John Hawkins is in a panic. By this point in their scheme, Dr. Boggs was to have killed a man to be the “dead” Hanson, and Hawkins could begin collecting on the $7 million in life insurance that Hanson carried and to which Hawkins was the beneficiary.
With his business partner technically dead, Hawkins would have no way to collect the $2 million Hanson had taken from the company, but Boggs had not come through with a corpse, so Hawkins must pretend to locate Hanson and return to Columbus with most of the money his partner had taken. This of course is necessary to keep the authorities away from the company and their scam.
He comes back to Columbus with a fantastical story of finding Hanson and the money. The scam is still moving forward as Hanson and Boggs identify the victim to be the “dead” Hanson.
