Money to Burn

38

“IT’S OVER,” SAID ERIC.

It was after nine P.M., just the two of us in the first-floor study of his Tudor-style mansion in Rye, New York. I say Rye, but the Haute Living feature story said that the ten-acre estate actually spanned three towns and had five addresses, putting his annual property tax bill somewhere north of $300,000-all worth it, no doubt, if you and your wife needed nine bedrooms, twelve bathrooms, two swimming pools, a clay tennis court, a putting green modeled after the famous twelfth hole at Augusta, a collection of beehives, and three large paddocks. Throw in a river running through the wooded backyard and a trout-stocked private lake, and life had to be good. Most of the time.

Eric was standing at the credenza between a pair of Tiffany lamps, pouring himself a scotch on the rocks. I was seated on the camelback couch.

“Over?” I said.

I’d driven there thinking I had some explaining to do about my arrest at Rockefeller Center, never thinking that it would be “over” before I even started talking. I almost didn’t care; it seemed almost certain that Ivy was alive-and nothing mattered more. “It was all a misunderstanding,” I said. “You can’t fire me for that.”

He turned and shook his head. “I meant us-the whole firm.”

His voice shook, and as he laid his hand atop his favorite Remington bronze, I caught a glimpse of his face in the unflattering light of a halogen spot that was intended to illuminate the sculpture. In the past three days, he had aged ten years. He took a long drink, then went to the framed memento on the cherry-paneled wall: his very first paycheck from his days as a broker with Saxton Silvers, which he pointed out every time I came over. It was flanked on one side by the first bottle of wine produced by the vineyard he owned in Napa Valley and on the other side by a Forbes article about WhiteSands, the investment management firm he’d founded and taken public to the tune of a nine-figure personal profit.

The check was for two weeks’ pay: six hundred dollars.

“This firm survived the Civil War,” he said, “two world wars, the Great Depression, a currency crisis, and the destruction of our headquarters on nine/eleven. Two members of the Silvers family even survived Auschwitz. And now it’s over.”

“What do you mean over?”

“There will be no bailout from the Fed,” he said. “The short sellers won: Saxton Silvers is filing for bankruptcy tomorrow morning.”

“But you said the deadline was Sunday.”

“That was when we had merger talks going with the Bank of New World. Those broke down this morning. I’ve been speed-dialing Louis Kendahl all day. That prick wouldn’t even take my calls.”

Kendahl was the CEO of New World, the largest commercial bank in the country.

“I even tried him at home,” said Eric. “The machine picked up three times, and on the fourth his wife answered. I stressed how important it was. Do you know what she told me? She said: ‘If Louis wanted to speak with you, he would have called you back.’”

Ouch, I thought.

Eric walked across his study, leaned on the edge of his desk, and looked around. “Damn,” he said, the exquisite furnishings of home apparently having triggered a work-related thought. “I can’t believe I just spent a million one renovating the executive suite.”

My sentiment exactly-even before the subprime shit had hit the fan.

“A lot of good memories,” he said, his gaze drifting back toward the Saxton Silvers paycheck on the wall. “All of them good, really. Except one.”

He was looking at me now, and of course he meant the outing in the Bahamas, where Ivy disappeared.

“All but one,” I agreed.

“I should never have let-”

“Don’t go there,” I said. There was no need for anyone to start taking the blame now. “You didn’t let Ivy and me go off on our own. We just went.”

He poured himself another scotch. “Do you ever wonder if she…”

I waited, hanging on his open thought. I wondered if he had intuited-or heard-something.

“If she’s alive?” I said, finishing for him.

He nearly dropped his glass. “No, not if she’s alive. I was going to say…she came into your life so all of a sudden. Then vanished. Did you ever wonder if that’s all she was ever meant to be?”

He was starting to sound like Kevin, and it didn’t seem like the time to start the conversation that Ivy was indeed alive.

The phone on his desk rang. He went to it, seemingly glad for the interruption, as if he had never intended the conversation to get this personal.

“This is the call I’ve been waiting for,” he said as he put on his headset.

I started toward the door, but he stopped me.

“Have a seat,” he said. “This is why I invited you over. I want you to hear this.”

I was confused, but I obliged by taking a chair by the fire-place as Eric answered the phone.

“Agent Spear,” Eric said into his headset, “what can I do for you?”

I did a double take. Spear was the lead FBI agent who had interrogated me in Eric’s office.

Eric pushed a button on the phone that allowed him to use the headset without Spear knowing that the call was on speaker-or that I was in the room.

“Thanks for making time to talk with me tonight,” said Spear. “I know you have a million things going on.”

“A million and one now,” said Eric.

“I’ll make this quick. I just have some follow-up on Michael Cantella. We subpoenaed his cell phone records for the night Chuck Bell was shot.”

My chest tightened. It was intimidating to feel the power of the federal government in action.

Eric was unfazed. “And?”

“Interestingly enough,” said Spear, “Michael and you had a phone conversation just after midnight, not too long before the shooting.”

The last few days had become a blur, and I had to think a moment before recalling that I’d spoken to Eric on my way back to the Hotel Mildew from the ATM.

Eric said, “Michael and I have been in very close contact lately.”

“Did you talk about Chuck Bell in that conversation?”

“Could have.”

“Did Michael say anything about Bell?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Do you remember anything at all about the conversation?”

“Not really.”

“All right,” said Spear. “Just wanted to plant the seed. When the dust settles with Saxton Silvers, we can talk more.”

“You got it. Good night,” said Eric. He pushed the red button to end the call, then tossed his headset aside.

I had a lump in my throat the size of a golf ball. “You lied,” I said.

He stepped away from the desk and sat on the edge of the chair, facing me. “Like a rug,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I have a very specific memory of what you said that night. And it bothered me very much.”

“What did I say?”

“You were furious at Bell for suggesting on the air that you were his source. And you told me, ‘One way or another, I’m going to get a retraction out of that son of a bitch.’”

“I didn’t mean violence. And I definitely didn’t mean I was going to kill him.”

“Did you know that Bell had been subpoenaed before he was shot?”

“Subpoenaed for what?”

“To reveal the identity of his source.”

“I wasn’t his source, Eric.”

“I’m simply telling you what I’ve gathered from my conversations with the FBI. That’s what this latest follow-up was all about-and that’s why I wanted you to hear it with your own ears. Spear is convinced that you knew Bell had been subpoenaed. He thinks you wanted to stop him from revealing his source. One way or another.”

It was a less-than-subtle underscoring of how well my own words fit with the FBI’s theory. “What are you really telling me, Eric?”

He walked over from his desk and put his hand on my shoulder. “Two things,” he said. “One: That phone conversation you and I had is between us. No one-especially not the FBI-is going to know about it.”

“You don’t have to protect me from anything,” I said.

“Two,” he said, letting his promise stand. “Make no mistake: There is one thing far worse than being accused of killing Chuck Bell.”

“What?”

“Being the accused killer of Saxton Silvers. A few people will make money when this firm goes down. A lot more will lose money. A lot of money. Shareholders, creditors, employees-they all get wiped out in bankruptcy. One thing you can be sure of. Somewhere in that long line of losers is someone mad and crazy enough to blow you away-if they get the opportunity. You understand what I’m telling you?”

I nodded, but he said it anyway, his expression deadly serious.

“Don’t give them the opportunity.”