Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

Hansen shrugs.

Says, "We didn't give Vale any information. And we don't have any information on Vale to give you."

"He killed his wife."

"That's what you say."

"And burned the house down."

"That's your version," Hansen says. "Another version is that you've got an ancient hard-on for the sister and that she sold you a bill of goods along with the chucha. And you are going to back off now, Jack. You're going to lie down like a good dog and die."

"You gonna make me, Sandra?"

"That's right." She pulls some papers from her drawer and lays them on the desk. "A sworn statement from a restoration contractor claiming that he paid you to recommend him to policyholders. Here's another from a homeowner admitting that he gave you a kickback to look the other way on an overcharge. The DA will give them both immunity. It's up to you, Jack: I can stick them back in my desk or I can send them up to Mahogany Row."

"Why don't you stick them in your ass and then take them up to Mahogany Row?"

"Same old Jack," she says. "You know what they're going to put on your tombstone, Jack? 'He Never Learned.'"

"So how much is Nicky paying you, Sandra?"

"As usual, you're a hundred and eighty degrees wrong."

"I hope it's enough to retire on," Jack says, "because I'll never quit on this."

"Quitting is the last of your worries," Sandra says. "Is there anything else I can help you with, Jack, or can you just haul your dumb ass out of here now?"

Jack hauls his dumb ass out of there. Pauses just long enough to exchange a bad look with Cooper, then heads back to his cubicle.

Now knowing two things for sure.

One, Nicky Vale is mobbed up.

Two, Sandra Hansen's on the take.

One more thing, Jack thinks.

Unless I take a dive on the Vale file -

— I'm finished at California Fire and Life.

Which is pretty much what Casey is telling Goddamn Billy.

He's got him on the horn and he's saying, "It might have been nice if someone over these past twelve years had told their old friend Tom about a perjury conviction."

"Jack Wade's a good man."

"Jack Wade is a good man," Casey says. "Which makes it all the more of a shame that he's going to get fucked."

Jack walks into the office and Billy flips the phone to speaker.

So Jack gets to hear Casey say, "If Gordon wins on the Vale case — and he will win on the Vale case — then he'll tie that tail to Cal Fire and Life and use it on the next case. And the next and the next. He'll dig up every claim Jack ever denied — every arson, every fraud — and he'll find a judge who'll let him bring them to trial.

"Except now he not only has Jack's testimony to use forever, he also has the example of the Vale trial. He'll tell the next jury that Cal Fire and Life has already been hit for x million, and that didn't change their ways so you'd better hit them for x-plus. And so on and so on — the tail just keeps getting longer — until the company either buys all the cases or goes out of business.

"And it won't be just Paul Gordon, either. Every shark in town will smell the blood and swarm in for the feeding frenzy. Every plaintiff's attorney in California we ever beat in court will be coming in asking for a retrial, claiming that there's at least a chance that Cal Fire lied and cheated in their case. I'll file a truckload of motions to stop it, but some judge in the People's Republic of Santa Monica will think it's his ticket to the Supremes, and seeing how the Ninth Circuit is basically made up of politburo members anyway, we'll get hammered on the appeal.

"And Jack will be everyone's favorite witness. He'll get called to recite a litany of his sins in every bad faith trial for the next ten years. They'll run him right out of the state: I bet he'll leave California, he'll get so tired of being subpoenaed. Of course, if they move a case into federal court, he's screwed nationwide. You along with him, because they'll put you on the stand right behind him to confess how you knowingly hired a corrupt cop.

"Fifty million is a cheap price to stop the bleeding. And save Jack's ass."

"I don't want my ass saved," Jack says.

"Well, I want your ass saved, Jack," Casey says. "There is no point dying in a battle you can't win."

"We can win it," Jack says.

"You're going to beat Paul Gordon on the stand?" Casey asks. "With no evidence and your baggage? Come on."

"Give me some time to get the evidence," Jack says.

"We don't have the time," Casey says. "Mahogany Row's already banging on me to settle. They have rate hearings coming up. They don't want a high-profile bad faith case. Especially one they can't win. They want to settle."

"They can't settle without me, goddamn it."

Company rules. The regional director of Claims — in this case Billy Hayes — has the last word on a claim. This is to save the corporate mucks from being subpoenaed to testify in every bad faith case. The director makes the call, he takes the fall.

Only this director ain't going down easy.

"They'll take you out if they have to," Casey says.

"They're blowing smoke," Billy says.

"Where there's smoke…"

"They know about Jack's checkered past?"

"I haven't told them," Casey says. "I was hoping I'd get your agreement to just lay the Green Poultice on this, then nobody has to know."

All wounds, Billy has said, can be healed with the Green Poultice.

"I don't want it to go away," Jack says.

"You don't have the choice, Jack," Casey says.

" I do," Goddamn Billy says. "And we ain't paying this cocksucker a dime."

"Let me offer ten," Casey says. "They'll have a hard time walking away from ten."

"Not a goddamn dime."

"Billy, why-"

"Because he did it and we know he did it."

"You think you can persuade a jury of that?" Casey asks.

"Yes," Jack says.

Walking right into it, because Casey answers, "You got yourself a deal. We'll do a focus group tonight — rent-a-judge, jury, the whole nine yards. You testify, Jack, and I'll cross-examine you."

"When did you schedule this, Tom?" Billy asks.

"This morning," Casey says. "The deal I made with Mahogany Row, trying to save your asses. It's winner take all. You win, we don't settle, you can investigate all the way up to the trial. You lose, we start settlement negotiations first thing in the morning. It's the best deal I could get, guys."

A terrific deal, Jack thinks.

Death.

Death by Focus Group.

"We're dead."

Translated from Russian, this is basically what Dani is telling Nicky.

They're taking a walk out on the lawn of Mother's house.

As far from the house as they can get, because the scene in the house is driving Nicky crazy.

It's the kids, it's the dog, it's Mother. Actually it's an unholy troika of the kids, the dog and Mother because the kids love the dog and Mother doesn't. The kids want the dog in the house and Mother doesn't, the dog wants to jump up on the couch and Mother has a stroke, the dog wants to sleep with the kids and the kids want to sleep with the dog but Mother wants the dog to sleep outside, which is the same as Mother saying she wants the dog dead — which she does. And last night Nicky experienced the sheer absurdity of making Leo sleep in a doghouse outside and then posting an armed guard by the doghouse so the kids would stop crying and so that little Michael wouldn't, as threatened, sleep in the doghouse with his rubber knife to protect Leo from the coyotes.

Next, Nicky thinks, I'll be stringing barbed wire around the living room sofa.

And Mother will not get off little Michael's back. Natalie she ignores completely. Looks right through the girl as if she were a ghost, but Michael she suffocates with attention. Most of it negative. Poor little Michael cannot do anything right. All day it's Michael, use the napkin not your sleeve, Michael, it's time to do your scales, Michael, a little gentleman walks with his head up.