Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

"We lose," Goddamn Billy says. "We appeal."

"On what grounds?" Reinhardt snaps.

"Admissibility," Casey says. "You argue that Wade's background is irrelevant and prejudicial."

"Motions in limine!"

"Sure," Casey says. "I'd try to keep Jack's background out before the trial, but I doubt I'd win. We could also instruct him to not answer any questions about his background in deposition, but that would start a discovery battle…"

"No discovery battles," Reinhardt says.

Discovery battles have a way of getting out of hand. Subpoenas for documents tend to get broader and broader, and if a judge got annoyed and let Gordon go on a fishing expedition… Well, that just can't happen.

"This file is over," Herlihy says. He says to Casey, "Start settlement negotiations tomorrow. See if you can work this down. But you have $50 million settlement authority."

"Hold on," Billy says. "That's not your call to make."

"You need executive authority for anything over a million," VP Claims says.

"If I want it," Billy says. "I ain't said I want a dime yet."

"We're going to settle this case."

"That is my call to make, goddamn it."

"Then make it," Reinhardt says.

"I ain't ready to make that call," Billy says.

"I'll make it," Reinhardt says. "I have the authority to settle a lawsuit against the company."

"Yeah, you do," Billy says. "But there ain't no lawsuit yet. There's just a threat of a suit. So it's still in Claims, and I'm Claims."

"I can put an end to that," Herlihy says.

"Well, goddamn it, why don't you just do that?"

"Don't think I won't!"

"Go ahead! I don't give a fuck."

"You boys want to take this outside?" Casey asks. "We have some serious issues to resolve in here. Let me propose a compromise. We settle the case and Jack Wade keeps his job."

"Jack Wade is history," Herlihy says.

"Hold on," Casey says. "If this doesn't go to trial, there's no reason to fire Jack."

"Until the next time," Reinhardt says.

"So take him off fires," Casey says. "Give him slip-and-falls, dog bites, broken pipes…"

"Or we could just shoot him," Billy says.

"You're not helping me, Billy."

"Well, goddamn it!" Billy explodes. He gets to his feet. "All Jack Wade did was his job! Tell you something else: all he was doing when he set up that fucking Teddy Kuhl and that fucking Kazzy Azmekian was his goddamn job! They were as guilty as sin and everybody goddamn knew it! 'Perjury' my fucking ass! Truth was, those cocksuckers did set that fire! And so did Nicky Vale!"

"Billy-"

"Shut up, Tom, I'm talking," Billy says. "I been in this business coming on thirty years, and I can tell you this: if it walks like a dog, barks like a dog, wags its tail like a dog, and lifts its hind leg to pee like a dog, it's a goddamn dog! And Jack Wade knows that — and Tom Casey, you know that — even if these fools don't! And you can bang on your goddamn machines and your goddamn laptop computers all goddamn night and this fire is still a goddamn arson, and Nicky Vale set it, and he murdered his wife, and I ain't paying that motherfucker one goddamn cent and I ain't firing Jack Wade and if you boys don't like it you can just goddamn fire me. I don't goddamn care!"

There's your basic hushed silence as he heads for the door.

He turns around in the doorway and looks at them for a minute.

Shakes his head.

"This company used to stand for something," he says. "Now it'll stand for anything."

Shakes his head again and says, "Any goddamn thing."

He turns and leaves.

"Well…" Casey says.

"We pay the fifty," Bourne says. "We're going to the Insurance Commission for a rate hike in ninety days anyway — this will add nicely to the debit side when we argue that we need it."

Casey has stopped listening.

It's a done deal.

Jack busts the Mustang south.

Blows right past the exit to California Fire and Life, passes the exit to his condo, and shoots down to the Ortega Highway, where he turns east.

You take the Ortega east, what you're letting yourself in for is a series of downhill switchbacks that is like guaranteed to make your Labrador throw up in the backseat. You're going over the top of the mountains in the Cleveland National Forest, so you're cruising through some barren, rock-strewn hills — the "forest" — and all of a sudden you're pitching downhill toward the town of Lake Elsinore, and it's like falling off the edge of the fucking earth. Which it is, which you'd know if you've ever actually been to Lake 'Snore.

This stretch of road is not where you want to fuck up. You slip on the kozmic banana peel coming down these switchbacks you are suddenly Lost in Space, man. You are Rocky the Flying Squirrel, you are airborne. You may have your four-wheel-drive sports utility vehicle — but you can have eighteen-wheel-drive and it won't matter, if all those wheels are in the sky. What you don't have is wings, or a parachute, which is what you're going to need if you screw up the distinction between centrifugal and centripetal force on one of these curves.

Like, bikers have done space launches off this mountain and the Highway Patrol can't even find them; they're in their own little bomb craters six hundred feet below.

You lose the edge on these curves, it's just AMF.

Jack's into it.

Jack's working out his rage on the road; he and the Mustang are taking the Ortega like it's a Nebraska farm road, like What curves? We don't see no stinking curves. Jack's doing the gas, brake, shift, gas number, cranking on that wheel like he's on the bridge of the starship Enterprise.

As for Jack, well, it isn't exactly the Death Ride of Jack Wade. It's not like he's necessarily trying to kill himself, it's just that he's not trying real hard not to.

Because what's the difference? Jack's thinking.

The job's gone.

And I don't have a life outside the job.

Unless you count the daily surfing ritual at Dana Strand.

Which will be gone soon.

Into the Great Sunsets.

His adrenaline's a little jacked when he has to slow down to figure out where Letty's place is.

In the middle of nowhere.

He finally finds it about a hundred yards down a dirt road that runs between two pastures. There's a stand of trees with several buildings hidden in it and when he pulls up the sign says DEL RIO.

He sits in the car wondering why the hell he's there, decides it's for no good reason at all, and he's just about to put the 'Stang in reverse when he sees lights come on in the house.

He turns off the engine and gets out of the car.

She comes out, she's wearing a T-shirt over jeans and she's barefoot.

Hair tussled.

Stands in her gravel driveway looking at him.

Like, What are you doing here?

"It's over," he finally says. "I blew it. We lost."

She thinks about it for a few seconds, then says, "You drove out here to tell me that?"

It's a minute at least before he hears himself speak.

"I have nothing in my life."

Feels like he's standing a long way away, hearing himself say that.

She goes to him and takes him by the arm and leads him into her house.

Later, when she takes him into her bedroom, she pulls her T-shirt over her head and steps out of the jeans and gets under the sheet. Jack gets undressed and lies down beside her. She reaches out for him and her skin is white and warm, and they kiss and she presses against him and he pulls the sheet down. When he reaches down to touch her she's moist and warm. He strokes her, feeling her get wetter, feeling her flow to his hand and get hotter, and then she says, Baby, and when she reaches for him he's hard and with her open hand she strokes him up and down.