Blue Moon

ELEVEN

All three guys looked up, surprised. One was dark, one was fair, and one was in the middle. They all looked to be in their late twenties. They all looked tired. Hard work, late nights, pizza and coffee. Like law school all over again.

The dark one said, ‘Can we help you?’

‘Which one are you?’ Reacher said. ‘Julian, Gino, or Isaac?’

‘I’m Gino.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Gino,’ Reacher said. ‘Any chance you know an old couple named Shevick?’

‘Why?’

‘I just spent a little time with them. I became familiar with their troubles. They told me they had three lawyers from a public law project. I’m wondering if that’s you. In fact I’m assuming it is. I’m asking myself how many public law projects a city this size could support.’

The fair one said, ‘If they’re our clients, then obviously we can’t discuss their case.’

‘Which one are you?’

‘I’m Julian.’

The neither dark nor fair one said, ‘And I’m Isaac.’

‘I’m Reacher. Pleased to meet you all. Are the Shevicks your clients?’

‘Yes, they are,’ Gino said. ‘So we can’t talk about them.’

‘Make it like a hypothetical example. In a case like theirs, is either one of the no-fault funds likely to pay out within the next seven days?’

Isaac said, ‘We really shouldn’t discuss it.’

‘Just theoretically,’ Reacher said. ‘As an abstract illustration.’

‘It’s complicated,’ Julian said.

‘By what?’

‘I mean, theoretically speaking, such a case would start out simple, but then it would get very complicated if family members stepped in to act as guarantors. Such a move would downgrade the urgency. I mean that literally. It would mark it down a grade. The no-fault funds are dealing with tens of thousands of cases. Maybe hundreds of thousands. If they know for sure a patient is currently receiving care anyway, they assign a different code. Like a lower grade. Not exactly bottom of the pile, but more like back burner. While more urgent stuff is handled first.’

‘So the Shevicks made a mistake by signing the paper.’

‘We can’t discuss the Shevicks,’ Gino said. ‘There are confidentiality issues.’

‘Theoretically,’ Reacher said. ‘Hypothetically. Would it be a mistake for hypothetical parents to sign the paper?’

‘Of course it would,’ Isaac said. ‘Think about it from a bureaucrat’s point of view. The patient is getting treatment. The bureaucrat doesn’t care how. All he knows is there’s no negative PR liability for him. So he can take his sweet time. The hypothetical parents should have stood firm and said no. They should have refused to sign.’

‘I guess they couldn’t bring themselves to do that.’

‘I agree, it would have been tough, under the circumstances. But it would have worked. The bureaucrat would have been obliged to get his chequebook out. Right there and then. No choice.’

‘It’s an education thing,’ Gino said. ‘People need to know their rights ahead of time. It can’t be done in the moment. It’s your kid, lying on a gurney. There’s too much emotion.’

Reacher asked, ‘Is anything going to happen in the next seven days?’

No one answered.

Which Reacher figured was an answer in itself.

Eventually Julian said, ‘The problem is, now they have time to argue. The government fund is taxpayer money. The legislation is unpopular. Therefore the government will want the insurance fund to pay. The insurance fund is shareholder money. Bonuses depend on it. Therefore the insurance fund will bounce it back to the government, over and over again, as long as it takes.’

‘For what?’

‘For the patient to die,’ Isaac said. ‘That’s the big prize for the insurance fund. Because then we’re into a whole other argument. The surrogate contractual relationship was between the no-fault fund and the deceased. What is there to reimburse? The deceased spent no money. Her care was funded by the generosity of relatives. Which happens all the time. Medical donations between family members are so common the IRS has a whole separate category. But it’s not like buying stock in a corporation. You don’t benefit from an eventual upside. There’s a clue in the name. It’s a donation. It’s a gift, freely given. It doesn’t get reimbursed. Especially not by and to parties who weren’t even in the original voided agreement. It’s a matter of legal principle. Precedents are unclear. It could go all the way to the Supreme Court.’

‘So nothing in the next seven days?’

‘We’d be happy with the next seven years.’

‘They’re deep into loan sharks.’

‘The bureaucrat doesn’t care how.’

‘Do you?’

Julian said, ‘Our clients won’t let us anywhere near their financial business.’

Reacher nodded.

He said, ‘They don’t want you to burn their boats.’

‘Their words exactly,’ Gino said. ‘They feel busting the loan sharks would leave them with no access to money in the future, should they need it, which experience tells them they probably will.’

Reacher asked, ‘Do they have other legal remedies anywhere?’

‘Hypothetically,’ Julian said. ‘The obvious strategy would be a civil suit against the delinquent employer. Absolutely couldn’t fail. But obviously never pursued in a case like this, because the cause of action itself will have already exposed the defendant as a fraud, thereby ruining him, thereby giving the successful plaintiff no assets to collect against.’

‘Nothing else they can do?’

‘We petition the court on their behalf,’ Gino said. ‘But they stop reading where it says she’s getting treatment anyway.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Let’s hope for the best. Someone just told me a week is a long time. Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.’

He backed away and pushed the door and stepped out to the street. He stopped on the corner to fine tune his direction. A right and a left, he thought. That should do it.

Behind him he heard the door open again. He heard footsteps on the sidewalk. He turned and saw Isaac walking towards him. The one who was neither dark nor fair. He was five-nine, maybe, and solid as a bull seal. His pants were cuffed.

He said, ‘I’m Isaac, remember?’

‘Isaac Mehay-Byford,’ Reacher said. ‘J.D. from Stanford Law. Tough school. Congratulations. But I’m guessing you’re from the other coast originally.’

‘Boston,’ he said. ‘My dad was a cop there. You remind me of him, a little bit. He noticed things, too.’

‘Now you’re making me feel old.’

‘Are you a cop?’

‘I was,’ Reacher said. ‘Once upon a time. In the army. Does that count?’

‘It might,’ Isaac said. ‘You could give me some advice.’

‘About what?’

‘How did you come to know the Shevicks?’

‘I helped him out of a jam this morning. He hurt his knee. I walked him home. They told me the story.’

‘His wife calls me now and then. They don’t have many friends. I know what they’re doing for money. Sooner or later they’re going to run out of room.’

‘I think they already have,’ Reacher said. ‘Or they will, in seven days.’

‘I have a crazy personal theory,’ Isaac said.

‘About what?’

‘Or maybe I’m just deluding myself.’

‘About what?’ Reacher asked again.

‘The last thing Julian said. About the civil suit, against the employer. No point pursuing it because the assets are worthless. Usually good advice. Good advice in this case too, I’m sure. Except actually I’m not sure.’

‘Why not?’

‘The guy was famous here for a spell. Everyone was talking about him. Ironically Meg Shevick did a great job with the PR. Lots of tech sector mythology, lots of young entrepreneur stuff, lots of positive immigration spin, about how he came to this country with nothing, and made such a success. But I heard negative things too. Here and there, fragments, gossip, bits and pieces, all unconnected. All hearsay and uncorroborated, too, but from people who should know. I became weirdly obsessed with figuring out how all those random pieces fit together, behind the public image. There seemed to be three main themes. He was all about himself, he was ethically challenged, and he seemed to have way more money than he should. My crazy personal theory was that if you joined the dots the one and only way they could be joined, then logically you were forced to conclude he was skimming off the top. Which would have been easy for an ethically challenged person. There was a tsunami of cash back then. It was insane. I think it was irresistible. I think he shovelled millions of dollars of investor money under his own personal mattress.’

‘Which would explain how the company went down so fast,’ Reacher said. ‘It had no reserves. They had been stolen. The balance sheet was all messed up.’

‘The point is that money might still be there,’ Isaac said. ‘Or most of it. Or some of it. Still under his mattress. In which case the civil suit would be worth it. Against him personally. Not against the company.’

Reacher said nothing.

Isaac said, ‘The lawyer in me tells me it’s a hundred to one. But I would hate to see the Shevicks go down without checking it out. But I don’t know how to do it. That’s what I need advice about. A real law firm would hire a private investigator. They would locate the guy and dig through his records. Two days later we would know for sure. But the project doesn’t have the budget. And we don’t get paid enough to chip in ourselves.’

‘Why would they need to locate the guy? Has he disappeared?’

‘We know he’s still in town. But he’s lying low. I doubt if I could find him by myself. He’s very smart, and if I’m right, he’s also very rich. Not a good combination. It lengthens the odds.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Maxim Trulenko,’ Isaac said. ‘He’s Ukrainian.’