"Some investment," I said.

"Strikes you as ghoulish, doesn't it?"

"I just can't imagine writing out a check and then sitting back and waiting for some stranger to die so I can collect."

"I know what you mean. There have been articles written about this, you know, and not just in the gay press."

"I must have missed them. The man I spoke with did say something about negative publicity."

"Some writers think it's just awful," he said. "Reprehensible to profit from the misfortunes of others, blah blah blah. Horrible to think of anyone making money from AIDS. Well, honey, what do you think the drug companies are doing? What do you think the researchers are doing?" He held up a hand. "Don't tell me there's a difference. I know that. I also know it's not people with AIDS who get upset about viatical transactions, because for us it's a godsend."

"Really."

"Absolutely. Matt, once you've been diagnosed with full-blown AIDS you damn well know you're dying, and this many years into the epidemic you've got a fairly good idea what else the future holds. If somebody in Texas makes it possible for you to live decently and comfortably in the time you've got left, how are you going to think of him? As a bloodsucker or as a benefactor?"

"I see what you mean. But-"

"But even so you can't help seeing one party as a buzzard and the other as roadkill. It's a natural reaction. One company even set up a sort of pool, like a mutual fund for viatical transactions. Instead of an individual buying a single policy, the investment funds are combined and the risk is spread out over a whole portfolio of policies."

"The risk of longevity."

He nodded. He toyed with a stapler on his desk, and I remembered his dead lover's pipes and wondered what he'd done with them, and when. "But most policies are assigned to individual investors," he said. "I think the paperwork must be a lot simpler that way. And there's no great need to spread the risk, because there's not really very much risk to spread. 'Viaticum, money given to a traveler.' Everyone's a traveler, you know. And, sooner or later, everybody makes the trip."

* * *

Back at the Chase branch, Nancy Chang went over Byron Leopold's records again, working backward from the date when he'd deposited the Viaticom check. Every three months there was a check drawn to the order of Illinois Sentinel Life. The checks had stopped two months before he got the Viaticom check.

"He transferred ownership of the policy," I said, "so he stopped paying the premiums, and that became the responsibility of the other party to the transaction."

"And when he died-"

"The insurance company would have paid the money directly to the beneficiary. But who is he and how much did they pay him?"

" 'Always the beautiful answer that asks the more beautiful question,' " she said, and laughed at my evident puzzlement, "e.e. Cummings. Though I suppose it would be more appropriate to quote Wallace Stevens, wouldn't it?"

"Did he have something to say about questions and answers?"

"I'm not sure what he had to say," she said, "because I could never tell what he was getting at. But he worked all his life as an executive with an insurance company. And at the same time he was one of the leading American poets of his time. Can you imagine?"

* * *

I knew I was going to be spending some time on the phone, and I decided I might as well make free calls from my hotel room. If I could work pro bono, so could the phone company.

I called Illinois Sentinel Life, headquartered in Springfield, and got shunted around from one person to another. I didn't get the feeling that any of the men or women I spoke to were among the leading American poets of our time, but how could I be sure?

I finally wound up talking to a man named Louis Leeds who told me, after a certain amount of fencing, that Byron Wayne Leopold had indeed been an Illinois Sentinel Life policyholder, that the face amount of the policy had been $75,000, and that ownership of the policy had been transferred on such and such a date to a Mr. William Havemeyer of Lakewood, Ohio.

"Not Texas," I said.

No, he said, not Texas. Lakewood was in Ohio, and he wouldn't swear to it but it seemed to him that it was, a suburb of Cleveland. The lake would be Erie, he said.

"And the wood?"

"I beg your pardon? Oh, the wood! Very funny. I suppose the wood would oe oak or maple. Or maybe knotty pine, ha ha ha."

Ha ha ha. Had the claim been processed? It had. And had a check been issued to Mr. Havemeyer?

"Well, he's named as the beneficiary, so we could hardly have paid the money to anyone else. And the policy has been retired and noted as paid in full."

I asked if Mr. Havemeyer was the beneficiary of any other policies. There was a pause, and he said he would have no way of knowing that.

"Ask your computer," I said. "I bet it knows. Feed it the name of William Havemeyer and see what it comes up with."

"I'm afraid I couldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because that would be confidential. Our records are by no means public information."

I drew a breath. "William Havemeyer was the beneficiary of Byron Leopold's insurance. He wasn't a friend or a relative of the insured. Leopold sold him the policy."

"That's called a viatical transaction," he said. "It's perfectly legal. We don't entirely approve of them, but in most states the owner of an unencumbered insurance policy has the legal right to transfer ownership in return for a financial consideration."

He talked about the company's requirement that prior beneficiaries be notified, and such complicating circumstances as insurance coverage stipulated in a divorce settlement. "But I don't believe any of that applies in the present circumstance," he said.

"Suppose William Havemeyer has participated in more than one viatical transaction."

"It strikes me as an unpleasant way to seek a return on capital," he said, "but there's nothing illegal about it."

"I understand. Suppose other persons of whose insurance he was the beneficiary also died violently."

There was a pause almost worthy of Gary down in Arlington. Then, slowly, he said, "Do you have reason to believe…"

"I'd like to rule it out," I told him. "And I should think you'd like to rule it out yourself. I understand there's an ethical line here, but it's certainly not unethical for you to check your records. After you've done that, you can decide whether or not to share your findings with me."

I had to repeat that a couple of times, but eventually he decided it was safe to ask his computer for information, since I wasn't there to peek over his shoulder at the screen. He put me on hold, and I listened to elevator music interrupted at all-too-brief intervals with plugs for the peace of mind provided by coverage from Illinois Sentinel Life.

He came back right in the middle of one such announcement. Mr. William Havemeyer, he was able to assure me, not without a tone of triumph, was known to Illinois Sentinel Life solely as the beneficiary of the late Byron Wayne Leopold. He was not insured himself by the company, nor was he either the policyholder or the beneficiary of any other ISL coverage.

"I feel it's all right for me to tell you this," he said, "because I'm not actually imparting any data. I'm simply confirming the absence of such data."

That was true enough, and I thanked him and let it go at that. I didn't see any point in telling him that a failure to do as he had done would have confirmed the opposite; if he'd come back and refused to tell me anything, he'd have been telling me quite a bit.

Always the beautiful question…

* * *

"I don't get it," I told Elaine.

"The appeal of viatical transactions? It's not hard to understand from a dollars-and-cents standpoint." She jotted down numbers on a pad. "The big plunger in Lakewood paid out just over fifty-six thousand, and in less than a year he collected on a seventy-five-thousand-dollar policy. What kind of return is that?" More numbers. "Almost forty percent. Can that be right? Yes, it can, and actually it's more than that, because he didn't have to wait the full year."

"He'd have paid more than fifty-six grand," I pointed out. "Viaticom had to make something for their troubles. They're the ones who put the whole thing together. My guess is that they must have taken a minimum of five thousand dollars off the top before they wrote out their check to Byron."

"So if Mr. Lakewood-"

"Mr. Havemeyer."

"If he paid sixty and got back seventy-five that's a return of what, twenty-five percent per annum? And he got it in less than an annum, and even if he'd waited a full two annums that's still better than the banks give you."

"Would you invest in something like this?"

"No."

"It didn't take you long to answer that one."

"Well, I don't have any moral objection to it," she said. "And the men at the hospice pointed out that it's a real boon to the people with AIDS. So I think it's a good thing that other people are doing it. But it turns my stomach."

"The idea of sitting around and waiting for somebody to die."

She nodded. "And trying not to be irritated when they go on living, and trying not to jump for joy when they die. I mean, screw all that. Or don't you agree?"

"No, I agree completely."

"It may be a great investment," she said, "but not for me. The higher the return, the worse I'd feel about the whole thing. I think I'll stick to real estate. And thrift-shop art."

"I'm with you," I said. "But that's not the part I don't get. Say you're Havemeyer."

"Okay. I'm Havemeyer."

"You've bought a policy on a dying man. You paid, round numbers, sixty thousand dollars. According to medical science, you've got a max of two years to wait before you collect seventy-five thousand."

"So?"

"Why rush things? Why would you come to New York and shoot down a man on a park bench? Why go through that to get the money a few months sooner, or even a whole year sooner?"

"Unless you needed the money right away…"

"It still doesn't make sense. If you need cash that urgently, the policy's an asset. There must be a way you can borrow against it, or sell it to one of Viaticom's other investors. And if you just want to increase your profit, well, I can't see it as a motive for the taking of a human life. You're still getting the same seventy-five grand. You're just getting it a little earlier than you would otherwise."

"Time is money."

"Yes, but it's not that much money. And people who want fast money bad enough to kill for it aren't investing in insurance policies, anyway. They're out there robbing banks or dealing coke."

"Maybe Havemeyer didn't do it."

I shook my head. "It can't be a coincidence," I said. "He just looks too good for it. What do we know about the murder? It was an amateur effort committed by a stranger who knew the name of his victim and said it out loud to confirm his identity before shooting him. That sounds to me like a perfect fit. There's even a motive."

"Money, you mean."