “I could think of nothing else,” he said. “I could not get the fact out of my mind.”