THE POLICY

by Bentley Little

  “I knew it was a dog.”

  “Let’s get off this roof, go inside, and drink.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  After dinner, while the women and Lilly were in the kitchen talking or washing dishes or getting dessert ready or doing whatever it was they did, Hunt and Joel sat on the back patio looking up at the stars, trying to see the space station, which, according to the news, was supposed to be visible in the southern sky right about now. The talk turned, as it often seemed to these days, to insurance companies.

  Joel reached down and picked up a triangular piece of tar paper from the concrete floor of the patio, flinging it across the backyard. “Did you hear, a couple years back, that either Wal-Mart or The Store was taking out insurance policies on its employees? So if an employee died, the company would get a death benefit?”

  “You’re lying.”

  “God’s honest truth.”

  “That’s like slave labor.”

  Joel nodded. “Tennessee Ernie Ford time.”

  The idea of it sent a chill down Hunt’s back. The thought that someone could take out a life insurance policy on you without your knowledge was at once offensive and horrifying. Not only was it morally heinous, it was a gross violation of privacy. What was next? People taking out insurance policies on unsuspecting derelicts? Corporations betting that career criminals would bite the dust and pay off handsomely?

  “Like I said, it was couple of years ago, and Wal-Mart or The Store or whoever it was took a lot of flak for it. But the insurance company that issued the policies got off unscathed. I guess the rationale was that they were an unknowing participant. But do you know what I read recently? That one insurance company, it might even have been the same one, was purposely issuing life insurance policies to violent career criminals, covering them for accidental death. These were guys who were uninsurable to anyone else, but this company allowed them to buy insurance so their wives or whatever could get some cash when they died. The catch was, though, that survivors got only half the benefits. The other half went to the insurance company. So they not only got the premiums but if they were forced to pay off, they got to keep half of it. I think the Justice Department shut them down, but I can’t remember the exact details.”

  Insurance companies soliciting murderers? Hunt thought of legitimate claims like his own denied in order to finance elaborate schemes and scams designed to maximize profits and was filled with a righteous anger.

  Joel must have been thinking along the same lines. “What we should do,” he said, “is get together our own monkey-wrench gang and go after the insurance companies, damage their cars, put holes in their roofs, make them file insurance claims for their buildings and equipment. You, me, Jorge…”

  “Dessert’s ready!” Beth called from the dining room window. “Come back inside!”

  Hunt and Joel roused themselves from their chairs and made their way into the kitchen, where they took cups of coffee and plates of pie and carried them out to the living room. The wives soon joined them, but Lilly remained in the kitchen, eating her pie in the breakfast nook and watching Iron Chef on Beth’s kitchen television.

  Hunt turned on the TV in the living room and switched the channel to a satellite radio station that played smooth jazz.

  Beth motioned toward the kitchen. “Lilly’s great,” she said. “She’s such a good kid.”

  Hunt nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”

  “So, do you two want kids?” Stacy asked. She looked from him to Beth and back again, and Hunt realized that he didn’t know the answer to that question. He’d thought about it, of course, but not enough to have an opinion, and he and Beth had never discussed the subject with each other. He supposed that they might want a child in time, but certainly not for a while, not before they had a chance to spend some time together.

  Beth performed a smooth save. “We’re not thinking about that yet. Maybe eventually but not right away.”

  She gave his leg a small squeeze, and he was glad to discover that they were on the same wavelength.

  Just the opposite of him and Eileen. Even when the two of them had gotten along, they had seldom if ever thought along the same lines.

  Against his will, he’d been thinking a lot about his ex-wife lately. He supposed it was because he’d seen her at that bus stop. He still didn’t know why she was back in Tucson, and at odd times he found himself wondering what she was doing, where she was going, whom she was with. It was a disinterested interest—he didn’t really care, and he had no desire to see her ever again—but he kept it from Beth nonetheless, and for that he felt a little guilty.

  He realized that although he’d known Beth for over a year now, though they’d been living together for nearly that long and were married, they were only in the infancy of their relationship. There were so many things about each other that they didn’t know.

  Like whether or not they planned to have children.

  From across the coffee table, Joel grinned. “Wise decision,” he said. “Have your fun first, then have children. Because afterward, your sex life will be… well, let’s just say charitably that it will never be the same.”

  Stacy elbowed his side.

  “Ow!”

  “Serves you right.”

  “I heard that!” Lilly called from the kitchen, “Don’t corrupt the youth!”

  They all laughed.

  The McCains left shortly after nine, waking up Lilly, who had fallen asleep on the couch, and half-carrying her out to the car. Hunt closed and locked the door behind them, then he and Beth went into the kitchen to do the dishes.

  Beth was putting the leftover pie back into the refrigerator and Hunt was rinsing off plates, putting them into the dishwasher, when Courtney dashed into the kitchen and jumped onto the counter, back arched. A second later, there was a sharp sound from the guest room. A kind of quick snap, as of a whip cracking. He heard it, she heard it, but neither of them said a word and neither of them looked at each other. Instead, they both pretended it hadn’t happened.

  If they ever did have a child, Hunt thought, and they still lived in this house, the guest room would have to be his or her bedroom.

  He pushed the idea out of his mind.

  There was another loud crack, and then the room was silent.

  Hunt opened the dishwasher and started putting away the plates and glasses that Beth rinsed out in the sink. He looked out the kitchen window as he accepted a salad bowl from her, but all he could see was his own reflection against an inky blackness. His reflection looked transparent, like a ghost, and he glanced away. He didn’t like it.

  “I had fun tonight,” Beth said, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “I had fun, too.”

  Eileen had never kissed him spontaneously after they’d gotten married, he remembered. She had when they were dating, but all that had stopped after they left college.

  Things were different now, though. And he was much happier.

  He was happier, but was he happy? Hunt asked himself.

  Yes, he answered. All things considered, he was.

  4

  Jorge sat on the couch, sorting through the mail and drinking one of Ynez’s fruit-and-vegetable concoctions. Orange mango carrot this time.

  He never should have gotten her that juicer for Christmas.

  On the coffee table before him was a Carlos Fuentes novel that he hadn’t read before and that he’d been trying to get through for the past week. Ordinarily, he would have finished a Fuentes book in a few days, spending every spare minute drinking in that wonderful language, basking in the invigorating politics, but lately he’d been having a hard time concentrating on anything deeper than the daily newspaper. He’d been tired and mentally sluggish, and instead of reading he’d found himself sitting in front of the TV, flipping channels and watching hours of various Law & Order reruns.

  The stress of impending fatherhood, he assumed.

  He separated the envelopes into two piles: one for him and one fo
r Ynez. Hers were primarily ads for bed-and-bath stores, upscale catalogs of items they could never afford, and solicitations from various environmental groups, who appeared to be decimating entire forests in order to raise enough money to save trees. His were mostly bills. There was one from the gas company, one from the cable company, one from the electric company, one from Visa, one from Sears, one from—

  —Dr. Bergman’s office?

  Frowning, Jorge opened the envelope. He read over the bill, then jumped off the couch and strode angrily into the kitchen, waving the piece of paper in front of him. “I don’t believe this!” he said.

  Ynez, cleaning the components of her juicer in the sink, looked up. “You don’t believe what?”

  “This says we owe five hundred and eighty-eight dollars for your amniocentesis!”

  “What?” She stopped washing the strainer, wiped her hands on a dishrag and took the bill from his hands, looking it over. “That’s supposed to be covered!”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t afford five hundred and eighty-eight dollars.”

  “Don’t worry,” he promised. “I’ll get this straightened out.”

  But twenty minutes later, as he sat on hold, his arm becoming numb from lack of movement, the ear to which the phone was pressed growing hot and red, Jorge thought of Hunt’s endless quixotic tilts at the insurance company windmill, his doomed efforts to find satisfaction for the wrongs perpetrated upon him, and he was overcome by the sinking feeling that they would end up paying out of pocket for Ynez’s procedure.

  Sure enough, after a long and heated discussion with the flunky manning the phones, and then an equally long and equally heated discussion with his supervisor, Jorge was forced to concede defeat. Apparently, their medical policy had an exception clause in which the insurance company paid for amniocentesis only if the expectant mother was over forty years of age. Ynez was thirty-eight.

  “The doctor said my wife was in the high-risk group because of her age,” he tried to explain. “Amniocentesis is recommended for all women over thirty-five.”

  “Recommended but not required,” the supervisor stated. “Read your policy. The wording is very specific and very clear.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “We will continue to pay for all checkups and routine office visits. Minus your deductible, of course. It is only voluntary and elective procedures that are not covered by your policy.”

  “It was not voluntary,” Jorge insisted. “The doctor required it. You can ask her. I can get a signed statement from her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What about the birth? Will I be footing the bill for that, too?”

  “No, Mr. Marquez. Delivery is covered in full.”

  There was no winning, and he didn’t know where else to turn. After hanging up, he called Hunt, but Hunt and Beth must have gone somewhere because after six rings the machine answered. He didn’t feel like talking to a tape recorder at this point, so he dropped the handset in its cradle, intending to call back later.

  “So what does that mean?” Ynez asked. “We have to pay it?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “But that’s almost six hundred dollars. We can’t afford that much.”

  Jorge shook his head, disgusted, disappointed, discouraged. “I don’t think we have any choice.”

  TEN

  1

  Hunt had just come home and gone to the bathroom when the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it!” Beth called from the kitchen. But he was already out of the bathroom and in the living room, and they both reached the front door at the same time. The bell rang again, and Hunt opened it.

  He stood in the doorway—a man in a hat, silhouetted against the setting sun.

  For a brief second, Hunt considered slamming the door, locking it, and retreating to someplace safe deep in the house. It was an instinctive reaction, brought about by that silhouetted form, a primal archetypal figure he’d seen before but did not recognize.

  Then the man stepped forward, and he was just a man. Nothing special, nothing frightening. Hunt’s impulse disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and he looked at the visitor, a fellow of average build, ordinary height, and pleasant countenance. He was wearing an old-time hat, the kind they used to wear in detective movies—what were they called? Homburgs? Fedoras?—which seemed odd but not particularly threatening, and he was carrying a thin leather briefcase that he held underneath his arm. “Yes?” Hunt said.

  “Hello,” the man said. “I’m your new insurance agent. I’m here about your new insurance.”

  “New insurance…?” Hunt frowned, glanced around at Beth, who shook her head uncomprehendingly. “We don’t have any new insurance.”

  “You will when you hear what I have to say. May I come in?”

  Now Hunt did start to close the door. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re not interested.”

  “You will be. May I come in?”

  “This isn’t a good time. We’re about ready to eat—”

  “Only take a minute.”

  The guy was pushy. It was a requirement for the job, Hunt supposed, but there also seemed to be… something… else in it. An urgency. A need.

  “You’re not happy with your current auto policy, are you? Your health policy or homeowner’s? Life and dental? Let me in and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Look—” Hunt began.

  “Come in,” Beth said.

  He looked at her in surprise. He’d been about to brush off the salesman in no uncertain terms—guys like him did not understand hints and subtle clues—and her decision to not only hear him out but invite him into the house came out of the blue. She met his gaze, and from the expression on her face it seemed that she was just as surprised by what she’d done as he was.

  Hunt was forced to step aside as the man walked past him and, just for a second, there was a rush of cold air against his face. Vampires had to be invited into a victim’s home, Hunt thought, and though he wasn’t sure what made him think of that, the comparison seemed appropriate.

  Once inside the house, the insurance agent was all business. He strode directly to the living room couch, sat down, took off his hat, and opened his briefcase on the coffee table, withdrawing a manila folder with “Hunt and Beth Jackson” stenciled across the top. Hunt didn’t know how the agent had gotten their names, but just the fact that he had made Hunt angry. It was not only presumptuous but seemed like an invasion of privacy, and the idea that their capitulation was a foregone conclusion made him dead-set against buying any insurance from the man.

  The agent took a pen out of his pocket, clicked it. “Now, there’s just the two of you, right? No children in the immediate future? Say, the coming year?” He eyed them inquisitively.

  “Uh… no,” Beth said.

  “Excellent, excellent.” He began writing furiously on a piece of scratch paper, then filling in blank lines on a densely printed form. Over his bent head, Hunt met Beth’s gaze and the two of them exchanged a look of bewilderment.

  “Now, you were both born in Tucson and neither of you have any preexisting conditions…” He was talking to himself, not asking questions or looking for confirmation, and again Hunt wondered where and how he had gotten this information. “She: homeowner’s, two claims… he: renter’s, one claim…” The agent scrawled notes on the scratch paper and filled in the form. “Last boyfriend Tad… former wife Eileen…”

  “Hey!” Hunt said.

  The man held up a hand. “Almost done.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you’re done right now. I’m not interested in buying any insurance from you.”

  “Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jackson. We can beat any offer by any competing company and can save you up to fifty percent on your existing homeowner’s insurance alone. I think it will be worth your while to hear me out.”

  “We’re not interested,” he told the agent.

  “I am,” Beth said, and this time she looked neither surpri
sed nor bewildered but sure and certain of herself. She faced Hunt. “It won’t hurt to listen.”

  “Exactly so,” the agent agreed.

  Hunt tried to appeal to Beth’s common sense. “This is a door-to-door salesman. We don’t know anything about him or his company.”

  The agent looked at Hunt with an expression of utmost gravity. “Let me assure you, Mr. Jackson, that we have been providing insurance to satisfied customers for far longer than all of our well-known competitors and have a sterling reputation for quality, fairness, reliability, and accountability. As I said, we have a very high customer satisfaction rating and an equally high AAIO rating. We take what we do very seriously, and we are very good at it.” A note of the messianic had crept into the agent’s voice. “Insurance is…” He breathed deeply, smiled. “A higher calling.”

  Hunt tried to shoot Beth an “I told you so” look, but she refused to meet his eyes.

  “It’s true! Insurance is at the root of everything. What do you think marriage is? Insurance against loneliness, insurance that love will last. Religion? Insurance against the afterlife, insurance of the soul’s survival. The truth is that the universe is chaotic, life and everything in it impermanent, and the only way we can go on, the only way we can live our lives and go to our jobs and do the thousands of pointless tasks that keep this world functioning is if we have some assurance that if we do so everything will remain as is. We need a stable guaranteed order placed on this disordered and transitory existence.” He gestured expansively. “And that is the purpose of insurance.”

  Neither Hunt nor Beth knew what to say after that, and the agent did not allow them time for a response.

  “I have a quote for you. Currently, you are paying eight hundred a year for your homeowner’s insurance. Broken down, that’s sixty-six sixty-six per month. We’re prepared to offer better coverage with a lower deductible for only fifty dollars a month. And I can guarantee you that if your roof had started leaking under our watch, the entire roof would have been replaced immediately, with no charge to you other than the hundred-dollar deductible.”