Money to Burn

48

I FELL ASLEEP IN THE CAR AND WOKE IN A BED. THE SIGHT OF A woman seated at the foot of the mattress scared me into the jackknife position.

“Who are you?”

“It’s okay,” she said as she turned to look at me.

I quickly realized it was Olivia-and that last night had not merely been a bad dream.

“Where am I?”

“North Bergen.”

“New Jersey?”

“On Tonnelle Avenue, to be exact.”

The street noise was so loud that I wondered if we weren’t literally on Tonnelle Avenue. I sat up in bed, still wearing last night’s jeans and sweater. Only my shoes had been removed. A sliver of morning sunlight was streaming in through an opening between drapery panels, and I noticed Olivia’s car parked right outside our motel room. One of the local morning shows was playing on the television atop the bureau, but the volume was too low to hear it.

“What time is it?”

“Not yet seven. When we got here last night, you woke up just enough for me to help you in from the car, but you were out like a drunk the minute your head hit the pillow.”

I’d needed the rest, to be sure, but the lingering effect of whatever Burn and his men had injected into my body undoubtedly had more to do with it.

“You want coffee?”

“Black, thanks.”

She poured some from an in-room machine. There was so much I wanted to ask her, but I figured I’d go right for the home run.

“Why does Kyle McVee want Ivy dead?”

I expected a show of surprise, maybe even shock-at least a reaction of some sort. Olivia simply handed me the plastic coffee cup and sat on the other bed, facing me.

“How did you know it was McVee?”

“He was the last person Ivy worked for before she disappeared.”

“You were the last person Ivy married before she disappeared.”

Clearly she was playing devil’s advocate.

“McVee has the kind of capital it would take to short-sell Saxton Silvers into the ground and make it look like I did it.”

“So do dozens of other hedge-fund gurus.”

“McVee is into credit-default swaps in a big way. That’s the point my brother’s friend at the DTC was making tonight: Credit-default swaps are where the huge money is going to be made when Saxton Silvers files for bankruptcy today.”

“Credit-default what?” she asked.

In another six months, even Papa would have a working knowledge of the esoteric derivative products that investment geniuses like Warren Buffett had labeled “financial weapons of mass destruction.” But at this point, not even Wall Street fully understood the dangers.

“Credit default swaps,” I said. “They’re not technically insurance, so there’s no government regulation to speak of. But in essence they are a form of insurance that investors cash in if Saxton Silvers can’t pay its debts.”

“So if you borrow money from me, I would buy a credit default swap that would pay me off in case you defaulted?”

“Correct, assuming you and I are major financial players. And what’s really interesting is that if you loan me money, Tommy Ho in Hong Kong or Crocodile Dundee in Australia or Hansel and Gretel in Germany can also buy a credit default swap that pays them off in case I default on your loan.”

She did a double take, as if not quite comprehending. “So total strangers basically place a bet that you’re going to default on my loan to you?”

“You got it. On six billion dollars of debt, it wouldn’t be unheard of for there to be sixty billion dollars in credit default swaps. Of course, no single person really knows how much is tied up in the swaps, because they’re not sold through the stock exchange. It’s an over-the-counter market.”

“Isn’t that a problem?”

“Hell yes, especially when you tie in other strategies. Think of it this way: Buying credit-default swaps on Saxton Silvers’ debt obligations and then going short on Saxton Silvers stock is kind of like buying a life insurance policy on your neighbor and then running him over with your car.”

“So when Saxton Silvers goes bankrupt, McVee cashes in.”

“Big-time. On an investment bank like Saxton Silvers, he could conceivably be sitting on a billion dollars’ worth of credit default swaps.”

“That’s incredible,” she said.

“It is. But it’s also a little beside the point.”

“How do you mean?”

“Let me ask you again: Why did McVee want Ivy dead?”

She tasted her coffee, then rose and went to the Formica counter beside the closet. “I don’t know exactly,” she said, adding more sweetener to her cup. Then she turned and looked at me. “But this much I am certain about: It’s not what you think. McVee’s reasons for wanting Ivy dead have nothing to do with credit-default swaps or short selling-it has nothing to do with business at all. This is personal.”

“It’s about me, isn’t it?”

My words seemed to confuse her. “Why would you say that?”

I told her about the black SUV that had run me off the road before the trip to the Bahamas. “I think it was a warning,” I said. “I ignored it at the time. And I think Ivy paid the price.”

Olivia came back and sat on the edge of the other bed, looking me in the eye. “None of this was your fault. That SUV wasn’t a warning to you. It was a warning to Ivy. As long as Ivy was alive, they were going to take it out on you and everyone else Ivy loved-including me.”

Again I was thinking about that anti-FTAA protestor who’d pulled me from the cab in Miami. “Is that what that man who sprayed me with pepper spray meant when he said, ‘It’s only gonna get worse’?”

She nodded. “You and Ivy were followed all the way from the Miami airport. Ivy knew that. And she knew that the man was talking to her, not to you. Things would only get worse…so long as she was alive. So Ivy made them think she was dead. That’s why she disappeared.”

I was having trouble comprehending how a normal person with a normal life could pull off something like this, but from what Olivia was telling me, I was beginning to wonder if Ivy ever had been “normal.”

“That man last night-every time he mentioned Ivy, he called her Vanessa. What’s that about?”

The mere mention of “Vanessa” made Olivia flinch. “That’s the name Ivy used after faking her death.”

It was a plausible explanation-but it didn’t really explain the way Olivia reacted when I mentioned the name.

My phone chirped. Actually, it was Mallory’s phone. I was reluctant to use it. If Ivy was right and the calls on my cell had been monitored, it was possible they were monitoring Mallory’s, too. I got up and checked it. The message was from me, which took me aback. Those goons had taken my cell last night, so it had to be from them.

Want to see your lover? the message read.

I was confused at first, not sure what they were trying to tell me. Then I realized that they weren’t telling me anything. They had no way of knowing that I had Mallory’s phone, and the message was for her. It was like a roundhouse kick to the solar plexus, even if she was divorcing me.

Of course that guy she was meeting in the gay bar wasn’t gay, you moron.

I had been in denial, but it was time to take my final lumps and officially crown myself “the last to know.” I scrolled through the text messages stored in Mallory’s phone, found a recent one from “Nathaniel,” and read it. It made me cringe. There were many messages just like it, dating back more than a month. It was clear now why Mallory had been so reluctant to give me her cell.

“What’s wrong?” asked Olivia.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just a little high-tech confirmation that I’m a blind fool and that my wife was seeing another man.”

She leaned over and laid a hand on my forearm. It was the first sign of any affection she’d shown toward me-and strangely, I felt some of Ivy’s warmth in her touch.

“We’ll get through this,” she said. “It will get better.”

“You think?”

She smiled a little. “Can’t get worse, can it?”

The television suddenly caught my eye. “Today’s Big Story” was at the top of the Today show, and right behind Ann Curry was an image of me. The mug shot taken at the Tombs after my bomb-scare arrest had, as I’d predicted, come back to haunt me. I actually looked like a criminal.

I jumped up and raised the volume, catching the report somewhere in the middle:

“-arrest warrant for Wall Street power broker Michael Cantella, who is facing charges in a murder-for-hire conspiracy that resulted in the fatal shooting of Financial News Network’s Chuck Bell.”

I listened in stunned silence as the national coverage recapped my nightmare for the entire country, before shifting to the mud slides in California.

My phone-Mallory’s-chirped again. Another message, a follow-up to Wanna see your lover?

It read: He’s hot.

I knew what these guys were capable of, and I got the double meaning. But that didn’t lessen the shock when I clicked on the attached file and saw the photograph. The image was gruesome-several pyromaniacal steps beyond what I had witnessed last night. But it was definitely the same man. Burn had killed my wife’s lover.

And he’d sent these taunting messages to Mallory-proof of a grisly homicide-with my cell.

“What’s wrong?” asked Olivia.

“So much for your promise that things will get better.”

“What do you mean?”

I glanced at her, then back at the image on Mallory’s cell. “They just got worse.”

I laid Mallory’s cell on the nightstand and started dialing on the room’s landline.

“Who are you calling?” asked Olivia.

“My brother.”

“What for?”

I paused after punching out half of Kevin’s number. “He can’t guarantee that I’ll be released on bail, so I need to tell him that he won’t be seeing me in his office or in court this morning.”

“Smart move.”

“And to make him understand that I can’t be a sitting duck in a prison cell waiting to have my throat slit by another thug hired by Kyle McVee.”

“You can’t mention McVee’s name.”

“I’m going way beyond that. I’m going to instruct Kevin to write down everything I’ve learned, wrap it up in McVee’s name, and take it to the FBI.”

A look of horror came over her. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Sorry, but if you can’t tell me why McVee wanted Ivy dead, maybe Kevin and I can help the FBI figure it out.”

I finished dialing, and Kevin’s line was ringing. Olivia continued pleading.

“Don’t you understand? The FBI couldn’t protect Ivy from Kyle McVee. They can’t protect you, me, or anyone else from a man like him. That’s why she ran.”

The call went to Kevin’s voice mail. I hung up, immediately hit redial, and as the line starting ringing again, I tightened my stare on Olivia.

“Why did McVee want Ivy dead?” I asked her.

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“You told me there were things about Ivy that I was better off not knowing. That’s not the same thing.”

“That’s exactly what Ivy told me. Can’t you see she’s protecting us?”

“Can’t you see the game has changed? I’m not willing to live the rest of my life the way she’s been living hers.”

“If McVee finds out you’re helping the FBI, you won’t have to worry about living, period.

The ringing continued, but not even her desperate tone could make me hang up and hide out in a motel room while Kyle McVee framed yours truly for crimes that would bring down me, my firm, and maybe all of Wall Street with us.

Olivia lowered her head into her hands.

On the fifth ring, Kevin answered his cell.

“Kevin, it’s me,” I said.

“Please, don’t,” said Olivia.

I looked away and told my brother everything I wanted the FBI to know.