Twelve Red Herrings

“Good,” he kept repeating. Finally he said, “That just about wraps it up, Mr. Kravits. You’ll need to spend a few minutes down the corridor with Dr. Harvey so she can take a chest X-ray and have some fun with her electric pads, but after that you’ll be through and you can go home to”—he checked his pad—“New Jersey. The company will be in touch in a few days, as soon as we’ve had the results.”

“Thank you, Dr. Royston,” he said as he buttoned up his shirt. The doctor pressed a buzzer on his desk and the nurse reappeared and led him to another room with a plaque on the door that read “Dr. Mary Harvey.” Dr. Harvey, a smartly-dressed middle-aged woman with her gray hair cropped short, was waiting for him. She smiled at the tall, handsome man and asked him to take off his shirt again and to step up onto the platform and stand in front of the X-ray unit.

“Place your arms behind your back and breathe in. Thank you.” Next she asked him to lie down on the bed in the corner of the room. She leaned over his chest, smeared blobs of paste on his skin and fixed little pads to them. While he stared up at the white ceiling, she flicked a switch and concentrated on a tiny television screen on the corner of her desk. Her expression gave nothing away.

After she had removed the paste with a damp flannel she said, “You can put your shirt back on, Mr. Kravits. You are now free to leave.”

Once he was fully dressed, the young man hurried out of the building and down the steps and ran all the way to the corner where he and Pat had parted. They hugged each other again.

“Everything go all right?”

“I think so,” he said. “They told me I’d be hearing from them in the next few days, once they’ve had the results of all their tests.”

“Thank God it hasn’t been a problem for you.”

“I only wish it wasn’t for you.”

“Don’t let’s even think about it,” said David, holding tightly onto the one person he loved.

Marvin rang a week later to let David know that Dr. Royston had given him a clean bill of health. All he had to do now was send the first installment of $1,100 to the insurance company. David posted a check off to Geneva Life the following morning. Thereafter his payments were made by wire transfer on the first day of each month.

Nineteen d

ays after the seventh payment had been cleared, David Kravits died of AIDS.

Pat tried to remember the first thing he was meant to do once the will had been read. He was to contact a Mr. Levy, David’s lawyer, and leave everything in his hands. David had warned him not to become involved in any way himself. Let Levy, as his executor, make the claim from the insurance company, he had said, and then pass the money on to him. If in any doubt, say nothing, was the last piece of advice David had given Pat before he died.

Ten days later Pat received a letter from a claims representative at Geneva Life requesting an interview with the beneficiary of the policy. Pat passed the letter straight to David’s lawyer. Mr. Levy wrote back agreeing to an interview, which would take place, at his client’s request, at the offices of Levy, Goldberg and Levy in Manhattan.

“Is there anything you haven’t told me, Patrick?” Levy asked him a few minutes before the insurance company’s claims representative was due to arrive. “Because if there is, you’d better tell me now.”

“No, Mr. Levy, there’s nothing more to tell you,” Pat replied, carrying out David’s instructions to the letter.

From the moment the meeting began, the representative of Geneva Life, his eyes continually boring into Pat’s bowed head, left Mr. Levy in no doubt that he was not happy about paying out on this particular claim. But the lawyer stonewalled every question, strengthened by the knowledge that eight months before, when rigorous tests had been taken, Geneva Life’s doctors had found no sign of David’s being HIV positive.

Levy kept repeating, “However much noise you make, your company will have to pay up in the end.” He added for good measure, “If I have not received the full amount due to my client within thirty days, I will immediately instigate proceedings against Geneva Life.” The claims representative asked Levy if he would consider a deal. Levy glanced at Pat, who bowed his head even lower, and replied, “Certainly not.”

Pat arrived back at the apartment two hours later, exhausted and depressed, fearing that an attack of asthma might be coming on. He tried to prepare some supper before he went to work, but everything seemed so pointless without David. He was already wondering if he should have agreed to a settlement.

The phone rang only once during the evening. Pat rushed to pick it up, hoping it might be either his mother or his sister Ruth. It turned out to be Marvin, who bleated, “I’m in real trouble, Pat. I’m probably going to lose my job over that policy I made out for your friend David.”

Pat said how sorry he was, but felt there was nothing he could do to help.

“Yes, there is,” insisted Marvin. “For a start, you could take out a policy yourself. That might just save my skin.”

“I don’t think that would be wise,” said Pat, wondering what David would have advised.

“Surely David wouldn’t have wanted to see me fired,” Marvin pleaded. “Have mercy on me, my friend. I just can’t afford another divorce.”

“How much would it cost me?” asked Pat, desperate to find some way of getting Marvin off the line.

“You’re going to get a million dollars in cash,” Marvin almost shouted, “and you’re asking me what it’s going to cost? What’s a thousand dollars a month to someone as rich as you?”

“But I can’t be sure that I am going to get the million,” Pat protested.

“That’s all been settled,” Marvin told him, his voice falling by several decibels. “I’m not meant to let you know this, but you’ll be receiving the check on the thirtieth of the month. The company knows that your lawyer’s got them by the balls … You wouldn’t even have to make the first payment until after you’d received the million.”

“All right,” said Pat, desperate to be rid of him. “I’ll do it, but not until I’ve received the check.”