Money to Burn

by James Grippando

  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 announcement, Girelli had been pulling down $125,000 in commissions-a month. He and his buddies would go into Miami Beach clubs almost every night, order four or five bottles of Cristal champagne at $1,500 a pop, and think nothing of it. Not bad for a guy who had once been flat broke but who was determined never to return to the world of a leg-breaking, brass-knuckled debt collector for the mob. He’d been shooting pool at a bar one night when a buddy had asked, “Wanna be a mortgage broker?” and he’d jumped on it.

  Girelli’s specialty had been NINA loans-“no income, no assets”-for, as he put it, “people who didn’t have a pot to piss in.” He’d load up an eight-dollar-an-hour housekeeper with a million dollars in mortgages on six houses, one for everyone in her family, including two sisters who were still trying to get here from Mexico. And what self-respecting taxi driver should be without three or four pre-construction-priced condos on Miami Beach? The loans were destined to go into default, of course, but that wasn’t Girelli’s problem. He teamed up with a buddy at Sunpath Bank, and they borrowed at a 30 to 1 ratio-$100 million against $3 million in capital-to fund all the subprime loans they wrote. Then Sunpath bundled all the subprimes together and sold them up the daisy chain to Wall Street, paying back Sunpath’s lenders with Wall Street’s money and keeping the profit. What a hoot. What a party. Until the e-mail:

  As per Michael Cantella…

  Never mind that Sunpath had already funded yet another $100 million in subprime loans in “business as usual.” Never mind that there was no way to pay back Sunpath’s lenders unless Wall Street bought the bundles. Girelli and his partner tried other investment banks, but Wall Street firms were like sheep: The minute a leader like Saxton Silvers decided to stop buying NINA loans, they all followed suit. Funny thing was, no one in the subprime pipeline had ever heard of this asshole Michael Cantella. The guy didn’t even have direct supervision over the residential mortgage desk at Saxton Silvers. Some even said that the e-mail’s attribution, “As per Michael Cantella,” was just Kent Frost and his subprime factory taking a swipe at Cantella for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Whatever the case, the plug was pulled. Sunpath closed its doors in a week. Three hundred employees lost their jobs. The people at the top lost everything. Michael Cantella didn’t even know their names.

  Girelli intended to keep it that way.

  “Here you are, sir,” said the waiter.

  Girelli squeezed the lemon and discreetly surveyed the crowd. Michael Cantella was nowhere to be seen, and in light of the disclosure of the e-mails at this afternoon’s court hearing, Girelli doubted that Cantella’s divorce lawyer would let him go to a secret meeting that was no longer a secret.

  Wasting my damn time here.

  The thought had barely registered when Girelli spotted a woman approaching the table referenced in the e-mail, the one right in front of the gold statue of Prometheus.

  A tight smiled creased his lips.

  Pay dirt.

  31

  I WAS AT STREET LEVEL, STANDING AT THE RAIL THAT SURROUNDED THE concrete hole in the ground at Rockefeller Center, looking down on the Rink Bar. Had it been December, I would have been crushed beneath a ninety-foot-tall Norway spruce and five miles of twinkling lights.

  On reflection, I’d decided that Kevin might be right: The e-mails from “JBU” might all be a setup to help Mallory prove that I was having an affair. Might be right. It wasn’t enough to keep me from going to the Rink Bar at the designated time. It was enough, however, to make me take precautions.

  Two reporters had hounded me all the way out of the courthouse, a constant peppering of questions about Saxton Silvers. I figured it was only going to get worse as the media buzz honed the link between me and the firm’s downfall. If I was going to the Rink Bar, I needed to be unrecognizable, but my suitcase full of socks and underwear didn’t offer much in the way of a disguise. I stopped by the Days Inn and borrowed Papa’s trench coat. The hem was frayed, the elbow was patched, and part of the lining was torn and hanging out of the sleeve. My guess was that he’d purchased it before I was born. He also loaned me a white golf cap with the red, white, and green Italian flag sewn onto it, his late
st acquisition from Mulberry Street. It hadn’t been my intention, but I could have passed for a homeless guy.

  The last two days had been nuts on every level-too crazy for me to give serious consideration to Mallory’s accusations. She was wrong: I did love her. But she was also right: I had not stopped loving Ivy. Maybe that kept me from loving Mallory enough. Love was Nothing if it wasn’t the truth, and in my case the truth was painful: nothing compared to what I had felt for Ivy. If that made me a bad person, I hoped Mallory would forgive me. But if Ivy was still alive, I hoped she would forgive me, too-and tell me who or what had made her vanish four years ago.

  And why was she coming back now?

  “Excuse me, but would you take our picture?”

  A young woman wearing a University of Wisconsin sweatshirt was shoving a camera in my face. Her girlfriends were already posed at the rail.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I took a few steps back and aimed the zoom lens. I was facing east, toward the Fifth Avenue entrance, looking out over the top of the Rink Bar below us. Flags of the United Nations’ 192 member states encircled the rink area and flapped in the breeze. I zoomed in, then out-then in again.

  “Tell us when,” the woman said.

  I wasn’t focused on them. I zoomed in over their heads, peering between the flags of Japan and Jamaica. On the other side of the plaza, a man was standing in the second-story window above Dean & DeLuca. It was the perfect vantage point from which to look down into the Rink Bar. He was almost entirely concealed by the curtains he was standing behind, but I noticed him because of the camera with the long telephoto lens in his hands. This afternoon’s hearing had apparently expanded the media interest beyond me and Saxton Silvers to me and Mallory.

  “Ready when you are,” the girls from Wisconsin said, but I was still focused on that photographer in the window. I saw him adjust his lens, and although I couldn’t be certain, he seemed to be shooting rapid-fire frames of the Rink Bar. I did a little triangulation in my head, and my gaze followed the aim of his lens. It was pointed in the direction of the statue of Prometheus-and then I froze.

  A woman had taken a seat at the same table that I had shared with Ivy on our first date. She was alone.

  And it was precisely four P.M.

  Tony Girelli stared over the top of his menu.

  He couldn’t be sure it was her. The stylish wide hat shaded her face, and her sunglasses were huge. At this hour and in the shadows of tall buildings, there was really no need for that much protection from the sun. And she had shown up at the right place at precisely the right time. He decided to give it a test.

  “Vanessa!” he called out.

  It was almost imperceptible, but Girelli definitely saw her flinch. He laid his menu aside and kept watching.

  Finally she glanced in his direction. Girelli tightened his stare, and although her eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses, he sensed her fear. Girelli knew all the signs-the tightening of the expression, a leg gone restless, the posture suddenly rigid.

  Without warning, she bolted from her chair and ran for the exit.

  Girelli launched himself after her, pushing aside a waiter, two women at the bar, and everyone else in his way.

  On impulse, I ran.

  “Hey, give me back my camera!” the college girl shouted.

  I was already at full speed, thinking only of getting to the bar’s exit at the top of the stairs on the other side of the plaza.

  “Stop that guy!”

  I could have tossed the stupid camera back at her, but I kept running, passing one flagpole after another, watching the commotion in the Rink Bar below as that man-whoever he was-bowled over tables, chairs, and people alike in pursuit of…

  The thought that it might be Ivy had me flying on pure adrenaline. There was no denying that I had seen a woman take a seat at our table at four o’clock, watched her jump up and run, and saw another man chase after her.

  My God, could it be?

  She was halfway up the stairs, the man a few steps behind her, and I was approaching the top of the stairway from the opposite direction when someone screamed:

  “A bomb! That man in the trench coat has a bomb!”

  It was bedlam throughout the plaza.

  Hundreds of tourists screamed and scattered, and the stairway was suddenly jammed with the surge of utter panic. I lost sight of the woman and the man in the ensuing stampede, and suddenly I was broadsided by what felt like a charging rhinoceros. My chest hit the sidewalk, and the air raced from my lungs. The moment was a blur, until I realized that I was pinned beneath two of New York’s finest.

  “Don’t move!” a cop shouted.

  “You got the wrong man!” I yelled back.

  “You’re under arrest!”

  My heart sank as the cold metal cuffs closed around my wrists.

  32

  MALLORY WAS ALONE IN THE BACKSEAT OF A TAXI, PEERING THROUGH the window as she drank from her go cup-a double vodka tonic she’d mixed before leaving her apartment. It wasn’t even dinnertime, but she would have liked nothing better than to crawl into bed and sleep till morning.

  “You’re quite the piece of work,” she said quietly to her reflection in the glass.

  Storefront after storefront raced by her, the driver catching every green light as they sped south on Fifth Avenue. She downed the rest of her drink, laid her head back on the headrest, and stared at the taxi’s tattered felt ceiling.

  Today’s court hearing had gone exactly as planned. Her reaction to it was nothing like she’d expected. Accusing Michael of conspiring with a secret lover to hide assets left her with the uneasy feeling that “what goes around comes around,” and Mallory knew she wasn’t exactly standing on solid ground.

  She’d met Nathaniel three months ago at the fitness studio. Mallory was serious about her workouts and didn’t make small talk with guys who grabbed an eyeful of her body. But one day her Pilates instructor had failed to show up, and Nathaniel was kind enough to share his and turn a private lesson into a semi-private. Nathaniel was good-pairing with him was almost like having two instructors. So she kept up the semi-privates for a couple of weeks, and by week three they were going for coffee afterward. By week four they were sleeping together. The man was fun in bed, but it wasn’t just that. He filled a need.

  You don’t love me, Michael. You like me, but you don’t love me.

  The cab stopped between Eighth and Ninth avenues, and Mallory stepped out. It was their usual meeting spot, one of the few places where she felt comfortable meeting her lover in public.

  Therapy was a spacious lounge with killer decor, a friendly atmosphere, and cozy sitting areas. The food was good enough to get it a spot on Hell’s Kitchen, and its tasty drinks bore memorable names like Freudian Sip. Most important-and in keeping with Mallory’s low profile-Therapy was one of the best gay bars in the city. Of course, meeting in a gay bar didn’t take all the risk out of a heterosexual affair. While Therapy wasn’t known as one of those places where investment bankers went looking for boy toys, it drew its share of Wall Street types, and Mallory was all too aware that one of them might have some connection to Saxton Silvers. Her little joke was that at least she would hear them coming. They’d be the ones humming Fagin’s refrain from the Broadway hit Oliver: In this life one thing counts, in the bank large amounts-or something like that.

  Mallory found Nathaniel waiting upstairs, where the lighting was low and the tables were arranged cabaret style. Stage shows here ranged from the whacky to the sublime, but the night was too young for live entertainment, so the booths in the back gave them relative privacy. Nathaniel had insisted on seeing her tonight, his text message saying, Urgent. She tried to smile as she approached, but her mind was busy searching for a way to tell him that she was in no mood for sex.

  He rose and gave her a hug. No kiss. His smile was awkward. Right away, Mallory knew something was up.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she slid into the booth.

  “
Yeah, fine,” he said.

  He cast his gaze downward at his hands.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Now he was looking toward the bar. “Yeah. I’m good.”

  Mallory’s throat tightened. This was starting to feel like a page out of her first marriage. All of the bad signs were there.

  “Look at me,” she said.

  Slowly his gaze drifted back toward her. Their eyes met, and Mallory’s heart sank.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said.

  He grimaced, as if in pain. “I can’t do this.”

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Us,” he said. “It’s over.”

  Mallory had to catch her breath. “You’re the one who gave me the strength to divorce Michael.”

  “Don’t put that on me.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “No, I’m not blaming you. Michael and I were headed for divorce, I’m sure of it. You gave me the strength to accept it.”

  He withdrew his hand and wrapped it around his beer bottle.

  “I’m grateful to you,” she said, trying to smile. “Let’s face it: If it had been any other man but you, I would have been caught cheating long ago.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I don’t have what it takes to pull off something like this. You knew all the tricks to keep Michael from suspecting.” She squeezed his hand, but he pulled back.

  “This isn’t going to work anymore, Mallory. Get it? I’m outta here.”

  Her body stiffened. She’d never heard this tone from him before, and she was beginning to wonder if she had ever seen the real Nathaniel. After a day like today, it was making her downright angry, and she suddenly found a new kind of courage.

  “An interesting thing happened in court today. Michael’s lawyer informed the judge that there was spyware attached to that ‘happy birthday’ e-mail we sent to Michael.” Her eyes narrowed, and she said, “Do you know anything about that?”