He has just never once had to put them in a room together and see which one wins.”

Part Fifteen: Robert Dupont

Robert Dupont came to see me on the nineteenth of October.

He did not call ahead.

He drove from Palm Beach to Jacksonville, four and a half hours at seventy-eight years old, and he stood in the lobby of my sister’s building with his hat in his hand — an actual hat, he is that kind of man — and asked the concierge to ring up.

I should not have let him up.