“But he’s going to leave if you’re not here in three minutes.”
Even with perfect traffic, hitting every green light, he was still ten minutes away from home. “Stall him! Do what you can! Offer him food or drink, try to talk to him about insurance! Ask questions!”
“No!” Stacy yelled and suddenly her voice was far away.
“Stace?” he called. “Stacy?”
He heard her voice in the distance: “Don’t go! He’s on his way! Please!”
Joel veered to the left, bumped over the median into the opposing lane and was nearly hit by a blue Mercedes-Benz that honked at him and swerved out of the way. He floored it, speeding back down the boulevard toward home, but then he heard the whine of a siren behind him, saw the flash of blinking lights as a patrol car pulled him over.
On the phone he heard nothing but the sound of Stacy sobbing.
NINETEEN
1
“This can’t be it.”
“This is it.”
“You must have the wrong address, then.”
Beth shook her head. “No. This is the place.”
Hunt got out of the car and stared over the Saab’s roof at the ruined shell of a structure. It looked like a building that had been bombed. Only three partial walls were remaining, and the fourth wall, like the roof, had collapsed into rubble.
They were on the far outskirts of the county, near the Mexican border, parked before what appeared to have once been a warehouse. It was the only construction on an undeveloped cul de sac, and from the look of the weeds and vegetation that had begun to creep over the downed chunks of concrete and rebar, the building had been abandoned some time ago. Hunt could not quite tell what had brought the structure down. There was no indication of fire, and it was not demolished completely enough to be the result of a wrecking ball. If he’d been back in California, he would have assumed that an earthquake had caused the damage, but that obviously wasn’t the case in Tucson.
Beth got out of the passenger side, and he locked the car’s doors and walked around to where she stood on the sidewalk. She was staring at chalk drawings on the concrete, a child’s drawings of horned demons and fanged monsters.
Beth smiled weakly. “Yep. We’re in the right place.”
They could see from here that this was no insurance office, but Hunt still felt the need to go inside the collapsed building and see what, if anything, he could learn. This was the only lead, the only information they had about The Insurance Group, and he was not about to let the opportunity pass.
“Where did you put all the copies?” he asked.
“In my underwear drawer.”
He looked at her askance.
“I couldn’t think of anywhere else off the top of my head. I figured they’d be safe there.”
“Yeah, unless some pervert breaks into our house.”
They started up the long service driveway that led to the ruined building. For the first few yards the cracked concrete was littered with broken glass and rusted nails and the usual detritus that accompanied business abandonment. But after that, curiously, the driveway was clear save for windblown dust and the occasional dead leaf. As they drew closer, the bulk of the empty building blocked out the midafternoon sun, throwing the way ahead into shadow. It seemed cheaply symbolic, but it was effective nonetheless, and Hunt felt chilled as they walked up a sloping sidewalk past dead flowering bushes to the front entrance.
A rectangular shape slightly different in tint than the rest of the wall testified to the fact that a sign had once hung next to the double doors but gave no indication as to what the sign had said. The doors themselves were long gone, only one crumpled metal frame on the left indicating that they had ever been there. The place still looked like a warehouse, and he had a hard time imagining that it had ever been the headquarters of an insurance company. According to the information they’d gotten from the agent’s briefcase, it was, though.
But where had the company gone? Had it relocated? Or, more chillingly, had it gone out of business, leaving only the insurance agent, a deranged fanatic with supernatural powers, to carry on?
“I don’t like this place,” Beth whispered.
“I don’t either,” he said and found himself whispering, too. “But we have to see.”
The wall before them was only partially extant, the entire right half collapsed, but it was faster to go through the doorless doorway than around the side of the wall, and they stepped through the entrance inside.
Before them was what looked like a mountain of debris, an insurmountable obstacle to anyone attempting to navigate the interior of the ruined building. Most of it was roof and rafters, gigantic metal beams and attached structural supports protruding at odd angles from piled concrete blocks. Whether by accident or intent, a vague path led through the wreckage, a narrow dirt trail that wound between the huge accumulations of steel and stone, and they started down it, Hunt in the lead.
They passed broken shelves crushed under chunks of cement, fragments of crates and boxes, even what looked like the remnants of a smashed forklift, but nothing that would suggest this had ever been home to an insurance company. Off to the side somewhere they heard the scurrying of rodents. Above, the caw of a crow.
In the center of the building was a concrete slab the size of a large bedroom, and in the center of the slab was a stairway leading into darkness. They stepped up, stood above the stairway and held hands, looking down into the gloom. The air from that space was cold and dank, smelling of mildew and rotten roots. Hunt knew he had to go down there, but he was afraid. He felt like a child confronted by a dark alley after just seeing a monster movie, scared of meeting up with the boogeyman, and that analogy was far more apt than he liked.
“There’s a flashlight in the car,” he said. “I’ll go get it.”
“You’ll go get it? What am I supposed to do, stay here? No way, Jose. I’m coming with you.”
“I think you should wait in the car,” he told her. “Just in case.”
“No. I’m coming back with you. We’re both going down there.”
“What if something happens? I think it’ll be better if we pick a time, like an hour, and if I’m not back by then, you go and get help.”
Beth frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re in this together and we’re both going in.”
“But—”
“No ‘buts.’ I’m of the ‘two heads are better than one,’ school, and there’s no way I’m going to be the dainty maiden sitting out of harm’s way to let the big strong man go walking into danger alone.”
“But what if something does happen?”
“We’ll deal with it. Besides, I have my cell phone. I can call for help just as well with you as I can by myself. Come on, let’s go. We’re wasting time.”
Hunt had to admit that he was relieved. He hadn’t really wanted to go in there alone. Together, they walked back to the car, got a flashlight and two screwdrivers—to be used as weapons if necessary—then returned to the ruined building and the stairway descending into the pit.
The pit.
That’s how Hunt thought of it. The pit. Like a descent into hell.
He hoped to God he was simply the victim of an overactive imagination.
He went first, holding the flashlight. It was definitely colder down below, and that sickly smell grew stronger. He was reminded of overripe mushrooms and spoiled potatoes. The steps were cement but the sides of the passageway were dirt, hard-packed dirt so old it was almost like dried clay. The stairs did not go down nearly as far as he had expected—darkness had fooled him into thinking the tunnel went deeper than it did—and they descended maybe the length of a single story before the steps stopped and they found themselves in an empty room roughly the size of the concrete slab above.
Of course, he thought. A basement. It was stupid of him to have expected anything else. He had let his imagination get the best of him.
For a second time he shined the flashlight arou
nd the room. It was not really a typical basement, at least not the type one would expect to encounter underneath a warehouse or business. It was more like a root cellar. The ceiling above was cement but both walls and floor were of the same hard-packed dirt as the stairwell. The flashlight beam shone on flaking dirt, embedded rocks, a protruding root—
a wooden door.
Next to him, Hunt heard Beth’s breath catch in her throat. The door had not been there a few minutes ago; there’d been only a flat expanse of that claylike dirt. Her hand reached for his arm, grabbed his sleeve. “You think we should go in?” she whispered.
He did think they should go in, but it was the last thing on earth he wanted to do. They stepped closer, and in the yellowish beam of the flashlight he could see peeling pale green paint and, in the center of the door, barely visible, the faint outline of three letters: TIG.
The Insurance Group.
They’d found it.
Hunt didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad. He would certainly have felt more confident if they had come across this door in a building on the surface. Being underground left him feeling uneasy, and distinctly vulnerable. But they had no choice; they’d come here to discover what they could about the insurance agent and his company, and the only way to do that was to see what was behind the door.
“We have to,” he said.
Next to him he felt more than saw Beth’s nod of agreement.
A cold breeze was coming from the cracks around the door, a chill that permeated the basement in which they stood but was clearly much greater in the room or rooms beyond. Gathering his strength, clutching both the flashlight and screwdriver tightly, he walked forward. Beth’s hand let go of his sleeve and grabbed his wrist, desperate for something more substantial to hold.
Hunt opened the door—and stepped back, gagging. This was where the smell was coming from, and this close to the source it was overpowering. Beth coughed deeply, and her hand left his wrist as it moved to cover her nose.
The two of them stood in the center of the basement, desperately trying not to vomit, holding their hands over their noses to filter out the stench. “Jesus,” Hunt managed to get out.
“What do you think it is?” Beth asked, and her voice sounded strangled and thin. “Something dead?”
His imagination had been far less prosaic. He’d been thinking of slimy creatures that had never seen the light of day, hideous white mutants who lived underground on roots and rot and who occasionally made their way up to the surface and metamorphosed into… insurance agents. But now that Beth had made her suggestion, the idea seemed inescapable, and Hunt thought it highly likely that some sort of rotting corpse was in there.
Experimentally, he moved his hand away from his nose. The smell seemed less noxious than it had initially. Either he was getting used to it, or the heavily concentrated odor had mixed with the outside air and become dissipated. Whichever, he found himself able to move forward without retching, and he pointed his light ahead. Beyond the door, the flashlight beam died dully, its feeble illumination petering out after traveling less than two feet. The space in front of them could have been a closet or a cave. For all he knew, it stretched miles underground—or ended five feet away.
He felt Beth sidle next to him. In the thinly spread illumination from the flashlight, he could just make out the dark shape of her arm. “Are we going in?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Take a deep breath. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“On the count of three.”
They both began inhaling deeply and exhaling shallowly.
“One… two… three!”
Flashlight and screwdriver extended, Beth clutching his arm, Hunt hurried forward into the gloom.
A light was switched on.
And they were in an insurance office.
Hunt blinked against the sudden brightness. The room surrounding them was so different from what he had expected, so at odds with the ruined building above and the dirt cellar behind them, that it took his stunned brain a moment to adjust.
They were standing on carpet: generic gray utilitarian office carpeting. In front of them was a wide wooden desk piled high with papers and atop which sat a computer monitor. Behind the desk was a wall of shelves holding books and bound volumes of what could only be insurance policies. To their left were several metal filing cabinets, and to their right a visitors’ couch over which hung numerous diplomas and certificates.
At a sudden noise behind them, Hunt turned to look.
The insurance agent was standing in the doorway.
He was big and muscular, his frame almost filling the entire space, and both his stance and the expression on his face were menacing. He moved toward them, and both Hunt and Beth backed up a step. The agent laughed, a deep chuckle that was at once hearty and sinister.
“May I have my briefcase, please?”
“We, uh, don’t have it,” Hunt stammered.
“Come now, come now. You stole it.”
“It’s back at home,” Beth said.
“I thought that’s why you came by. To return it to me.” The agent moved his hands in such a way that it looked like he was flipping his sleeves back, and suddenly the briefcase was in his hands. “That’s okay. I took the liberty of getting it myself. I picked up the copies of my maps, too.” He smiled at Beth. “Nice panties,” he said. “They smell just like you.” In his other hand was a pair of her underwear. He used them to blow his nose, then tossed them aside. “Down to business, shall we?” He walked past them around the side of the desk, where he sat down. He turned on his computer and immediately began typing. For several moments the only sounds in the room were their own ragged breathing and the rapid-fire click of keys as the agent typed.
“I don’t have my glasses,” the agent said finally, although Hunt had never seen him wear glasses. “Can you tell me what time it is?”
He motioned toward a clock that hung on the wall with the framed certificates. Hunt had not noticed the clock before, but as he looked at it now a chill passed through him. There were no numbers or icons, only a cartoonish drawing of a monkey’s buttocks where the twelve should have been and a pair of hairy droopy testicles instead of a six. The clock’s lone hand pointed at where the three should be, directly between them.
Half past a monkey’s ass, a quarter to his ba-wuls.
The agent started laughing, and there was something manic in the sound.
He reached over, shut off his computer and swiveled his chair to face them. Now the expression on his face was one of anger and belligerence. “So why are you really here?” he asked. “What do you want?”
Hunt didn’t have an answer.
“Insurance,” Beth said quickly. “We suspected that you were keeping things from us, offering only the policies you wanted us to have rather than the policies we wanted to have. We came to see if we could find out what those policies were, and to go over your head if we had to and report your inadequacy to your superiors.”
The agent’s attitude changed instantly.
Hunt did not know what had made her say such a thing, by what stroke of genius she had come up with such an approach, but it succeeded brilliantly. The intimidating bully of a few moments before had been replaced by a groveling servile lackey.
“The job of an insurance salesman is to determine the needs of his clients and to secure policies that will meet those needs,” he said placatingly. “I certainly never meant to give you the impression that I was keeping insurance options from you. Far be it for me to dictate the terms of your coverage. I’m here only to serve you.” He spread his hands open. “Just tell me what sort of policy you’re looking for. Whatever it is, I’m sure that The Insurance Group will be able to meet your needs and that I will be able to continue to provide the type of quality service you have come to expect.”
He seemed to be speaking not to them but to some nonexistent observer, and Hunt found himself wondering if they were being wat
ched, if this room was under surveillance. By whom, though? He had changed his mind when they came upon this office and determined that there was no company called The Insurance Group, that there was only the agent, acting alone. But the man seemed genuinely worried about the reaction of higher-ups to Beth’s criticism, and once again Hunt decided that there must be an insurance company, a hierarchy to which the agent was answerable. Where was it, though? Who was behind it? And, whoever they were, could they really be watching the three of them here in this office behind the basement of a ruined building?
He had seen enough to know that, yes, the three of them could be under surveillance right at this very second, and that the means of observation was just as likely to be a crystal ball as a high-tech listening device. The agent had said more than once that the company he worked for was very old, and the maps and documents they’d found in his briefcase certainly seemed to verify that, but, not for the first time, Hunt found himself wondering how old. He was not sure when or where the concept of insurance had originated, but he had no doubt that the age of The Insurance Group predated the generally accepted date by… what? Decades? Centuries? Millennia? In his mind, he saw the agent in a Fred Flintstone sabertooth tiger–skin toga, selling insurance to other grunting cave men as he chiseled out the terms of their policies with a rock pen and a stone tablet.
How old was the agent?
Was he immortal?
Hunt suddenly felt demoralized, defeated and hopelessly overmatched. How could he and Beth ever have thought that they could go up against a force so ancient and powerful and obviously successful? Who were they? Nobodies. It would take the greatest minds of the age and all of the resources of the federal government to put a stop to the unholy practices of The Insurance Group. He had a brief ridiculous fantasy of filing a formal complaint with the FTC or some other government agency and letting them take on the insurance company, but he knew that was impossible—even assuming he could get someone to believe his outrageous story.
The agent was still talking. “Nowhere will you find a more full-service commitment to your needs and a more hands-on approach to satisfying your myriad insurance requirements.”
THE POLICY Page 30