The Substitution Order by Martin Clark

Author:Martin Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I RELEASE NELSON FROM HIS PEN as soon as I arrive home from my Roanoke meetings with Ava and Margo Jordan, and we begin working on our pet tricks. I have him sit, stay, then fetch a tennis ball from ten feet away. This is familiar stuff—he knows it well, learned it as a pup at the restaurant. Next, we substitute my car keys for the ball, and after a few balks and false starts, he understands it’s the same routine with a new, different object and grasps the lanyard on my keys and brings them to me. I reward him with a dog biscuit. Finally, I drop my wallet on the ground, and he learns to fetch it as well. “Smart boy,” I praise him. Soon, I’ll put all three down together, and I’ll teach him to select the ball or the keys or the wallet according to my command.

There’s a message from Ava’s insurance company on the answering machine, and I call the 800 number, navigate the phone-tree labyrinth and punch in the extension for Louis Dillon, a “senior claims administrator.”

Dillon is somewhere between surly and indifferent when he answers and asks for my full name, the last four digits of my Social Security number, the policy and group numbers and the claim date or dates.

“Okay,” he says. “Yeah, I see you’ve been calling for a while, and so now your claim has reached my final level of review, and it looks like, after a careful and full inspection of your file, you aren’t covered under your wife’s policy past the June thirtieth cancellation date. We can’t pay for any claims that come after the policy has ended.”

“Louis,” I say, and stop.

“Yes.”

“Louis,” I repeat.

“Yes,” he says in the same bored, arrogant voice.

“Let’s start like this.”

“Like how?” he asks.

“Are you near a computer?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“So,” I say, “here’s what I want you to do. I want you to Google my name, ‘Kevin Moore,’ and the words ‘courtroom’ and ‘Clooney.’ As in George. Can you do that for me, Louis?”

“Why?”

“Because, Louis, I want you to understand who you’re dealing with. I’ll wait. Read the article.”

“I can’t,” he says. “I’d have to exit this screen and leave your file, and the facts are the facts. I could Google ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ and it could be you, but you wouldn’t be insured after the thirtieth. Sorry about that.”

“When you find the piece and read it—which you’ll do, sooner or later—you’ll discover that I’m a lawyer—”

“Yeah, I already know. Your file history shows you’ve told every claims rep ‘I’m a lawyer’ every time you called. So we’ve been aware of your profession for nearly two months.”

“Excellent. Then you’ll understand I’m not blowing smoke when I tell you this: The policy was never legally canceled.”

“Policy clearly states that it’s canceled on the day we receive the notice. We received your wife’s letter on June thirtieth. Open and shut, sir.”

“My wife’s paid bimonthly, the first and the sixteenth. In June, she

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