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for the two of them. Especially since old age was shriveling them up. Watching Fox News in the den with supper prepared by their maid, Delfina, was an evening ritual. Leonard adored her chicken with rice.
    â€œLook. There.” Esther’s forefinger resembled a dog-chewed stick. “I’m quite sure that’s Kenneth in the crowd.”
    An old friend from law school, Kenneth Derrid had roomed with Leonard Adell their senior term. Over the years, they’d kept in touch. Gold-printed holiday cards. Collegial backslapping at charity events. No question: Kenneth had done well. He had a $7 million mansion on Long Island, a Central Park West pied-à-terre in the city, a beachfront condo in Miami, ablinding Rolex that hung heavily on his wrist. Leonard had done well, too. As an attorney who schooled corporations on tax inversion and other legal ways to avoid paying what they owed to the United States, his business was booming for much of his career. His lifelong passion for modern art and architecture had been an expensive hobby he could well afford.
    When Kenneth launched his own hedge fund, he quietly invited Leonard and Esther into his exclusive investment group. They were honored to be regarded so specially. Though Leonard would never be so gauche as to brag, he was heard to remark, “My chum Kenneth is our bank.” Eyes cast floorward like a coquette’s, Leonard would sip Camus Cognac from an etched Fostoria tumbler, his professionally buffed fingernails gleaming.
    For years, the Adells gave the Bank of Kenneth all the cash they didn’t spend on art and the construction of their gallery of a home. He invested their money and made them wealthy. The Adells lived in an obscenely large house made almost entirely of glass, designed by an architect with one name. Like Cher. Or Ludacris. The house sat like a fallen asteroid—glowing and otherworldly—above Mulholland Drive. It had taken so long to build, the architect never got around to updating the creaky pool house down the hill.
    Investing in Kenneth’s fund had been a no-brainer. Only a fool accepted a federally insured interest rate. The Adells’ monthly financial statements were like opening a holiday gift. Many happy returns. Until the night they ate chicken and rice while watching the evening news.
    Leonard looked up from his plate and stopped chewing. Hetried to swallow the masticated rice, but couldn’t. His mouth had gone dry. There, on the television screen—jostled by reporters and jabbed with phallic microphones—was indeed Kenneth Derrid. Their bank. He had the same sappy smile Bernie Madoff had had during his perp walk. Those thin upturned lips made the Adells sick to their stomachs.
    â€œThis can’t be,” Leonard mumbled, mouth full.
    â€œImpossi—” At that moment, both Esther and her husband had no choice but to deposit their bites of supper into their linen napkins.
    It couldn’t be . . . but it was . Kenneth’s hedge fund turned out to be a feeder fund to another fund that had been a sham. Like the Madoff scheme, it had been an elaborate way to enrich brokers with fees while the paper profits reported on their investors’ monthly statements were exactly that: paper. Unbelievably, Leonard Adell—an expert at hidden assets—hadn’t suspected a thing. Frankly, he hadn’t even thought to look closely. How could he be swindled by a friend? A roommate, no less. They’d shared late-night secrets in beer-muddled whispers.
    Up the hill in North Beverly Park, a partner in Leonard’s law firm negotiated a confidential deal: the Adells would be allowed to live in their glass house for the remainder of their lives if they quietly signed over the deed and select works of art to the liquidation trust fund. An original Basquiat paid their legal fees. ( Donated to his law firm, of course, for the tax deduction.)
    The only downside was: when the trustee arrived with