“Your teacher is an idiot.”
He knocked on the door.
There was no policeman sitting outside. Bought off? Dragged into the stairwell and hit on the head by Cinnamon-Breath? I didn’t know and I didn’t dwell on it. I told myself all this clandestine crap would soon be a part of my past.
A wheelchair sat against the wall. I plopped down; Nueve tucked his cane under his arm and wheeled me to the elevator.
“Samuel’s room,” I said as Nueve reached to press the button for the first floor.
“You insist?”
“I do.”
They had moved him to a private room. Nueve left me sitting in the hall and went inside. I could hear the rise and fall of their voices as they argued. Occasionally a word or two made it through the thick door. A couple of times I thought I heard the name “Sofia,” but it also could have been “sofa,” only it was hard to imagine why they would be arguing about a piece of furniture. Samuel had said the “Sofia” in ICU, and I wondered again if she was his nurse. But why would they be arguing about a nurse? Maybe Sofia was someone from Samuel’s past that Nueve was trying to use against him: Watch yourself or we’re going after Sofia. I tried to imagine Samuel having a girlfriend, and failed.
Then Nueve came out and wheeled me inside the room. Samuel was sitting next to the window, a book open in his lap.
He took in the getup. “You look ridiculous.”
“It’s a disguise, Samuel.”
“The shoes are all wrong,” he said to Nueve. “You should have gone with pumps.”
“I tried,” Nueve said. “I was overruled.”
He took a long white envelope from the outer pocket of his doctor’s coat and laid it on top of Samuel’s book.
“What’s this?” Samuel asked.
“Your severance pay, courtesy of Senor Kropp.”
Samuel peered at the piece of paper.
“I thought you might prefer it in a Swiss account,” Nueve said.
“Twenty-five million ...” Samuel said softly. He looked up at me.
“Well,” I said. “I don’t really know how old you are, but I wanted you to have at least a million dollars for every year until you, um, died.”
“Alfred Kropp,” Nueve said. “Boy adventurer, actuary.”
Samuel shoved the paper toward me. “I don’t want it.”
“Of course!” Nueve murmured.
“I will not take it, Alfred.”
“Why not?”
He tore the certificate in half, then in quarters, and let the pieces flutter to the floor around his bare feet.
“You are letting your fear get the best of you,” Samuel told me.
“Well,” Nueve said. “You have made your noble gesture, Senor Kropp, and the driver is waiting.”
“Hiding solves nothing, Alfred,” Sa
muel said. “You have not thought this through.” He turned to Nueve. “Leave us.”