"Those darn guys," Sam said.
"And two women, don't forget, as I'm sure you never would. Anyway, so I figure this might be good press and a golden opportunity. I can expand the business again. Then I can pick and choose great clients who can afford to pay huge fortunes for very little work on my part, and then you and I can go on in our life of meaningless hedonism."
"You sound like an awful, awful person. Do you know that?"
"I keep telling you. It's the real me."
"The real you who spent all those nights at your office last summer getting the Mackeys' suit included with the others, and then forgot to charge them anything for all that work?"
"I know." Farrell wore a look of chagrin. "I almost fired myself for that. Besides, my real plan was that they'd win the lottery and be so grateful that they'd split it with me. Don't look at me like that-it could still happen."
They'd come around to the grass at the very top of the park. Sam sat, and Wes stretched out on the ground and put his head on her lap. Bart, getting on in years, rested his muzzle on Farrell's stomach.
After a few minutes, Sam stopped combing Wes's hair with her fingers. "I don't understand something," she said.
"No," he said, "you pretty much seem to get everything."
"What you're trying to get is lucky, isn't it?"
"I'm shocked and dismayed that you could think such a thing." He put a finger to his forehead theatrically, spoke as if to himself. "Oh no, wait. I can't be both." Then back to her, "I'm shocked, Sam, that you could think such a thing. I'd never stoop to flattery hoping to coax a carnal favor from you. Our love is too precious and too real."
"I should have worn boots," she replied. "It's a little thick out here."
Wes shrugged. "All right, I'll be serious. What don't you understand?"
"All this talk about clearing beds. Mrs. Loring even. Dismas Hardy says one possible motive someone might have had for killing her is to get the bed empty. But, so who does that help, if the bed's empty?"
"Then they can put somebody else in it," Wes said.
"Right. That's the part I don't understand. You've got a sick person in a bed, and then that person dies and the next day you've got another sick person in the bed. They're paying the same thing for the same bed, right? So why is it to anyone's advantage to get rid of person A in favor of person B? I just don't see it."
Farrell lifted his head a fraction of an inch. "Bart, you want to tell her? Ow! Those hairs are precious to me."
Wes put his head back in her lap, rubbed a hand over where Sam had pulled. "If you're going to get snippy about it, put simply, here it is. The city contracted with Parnassus to provide all its employees with basic HMO health coverage on what they call a capitated basis."
"Which is?"
"I'm glad you asked. It means that Parnassus gets a set amount every month to provide all the physician and hospital services to city employees who are enrolled in the HMO, which they can do at no cost to them. It comes with the city gig."
"Okay. We've still got that bed."
"I'm getting there, please. So what happens in real life is that Parnassus gets a monthly check from the city. It becomes part of their general operating income. Then, like any other set payment, Parnassus starts using it to cover overhead and salaries and so on. So if Parnassus winds up having to provide an expensive service for somebody in the HMO-like chemotherapy or heart surgery-it feels like it's not getting paid for it."
"But everybody agreed up front-"
He wagged a finger. "Not the point. The point is there are other patients, whether they are city employees or not, who have chosen a more expensive provider option. For these folks, Parnassus gets real live money for the services it provides."
"But it gets real money every month from the city, anyway. Right? I'm still not seeing the difference."
"Okay, let's say a city employee enrolled in the HMO spends five days in intensive care. The city doesn't send an extra check. Parnassus gets its hundred and fifty a month and that's all. However, if a person enrolled in a preferred provider program, for example, spends the same five days in the ICU, Parnassus gets about five grand a day. So it can be argued than an HMO city employee in an ICU bed is costing Parnassus maybe as much as five grand per day."
"Per day?"
"Every day, my dear. You don't watch it pretty close, it'll add right on up. So now let's take our own Marjorie Loring, who happens to be a pretty good example of what we're talking about. She was a city employee insured through the Parnassus HMO. So if she happens to defy the odds and hangs on for six months, she's going to cost Portola what? At least a hundred grand, maybe more.
"Now if you were running Portola, would you rather have Marjorie Loring in that bed or someone else who's insured with a preferred provider program that paid a full dollar for every dollar billed, all other things being equal?"
Sam didn't have to think very long. "All other things being equal," she said, "it sounds to me like Dismas Hardy might be on to something."
26
It was getting on to midafternoon and Glitsky couldn't eat another bite of rice cake.
A little-used and semienclosed staircase ran along the Hall of Justice on the Seventh Street side, and he took it down to the ground. Out on the corner, he was waiting at the light to cross and go get some peanuts at Lou's, even if they gave him an instant heart attack that felled him at the bar. Suddenly he found himself facing his two new homicide inspectors, coming his way in the crosswalk. Fisk was dressed like a fashion model and even Bracco looked pretty sharp. "Where's the party?" he asked. "You feel like a handful of peanuts?"
Coming from their boss, this wasn't really a social request. The light changed and the three men walked.
The bar at Lou's didn't have any empty stools, so Glitsky stood while he ordered three small bags of cocktail peanuts and a pint of iced tea. Following his nonalcoholic lead, Bracco and Fisk bought cups of acidic coffee, after which they all repaired to a booth and got settled. The lieutenant sat on one side and the two inspectors on the other. Glitsky threw a bag of peanuts at each of them, tore at his own. "So what's got you two boys so duded up?"
Since the lunch with Nancy Ross and Kathy West had been Harlen's idea, Bracco thought he'd let him explain it.
He was surprised when the lieutenant seemed to approve. When the narrative ended, Glitsky was nodding. "So we now know what we've always suspected. You can't make too much money, and nobody thinks they got enough. Anything else?"
Bracco decided he needed to speak up. "Couple of things," he said. "One, it might be interesting to compare Ross's tax returns the last few years with what they've spent. Mrs. Ross might not have realized it, but she basically said they were living on more than they were making."
"So am I," Glitsky said. "Who isn't?" He chewed his ice for a moment. "So they've extended themselves on credit cards, so what? And what would that prove anyway? How's it relate to Markham?"
"If Ross was taking money from Parnassus in some way and Markham found out-"
"You mean embezzling? Something like that?"
"I don't know," Bracco admitted.
Glitsky didn't like it. "Anything obvious or proven and he would have fired him on the spot, don't you think?" He drank some more tea, frowning. "My problem with this whole line of thought," he said at last, "is that I've got to go on the assumption that whoever killed Markham in the hospital probably wasn't planning to kill him until he showed up there after the accident. That's why I like Kensing so much. He didn't just have a motive. He had several long-standing motives, where he might see the opportunity and just go, 'At last.'