clipboard. No sense prolonging the experience or answering anything about Area 51. “What do you have?” Sam asked Handel once he reached him.
“Bare bones? Guy hasn’t made his last payment, so on the record, this isn’t on us to pay out on the hazard insurance or fire or anything. Now, off the record, he’s been a client for ten years, so maybe he sues and says, Okay, I’ve made enough payments that if I’m forty-five days late, you’re not going to honor my account? Take it to mediation, we’d probably settle, but we’d make him sweat it. It would be a bad beat, but we’d take it.”
“You’re a prince,” Sam said.
“It’s the business,” Peter said.
“What else?”
“Well, again, off the record, he actually took out a life insurance policy three weeks ago. Pays out two million five to his son in the case of his death. Paid the premiums on that two years in advance.”
Two years. Savvy, Sam thought. He also began to rethink how awful he considered Henry to be. He’d left his son to deal with this shit but also left him set up for the rest of his life.
“He just sent in a check?”
“No, paid by credit card over the phone.”
Smart again, Sam thought.
“Off the record?”
“You’re talking to a federal agent, Handel. None of this is off the record.”
“Right. Right. I just . . . guess . . . Well, I guess here’s the weird thing. He paid for the premiums using a VISA gift card. It’s basically the same as cash, but he puts close to six grand on it and buys life insurance. It was very unusual.”
And very smart, Sam realized. He could have purchased the gift card at any time and loaded the money on it over the course of a very long time, which would essentially render it traceless in the event he needed to use it to disappear. No usable trail of the money transfer if he did it early, no usable trail of the credit card purchase if he did it early, either. And if he’s smart, he called using Skype and thus no way to triangulate his location until long after he was gone, not that the insurance company would have been looking to do that. But if you’re angry enough, Sam knew, any information could be bought. And it seemed like these bookies were angry.
“Tell me something, Concerto-boy, before this month, was Grayson regular on his payments?”
“He’d usually pay a year in advance. Sometimes in cash. Come by our office on Grand Street and hand over an envelope. We don’t encourage that, but some people in Miami are . . . eccentric.”
“What’s his full loss payout?”
Handel flipped through his pages. “Not a lot,” he said. “Just the base minimums. A notary, all he really needs is his satchel of stamps, plus the books he has to keep for the state; that’s why most of them are mobile now. No sense keeping an office unless you got something else going on. Most of our clients in this business are pretty lucrative, really, because they’ve got PO boxes or UPS operating out of the shop, or maybe they’re also a greeting card place or, we’ve got this one in Doral that’s a soft-serve joint, really strange.”
Handel went on then, at length, about other odd notary businesses, which was fine. It gave Sam a moment to gather his thoughts. First, he decided that if he ever had the choice between going into the insurance industry or being eaten alive by fire ants, he’d look long into the fire ant angle. Second, he saw how odd it was that all Grayson did was run a notarizing service out of his office. Rents were high in the neighborhood and Sam had a hard time believing the notarization business could sustain the roof, even with his gambling. No, Sam thought, there was probably something more. Something Henry Grayson’s son, Brent, didn’t, and probably shouldn’t, know about.
“That’s all fascinating, Handel,” Sam said.
“See a lot of crazy things in this business,” he said.
“One last thing,” Sam said. “Was there anything on his policy that was
“Bare bones? Guy hasn’t made his last payment, so on the record, this isn’t on us to pay out on the hazard insurance or fire or anything. Now, off the record, he’s been a client for ten years, so maybe he sues and says, Okay, I’ve made enough payments that if I’m forty-five days late, you’re not going to honor my account? Take it to mediation, we’d probably settle, but we’d make him sweat it. It would be a bad beat, but we’d take it.”
“You’re a prince,” Sam said.
“It’s the business,” Peter said.
“What else?”
“Well, again, off the record, he actually took out a life insurance policy three weeks ago. Pays out two million five to his son in the case of his death. Paid the premiums on that two years in advance.”
Two years. Savvy, Sam thought. He also began to rethink how awful he considered Henry to be. He’d left his son to deal with this shit but also left him set up for the rest of his life.
“He just sent in a check?”
“No, paid by credit card over the phone.”
Smart again, Sam thought.
“Off the record?”
“You’re talking to a federal agent, Handel. None of this is off the record.”
“Right. Right. I just . . . guess . . . Well, I guess here’s the weird thing. He paid for the premiums using a VISA gift card. It’s basically the same as cash, but he puts close to six grand on it and buys life insurance. It was very unusual.”
And very smart, Sam realized. He could have purchased the gift card at any time and loaded the money on it over the course of a very long time, which would essentially render it traceless in the event he needed to use it to disappear. No usable trail of the money transfer if he did it early, no usable trail of the credit card purchase if he did it early, either. And if he’s smart, he called using Skype and thus no way to triangulate his location until long after he was gone, not that the insurance company would have been looking to do that. But if you’re angry enough, Sam knew, any information could be bought. And it seemed like these bookies were angry.
“Tell me something, Concerto-boy, before this month, was Grayson regular on his payments?”
“He’d usually pay a year in advance. Sometimes in cash. Come by our office on Grand Street and hand over an envelope. We don’t encourage that, but some people in Miami are . . . eccentric.”
“What’s his full loss payout?”
Handel flipped through his pages. “Not a lot,” he said. “Just the base minimums. A notary, all he really needs is his satchel of stamps, plus the books he has to keep for the state; that’s why most of them are mobile now. No sense keeping an office unless you got something else going on. Most of our clients in this business are pretty lucrative, really, because they’ve got PO boxes or UPS operating out of the shop, or maybe they’re also a greeting card place or, we’ve got this one in Doral that’s a soft-serve joint, really strange.”
Handel went on then, at length, about other odd notary businesses, which was fine. It gave Sam a moment to gather his thoughts. First, he decided that if he ever had the choice between going into the insurance industry or being eaten alive by fire ants, he’d look long into the fire ant angle. Second, he saw how odd it was that all Grayson did was run a notarizing service out of his office. Rents were high in the neighborhood and Sam had a hard time believing the notarization business could sustain the roof, even with his gambling. No, Sam thought, there was probably something more. Something Henry Grayson’s son, Brent, didn’t, and probably shouldn’t, know about.
“That’s all fascinating, Handel,” Sam said.
“See a lot of crazy things in this business,” he said.
“One last thing,” Sam said. “Was there anything on his policy that was
Similar Books
