Money to Burn

by James Grippando

  “You think this is what I wanted Ploutus to become?” he said. “You think I like being the Wall Street thief who manipulates the market? The go-to hedge fund for mob money?”

  He glanced at his nephew, and from the look at his face, the younger man had never really reduced it to such vile terms.

  “You pay a price,” said McVee, “when you reach a point in your life when everything you’ve worked for is bullshit. When it doesn’t matter anymore. When you need a man like Ian Burn to make it right.”

  Wald was about to speak, then stopped, seeming to sense that silence was the wiser course.

  “Do you have any idea what it feels like to see lightweights like Eric Volke rise to the top? To see a know-nothing like Michael Cantella named in Forbes magazine as Saxton Silvers’ youngest-ever investment advisor of the year? It would be hard enough to stomach that shit in any case, but in a world with my son dead and buried, it’s unbearable. Marcus was a dynamo,” he said, his voice quaking, “and we had plans. Big plans. If he were alive today, he’d be the CEO of Ploutus-a thirty-six-year-old king of the world. I’d probably be president of the NASDAQ. All that ended when that bitch came along. I was happy when she was lost at sea and the sharks got her-and just enraged when I found out four years later that it was all a lie. That Girelli didn’t really get the job done.”

  “He was a punk,” said Wald.

  “So are you,” said McVee, disdain in his voice. “How my sister popped you into the world I’ll never understand.”

  Jason looked out the passenger’s-side window, toward the passing darkness. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the insult.

  “But I can tell you this,” said McVee. “Marcus was no punk. And for him, I’m going to spit in that woman’s eye before she burns alive in a WhiteSands helicopter with her conniving mother and the biggest punk of all-Michael Cantella.”

  Wald’s phone rang. He answered. It was Burn. The conversation lasted just five seconds. He ended the call and looked at his uncle.

  “Show time,” he said.

  The engine revved as McVee accelerated down the last half mile of the WhiteSands access road.

  65

  THE MAIN HANGAR DOOR WAS CLOSED, AND I HEARD A CAR PULL up outside. The narrow row of polycarbonate windows that stretched across the big sliding door from end to end was above eye level, but Burn was standing on the boarding step to the helicopter, high enough to see out. He did not seem alarmed. A moment later, the smaller entrance door opened to the darkness of night. Jason Wald entered first, followed by his uncle.

  Kyle McVee was dressed casually in a navy blue sailing jacket, linen slacks, and deck shoes, as if he were on his way to a weekend getaway at his waterfront estate in the Hamptons. His demeanor, however, was anything but relaxed. He walked toward Ivy and stopped in front of her, his glare like lasers.

  “I’ve waited for this day,” he said.

  “So have I,” she said.

  McVee wasn’t the only one confused by her response.

  Ivy said, “I’ve always wanted to know why you held me-and me alone-responsible for Marcus’ suicide.”

  “You can’t seriously mean that,” he said.

  “It was Eric who hired me for the assignment. But you never blamed him.”

  She was clearly pushing buttons, taking her cue from the voice-mail message I’d played from Agent Henning. But McVee seemed to find something humorous about the exchange, and he was looking at me while talking to Ivy.

  “Still playing the good wife to Michael Cantella, I see.”

  “The only role I ever played was the one Eric hired me to play. But in the end, he wasn’t the one you came after.”

  Eric spoke up for himself. “A little corporate espionage is what any reasonable businessman would do to protect his own company.”

  “I’ll handle this,” said McVee, silencing him. “But Eric is right: He was doing something that anyone would do. You, on the other hand-you were different.” He stepped closer, his stare tightening. “There was no need for you to do the things you did to Marcus.”

  “What things?”

  “I’m sure you researched matters before starting your undercover role. You knew the family history was there-that his mother had taken her own life. You saw Marcus’ highs, and you knew how low his lows could be. And still you did whatever it took to get the information you needed out of him. You flirted. You slept with him. And you even pretended to be in love with him.”

  “That’s not true!” she said.

  “When you had the information you needed to report back to Eric, you crushed Marcus-told him to his face that he’d been played for a fool. My son didn’t kill himself because of anything Eric did. He killed himself because of you-the way you destroyed him.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” said Ivy.

  “You used my son the same way you used Michael Cantella. Hell, you were even willing to marry Michael, if that was what it took to pull off your disappearing act.”

  I exchanged glances with Eric-McVee had just repeated the story that Eric had told me in the WhiteSands dining room-and then I looked at Ivy.

  Her eyes pleaded with me. “Don’t believe any of this, Michael. I married you because I loved you. I never slept with Marcus. Okay, I may have flirted-that’s part of the game-but it was never intimate. Never. And definitely not while I was with you.”

  I didn’t know what to think, but an idea came to me on how to get to the bottom of it. I looked at McVee and asked, “How do you know Ivy was sleeping with your son?”

  “Eric told me,” he said.

  “Just like Eric told you in the dining room!” said Ivy. “It’s a lie, Michael.”

  I wasn’t sure how she knew about that conversation, but it didn’t matter.

  “That’s not exactly what Eric told me,” I said. “He said it was Kyle who told him that Ivy was sleeping with Marcus.”

  McVee glanced at Eric, and I could see from the expression on his face that I’d raised his suspicions. “That’s not true,” said McVee. “Eric was the one who told me.”

  Again, Eric was under the microscope. He wasn’t holding up well.

  “Look,” he said, his voice shaking. It was as if he had finally realized that he was in way over his head. “I’m not trying to get anyone hurt or…killed. I’m just-”

  “Shut up!” said McVee.

  His words startled Eric-and everyone else as well. The tension in the air may have made it the worst conceivable moment for me to speak up, but it felt like now or never. I spoke straight to McVee, as if it were just the two of us in the hangar.

  “Eric is lying,” I said. “And the reason he’s lying is because your son didn’t commit suicide.”

  Thankfully McVee wasn’t holding a gun, because he would have shot me dead right then and there.

  “No, I don’t mean he disappeared like Ivy,” I said, clarifying. “I mean his death wasn’t suicide.”

  Slowly McVee’s need to hear me out prevailed. And even though I was speculating to a large extent, it wasn’t just something that had popped into my head on the spot. My suspicions had begun when Ivy told me that Andrea was FBI, and my focus had turned to Eric during our conversation in the WhiteSands’ dining room. I had to believe that everything Ivy and I had shared four years ago was real, and that Eric’s claims were false. There was no way she would have prostituted herself on a corporate espionage mission for WhiteSands. I knew she wasn’t just pretending to love me. I knew she didn’t marry me just to facilitate a plan to escape. Eric was lying. And people usually lie to protect themselves.

  I had to go with my instincts on this one. It was life or death-literally.

  “I knew Marcus,” I said. “Your son was a savvy businessman who did his homework. So savvy that I think he knew Ivy was a mole. He used her; she didn’t use him.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Eric.

  I continued my focus on McVee, ignoring Eric and everyone else. “Eric hired Ivy to work underc
over and prove that Ploutus was spreading false rumors about WhiteSands to manipulate the stock price. The reality was, Marcus wasn’t spreading false rumors. The dirt he uncovered was absolutely true.”

  “That’s preposterous,” said Eric.

  “Maybe that information wasn’t just damaging to WhiteSands,” I said. “Maybe it was embarrassing to Eric, personally.”

  “Michael, that’s enough.”

  I was on to something. I could hear it in Eric’s voice. “Are you going to make me keep guessing, Eric? Or are you going to tell me what laws you broke?”

  “Michael, stop right now, or you are going to take us both down.”

  “Is that what you told Marcus,” I said, “when he confronted you with his discovery?”

  Eric was silent, and I knew him well enough to realize what his silence meant. I almost couldn’t believe what I was saying, but everything was suddenly making sense to me.

  “That’s why you killed him, isn’t it, Eric. Or maybe you had him killed. Made it look like he took his own life. Then you went to his father to tell him how sorry you were for the loss of his son. To tell him that it was all Ivy’s fault, that you never dreamed she would push him to suicide in playing her role. I’m guessing that you didn’t anticipate what Kyle McVee’s reaction would be-that he’d want Ivy dead.”

  Ivy filled in the rest, with me every step. “So you helped me disappear, which worked out very nicely for you. That left no one to dispute your version of what happened between Marcus and me.”

  “Once Ivy was gone,” said McVee, his train of thought lining up right behind ours, “I stopped looking for the person who was really responsible for Marcus’ death.”

  His glare came to rest on Eric.

  There was chilling silence in the hangar as the truth settled in. Ivy, her mother, McVee, and on down the line-everyone was waiting for Eric to say something in his defense. But even Eric knew that there was no convincing anyone any longer. McVee stepped away from the helicopter. He stopped just a few feet away from me, his gaze still fixed singularly on Eric.

  “Jason,” he said to his nephew, “spill the fuel.”

  66

  “WHOA, WHOA,” SAID BURN.

  I was so spent, I’d almost forgotten that he was still standing on the boarding step at the open door to the Sikorsky, a head taller than Ivy.

  Wald was approaching the helicopter and stopped suddenly, a fuel can in each hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “Are you nuts?” said Burn. “You can’t just dump that much fuel inside a helicopter hangar.”

  Wald lowered the cans to the floor, practically dropping them. Five gallons of jet fuel were much heavier than he had expected. “Who’s going to stop me, the EPA?”

  Burn grabbed Ivy by the hair, as if reining her in. “This one’s itching to try another disappearing act. What do you think will happen if this building is filled with fumes when I have to shoot her? Each one of those cans is like eight hundred sticks of dynamite. We could all be toast.”

  McVee and his nephew exchanged glances. It seemed they had finally seen eye to eye on something: the wisdom of having a guy like Burn in charge.

  “What’s your plan?” asked McVee.

  “I’m thinking a fuel leak from the helicopter, maybe from a bad filter seal or ruptured fuel line. An untimely spark. Tragic results. Help me get these guys aboard, then beat it. I’ll take care of the spilled fuel.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said. “I count four of us, three of you, and only one gun.”

  “Two guns,” said Wald as he pulled a pistol from his coat.

  Burn pushed his gun against Ivy’s head with so much force that her chin hit her chest. “And there can easily be one less of you.”

  Ivy said, “Don’t try anything stupid, Michael. Just do what they say. The FBI is on the way.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Burn said with a chuckle. “The FBI, the cavalry-they’re all rushing right over here.”

  “I’m not lying,” said Ivy.

  “There’s not a person here that you haven’t lied to,” said Burn.

  “What if she’s telling the truth?” Wald asked nervously. “What if the FBI is coming?”

  “No chance,” said Burn. “Michael played a voice mail from Agent Henning right before you arrived. It was on speaker. Henning would have said they were on the way, if, in fact, they were.”

  McVee smiled at me. “I knew you didn’t go to the FBI.” He turned to his nephew and said, “Give me your gun.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t your son who was killed.”

  Wald didn’t like it, but he removed the safety and, with a push-pull of the slide, loaded a round into the chamber.

  “You’re ready to go,” he said, handing it over.

  McVee pointed the gun at Eric. “All right, Volke. You first. Get on the helicopter.”

  “Me? Why me? You don’t believe all that bullshit, do you?”

  “Get on the helicopter,” said McVee, his eyes narrowing.

  Eric stared right back. There was no way to win this argument, but he dug in his heels anyway. “Kiss my ass, Kyle. I’m not getting in that helicopter.”

  “Then I’ll shoot you right now, damn it.”

  “That beats burning alive.”

  “You son of a bitch,” he said, aiming at Eric’s groin. “I’ll shoot you right in the-”

  A loud pop suddenly filled the hangar as a window in the sliding door exploded. My focus had been on McVee’s showdown with Eric, but the strange sensation of a bullet whizzing past my ear shifted my attention right away.

  Those next few moments were a blur, and even though many different things transpired simultaneously, they registered in my mind sequentially. A series of sounds and snapshots nearly overloading my ability to comprehend anything. Tiny bits of the shattered window glistening beneath the lights and falling to the floor. Burn’s head jerking to one side, his black beanie flying through the air. The sound of Ivy’s scream as the hot crimson spray showered her neck and shoulders.

  Both Ivy and Burn tumbled away from the helicopter, and it was all too confusing to know if I had heard a second shot. Ivy hit the concrete first, and Burn landed on top of her. Somewhere in that moment-before or after Ivy’s fall, it was impossible to know which-I heard the clack of Burn’s weapon on the floor. The top of Burn’s skull was missing, a ghastly wound marking his certain death. His body was still moving, but not on its own power. Ivy was pushing out from under his dead weight.

  As if on a sheet of ice, she pivoted on her hip bone, spun her legs around clockwise, and kicked Burn’s weapon in my direction.

  “Michael!” she shouted, as it slid across the concrete.

  I dived to the floor and grasped it.

  And then the lights went out.

  67

  THE EMERGENCY-EXIT LIGHT GLOWED OVER THE DOOR, CASTING A surreal orange-red pall over the chaos. It was hard to know exactly what was going on, if the shooting was over, or if more rounds were coming. Obviously, whoever had fired the sniper shot from outside the building had also cut the power. I had no idea if Ivy had been bluffing about the FBI’s being on its way, but if she wasn’t, a SWAT team should have been busting down the door right about now.

  No one came.

  “Run!” said Ivy.

  I looked up and saw Ivy and her mother racing toward the door beneath the exit light, Ivy’s hands still clasped behind her back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Eric running in the other direction, toward the office. Wald was in pursuit. And I saw McVee raising his weapon and taking aim at Ivy.

  The last time I’d fired a gun I was a fourteen-year-old hell-raiser trying to shoot the NO out of a NO HUNTING sign posted along our dirt-road neighborhood in Loon Lake. My best friend had dared me and loaned me his shotgun. I couldn’t even hit the damn sign. I prayed for better aim with a pistol, squeezing off two quick shots in McVee’s direction. I missed, but it sent McVee diving for cover. Ivy and her mother also dived to the flo
or at the sound of gunfire.

  “Keep running!” I shouted as I sprinted after them.

  I turned and, just for cover, fired another quick shot back at McVee. Ivy and her mother were at least ten steps ahead of me. Olivia hit the door first and pushed it open. She made it out, and Ivy was right behind her. Through the open doorway, I could actually see stars in the night sky. Then I heard one more crack of gunfire.

  I dropped like a stone. The pain in the back of my thigh was somewhere between getting whacked with a hammer and stabbed with a red-hot screwdriver.

  “Michael!” screamed Ivy.

  She was halfway out the door when she stopped. I could see that she was about to turn and come back to get me, though what good she could have done with her hands bound behind her back wasn’t clear. Another shot rang out, and I heard the bullet slam into the wall of painted cinder block behind me.

  “Go!” I shouted, rolling toward the door.

  Two more shots followed, the second skimming off the metal door, missing Ivy by inches. My leg was getting hotter and wetter, and then I saw the blood. Less than I would have expected-clearly no major artery involved. This was a survivable wound, I was sure of it. But I was equally certain that another bullet would finish the job if I didn’t keep moving. The pain and loss of blood was making me light-headed, but I drew on my reserves and kept rolling across the floor in Ivy’s direction.

  Ivy was outside the hangar now, crouched low, hiding behind the door and holding it partly open for me. Bullets continued to skid across the floor, ricocheting off the concrete. I lost track of the number of rounds McVee had fired so far. At most seven, and even with my limited knowledge about firearms, I knew there were plenty of pistols with magazines bigger than that.

  I continued moving toward the door, but my momentum was slowing. My leg was starting to feel numb, and my head clouded up with congestion in places I had never felt congested, as if my entire brain were turning into cotton. Losing consciousness was an immediate possibility.