Twelve Red Herrings

by Archer, Jeffrey

  David scribbled his signature on three separate documents between two penciled crosses. His final act was to print Pat’s name in a little box Marvin had indicated with his stubby finger. “As your sole dependent,” the broker explained, “should you pass away before September 1, 2027—God forbid. Are you married to Pat?”

  “No, we just live together,” replied David.

  After a few more “my friends” and even more “you’ll never live to regret its,” Marvin left the apartment, clutching the forms.

  “All you have to do now is keep your nerve,” David told Pat once he had confirmed that the paperwork had been completed. “Just remember, no one knows me as well as you do, and once it’s all over, you’ll collect a million dollars.”

  When they eventually went to bed that night, Pat desperately wanted to make love to David, but they both accepted it was no longer possible.

  The two of them traveled to New York together the following Monday to keep the appointment David had made with Geneva Life’s senior medical consultant. They parted a block away from the insurance company’s head office, as they didn’t want to run the risk of being seen together. They hugged each other once again, but as they parted, David was still worried about whether Pat would be able to go through with it.

  A couple of minutes before twelve, he arrived at the surgery. A young woman in a long white coat smiled up at him from behind her desk.

  “Good morning,” he said. “My name is David Kravits. I have an appointment with Dr. Royston.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Kravits,” said the nurse. “Dr. Royston is expecting you. Please follow me.” She led him down a long, bleak corridor to the last room on the left. A small brass plaque read “Dr. Royston.” She knocked, opened the door and said, “Mr. Kravits, doctor.”

  Dr. Royston turned out to be a short, elderly man with only a few strands of hair left on his shiny sunburned head. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles and had a look on his face that suggested that his own life insurance policy might not be far from reaching maturity. He rose from his chair, shook his patient by the hand and said, “It’s for a life insurance policy, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Shouldn’t take us too long, Mr. Kravits. Fairly routine, but the company does like to be sure you’re fit and well if they’re going to be liable for such a large amount of money. Do have a seat,” he said, pointing to the other side of his desk.

  “I thought the sum was far too high myself. I would have been happy to settle for half a million, but the broker was very persuasive …”

  “Any serious illness during the past ten years?” the doctor asked, obviously not interested in the broker’s views.

  “No. The occasional cold, but nothing I’d describe as serious,” he replied.

  “Good. And in your immediate family, any history of heart attacks, cancer, liver complaints?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Father still alive?”

  “Very much so.”

  “And he’s fit and well?”

  “Jogs every morning and pumps weights in the local gym on weekends.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Doesn’t do either, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she outlives him comfortably.”

  The doctor laughed. “Any of your grandparents still living?”

  “All except one. My dad’s father died two years ago.”

  “Do you know the cause of death?”

  “He just passed away, I think. At least, that was how the priest described it at his funeral.”

  “And how old was he?” the doctor asked. “Do you remember?”

  “Eighty-one, eighty-two.”

  “Good,” repeated Dr. Royston, ticking another little box on the form in front of him. “Have you ever suffered from any of these?” he asked, holding up a clipboard in front of him. The list began with arthritis and ended eighteen lines later with tuberculosis.

  He ran an eye slowly down the long list before replying. “No, none of them,” was all he said, not admitting to asthma on this occasion.

  “Do you smoke?”

  “Never.”

  “Drink?”

  “Socially—I enjoy the occasional glass of wine with dinner, but I never drink spirits.”

  “Excellent,” said the doctor and ticked the last of the little boxes. “Now, let’s check your height and weight. Come over here, please, Mr. Kravits and climb onto these scales.”

  The doctor had to stand on his toes in order to push the wooden marker up until it was flat across his patient’s head. “Six feet one inch,” he declared, then looked down at the weighing machine and flicked the little weight across until it just balanced. “A hundred and seventy-nine pounds. Not bad.” He filled in two more lines of his report. “Perhaps just a little overweight.

  “Now I need a urine sample, Mr. Kravits. If you would be kind enough to take this plastic container next door, fill it about halfway up, leave it on the ledge when you’ve finished, and then come back to me.”

  The doctor wrote out some more notes while his patient left the room. He returned a few moments later.

  “I’ve left the container on the ledge,” was all he said.

  “Good. The next thing I need is a blood sample. Could you roll up your right sleeve?” The doctor placed a rubber pad around his right bicep and pumped until the veins stood out clearly. “A tiny prick,” he said. “You’ll hardly feel a thing.” The needle went in and he turned away as the doctor drew his blood. Dr. Royston cleaned the wound and fixed a small circular plaster over the broken skin. The doctor then bent over and placed a cold stethoscope on different parts of the patient’s chest, occasionally asking him to breathe in and out.

  “Good,” he kept repeating. Finally he said, “That just about wraps it up, Mr. Kravits. You’ll need to spend a few minutes down the corridor with Dr. Harvey so she can take a chest X-ray and have some fun with her electric pads, but after that you’ll be through and you can go home to”—he checked his pad—“New Jersey. The company will be in touch in a few days, as soon as we’ve had the results.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Royston,” he said as he buttoned up his shirt. The doctor pressed a buzzer on his desk and the nurse reappeared and led him to another room with a plaque on the door that read “Dr. Mary Harvey.” Dr. Harvey, a smartly-dressed middle-aged woman with her gray hair cropped short, was waiting for him. She smiled at the tall, handsome man and asked him to take off his shirt again and to step up onto the platform and stand in front of the X-ray unit.

  “Place your arms behind your back and breathe in. Thank you.” Next she asked him to lie down on the bed in the corner of the room. She leaned over his chest, smeared blobs of paste on his skin and fixed little pads to them. While he stared up at the white ceiling, she flicked a switch and concentrated on a tiny television screen on the corner of her desk. Her expression gave nothing away.

  After she had removed the paste with a damp flannel she said, “You can put your shirt back on, Mr. Kravits. You are now free to leave.”

  Once he was fully dressed, the young man hurried out of the building and down the steps and ran all the way to the corner where he and Pat had parted. They hugged each other again.

  “Everything go all right?”

  “I think so,” he said. “They told me I’d be hearing from them in the next few days, once they’ve had the results of all their tests.”

  “Thank God it hasn’t been a problem for you.”

  “I only wish it wasn’t for you.”

  “Don’t let’s even think about it,” said David, holding tightly onto the one person he loved.

  Marvin rang a week later to let David know that Dr. Royston had given him a clean bill of health. All he had to do now was send the first installment of $1,100 to the insurance company. David posted a check off to Geneva Life the following morning. Thereafter his payments were made by wire transfer on the first day of each month.

  Nineteen d
ays after the seventh payment had been cleared, David Kravits died of AIDS.

  Pat tried to remember the first thing he was meant to do once the will had been read. He was to contact a Mr. Levy, David’s lawyer, and leave everything in his hands. David had warned him not to become involved in any way himself. Let Levy, as his executor, make the claim from the insurance company, he had said, and then pass the money on to him. If in any doubt, say nothing, was the last piece of advice David had given Pat before he died.

  Ten days later Pat received a letter from a claims representative at Geneva Life requesting an interview with the beneficiary of the policy. Pat passed the letter straight to David’s lawyer. Mr. Levy wrote back agreeing to an interview, which would take place, at his client’s request, at the offices of Levy, Goldberg and Levy in Manhattan.

  “Is there anything you haven’t told me, Patrick?” Levy asked him a few minutes before the insurance company’s claims representative was due to arrive. “Because if there is, you’d better tell me now.”

  “No, Mr. Levy, there’s nothing more to tell you,” Pat replied, carrying out David’s instructions to the letter.

  From the moment the meeting began, the representative of Geneva Life, his eyes continually boring into Pat’s bowed head, left Mr. Levy in no doubt that he was not happy about paying out on this particular claim. But the lawyer stonewalled every question, strengthened by the knowledge that eight months before, when rigorous tests had been taken, Geneva Life’s doctors had found no sign of David’s being HIV positive.

  Levy kept repeating, “However much noise you make, your company will have to pay up in the end.” He added for good measure, “If I have not received the full amount due to my client within thirty days, I will immediately instigate proceedings against Geneva Life.” The claims representative asked Levy if he would consider a deal. Levy glanced at Pat, who bowed his head even lower, and replied, “Certainly not.”

  Pat arrived back at the apartment two hours later, exhausted and depressed, fearing that an attack of asthma might be coming on. He tried to prepare some supper before he went to work, but everything seemed so pointless without David. He was already wondering if he should have agreed to a settlement.

  The phone rang only once during the evening. Pat rushed to pick it up, hoping it might be either his mother or his sister Ruth. It turned out to be Marvin, who bleated, “I’m in real trouble, Pat. I’m probably going to lose my job over that policy I made out for your friend David.”

  Pat said how sorry he was, but felt there was nothing he could do to help.

  “Yes, there is,” insisted Marvin. “For a start, you could take out a policy yourself. That might just save my skin.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” said Pat, wondering what David would have advised.

  “Surely David wouldn’t have wanted to see me fired,” Marvin pleaded. “Have mercy on me, my friend. I just can’t afford another divorce.”

  “How much would it cost me?” asked Pat, desperate to find some way of getting Marvin off the line.

  “You’re going to get a million dollars in cash,” Marvin almost shouted, “and you’re asking me what it’s going to cost? What’s a thousand dollars a month to someone as rich as you?”

  “But I can’t be sure that I am going to get the million,” Pat protested.

  “That’s all been settled,” Marvin told him, his voice falling by several decibels. “I’m not meant to let you know this, but you’ll be receiving the check on the thirtieth of the month. The company knows that your lawyer’s got them by the balls … You wouldn’t even have to make the first payment until after you’d received the million.”

  “All right,” said Pat, desperate to be rid of him. “I’ll do it, but not until I’ve received the check.”

  “Thank you, my friend. I’ll drop around with the paperwork tomorrow night.”

  “No, that’s not possible,” said Pat. “I’m working nights this month. You’d better make it tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You won’t be working nights once you’ve received that check, my friend,” said Marvin, letting out one of his dreadful shrill laughs. “Lucky man,” he added before he put the phone down.

  By the time Marvin came round to the apartment the following afternoon, Pat was already having second thoughts. If he had to visit Dr. Royston again, they would immediately realize the truth. But once Marvin had assured him that the medical could be with any doctor of his choice and that the first payment would be postdated, he caved in and signed all the forms between the penciled crosses, making Ruth his sole beneficiary. He hoped David would have approved of that decision, at least.

  “Thank you, my friend. I won’t be bothering you again,” promised Marvin. His final words as he closed the door behind him were, “I promise you, you’ll never live to regret it.”

  Pat saw his doctor a week later. The examination didn’t take long, as Pat had recently had a complete checkup. On that occasion, as the doctor recalled, Pat had appeared quite nervous, and couldn’t hide his relief when he’d phoned to give him the all-clear. “Not much wrong with you, Patrick,” he said, “apart from the asthma, which doesn’t seem to be getting any worse.”

  Marvin called a week later to let Pat know that the doctor had given him a clean bill of health and that he had held on to his job with Geneva Life.

  “I’m pleased for you,” said Pat. “But what about my check?”

  “It will be paid out on the last day of the month. Only a matter of processing it now. Should be with you twenty-four hours before the first payment is due on your policy. Just like I said, you win both ways.”

  Pat rang David’s lawyer on the last day of the month to ask if he had received the check from Geneva Life.

  “There was nothing in this morning’s mail,” Levy told him, “but I’ll phone the other side right now, in case it’s already been issued and is on its way. If not, I’ll start proceedings against them immediately.”

  Pat wondered if he should tell Levy that he had signed a check for $1,100 that was due to be cleared the following day, and that he only just had sufficient funds in his account to cover it—certainly not enough to see him through until his next paycheck. All his surplus cash had gone to help with David’s monthly payments to Geneva Life. He decided not to mention it. David had repeatedly told him that if he was in any doubt, he should say nothing.

  “I’ll phone you at close of business tonight and let you know exactly what the position is,” said Levy.

  “No, that won’t be possible,” said Pat. “I’m on night duty all this week. In fact I have to leave for work right now. Perhaps you could call me first thing tomorrow morning?”

  “Will do,” promised the lawyer.

  When Pat returned home from work in the early hours, he couldn’t get to sleep. He tossed and turned, worrying how he would survive for the rest of the month if his check was presented to the bank that morning and he still hadn’t received the million dollars from Geneva Life.

  His phone rang at 9:31. Pat grabbed it and was relieved to hear Mr. Levy’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “Patrick, I had a call from Geneva Life yesterday evening while you were at work, and I must tell you that you’ve broken Levy’s golden rule.”

  “Levy’s golden rule?” asked Pat, mystified.

  “Yes, Levy’s golden rule. It’s quite simple really, Patrick. By all means drop anything you like, on anyone you like, but don’t ever drop it all over your own lawyer.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Pat.

  “Your doctor has supplied Geneva Life with a sample of your blood and urine, and they just happen to be identical to the ones Dr. Royston has in his laboratory in the name of David Kravits.”

  Pat felt the blood draining from his head as he realized the trick Marvin must have played on him. His heart began beating faster and faster. Suddenly his legs gave way, and he collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath.

  “Did you hear me, Patrick?�
�� asked Levy. “Are you still there?”

  A paramedic team broke into the apartment twenty minutes later, but, moments before they reached him, Pat had died of a heart attack brought on by a suffocating bout of asthma.

  Mr. Levy did nothing until he was able to confirm with Pat’s bankers that his client’s check for $1,100 had been cleared by the insurance company.

  Nineteen months later Pat’s sister Ruth received a payment of one million dollars from Geneva Life, but not until they had gone through a lengthy court battle with Levy, Goldberg and Levy.

  The jury finally accepted that Pat had died of natural causes and that the insurance policy was in existence at the time of his death.

  I promise you, Marvin Roebuck lived to regret it.

  NEVER STOP ON THE MOTORWAY

  Diana had been hoping to get away by five so she could be at the farm in time for dinner. She tried not to show her true feelings when at 4:37 her deputy, Phil Haskins, presented her with a complex twelve-page document that required the signature of a director before it could be sent out to the client. Haskins didn’t hesitate to remind her that they had lost two similar contracts that week.

  It was always the same on a Friday. The phones would go quiet in the middle of the afternoon and then, just as she thought she could slip away, an authorization would land on her desk. One glance at this particular document and Diana knew there would be no chance of escaping before six.

  The demands of being a single parent as well as a director of a small but thriving finance company meant there were few moments left in any day to relax, so when it came to the one weekend in four that James and Caroline spent with her ex-husband, Diana would try to leave the office a little earlier than usual to avoid getting snarled up in the weekend traffic.

  She read through the first page slowly and made a couple of emendations, aware that any mistake made hastily on a Friday night could be regretted in the weeks to come. She glanced at the clock on her desk as she signed the final page of the document. It was just flicking over to 5:51.

  Diana gathered up her bag and walked purposefully toward the door, dropping the contract on Phil’s desk without bothering to suggest that he have a good weekend. She suspected that the paperwork had been on his desk since nine o’clock that morning, but that holding it until 4:37 was his only means of revenge now that she had been made head of the department. Once she was safely in the elevator, she pressed the button for the basement garage, calculating that the delay would probably add an extra hour to her journey.