His name was Arthur Vance, and he was the chief executive of a logistics company, and everything about him, the charcoal suit, the immaculate desk, the watch, the flat unbothered voice, was arranged to communicate that his time was worth more than mine and that we both knew it.

He did not offer me coffee.

He slid an envelope across the glass toward me, and inside it was five hundred dollars in cash, and he began to explain what it was for without ever quite looking me in the eye.

“My mother is eighty-four,” he said.

“She has severe vascular dementia, and her mind wanders.

She has taken to telling the nurses at her facility that her son abandoned her.

It’s creating an unpleasant narrative among my business associates, and among certain relatives who have a great deal of time and very little information.” He turned a pen over once on the desk.