Poppy Demands Ransom from Samas

Poppy’s demand for twenty million dollars from Samas transforms the return of The Rendezvous into both a high-stakes negotiation and a confrontation over their shared past at Latsei. With the painting in her hands and a lighter at its frayed edge, she makes Samas choose between paying far more than he first offered and watching a valuable work burn. The result is a transfer of ten million dollars each to Poppy and Evan—and a settlement whose financial terms cannot be separated from Poppy’s desire to make Samas answer for an old betrayal.

The failed delivery and Poppy’s offer

Near morning, Poppy wakes Evan and tells him they must go make the delivery. The painting lies unrolled on the floor in front of an open guitar case. Evan had been expected to deliver it at the docks after finishing his part of the job, but he has not arrived there. Poppy says Samas has already heard that Evan is overdue and probably unsuccessful, and is likely contacting another prospective helper. The missed handoff gives the painting an immediate practical urgency: the existing arrangement may be slipping away while Samas looks for someone else to complete it.

As she rolls the canvas, Poppy notices and translates the handwritten dedication on its back. It addresses Emil as the writer’s dearest and only beloved woman, and compares her favors to a guiding star. Poppy dismisses the sentiment as saccharine, but pauses to look at the image and asks Evan whether he can picture the story behind it. The inscription adds an intimate history to the work she is preparing to use as leverage; in this moment, however, her attention is also fixed on the transaction still to come.

Poppy makes Evan a direct offer: she can protect his financial interest and pay him more than Samas has offered, taking the painting from him immediately. Accepting could leave Evan a multimillionaire, free to walk away from the stolen work. He declines. He wants to see the matter through with her, and Poppy’s bright response makes clear that this choice matters to her. Their agreement is not simply that they will divide proceeds; Evan is choosing to trust her with the outcome, while she is choosing to bring him into a confrontation she intends to control.

A personal grievance made public

At the meeting with Samas, Poppy arrives with Evan and places the guitar on the railing before opening its case. She removes the canvas and lets it unfurl in front of Samas. His expression changes as he realizes that Poppy, not Evan, has the long-awaited painting. She needles him about no longer laughing, then makes the division of responsibility explicit: Evan did nothing wrong; she took the painting from him for her own reasons, and the dispute is between her and Samas.

Samas recognizes that the confrontation is still about Latsei. Poppy answers that there can be no forgiveness without remembrance. The exchange gives the demand its personal force. She is not presenting the painting as neutral collateral or merely pressing for the best available price. She has taken control of it so she can confront Samas directly, and the object’s return becomes the setting for a grievance that money alone cannot explain.

She draws a slim gold cigarette lighter from her purse and tells Samas that she wants to see his face when she burns the canvas. Evan watches as she raises the lighter toward the dry, frayed border. The threat is credible enough to change the negotiation: Samas pleads with her, and the flame begins to blacken a lower corner. The painting’s vulnerability is visible in the small, concrete danger of fire spreading from its edge. Poppy uses that danger to make delay costly and to force Samas to respond to her terms.

The twenty-million-dollar settlement

Samas first proposes three million dollars. Poppy rejects the amount and demands twenty million, insisting that he has the money and knows the painting is worth twice that. When he hesitates, she moves the flame closer. He gives in, and the lighter clicks shut before the fire can consume the canvas. The shift from three million to twenty is the decisive turn: Poppy has made the threatened destruction of the artwork her leverage, and Samas accepts the price rather than lose it.

Poppy then offers Evan half of the twenty million. He stammers that the division is more than fair, but she rebukes him for setting his standards too low and allowing scoundrels to prey on him. Her response makes the split more than a convenient reward for his participation. She treats it as protection of his interest and challenges his readiness to accept less than the value at stake. After agreeing with Samas, she hands him the canvas and orders him to call Mr. Diltz to confirm the transaction.

Samas follows through by asking Mr. Diltz to transfer ten million American dollars to each of their accounts. His voice cracks; after the call, he says the transfer is done and sits holding the rolled painting, visibly resigned. The money is not merely promised: the call and confirmation establish that the arrangement has been carried out. Poppy’s threat has secured both the painting’s return to Samas and the payment she demanded, while Evan receives the half she negotiated for him.

Aftermath and the meaning of the exchange

Once the transfer is complete, Poppy nods toward the stairs, signaling Evan to leave with her. Before he goes, he puts a hand on Samas’s shoulder and thanks him for the opportunity, expressing pity for what Samas is rather than for what has just happened. He also tells Samas to keep the guitar for Zohra. That parting gesture distinguishes Evan’s response from Poppy’s: she has pressed the grievance to its financial limit, while he ends the encounter with a personal courtesy toward Samas and a gift intended for Zohra.

The demand also sits against the group’s broader customs of money, trust, and return. Poppy has described a system in which a living designate safeguards the holdings of members who have died and restores them when they are reborn; she links that dependence to the group’s closeness as a family. In another welcome, Auda arranges for five thousand dollars to be held for Evan until he returns in a new body, ensuring that he will have something to come back to. Those arrangements make money a means of continuity and care. Here, by contrast, the twenty-million-dollar transfer is forced through a threat and charged with an unresolved past. The scene binds together the group’s practical financial ties, Poppy’s resentment of Samas, and Evan’s growing willingness to trust her—and leaves the painting returned, the money allocated, and the grievance unmistakably alive.