The Placebo Effect (25 page)

“I see,” the congressman was saying.

“I want you on the drug oversight committee.”

“I'm not senior enough.”

“Who stands in your way?”

The congressman named two men and a woman. Henry-Clay made as if to jot down their names. He knew their names—had for some time. Two he knew personally. The third, the woman congressman from Maine, was a liberal Republican and rumoured to be untouchable. He'd see about that. Everyone was touchable.

“So, if these three all have to step down due to other commitments or family concerns, you'd be next in line?”

The congressman nodded, then gave a smile that Henry-Clay had known all his life. It was the smile the Nevada senator gave Michael Corleone in the privacy of the Don's office before Michael arranged for the hooker to die in the senator's arms. It was the smile of old America. Of the privileged. It made Henry-Clay feel short and fat—and greasy—just as it was intended to do.

“How much?” Henry-Clay asked.

The congressman acted as if his mother had been called a blow-job expert.

“Oh, cut the crap. You're down here with the rest of us, squirreling for pennies.” Henry-Clay reached into his pocket and threw a handful of change on the floor. “For every cent you pick up I'll donate fifteen thousand dollars to your campaign coffers—through your Nassau connections, naturally.”

The congressman stood and buttoned his linen jacket. He headed toward the door.

“Fine,” Henry-Clay said. “But there is exactly six dollars and sixty-seven cents on the floor. Multiply that by fifteen thousand dollars a cent, and you are looking at five thousand dollars more than a million dollars. A lot of money to leave on the table—or in this case, on the floor.”

The congressman stopped—turned—and got down on his knees.

Good
, Henry-Clay thought—
more insurance.

MacMillan stooped and picked up a penny from the floor. He pocketed it without a moment's hesitation or any embarrassment that he had expended so much energy for a single penny. Henry-Clay almost laughed—the congressman had left a hefty sum on the floor, but MacMillan didn't. The man looked almost the same as he always looked, but Henry-Clay sensed an additional weight on the Scot's broad shoulders.

MacMillan tossed a photo on Henry-Clay's desk.

Ratio-Man was on his back, his hands reaching toward the lens, white from loss of blood, a towel shoved deep into his throat to stop him from screaming.

Although it wasn't necessary to present proof, Mr. MacMillan did, and Henry-Clay appreciated that.

“Got a lighter?” Henry-Clay asked.

MacMillan tossed him a Zippo.

Henry-Clay lit the photo on one corner as he held it by another—then he dropped the remains of the photograph into the large crystal ashtray on his desk and watched the final bits of Ratio-Man blacken and disappear. He felt the slightest shiver. It was something new for him, his very first murder.

He needed Decker Roberts to be his second.

“There may be a problem,” MacMillan said.

“What?”

“I couldn't find the freak's computer.”

Henry-Clay considered sending MacMillan back to get the damned thing, then thought the better of it. Ratio-Man's apartment
would be a crime scene. Instead, he reached into his desk and took out the file on Decker Roberts and handed it to MacMillan. For the slightest moment they touched, Henry-Clay's soft hands and MacMillan's stonelike fists. “His last access to the website was from this address in New Jersey. Find him, Mr. MacMillan. Find him quickly.”

Now this was fun
, Emerson thought as he drove at the head of a flotilla of cars packed with journalists and trucks ready to broadcast the news to the world. He wished the car he sat in was a convertible so he could stand up as he led his troops. Like George C. Scott in
Patton
—yeah, he was the Patton of newsmen—leading his troops into the dangerous wilds of New Jersey.

“SO WHAT ELSE YA GOT, MR. ROBERTS?”

Decker didn't say anything.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. Ted Knight leaned in and whispered into Yslan's ear. She turned to Decker. “I'm tired of playing defense. Give me the rest.”

He reached in his pocket and took out the final USB key.

She took the thing and plugged it in. “Good.”

“Aren't you going to ask me if I have any more?”

“You don't have any more, Mr. Roberts. You had the three USB keys and that digital recorder—we've known that from the beginning.”

“Then why didn't you just take them from me?”

“Because, as much as you don't believe it, I'm on your side. I wanted to earn them from you. Okay?”

Decker didn't know what to say to that.

“It's password protected. I can get our guys to find out what the password is but it could take a half an hour that I'm not sure we ought to waste on crap like that. So what's the password?”

He gave her the password. “It was a deposition for a class-action lawsuit against an insurance company that a huge law firm wanted me to watch. I kept this recording for what I think are pretty obvious reasons.”

“Where was this?”

“In Chapel Hill.”

“Dean Smith basketball, the pat of butter in the sea of grits,
where fucking Sherman housed his horses in the theatre—that Chapel Hill?”

“None other.”

She hit play.

“The first guy speaking is the lawyer who hired me.”

Lawyer: Why is there no central registry for insurance policies?

Another Man: It would cost a lot of money.

Yslan hit pause. “That's the insurance guy?” Decker nodded. She hit play.

Lawyer: Actually it wouldn't.

A long silence followed. Then a third voice said,
“He's answered your question, move on.”

“The insurance guy's lawyer?” Yslan asked. Decker nodded again. Yslan hit play again.

Lawyer: How many times has your insurance company been sold in the past decade?

Insurance Man: Four I think…

Lawyer: Actually it's six, and a seventh is pending. And your company is sold less often than most. Why are insurance companies sold so often?

Insurance Man: It's a business. When someone wants to buy and the price is right you sell. Simple.

Lawyer: Simple. Really? Are clients of the insurance company informed of the sale of the company?

Insurance Man: By letter.

Lawyer: Is there any marking on the envelope of this letter to inform the client that there is something of importance
inside—that this isn't just another piece of junk you get from your insurance company trying to sell you yet more worthless crap?

Insurance Man's Lawyer: Which question do you want answered—the importance one or the crap one?

Lawyer: Is the envelope marked important?

Insurance Man: No, every communication from an insurance company is important. Why should this be any different?

Lawyer: Because the policy numbers change, the contact changes, everything changes except for the demand for payment that always stays the same.

Insurance Man: Just good business practice.

Insurance Man's Lawyer: Done with the envelope? Good. Let's move on.

Lawyer: So Mr. Cyril missed his final payment on his annuity?

Insurance Man: So the record says. It's a shame.

Lawyer: Yeah.
(long silence while papers are shuffled)
Is this sort of thing a common occurrence?

Insurance Man: I really don't know; I'd have to check.

Lawyer: Actually, you don't. Our forensic accountants have done the checking
for you.

Insurance Man:
(sound of a chair scraping)
Hey, are you sandbagging me? Can he do that?
(this last evidently to his lawyer)

Insurance Man's Lawyer: This is just a deposition. Answer his questions. We get to rebut this nonsense in court.

Lawyer: Well, it will be interesting to watch him refute figures generated by three different forensic accounting firms that
clearly show that part of the actuarial model for this kind of annuity assumes a six percent failure on the part of the client to make final payments.

Insurance Man: If you don't pay, you don't get the capital back. That's clearly in the contract that your Mr., Mr. What's His Name signed.

Lawyer: Mr. Cyril. Do you know the specifics of Mr. Cyril's policy?
(sound of rustling papers)
Don't bother telling me that you have thousands of clients and how would you know the specifics of Mr. Cyril's policy. It's only Mr. Cyril's policy that is at the centre of this class action. So do you know the specifics of his policy?

Insurance Man: Yes.

Lawyer: Well, just for the record, here's how it was. He purchased an annuity in 1986 from you.

Insurance Man: Let's be accurate. From us and a co
-
insurer.

Lawyer: Yeah, the ever reliable co
-
insurer as the guilty party—how very convenient. At any rate, Mr. Cyril purchased an annuity in 1986 for one hundred thousand dollars. The policy paid out six thousand dollars a year, while Mr. Cyril had to pay fifteen hundred dollars a year on top of the hundred thousand.

Insurance Man: His yearly payments—all policies have yearly payments.

Lawyer: They certainly do. Do you know how many years Mr. Cyril paid his yearly payment?

Insurance Man: I'm sure you'll enlighten me.

Lawyer: He paid every payment from 1986 until 2008. Twenty-two years of payments—every one on time.

Insurance Man: But he missed his last payment.

Lawyer: Because he was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Insurance Man: As sad as that is…

Lawyer: Yes, I can see that really breaks you up. He pays one hundred thousand dollars up front then an additional thirty-three thousand dollars—twenty-two years times fifteen hundred dollars a year. He misses one fifteen-hundred-dollar payment in all that time and your contract with him is broken.

Insurance Man: He got his annuity every year.

Lawyer: Yes, but the point of an annuity is that the purchaser gets his annuity and upon his death the principal—the one hundred thousand dollars—returns to his estate.

Insurance Man: Yeah, if—and you can underline that if—if he pays the payments.

Lawyer: And how exactly does an Alzheimer's patient make those payments?

Insurance Man: Again, as sad as Mr. Cyril's case is, this is not our problem. We held up our end of the bargain. He got his annuity faithfully from the company.

Lawyer: Sure while you got to play with his hundred thousand dollars for twenty-two years for well below the market rates. The return on bank CDs in the eighties was well over ten percent. You got his money for four and a half percent.

Insurance Man: He got his annuity.

Lawyer: Yes. But the annuity only makes financial sense—taking a four and a half percent return when a ten plus percent return was available—IF you can get your principal back upon your death. Underline that IF.

Insurance Man: And this guy would have got his principal back IF he had paid his premium as stipulated in the contract. As was requested from the letter we sent him when he was thirty days in arrears
(sound of a piece of paper being pulled out of a file).

Lawyer: Interesting that you have a copy of the letter you sent to him but absolutely no recollection of the details of the account. Interesting, don't you think?

Insurance Man's Lawyer: Interesting or not it's not against the law.

Lawyer: Yeah, but putting together a scheme where the math only works if six percent of the clients are too infirm, too senile, too shut away to make final payments just might be.

Insurance Man: Just sound business practice. Not illegal.

Lawyer: You define illegal too narrowly. Have you heard of
Rae Ellen B. v. the State of North Carolina?
No of course not, why should you? Well you should because it forges into this area of what's illegal. Briefly the case worked this way. A man in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, rounded up all the drunks off the street and put them in a house that he owned. The town was happy to have the drunks off the street. The state was happy that they didn't have to supply housing. Everyone was happy—except that there was a catch. The drunks all had to sign life insurance policies with the house owner as the beneficiary. The house owner, naturally enough, wanted to keep his guests happy, so he supplied them with as much cheap alcohol as they wanted. The fact that it just hustled these folks to their graves was “just sound business practice.” Or so everyone thought until
Rae Ellen B. v. the State of North Carolina
—when the court ruled that the drunks were not responsible enough to sign their insurance policies AND that supplying alcoholics with cheap liquor was at very least manslaughter if not murder two, AND—and here's the one
for you folks to think about—and here I quote the court “any enterprise whose basic business model is founded upon the death or infirmity of another has both transgressed the laws of God and man.” And the decision was upheld all the way through the Supreme Court. Your business model was based on the actuarial reality that at very least six percent of your annuity clients would miss their final payments due to illness. You have transgressed the laws of God and man.