“Get your Wall Street ass in the damn car!”
I jumped in the passenger seat, and the car squealed away.
46
“HOW DID YOU FIND ME?” I ASKED AS I BUCKLED MY SEAT BELT.
“Your brother called me.”
“Kevin called you?”
We were driving toward the East River. “He’s been trying to reach you for hours. Thinks you lost your mind and went looking for Ivy, so he called me.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
She hesitated, then glanced over at me. “Ivy told me.”
I started to speak, but she silenced me. “Don’t ask, Michael.”
I had to push. “For a while, I thought they shot her tonight. I heard the gun go off when she called me.”
“She shot the lock off a church door.”
“What was she doing in-”
She stopped me again with her expression.
A quick turn, and we were soon flying down the FDR Drive, with virtually no traffic. Olivia grabbed a granola bar from the glove and gave it to me. “You must be starving.”
“Thanks,” I said. It was gone in three bites. She gave me another.
“Where are we going?”
“Downtown, to meet your brother. He has a contact at the DTCC.”
“At two o’clock in the morning?”
The Depository Trust Clearing Corporation was on Water Street, just a couple blocks away from the stock exchange. Most people had never heard of the DTCC, but if Wall Street was the stage, the DTCC was backstage. Before the DTCC was formed, brokers physically exchanged certificates to effect a trade. Electronics changed all that, and the DTCC settled the vast majority of securities transactions in the United States, more than $1.86 quadrillion annually-or roughly twenty times the economic output of the entire planet.
How the hell my brother knew that, I had no idea. Sure enough, though, he was right outside the building, waiting for us.
“Tony Girelli’s dead,” I said, and before he could even react I told him everything I had reported to 911. To say that he was overwhelmed by my words was to say that Napoleon was uncomfortable at Waterloo. I stopped short of telling him about Ivy, knowing that would push him over the edge.
“Let’s sort this out after we get what we need here,” he said.
Kevin took us to the back entrance. An extremely nervous DTCC employee was there to let us in. The thought of bringing three people inside after hours made him even more nervous. Olivia agreed to wait in the car.
Kevin introduced the skinny young man with a goatee as Tim Darwood. He skipped right past hello.
“I could lose my job over this,” he said.
“And if not for me,” said Kevin, “your current job would be making license plates. So let’s call it even.”
Darwood led us down the hall toward the security desk. The building was quiet, as to be expected at this hour, and for someone who worked there, Darwood sure did seem to check over his shoulder a lot. This was not his normal work hour, and the jeans and black T-shirt were clearly not his normal work clothes. It was at this point that I noticed the silk-screened image on the back of his cotton tee-Alan Greenspan in flapper drag singing “Tonight I’m Gonna Party Like It’s 1929.”
We passed the elevators and stopped. Two men and two women were checking in with security, and just the sight of them nearly sent Darwood into cardiac arrest.
“In here,” he said, quickly pulling us into the men’s room.
My brother and I stood with our backs to the stalls as Darwood paced furiously before us.
“You are going to get me so fired,” he said, anxiously running a hand through his hair.
“Who were those people at the security desk?” I asked.
“Our lawyers,” he said.
“At two o’clock in the morning?” It was the second time I’d asked that question in the past ten minutes, and this time Olivia wasn’t there to say, “Don’t ask.”
“They’re gearing up for battle,” said Darwood. “With rumors flying that Saxton Silvers is filing for bankruptcy in the morning, everyone’s banging on the door-figuratively, except for you guys-to get whatever information they can about the short sellers.”
“Then I guess we’re not asking for anything out of the ordinary,” said Kevin.
“Give me a break,” said Darwood. “DTC fights to keep that information secret even when we get hit with a subpoena. Why do you think our lawyers are here? If they see me with you, I will lose my job.”
“We’re not on a fishing expedition,” said Kevin. “We want very specific information. Just help us confirm the identity of the offshore corporation that used Michael’s money to go short on Saxton Silvers’ stock.”
Darwood paused, then said, “I can’t do it.”
Kevin’s voice took on an edge. “We agreed that you would.”
“I said I would help, if I could. I can’t.”
Kevin looked at me, as if it were somehow my fault that the guy had changed his mind. I wasn’t sure if he was upset because I wasn’t getting the help I needed or because Darwood had blown Kevin’s opportunity to be the one who gave me that help-a fine distinction that only brothers could understand.
I looked at Darwood and said, “Would it help if I told you that it was a matter of life or death?”
“Cut the bullshit,” said Darwood. The expression on his face was truly pained. I had no way of knowing what attorney-client pressure point Kevin had pushed to get us in the door, but it was obviously tormenting this poor guy.
What would Darwood do if Mr. Burn came calling?
“You guys are looking in the wrong place anyway,” said Darwood.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“People are always blaming the DTC for every problem in the marketplace that could conceivably be caused by short sellers. Wake up, guys. When Saxton Silvers goes down, the really big profit isn’t going to be from short sales.”
“I still don’t know what he’s talking about,” Kevin said to me.
I gave Darwood a careful look. He was sweating, but I sensed he wasn’t lying. In fact, he seemed to be doing his best to help-the faster to get us out of there.
“He’s saying that if we want to know who’s really behind the attack on Saxton Silvers, we need information he doesn’t have access to.”
“Exactly,” said Darwood.
“Who does have it?” asked Kevin.
“Honestly,” said Darwood, “I’m not sure there’s anyone at DTC who can provide it. But if we can, it’s in the Deriv/SERV Warehouse.”
“Deriv what?” my brother said.
“Let’s go, Kevin,” I said.
“Wait. You got an address for that warehouse?”
“It’s a database, not a building. I got all I need. Let’s go.”
Darwood leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on his face. “Please. Go. Before I-”
“I know, I know. Lose your job,” Kevin said.
Darwood made sure the coast was clear, then led us out of the men’s room, down the hall, and to the exit. The glass doors locked automatically behind us.
“Why did you let him off the hook?” Kevin asked me as we headed down the sidewalk.
“Like I said: I have what I need.”
Oliva’s car pulled up at the curb, and again the passenger’s-side door flew open.
“Get in,” she said.
“He’s going home with me,” said Kevin.
“No, he isn’t,” said Olivia.
“He needs to be in my office by nine, and then we have arraignment at eleven.”
“Can’t do that,” said Olivia.
Kevin chuckled. “Thanks for tracking him down. But unless he wants the cops to haul him in wearing handcuffs, he’s leaving with me.”
“Then he’ll never see Ivy.”
Her words chilled me.
“That’s not a threat,” she said. “That’s just a fact.”
Kevin grabbed my arm. “Michael, do not let her push your buttons about Ivy, and do not get in that car.”