"In other words, your friend Clark would be investing in secondhand life insurance policies of people who were older and/or sicker than he was."
She nodded. "Morbid, isn't it?"
I had to agree.
"And then do you know what happened?"
I shook my head.
"Clark up and died. He didn't even outlive his investments."
First Valerie, now Clark. Coincidence? I thought not. "What was this guy's name, do you remember?"
Mrs. Bromley squinted out the window. "Not offhand. But I think I saved the brochure he gave us." She laid down her fork. "Let me go look for it."
I raised a hand to stop her. "After lunch is fine."
"At my age, if I don't do something while I'm thinking about it, I'm sure to forget." She bustled off in the direction of the bedroom.
I was thinking that age had nothing to do with it-I had visited my office twice that morning before I remembered that I'd gone down there looking for a stapler-when from deep within the recesses of my purse, my cell phone began to ring.
At first warble I thought it might be Paul, but I'd set his ring tone to play the Monty Python theme song. I let it ring a few more seconds. It wasn't Emily, either. Her signature tune was the theme from Star Wars. I was going to ignore the call, but Mrs. Bromley was still in the bedroom, so I wrestled the cell phone from its pocket and pushed the talk button, silencing it in the middle of a spirited rendition of Beethoven's Ninth, the ring tone I'd assigned to unknown numbers.
"Mrs. Ives? This is Gail Parrish. Mr. Jablonsky's receptionist? We met when you came into the office the other day?"
"Oh, yes?"
"Mr. Jablonsky would like to speak with you? Is this a good time?"
It wasn't, really, but I was dying-so to speak-to hear what the man had to say.
When Jablonsky came on the line, his tone was casual and upbeat, as if I'd just won an all-expenses paid trip to Bermuda. "Mrs. Ives. Hannah. Well, I have some good news for you and some bad news."
I was glad to have visited his office, because I could picture him delivering this news: shirtsleeves rolled up, leaning back in his chair, size 10½B Johnston & Murphys propped up on his desktop. "The good news is that according to our experts, your life expectancy is at least five years."
"Oh, goody," I said. "My husband will be glad to hear it. So, what's the bad news?"
"The bad news is that this cuts back considerably on the amount of money we're able to offer for your policy."
"How bad is it?" I said, expecting Johnny Carson to pop out from behind the curtain any second.
"With a life expectancy of five years and a face value of $250,000, the most we can get for you is sixty percent. That's $150,000."
"Better than a sharp stick in the eye, as my mother used to say.”
Jablonsky chuckled at my little joke. He even made it sound sincere. "Exactly."
"So, what do you think I should do, Gil?"
"Oh, I'd take it," he said. "Definitely. ViatiPro is an excellent company!"
ViatiPro. If I had had antennae, they would have shot straight up out of my head like My Favorite Martian.
That said, I was tempted, I really was. With $150,000, I could set aside $5,000 for my funeral. No, $6,000. Why be chintzy? I could put $50,000 each in college funds for Chloe and Jake and still have $44,000 left to blow on whatever I damn well pleased.
"Frankly, Gil," I said, pushing a little harder on the man's buttons, "I'll have to talk it over with my husband first. When I brought up the subject the other day, just to test the water, you know, I think it's fair to say he wasn't very enthusiastic."
"Not enthusiastic in what way, Hannah?"
"In point of fact," I said, embroidering as fast as I could, "he absolutely blew his top."
"I see," said Jablonsky. "Well, perhaps if you brought your husband in? What's his name, by the way?"
"Paul."
"Well, perhaps if you and Paul were to come in where I could lay out all the facts and figures in front of him, you and I could help him change his mind. I can be very persuasive."
"If it were for just a bit more money," I hinted broadly, "maybe he'd go for it."
"I'm afraid $150,000 is the best we can do for you, Hannah, under the circumstances." There was a long pause. I spent it filling in the blank. If your cancer recurs, of course, and it looks like you're going to croak, that 'd be a different matter entirely.
"You know," Jablonsky said after a few more ticks of the clock, "we have some other plans that may interest you. And it wouldn't involve selling policies you already have."
"That's sounds intriguing," I said. "Very intriguing."
"And if we set it up right," he continued, "you needn't even tell your husband about it."
"That's even better," I purred.
"Let's not go into it over the phone," he said. "Can you stop in sometime midweek?"
Like a good little sucker, I agreed. Jablonsky switched me back to Gail, who inked me in for 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday. She seemed in a much cheerier mood than when I'd met her the previous Saturday.
"Do you work six days a week, Gail?"
"Oh, yeah," she said. "Saturday's usually a half day, though."
"Slave driver," I quipped, referring to her boss, Jablonsky.
"I don't mind, actually," she said. "I can use the money."
"Can't we all?"
Just about the time Jablonsky was handing me back to Gail, Mrs. Bromley rejoined me in the breakfast room, waving a brochure. She waited for me to finish my conversation with Gail, then plopped the brochure down on the table next to my plate.
Smiling out at me from the front page of the full-color tri-fold, impeccably dressed, well-coiffed, gray-haired septuagenarian couples fished, swam, golfed, and otherwise were living large on the tragedies of others.
The brochure was sprinkled with mini-testimonials. Thanks for the wonderful service!!! You told me to expect 18 to 24 months for my investment to mature!!! Imagine my delight when my $50,000 investment turned into $62,000 in just five (5) weeks!!! That's a whopping 249.6% APR!!!
It wasn't just all the exclamation points that made me want to barf.
"It's from MBFSG," Mrs. Bromley said, pointing to the investment firm's logo printed on a little gold address label stuck to the bottom of the last panel. MBFSG, I read, was offering one to five year "programs," with six, eighteen, thirty, and forty-two month contracts available "upon request." It didn't take a mental giant to figure out what the months meant.
"Do you know them?" Mrs. Bromley asked.
"Oh, yes, I know them." I looked up. "Do you remember the name of the investment adviser you spoke to?"
"The name's on the tip of my tongue. Czech, I think. Or Polish. Hungarian, maybe."
I took a wild stab. "Jablonsky?"
"Yes! That's it. Jablonsky." Her eyes narrowed and she studied my face intently, as if searching it for clues. "Oh, dear. He's the one, isn't he? The snake oil salesman you talked to?"
I nodded. "Be afraid," I said. "Be very afraid."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I like to think I've got an all-occasion wardrobe.
As I stood in the doorway of my closet wearing my NO SHIRTS, NO SHOES, NO WORRIES T-shirt from Cooper Island Beach Club, nothing seemed appropriate for visiting somebody as shady as Jablonsky.
Hanging on the rod to my right were the slacks, blouses, colorful tops, and casual jackets that had, over the past few years, become my uniform.
On the far back wall hung the business suits I abandoned along with the commute when I quit working in Washington, D.C. I knew I should send them to Goodwill, but some of those suits had sentimental value-the gray, double-breasted pinstripe I wore when I successfully interviewed for the job at Whitworth and Sullivan, for example. Or the red plaid jacket I had on when they told me I'd won the Drew Award for Excellence in Management: $10,000 plus a crystal paperweight with my name on it, shaped like an owl. Paul thinks I should chuck it all out. If you want to remember things, he says, buy yourself a charm bracelet.