“Then all this fucking statistical research is useless,” Edmund snapped, throwing up his hands in frustration. “It’s all nothing but mental masturbation.”
“Na-ha,” Isabel said, not at all intimidated. “It’s good data for what we had. If there’s a paradigm shift, then numbers change and graphs have to be adjusted to reflect it. Simple as that.” She shrugged and sat back in her chair.
Tom Graham was looking at a fingernail and didn’t respond.
“That’s it! That’s what we get! Whoops, sorry, wrong number. We didn’t think of that! We were paying you to think of everything. It’s not as if stem cells popped out of the blue. What sort of company are you running anyway?”
“Okay, let’s not get worked up here,” Russell interjected. “Henry, Edmund apologizes-”
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to them,” Henry said, indicating Isabel and Tom. Isabel glowered at Edmund, who eventually raised a hand to speak. It was about as contrite as he was going to be.
“Henry, listen, we need some fresh models run based on some new assumptions that I can e-mail to you in an hour or so, soon as we get back. We need to see how our cash flow is affected in these new scenarios. You’ll have to make assumptions as there is no real data available. We’d be very grateful if you could do it for us. And we need it right away. As you know, there’s provision in our contract-”
“Yes, Russell, I know,” said Henry. “In actual fact, I happened to take a look at our contract when you were on your way over. We’ll do the work for you, have it for you tomorrow, as soon as we can. As you know, Russell, there’s a mutual twenty-four-hour cancellation provision in the contract, under certain circumstances. I believe circumstances such as these cover the provision more than adequately. So consider this your notice.”
More deflated than they had been on arrival, Edmund and Russell didn’t have it in them to protest. They got up to leave.
12.
CASTLE TOWERS RETIREMENT HOME PHOENIX, ARIZONA MARCH 2, 2011, 11:50 A.M.
At her home outside Phoenix, Sally Mason sat on a bench next to the entrance making the most of the last of the morning air before the sun made sitting outside unbearable. Even though Sally had been born in the state and lived here all her life, the heat had always got to her. Sally was proud of the fact that she was a lifelong Arizonan. There’d been only about 450,000 people living in Arizona when she was born in 1933, and that was about the current population of Mesa, a place that was barely a dot on the map when she was growing up.
Today, Sally was scheduled to receive another visit from Howard Essen, the salesman she’d met a couple of times and spoken to on the phone frequently in the last few weeks. Sally appreciated the fact that Essen hadn’t been too much of a hard-seller, not as relentless certainly as the man who sold her husband the life insurance policy in the first place. She’d actually enjoyed talking to Howard about his family, a wife and three children, to whom he was clearly devoted. He’d also shown interest in her story, about Arizona when she was a girl when they still tied up horses outside stores in downtown Phoenix, about her Preston, now twenty years gone, and about their only daughter, Jean, and her son. This was one of the good days, a day she didn’t have to travel forty-five minutes for hours of tedious and uncomfortable dialysis.
Sally had decided that today she was going to tell Howard Essen she was accepting his proposal.
Howard agreed to Sally’s request to come at noon, as she wanted to keep the afternoon free. She checked her watch-it was about ten of-and Sally closed her eyes and thought about Preston as she did most days. She’d been so young when they met, barely eighteen, and he looked so dashing in his Air Force uniform when he came into her pop’s convenience store. The fifth day in a row he came in he ran out of things he needed to buy and he had no ready excuse: He was here to see Sally. Life with Preston hadn’t always been easy, but he was always a caring man. Toward the end, he set up the life insurance policy for Sally and funded an annuity to make the payments with a little left over. Preston wanted to make sure their daughter, Jean, was taken care of, and he hoped that would be one less worry for Sally.
The money going to Jean under the policy always seemed like such a huge sum to Sally. That was until Jean’s husband died suddenly, leaving her with a mountain of bills and debts she had no idea existed. The money that Sally had squirreled away after selling the house Preston bought in 1965, the best year he’d had in his plumbing business, had been diminished to help Jean pay her bills. Now Jean was having to give up most of her inheritance to help her mother. Sally protested a little, but Jean insisted, and Sally knew she was right. Preston Mason would never have hesitated-he’d have done whatever it took to help his wife live the best life she could.
Sally’s kidney condition was at stage five, the end stage, and she needed a new organ. But there were thousands of people on the waiting list and the state had just decided to stop paying for lung transplants altogether, as well as some heart and bone marrow procedures. How long would it be before kidney transplants were added to the list? Sally didn’t want to wait to find out. She didn’t want to spend her last years chained to a machine; she wanted her freedom back but it came at a price. She needed at least $250,000 for the operation. Above and beyond the money she’d need to keep her place at Castle Towers, she had some savings and there was a little money Jean had promised she could have. But she was still tens of thousands of dollars short, which was the reason that when the idea of selling her life insurance policy was presented to her, she was receptive to it.
The call from Howard Essen came at a particularly apposite moment. It wasn’t a coincidence, although Sally would have been upset if she’d known how it came about. Howard found potential clients through an informal network of contacts he’d established at more than two dozen retirement homes and nursing facilities. He paid a mix of orderlies and supers and front-desk staff to tip him off when a resident told them about certain medical or personal issues, like starting dialysis or visiting a heart specialist or not being able to afford to help with their grandchild’s college tuition. Howard found it distasteful, but he felt he had little choice. These were tough times, and he had to find a way to keep his own family’s heads above water. In this case, Sally had told a friendly orderly her predicament, and he mentioned it unthinkingly to the superintendent, who in turn called Howard.
For ten years, Howard had made a decent living selling starter mortgages to young Arizonans. When things were going well he’d been caught up in the all-pervasive hysteria of home ownership. Everyone was selling mortgages with no supporting documentation, so why shouldn’t he? There was no one who said it was a bad thing. After more than six months out of work he’d found this job with LifeDeals. In fact, they’d come after him, looking for once-successful mortgage salesmen and offering a job paid almost wholly on commission. The cheaper Howard bought a policy for, the better his remuneration. It helped him sleep at night when he didn’t squeeze that extra percentage point out of the policyholder. Not that he thought it would have been so easy to get Sally Mason to capitulate.
The first time he paid her a visit, Howard had introduced himself and Sally said, “Essen, like the city in Germany?”
“Yes, ma’am. Exactly.” This was a sharp one, he could tell at once.
Howard presented his spiel, showing Sally the graphs and tables indicating how much money Sally would save if she didn’t have to make the premiums and how much money she might make if she invested it wisely.
“So if I stop paying into the policy and use the annuity money, I can have this much cash when I’m, let’s see, a hundred and two?” Sally pointed at a very large figure at the outer edge of one of the projections.