Death Benefits

7

Stillman walked out to the car carrying an armload of papers in files and binders, put them into the trunk, and got into the driver’s seat. He had already started the car before Walker could slip in beside him. Then Stillman drove, maintaining his mysterious, peaceful expression.

“Aren’t you going to say anything about it?” Walker demanded.

Stillman seemed to consider the question for a few seconds, as though he were deciding not how to answer it, but whether it had been addressed to him.

Walker persisted. “Did you know about that—that Werfel was going to be there? Did you set me up to take a fall?”

Stillman’s eyes were cold when he turned toward Walker. “I don’t see anything wrong with having you all together in one room. You’re the insurance company, and he’s your client. If you end up taking a fall, it’s your fall.”

Walker was silent for ten minutes while Stillman drove along surface streets, accelerating at the start of each block, then coasting to a stop to wait for each interminable red light. His mind vacillated between hating Stillman and wondering why what he had said seemed perfectly true.

After a long time, Stillman said, “Don’t be so gloomy. What you got was worth the tuition.”

“It was?” said Walker bitterly.

“Sure. One day out in the real world and you got your freedom.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Walker. “They used to call it ‘at liberty,’ didn’t they?”

“Look at the dark side, then,” Stillman said. “Say in ten minutes McClaren calls. He’s got my cell phone number. He just heard you bluffed Winters into giving Werfel twelve million, and you’re fired. No, let’s make it good. You’re fired, he’s already having his secretary call other companies to make sure you never work in that business again, and he’s going to sue your ass to recover the twelve. You don’t have it, of course, but the story will be in the papers and you’ll never work anywhere again.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Walker thought for a few seconds. “Let’s see. I guess I’d lose the lawsuit, and go bankrupt. Then I’d learn to live without credit cards and try to start over someplace where all that doesn’t matter. Maybe I’d learn to do something—I know—I could go back to college for a year or two to pick up a credential, and try to teach. By then nobody in schools would remember I got sued, and they wouldn’t care whether I lost twelve million or twelve cents.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t make as much money, but at the end of my life I’d probably feel better than I do right now.”

“I doubt it,” said Stillman. “At the end of your life you’re dying. Probably feels like shit.”

“In the larger sense.”

“Not scared of it, are you?” asked Stillman.

Walker hesitated. “Not that I can detect, other than the dying part.”

“That’s freedom,” Stillman said. “You’ve set yourself free. If you’re doubting the value of that, go back and take a look at Winters—heart pumping, cold sweat, the taste of metal in his mouth. You should celebrate.”

“I don’t think I can afford it,” said Walker. He was quiet for a moment. “But I think you’re right. Maybe I’ll quit before they fire me.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” Stillman mumbled uncomfortably.

“I went to work at McClaren’s because it had a famous name and they wanted me. I went along doing my reports, and after a while, I thought I knew more than I did. McClaren’s is a fraud.”

Stillman frowned at him for a second, then said reluctantly, “Well, not entirely.” He looked at him again, then said, “I didn’t want to tell you this right away, because it might cloud the issue and deprive you of your full measure of freedom. But you aren’t going to get fired for what you did in there.”

“I’m not?” He felt the unmistakable jolt of a parachute opening and jerking him to a near stop. He floated down in amazement.

“No,” said Stillman. “They may even add five inches to your pen back in the stable.”

“How do you know?”

“McClaren’s is a peculiar operation. There are lots of bigger companies. They’re probably more efficient and their rates are cheaper. What gets people to do business with McClaren’s is the same thing that got you to work for them. It’s the name. If McClaren’s refused to pay that Werfel character on his father’s insurance policy—for any reason, legal or illegal—it would be the beginning of the end.”

“If enough people heard about it, maybe, but—”

“Of course they would. Rich people know other rich people. They go to the same two hundred private schools, then the same twenty-five colleges. They take vacations—more of them than other people do—in the same seventy-five spots on the earth, where they stay at the same seventy-five hotels. I’ll bet it’s sometimes hard for them to believe that the world contains six billion people, because they spend their whole lives bumping into the same six thousand. They won’t talk to anybody but each other. And they file lawsuits. If Werfel v. McClaren got filed, McClaren’s would have to settle quick and throw in a few million extra to soothe Werfel’s ego and reassure everybody else.”

“I saved them money?”

“Lots. Also probably Winters’s ass. They wouldn’t fire him for being fooled; they might for being dishonest.”

Walker scowled. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?”

Stillman shrugged. “It wouldn’t count if you had known the right thing was also the smart thing. You had to say to yourself, ‘If this job means I have to stiff this guy, then they can stick the job in their ear.’ Now you’ll never have to wonder.”

“What if I’d made the wrong decision?”

“The wrong decision?”

“What if I had looked at those two and said to myself, ‘Alan Werfel is just a rich asshole who is going to get richer, and Winters is probably a decent, hard-working man who started with nothing and isn’t all that much better off now, and will probably lose his job. He’s fighting for his life, and I should let him take his shot at it?’ ”

“You wouldn’t be much of an analyst if you couldn’t figure out that much.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. What would you have done?”

“Nothing,” said Stillman. “I’m not in the insurance business.”

Stillman was gliding along Colorado Boulevard when, without warning, he braked and swung quickly into a driveway. Walker made a grab for the dashboard, but his seat belt tightened across his chest and held him, his hands grasping nothing. “What?” he gasped. “What’s wrong?” He held the door handle, not knowing whether to get out or clutch it in case Stillman accelerated out again. Walker was vaguely aware that they were in a large parking lot.

“Not a thing,” said Stillman. “I just happened to see a vacancy sign, and we ought to get a place. There aren’t many of them in this part of town.”

Walker’s breathing slowed to normal while Stillman eased the car into a parking space near the entrance to the lobby. “What happened to the other place on Wilshire?”

“Why? Did you leave something in your room?”

“No,” said Walker. “I just—”

“It’s not smart to get too attached to hotels on a case like this,” said Stillman. “You get too predictable, you’re liable to get popped.”

“Popped?” repeated Walker. “You mean those two guys would kill us?”

Stillman said, “Unfortunately, Pasadena’s finest showed up before I could ask them about that. But somebody stole twelve million bucks. You shouldn’t let that slip your mind.”

“That doesn’t mean they’d kill us.”

Stillman sighed. “There’s no reason to get all sentimental about it. There are people within a block of here who would kill you for the change in your pockets. I’m pretty sure I’m one of them.” He got out of the car and waited while Walker joined him.

“Then what’s the difference between you and them?”

Stillman smiled peacefully. “If I have enough to stay alive you’re safe from me. No matter how much a thief has, he still wants yours.”