Need You Now

plaques, honorary degrees, and photographs of him with everyone from the late Charlton Heston to three past presidents. A glass-encased issue of Fortune with his picture on the cover hung on the wall directly over his Bloomberg terminal.

Barber laid the mystery document aside and looked at me from across his desk. I knew I was not going to be fired, since it was corporate policy that at least two BOS representatives be present at the dismissal of any employee. It was a sad state of affairs when termination might well have been less troublesome than the actual purpose of the meeting.

Barber looked at me and said, “Lilly won’t tell us.”

“Tell you what?” I asked.

“Your real name.”

“I don’t know his real name,” said Lilly.

I knew that was a lie, but I took it as a positive sign that, at least in front of Barber, she was pretending not to know that I was a Mandretti.

Barber tightened his stare. “We know your name is not Patrick Lloyd.”

I opted for silence.

“I don’t know who you are,” said Barber, “and I’m guessing that you don’t want me or anyone else to find out.”

I continued to listen, saying nothing.

Barber rose, speaking as he walked to the window. A sea of city lights twinkled across Midtown, most of them below his fiftieth-floor vista. “I’m sure that if I kept digging, I would find out.” He turned away from the view and faced me. “But, frankly, I don’t care who you are.”

I stole a quick glance at Lilly, trying to see if she was as confused as I was, but her gaze was cast at the floor.

Barber stepped away from the window and leaned on the edge of his desk, facing us. “How would the two of you like to help me solve a little problem?”

Lilly said nothing. “Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Great,” he said, rubbing his hands together. His sudden upbeat manner was laden with sarcasm. “Here’s the challenge: we need to find two billion dollars.”

I shot another quick glance in Lilly’s direction, but I got nothing back from her.

“What two billion dollars?” I asked.

“The two billion that was supposed to go to Abe Cushman, but that the Treasury Department seems to think was squirreled away with the help of BOS/Singapore.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said.

“Of course you don’t,” said Barber, his sarcasm even thicker, “and neither does Lilly. That’s why I’m through asking Lilly if she was complicit with you. And I won’t even bother asking if you were complicit with Lilly. In other words, I’m sick and tired of wasting my time.”

He walked around his desk and picked up two large manila envelopes. They’d been hiding beneath the document he’d laid aside earlier.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” said Barber. He handed me one of the envelopes, unopened. I could tell from touch that it contained several CDs or DVDs in jewel boxes.

“Patrick, I’m giving you full access to Lilly’s records for the past three years.” He handed the other sealed envelope to Lilly. “Lilly, I’m giving you complete access to Patrick’s records. Everything you need is there. Trading confirmations, e-mails, electronic data of every form imaginable. I want you to comb through it. Find that money.”

I tried another sideways glance, and this time Lilly looked as confused as I felt. “I’m not sure I follow you, sir,” I said.

“No worries,” he said. “One or both of you knows exactly what I’m talking about. One or both of you knows where the money is. My guess is, only one of you will come forward. The other will probably go to jail.

“Work hard,” he said. “Search your conscience. Do the right thing. At the very least, save your own ass.”

Barber walked to the door. Lilly rose, and I followed. I could see from the way she moved that her stomach was in knots. Stress had always taken a toll on her body, and I was feeling more than responsible for this bout.

“Good luck,” said Barber, showing us out of his office. “You’re going to need it.”

27

L illy walked briskly down the hallway, not quite as if the building were on fire, but almost. There was no wait for an elevator, and it was just two of us inside when the doors closed.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

She kept her eyes fixed on the lighted numbers above the doors. I couldn’t tell if she simply didn’t want to talk while we were still inside the bank or if she hated my guts and never wanted to speak to me again. The range of possibilities seemed that broad.

It was an express ride from the executive suite to the lobby. Lilly got out first, and I nearly had to break into a trot to follow her out of the building. It was the tail end of rush hour, but even a crowded sidewalk didn’t slow her down. I found myself dodging to and fro to avoid head-on collisions with oncoming pedestrians as I pleaded with her.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“You lied to me,” she said, never breaking stride.

“A legal name change for reasons of personal safety is not a lie,” I said. “I’ve been Patrick Lloyd my entire adult life.”

She stopped cold. “I came halfway across the world out of concern for your safety. I told you that the real name of the man who killed Gerry Collins is Tony Mandretti. You acted as if you’d never heard of him. Then you told me you had a business trip, got on a plane, and went to visit him-your father-in prison. That’s a lie.”

I would have liked a killer comeback, but I supposed she was right. “It wasn’t as if I was never going to tell you the truth.”

“That is so lame.” She turned angrily and started down the sidewalk. I took her by the arm, stopping her.

“Let go of me,” she said.

“Lilly, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable? You want me to be reasonable? I had no idea Gerry Collins and Abe Cushman were a fraud. Now, even the Treasury Department thinks I’m hiding billions in dirty money. The bank fired me, thugs are chasing me, and my stomach feels like I swallowed a box of roofing tacks. Mind you, all of this came to pass after you arrived in Singapore.”

“Are you suggesting I had something to do with all that?”

“Are you suggesting you had nothing to do with it?”

If this conversation was going to continue, there was only one way to answer such a broad question: “No, I’m not suggesting any such thing.”

My veracity caught her off guard. Slowly, the anger in her expression transformed into curiosity. We drifted out of the flow of pedestrians, crossed the sidewalk, and took a seat on the lip of a huge granite planter outside the office building. Overhead, a decorative strand of leftover Christmas lights twinkled in the bare branches of a potted maple tree. Our breath steamed in the chilly night air, the blinking lights coloring our little puffs of conversation.

“I’ve made mistakes,” I said, “and I’m sorry you’re the one getting hurt.”

She didn’t answer.

“But,” I said, “there are two sides to the story here.”

“What do you mean by that?”