“Your lawyers have until three o’clock to lift the hold on my wire transfer,” I said.

“And if the bank lifts it?” she asked.

“Then I’m on the five o’clock flight out of Kennedy,” I said.

Rosalind stepped back, her mouth drawn into a narrow line, and signaled to the lawyer standing by the car door.

He took a black cell phone out of his breast pocket and was dialing before I’d reached the curb.

Nora was already sitting in the corner armchair of the private client suite on the fourth floor of the Bank of New York when I got there at half past three.

The room smelled of polished mahogany and hot espresso and was lit by soft brass lamps instead of overhead tubes.