Money to Burn by James Grippando Page B

to cut it. We’re in a financial crisis. There are people in this firm who are looking to point the finger at someone other than themselves.”
    He meant the structured-products people like Kent Frost. “I know.”
    “Now they’ll say our stock dropped because Eric Volke let his fair-haired boy go on FNN, not because of a twenty-two-billion-dollar subprime nightmare.”
    “Which is ridiculous.”
    “They’ll say it anyway. Michael, you’ve always had your own mind. When we invited you to join management, you bucked company policy and refused to give up your book of business. When subprime started to look ugly, you stepped over division lines and wrote me a damned convincing memo about it. I actually respect all that. But I’m one of the few who does. To some people, you’re just trouble. And now I have to tell those same people that it was my idea to put you on the air.”
    I drew a breath. “I’m sorry.”
    “Me, too. Because I need to know who I can count on.”
    My hand was shaking as I gripped the phone. I’d let him down, but I could make it up to him. I was far less sure about redeeming myself on national television, about ever seeing my money again—or about surviving a second attack in an elevator.
    Stop it. Don’t freak.
    “You can definitely count on me,” I said.
    He paused—and the silence killed me.
    The call ended, and I was back on Broad Street. A crowd had gathered around the FNN boxing ring, and the TV cameras were in position. Bell had already rolled up his shirtsleeves and tied on his boxing gloves. A seven-foot bear waited in the center of the ring.
    “ All righty ,” Bell shouted as he climbed through the ropes. “Let’s see about those bare necessities!”

16
    R UMSEY C OOLIDGE HADN’T SEEN M ICHAEL C ANTELLA IN YEARS . T HE man towering over Rumsey didn’t believe him.
    “I swear,” said Rumsey, his bloodied face pressed to the floor. “I’m telling you the truth, mon.”
    Rumsey had returned to Harbor Island in a rainstorm. A five-day sail in the northern Bahamas had left him exhausted and annoyed at the way customers just didn’t seem to tip their captain the way they used to—as if the weather was his fault. He’d climbed the front steps to his rented town house slowly, thinking only of a good night’s sleep before heading out on another charter in the morning. The sprawling tropical canopy in the front yard shielded him from the falling rain, and even though sunset was almost two hours away, the storm made it feel like night. The door was unlocked, just as he’d left it. Crime wasn’t exactly unheard of in the Bahamas, but something about island living seemed to encourage unlocked doors and open windows, as if to deny, or at least defy, the existence of evil in paradise. Rumsey entered his living room and tried the wall switch. The lights didn’t come on. No great surprise. Power outages were a way of life in his neighborhood, especially during thunderstorms. The hallway was dark, but he could have found the bedroom blindfolded. He dropped his duffel bag on the bed, and as he pulled off his shirt, a blur emerged from the closet. Before he could react, a huge hulk of a man hit him like a freight train and took him down.
    The man was now sitting on Rumsey’s kidneys, the cold metal barrel of a pistol pressing against the back of Rumsey’s skull.
    “I’ll ask you just one more time,” he said. “When was the last time you talked to Michael Cantella?”
    Rumsey coughed nervously, and a little blood came up. At least one rib was broken, he was sure of it. His smashed-in nose was a mess after a face-first collision with the floor.
    “The trip,” he said, grunting. Talk was difficult with the man’s considerable weight pressing down on his internal organs. “It was that trip with him and his girlfriend—wife—who disappeared. We ain’t never talked since then, mon.”
    The gunman rose, and Rumsey could breathe again.
    “Stay right there,” the man