Money to Burn

“Let’s get married,” she said.

Her response was so casual that I thought she was kidding. “Are you serious?”

“Michael, read my lips: Yes.”

My mouth fell open, but no words came. I was about to grab her and give her a kiss, but she sat up quickly, her legs straddling the air mattress.

“We should do it here.”

I looked around. “Like a destination wedding where we invite-”

“No invitations. I mean do it today.”

She looked so beautiful sitting there, and every fiber of my body was singing.

“Rumsey!” I called out.

Our dreadlocked captain rose up from the sailboat. “Yeah, mon?”

“Find us a preacher.”

4

MY WIFE WAS UNEMPLOYED. I FOUND OUT TEN MINUTES AFTER SAYING “I do.”

Surprise!

Our afternoon nuptials had played out exactly as you might expect, assuming you’d smoked way too much ganja. Ivy found a suitable dress in a boutique next door to a combination doughnut/sushi shop. I rented a moped and rode to the other side of town to check out the old wooden church. The whitewashed doors were locked, but the sign said, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, CALL BIG NED’S BAIT SHOP. Ned-five feet tall, but “big” in the sense that he was four feet wide-hooked me up with a priest who wore a madras shirt with a Roman collar and who looked like Bob Marley. The tavern down the street emptied out at precisely five P.M., and a dozen drunks showed up at the church to witness the ceremony. Our maid of honor was a two-hundred-pound cocktail waitress known locally as Valerie Bang-Bang. Rumsey declined my invitation to be the best man, confessing that he “ain’t never brought nuttin’ but bad luck to marriage, mon.” Valerie Bang-Bang’s brother stood in for him. His name-no lie-was Chitty. I didn’t ask him about the other brother Chitty.

“You’re angry, aren’t you?” said Ivy.

We were returning to the sailboat as husband and wife, riding down a bumpy dirt road in a battered golf cart with monster-truck tires. Ivy looked amazing in a sleeveless white dress that would have worked either for cocktails on the beach or a spur-of-the-moment wedding. We sat side by side in the jump seat, our backs to Rumsey as he drove. The tin-roofed spire of the little white church seemed to rise up out of the cloud of dust we were leaving behind.

“I would never be mad at you for walking away from a grind like Ploutus Investments,” I said.

“But I should have told you I was done with the hedge-fund world.”

Two weeks earlier, Ivy had asked me to manage a chunk of money for her. It would have been nice to know her career plans before investing for her-not to mention marrying her-but I didn’t want to spoil the moment. “Let’s not talk about this now,” I said.

“I’m really sorry,” she said as she leaned closer. “Do you think wild honeymoon sex would make it all better?”

I smiled. “Let me go way out on a limb on that one and say yes.”

We gave Rumsey the night off, spread out a blanket on the beach, and cooked di

“We’re married,” I said.

“To each other,” she said in equal amazement.

The hammock rocked gently in the breeze.

“You want to make a baby?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“You want to practice?”

She raised her head and smiled.

The waters were calm even this far offshore, but still I struggled out of the hammock and staggered across the deck. Apparently I had outpaced Ivy on the wine, and she was helping me more than I was helping her as we climbed down into the cabin. We were kissing and undressing each other as we fell onto the mattress.

“Wait,” she said, her smile turning mischievous.

“What’s wrong?”

“You are going to be one happy boy when I show you Valerie Bang-Bang’s wedding gift to us.”

Events beyond that were hazy at best. There was more kissing and definitely naked flesh, and I seem to recall a joke about wedding-night performance anxiety. My next clear memory was that of waking in total darkness and checking the alarm clock beside the bed. It was 5:05 A.M. I reached across the mattress for Ivy, but she wasn’t there. I propped myself up on one elbow, then dropped back down to the pillow. My head was throbbing-way too much to drink. If someone had suggested amputation as a remedy, I might actually have considered it. I called for Ivy but got no reply. I rolled over and reached all the way across the bed. I was alone. Maybe she was in the bathroom. I was in desperate need of water.

“I-veee.”

I waited but there was only silence, save for the waves brushing against the hull. I forced myself to sit up, then pushed away from the mattress and let my feet hit the floor. When the world finally stopped spi

“Ivy?”

Too much wine could make me snore, so I was sure she was asleep in the hammock, away from the noise. I climbed up on deck and stepped toward the bow.

The hammock was empty.

I walked portside from bow to stern, then back again on the starboard side. No sign of Ivy. I knelt down, poked my head through the open hatchway, and called her name again. No reply. I checked the dinghy, which was floating behind the boat. It, too, was empty. Concern washed over me as I gazed out toward the sea. The setting moon was behind clouds, and there was no discerning the black water from the night sky.

“Ivy!”

I grabbed a handheld VectorLite from the cockpit and switched it on, the powerful beam sweeping across the gentle waves. I called her name again and again, louder and louder, but I heard only the sound of halyards tinkling against the barren mast in the wind.

“Ivy!”

MAY 2007, NEW YORK

5

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN PEOPLE ALL BUT WORSHIPPED GUYS LIKE me, but not anymore. We were the ones with the seven-, eight-, nine-figure investment portfolios, the private corporate jets, the yacht that had to be a Riva and not merely a Hatteras, the penthouses and vacation homes, and all the female companionship we wanted. Before Lehman went under and the billionaires came knocking for government bailouts, the major banks, hedge funds, and brokerage firms were swimming along in a sea of sludge so heavy with bad debt and corruption that we barely noticed we were all sinking together. The media have covered the fallout from every angle. Almost. When it comes to financial crimes, secrets, violence, and even murder, my Wall Street tale proves that sometimes you can clean up toxic waste, and other times it goes up in flames.

Intense, hot, uncontrollable flames.

It started on a fairly typical weekday, and I was on my way to yet another black-tie di