“Really rich,” Olive said.

“Riding a junk bike in the rain at Waimea.” He handed the file folder to her.

She placed the folder with the others on the table, handling it with care, a sort of dignified formality, as though concluding a ritual, one that Sharkey was relieved to see ending. The mass of paper had confused him, the documents were hard to read, the print was small, some of it made no sense to him. Such documents needed to be interpreted, studied, comprehended, turned into basic English, and even then they hardly hung together.

Sharkey was relieved to see Olive gathering the loose paper, making a single pile, a stack of folders. He smiled when he saw her slip the stack into her canvas tote, the one she carried to the hospital. He thought, Take the paper away from me.

“So what do we know?” she said.

“We know who he was. Max Mulgrave. That was the guy.”

“That you killed.”

Sharkey clawed at his face, rubbed his eyes; he sighed; he said, “Yes, yes. Okay, I know. It’s all there, in the paperwork.”

“The drunk homeless guy,” Olive said.

This silenced Sharkey, because just as the man had begun to come into focus, as a surfer or a soldier, he had dissolved and become indistinct, lost and distorted in the thick green camouflage of money.

“You know his name. His military record. His university. His business. But you don’t know who he is. Think about it—if someone knew your name, what would they know about you?”

“A lot,” Sharkey said. “That I won the Triple Crown. Endorsements. That I surfed Tahiti and Nazaré. Rocked the Pipe. Shredded Waimea.”

“And what would that add up to?” she said.

As she was speaking, with those school-teacher questions, Sharkey thought how she had lost her looks, become plainer and plainer with each demand, not the woman he had loved. Her questions, the way she asked them, her flat voice, her pinched face, made her a stranger, an unattractive one, someone he wanted to run away from.

“Those bare facts”—she was still talking—“is that you?”

“I’m Joe Sharkey. The surfer. The whole world knows that.”

“You’re a sixty-two-year-old man,” Olive said, holding him still, piercing him with her stare. “You’re selfish, narcissistic, and ungrateful. You’ve spent your whole life doing whatever the bloody hell you’ve wanted to, living on your mother’s money. All I’ve ever heard from you is how awful the human race is, why most people are worthless, and why do women have children. You’ve had every advantage and you’re still a misanthrope—and for your information, that’s someone who hates people.”

“Say what you like. You’re trying to hurt my feelings. I don’t care.”

“I’m trying to save you,” she said.