Need You Now

3

I took my lunch break alone but didn’t eat. Couldn’t eat.

At least you still have a job.

For some reason they hadn’t fired me. I wasn’t even on probation. That was the silver lining I clung to as I walked down Seventh Avenue, destination unknown, trying to get my head around the worst day of my life since… I wasn’t sure when. An hour earlier, I would have said it was Lilly’s it’s-not-you, it’s-me speech on the beach, but if she was connected to Cushman, our split had actually been a blessing.

Worst day…

Probably October 2004, when the Yankees made postseason history by blowing a 3-0 advantage in a seven-game series, which allowed that team from Boston to advance to the World Series and break the eighty-six-year curse of the Bambino. On a bet, I had to wear a Red Sox cap for a month. Very hazardous attire on a New York subway, but who was I kidding? I was twenty-nine years old, I was a lifelong Mets fan, and the two worst things in my life that I was willing to recount were getting dumped and losing a bet on two teams I didn’t even care about. It wasn’t that I was actually that shallow.

I was in denial-and had been, for years.

A sudden scream jarred me from my thoughts. I’d walked all the way to the TKTS kiosk at Forty-seventh Street, where two college-aged women had just scored half-price tickets to a Broadway show. They jumped, hugged, and generally made a spectacle of themselves. After my grilling from BOS senior management over a $60 billion Ponzi scheme, it made me nostalgic for the days when saving fifty bucks felt like winning the Lotto.

“Mazel tov,” I said, and kept walking.

Times Square, in its Vegas-like splendor, stretched before me. Flashing JumboTrons and spectaculars brought life to an otherwise gray winter afternoon. Building owners in the square were required by law to display illuminated signs, which had to be the only zoning ordinance in New York that garnered 100 percent compliance. It was hard to ignore the five-story-tall Victoria’s Secret model, but my gaze drifted to the famous high-tech display that wrapped around the cylindrical NASDAQ building. The financial news of the hour was the Justice Department’s settlement with BOS over bank secrecy, and the gist of it scrolled across the marquee over Broadway.

“Justice Department cracks secret Swiss vaults of alleged tax evaders.”

The story was getting none of the perky positive spin that our Swiss CEO had attached to it.

A strange ping emerged from my iPhone. A wide range of bells and whistles came with two smartphones-I carried an iPhone in addition to the bank-issued BlackBerry-but this one was unlike any chirp or ringtone I’d heard before. A quick check revealed no new call or message. Nor was my battery running low. A suspicious thought came to mind.

Are they tracking me?

Remote GPS tracking or an eavesdropping device in my iPhone wasn’t out of the question. The Corporate Security gurus for the largest Swiss bank had plenty of gadgets. Barber had laid down the law at the conclusion of our meeting: “Do not speak to Lilly Scanlon about this.” I promised not to, but perhaps they were making sure of it.

I checked my phone again. Lilly and I truly hadn’t spoken since that day on the beach in Singapore, but for whatever reason, I had yet to delete her from the number one slot on my speed-dial list. One touch of the screen and we’d be connected, but just the thought of calling her to find out what she’d done with $60 billion had that Lady Antebellum song playing in my head again, albeit my own version of it:

And she’ll wonder if I’ve lost my freakin’ mi… ind.

I put the phone away before I could do something stupid. Barber and his fellow BOS executives had been careful to reveal very little about the internal investigation, but Lilly clearly had some serious explaining to do. I was dying to hear her take on Gerry Collins and the pipeline of cash to Cushman Investment by way of BOS/Singapore.

A dark SUV screeched to a sudden stop in front of me at the curb. Had I taken one more step, my toes would have been ground beef.

“Watch it!” I shouted, slapping the fender.

The rear door on the passenger side flew open. Before I could react, someone on the crowded sidewalk pushed me from behind, and I fell inside as the door slammed shut. The vehicle sped away, my head snapped back against the headrest, and the muzzle of a pistol was at the base of my skull.

“Don’t move,” a man said.

It was a big American SUV, the kind with a third row of seating in the back, and the man was directly behind me. “What-” I started to say, but he jammed the muzzle forward, silencing me.

“Don’t say a word.”

His voice was like a snake hissing in my ear. My eyes darted toward the driver. I noted the heavy black beard and white turban, but he could have been a Westerner in disguise. Dark-tinted windows dashed any hope that someone on the sidewalk would notice my plight and call the cops. The traffic light changed, the SUV continued through the busy square, and straight ahead I spotted an enormous billboard that said W ICKED.

No shit.

“Eyes forward,” he said, and I took the warning to heart. The ride was surreal, the glow of a billion colorful lights ahead and the cold sensation of gun metal at the back of my head. The north face of One Times Square was approaching, the building famous for the dropping of the New Year’s Eve ball, and I could see both the FOX News Astrovision Screen and the even larger ABC SuperSign at Forty-fourth Street. It made me wonder if I was going to be on the evening news-and if I’d be alive to see it.

“This message is for your girlfriend,” the man said. “Our patience is at an end. It’s time to see the money. Cough it up, or you will both end up like Gerry Collins. Do you understand?”

This was the second time the name Collins had come up in the span of an hour. There was no mistaking what money this thug was talking about, but I had a burning need for more information, even at the risk of playing dumb.

“What money?”

In the blur of an instant the muzzle slid across the back of my head, and with a muffled pop a silenced projectile whizzed below my ear. Gunpowder and the hot gases of a muzzle blast stung my neck as the bullet buried itself in the back of the passenger seat in front of me. Before I could react the gun was back in place, pressed against my head.

“The next one will be much more than a flesh wound,” he said. “Do you understand?”

I wasn’t nearly stupid enough to think it would matter that Lilly was no longer my girlfriend.

My right ear was ringing, and it was even worse when I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yes,” I said. “I understand.”

The SUV stopped. We were in the Fashion District, just beyond Mustang Sally’s Saloon, a place I’d visited one night after seeing the Knicks get thumped at the Garden. The SUV was at the corner, perpendicular to the yawning entrance to the Twenty-eighth Street subway station. I felt the man’s breath on the back of my neck as he delivered his final warning.

“Don’t even think about calling the cops,” he said in a chilling whisper, “or the next bullet is in your brain. You got that?”

“Yes.”

“Now get out and walk straight into the subway. Don’t stop and don’t look back, or I’ll put a bullet in you.”

I heard the mechanical release of the child lock, and the gun slid away from my head. I pushed open the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. The SUV pulled away so quickly that the door closed itself. I was tempted to glance over my shoulder and get a tag number, but the convincing threat of a bullet with my name on it kept me in check. The subway entrance was directly down the side street, less than thirty yards away from the curb at Seventh Avenue. I started walking and was thinking of Lilly, my hand shaking as I checked the welt on my neck. I wondered what secrets Lilly was hiding, and it occurred to me that there was definitely one thing more dangerous than knowing where the Cushman money was:

Not knowing-and having a trained killer think that I did.

Don’t even think about calling the cops.

That warning echoed in my mind with each step down the stairwell, louder and louder as the sound of Midtown traffic yielded to the rumble of an approaching train.