was neat, with no clutter and also no feminizing touches. He knew that decorating style cold. The shiny chrome bookcase was filled with academic-type computer and software books arranged precisely by height so the rows topped off as straight as possible.
On the white lacquered desk, next to a closed laptop computer, was a short stack of two thin manuscripts bound in brass brads. He glanced at the cover page of the one on top: Counters: a screenplay by Peter Benedict, WGA #4235567. Who’s Peter Benedict? he wondered, Mark’s nom de plume or some other guy? Beside the screenplays there were two black pens. He almost laughed out loud. Pentel ultrafines. The little peckers were everywhere. He was back on the sofa when Mark returned with the beers.
“In Cambridge, didn’t you mention you did some writing?” Will asked.
“I do.”
“Those screenplays yours?” he asked, pointing.
Mark nodded and gulped.
“My daughter’s something of a writer too. What do you write about?”
Mark started tentatively but progressively relaxed as he talked about his most recent script. By the time Will downed the beer, he’d heard all about casinos and card-counting and Hollywood and talent agents. For a reticent guy, this was almost a blue-streak topic. During his second beer, he got a taste of Mark’s postcollege, pre-Vegas life, a barren landscape of few personal bonds and endless computer work. During the third beer, Will reciprocated with details about his own past, sour marriages, busted relationships and all, and Mark listened in apparent fascination, with a growing amazement that the golden boy’s life, which he had assumed was perfect, was anything but. At the same time, creeping pangs of guilt were making Will uneasy.
After taking a leak, Will returned to the living room and announced he had to be going, but before he did, he wanted to get something off his chest. “I’ve got to apologize to you.”
“For what?”
“When I look back on freshman year, I realize I was a jerk. I should have helped you out more, gotten Alex to leave you alone. I was a dumb-ass and I’m sorry.” He didn’t mention the duct-taping incident; he didn’t have to.
Mark involuntarily teared up and looked profoundly embarrassed. “I-”
“You don’t have to say anything. I don’t want to cause any discomfort.”
Mark sniffed. “No, look, I appreciate it. I don’t think we really knew each other.”
“True enough.” Will dug his hand in his pockets for the car keys. “So, thanks for the beers and the chat. I’ve got to hit it.”
Mark inhaled and finally said, “I think I know why you’re in town. I saw you on TV.”
“Yeah, the Doomsday case. The Vegas connection. Sure.”
“I’ve watched you on TV for years. And read all the magazine articles.”
“Yeah, I’ve had my fill of media stuff.”
“It must be exciting.”
“Believe me, it’s not.”
“How’s it going? The investigation, I mean.”
“I’ve got to tell you, it’s a pain up my butt. I didn’t want any part of it. I was just trying to ease on down retirement road.”
“Are you making any progress?”
“You’re obviously a guy who can keep a secret. Here’s one: we don’t have a fucking clue.”
Mark looked weary when he said, “I don’t think you’re going to catch the guy.”
Will squinted at him strangely. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. What I’ve read about it, he sounds like he’s pretty clever.”
“No, no, no. I’ll catch him. I always do.”
JUNE 28, 2009
T he call from Peter Benedict rattled Elder. It was deeply unsettling to receive an offer to help Desert Life from a man he had met once in a casino. And he was almost certain he hadn’t given out his mobile number. Add to that the FBI’s sudden interest in him and his company, and this was shaping up to be a worrisome weekend. During times of trouble he preferred to be in his headquarters with his people surrounding him, a general among his troops. He thought nothing of pulling in his executive team during a crisis to work on Saturdays and Sundays but needed to deal with this situation alone. Even Bert Myers, his confidant and consigliore, would have to be blacked-out until he knew what he was dealing with.
Only he and Myers knew the extent of Desert Life’s problems because the two of them were the sole architects of a scheme to get the company out of its financial hole. Undoubtedly, the correct adjective to describe the scheme was “fraudulent,” but Elder preferred to think of it as “aggressive.” The plan was in its early stages, but unfortunately it wasn’t working yet. In fact, it was backfiring and the hole was getting deeper. In desperation, they had decided to shift some cash from their reserves to artificially boost profits for the last quarter and shore up the stock price.
Dangerous ground, the path to Hell, or at least prison.
They knew it, but in for a penny, in for a pound. And God willing, Elder thought, things would turn around in the next quarter. It had to. He had built this company with his own two hands. It was his life’s work and his one true love. It meant more to him than his arid country club wife or his dissolute offspring and it had to be saved, so if this Peter Benedict character had a viable idea, then he was obligated to hear it.
The backbone of Desert Life’s business was life insurance. The company was the largest underwriter of life insurance policies west of the Mississippi. Elder had cut his teeth in the business as a life insurance man. The steady actuarial predictability of forecasting death rates had always attracted him. If you tried to predict an individual’s time of death and put money on it, you’d be wrong too often to make a consistent profit. To get around trying to figure out an individual’s risk, insurers relied instead on the “law of large numbers” and employed armies of actuaries and statisticians to conduct analyses on past performance to help predict the future. While no one could calculate what premium you’d have to charge one individual to make money, you could predict with confidence the economics of insuring, say, thirty-five-year-old male nonsmokers with negative drug screens and a family history of heart disease.
Still, profit margins were tight. For every dollar Desert Life took in as premiums, thirty cents went to expenses, most went to cover losses, and the little left over was profit. Profits in the insurance game came two ways: underwriting profits and investment income.
Insurance companies were huge investors, putting billions of dollars into play every day. The returns from those investments were the cornerstone of their business. Some companies even underwrote to a loss-taking a dollar of premium and expecting to pay more than a dollar in losses and expenses but hoping to make it up in investment income. Elder disdained that strategy but his appetite for investment returns was large.
Desert Life’s problems were growth-related. Over the years, as he’d enlarged the business and expanded his empire through acquisitions, he diversified away from dependence on life insurance. He branched out into homeowners and auto insurance for individuals and property, casualty and liability insurance for businesses.
For years business boomed, but then the worm turned.
“Hurricanes, goddamn hurricanes,” he’d grumble out loud, even when he was alone. One after another, they slammed into Florida and the Gulf coast and beat the stuffing out of his profits. His surplus reserves-the funds available to pay out future claims-were falling to red-flag levels. State and federal insurance regulators were taking notice and so was Wall Street. His stock was nose-diving and that was turning his life into something out of Dante’s Inferno.
Bert Myers, financial genius, to the rescue.
Myers wasn’t an insurance guy; he had a background in investment banking. Elder had brought him in a few years earlier to help with their acquisition strategy. As far as corporate finance types went, he was a very sharp
