Money to Burn

Kevin looked at me, but I was dumbfounded. My tech guy had already removed the spyware. “I have no idea how she got those,” I whispered.

“Objection,” said Kevin, rising.

“This isn’t a trial,” said the judge.

Highsmith jumped on it. “Exactly, Your Honor. And at this preliminary stage of the proceedings, I believe we have made a sufficient showing to warrant the relief requested-a temporary freeze on Mr. Cantella’s assets and a full accounting of every pe

Kevin said, “Mr. Highsmith should at least be required to establish the authenticity of those e-mails. We have no idea where he got those last two about this supposed secret meeting.”

The judge looked at Highsmith and said, “How did you get those e-mails?”

Highsmith smiled, and the hand went back into the pocket, reaching for the brass balls. “As the court knows, I’m a very resourceful trial lawyer.”

“So resourceful,” said Kevin, “that Mr. Cantella’s wife planted spyware on her husband’s computer.”

I cringed. Kevin had pushed the wrong button, as was evident from the judge’s sour expression.

“Stop the sniping,” the judge said. “Let me just get to the bottom of this question of whether the e-mails are authentic or not. Mr. Cantella: Did you receive these e-mails or did you not?”

I hesitated. This was going to be news to my brother-and he wasn’t going to be happy. “I did, Your Honor. But they’re not from a lover.”

“Who are they from?

“Well…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” said the judge.

Highsmith chortled.

Kevin said, “What my client means to say is-”

The judge gaveled him down. “I told you that this is not going to be a mini-trial. The time will come for you to rebut these allegations, but for now I will grant the motion and prohibit Mr. Cantella from making any further sales or transfers of assets valued at more than five hundred dollars. Mr. Cantella has five days to submit to the court a full accounting of all assets transferred from his accounts within the last forty-eight hours.”

“That’s impossible,” I whispered to Kevin.

“Judge,” Kevin said, “that’s-”

“That’s my ruling. We’re adjourned.”

With one final bang of the gavel, it was over-or, as the expression on Highsmith’s face suggested, we were just getting started.

“All rise!” called the bailiff.

As the judge stepped down from the bench, I heard a muffled noise from the rear of the courtroom-someone else rising from the wooden bench seats in the gallery. I turned and looked. It was Ivy’s mother.

A sickening feeling came over me. Olivia wasn’t just helping the FBI.

Could she be helping Mallory?

Kevin pulled me out of Judge Stapleton’s courtroom and into the men’s room across the hall. He checked the stalls to make sure we were alone, and then he tore into me.

“I want the truth: Were you having an affair?”

“No.”

“Are you working with someone to hide your assets from Mallory?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then who is JBU, and why does he or she want to meet with you in secret?”

“I don’t know for sure. It’s hard to explain.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about those other two e-mails?”

I breathed in and out, wary of his reaction. “Because I knew that you and I would not see eye to eye on them.”

He folded his arms and leaned against the paper-towel dispenser, as if he had more than enough time for the whole story. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m all ears.”

“On the first e-mail-the one that says ‘I can help’-I had no idea who JBU was. But it hit me immediately when the second one came in. It was hard to ignore the fact that the meeting place was the Rink Bar at Rockefeller Center, the table right in front of the gold statute of Prometheus.”

Kevin shrugged. “What about it?”

“That was where Ivy and I had our first date.”

“Oh, no,” he said, groaning.

I could see that I was losing him. I continued, “Ivy and I had a business relationship before I asked her out. If things between us didn’t work out, she didn’t want the hedge fund she was working for to exclude her from deals involving Saxton Silvers. That’s why she chose the Rink Bar for our first date, a tourist attraction where we were less likely to see anyone we knew. But we hit it off, partly because we discovered that we were both fans of Norman Brown.”

“Who?”

“He’s a jazz guitarist, and he happened to be playing at the Blue Note the following week. We agreed to make his show on our second date, but we also agreed to keep the fact that we were dating ‘Just Between Us,’ which was the title to Brown’s debut album.”

“JBU,” said Kevin.

“Right. It wasn’t someone’s initials.”

He was with me-sort of. A look of concern came over his face. “But you don’t think that-”

“That the e-mails came from Ivy?” I said, finishing his thought. I could almost see his head throbbing.

“Please, Michael. Don’t tell me we’re going down this Ivyis-alive path again.”

I said nothing, knowing he would resist.

Kevin suddenly dug into his briefcase, as if an idea had come to him. He pulled out a hard copy of another e-mail-the one from Mallory that had transmitted the happy birthday video and planted the spyware on my computer.

“Just as I thought,” said Kevin. “This e-mail from Mallory has that song title in the subject line. It says ‘Just Between Us.’ Mallory is JBU.”

“I told you we wouldn’t see eye to eye on this.”

Kevin scoffed. “Don’t you get it? The e-mails came from Mallory, who is scheming-probably with Highsmith’s help-to create a bogus paper trail that makes it look like you have a mistress.”

“I don’t think Mallory would do that.”

“Oh, get a grip, will you?”

“I’m serious. Mallory has a lot of resentment toward me-enough to put spyware on my computer. But make up evidence? That isn’t even close to the woman I married.”

Kevin came toward me, laying his hand on my shoulder. “Michael, Ivy is dead. She is not JBU.”

“There’s one way to find out.”

He knew what I meant. “If you go to the Rink Bar at four o’clock, you will be playing right into Highsmith’s hands. He will cite it as proof that you have a lover, and that the two of you are plotting to hide your assets from Mallory. As your lawyer, I absolutely forbid you to go.”

“I don’t care,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I’m going.”

30

A FEW MINUTES BEFORE FOUR P.M., TONY GIRELLI WAS SEATED ALONE at a café table at the Rink Bar outside Rockefeller Center.

Every spring when the ice melted and the Zamboni went into storage, the famous skating rink in front of the gold statue of Prometheus became a popular lunch and happy-hour destination. A scattering of brightly colored umbrellas shaded tables for about six hundred margarita-loving patrons. Above them at street level, the year-round swarm of tourists stood at the rail, people watching. Girelli took it all in. His boss had extensive commercial real estate holdings, and Girelli wondered if he owned a piece of this place.

Real estate, however, was a sore subject for Girelli.

“Sparkling water,” he told the waiter. “With lemon.”

Girelli still carried a copy of a certain blast e-mail in his wallet, one that he-and hundreds of guys like him-had received last fall from a trader at the residential mortgage desk at Saxton Silvers. As per Michael Cantella, it read, we will no longer be purchasing NINA loans. Please do not call. No exceptions will be granted. At the time of that a