California Fire And Life

59

" Goddamn it, Jack!" Billy yells.

"What?" Jack asks.

Like he doesn't know.

They're standing in Billy's cactus garden outside the office. Billy's sucking on a cigarette like it's an oxygen mask.

"The Vale file, that's what," Billy says. He tosses the butt on the ground and lights another. Has to cup his hand to get it lit because the wind is blowing like crazy. This puts him in an even worse mood. "You have a little chat with the insured last night?"

Well, that didn't take long, Jack thinks.

"I wanted to see his reaction," Jack says.

"And?"

"He's a cool customer."

"Well, let me tell you about his reaction," Billy says. "Vale called his agent-"

"Roger Hazlitt?"

"Yes, and rattled his cage about you. Hazlitt took time from his busy day humping his secretary to call his Agency manager, who called the VP for Agency, who called me and rattled my cage."

"Vale's personal property coverage is way over guidelines, Billy. So are his endorsements."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying his personal property coverage is way over guidelines and so are his endorsements."

"Don't try to wind me up over Agency, Jack."

Like most insurance companies, Cal Fire and Life is organized into three basic divisions: Agency, Underwriting, and Claims. In theory, the three divisions are equal – each has a vice president who reports to the president – but in reality, it's Agency that swings the big hammer. Every guy who plunks his butt down in the executive dining room upstairs on Mahogany Row has come out of Agency. Every suit on the board of directors has come out of Agency.

Because it's Agency that brings in the money, Jack thinks.

You're not going to make money from Claims, Jack knows. All Claims does is pay money out. And you're not going to see any money from Underwriting. The best Underwriting can do is try to set the rates so that you charge the right amount of premiums to make a profit.

But Agency, that's the golden goose, man. That's the pipeline. You have this force of agents out there – selling life, selling auto, selling fire. Taking their commissions – 10 percent on fire and auto, 15 percent on life.

That's serious money.

And it regenerates itself. The agent sells the policy once, and all he has to do is keep the policy and he gets his commission every year on renewal. So he wants to keep that customer and he doesn't really care what Claims has to pay out. If that customer has a loss, the agent wants Claims to pay it. Just pay it, baby. Because the money doesn't come out of the agent's pocket or his commission.

It comes out of Claims.

Claims gets it, of course, from the Big Pool at corporate, but even Mahogany Row doesn't care all that much how much money is going out as long as a lot more money is coming in. So as long as people are buying California Fire and Life, everything's cool.

Just keep the money coming in.

Of course, it's a little hard to sell to someone when some lunchbucket from Claims has called him an arsonist and murderer. Then the customer threatens to yank all his policies. And he tells all his friends how he's being fucked by his insurance company, and the next thing you know you have guys flooding off the eighteenth hole to jerk their policies away from you and then it's over.

Then you have to go back to sitting in Mom and Pop's kitchen trying to sell them a homeowner's policy that's maybe going to net you a hundred a year.

So before any of that bad shit happens, you reach out for the telephone and you scream for the big hammer to come down on somebody.

In this case, Goddamn Billy Hayes.

Who tells the So-Cal Agency VP, "We don't pay people to kill their wives and burn their own houses down."

So he doesn't, in fact, need Jack winding him up about Agency.

Or about Underwriting.

"Underwriting?" Jack asks.

"Yeah, they called, too," Billy says. "They want to 'monitor' how we handle this claim."

"What the hell does Underwriting have to do with it?" Jack asks. "Since when do we report to Underwriting?"

"That's what I told them," Billy says. "But if you're keeping score, that's Agency, Underwriting, and, oh yeah, the Sheriff's Department winding my crank about the Vale file."

"Sorry."

"You been over to the Sheriff's?"

"I advised Deputy Bentley that he might want to reconsider his evaluation of the Vale fire."

"Goddamn it, are you trying to get us sued?" Billy yells. "You deny a claim based on arson when the Sheriff's already called it an accident, and we'll get sued for bad faith. We might be in bad faith if we even continue to investigate the cause of a fire after it's been deemed accidental."

"We have positive samples from Disaster," Jack says. "And Nicky Vale is up to his ears in debt."

Then he tells him about the funeral.

And Letty's story.

When he's finished, Billy says, "Hearsay."

"What do you want?" Jack asks, "Pamela Vale to testify?"

"It would help."

Billy says, "Maybe you have incendiary origin, and maybe you have motive, but you don't have a goddamn thing on opportunity. Vale was draining the lizard and checking on his sleeping kids."

"The mother's lying," Jack says. "Or maybe he hired the job out."

"Prove it," says Billy.

"I need some time," Jack says.

"I don't know if you got the time," Billy says.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"They want me to take you off this file, Jack."

"Who's 'they'?"

"They, everybody," Billy says. "Agency, Underwriting, the Sheriff's, shit, I dunno. Anyone else you pissed off on this, Jack?"

"No, but the day is young."

"Keep it up, Jack."

"Billy, you're not telling me they want to pay this fucking claim?!" Jack yells.

"Of course they want to pay it!" Billy yells back. "What the fuck do you think they want to do?! They got a millionaire businessman with a load of juicy policies a goddamn camel couldn't carry! They got a guy can put heat on the president's office if he wants to, and by the way, that's his next phone call. Agency knows they fucked up, Underwriting knows they fucked up, you think they want to see that in court? You think they want a fight over this? Not when they cure it with the old Green Poultice!"

The Green Poultice. Billy's phrase for throwing money at a problem claim.

"Is the Green Poultice going to bring Pamela Vale back?" Jack asks.

"Goddamn it, Jack," Billy says. "That's not your job. It's the cops' job."

"They won't reopen the investigation."

Billy taps Jack on the forehead. "Helloooo? Good morning? Doesn't that tell you something?"

"Tells me they're not doing their job."

"And you are, right?" Billy asks. "Jack Wade is always right. Everyone else is fucked. Only Jack Wade does the right thing. No matter what it costs other people. Grow up. You can't always be the lone cowboy, riding your surfboard into the sunset."

"What am I supposed to say to that, Billy?"

Because it's true.

Jack stands there with the wind blowing into his face, blowing the green-gray mudge from the cars on the 405 into his eyes and nose.

Billy says, "Just take care of the claim. The claim is your business."

"The claim is wrong."

"Prove it!"

"I need time to prove it!"

"You ain't got the time!"

Two old friends standing in the middle of a mock desert screaming at each other. They realize it. Billy sits down.

Says, "Shit."

"Sorry."

"Billy," Jack asks, "can you take my back on this one?"

Billy blows out a puff of air and says, "Yeah. For a while. For a while, Jack, because I'm telling you – I'm getting heat."

"Thanks, Billy."

"And don't you ever talk to an insured like that again," Billy says. "And keep adjusting the claim."

Another bad-faith-phobia demand. The California Fair Claims Practices Act demands that an insurance company has to keep adjusting the claim while at the same time it's investigating. The reason is that if the company spends months investigating without adjusting, and then decides to pay the claim, the payment to the insured is unfairly delayed. "Right," Jack says. "I'll start working up an estimate."

Meaning that he'll do a "scope" – determine what was damaged or destroyed – then a "comp" – an item-by-item estimate of what it will take to replace and repair.

Just what he'd do if he thought this was a righteous claim.

"Just do your goddamn job," Billy says.

"If I have enough evidence," Jack says, "I'm going to deny the claim."

"It's your call," Billy says. "Just do it right."

Which is what Billy's counting on.