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contracted botulism. Three of the agency's four workstations were unoccupied. At the back on the window-wall side, Wes Shapiro waved Jack on.
     
     
The office manager wouldn't be picked out of a lineup if a witness had a snapshot of the assailant. Medium build, medium height, medium everything from buzz cut to wingtips. One of those guys who looked the same at his high school graduation as he did at the thirtieth reunion. And not in a good way.
     
     
"How's it going, stranger?" Wes stuck out a hand. "I haven't seen you since the snow was flying."
     
     
Park City received a total of three inches all last winter, but the slip-and-fall claim Jack investigated turned out to be genuine. When the victim's civil suit against the negligent store owner went to court, Jack would testify for the plaintiff. Gladly testify. Last he'd heard, she was still in a wheelchair.
     
     
Wes lowered his voice. "I told the boss to call you two months ago." A thumb pinched an index finger. "The cheap son of a gun has the first dollar this agency ever made."
     
     
"Framed and hung on the wall, no less." McPhee Investigations' first dollar was encased in Lucite on Jack's desk. Classy.
     
     
"Tell Gerry I'll have the files together in a few," Wes said. "He'll nag me on the intercom anyway, but the photocopier's a two-speed model. Slow and broken."
     
     
Jack continued on, turning into a corridor with gender-specific restrooms on his right. Wes's parting remark was an ode to middle management. Nowhere to go but out imposed a constant straddle between indispensible and justifying your existence.
     
     
He and Gerry Abramson shook on their mutual gladness to see each other. For as long as Jack had known him, the independent insurance broker had threatened retirement. Today, a hypertensive complexion and bulldog jaw implied a fatal coronary might punch Gerry's ticket before dinnertime.
     
     
Jack asked after Letha, Gerry's wife of forty-seven years. The vivacious grandmother of nine was battling Parkinson's disease.
     
     
"She has her good days and bad." Gerry winged his elbows on the arms of a leather desk chair. "The doc's put her on a new course of treatment. It's experimental and costs the moon, but it seems to help."
     
     
He shook his head. "Almost a half century in the insurance business, and I'm fighting tooth and toenail with our carrier to cover the meds." A bitter chuckle, then, "And losing."
     
     
"Then chumps like me don't have a prayer." Jack rapped on the visitor chair's oak frame. A sole proprietor fears extended illness and a debilitating injury more than the IRS. No work, no income. The flu bug can knock a zero off a month's earnings.
     
     
"Time was," Gerry continued, "and not that long ago, when I felt good telling customers not to worry. Fire? Surgery? Hail damage? We've got you covered."
     
     
A crooked finger ratcheted down the knot in his tie, as though it were the source of discomfort. "Nowadays, I'm the villain with a briefcase full of loopholes and exclusions." He grimaced, levering the collar button backward through its corresponding hole. "And a lot smaller check than they hung their hopes on."
     
     
Jack wondered why Gerry didn't sell out and retire. What kept him coming to this cozy, thick-carpeted office paneled in genuine walnut and adorned with framed certificates of achievement and appreciation? A national newspaper's bar chart recently rated the public's attitude toward various professions. Attorneys historically ranked number one in the most-despised category. The poll's results now placed insurance agents in the lead by several percentage points.
     
     
Gerry Abramson had two first loves. Clinging to a semblance of control over an industry he hardly recognized wasn't as painful as watching a bastard named Parkinson steal away his wife and being helpless to stop him.
     
     
"How about a soda?" he said, rolling backward in his chair. He opened a minifridge built into the credenza. "Bottled