Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

Very slick.

And it works both ways. The Russian mob can put dirty money into real estate, suffer a "loss," then get clean money back through the insurance company.

Everybody wins.

Except the legit policyholders who pay the premiums.

And dumb-ass honest claims dogs.

And the occasional victim like Pamela Vale.

It's just a beautiful scam.

So they took it to the next level.

Why dick around with little claims payments when you can hit the California Litigation Lottery? Set your own claims people up for bad faith suits, and then force yourself into settlements? An easy thing to do from Billy's position. A bad decision here, a fucked-up file there. He'd know where all the weaknesses were, or he'd put them there.

Brilliant.

"It had to stop sometime," Billy says. "SIU digging around, and the goddamn task force… so we figured one last big payout."

And I was the perfect setup for a huge bad faith settlement, Jack thinks. A whole big dog-and-pony show to justify paying out $50 million.

"So you hauled me out."

"We was saving you up, Jack."

"For twelve years?"

"Give or take."

Billy drops his cigarette butt on the dirt, snuffs it out with his foot, lights another and says, "We dumped a lot of money into Great Sunsets over the years. But you assholes fought us to a standstill. 'Save the Strands.' Just about broke us. When we decided we had to shut down we knew we had to make this one pay off."

"You lured Gordon into whipping up a class action so you could justify a huge payment to head it off," Jack says. "Then pay the money to yourselves."

"There you go," Billy says. "Gordon's dead. Nicky'll get the $50 million this morning."

And fifty million bucks will go into Great Sunsets and that'll be more than enough to bribe the councilmen and the lawyers and the judges. Enough capital to do all that and put up their shitty condos and ruin what small part of the coast they haven't already destroyed.

"How about Casey," Jack asks. "He in on this?"

"Nah."

"Sandra Hansen?"

Billy shakes his head. "Sandra Hansen is a true believer.

"So I need to know," Billy says, "you in or out, Jack? I can offer you shares. You can get a condo here, maybe a town house. Surf all goddamn day."

"What do I have to do?"

"Nothin'," Billy says. "That's the beauty of it. You don't have to do a goddamn thing. Just walk away."

"That's the deal?"

"That's the deal."

Jack looks around him. At the Strand, at the ocean.

"A woman's dead," he says.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," Billy says.

"Nicky lost his temper?"

"I suppose," Billy says. "So what's it gonna be?"

Jack sighs, "Can't do it, Billy."

Billy shakes his head, " God damn, Jack."

"Goddamn, Billy."

They stand there looking at each other. Then Jack says, "I'll let you go, Billy. I won't make the call for a couple of hours. You can be in Mexico."

"Well, that's nice of you," Billy says. "But you got it backwards. I'm all that's keeping you alive right now. Shit, Jack, I begged them for the chance to come talk to you before…"

"Before what?"

Billy shakes his head and then whistles. A few seconds later Accidentally Bentley comes waddling up with his gun out.

Right behind him, Nicky Vale.

Carrying a gasoline can.

Bentley walks around Jack and takes the pistol from him.

"I told you not to go dicking around, didn't I?" he says.

Jack shrugs as Bentley pushes him inside the building.

Nicky's very wired.

Jabbering something about Afghanistan.

He goes into this riff about Afghanistan and mujahedin,

"They didn't want to give it up, either," he says to Jack. "But they did. Have you ever seen a whirling dervish? Wait until you set one on fire, you'll see them whirl."

He stands in front of Jack, right in his face. Stares at him and says, "I'm a businessman. I tried to treat you like a businessman. I tried to do business with you but you wouldn't do it. You had to be rigid, you had to be unreasonable. You've never seen the inside of a Russian prison. You've never lived in cold and filth. You're a native Californian, you've never seen anything but the sunshine, and can't you see that's all I want, too, a little slice of sunshine?

"Jack, I need my things and I need the insurance settlement because I have to have that money. I owe it to some people who are going to kill me and my entire family if they don't get it. I'm telling you this so you'll understand how serious I am.

"Jack, what I've learned — what I think we both have learned — is that you can't walk away from your history.

"But I've made mine work for me and your history can work for you, too, Jack. It can make you rich. It's not too late to turn back from what you've done. We can reinvent ourselves again, Jack. Reinvent this moment. We can't change the past but we can design the future. We can make each other rich. Choose the California life, not the fire, Jack. This doesn't have to end in ashes."

"It already has," Jack says.

Nicky shakes his head. "All you have to do is tell me who, if anyone, you have told. Have you, for instance, told Tom Casey? Letty del Rio? Other police? The newspapers? Answer my fucking questions, Jack!"

"Don't be an asshole, Jack."

"Tell him, Wade."

Nicky is cranked up.

Back on the rant. "You won't be dead when the flames hit you, Jack. We'll start with your feet — you wouldn't believe the pain — the nerves down there. Then you'll want to tell me, then you might still have your life but I wouldn't think about getting on too many surfboards, Jack. This is so unnecessary but I'm desperate, Jack, I'm desperate. I am, as you would say, strung out. Lev is dead, they cut his head off and threw it into my mother's home where my children live. Dani is back there guarding my children because they already took my mother, they're going to kill her, they're going to burn her if this falls through, so I need to know, Jack.

"I will do it, Jack. I'll pour the — what do you like to call it — accelerant all over you and fling a match. You won't die from smoke inhalation, you won't die from carbon monoxide asphyxiation, you'll die from the flames, from the fire swirling around you-"

"Like Pamela?" Jack asks.

"No, not like Pamela'" Nicky says. He looks to Bentley and says, "Open the lid. Let him smell the fumes."

Jack smells them. Hard not to in the closed room.

"I loved her, Jack," Nicky says. "I loved being inside her. I used to drink from her. She was sweetness and sunshine — my children came from inside her, my children. But she was going to take… that bitch was going to take everything from me. She was going to drain me, leave me with nothing. She was going to get up in court and say things about me: Nicky is a womanizer, Nicky is a druggie, Nicky is a crook, Nicky is a gangster. Nicky sleeps with his mother — which is not true, not the way she meant it. She was going to say those things, she told me that. I told her she would never divorce me, she would never take my possessions. My house, my money, my things, my kids, and she said that if she had to she would say all those things before she let my mother get her hands on the kids and fuck them up. That's what she said, quote, flick them up. But no, I didn't burn her alive. I didn't make her dance in flames, writhe on our bed like the bitch used to except this time in flames. I didn't do that, because I loved her. I just made her go to sleep. I made her drink and take pills and when she was asleep in our bed I climbed on top of her. She had the most graceful, whitest neck. I can remember the first time I kissed her neck. I can remember the first time she took me inside her and her black hair against her neck. Can you remember that incredible warmth, the ineffable heat, the first time inside a woman? I used to want her so badly it was like I was on fire, and the bitch knew that, she knew what she was doing. Cockteasing bitch should burn, she deserves it, but I don't do that. I'm on top of her with a pillow — that's amusing now that I recall it because she used to have me put a pillow under her ass so I could go deeper inside — I'm on top of her with the pillow over her mouth, she's unconscious but her hips jerk and strain, her back arches up and then she goes quiet in my arms but I can't finish. Cockteasing bitch to the last, I can't finish, so I get up and then — and only then, Jack — do I pour the kerosene around our marital bed. Around and under and over the bitch. I can't stand to pour it on that beautiful face, just the cockteasing part of her. I poured it there all right. She makes no more children she can fuck up. You cannot walk away from your history, Jack. The fire swirls around you and I have heard the screams echo for miles. Now tell me what I need to know. I'm out of time and out of patience and I will set you on fire, Jack, because I need my money and I need my things and they have my mother for God's sake!!"