“We need to go see Henry Green,” Edmund said. Henry Green was CEO of Statistical Solutions LLC, the company that had produced all the actuarial data, including the bell curves. Edmund got out his BlackBerry. This was a call he wanted to make.

“Henry Green, please.... Okay, well, tell him Edmund Mathews is in the city and on his way over and needs to see him right away. . . . Well, I’m sure he’ll understand when you tell him. Our key data has flaws. There’s new information. We need to fix it.” Edmund hung up.

“He’ll see us,” Edmund said.

LifeDeals had put Statistical Solutions on an expensive retainer. Russell wanted to be armed with the best available statistical analysis when they went on the road selling their product. One supposed lesson from the subprime debacle was that investors wanted to know exactly what they were investing in. It might appear to be self-evident, but it wasn’t. Russell wanted to be able to show an investor the latest data, even individual policies, if they cared to see them.

For his part, Henry Green was less than pleased to be hearing from Edmund Mathews at all, let alone when he was demanding a face-to-face meeting without notice. While Russell Lefevre wanted the full breadth and depth of research that Statistical Solutions offered, he gave the firm time to accomplish what was asked for. In contrast, Edmund Mathews would call up and want immediate answers to complicated questions. Green had had to drive his people hard, squeezing every last cent’s worth of work out of the company to comply. Edmund expected Henry to drop everything whenever he called.

Edmund and Russell arrived at the Statistical Solutions offices in Chelsea in short order and within a couple of minutes were sitting with Green in his office.

“Edmund, I gather you mentioned something on the phone about ‘new information,’” Green said hesitantly.

“That’s right,” said Russell, who wanted very much to avoid having Edmund yell at Henry Green, which had happened in the past. “There’s new material and we need your expert opinion to see if we need to be concerned about it.”

Edmund sighed at the understatement.

“What my colleague is trying to say, Henry, is that you may have been wrong in some of your forecasts by amounts that could put us out of business. So I’d be very grateful, Henry, if you could get those geniuses you told us about who could have gotten jobs at Google to come in here and prove to us that they are in fact smart enough to tie their own shoelaces after all.”

Edmund’s voice was rising in volume but the dam held, just. Henry Green pressed a number on his phone pad and picked up the receiver.

“Yes, Laura, would you have Tom and Isabel meet us in the conference room right away?” Green hung up the phone.

“Gentlemen, shall we?”