I'll Call Every Monday by Orrie Hitt

Author:Orrie Hitt
Format: epub
Publisher: Munsey's

CHAPTER XI

I TURNED IN THE SHEP SCHOFIELD application at the office on Thursday morning. There was a brief period of rejoicing and a lot of back-slapping. I took it in stride and shrugged off their congratulations. Fifty thousand was a nice piece of business. But they didn't know the half of it.

“Who is this guy?” Austin asked me.

“He's an artist.”

“Well, he ought to be able to afford it.”

“He can.”

“Term should be about right for him.”

“That's what I thought.”

I was in Austin's office and he'd been looking over the application. His eyes made a second tour through it and then he threw it in the Out box. I started to breathe again.

“When's he going to get examined, Nicky?”

“Before the end of the week.”

“You make an appointment with Dr. Tremble?”

Dr. Tremble was the company's regular doctor in town. I'd been to his office several times on past cases. I wasn't going to him with this one.

“He's going to get examined over in Newburgh,” I said. “He goes over there all the time.”

“It would be closer for him here,” Austin said.

“Yeah. But he wanted to go to Newburgh for it. All artists are nuts, I guess.”

“They aren't the only ones,” Austin said. He got up. “Just so's he gets examined, that's the main thing.”

Anybody in the insurance game would know what he was talking about. A lot of guys write a lot of business on people who never get within shouting distance of the medical examiner's office. The applications lie around and finally get tossed out. The only purpose they serve is to get the manager's foot off your neck the day you report them as written business.

“Who does the exams over there for Northern?” I asked Austin. “Maybe I could get Schofield to go over there this afternoon.”

He took the bait on that one, just as I knew he would. He picked up the phone and got long distance. Pretty soon he was talking to the doctor over in Newburgh. Yes, he would be in that afternoon. Yes, he could give the examination. Fine, Austin said, fine, and hung up.

“You're all set,” he told me.

“I'd better call Schofield,” I said. “Might as well get this thing settled.”

Austin beamed.

“You're right on the ball, Nicky! I wish the other guys would follow things through like that.”

I picked up the phone and moved away from his desk, to the end of the cord. He couldn't hear the voice on the other end from that distance. I checked my watch, said a silent prayer, and gave the operator the number out in Pine Valley. Irene had said that she'd be sure to chase Shep down to the village for groceries before nine that morning, and that she'd give him such a scattered list that it'd take him until eleven to get to all the stores.

“Hello,” she said.

“Mr. Schofield?” I asked, following it through just as we had planned it.

“Darling!”

I grinned at Austin and crossed my fingers. “Say, Mr. Schofield, I've had the office on the wire with at doctor over in Newburgh.

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