James Grippando - Money to Burn

“I thought I made myself clear earlier,” she said.

“You definitely put on a nice show,” I said.

“A show?”

“You know exactly what I’m saying.”

She leaned closer to the screen and glanced at my feet. “Are you sure you’re allowed all the way out here with an ankle bracelet?”

“Very funny. I’m not wearing one. But I am curious to know who told you I was arrested. Was it…Ivy?”

Had I been wrong, the question would have been cruel, and I wasn’t sure where the courage-or audacity-to take that risk had come from. My need to know was overwhelming, but the gradual realization that Ivy could still be alive had moved from the analytical to the emotional, and I had reached the breaking point.

Olivia took a half step back, as if offended, but she must have seen something in my eyes or demeanor that cut through Act II of her performance. I didn’t know exactly what was in her head, but I sensed an opening.

“You pushed too hard, Olivia.”

Her silence said it all.

“It was so out of the blue,” I said, my voice shaking, “the way you suddenly turned against me and accused me of murdering Ivy. It was as if you were trying too hard to convince me, the FBI, and the rest of the world that Ivy really was dead. My gut told me that you were hiding something-or protecting someone. And now that I’ve pieced things together, I know that the ‘someone’ is Ivy.”

More silence. I kept talking.

“When I saw you in the back of the courtroom today, I thought you were helping Mallory. I don’t think that anymore.”

“It’s a public proceeding,” she said. “Anyone’s allowed to watch.”

“That’s true. And after those e-mails were made public, it must have been pretty frightening for you to realize that anyone could know about my four o’clock meeting with JBU.”

“Why would that frighten me?”

I gave her an assessing look. “Your performance is getting much weaker.”

She averted her eyes, so I kept talking-faster and faster-giving her no chance to deny any of it. “You knew that Ivy wasn’t keeping a minute-by-minute tab on my divorce. She had no way of knowing that those e-mails had come out in open court. And it was entirely possible that the people who had forced Ivy to disappear four years ago did have those e-mails and knew all about the four o’clock meeting. That was a risk you couldn’t take. You went to the Rink Bar. When Ivy got up and ran, and when that man ran after her, you did the only thing you could think of to protect your daughter: You created chaos by screaming ‘That man has a bomb!’”

Finally she answered: “Actually, it was ‘That man in the trench coat has a bomb.’”

Her words chilled me. “Where is she, Olivia?”

She shook her head. “There are things you are better off not knowing.”

I stepped closer to the screen door. “Olivia, please. Where is she?”

“She’s dead, Michael. That’s all you need to know. Ivy is dead.”

I suddenly couldn’t speak.

Her expression turned deadly serious. “Don’t come back here again, or I will call the police.”

The door closed, and I heard the chain lock rattle. Olivia switched off the porch light from inside the house, leaving me alone in the dark.

TONY GIRELLI WENT FOR A RIDE. HE WAS SEATED IN THE PASSENGER seat of a new Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, and Jason Wald was driving 80 mph-cruising speed for 520 horsepower-across the Triborough Bridge. It seemed that every time Girelli saw Wald, the kid had a new set of extremely fast wheels. Business was obviously good at Ploutus Investments, and it never hurt to be Kyle McVee’s favorite nephew-even if you were a sorry replacement for his dead son.

“Where we going?” asked Girelli. He had to shout over the rumble of the engine.

“Queens,” said Wald.

No shit, thought Girelli, but he didn’t press for specifics. Self-esteem for punks like Wald came from holding all details close to the vest-even the details they were too stupid to recognize as meaningless. Girelli figured they were headed to a debriefing about what had gone down at the Rink Bar. If information was power, Girelli held it for now. Only he knew that the chaos had all started when he’d used the name “Vanessa.”

“Nice car,” said Girelli.

“You want to drive it?”

“Sure.”

“Blow me.”

It was a familiar banter from better days between the two men, back when they used to hang out in Miami Beach and party with the skinny models on Ocean Drive who would give it up to any guy with money after two Red Bulls and vodka. That was during the subprime heyday, when Girelli was pulling down $125,000 per month and Wald was raking in ten times that much on thousands of mortgages he purchased from guys like Girelli and sold to Kent Frost and others on Wall Street. When the infamous e-mail from Saxton Silvers-As per Michael Cantella-had ended all that, Wald and Girelli vowed to nail that son of a bitch.

They got off the bridge. Wald steered the Lamborghini around the sharp corner and into an alley, pulling up to the rear entrance of a body shop. It was well after business hours, and all of the paint and body shops on the block were closed. The garage doors were shut, iron burglar bars covered the remaining doors and windows, and coils of razor wire ran like a giant, deadly Slinky along the top of a ten-foot chain-link fence. It wasn’t exactly the ideal neighborhood in which to park a $250,000 Italian sports car at night.

Wald tapped the horn, the garage door opened, and they pulled inside. He killed the engine, and with the push of a button the doors on either side opened at an upward angle like the wings of a butterfly. The two men climbed out of the car as the garage door closed behind them.

Girelli’s radar was at full alert. He’d gone on rides like this before-to warehouses and body shops in Queens-but never as the guest of honor. But he wasn’t worried. Girelli was packing a fully loaded Beretta 9 mm pistol, and Jason Wald was a dolt. That was two strikes against the home team, and the game wasn’t even under way.

“Glad you could make it, Tony.”

Girelli turned, unable to see the man standing off to the side in the shadows, but the distinctive accent was enough to give him pause. Two against one was no problem, unless one of the two was who he thought it was.

The silhouette took a half step forward, and then, with the flick of his lighter, he removed himself from the dark. Girelli’s pulse raced, his fears confirmed by the instantly recognizable face-or more specifically, by that deformed right ear.

The last person Girelli wanted to see tonight was Ian Burn.

I WASTED THE RIDE BACK FROM LONG ISLAND. I SHOULD HAVE PUT the top down on the Mini Cooper, cranked up just enough heat to take off the chill, and felt the wind on my face as the lights of Manhattan and the world’s most recognizable skyline swallowed me up. When I bought my convertible, I had signed a contract stating that I would drive it 90 percent of the time with the roof open. It was a marketing joke, but the way things were going, I wondered if they might actually sue me.

Yes, I was sweating the small stuff-like where the hell I was going to sleep tonight.

The Saxton Silvers parking garage was my destination, mainly because it was free and I still hadn’t straightened out my cash flow. To get there, I had to pass the firm’s main entrance on Seventh Avenue. Television crews, photographers, and a phalanx of other people crowded the sidewalk outside the revolving doors, and a line of double-parked media vans hugged the curb. A small but vocal group of demonstrators marched in a circle in the middle of all this. Anger was all over their faces, even angrier words on their handmade signs: