James Grippando - Money to Burn

“Yup,” he heard a man say, “that’s a Bell Ringer.”

Then he heard that sound again-like a car door slamming-and his world fell silent.

IT WAS ONE A.M., AND IT OCCURRED TO ME THAT I HADN’T SLEPT since I was thirty-four years old. Papa had warned me about the insomnia. Getting old sucks.

Getting screwed double-sucks.

Convincing the night manager of Hotel Mildew to return my last two hundred bucks wasn’t going to happen. Nor would he budge on the $500 room rate. We cut a deal that allowed me to stay the night for the cost of my deposit-as long as I was out of the room by six A.M. instead of the usual checkout time of eleven A.M.

I wasted my first precious hour on the telephone with my credit card company, the first thirty minutes of which was spent trying to get through the phone menu to talk to an actual human being. Finally Anoop Gupta from New Delhi assured me that by morning I would have a working card. I could only hope that he meant my morning, not his. I desperately needed rest, but at 2:35 A.M. I was still wide awake, staring at the ceiling in the dark.

I can’t believe she’s divorcing me.

According to Mallory, I should have seen it coming, but I could recall only one major blowup in the last year. We had our favorite charities, but when Papa told me about the volunteer work he was doing for a south Florida organization called “Charlee,” I immediately wrote a ten-thousand-dollar check. Mallory went ballistic-not because of the amount of the donation, and definitely not because she questioned the merits of an organization that helped abused children. She just wished I had made the donation anonymously. She didn’t explain why, and she shut me down the moment I even hinted at anything personal in her past. But it was as if she didn’t want anyone asking questions about her own childhood.

I was beginning to wonder how well I had really known Mallory in high school-if there was a reason our friendship had never evolved to the next level, if something far more oppressive than twenty-plus hours a week in a dance studio had prevented such a pretty girl from seriously dating anyone, as far as I could remember.

My mind refused to shut off, but I had major problems to solve, and I needed to focus. The fact that the draining of my portfolio was part of a bigger setup to bring down Saxton Silvers made no difference to Mallory, but Papa’s question was racing through my brain: Who were my enemies? Kent Frost was no fan of mine, but I had battled dozens of guys like him over the years. I was more worried about the enemy I had no memory of ever having met. The more I focused on guys like Frost, the more likely it would turn out to be Colonel Mustard waiting for me in the library with the dagger and the pistol because I had somehow killed his leveraged buyout of a candlestick-holder factory.

I had officially moved from paranoid to punchy.

Go to sleep!

A banging noise emerged from somewhere in the hall, and I bolted upright in the bed. I waited, then heard it again. Someone was knocking on the door.

“Housekeeping,” a woman announced.

“Go away,” I said.

She knocked again, and I looked at the clock: six A.M. exactly.

Damn!

My last two hundred bucks had been enough to get me a room for only half a night, but I couldn’t believe the manager was holding me to such a ridiculously early checkout. I hadn’t slept at all. Or maybe I had and just didn’t realize it. That’s how tired I was. I rolled out of bed, opened the door as far as the chain lock would allow, and begged for another five minutes.

“I’ll be back at six fifteen,” said the housekeeper.

A fifteen-minute bonus. Maybe my luck was turning.

I jumped in the shower, which was literally a scream-alternating blasts of ice-cold and scalding-hot water. The poor guy in the next room must have thought it was Friday the thirteenth and that he was sharing a wall with Freddy and Jason. I pulled on my clothes-the same clothes I had worn yesterday-and used the remaining five minutes of my reprieve to check my e-mail.

The first one was from Mallory. True to her promise, she’d e-mailed me the contact information for her lawyer. I scrolled past it, didn’t even catch his name.

Probably Anoop Gupta.

It was the third e-mail from the bottom that caught my attention. I didn’t recognize the sender-the address appeared to be a random combination of letters and numbers-but the subject line chilled me. It wasn’t “random” at all.

Orene52, it read.

I opened it eagerly and retrieved the short message: I can help. Let’s meet. Time and place TBD. Check your e-mail at 10:30.

The message was signed JBU.

I froze. Obviously it was from someone who knew my stolen passwords, which was a very small universe. Mallory. Saxton Silvers’ general counsel and security director. The lawyer from Cool Cash and the FBI agents on the case. None of those people would have any conceivable reason to set up a secret meeting with such a cryptic message. But one other possibility came to mind: someone who definitely knew my passwords and who definitely would operate in such secretive fashion. The identity thief who stole my money.

JBU.

I strained my brain but could think of no one with those initials. I scrolled through my address book, but the only thing under “U” was Union Square Café.

Another knock at the door. It was firmer than the last one, meaning this time the housekeeper meant business. I thanked her on my way out the door as she handed me my free morning newspaper.

The headline grabbed me: FNN’s CHUCK BELL SLAIN.

I stopped in my tracks. It was as if someone had just hit me again with that hot-and-cold shower. I stepped to the side of the hallway and read quickly for the gist: shot outside the studio sometime after midnight, body discovered by a security guard around 12:45 A.M., no leads on the shooter.

I reopened my e-mail from JBU to check the time it was received: 3:35 A.M. It obviously wasn’t Bell who’d sent it. Then another thought came to mind.

I wondered if it had come from the guy who’d shot him.

My cell rang, and my home number came up on the display.

“Mallory?”

“You need to get over here right now,” she said.

From her tone, I knew it wasn’t about a change of heart.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“You tell me, Michael. There’s a homicide detective here who wants to talk to you.”

I CALLED MY BROTHER FROM THE VINTAGE 1970S LOBBY OF HOTEL Mildew. It was the first time we’d spoken since Ivy’s memorial service. Against my wishes, Papa had already told him that I would probably call, so it wasn’t out of the blue.

“Don’t speak to the cops,” said Kevin.

“I didn’t kill Chuck Bell.”

“That’s not the point. I don’t care if your hair is on fire and Detective Joe Friday is holding the last bucket of water in New York City. Don’t talk to the cops. Period.”

I hated when he talked to me like that. I was three years older than Kevin, but ever since his law school graduation he’d copped a big-brother attitude toward me. In some ways, he did seem older: He was taller, started going gray in his late twenties, and married a woman nine years his senior. I guess what really irked me was that Kevin had stopped acting like Kevin.

“What do you suggest I do?” I asked.

“Call Mallory and ask her to give the detective my phone number.”

“You know Mallory asked for a divorce, right?”

“Yeah, I read it in the Post this morning.”

“What?”

“Kidding, just kidding.”

Okay, so sometimes he did still act like Kevin.

“Papa told me,” he said.

“Did he also tell you about the text message? About the guy who’s apparently had me in his sights since tracking me down at Sal’s Place last fall? And about the bug the FBI found in our general counsel’s car?”