Lawrence Block - Even the Wicked

I said, “When the boat sank...”

“The Magnar Syversen. A floating death trap. You’d expect better than that from the Scandinavians, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, it was an accident.”

“Yes, an accident.”

“And that was relevant, wasn’t it? The policy you held on the life of John Wilbur Settle was for fifty thousand dollars, and if he’d stayed home and died of AIDS that’s what you would have received in the course of time.”

“Yes.”

“But because his death was the result of an accident...”

“I got twice that much.”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

“Yes.”

“Because the policy had a double-indemnity clause.”

“Which I didn’t even know about,” he said. “I had no idea whatsoever. When the insurance company check arrived I thought they’d made a mistake. I actually called them up, because I was sure that if I didn’t they’d come around wanting the money back with interest. And they told me about double indemnity, and how I was getting twice the face amount of the policy because of the way Mr. Settle died.”

“Quite a windfall.”

“I couldn’t believe it. I’d paid thirty-eight thousand dollars for the policy, so I was already getting a very good return on my investment, but this was just remarkable. I had very nearly tripled my investment. I’d turned thirty-eight thousand dollars into a hundred thousand.”

“Just like that.”

“Yes.”

“So you entered into another viatical transaction.”

“Yes. I believed in it as an investment medium, you see.”

“I can understand why.”

“I put some of the proceeds in the bank and the rest in a viatical transaction. I bought a larger policy this time, seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“Did you first make sure there was a double-indemnity clause?”

“No! No, I swear I didn’t.”

“I see.”

“I never asked. But when I received the policy—”

“You read it.”

“Yes. Just, you know, to see if there was such a clause.”

“And as it happened there was.”

“Yes.”

I let the silence stretch, drank some more of my tea. The red light glowed on the side of my little tape recorder. The tape advanced, recording the silence.

“Some commentators have been very critical of viatical transactions. Not as an investment, everyone agrees that they’re a good investment, but the idea of waiting for a person to die so that you can benefit financially. There was a cartoon I saw, a man walking in the desert and vultures circling overhead. But it’s not like that at all.”

“How is it different?”

“Because you just don’t think about the person that much. If you think of him at all you wish him well. I’d certainly rather have a man enjoy one more month of life than that my investment mature one month sooner. After all, I know he’s not going to live forever, that much is a medical fact, and both my principal and the interest on it are guaranteed by the irreversible biological progress of his condition. With both Harlan Phillips and John Settle, why, I knew they were going to die, and within a fairly certain period of time. But I didn’t dwell on it, and I didn’t wish it sooner.”

“But with Byron Leopold it was different.”

He looked at me. “Do you know what it is to be obsessed?” he demanded.

“I’d have to say I do.”

“If the disease were to run its course and he to die of it, I would get seventy-five thousand dollars. If he should happen to be struck by a car, or slip and fall in the bathtub, or die in a fire, then I would receive twice that amount.” He took off his glasses, held them in both hands, and stared at me, defenseless. “I could think of nothing else,” he said. “I could not get the fact out of my mind.”

“I see.”

“Do you? I’ll tell you something else that happened. I began to think of it as my money. The whole amount, one hundred fifty thousand. I began to feel entitled to it.”

I’ve heard certain thieves say something similar. You have something and the thief wants it, and in his mind a transfer of ownership occurs, and it becomes his — his money, his watch, his car. And he sees you still in possession of it and becomes seized by a near-righteous indignation. When he relieves you of it, he’s not stealing it. He’s reclaiming it.

“If he died of AIDS,” he was saying, “half the money would be lost. I couldn’t get over the idea of what a colossal waste it would be. It’s not as though he would get the money, or his heirs, or anyone at all. It would be completely lost. But if he died accidentally, by misadventure—”

“It would be yours.”

“Yes, and at no cost to anyone. It wouldn’t be his money, or anybody else’s money. It would just come to me as a pure windfall.”

“What about the insurance company?”

“But they assumed that risk!” His voice rose, in pitch and in volume. “They sold him a policy with a double-indemnity clause. I’m sure the salesman suggested it. No one ever deliberately asks for it. And its presence would have made his annual premium a little bit higher than it would have been otherwise. So the money was already there. If it wasn’t a windfall for me, it would be a windfall for the insurance company because they’d get to keep it.”

I was still digesting that when his voice dropped and he said, “Of course the money wasn’t going to come from out of thin air. It was the insurance company’s, and I was in no sense entitled to it. But I began to see it that way. If he died accidentally it was mine, all of it. If he died of his disease, I’d be cheated out of half of it.”

“Cheated out of it.”

“That’s how I began to see it, yes.” He lifted the teapot, filled both our cups. “I started imagining accidents,” he said.

“Imagining them?”

“Things that might happen. In this part of the country people are killed in auto accidents with awful frequency. I don’t suppose that happens as often in New York.”

“It happens,” I said, “but probably not as often.”

“When you think of New York,” he said, “you think of people getting murdered. Although the actual murder rate’s not particularly high there compared with the rest of the country, is it?”

“Not that high, no.”

“It’s much higher in New Orleans,” he said, and went on to name a couple of other cities. “But in the public mind,” he said, “New York’s streets are the most dangerous in the nation. In the world, even.”

“We have the reputation,” I agreed.

“So I imagined that happening to him. A knife or a gun, something swift and surgical. And do you know what I thought?”

“What?”

“I thought what a blessing it would be. To both of us.”

“Both you and Byron Leopold?”

“Yes.”

“How did you figure that?”

“A quick death.”

“Almost a mercy killing,” I said.

“You’re being ironic, but is it less merciful than the disease? Nibbling away at your life, leaving you with less and less, finally taking away the will to live before it finally takes your life? Do you know what it’s like to watch that happen to someone you love?”

“No.”

“Then you should be grateful.”

“I am.”

He took off his glasses again, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “She died by inches,” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

“My wife. It took her years to die. It put her on crutches and it put her in a wheekhair. It would take a bite of her life, and we would adjust to that and become accustomed to that. And then it would take another bite. And it never got better. And it always got worse.”

“It must have been very hard for you.”