Money to Burn

45

IT WAS STILL NIGHTTIME WHEN I WOKE ON THE SIDEWALK. MY T-shirt was ripped, but someone had cleaned the goo from my chest. Instinctively, I reached for my cell, but it was gone. I started to get up, then stopped.

Whoa, my head.

I moved slowly. Whatever Burn’s men had injected into my leg was still in my system, but I fought through it. I rose up on one knee, let my head adjust to going vertical, then climbed all the way to my feet. Slowly, things came into focus.

A quiet dead-end street. Red-brick apartment buildings rising up ten or twelve stories on either side. Tree roots pushing up slabs of the concrete sidewalk. Still in a fog, I walked toward the intersection, which was completely without traffic. I had no idea what time it was, but it had to be late. I looked up the street, and the familiar cantilever truss structure of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge told me where I was. A glance back at the green-and-white street sign at the intersection confirmed it: SUTTON PL. I was just a block from my apartment. Mallory’s apartment.

Then I heard that scream again-but only in my mind-and it hit me hard. The body count was now up to four: Rumsey, Bell, Girelli, and now this latest victim in the garage who had undoubtedly died a horrible death tonight. I had to call the police. There was a pay phone on the corner, and I could have just dialed 911 from there.

If you go to the police, we will find you.

The man who called himself Burn could not have made his warning any clearer. Even with the pending divorce, Mallory was still my wife, and I felt a sudden need to know that she was safe. And, admittedly, I was curious about Ivy’s warning-that she’d seen Mallory in a gay bar with another man-the operative word being gay.

Or were the operative words “another man”?

I ran up the street toward our apartment and breezed right past our night doorman in the lobby. He came after me. Mallory had obviously told him about the divorce.

“Where you headed, Mr. Cantella?”

I kept walking toward the elevator. “Personal emergency.”

“I’m going to have to call Mrs. Cantella.”

“You do that,” I said.

One of the elevator doors opened-the other one was still out of service from the flaming package-and I rode up to our apartment. I rang the bell, and the door opened about a foot, stopped by the chain.

“Go away, Michael.”

The voice startled me, and then I realized it was Mallory’s friend, Andrea.

“This is important,” I said.

“It’s one o’clock in the morning. Go away, or I will call the police.”

I realized how bad this looked-the husband on the receiving end of divorce papers showing up at the wife’s door in the middle of the night, just hours after the first court hearing. The ripped T-shirt probably didn’t help my case-powder blue at that, making me look like a cracked Easter egg.

“I got mugged,” I said. “They took my phone, my wallet, everything. I need to come in, call the police, and get some clothes-probably my passport, too, just so I have photo ID.”

The door closed, and I heard them talking inside, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The chain rattled, and the door opened all the way this time. As I entered, Andrea stepped in front of me, cutting me off. Had the expression on her face been any tougher, she probably would have qualified for Secret Service detail.

She held her cell in hand and said, “If you make one false move toward Mallory, I’m dialing nine-one-one.”

“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” I said. “I actually want to make sure she’s safe.”

“She’s fine. We’re watching a movie. Safe from what?”

“Give me your phone, and you’ll find out.”

She pulled back, clutching her phone, as if I’d just asked for her spleen.

Mallory emerged from the TV room with our cordless landline. “Use this one.”

It was the first time she’d made eye contact with me since filing for divorce. Maybe I was kidding myself, but I didn’t see contempt. I could tell she’d been drinking, however.

Andrea took the phone and handed it to me. I punched 9-1-1.

Mallory and her friend stood and listened as I told the dispatcher how the men had thrown me into a van, taken me to a garage that I believed was somewhere in New Jersey, and tortured another man before my eyes. I told her Tony Girelli was dead. I described Burn as best I could, and when I described the victim and what Burn had done to him, Mallory gasped and ran to the other room.

“I’m routing this to a detective,” said the operator. “Is this the best number to reach you at?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. “Give me a number to call, and I’ll let you know.”

She gave it to me along with an incident reference number. I hung up and gave the phone back to Andrea. She didn’t seem shocked by anything she’d just heard-definitely nowhere near as upset as Mallory.

“I need to talk with my wife,” I told her.

Andrea no longer had her finger on the domestic disturbance panic button, but she followed me into the TV room just in case. Mallory looked scared to death, seated on the couch, and part of me wanted to go to her and tell her that it would all be okay. Andrea sat beside her and squeezed her hand.

“Mallory, can I talk to you alone for a minute?” I asked.

She shook her head firmly. “No.”

We were back to no-eye-contact mode. “Do you mind if I get a few things to take with me?”

“Go ahead.”

I desperately wanted a shower, but I had to settle for a quick stop in the bathroom to sponge away the lingering smell of gasoline from my chest. In the adjoining master bedroom I changed clothes in record time, losing the Wall Street look entirely, just blue jeans and light sweater. I grabbed my passport and a few other essentials, then returned to the TV room.

“Mallory, there is something I have to say.”

She didn’t answer. Andrea was still at her side on the couch, and she shot me a look that said, Say it and go.

“I don’t blame you for wanting to leave me,” I said, trying my best to pretend that it was just me and Mallory in the room. “You deserve a man who loves you with all his heart. But your lawyer’s spin in the courtroom about those e-mails was completely wrong. I don’t have a lover, and I haven’t been plotting to hide any money from you.”

I wanted to ask her about the man Ivy had seen her with, but putting her on the defensive and sounding like the jealous husband wasn’t going to help my immediate cause.

“You came here to tell me that?” she said, her eyes cast downward.

“No,” I said. “I wanted to share some things that will probably make you think I’m crazy. But I’m going to tell you anyway, because I want you to be safe.”

“Stop scaring her,” said Andrea.

“I’m not saying this to frighten you. Mallory, I’m going to be arrested for supposedly hiring a guy named Tony Girelli to shoot Chuck Bell. That’s probably going to happen tomorrow. It’s a frame-up, but that’s not even close to being the crazy part. Ivy is alive.”

Mallory looked up, and I could read the expression on her face. She was screaming without words: I knew it!

“She and I are both in a lot of danger,” I said. “I don’t know what it’s all about, but these are very bad people. They killed Chuck Bell. They’ve killed other people, including that guy I just called nine-one-one about. I’m afraid everyone I know might also be in danger. Possibly even you. I want you to get protection for yourself. Hire a bodyguard, go to the police. Promise me you’ll do that.”

Her gaze was fixed on me now, her expression a blend of confusion and amazement.

“Promise me, and I’ll go,” I said.

“Go where?”

I sighed at the size of the question. “Not sure,” I said. “They warned me not to call the police, so I guess I need to go someplace they can’t find me.”

“You need to turn yourself in,” said Andrea. “If you’re being charged with the murder of Chuck Bell, that’s the only thing you can do.”

“That’s the one thing I can’t do,” I said, “and not just because I’m innocent. I’ll be a sitting duck in a jail cell. After what I saw tonight, I have no doubt that these men will kill me just as soon as they realize I can’t help them find Ivy. I have to run.”

I started toward the hallway, then stopped. “Mallory, I borrowed your cell, all right?”

“You what?”

I had taken it from the master bedroom. “They took my cell. They’d been monitoring my line anyway. I need yours.”

“No!”

“Mallory, I just watched a man get burned alive tonight, and I have to go back out onto the street after doing exactly what they warned me not to do-call the police. I need a cell. Help me that much.”

“I said no.”

Her anger was hard to comprehend, but suddenly I realized that in the past couple of days I had grossly overanalyzed everything-from Mallory’s high-school dating history to her anonymous support for abused children-in search of some past trauma that might explain our divorce. My wife was just done with me. I wasn’t saying it was her fault or mine, but it was time to stop soothing my Wall Street ego by holding everyone else accountable-her parents, an old lover, her first husband, her new friend Andrea-for my life.

“It’s okay,” said Andrea. “Let him have it.”

Mallory exchanged glances with her friend, then handed me the phone.

“Thank you,” I said, but Mallory didn’t acknowledge it. I wanted a better understanding of what was going through her mind, but there wasn’t time. And I didn’t want her to do an about-face on loaning me her cell. I said good night and let myself out quickly.

Three minutes later I was back on Fifty-seventh Street. Never before had I felt so unsafe in my neighborhood. In the first sixty seconds, I must have checked over my shoulder a half dozen times. A car approached, and my heart raced. It went right past me. Nothing.

How did Ivy do this for four years?

Her warning-run!-reverberated in my mind. Burn’s men had emptied my pockets, so I no longer had the key to Papa’s hotel room. But the booking was under the name Cantella, and I had to sleep somewhere. I wondered if the night manager would recognize me and let me in if I just showed up. I walked toward the subway, but the cumulative effects of the night’s events finally coalesced into a sense of urgency, and I started jogging and then running down the sidewalk. A car screeched around the corner and stopped at the curb, and I froze. The passenger’s-side door flew open, and then I knew I wasn’t merely paranoid. I was about to run in the other direction when I caught a glimpse of the driver.

It was Ivy’s mother.

“Get in!” she shouted.

I hurried toward the car but stayed on the sidewalk. “You need to keep away from me,” I said, the dome light glaring between us.

“I’m here to help you.”

“Don’t. I don’t have time to explain, but anyone who helps me is in serious danger.”

“Do you think I’m any different from you?” she said.

I looked at her for a moment, and from the expression on her face I could see that Olivia, too, was running from them-whoever they were.

“Get your Wall Street ass in the damn car!”

I jumped in the passenger seat, and the car squealed away.