The young man drew back his lips in a quick sneer.

“Oh, sure. She showed me that. And she knew it was fucking well faked. There was no certificate—not until years later. It was years before you first produced that. By that time you were fucking rich enough to buy anything you wanted. A back-dated certificate? An infant death? No problem. How much did it cost you? Five hundred dollars? A thousand?”

“Five thousand,” Lazare said.

He spoke in the same quiet voice as before. The boy’s face became a blur of rage and excitement. He was beginning to tremble violently; the barrel of the gun wavered to the ceiling, then back.

“I knew it,” he began on a rising note, “I fucking knew it. You fucking asshole, you bastard…”

“Hold the gun steady,” Lazare said. “If you wave it around like that, it could easily go off. I’m not armed. Look…” He reached inside his jacket, and fear flared in the young man’s eyes. “I simply want to take out my wallet. You see?” He laid the black leather wallet on the desk. “And now I want to take out a photograph, which I would like you to inspect.”

He took out a small colored snapshot as he said this and slid it across his desk. The boy snatched it up, then threw it down.

“Who’s that? Some fucking sick kid. Some spastic kid…”

“That is my son.” Lazare felt such anger then, he wanted to rise, strike out, smash his fist in this young man’s face. He waited, letting that anger subside, then continued in a cold, flat voice.

“That is my son. His name was Christophe Rivière—just as you say. He was born with cerebral palsy. Do you know what that is? It is one of the crudest diseases that can afflict children. It does not necessarily affect the intelligence, but it does cripple the muscles of the body—as you can see from that photograph. It is progressive, and the deterioration cannot be reversed. My money—when I acquired it—bought my son the best possible care. Prior to that he was in a Catholic orphanage for sick children in New Orleans, and then he was in a very fine clinic in New York State. I visited him four times a year, every year of his life. He finally died, shortly before his twelfth birthday, in 1980.”

He looked down at the photograph, then quietly returned it to the wallet and replaced the wallet inside his jacket. The young man never moved once.

Lazare hesitated, then made the smallest gesture of the hand.

“I loved my son intensely. I was always fiercely proud of him. I could never express to you—or to anyone else—how much I admired his courage. The decision to leave him behind in America was the hardest decision I ever made in my life. When I set out to acquire a fortune, I did so for his sake. His welfare—and the welfare of his mother—have always been the controlling factors in my life.” He gave a sigh, and his voice hardened. “I can see you don’t believe me. As you like. For reasons that need not concern you, I chose to shield Maria from this. I see no reason to shield you. You are a fantasist. You are not my son. My son, much as I might wish it, is not likely to return from the dead.”