"M-4," Reynolds says. "I'm an M-6. You don't have the weight to throw around."
Jack nods. "Roger says he slipped you a thousand bucks to okay this coverage."
Which might add to the weight quotient a little bit.
"Get away from my vehicle."
"Is it true?"
"I said get away from my vehicle."
"Look, typically you'd lay some of that risk off, wouldn't you?" Jack asks. "Work with the customer to get one or two other carriers to pick up some of the coverage? Isn't that the way you'd normally do it if the risk was too high but you wanted to keep the customer?"
"Those are Underwriting decisions."
"Which is why I'm asking you."
"You don't understand the business."
"Educate me."
Reynolds takes off his glasses. Looks down at Jack for a long time before he says, "I don't have the time to explain to you things that you don't have the education to understand. So leave it alone."
"Can't."
"What's your name again?"
"Jack Wade. Large Claims."
"That's Billy Hayes's unit?"
"You know it is," Jack says. "You had your boss on the phone banging at him first thing this morning."
"Well, Jack Wade from Large Claims," Reynolds says. "I'm going to tell you once: drop this. Understand?"
"I don't have the education," Jack says. "And that's twice you've told me."
"Well, I'm not going to tell you again."
"Good, because I was getting bored."
"You won't be bored tomorrow morning, I can tell you that."
"You gonna make some more calls, Bill?"
"Get away from my vehicle."
"You gonna bring the heat down?"
Reynolds squeezes himself into the driver's seat and starts the engine. Jack takes the papers off the hood.
The car window rolls down with a soft electric hum.
"Pay the claim," Reynolds says.
"No."
"Pay the claim."
"Everyone's telling me that."
"Everyone's right."
"Let me tell you about some basic laws of physics," Jack says. "Before heat can go down, it goes up. Heat rises. So don't drop any more heat on Billy Hayes, because I'll send some up your way, from M-4 to M-6."
The window rolls up.
Reynolds disappears behind blue tinted glass.
Smoked glass, Jack thinks.