Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

With no time to waste I said, “Bob Pat, on 11 September 1952 you lost a lower incisor. Still young enough to believe in the Tooth Fairy, you placed it underneath your pillow and fell fast asleep.”

“Huh?”

I sighed and repeated myself.

“A Kenworth’s a lot roomier than some folks think,” he said, leering. “Yes, I know,” I said provocatively.

“Whoo-ie! Whatcha drinking, toots?”

I ignored him and dug into my purse/briefcase for file notes and pocket calculator. I said, “You awoke in the morning. Your tooth was gone, and you had not been compensated.”

“Don’t I know you from someplace way back when?”

“No. In the early 1950’s, my territory was in the Midwest Division,” I lied. “Standard compensation in the chronological-geographical zone was either a dime or a quarter. You can’t be expected to recall. We’re giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming the larger denomination.”

Bob Pat Hoopsma gulped his beer and said, “Them was the days. They made coins out of real silver.”

I swatted his paw from my knee and began crunching numbers. “Yes, they did, Mr. Hoopsma. For that reason, we’re basing our offer on a quarter-ounce of silver at today’s closing price, pegging interest at prime rate plus two percent, compounded daily. I’m figuring it for you on the spot to give you the accrual benefit of every day.”

I showed him the result: ninety-four dollars and thirty-one cents.

He frowned at the readout and shook his head. “No way. Sure, I bought it before, but I never paid no gal no ninety—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Hoopsma. You’re not paying me, I’m paying you.”

His mouth dropped, but when he saw the cash, he slid it over with his bar change and signed the Release of All Claims, no questions asked. I was out of there lickety-split, on to my next call. Until I was called on the carpet, I thought I’d closed out Hoopsma and his family’s file.

But there it was, moldering on the boss’s desk.

She thumbed an edge. Cardboard and paper corners flaked off, sending up dust motes. “I thought in Orientation I covered the necessity of reading the files.”

“You covered reviewing the files. Scanning for pertinent—”

She raised a hand. “Date of client’s complaint?”

I was so proud I remembered. Perhaps it was because ’52 was my rookie year, freshly trained and new in the field. “Eleven September 1952. The following morning. Bob Pat cried his eyes out. His mom alleged the Tooth Fairy visited. The quarter, however—”

“Dime, incidentally. The client’s memory is selective.” She pushed the file toward me. “Read on. Actually read.”

I flipped the pages with trembling fingers. Regardless of years of service, there was no such thing in this outfit as a buyout package, a golden handshake. You were a team player until death did you part.

It was obvious. How could I have missed it? On 11 September 1952 Mrs. Hoopsma beat a confession out of Bob Pat’s older sister, Mary Pat, that she had stolen the dime. I recognized my initials in the margins. Even in those days, though, quotas were high. I couldn’t be expected to remember each and every call.

I shoved the folder aside. I knew I was in for it. Management wasn’t paid to be reasonable and sensitive.

“You were a Production Field Agent in that territory in the 1950’s. According to these records, you serviced the Hoopsma children on one unspecified occasion.”

“I’m sorry. Obviously I had serviced the Hoopsma household. Whether or not I made this particular call, I simply don’t remember.”

“You couldn’t be expected to. Not when you make scores of calls per night. Furthermore, in the precomputer era, we didn’t document our files as thoroughly as we do now.”

How true. Now Production staffers scanned bar codes on orders when they completed an assignment. The transaction was fed into our mainframe. Precise data has cut the incidence of new claims dramatically.

“This, however, may have been the seminal event that propelled Mary Pat from this dysfunctional family full tilt into a life of crime,” she went on.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Not our problem. Our problem is our backlog. You’re aware of the upcoming audit?”

Certainly I was. How did she think I got into Claims so easily? Personnel allocations quintupled overnight when the date of the auditors’ visit was announced. Every century Auditing sent Quality Teams around. Woe be it to Management if they were carrying too many open claims. This battleaxe sitting across from me was a world-class procrastinator who entered Management Training right out of school without working one single solitary night in Production. They were responsible for letting this slagheap of files build up, not me.

“But,” I pleaded, “doesn’t the fact that Mary Pat confessed prove that the assignment was completed?”

“It proves nothing. Number one, it was a coerced confession, its accuracy in question. Second, even if it were true, we paid the claimant twice,” she said, ticking off her objections on sausagelike digits. “That means subrogation.”

“Oh well, then we can ship the file to Subrogation?”