“Look at the people, Russell,” Edmund said when his partner returned. “What do you see?”

“Families, strollers, couples, lots of old people. What’s on your mind?”

“Right. Old people. It’s Florida, famous for oranges and old people. What do old people have?”

“I dunno, high car insurance premiums?” Russell said.

“That,” Edmund said, “but this generation also has lots and lots of life insurance.”

And Edmund told Russell his idea. It was called “Life Settlement.”

The partners figured they had stumbled upon something big. Russell crunched numbers for weeks while Edmund discreetly got advice from his old contacts: lawyers, traders, bankers, ratings experts, and hedge fund managers. The idea was legal, and it was doable. And Russell said the numbers were watertight.

“The only way this doesn’t work is if we have the Second Coming and Jesus stops people dying,” Russell said.

“And we know that’s not going to happen.”

In early 2010, LifeDeals, Inc., was formed with Russell as CEO and Edmund chairman of the board. The start-up money was most of their $100 million take from the subprime debacle, and they used it to buy up life insurance policies from thousands and thousands of Americans desperate for cash. Edmund hired the most aggressive salesmen he knew and told them to hire even more hungry people to go out and pound pavement and buy policies for no more than 15 cents on the dollar. There were millions of Americans who needed money for long-term care, or to finance an operation when they didn’t have medical coverage or, as was increasingly the case, even when they did, but the coverage wasn’t adequate or the insurance company figured out a way not to pay. LifeDeals had to pay the balance of the premiums, but when the policyholder passed on, as they would as surely as night follows day, the payout was theirs.

Within six months, the LifeDeals board was confident enough to take the company public. Edmund and Russell held options that made them very wealthy once again, but they wanted capitalization to buy more policies. Edmund’s favorite statistic was that there was more than $26 trillion in life insurance policies sloshing around out there for the taking. Their plan was to start securitizing the policies, aggregating them, and selling bonds. This time, the assets behind the securities were cast-iron, personally guaranteed by the grim reaper. And thousands of people every day were walking away from policies they had paid into for years because they couldn’t afford the premiums. They were waiting to be picked off.

Edmund liked to think his company could someday be worth a trillion dollars.

Who is it?” Edmund asked.

“Teddy doesn’t know. He heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend. But he trusts the party. Swears it’s true.”

“It’s just someone being a wiseass,” said Edmund.

“No,” said Russell. “It’s a biggish bet. Whoever it is, they’re sure we’re going down the toilet.”

“Well, we fucking well better find out who it is before we catch a cold.”