California Fire And Life

"SIU."

Like I'm supposed to get all watery in the knees, Jack thinks. Fucking SIU thinks it's the CIA and the FBI except it doesn't have to answer to anybody.

Well, fuck that.

"Why?" Jack asks. "Why does SIU want me to back off the file?"

"Does it matter?"

"To me."

Hansen's pissed. Generally speaking, she says lay off a file, the adjuster lays off it.

"You're walking into something," Hansen says. "You don't know where you're walking."

This is true, Jack thinks.

This is really interesting.

"Tell me," Jack says. "Your guys have something here, for God's sake tell me, Sandra. I could use the help."

"You're going to trip over-"

"So shine me a light," Jack says. "Seriously, show me the way."

"-shit that's too big for you to handle."

Jack says, "Maybe I should decide what's too big for me to handle."

Sandra pulls out the big gun. "Don't make me take this file away from you."

Fucking SIU, they can do that. They can walk in and take the handling of a file.

So why hasn't she already done it? Jack thinks. If she wants the Vale file so badly, why doesn't she just take it? Nice big juicy arson file. Lotsa glory for SIU…

"I'm trying to do this nicely, Jack," Sandra says. "I'm telling you: back off."

"You're saying pay the claim?"

"I'm not saying anything."

"You're working Vale already, aren't you?" Jack says.

"Shut up, Jack."

"You must have a blind file and Vale's name has-"

"Don't say another word."

"-come up in there somewhere and you're afraid I'm going to trip over it and blow your investigation."

"SIU has no such file."

"Come on."

"I never said that," Hansen says. "And this conversation never happened."

Official-pronouncement-type voice.

"And you're going to pay the claim," Sandra says.

"I'm tired of everyone and his fucking dog telling me to pay this claim," Jack says. "Agency, Underwriting, now SIU? What's going on? Who is this Vale guy, the king?"

"Just pay his claim."

"A woman was murdered."

"This is bigger than that."

Jack stands there and stares at her.

"You're crazy," he says.

"If you force us-"

"Totally whacked."

"If you force us to take over this file," Hansen says, "I promise you a world of trouble. The rest of your short career will be nothing but one long shit shower."

She can do it, too, Jack thinks. All she has to do is get one contractor to say he gave me money and I'm out on my ass. She can do it and she would do it because Sandra Hansen is a tough cookie. Standing there in her white business suit with blond hair like a helmet. Attractive, sexy, a killer. Thirty-five or so and already the head of So-Cal SIU. Her career a bullet and I'm standing in the way.

"Think about it, Jack," she says.

"Stay out of my file, Sandra."

Hansen decides to give it one more try.

"Get on the team, Jack."

"What team?"

"You want to be a claims dog the rest of your life?" Sandra asks. "With your background, you could be SIU. Mayhew's retiring at the end of the year. There'll be a slot open…"

"You offering me a deal, Sandra?"

"Whatever."

"I don't do deals."

This pisses Hansen off.

"You're either with us," she says, "or you're against us."

Jack takes Sandra by the shoulders. Gets right in her face.

"If you want to pay this claim," he says, "I'm against you."

He lets her go and walks away.

"That's not where you want to be!" she yells after him. "That is not where you want to be."

Jack keeps walking as he flips her off over his shoulder.

Leaving Sandra Hansen thinking what a big, brainless, dumb stud Jack Wade is. She's thinking that Jack's surfboard has landed on his head once – make that twice – too often.

And that she's going to have to take him down.

Three years.

She has three years and God only knows how much of her budget sunk into a long-term investigation of Russian organized crime and she's not going to let one stubborn M-4 of an adjuster flush it down the toilet.

Dead woman or no dead woman.

She feels bad about that.

It makes her sick that Vale gets away with murdering his wife, but that's the way it is.