California Fire And Life

60

Jack hates golf.

But the old links are where you want to be if you want to find an insurance agent. Depends on the time of day, of course. Between seven and eleven in the morning, you check the golf course. Lunchtime you check the country club. Early afternoon after lunch, you check the links again, late afternoon you don't check anywhere unless you want to be a witness in a divorce case.

Jack's on the course to buy himself some time.

He finds Roger Hazlitt on the seventeenth hole.

In a foursome with two doctors and a real estate developer.

See, you don't get to be a millionaire insurance agent selling individual policies to Mom and Pop. You get to be a millionaire insurance agent by selling policies to condo complexes, gated communities, and the occasional wealthy individual homeowner like Nicky Vale.

Which of course is what Jack wants to talk about.

Roger Hazlitt is less enthused.

You sell a boatload of insurance and the house burns and the wife dies, it completely fucks your loss ratio for the entire year. Not that it's Roger's money – it isn't – but if you're in the top forty on loss ratios at the end of the year Cal Fire and Life sends you and your wife to Rome or Hawaii or Paris or someplace, and Roger hates missing those trips.

And he's not all that thrilled to see Jack Wade come striding over the green in his cheap blue blazer and khaki slacks and white shirt and tie, because the two doctors and the real estate developer are putting up a massive condo complex in Laguna Niguel and Roger figures that all he has to do is tank eighteen and blow a putt and he has the policy and 10 percent commission on the premiums.

But he puts on a big smile and pumps Jack's hand and says, "Guys, meet Jack Wade, best damned insurance adjuster in this great land of ours and that is no shit."

Jack, he's thinking that it's all shit, but he smiles and shakes hands as that asshole Roger Hazlitt says, "God forbid, guys, that something should happen with your buildings, but if it does, you know you can call Jack personally and it will get handled. Right, Jack?"

Now Jack feels like an asshole but he says, "You bet."

"Didn't you bring your clubs, Jack?"

I work for a living is what Jack wants to say but what he says instead is, "A quick word with you, Roger?"

"Tell you what," Roger says. "Let me hit my tee shot and then while these guys are in the rough looking for their balls we can have a chat, okay?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"There we go."

Roger has a sweet swing, which he should, because he plays maybe seven times a week plus lessons with his pro, so he hits a long ball and then takes Jack aside.

"I'm going to lose five hundred bucks to these jamokes," he says, "then make a couple hundred K on their premiums, so let's keep this quick, Jack. What are you doing out here? Couldn't you have come to my office?"

"You're never in your office."

"Well, isn't this something one of the gals could handle?"

The "gals" being the women who work in Roger's office.

"You're Nicky Vale's agent," Jack says.

"Guilty."

"You sold him a shitload of special endorsements," Jack says. "Art, custom furniture, jewelry…"

"So?"

" Way over guidelines, Roger."

"Underwriting okayed it," Roger says, starting to get defensive. Starting to sweat now.

"Who at Underwriting?"

"I don't know," Roger says. "Ask Underwriting."

"Come on, Roger," Jack says. "That kind of overage, you must have a sweetheart in Underwriting."

"Fuck you, Jack."

Jack puts his arm around Roger's shoulders.

Says into his ear, "Roger, I don't begrudge you a living. You go get as much money as your greedy little hands can grab. I know you have a wife, three kids, and two girlfriends to support. Plus business expenses."

Roger is like Mister Community. For the annual Dana Point Festival of the Whales parade, Roger rents the elephant. In the annual Festival of the Tall Ships, one of the tall ships flies a flag that says Hazlitt Insurance Agency on it. These things cost money. So do tennis bracelets and cosmetic surgery.

"So I know," Jack continues, "that you need to be bringing it in."

"That's goddamn right, Jack."

"Cool," Jack says. "And I don't give a rat's ass that you have to give a taste to someone in Underwriting to okay an overage now and then. I don't care, Claims doesn't care. Unless, you know, I need to go digging and rooting through Underwriting, and then maybe even Mahogany Row might wake up and hear about it."

"You're an asshole."

"Or should I go over to the guys there," Jack says, nudging his chin at Roger's golf partners, "and tell them that by all means they should buy their insurance from you now – today – while you still have your license."

"A real fucking asshole."

"Just give me a name," Jack says. "Someone I can talk to. I don't give a damn about the money, Roger."

"Yeah, you do," Roger says. "All you Joe Lunchbuckets from Claims, you're jealous. How much do you clear, Jack? Thirty-five? Forty-five? Maybe fifty? I shake that much off my dick at the urinal, Jack."

"Good for you, Roger."

But it's true, Jack thinks. All us Joe Lunchbuckets from Claims, we are jealous about the money.

"Bill Reynolds," Roger whispers.

"A black guy?"

"Black guys don't need money?" Roger says. "I kicked him a grand."

"How can you make-?"

"I don't make on the endorsements. I make on the home, on the life, on the cars…"

"See, this is why you're rich, Roger."

Roger says, "I had to write the endorsements or Vale wouldn't give me his business on all the other shit. You know what those commissions stack up to, year after year? Plus Vale owns three apartment buildings. I get the policies on those, plus I get to solicit the tenants on their renter's insurance and their auto. You know how much money that is?"

"I don't want to know," Jack says. "I'd only get jealous."

"It's serious money."

Jack looks down on the green. Roger's partners are standing there looking back at the tee. I guess they found their balls, Jack thinks. He asks, "Are you and Nicky like buddies or something?"

"Screw buddies," Roger says. "I don't have time for buddies. Maybe we have a drink now and then. Lunch… Okay, maybe once or twice I go out on his boat with him for some blow and some babes. Don't look at me like that, Jack."

"I think your buddy killed his wife, Rog," Jack says. "For the insurance benefits. And he burned his house. For the insurance benefits. So fuck his boat and his blow and his babes. And Roger, don't you be making any more calls to my boss or your boss or anybody's fucking boss to get this claim paid."

"Just keep me out of this, Jack."

Yeah, you make the bucks and now you want out of it. When there's the mess and the dead bodies and the hell to pay.

"Then you just stay out of it, Rog," Jack says. "You stick your dick in Claims again I'll see that it gets cut off."

So shake that.