California Fire And Life

129

They stand there not looking at each other for a minute or so.

Jack had forgotten how beautiful the view was from up here. The palm trees, the bougainvillea and jacaranda, the wide stretch of white beach that sweeps up to the big rock at Dana Head.

Has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Worth saving.

Worth killing for.

"It ain't too late," Billy says.

"For what?"

"For you to walk away," Billy says. "Forget about what you seen here."

Jack nods.

"It's too late," he says. "How long have you been on their payroll?"

"A long time."

"Since the Atlas Warehouse?"

Billy nods. "Nobody was supposed to die. Just a price buildup and a sale to the insurance company."

"Why, Billy?"

"Money," Billy says. "You bust your ass for this company for dog bones while the agents make the big money and the underwriters take payoffs and the judges take bribes and the lawyers rake it in, and we old dogs are just supposed to roll over for the table scraps? The hell with that."

"You set me up," Jack says. "You gave them my files, you tipped them off to every move. You jerked me like I was on a leash. You knew everything to do, everything to say to keep me pushing. You let me walk deeper and deeper into the trap, Billy, and you didn't say a word."

"I had no choice, Jack," Billy says. "I had no goddamn choice."

"Everyone has a choice."

"So make a good one for yourself," Billy says. "I'm here to offer you a deal, Jack. You can still get on the boat."

"With you and Nicky?"

Billy laughs, "You still don't get it, Jack. It ain't Nicky. It's Mahogany Row. All the VPs and the president. They all got shares."

Jack feels like the world is spinning.

"Shares in what?"

Billy gestures all around them. "In this, Jack. Great Sunsets. We own it."

Like the world's falling out from under him.

"California Fire and Life?" he asks. "Owns Great Sunsets? Owns the Strands?"

"Mahogany Row, me, and some others," Billy says. "We all have shares."

"Nicky Vale?"

"Partners."

Genius.

Sheer freaking genius, Jack thinks.

"The company's been taking a goddamn pounding," Billy says. "Between the fires and the earthquakes and the fraud and the goddamn lawsuits, the company was about to go belly up. So instead of giving it all to the damn lawyers and the other crooks we decided to get a piece of it ourselves. We made some deals – started paying on some of the drive-downs, the phony thefts, the medical buildups, the arsons, and taking our cut on the other end. Pay out the money, get it back in the form of shares in dummy companies."

The perfect way to loot your own company, Jack thinks. Pay bogus claims to yourself. Route the money through policyholders who then invest back into your dummy companies.

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.