Money to Burn

“Stop scaring her,” said Andrea.

“I’m not saying this to frighten you. Mallory, I’m going to be arrested for supposedly hiring a guy named Tony Girelli to shoot Chuck Bell. That’s probably going to happen tomorrow. It’s a frame-up, but that’s not even close to being the crazy part. Ivy is alive.”

Mallory looked up, and I could read the expression on her face. She was screaming without words: I knew it!

“She and I are both in a lot of danger,” I said. “I don’t know what it’s all about, but these are very bad people. They killed Chuck Bell. They’ve killed other people, including that guy I just called nine-one-one about. I’m afraid everyone I know might also be in danger. Possibly even you. I want you to get protection for yourself. Hire a bodyguard, go to the police. Promise me you’ll do that.”

Her gaze was fixed on me now, her expression a blend of confusion and amazement.

“Promise me, and I’ll go,” I said.

“Go where?”

I sighed at the size of the question. “Not sure,” I said. “They warned me not to call the police, so I guess I need to go someplace they can’t find me.”

“You need to turn yourself in,” said Andrea. “If you’re being charged with the murder of Chuck Bell, that’s the only thing you can do.”

“That’s the one thing I can’t do,” I said, “and not just because I’m i

I started toward the hallway, then stopped. “Mallory, I borrowed your cell, all right?”

“You what?”

I had taken it from the master bedroom. “They took my cell. They’d been monitoring my line anyway. I need yours.”

“No!”

“Mallory, I just watched a man get burned alive tonight, and I have to go back out onto the street after doing exactly what they warned me not to do-call the police. I need a cell. Help me that much.”

“I said no.”

Her anger was hard to comprehend, but suddenly I realized that in the past couple of days I had grossly overanalyzed everything-from Mallory’s high-school dating history to her anonymous support for abused children-in search of some past trauma that might explain our divorce. My wife was just done with me. I wasn’t saying it was her fault or mine, but it was time to stop soothing my Wall Street ego by holding everyone else accountable-her parents, an old lover, her first husband, her new friend Andrea-for my life.

“It’s okay,” said Andrea. “Let him have it.”

Mallory exchanged glances with her friend, then handed me the phone.

“Thank you,” I said, but Mallory didn’t acknowledge it. I wanted a better understanding of what was going through her mind, but there wasn’t time. And I didn’t want her to do an about-face on loaning me her cell. I said good night and let myself out quickly.

Three minutes later I was back on Fifty-seventh Street. Never before had I felt so unsafe in my neighborhood. In the first sixty seconds, I must have checked over my shoulder a half dozen times. A car approached, and my heart raced. It went right past me. Nothing.

How did Ivy do this for four years?

Her warning-run!-reverberated in my mind. Burn’s men had emptied my pockets, so I no longer had the key to Papa’s hotel room. But the booking was under the name Cantella, and I had to sleep somewhere. I wondered if the night manager would recognize me and let me in if I just showed up. I walked toward the subway, but the cumulative effects of the night’s events finally coalesced into a sense of urgency, and I started jogging and then ru

It was Ivy’s mother.

“Get in!” she shouted.

I hurried toward the car but stayed on the sidewalk. “You need to keep away from me,” I said, the dome light glaring between us.

“I’m here to help you.”

“Don’t. I don’t have time to explain, but anyone who helps me is in serious danger.”

“Do you think I’m any different from you?” she said.

I looked at her for a moment, and from the expression on her face I could see that Olivia, too, was ru

“Get your Wall Street ass in the damn car!”

I jumped in the passenger seat, and the car squealed away.

46

“HOW DID YOU FIND ME?” I ASKED AS I BUCKLED MY SEAT BELT.

“Your brother called me.”

“Kevin called you?”

We were driving toward the East River. “He’s been trying to reach you for hours. Thinks you lost your mind and went looking for Ivy, so he called me.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

She hesitated, then glanced over at me. “Ivy told me.”

I started to speak, but she silenced me. “Don’t ask, Michael.”

I had to push. “For a while, I thought they shot her tonight. I heard the gun go off when she called me.”

“She shot the lock off a church door.”

“What was she doing in-”

She stopped me again with her expression.

A quick turn, and we were soon flying down the FDR Drive, with virtually no traffic. Olivia grabbed a granola bar from the glove and gave it to me. “You must be starving.”

“Thanks,” I said. It was gone in three bites. She gave me another.

“Where are we going?”

“Downtown, to meet your brother. He has a contact at the DTCC.”

“At two o’clock in the morning?”

The Depository Trust Clearing Corporation was on Water Street, just a couple blocks away from the stock exchange. Most people had never heard of the DTCC, but if Wall Street was the stage, the DTCC was backstage. Before the DTCC was formed, brokers physically exchanged certificates to effect a trade. Electronics changed all that, and the DTCC settled the vast majority of securities transactions in the United States, more than $1.86 quadrillion a

How the hell my brother knew that, I had no idea. Sure enough, though, he was right outside the building, waiting for us.

“Tony Girelli’s dead,” I said, and before he could even react I told him everything I had reported to 911. To say that he was overwhelmed by my words was to say that Napoleon was uncomfortable at Waterloo. I stopped short of telling him about Ivy, knowing that would push him over the edge.

“Let’s sort this out after we get what we need here,” he said.

Kevin took us to the back entrance. An extremely nervous DTCC employee was there to let us in. The thought of bringing three people inside after hours made him even more nervous. Olivia agreed to wait in the car.

Kevin introduced the ski

“I could lose my job over this,” he said.

“And if not for me,” said Kevin, “your current job would be making license plates. So let’s call it even.”

Darwood led us down the hall toward the security desk. The building was quiet, as to be expected at this hour, and for someone who worked there, Darwood sure did seem to check over his shoulder a lot. This was not his normal work hour, and the jeans and black T-shirt were clearly not his normal work clothes. It was at this point that I noticed the silk-screened image on the back of his cotton tee-Alan Greenspan in flapper drag singing “Tonight I’m Go

We passed the elevators and stopped. Two men and two women were checking in with security, and just the sight of them nearly sent Darwood into cardiac arrest.

“In here,” he said, quickly pulling us into the men’s room.

My brother and I stood with our backs to the stalls as Darwood paced furiously before us.