'Oh, for God's sake,' I said. 'Why didn't I think of that?'
20
I called Viaticom a few minutes after nine the next morning and got a recording advising me that their office hours were from nine to five. I looked at my watch, frowned, and then remembered the time difference. It was an hour earlier in Texas. I waited an hour and called again, and the woman who answered was the same cowgirl who'd put me on hold the day before. I asked for Gary and she wanted to know my name. I gave it to her, and she put me on hold again.
I was there for a while. When she came back on the line to tell me that Gary was out, her voice was different, thick with suppressed anger.
She didn't like having to lie, and she was irritated with me for putting her in such a position.
I asked when she expected him. 'I'm sure I don't know,' she said, angrier than ever.
I went through the motions, giving her my number although she hadn't bothered to ask for it, asking that she have Gary call me as soon as possible. I didn't think he would, and a little before noon I stopped waiting for his call.
Nancy Chang at the Chase had wondered if I'd have to go to Arlington. Or could I let my fingers do the walking? My fingers didn't seem equal to the task, but that didn't necessarily mean I had to get on an airplane.
I called Wally Donn at Reliable. We'd spoken briefly after the Whitfield-as-Will story broke, and he said now that he still couldn't get over it. 'The son of a bitch,' he said. 'You know what he did? He hired us to protect him from himself. And we wound up looking bad when we couldn't do it. And now we look worse than ever, because we were right next to him and didn't have a clue what was going on.'
'Look on the bright side,' I said. 'Now there's no reason in the world why you can't bill the estate.'
'Which I've already done, and don't think I didn't pad it just a little to cover the aggravation factor. Now the question is will they pay it, and I'm not holding my breath.'
I asked him to recommend a PI in the vicinity of Arlington, Texas, and he came up with a fellow named Guy Fordyce. He was based in Fort Worth, with an office on Hemphill.
'Wherever the hell that is,' Wally said.
I reached Fordyce. He sounded gruff and competent and said he had an open slot the following morning. 'I could try calling him this afternoon,' he said, 'but I can't see why I'd have any better luck than you did. Be more effective if I walk in unannounced.'
* * *
He called the next day around noon. I was out at the time and got back to find his message on my machine. I called his office and got someone who said she'd beep him. I waited, and a few minutes later the phone rang and it was him.
'Slippery little prick,' he said. 'I made a couple of calls yesterday just to find out who I was dealing with, and what I learned about Gary Garrison didn't make me yearn to go bass fishing with him. The consensus is that what he's doing with this viatical shit is legitimate enough, but there's something about the whole deal that makes the average citizen want to puke.'
'I know what you mean.'
'And Garrison himself has a checkered past. He sold penny stocks for a while and got sued a few times and had to face criminal fraud charges on two occasions. Charges dropped both times, but that's not the same as saying he's squeaky clean.'
'No.'
'There's been some pressure locally to either outlaw these viaticals or regulate the shit out of them.
Meanwhile, Garrison's doing a hell of a business, and his end of it's higher than a middleman's probably ought to be. That's one of the things they want to regulate.'
'I figured he was making out all right for himself.'
'You bet he is. So he's in a funny position, wanting publicity because it means more sales and looking to keep a low profile for fear that the regulators are going to regulate him right out of business. And even if this particular operation's honest, the man's used to being a crook, so it's second nature for him to weasel out of answering a direct question.'
'One of nature's noblemen,' I said.
'Oh, he's a prince. I let him start out thinking I was an investor, and then he just might have formed the impression that I was an investigator from a state agency I didn't get around to naming, and he got real cooperative. He's done business with your William Havemeyer three times in all. The transactions involved policies with three different insurance companies.'
He gave me names and addresses and dates and numbers. In addition to Byron Leopold, the men in whose lifespan William Havemeyer had a vested interest included a San Franciscan named Harlan Phillips and a Eugene, Oregon, resident named John Wilbur Settle. Phillips was insured by Massachusetts Mutual, while Settle's coverage was with Integrity Life and Casualty.
'Life and casualty,' I said.
'Yeah, they go hand in hand, don't they? I regret to say I don't know what's become of either of these gentlemen. Garrison can't say if they're alive or dead. He doesn't follow up. Once the policy's changed ownership and the transaction's completed, it's out of his hands.'
'It won't be hard to find out the rest of it.'
'Just make a few calls.'
'Right.'
He told me what all of this was going to cost me, and said he'd put a bill in the mail. The price seemed
