Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

"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.

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 shirt 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."