California Fire and Life (35 page)

Whispers into Jack’s ear, “You should have learned the last time.”

Which is when Jack realizes he’s been set up.

Big time.

Is what Jack’s thinking as he races back to the Vale house, hoping he’s not too late.

The setup. Nicky Vale wasn’t happy just to collect on the claim. Nicky wanted the big bucks, the winning ticket to the California Litigation Lottery, so he put out just enough bait to lure you into denying the claim and then
snap
.

The hook.

And reeled you right in.

You are very stupid, Jack Wade.

He is too late.

They bulldozed it.

Jack pulls up to the house, he can see that the west wing is down.

The only thing standing there in its place is Accidentally Bentley.

With a uniformed deputy.

“Thought you might show up, Jack,” Bentley says.

“When did this happen?”

“This morning,” Bentley says. “I advised Mr. Vale that the burned portion of the house represented a safety hazard and that he needed to take care of it. You wouldn’t want a liability claim, would you, Jack?”

So the evidence is gone, Jack thinks. The holes in the flooring, the splash patterns on the joists.

He says, “I have two sets of photos and videotape, you asshole.”

“Yeah, you have
samples
, too,” Bentley says. “Get out of here, Jack. You’re trespassing.”

“Where’d you get your samples?”

“From the house,” Bentley says. “Before you came.”

“How much is Nicky paying you?”

“Get
out
, Jack. Before I arrest you.”

“No, what’s your cut?” Jack asks. “How much pension do you get off the dead woman?”

“Walk away
now
, Jack.”

“You set me up, Brian.”

“You set yourself up,” Bentley says. “You always do. I tried to tell you, don’t dick around with this thing. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“This isn’t over.”

“Believe me, Jack. It’s over.”

Jack gets back in the ’Stang and drives over to Monarch Bay.

Pulls up to the gate.

“May I help you, sir?”

“Where’s Derochik?”

“Guy who usually works this shift?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Do you know where he is?”

“No, do you?” the guard asks. “He just calls up, says he isn’t working anymore. Puts us all in a jam.”

“Do you know where he lives, where I could get hold of him?”

“You find out, you let
me
know.”

Jack knows he’ll try to find out but he also knows that he’s not going to find Mike Derochik. Derochik is probably in another state already.

Jack drives over to the Monarch Bay Shopping Plaza, to the drugstore. He already knows what he’s going to find.

Or what he’s not going to find.

Which is Kelly.

There’s another chemist behind the counter.

“Is Kelly here?” Jack asks.

The woman smiles at him. “Another broken heart. No, Kelly quit. Very suddenly.”

“Do you know where she went? Where I could get hold of her?”

“Yes and no,” the woman says. “Yes, I know where she went—no, I don’t know how you could get hold of her.”

Jack’s not in the mood for games.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sorry,” the woman says. “It’s just that I’ve had my fill of Kellys. If you were smart, so would you. Kelly flew off to Europe last night. Met a ‘great guy’ who’s going to give her the world. So unless you can give her the world, I think you’re out of luck, Kelly-wise.”

I don’t think luck has anything to do with it, Jack thinks.

They knew every move.

Every move I made.

He drives over to Pacific Coast Mortgage and Finance.

He’s not even out of the car when Gary comes bopping out.

“Hey, Nicky came through,” Gary says. “Paid the balloon early.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, dude, we were worried for nothing.”

Yeah, dude.

Like very fresh.

Surf on.

Jack finds Ng at home.

A nice tract house on a cul-de-sac in Laguna Niguel. The house newly painted a pale blue. Basketball hoop bolted to the garage at the end of the driveway.

The medical examiner comes to the door in a T-shirt and pajama pants.

“I was sleeping, Jack,” he says.

“Can I come in?”

“Why not?”

Jack follows him into the house. Ng leads him into a small room that must be the doctor’s study. Antique wooden desk. Walls lined with bookshelves more full of books than knickknacks. Ng sits at the desk chair and motions for Jack to sit down in a big leather chair by the window.

“Anyone else home?” Jack asks.

“Wife’s at work,” Ng says. “Kids are at school. What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

Ng nods. He reaches under the green blotter on the desk. Pulls out a small stack of Polaroid pictures and hands them to Jack.

Two Asian kids walking out of a playground. A boy and a girl. Each in their little soccer uniforms. You don’t need an Ident-A-Kid packet to know that they’re Ng’s children.

Jack hands the pictures back.

“He killed his wife,” he says.

“Probably.”

“And he’s going to get away with it.”

“Probably.”

And he’s going to make $50 million doing it.

Jack stands up and says, “Okay.”

Ng nods.

Back in his car Jack knows that road is closed. Knows that the blood
and tissue samples are already parked at a hazardous waste disposal somewhere.

It isn’t just money, because if money wants to intimidate a coroner, money sues the coroner, or calls his boss or otherwise leans on him. Money doesn’t threaten to hurt his kids.

No, that’s a gangster thing.

Jack goes back to Cal Fire and Life, does the whole computer and phone run again and it’s the same story.

Nicky’s accounts are solid.

Credit card payments up to date.

Money in the business accounts.

And I am one dumb claims dog, Jack thinks.

Nicky set me up. Left evidence out there, waited for me to deny the claim and then jerked the evidence.

Set me and California Fire and Life up for a gigantic bad faith suit.

And he knew every move I was going to make.

Jack pushes in the door marked
NO ADMITTANCE
.

He blows right past the sign that says
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
and one of the SIU guys lays a hand on Jack’s shoulder to stop him. Jack brushes him aside and shoves open the door to Sandra Hansen’s office.

She’s sitting behind her desk.

Jack leans over it.

“You been reading my file, Sandra?”

Most of the SIU guys are ex-cops and this one—a slab of meat named Cooper—asks her, “You want me to take him out of here, Sandra?”

Jack doesn’t turn around as he says, “Yeah, why don’t you take me out of here?”

“It’s all right,” Sandra says.

She gestures for Cooper to leave.

And shuts the door behind him.

She says, “I told you that we were going to monitor this file.”

“You didn’t tell me that you were going to tip Vale off to every move I was going to make.”

“You’re paranoid, Jack.”

Yeah, Jack thinks, I’m paranoid.

Fucking A, I’m paranoid.

He says, “Vale knew every move I made.”

“Then you’d better get some new moves.”

“He wants $50 million now.”

“You should have settled it before.”

She goes back to shuffling papers.

“He’s mobbed up, isn’t he?” Jack asks.

“What makes you say that?”

Jack says, “He intimidated three witnesses and did a magic act with his money. He set me up, and you guys helped him, and I want to know why.”

“You had your chance to play,” Hansen says. “Too late now.”

Jack slams his hand on her desk. “I’m not
playing
!”

“That’s my point.”

Jack sighs. “Okay, what do you want?”

“I don’t want anything
now
,” Hansen says. “You can’t give me anything
now. Before
, I wanted you to back off. You wouldn’t. Now they’re going to
make
you back off, so you have nothing to trade.”

“Give me what you got on him, Sandra,” Jack says. “I’m dying.”

Hansen shrugs.

Says, “We didn’t give Vale any information. And we don’t have any information on Vale to give
you
.”

“He killed his wife.”

“That’s what you say.”

“And burned the house down.”

“That’s your version,” Hansen says. “Another version is that you’ve got an
ancient
hard-on for the sister and that she sold you a bill of goods along with the
chucha
. And you
are
going to back off now, Jack. You’re going to lie down like a good dog and die.”

“You gonna make me, Sandra?”

“That’s right.” She pulls some papers from her drawer and lays them on the desk. “A sworn statement from a restoration contractor claiming that he paid you to recommend him to policyholders. Here’s another from a homeowner admitting that he gave you a kickback to look the other way on an overcharge. The DA will give them both immunity. It’s up to you, Jack: I can stick them back in my desk or I can send them up to Mahogany Row.”

“Why don’t you stick them in your ass and
then
take them up to Mahogany Row?”

“Same old Jack,” she says. “You know what they’re going to put on your tombstone, Jack? ‘He Never Learned.’ ”

“So how much is Nicky paying you, Sandra?”

“As usual, you’re a hundred and eighty degrees wrong.”

“I hope it’s enough to retire on,” Jack says, “because I’ll never quit on this.”

“Quitting is the last of your worries,” Sandra says. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Jack, or can you just haul your dumb ass out of here now?”

Jack hauls his dumb ass out of there. Pauses just long enough to exchange a bad look with Cooper, then heads back to his cubicle.

Now knowing two things for sure.

One, Nicky Vale is mobbed up.

Two, Sandra Hansen’s on the take.

One more thing, Jack thinks.

Unless I take a dive on the Vale file—

—I’m finished at California Fire and Life.

Which is pretty much what Casey is telling Goddamn Billy.

He’s got him on the horn and he’s saying, “It might have been nice if someone over these past twelve years had told their old friend Tom about a perjury conviction.”

“Jack Wade’s a good man.”

“Jack Wade is a good man,” Casey says. “Which makes it all the more of a shame that he’s going to get fucked.”

Jack walks into the office and Billy flips the phone to speaker.

So Jack gets to hear Casey say, “If Gordon wins on the Vale case—and he
will
win on the Vale case—then he’ll tie that tail to Cal Fire and Life and use it on the next case. And the next and the next. He’ll dig up every claim Jack ever denied—every arson, every fraud—and he’ll find a judge who’ll let him bring them to trial.

“Except now he not only has Jack’s testimony to use forever, he also
has the example of the Vale trial. He’ll tell the next jury that Cal Fire and Life has already been hit for x million, and
that
didn’t change their ways so you’d better hit them for x-plus. And so on and so on—the tail just keeps getting longer—until the company either buys all the cases or goes out of business.

“And it won’t be just Paul Gordon, either. Every shark in town will smell the blood and swarm in for the feeding frenzy. Every plaintiff’s attorney in California we ever beat in court will be coming in asking for a retrial, claiming that there’s at least a chance that Cal Fire lied and cheated in
their
case. I’ll file a truckload of motions to stop it, but some judge in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica will think it’s his ticket to the Supremes, and seeing how the Ninth Circuit is basically made up of politburo members anyway, we’ll get hammered on the appeal.

“And Jack will be everyone’s favorite witness. He’ll get called to recite a litany of his sins in every bad faith trial for the next ten years. They’ll run him right out of the state: I bet he’ll leave California, he’ll get so tired of being subpoenaed. Of course, if they move a case into federal court, he’s screwed nationwide. You along with him, because they’ll put you on the stand right behind him to confess how you knowingly hired a corrupt cop.

“Fifty million is a cheap price to stop the bleeding. And save Jack’s ass.”

“I don’t want my ass saved,” Jack says.

“Well,
I
want your ass saved, Jack,” Casey says. “There is no point dying in a battle you can’t win.”

“We can win it,” Jack says.

“You’re going to beat Paul Gordon on the stand?” Casey asks. “With no evidence and
your
baggage? Come on.”

“Give me some time to get the evidence,” Jack says.

“We don’t have the time,” Casey says. “Mahogany Row’s already banging on me to settle. They have rate hearings coming up. They don’t want a high-profile bad faith case. Especially one they can’t win. They want to settle.”

“They can’t settle without me, goddamn it.”

Company rules. The regional director of Claims—in this case Billy Hayes—has the last word on a claim. This is to save the corporate mucks from being subpoenaed to testify in every bad faith case. The director makes the call, he takes the fall.

Only this director ain’t going down easy.

“They’ll take you out if they have to,” Casey says.

“They’re blowing smoke,” Billy says.

“Where there’s smoke …”

“They know about Jack’s checkered past?”

“I haven’t told them,” Casey says. “I was hoping I’d get your agreement to just lay the Green Poultice on this, then nobody has to know.”

All wounds, Billy has said, can be healed with the Green Poultice.

“I don’t want it to go away,” Jack says.

“You don’t have the choice, Jack,” Casey says.

“
I
do,” Goddamn Billy says. “And we ain’t paying this cocksucker a dime.”

“Let me offer ten,” Casey says. “They’ll have a hard time walking away from ten.”