Twelve Red Herrings (24 page)

“Your mother’s
obviously a shrewd woman,” vas his only comment.

“Can I leave you
to handle all the paperwork?” asked David, trying to sound as if he didn’t want
to deal with any of the details.

“You bet,” said
Marvin. “Don’t even think about it, my friend.

Just leave all
that hassle to me. I know you’ve made the right decision, David. I promise you,
you’ll never live to regret it.” The following day, Marvin phoned again to say
that the paperwork had been completed, and all that was now required was for
David to have a medical – ‘routine’ was the word he kept repeating. But because
of the size of the sum insured, it would have to be with the company’s doctor
in New York.

David made a
fuss about having to travel to New York, adding that perhaps he’d made the
wrong decision, but after more pleading from Marvin, mixed with some unctuous
persuasion, he finally gave in.

Marvin brought
all the forms round to the apartment the following evening after Pat had left
for work.

David scribbled
his signature on three separate documents between two pencilled crosses. His
final act was to print Pat’s name in a little box Marvin had indicated with his
stubby finger.

“As your sole
dependant,” the broker explained, ‘should you pass away before September 2027 –
God
forbid.
Are you married to Pat?”

“No, we just
live together,” replied David.

After a few more
‘my friends’ and even more ‘you’ll never live to regret it’s, Marvin left the
apartment, clutching the forms.

“All you have to
do now is keep your nerve,” David told Pat once he had confirmed that the
paperwork had been completed.

“Just remember,
no one knows
me
as well as you do, and once it’s all
over, you’ll collect a million dollars.” When they eventually went to bed that
night, Pat desperately YOU’LL NEVER

LIVE TO REGRET
IT wanted to make love to David, but they both accepted it was no longer
possible.

The two of them
travelled down to New York together the following Monday to keep the
appointment David had made with Geneva Life’s senior medical consultant. They
parted a block away from the insurance company’s head office, as they didn’t
want to run the risk of being seen together. They hugged each other once again,
but as they parted David was still worried about whether Pat would be able to
go through with it.

A couple of
minutes before twelve, he arrived at the surgery.

A young woman in
a long white coat smiled up at him from behind her desk.

“Good morning,”
he said. “My name is David Kravits. I have an appointment with Dr Royston.”

“Oh, yes, Mr.
Kravits,” said the nurse.

“Dr Royston is
expecting you. Please follow me.” She led him down a long, bleak corridor to
the last room on the left. A small brass plaque read “Dr Royston’. She knocked,
opened the door and said, “Mr. Kravits, doctor.” Dr Royston turned out to be a
short, elderly man with only a few strands of hair left on his shiny sunburnt
head. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles, and had a look on his face which
suggested that his own life insurance policy might not be far from reaching
maturity.

He rose from his
chair, shook his patient by the hand and said, “It’s for a life insurance
policy, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, that’s
right.”

“Shouldn’t
take us too long, Mr. Kravits.
Fairly routine, but the company does
like to be sure you’re fit and well if they’re going to be liable for such a
large amount of money. Do have a seat,” he said, pointing to the other side of his
desk.

“I thought the
sum was far too high
myself
. I would have been happy
to settle for half a million, but the broker was very persuasive ...”

“Any serious
illness during the past ten years?” the doctor asked, obviously not interested
in the broker’s views.

“No. The
occasional cold, but nothing I’d describe as serious,’ he replied.

“Good. And in
your immediate family, any history of heart attacks, cancer, liver complaints?”

“Not that I’m
aware of.”

“Father
still alive?”

“Very
much so.”

“And he’s fit and
well?”

“Jogs every
morning, and pumps weights in the local gym at the weekend.”

“And
your mother?”

“Doesn’t do
either, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she outlives him comfortably.” The
doctor laughed.
“Any of your grandparents still living?”

“All
except
one. My dad’s father died two years ago.”

“Do you know the
cause of death?”

“He just passed
away, I think. At least, that was how the priest described it at his funeral.’

“And how old was
he?” the doctor asked. “Do you remember?’

“Eighty-one,
eighty-two.”

“Good,” repeated
Dr Royston, ticking another little box on the form in front of him. “Have you
ever suffered from any of these?” he asked, holding up a clipboard in front of
him. The list began with arthritis, and ended eighteen lines later with
tuberculosis.

He ran an eye
slowly down the long list before replying. “No, none of them,” was all he said,
not admitting to asthma on this occasion.

“Do you smoke?”

“Never.”
“Drink?”

“Socially – I
enjoy the occasional glass of wine with dinner, but I never drink spirits.’

“Excellent,”
said the doctor and ticked the last of the little boxes. “Now, let’s check your
height and weight. Come over here, please, Mr. Kravits, and climb onto these
scales.” The doctor had to stand on his toes in order to push the wooden marker
up until it was flat across his patient’s head.

“Six feet one
inch,” he declared, then looked down at the weighing machine, and flicked the
little weight across until it just balanced.

“A
hundred and seventy-nine pounds.
Not bad.” He filled in two more lines
of his report.
“Perhaps just a little overweight.

“Now I need a
urine sample, Mr. Kravits. If you would be kind enough to take this plastic
container next door, fill it about halfway up, leave it on the ledge when
you’ve finished, and then come back to me.” The doctor wrote out some more
notes while his patient left the room. He returned a few moments later.

“I’ve left the
container on the ledge,” was all he said.

“Good. The next
thing I need is a blood sample. Could you roll up your right sleeve?” The
doctor placed a rubber pad around his right bicep and pumped until the veins
stood out clearly. “A tiny prick,” he said. “You’ll hardly feel a thing.” The
needle went in, and he turned away as the doctor drew his blood. Dr Royston
cleaned the wound and fixed a small circular plaster over the broken skin. The
doctor then bent over and placed a cold stethoscope on different parts of the
patient’s chest, occasionally asking him to breathe in and out.

“Good,” he kept
repeating. Finally he said, “That just about wraps it up, Mr. Kravits. You’ll
need to spend a few minutes down the corridor with Dr Harvey, so she can take a
chest x-ray, and have some fun with her electric pads, but after that you’ll be
through, and you can go home to’ – he checked his pad “New Jersey. The company
will be in touch in a few days, as soon as we’ve had the results.”

“Thank you, Dr
Royston,” he said as he buttoned up his shirt.

The doctor
pressed a buzzer on his desk and the nurse reappeared and led him to another
room, with a plaque on the door that read “Dr Mary Harvey’. Dr Harvey, a
smartly-dressed middle-aged woman with her grey hair cropped short, was waiting
for him.

She smiled at
the tall, handsome man and asked him to take off his shirt again and to step up
onto the platform and stand in front of the x-ray unit.

“Place your arms
behind your back and breathe in. Thank you.’

Next she asked
him to lie down on the bed in the corner of the room.

She leaned over
his chest, smeared blodges of paste on his skin and fixed little pads to them.
While he stared up at the white ceiling she flicked a switch and concentrated
on a tiny television screen on the corner of her desk. Her expression gave
nothing away.

After she had
removed the paste with a damp flannel she said, “You can put your shirt back
on, Mr. Kravits. You are now free to leave.’

Once he was
fully dressed, the young man hurried out of the building and down the steps,
and ran all the way to the corner where they had parted. They hugged each other
again.

“Everything go
all right?”

“I think so,” he
said. “They told me I’d be hearing from them in the next few days, once they’ve
had the results of all their tests.” “Thank God it hasn’t been a problem for
you.”

“I only wish it
wasn’t for you.”

“Don’t let’s
even think about it,” said David, holding tightly onto the one person he loved.

Marvin rang a
week later to let David know that Dr Royston had given him a clean bill of
health. All he had to do now was send the first instalment of $oo to the
insurance company.

David posted a
cheque off to Geneva Life the following morning.

Thereafter his
payments were made by wire transfer on the first day of each month.

Nineteen days
after the seventh payment had been cleared, David Kravits died of AIDS.

Pat tried to
remember the first thing he was meant to do once the will had been read. He was
to contact a Mr. Levy, David’s lawyer, and leave everything in his hands. David
had warned him not to become involved in any way himself. Let Levy, as his executor,
make the claim from the insurance company, he had said, and then pass the money
on to him. If in any doubt, say nothing, was the last piece of advice David had
given Pat before he died.

Ten days later,
Pat received a letter from a claims representative at Geneva Life requesting an
interview with the beneficiary of the policy. Pat passed the letter straight to
David’s lawyer. Mr. Levy wrote back agreeing to an interview, which would take
place, at his client’s request, at the offices of Levy, Goldberg and Levy in
Manhattan.

“Is there
anything you haven’t told me, Patrick?” Levy asked him a few minutes before the
insurance company’s claims representative was due to arrive.
“Because
if there is, you’d better tell me now.”

“No, Mr. Levy,
there’s nothing more to tell you,” Pat replied, carrying out David’s
instructions to the letter.

From the moment
the meeting began, the representative of Geneva Life, his eyes continually
boring into Pat’s bowed head, left Mr. Levy in no doubt that he was not happy
about paying out on this particular claim. But the lawyer stonewalled every
question, strengthened by the knowledge
that
eight
months before, when rigorous tests had been taken, Geneva Life’s doctors had
found no sign of David’s being HIV positive.

Levy kept repeating,
“However much noise you make, your company will have to pay up in the end.” He
added for good measure, “If I have not received the full amount due to my
client YOU LL NEVER LIVE TO

REGRET IT within
thirty
days,
I will immediately instigate proceedings
against Geneva Life.” The claims representative asked Levy if he would consider
a deal. Levy glanced at Pat, who bowed his head even lower, and replied,
“Certainly not.” Pat arrived back at the apartment two hours later, exhausted
and depressed, fearing that an attack of asthma might be coming on. He tried to
prepare some supper before he went to work, but everything seemed so pointless
without David. He was already wondering if he should have agreed to a
settlement.

The phone rang only
once during the evening. Pat rushed to pick it up, hoping it might be either
his mother or his sister Ruth.

It turned out to
be Marvin, who bleated, “I’m in real trouble, Pat.

I’m probably
going to lose my job over that policy I made out for your friend David.” Pat
said how sorry he was, but felt there was nothing he could do to help.

“Yes, there is,”
insisted Marvin. “For a start, you could take out a policy yourself. That might
just save my skin.”

“I don’t think
that would be wise,” said Pat, wondering what David would have advised.

“Surely David
wouldn’t have wanted to see me fired,” Marvin pleaded. “Have mercy on me, my
friend. I just can’t afford another divorce.”

“How much would
it cost me?” asked Pat, desperate to find some way of getting Marvin off the
line.

“You’re going to
get a million dollars in cash,” Marvin almost shouted, ‘and you’re asking me
what it’s going to cost? What’s a thousand dollars a month to someone as rich
as you?”

“But I can’t be
sure that I am going to get the million,” Pat protested.