some guy mow his lawn or hump his wife when he’s claiming to be disabled from a minor auto crash was not only mind numbing, it was beneath me. I had pride. But I did it anyway.
The phone rang. I checked the caller ID. It was Russell Davidson, the liaison from one of my insurance company clients. His job was to interact with us private eyes. Keep us interested in accepting his claims cases. My primary contact. Picked up the phone.
“Jake Randall.”
That’s how I answer the landline.
“Jake. Russell Davidson here.”
Davidson was no charmer. All collegiate arrogance and thinly veiled disdain for guys like me who actually work for a living.
“Hey, Davidson. To what do I owe this honor?”
No mister. No first name. Last name familiarity for him. I know he hates it when I call him that. That’s why I do it.
“Hey, I saw your write-up in the paper last week, Wyatt. Very impressive. You’re now a famous guy. But tell me: have you shot anybody lately?”
Did he just call me Wyatt? This shootout shtick was starting to chafe. He snickered into the line. I chortled along. That’s okay. Tit for tat, I guess.
“Ah. That’s a good one. No, I’ve already killed everybody around here who needs killin’.”
“I see. Well, Jake, all this cowboy shootin’ aside, I called because I wanted you be aware of how insurance fraud is such a significantly huge hit to the economy. According to FBI stats, the insurance industry—collectively consisting of some seven thousand companies like ours, as you probably already know—will lose some forty billion dollars or more a year through payment of fraudulent claims. Forty billion, Jake. Think about that. That’s a huge hit to America’s economy”
Oh, God. It was one of those oh-so-personalized, pump-up-the-energy calls. I’d get one every couple of months or so. Just to remind us lowly PIs that we’re doing God’s work in investigating and exposing insurance fraud. Saving the American economy. Worse, I knew he was reading it off his computer screen. I gave him a noncommittal response. I knew I’d have to endure yet more.
“Uh huh.”
He continued.
“While it’s true that the insurance industry as a whole takes in more than seven trillion dollars in premiums each year, you’re aware that some of that money goes back to our policyholders in order to make whole those who have suffered a regrettable and tragic loss. It’s how we protect our customers from life’s inherent risks. It’s what they’ve asked us to do. And what’s left over after we pay those claims, Jake, is invested back into the American economy in such rock-solid ventures as annuities, residential housing, and commercial real estate.”
More infomercial. I hated these calls. I hated insurance companies. But they paid the bills. Some of the bills anyway.
I pondered the dust and dirt on my alligator boots. Buffed them on my pants leg. Davidson wasn’t done yet. He had to get to the flag waving rah-rah close.
“So our hats are off to guys like you, Jake, who enable us to keep our policy premiums as low as possible by weeding out those illegal and fraudulent claims. And for that, we thank you!”
A comment from me was expected at this point in the spiel. His computer screen probably displayed “wait for comment.” I obliged.
“Well, that’s awfully nice of you to say, Russ.”
Davidson also hated it when I called him Russ. Like during these intimate moments we share over on the phone listening to these mandatory infomercials. So that’s why I did it.
But I wasn’t quite done yet, either.
“And, Russ, I can’t tell you how much that means to a small private investigator like me. But in all fairness, you know, if insurance companies weren’t so interested in making obscene profit on top of obscene profit, like funding annuities and housing and commercial real estate projects at confiscatory interest rates, perhaps those poor aggrieved policyholders of yours would not have such high premiums. Or those huge fucking deductibles.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. There probably wasn’t an appropriate prompt on his screen for a comeback like that. Which means he’d have to wing it.
“Uh, Jake. We’re all on the same team here. No need to get sarcastic.”
“Oh, that wasn’t sarcasm, Russ. That was a heartfelt observation.”
I loved tweaking him. I’m an ardent red-blooded capitalist, and I appreciate insurance companies being the source of capital for many a commercial project. But I loved keeping him off balance. For the two-hundred grand a year salary he was pulling in, he could put up with a little rebellious snarkiness from one of us lowly PIs.
Davidson decided to wrap it up.
“Well, nevertheless, Jake, I—err, we—appreciate your efforts in getting fraud reduced. And I’m looking forward to continuing to work with you. As always. And keep that six-gun loaded, partner. Yee-haw and take care.”
“You too, Russ.”
Fucking idiot.
I was primarily focused on the personal injury aspect of insurance fraud, but I still had to endure these infomercials periodically. And nothing would happen to me because of my little verbal rebellion. They needed me, and I just needed to get it off my chest. All that infomercial public relations bullshit notwithstanding, insurance companies hire guys like me to find a reason they don’t have to make good on their policy. I get paid so they don’t have to pay your claim. And don’t kid yourself. You’re never fully insured. Not really. I always felt I needed a shower after an insurance case. Goddamn vultures.
David Willis saved me from letting myself get seriously pissed off. He came blasting into my office and, in one fluid motion, slid into one of the overstuffed chairs. Threw a leg over the arm and stared at me. I was supposed to be curious. I was just miffed at the interruption. And still working on getting myself pissed off at the cheap-ass, greedy insurance company infomercial.
“Guess what.”
David loved to start conversations that way. It annoyed me.
“Bucs won?” The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were having a decent season, but I just said that to irritate him. Following sports was beneath him.
“What? No, I dunno. Guess again.”
Sigh. I looked up. Time to give it up and play along. After fifteen minutes of Russell Davidson’s nauseating and insultingly patronizing spiel, I wasn’t in a very good mood anyway.
“OK. What?”
“Somebody just shot Bob Dylan.”
He could have said that an asteroid was going to hit Earth in ten minutes. Or that the San Andreas Fault had ruptured and California had slid into the Pacific. It could not have hit me any harder. I just looked at him, mouth agape. Mr. Brain was trying to wrap his arms around what David was telling me. I could only stare at him for what seemed like minutes. Finally I managed to speak.
“What?
