I was much relieved to see that she had left my commitments unchanged, except of course that the side contract for Pete was missing and also the one concerning my Hired Girl stock. I supposed that she had just burned those, to keep from raising questions. I examined with care the dozen or more places where she had changed “Mutual Assurance Company” to “Master Insurance Company of California.”
The gal was a real artist, no question. I suppose a scientific criminologist armed with microscope and comparison stereo and chemical tests and so forth could have proved that each of those documents had been altered, but I could not. I wondered how she had coped with the closed endorsement on the back of the certified check, since certified checks are always on paper guaranteed nonerasable. Well, she probably had not used an eraser-what one person can dream up another person can outsmart . . . and Belle was very smart.
Mr. Doughty cleared his throat. I looked up. “Do we settle my account here?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can put it in two words. How much?”
“Mmm … Mr. Davis, before we go into that question, I would like to invite your attention to one additional document and to one circumstance. This is the contract between this Sanctuary and Master Insurance Company of California for your hypothermia, custody, and revivification. You will note that the entire fee is paid in advance. This is both for our protection and for yours, since it guarantees your safe-being while you are helpless. The funds-all such funds-are placed in escrow with the superior-court division handling chancery matters and are paid quarterly to us as earned.”
“Okay. Sounds like a good arrangement.”
“It is. It protects the helpless. Now you must understand clearly that this sanctuary is a separate corporation from your insurance company; the custodial contract with us was a contract entirely separate from the one for the management of your estate.”
“Mr. Doughty, what are you getting at?”
“Do you have any assets other than those you entrusted to Master Insurance Company?”
I thought it over. I had owned a car once . . . but God alone knew what had become of it. I had closed out my checking account in Mojave early in the binge, and on that busy day when I ended up at Miles’s place-and in the soup-I had started with maybe thirty or forty dollars in cash. Books, clothes, slide rule-I had never been a pack rat-and that minor junk was gone anyhow. “Not even a bus transfer, Mr. Doughty.”
“Then-I am very sorry to have to tell you this-you have no assets of any sort.”
I held still while my head circled the field and came in for a crash landing. “What do you mean? Why, some of the stocks I invested in are in fine shape. I know they are. It says so right here.” I held up my breakfast copy of the Times.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Davis, but you don’t own any stocks. Master Insurance went broke.”
I was glad he had made me sit down; I felt weak. “How did this happen? The Panic?”
“No, no. It was part of the collapse of the Mannix Group but of course you don’t know about that. It happened after the Panic, and I suppose you could say that it started from the Panic. But Master Insurance would not have gone under if it had not been systematically looted . . . gutted-‘milked’ is the vulgar word. If it had been an ordinary receivership, something at least would have been salvaged. Hut it was not. By the time it was discovered there was nothing left of the company but a hollow shell and the men who had done it were beyond extradition. Uh, if it is any consolation to you, it could not happen under our present laws.”
No, it was no consolation, and besides, I didn’t believe it. My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.
But he also used to say that a wise man should be prepared to abandon his baggage at any time. I wondered how often I was going to have to do it to qualify as “wise.” “Uh, Mr. Doughty, just out of curiosity, how did Mutual Assurance make out?”