Catherine almost didn’t go downstairs, but then she wanted to see.

She didn’t go into the fishbowl, just lingered outside and watched through the glass. Pleski was bright red and sweating. Armstrong was saying something when Pleski spotted her and interrupted him mid-sentence. He jabbed a fat finger toward Catherine.

“What did she tell you?” Pleski demanded. “Did this come from her?”

Armstrong looked genuinely puzzled. “From Ms. Cole? No. She had nothing to do with this. We only just now received some disturbing reports from American authorities.”

“Who cares? So what? This isn’t America!”

“No, it isn’t. But this is our bank. And we have every right to choose our customers and close any account that doesn’t meet our standards.”

Pleski pointed again at Catherine. “She was very familiar with my account. She had no complaints.”

“Of course not. She took you at face value, like any client. She didn’t have access to the information that recently came to our attention. To my attention.”

Pleski considered. Was this really not her doing? He thought about the people whose money he handled. They were into all kinds of shit. Even he had no idea what. Any of them could have attracted the attention of some cop or regulator, and a money trail could have led from any one of them to him.

Shit.

Armstrong was talking again. “As of this morning, your cash balance was just over four million dollars, as detailed on this statement.” He was holding a sheet of paper. “We’ll have to deal with the securities in the account later. But, for now, you’ll find all the cash here.”

Now? What? Here? Where?

The son of a bitch was pointing to the suitcases.

Pleski was incredulous. “You put four million dollars into two suitcases?”

“A courtesy,” Armstrong said. “It turns out that forty thousand hundred-dollar bills weigh almost ninety pounds. Too much to carry in a single bag.”

Pleski wanted to slug this prick in the face. “I don’t want fucking cash. I’ll give you another bank to wire it to.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s a service we do for account holders only. And your account is closed.”

“What am I supposed to do with ninety pounds of cash?”

Armstrong shrugged. Not his problem.

But it was Pleski’s. He couldn’t feed forty thousand bills into an ATM. Or walk into a bank looking like he’d just robbed a bank. Or cross a border without declaring it. Or declare it, and if anyone had ever snorted a single line of cocaine through one of those bills, there’d be narcotics dogs . . .

Armstrong nodded to the security guys, and each of them picked up one of the bags and they carried them out of the fishbowl and through the lobby to the front door of the bank.

“Jesus fuck,” Pleski said. “Those suitcases don’t even have wheels.”