Simon Wood

by Accidents Waiting to Happen

  His phone rang from under a wad of papers and he waded through the mess to find it. "Yes, Maria?"

  "Call on line one for you, Bob," she said.

  He pressed the glowing key on the keypad. "Bob Deuce, how can--"

  "Bob, it's me."

  "Josh, what's up?" The nervous edge to Josh's voice frightened Bob. Every time his friend called him, some thing

  bad had happened. He dreaded the new turn of events.

  "Have you got time to see me?"

  "Yes, I suppose. Where are you?" Bob leaned over his desk on his elbows, his body stiff with fear.

  "I'm outside on one of the pay phones."

  "Here? Josh, what's this about?"

  "I'll be waiting by the phones."

  Bob sighed. "Okay."

  The line went dead.

  "Damn it," he said to himself, with the phone still to his ear.

  He replaced the receiver. This was more bad news and he knew it. He went into the office reception area.

  Maria looked up from her computer and smiled.

  "I'm just going to get myself a coffee and something to eat. I've got the munchies." He beamed a big smile and placed a hand on the door.

  "Bob, you'll be going home in a couple of hours, can't you wait?" Maria was still smiling, but she deplored his overeating.

  "Gotta keep the wheels of the food industry turning.

  Can I get you something?"

  "No, thank you," she said and shook her head in dismay.

  Once Bob passed out of view of Maria, he dropped the act. The grin slipped into a frown. He trotted across the shopping center parking lot to where Josh stood by the pay phones.

  "Bob, two people are dead," Josh said.

  Bob swallowed the shock instantly. It isn't healthy being Josh Michaels's friend, he thought. "Not here."

  He guided Josh to a coffee shop on the corner of the mini mall next to the fitness center. He sat Josh down on the plastic garden furniture in the farthest corner of the terrace, away from prying ears. Only a middle-aged woman in sunglasses reading a newspaper sat outside, but she was on the other corner of the terrace. Bob went into the coffee shop and returned with two coffees.

  Bob hunched over his coffee and the small table.

  "Who's dead? What's happened?"

  "I went to see Margaret Macey and I killed her,"

  Josh said.

  The news slammed into Bob, leaving him bewildered.

  He couldn't quite comprehend what he was hearing.

  Josh brought a hand to his forehead and rubbed it.

  He stared wide-eyed through the table as he rambled.

  "She wouldn't answer her damned door so I called to her through the window and she had a heart attack or something. I broke into the house to give her CPR, but it didn't work. She died."

  "Josh, listen to me. You didn't kill her. She had a heart attack. You're being stupid."

  "She was so scared someone was going to kill her.

  Those phone calls must have been a nightmare."

  "Look at me, Josh."

  He looked up.

  "You didn't kill her. She had a heart attack." Josh attempted to interrupt him, but Bob raised a hand. "She had a heart attack. She would have had it with or without you."

  "Yeah, but it was me who caused it."

  "Yeah, it could have been the mailman, telephone repairman or the Jehovah's witnesses. You were the unlucky SOB who triggered it." Bob placed a supportive hand on Josh's shoulder. "Okay?"

  Slowly, Josh nodded.

  "Did you call for an ambulance?"

  "No."

  "Christ, Josh, you can't leave her there."

  "But I can't be seen at her home."

  Bob hated to admit it, but Josh was right. The cops would be suspicious if he was found at the scene of her death. He understood Josh's logic. "All right, I'll drop by. If she's still there then I'll make a nine-one-one call."

  "Thanks."

  "You said two people were dead."

  Bob surprised himself. A month ago he wouldn't have been so causal about dead people with whom he was personally involved. Now, it was almost a way of life and he treated it as such. He didn't like that.

  "I came home yesterday afternoon and I was picked up by this cop. But he wasn't a cop. He was about to kill me when James Mitchell ran him down and shot him."

  From Josh's brief description, Bob found it hard to take in the information. He got Josh to expand on his account.

  "James Mitchell. I don't get it." After a moment it dawned on him. "Are you talking about this guy they found with his face shot off?"

  Josh nodded.

  "Jesus, I really don't get it. Why did Mitchell save you after trying to kill you?" This mystified Bob. It didn't make sense.

  "I don't understand it myself, but I think if I hadn't got my ass out of there, there would have been two bodies found."

  "Go home, Josh, and stay there. I need time to think." Bob paused. "I'll pick you up and take you to breakfast. I've found some things out about Pinnacle Investments. I think I can make some sense of this mess and you might be able to fill in some of the blanks."

  "Kate said she'd leave me if I went to Margaret Macey's."

  "Go home," Bob said sternly. "Put on a good show and don't tell Kate. You're not going to lose that woman. She's the best thing to ever happen to you. I won't let you screw it up."

  "He'll be coming for me next and there's nothing to stop him."

  "I know."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The diner was busy for a Saturday morning, but not so busy that Josh and Bob couldn't select their table. Bob picked the corner booth and a hostess showed them to it. They slid into the booth and she gave them each a large laminated menu. Bob put down the manila envelope he'd brought with him.

  "Your server will be with you in a minute," the hostess said and left.

  Josh waited until she was out of earshot. "Did you go to her house?"

  "Yeah, when I got there they were loading her into the ambulance," Bob said.

  Josh sighed with relief.

  "Don't relax too much. That means someone either found her or saw something that made them call it in."

  Josh frowned; Bob was right. Who had called the ambulance? He hoped no one could identify him or his car. He started to speak, but saw the approaching waitress.

  She was a plain-looking woman in her late forties, tall, but her dyed brown hair scooped up into a pineapple sprout made her look even taller. She seemed like a seasoned waitress--sharp and straight talking with asbestos hands for easy handling of hot plates and jugs of coffee without the aid of mitts.

  "My name's Laura and I'll be your server today. What can I get you gents this morning?" A Southern twang scrubbed thin by years of living in California's melting pot tinged her speech. "Coffee to start, maybe?"

  Bob and Josh agreed and she filled the mugs already present on the table. Both men quickly scanned their menus. Bob went for a sausage skillet with home fries and eggs sunny side up. Josh ordered the scrambled eggs, hash browns and toast. The waitress thanked them with a smile and relieved them of the cumbersome menus.

  They sat in silence drinking coffee and pondering Josh's problems. Neither knew what to say or where to start. Laura returned with their breakfasts. After several moments of eating, Bob spoke.

  "How's Kate? Does she suspect anything?" Bob asked.

  "No," Josh replied.

  The waitress returned with a steaming pot of coffee and overheard a snippet of the two men's conversation.

  "Refill?" she asked sternly.

  "Yes, please." Bob saw the hate smoldering in her eyes. "Wedding anniversaries. We men can never plan surprises. It's a very fine line we walk, as husbands."

  The extinguished hateful look became a warm smile.

  "How many is it, darlin'?" she asked Josh.

  Momentarily confused, he picked up the thread.

  "Tenth," he said.

  She tapped Josh on the shoulder and wri
nkled her nose at Bob. "Still a kid. He's still got lots to learn."

  Bob laughed. "That he has."

  The waitress topped off their mugs and moved to another table in need of service.

  Bob explained what he'd found out about Pinnacle Investments.

  His discovery was punctuated with mouthfuls of food snatched from the plate in front of him.

  "The first thing you need to understand is you didn't cash in your life insurance policy." Bob swallowed the mouthful of food and waved a fork at Josh.

  "But that's what you did for me, isn't it?"

  "No. I made a viatical settlement. That basically means Pinnacle Investments gave you a cash settlement that was a percentage of the face value of your policy.

  They continue paying your monthly contributions until you die."

  "Why do that? Why continue paying my contributions?"

  "Because

  when you're dead, they collect on the policy.

  That's how viatical settlements work. In effect, you made them the beneficiary of your life insurance."

  Josh picked up his coffee. "So why did you do that and not cash in the policy?"

  "Because you wanted a lot of money quick. If I surrendered your policy, I would have gotten next to nothing, a few thousand at best. But by making a viatical settlement, I got you a serious slice of your policy back."

  "The fifty-seven thousand."

  "Right, which is about ten percent of the face value.

  And that's still a poor payout. If you were terminally ill or very old, you would have received a cut of up to seventy-five percent of the face value."

  "Jeez, that would have been well into six figures."

  Wide-eyed, Josh was astonished by the money that could be raked in.

  "Yeah, that's what got viatical companies into trouble--the large up front payoffs. Viatical settlements became big business at the beginning of the nineties when people saw easy money could be made."

  "How?"

  "AIDS. Many medical insurance polices wouldn't cover AIDS patients, so a lot of people would have become destitute if a number of companies hadn't popped up giving them a large cut of their life policy while they were still alive. Bingo--a lot of very sick people lived out their last days worry and debt free.

  And viatical companies got what they wanted, a quick, surefire return on an investment. The estimated life expectancy of an AIDS patient was a year, maybe two.

  The investment firms paid the monthly dues and passed over some cash. Everybody was happy."

  Josh sneered. "Sounds a bit ghoulish, living off the dead and profiteering off someone's misery. They must be willing their clients to die."

  "Yeah, but they did you a good turn when you needed it."

  No denying it, he had benefited from the system--at the time. "So what went wrong? We wouldn't be here unless something had happened."

  "Smart boy. Medical breakthroughs. There have been several successful AIDS drugs put on the market over the last few years that have changed the world for their patients. The life expectancy of AIDS patients has increased by ten years, and in ten years, who knows, there might even be a cure. So the viatical companies were screwed. Suddenly the big short-term profits dried up. Their clients had the cash to buy the drugs and got the better end of the deal. The companies started going to the wall, paying out too much too soon with no likely return in sight, plus they still had all those monthly dues to cover. The ones that diversified survived. They moved onto other terminal illnesses like cancer, heart disease--all the biggies medical science doesn't have an answer for."

  Bob stopped to drink his coffee and Josh let the information sink in.

  Bob continued. "The other way some viatical companies survived was to act as an agent. They acted as intermediaries for private investors or investment clubs who made large cash payments for some poor sap's life insurance. Little did they know they might have to wait a decade to get anything when they thought a check would be in the mail in twelve months. I remember seeing the late night infomercials ages ago."

  "So what's Pinnacle Investments's story?"

  "They were one of the founding companies in the industry, setting up a division to specifically get a steal on the rest. They bought big and were paid out bigger.

  Most of their clients were AIDS patients, but they'd already moved into all kinds of terminal diseases. The annual report was a shareholder's dream, with major growth in the early nineties. But, the ninety-eight report was the complete opposite. The viatical division was sinking the rest of the firm. But in ninety-nine they almost broke even, two thousand they showed a profit again. Tiny in comparison, but a profit." Bob illustrated his information with printouts of financial data taken from Pinnacle Investments's Web pages. He removed a sheaf of papers from the envelope he brought with him and passed it to Josh.

  Briefly, Josh scanned the papers. "So they got over the hump," he said, offering a logical conclusion he didn't believe.

  "Yeah, but for their success their clients had to die when the trend was for them to live. The rest of their competitors either went bust or were bought out."

  "How do they account for their success?" Josh pushed his plate away. The discussion had sapped his hunger.

  "Are you finished with that?" Bob asked, nodding at Josh's plate.

  "Yeah, knock yourself out."

  Bob hijacked the remainder of the hash brown between his knife and fork, and put it onto his plate.

  "You should never let food go to waste. It should be a crime," he said, and made a piece of Josh's breakfast disappear. "To answer your question, the official statement for their renewed fortunes is shrewd management.

  They say their investment spread is much wider and not as vulnerable as their competition. The laws have relaxed on who can make a viatical settlement. It used to be the terminally ill, but now it's anyone over seventy-five."

  "But I was neither of those."

  "That's right, but I got you in on your lifestyle as a pilot and recreational rock climber."

  "Yeah, I used to rock climb, but I stopped after Abby was born." Once an avid climber in the Sierras, he had given it up at Kate's request. Although he'd never had a serious fall--only a minor mishap that landed him two days in the hospital--she didn't relish the thought of bringing up a baby with no father.

  "Yeah, but you might take it up again and I told them there's hereditary cancer on the male side."

  Josh studied the black coffee in his mug. His reflection stared back, dark and distorted in the shimmering liquid. Cancer was one of his greatest fears, and he tried to hide it deep within himself and do his best to forget. His father had died of prostate cancer at forty nine when Josh was twenty-one, and his paternal uncle had died of the same thing three years younger. His grandfather had died at a similar age of lung cancer, but he'd been a lifelong smoker. He didn't know what had happened to his great-grandfather. He didn't dare to find out.

  "They took you because you were a high-risk candidate and worth a flutter in their opinion," Bob added.

  Their Southern waitress took the plates away. Both men rejected the offer to see the menu again, but accepted coffee. She refilled their mugs and promised to return with the bill later.

  "Okay. They say good management made them survive, but what do you say?" Josh said.

  "Considering what has been happening to you, I think they're killing their clients, and the figures bear it out. The average Pinnacle Investments viatical client lives two point four years, but their closest competitor's rate is five years and getting longer. They don't care who their clients are, because they'll decide when it is time to collect." Bob paused. "And you, my friend, are on their endangered list."

  "Bob, if it hadn't been for that guy Jenks, I would tell you that you are talking out of your ass, but he said I was worth money when I was dead. I'm only of value to three people--Kate, Abby and Pinnacle Investments.

  And I don't believe Kate and Abby are trying to kill me."

  Bob too
k a swig from his coffee. "I contacted my buddies in the insurance trade to see if they'd done any business with Pinnacle Investments. They had, and several of them had clients die in unusual, but explicable accidents.

  One of them crashed into a river and drowned."

  In the parking lot of the diner, Josh leaned against Bob's Toyota and placed his folded arms on the roof of the car. Bob was about to get into the car and asked, "What's up?"

  "We may know who's doing this, but how do we stop it? How do we call them off? We've got nothing concrete to give the cops."

  "What do you suggest?" Bob asked.

  "You buy my policy back."

  Bob frowned and shook his head. "I don't think they'd go for it. It wouldn't be in their interests."

  "We'll compensate them. I have insurance coming on the Cessna that would cover their losses."

  "I don't know, Josh."

  "You're going to have to try. It's my only option."

  It seemed everyone in Sacramento had converged on the mall this Saturday morning. The parking lot were a roadblock. Parking had been a bitch, but Kate had found a space for the minivan after fifteen minutes.

  Once out of the car, the sidewalks were a wave of people and she always seemed to be swimming against the tide. She clutched Abby's hand and at the first opportunity darted inside the mall.

  In a lot of ways, Kate wanted the hustle and bustle of the mall. The crowds and piped classical music were a welcome distraction from her unwanted thoughts.

  Abby aided this desire. The girl's demands and blindness to the problems at home diverted Kate's attention.

  Without a distraction, Josh preoccupied her mind 247.

  It had become increasingly difficult to live with him.

  She loved him, but she couldn't cope with the curveballs his life kept throwing at them. The two murder attempts, Mark Keegan's death, police, mystery men, a television expose and the lies were too much--the lies more than anything. Josh had betrayed her, he'd said what he'd done was for the better good, but it didn't make it easier to swallow. If he'd lied about the bribe, then what else was he keeping to himself? The prospect of living on a knife edge didn't appeal--there were always lacerations.