California Fire and Life

by Don Winslow

  It comes out of Claims.

  Claims gets it, of course, from the Big Pool at corporate, but even Mahogany Row doesn’t care all that much how much money is going out as long as a lot more money is coming in. So as long as people are buying California Fire and Life, everything’s cool.

  Just keep the money coming in.

  Of course, it’s a little hard to sell to someone when some lunch-bucket from Claims has called him an arsonist and murderer. Then the customer threatens to yank all his policies. And he tells all his friends how he’s being fucked by his insurance company, and the next thing you know you have guys flooding off the eighteenth hole to jerk their policies away from you and then it’s over.

  Then you have to go back to sitting in Mom and Pop’s kitchen trying to sell them a homeowner’s policy that’s maybe going to net you a hundred a year.

  So before any of that bad shit happens, you reach out for the telephone and you scream for the big hammer to come down on somebody.

  In this case, Goddamn Billy Hayes.

  Who tells the So-Cal Agency VP, “We don’t pay people to kill their wives and burn their own houses down.”

  So he doesn’t, in fact, need Jack winding him up about Agency.

  Or about Underwriting.

  “Underwriting?” Jack asks.

  “Yeah, they called, too,” Billy says. “They want to ‘monitor’ how we handle this claim.”

  “What the hell does Underwriting have to do with it?” Jack asks. “Since when do we report to Underwriting?”

  “That’s what I told them,” Billy says. “But if you’re keeping score, that’s Agency, Underwriting, and, oh yeah, the Sheriff’s Department winding my crank about the Vale file.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You been over to the Sheriff’s?”

  “I advised Deputy Bentley that he might want to reconsider his evaluation of the Vale fire.”

  “Goddamn it, are you trying to get us sued?” Billy yells. “You deny a claim based on arson when the Sheriff’s already called it an accident, and we’ll get sued for bad faith. We might be in bad faith if we even continue to investigate the cause of a fire after it’s been deemed accidental.”

  “We have positive samples from Disaster,” Jack says. “And Nicky Vale is up to his ears in debt.”

  Then he tells him about the funeral.

  And Letty’s story.

  When he’s finished, Billy says, “Hearsay.”

  “What do you want?” Jack asks, “Pamela Vale to testify?”

  “It would help.”

  Billy says, “Maybe you have incendiary origin, and maybe you have motive, but you don’t have a goddamn thing on opportunity. Vale was draining the lizard and checking on his sleeping kids.”

  “The mother’s lying,” Jack says. “Or maybe he hired the job out.”

  “Prove it,” says Billy.

  “I need some time,” Jack says.

  “I don’t know if you got the time,” Billy says.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “They want me to take you off this file, Jack.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “They, everybody,” Billy says. “Agency, Underwriting, the Sheriff’s, shit, I dunno. Anyone else you pissed off on this, Jack?”

  “No, but the day is young.”

  “Keep it up, Jack.”

  “Billy, you’re not telling me they want to pay this fucking claim?!” Jack yells.

  “Of course they want to pay it!” Billy yells back. “What the fuck do you think they want to do?! They got a millionaire businessman with a load of juicy policies a goddamn camel couldn’t carry! They got a guy can put heat on the president’s office if he wants to, and by the way, that’s his next phone call. Agency knows they fucked up, Underwriting knows they fucked up, you think they want to see that in court? You think they want a fight over this? Not when they cure it with the old Green Poultice!”

  The Green Poultice. Billy’s phrase for throwing money at a problem claim.

  “Is the Green Poultice going to bring Pamela Vale back?” Jack asks.

  “Goddamn it, Jack,” Billy says. “That’s not your job. It’s the cops’ job.”

  “They won’t reopen the investigation.”

  Billy taps Jack on the forehead. “Helloooo? Good morning? Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “Tells me they’re not doing their job.”

  “And you are, right?” Billy asks. “Jack Wade is always right. Everyone else is fucked. Only Jack Wade does the right thing. No matter what it costs other people. Grow up. You can’t always be the lone cowboy, riding your surfboard into the sunset.”

  “What am I supposed to say to that, Billy?”

  Because it’s true.

  Jack stands there with the wind blowing into his face, blowing the green-gray mudge from the cars on the 405 into his eyes and nose.

  Billy says, “Just take care of the claim. The claim is your business.”

  “The claim is wrong.”

  “Prove it!”

  “I need time to prove it!”

  “You ain’t got the time!”

  Two old friends standing in the middle of a mock desert screaming at each other. They realize it. Billy sits down.

  Says, “Shit.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Billy,” Jack asks, “can you take my back on this one?”

  Billy blows out a puff of air and says, “Yeah. For a while. For a while, Jack, because I’m telling you—I’m getting heat.”

  “Thanks, Billy.”

  “And don’t you ever talk to an insured like that again,” Billy says. “And keep adjusting the claim.”

  Another bad-faith-phobia demand. The California Fair Claims Practices Act demands that an insurance company has to keep adjusting the claim while at the same time it’s investigating. The reason is that if the company spends months investigating without adjusting, and then decides to pay the claim, the payment to the insured is unfairly delayed. “Right,” Jack says. “I’ll start working up an estimate.”

  Meaning that he’ll do a “scope”—determine what was damaged or destroyed—then a “comp”—an item-by-item estimate of what it will take to replace and repair.

  Just what he’d do if he thought this was a righteous claim.

  “Just do your goddamn job,” Billy says.

  “If I have enough evidence,” Jack says, “I’m going to deny the claim.”

  “It’s your call,” Billy says. “Just do it right.”

  Which is what Billy’s counting on.

  60

  Jack hates golf.

  But the old links are where you want to be if you want to find an insurance agent. Depends on the time of day, of course. Between seven and eleven in the morning, you check the golf course. Lunchtime you check the country club. Early afternoon after lunch, you check the links again, late afternoon you don’t check anywhere unless you want to be a witness in a divorce case.

  Jack’s on the course to buy himself some time.

  He finds Roger Hazlitt on the seventeenth hole.

  In a foursome with two doctors and a real estate developer.

  See, you don’t get to be a millionaire insurance agent selling individual policies to Mom and Pop. You get to be a millionaire insurance agent by selling policies to condo complexes, gated communities and the occasional wealthy individual homeowner like Nicky Vale.

  Which of course is what Jack wants to talk about.

  Roger Hazlitt is less enthused.

  You sell a boatload of insurance and the house burns and the wife dies, it completely fucks your loss ratio for the entire year. Not that it’s Roger’s money—it isn’t—but if you’re in the top forty on loss ratios at the end of the year Cal Fire and Life sends you and your wife to Rome or Hawaii or Paris or someplace and Roger hates missing those trips.

  And he’s not all that thrilled to see Jack Wade come striding over the green in his cheap blue blazer and khaki slacks and white s
hirt and tie, because the two doctors and the real estate developer are putting up a massive condo complex in Laguna Niguel and Roger figures that all he has to do is tank eighteen and blow a putt and he has the policy and 10 percent commission on the premiums.

  But he puts on a big smile and pumps Jack’s hand and says, “Guys, meet Jack Wade, best damned insurance adjuster in this great land of ours and that is no shit.”

  Jack, he’s thinking that it’s all shit, but he smiles and shakes hands as that asshole Roger Hazlitt says, “God forbid, guys, that something should happen with your buildings, but if it does, you know you can call Jack personally and it will get handled. Right, Jack?”

  Now Jack feels like an asshole but he says, “You bet.”

  “Didn’t you bring your clubs, Jack?”

  I work for a living is what Jack wants to say but what he says instead is, “A quick word with you, Roger?”

  “Tell you what,” Roger says. “Let me hit my tee shot and then while these guys are in the rough looking for their balls we can have a chat, okay?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “There we go.”

  Roger has a sweet swing, which he should, because he plays maybe seven times a week plus lessons with his pro, so he hits a long ball and then takes Jack aside.

  “I’m going to lose five hundred bucks to these jamokes,” he says, “then make a couple hundred K on their premiums, so let’s keep this quick, Jack. What are you doing out here? Couldn’t you have come to my office?”

  “You’re never in your office.”

  “Well, isn’t this something one of the gals could handle?”

  The “gals” being the women who work in Roger’s office.

  “You’re Nicky Vale’s agent,” Jack says.

  “Guilty.”

  “You sold him a shitload of special endorsements,” Jack says. “Art, custom furniture, jewelry …”

  “So?”

  “Way over guidelines, Roger.”

  “Underwriting okayed it,” Roger says, starting to get defensive. Starting to sweat now.

  “Who at Underwriting?”

  “I don’t know,” Roger says. “Ask Underwriting.”

  “Come on, Roger,” Jack says. “That kind of overage, you must have a sweetheart in Underwriting.”

  “Fuck you, Jack.”

  Jack puts his arm around Roger’s shoulders.

  Says into his ear, “Roger, I don’t begrudge you a living. You go get as much money as your greedy little hands can grab. I know you have a wife, three kids and two girlfriends to support. Plus business expenses.”

  Roger is like Mister Community. For the annual Dana Point Festival of the Whales parade, Roger rents the elephant. In the annual Festival of the Tall Ships, one of the tall ships flies a flag that says Hazlitt Insurance Agency on it. These things cost money. So do tennis bracelets and cosmetic surgery.

  “So I know,” Jack continues, “that you need to be bringing it in.”

  “That’s goddamn right, Jack.”

  “Cool,” Jack says. “And I don’t give a rat’s ass that you have to give a taste to someone in Underwriting to okay an overage now and then. I don’t care, Claims doesn’t care. Unless, you know, I need to go digging and rooting through Underwriting, and then maybe even Mahogany Row might wake up and hear about it.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Or should I go over to the guys there,” Jack says, nudging his chin at Roger’s golf partners, “and tell them that by all means they should buy their insurance from you now—today—while you still have your license.”

  “A real fucking asshole.”

  “Just give me a name,” Jack says. “Someone I can talk to. I don’t give a damn about the money, Roger.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Roger says. “All you Joe Lunchbuckets from Claims, you’re jealous. How much do you clear, Jack? Thirty-five? Forty-five? Maybe fifty? I shake that much off my dick at the urinal, Jack.”

  “Good for you, Roger.”

  But it’s true, Jack thinks. All us Joe Lunchbuckets from Claims, we are jealous about the money.

  “Bill Reynolds,” Roger whispers.

  “A black guy?”

  “Black guys don’t need money?” Roger says. “I kicked him a grand.”

  “How can you make—?”

  “I don’t make on the endorsements. I make on the home, on the life, on the cars …”

  “See, this is why you’re rich, Roger.”

  Roger says, “I had to write the endorsements or Vale wouldn’t give me his business on all the other shit. You know what those commissions stack up to, year after year? Plus Vale owns three apartment buildings, I get the policies on those, plus I get to solicit the tenants on their renter’s insurance and their auto. You know how much money that is?”

  “I don’t want to know,” Jack says. “I’d only get jealous.”

  “It’s serious money.”

  Jack looks down on the green. Roger’s partners are standing there looking back at the tee. I guess they found their balls, Jack thinks. He asks, “Are you and Nicky like buddies or something?”

  “Screw buddies,” Roger says. “I don’t have time for buddies. Maybe we have a drink now and then. Lunch … Okay, maybe once or twice I go out on his boat with him for some blow and some babes. Don’t look at me like that, Jack.”

  “I think your buddy killed his wife, Rog,” Jack says. “For the insurance benefits. And he burned his house. For the insurance benefits. So fuck his boat and his blow and his babes. And Roger, don’t you be making any more calls to my boss or your boss or anybody’s fucking boss to get this claim paid.”

  “Just keep me out of this, Jack.”

  Yeah, you make the bucks and now you want out of it. When there’s the mess and the dead bodies and the hell to pay.

  “Then you just stay out of it, Rog,” Jack says. “You stick your dick in Claims again I’ll see that it gets cut off.”

  So shake that.

  61

  Jack drops in at Pacific Coast Mortgage and Finance.

  Two-room office shares a building with a swimwear store and an erotic novelty shop on Del Prado in Dana Point. Big glossy photographs of ocean scenes dominate the walls. Handsome guys and sleek girls windsurfing, flecks of ocean spray flying off their bodies, glistening in the sun. Big beautiful sloops cutting through eight-foot swells. A gang of surfer dudes and wahinis carrying their boards against the background of a fiery sunset.

  Like, life is beautiful.

  Life is short.

  Borrow money and get yourself a taste of it before you croak.

  Guy sitting behind the desk is a young cool dude with Pat Riley slicked-back hair, a pink polo shirt and a blue blazer. It’s like one of those finance-can-be-cool deals—you know, let’s get the paperwork over with and go surfing, dude. Nameplate on the desk reads GARY MILLER.

  Jack introduces himself and shows him the authorization form that Nicky had signed.

  Jack asks, “You’re carrying the paper on the Vale house?”

  Which is just pro forma—the name of the mortgage company is on the declaration page of the policy and the loss report—but Jack wanted to say it to see if Gary’s eyes lit up.

  They do.

  You can see right in those inane baby blues that the boy is carrying a ton of paper on the Vale house and the payments haven’t been coming in. Guy is sphincter-gripping on the paper and now he sees a shot that the insurance company might ride into town and save his ass, man.

  Like God bless California Fire and Life.

  “Something happen?” he asks, trying to keep the hopeful note out of his voice.

  “It burned down,” Jack says.

  “No shit?”

  “And Mrs. Vale was killed,” Jack adds.

  “What a shame,” Gary says.

  He’s not an evil guy. He does feel bad about Pamela Vale, who seemed very nice and was one of the most completely righteous babes he had ever seen. On the other hand, it
does seem like Nicky Vale is tapped out and California Fire and Life has some deep pockets.

  “Yeah,” Jack says. “A shame.”

  “What happened?” Gary asks. He doesn’t want to come right out and ask the, sorry, burning question he has on his mind: Was it a total loss?

  Please let it be a total, he thinks.

  A total loss would pay off the whole loan.

  Jack says, “The official report is that Mrs. Vale was smoking in bed.”

  Gary shakes his head. “A nasty habit.”

  “Very uncool,” Jack agrees. “Would you show me the paper, please?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

  The paper is heavy.

  This is not paper you would like to carry across, say, Death Valley.

  But Nicky was carrying it. What Nicky had done was he originally bought the house for cash. Who the hell, Jack thinks, has $2 million in cash? Turns out Nicky really didn’t, because six years later he mortgages the house with Pacific for $1.5 million. He’s carrying a six-K-a-month payment.

  “He’s missed, uh, three payments,” Gary volunteers.

  He just can’t help himself. Somewhere inside burns the ember of a hope that Jack is just going to whip out the old checkbook and say, “Oh, well, here.”

  If the Vale loan goes down the shitter Gary goes down after it.

  “Three payments?” Jack asks. “We looking at foreclosure?”

  “It’s a consideration,” Gary says. “I mean, you know, we don’t want to.”

  “No.”

  “But what are you going to do?”

  You’re going to try to carry the guy, Jack thinks. At least until the real estate market improves. Otherwise you eat the loan and you have a house you maybe can’t sell. And even if you can, you’re going to take a bath on it.

  Jack asks, “Six K is a little light for that kind of balance, isn’t it?”

  “Read on.”

  Jack reads on.

  Doesn’t take long before he sees what he’s looking for.

  Prima facie motive for arson.

  A $600,000 balloon payment.