Death Benefits by Thomas Perry

nobody in schools would remember I got sued, and they wouldn’t care whether I lost twelve million or twelve cents.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t make as much money, but at the end of my life I’d probably feel better than I do right now.”
    “I doubt it,” said Stillman. “At the end of your life you’re dying. Probably feels like shit.”
    “In the larger sense.”
    “Not scared of it, are you?” asked Stillman.
    Walker hesitated. “Not that I can detect, other than the dying part.”
    “That’s freedom,” Stillman said. “You’ve set yourself free. If you’re doubting the value of that, go back and take a look at Winters—heart pumping, cold sweat, the taste of metal in his mouth. You should celebrate.”
    “I don’t think I can afford it,” said Walker. He was quiet for a moment. “But I think you’re right. Maybe I’ll quit before they fire me.”
    “Don’t be too hasty,” Stillman mumbled uncomfortably.
    “I went to work at McClaren’s because it had a famous name and they wanted me. I went along doing my reports, and after a while, I thought I knew more than I did. McClaren’s is a fraud.”
    Stillman frowned at him for a second, then said reluctantly, “Well, not entirely.” He looked at him again, then said, “I didn’t want to tell you this right away, because it might cloud the issue and deprive you of your full measure of freedom. But you aren’t going to get fired for what you did in there.”
    “I’m not?” He felt the unmistakable jolt of a parachute opening and jerking him to a near stop. He floated down in amazement.
    “No,” said Stillman. “They may even add five inches to your pen back in the stable.”
    “How do you know?”
    “McClaren’s is a peculiar operation. There are lots of bigger companies. They’re probably more efficient and their rates are cheaper. What gets people to do business with McClaren’s is the same thing that got you to work for them. It’s the name. If McClaren’s refused to pay that Werfel character on his father’s insurance policy—for any reason, legal or illegal—it would be the beginning of the end.”
    “If enough people heard about it, maybe, but—”
    “Of course they would. Rich people know other rich people. They go to the same two hundred private schools, then the same twenty-five colleges. They take vacations—more of them than other people do—in the same seventy-five spots on the earth, where they stay at the same seventy-five hotels. I’ll bet it’s sometimes hard for them to believe that the world contains six billion people, because they spend their whole lives bumping into the same six thousand. They won’t talk to anybody but each other. And they file lawsuits. If
Werfel v. McClaren
got filed, McClaren’s would have to settle quick and throw in a few million extra to soothe Werfel’s ego and reassure everybody else.”
    “I saved them money?”
    “Lots. Also probably Winters’s ass. They wouldn’t fire him for being fooled; they might for being dishonest.”
    Walker scowled. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?”
    Stillman shrugged. “It wouldn’t count if you had known the right thing was also the smart thing. You had to say to yourself, ‘If this job means I have to stiff this guy, then they can stick the job in their ear.’ Now you’ll never have to wonder.”
    “What if I’d made the wrong decision?”
    “The wrong decision?”
    “What if I had looked at those two and said to myself, ‘Alan Werfel is just a rich asshole who is going to get richer, and Winters is probably a decent, hard-working man who started with nothing and isn’t all that much better off now, and will probably lose his job. He’s fighting for his life, and I should let him take his shot at it?’ ”
    “You wouldn’t be much of an analyst if you couldn’t figure out that much.”
    “That doesn’t answer my question. What would you have done?”
    “Nothing,” said Stillman.