Catching the Wolf of Wall Street: More Incredible True Stories of Fortunes, Schemes, Parties, and Prison

CHAPTER 7

THE BIRTH OF A SALESMAN

o you just picked up and left,” said the Witch, shaking her head back and forth.

“Yeah,” I said casually, “that's just what I did. And I had all my worldly possessions with me, which amounted to a suitcase full of dirty clothes and the shirt on my back. And, of course, I had the three thousand dollars I'd cleared from my auction.

“In retrospect, it still amazes me how easy it was to pick up and leave Baltimore. My studio was on a month-to-month lease, I had no furniture to speak of, and my financial obligations were basically zero. The only bummer was that I'd be living at home with my parents again, which I can assure you is no picnic. They were still living in the same two-bedroom apartment I grew up in, which was the same apartment I swore I'd leave after I struck it rich.”

I paused and scratched my chin thoughtfully. “In fact, they're still living in the same apartment today, in spite of all the money my father made at Stratton.” I shook my head in amazement. “Can you imagine? I mean, I even offered to buy them a house when things were rolling, but they didn't want to move. I guess you could say they're the ultimate creatures of habit.”

“So how'd you break the news to them?” the Bastard asked impatiently.

“Well, I figured it would be easier if they digested things in small chunks, so, before I left Baltimore, all I told them was that I'd dropped out of dental school; I didn't say that I landed a job as a meat-and-seafood salesman.

“I dropped that bomb on them in the living room, which was where all important conversations took place. My father was sitting in his favorite chair, and my mother was sitting on the couch, reading a book. For some reason, I still remember what book it was— On Death and Dying.” I shrugged. “I don't know; my mother always liked those morbid books. My father, meanwhile, was busy watching his latest cop show and chain-smoking his lungs into complete oblivion.

“I took a seat across from my father and said, ‘I need to talk to you guys for a few minutes.’

“My father looked at my mom, and he said in a slightly annoyed tone, ‘Lee, will you turn down T.J. Hooker for a minute?’ At that, my mother dropped her book and nearly ran over to the wall unit and turned down the Trinitron. That was the relationship between my parents, Mad Max and Saint Leah. The latter spent the better part of her day trying to keep the former from blowing an emotional gasket.

“I said to them, ‘Dentistry is not for me, guys. I gave it a full semester, and I know for sure now that I could never be happy as a dentist.’ That was a lie, of course, although I figured that if I told them that I'd dropped out the first day then they'd really be pissed. Either way, my mother was having none of it.

“ ‘I didn't think you'd be a dentist forever,’ she said. ‘I thought you'd open up a chain of dental clinics one day, or discover a new type of dental procedure. It's still not too late.’

“‘No, Mom; it is too late. I'm not going back,’ and then I looked at my father for support. He was actually better in these situations. He loved a good crisis; they seem to calm him down somehow, even to this day. It was the small stuff that drove him crazy. I said to him, ‘Listen, Dad: I don't want to be a dentist. I want to be a salesman. That's what I'm cut out for, to sell things—’ And my mother popped off the couch and screamed, ‘Oh, my God, Max! Not a salesman! Anything but that!’ Then she turned to me and said, ‘Look what you've done to me already,’ and she lowered her head and pointed to a small patch of gray hair. ‘This is from when you cut tenth grade and smoked marijuana all day with that awful Richard Kushner.’ Then she pointed to a wrinkle on her forehead and added, ‘And this is from when you grew marijuana in the closet and said it was a science project! And now you're dropping out of dental school to become a salesman!’

“I was slowly losing patience with her. With a bit of edge in my tone, I said, ‘I'm not going to dental school, Mom, and that's final!’

“ ‘No, it's not final!’

“ ‘Yes, it is final!’

“And back and forth we went, until, finally, Mad Max stepped in. ‘Will you two stop it!’ he screamed. ‘I mean, Jesus!’ And he shook his head in disbelief. Then he looked at my mother and said, ‘He's not going to dental school, Leah. What's the use?’ And then he looked at me and smiled warmly. With a hint of a British accent, he asked, ‘What type of salesman would you like to be, son? What do you see yourself selling?’”

“Your father's British?” asked OCD. “I didn't know that.” OCD's tone dripped with surprise, as if someone had given him some very bad information.

“No, he's not actually British,” I replied. “He just speaks with a British accent when he's trying to act reasonable. That's my father's other persona: Sir Max. It's his lovable alter ego. See, when Mad Max becomes Sir Max, he puckers up his lips and speaks with a hint of British aristocracy. It's pretty remarkable, actually, considering he's never even visited England.” I turned the corners of my mouth down and shrugged, as if to say, “Some things simply defy logic and aren't worth pondering.” Then I said, “But Sir Max is the best. He never loses his temper. He's totally reasonable in all situations.”

“So what did you tell Sir Max?” asked the Bastard.

“Well, at first I hemmed and hawed a bit—talking about the possibility of selling medical supplies or dental supplies, something that would fit in with my degree. Then, as if it were an afterthought, I brought up the subject of Elliot Loewenstern and meat and seafood. My mother, of course, immediately began torturing me, using her own brand of Jewish guilt, which is your run-of-the-mill Jewish guilt mixed with passive-aggressiveness and sarcasm.

“‘My son, the meat salesman!’ she started muttering. ‘That's just wonderful! He drops out of dental school to peddle meat. A mother should only be so lucky.’ She added a few more choice words, and then the phone started ringing and Sir Max morphed back into Mad Max, and started cursing, ‘That motherfucking goddamn piece-a-shit phone! Who the hell has the gall to call this house on a goddamn Tuesday afternoon? Inconsiderate bastard! The fucking gall!’ And my mother jumped off the couch and ran to the phone like Jesse Owens, as she pled with my father: ‘Calm down, Max! Calm down! I'm getting it—I'm getting it!’ But Mad Max was still mumbling curses under his breath: ‘That rat bastard! Who calls the house on a goddamn Tuesday afternoon?’”

With mock seriousness, I said, “My father really hated it when that phone rang! I'm telling you: Nothing drove him crazier.”

“Why?” asked OCD.

I shrugged. “For the most part, it had to do with my father being resistant to change. He hates it in any shape or form. In fact, for the last thirty-six years he's had the same address, the same phone number, the same dry cleaner, the same auto mechanic—he even has the same Chinese laundry service! And he knows all the owners on a first-name basis, so he'll say things like, ‘Pepe^1* over at the dry cleaner said this, or Wing^2* at the Chinese laundry said that, or Jimmy^* over at the Sunoco station said something else.’ It's totally unbelievable.” I shook my head back and forth, emphasizing the point. “When the phone rings, it brings an unwanted stimulus into his environment, creating the potential for change. Whether the call brings good news or bad news doesn't matter to him; he flips out either way.” I shrugged again, as if this was just another expected happening at Chez Belfort. Then I said, “Now, under normal circumstances, the worst thing my mother can say after she picks up the phone is, ‘Max! It's for you!’ But once Mad Max picks up the phone, he'll become Sir Max again, using his British accent. ‘Oh, how may I help you? Righty-o, then! Cheerio, my friend!’ And he'll stay Sir Max until he hangs up the phone, at which point he'll turn right back into Mad Max again and curse his way back to his chair, then fire up another Merit.

“Anyway, when my mother answered the phone that day, it wasn't for my father. It was for me, and, of all people, it was the Penguin. So my father started muttering, ‘That cocksucking phone! It's always the same with it. And this fucking Penguin character! What rock did he crawl out from underneath? That stupid Penguin, waddling fool

By now we were all in hysterics. The Bastard recovered first. “So did Mad Max go ballistic about the meat business?”

“Not at all,” I replied. “The moment I hung up, I told them I'd landed a job as a meat-and-seafood salesman, which caused Saint Leah to start flipping out, which then caused Sir Max to reemerge.” I paused for a moment, then said, “No, my problems didn't start until the next morning, when the Penguin pulled up in front of my building in his company vehicle, which turned out to be a Toyota pickup truck. ‘What the fuck is that?’ I snapped. ‘Don't tell me this is the company vehicle you were talking about!’

“ ‘Yeah, ain't she a beaut?’ he replied, and then he popped out of the truck, dressed in jeans and sneakers, and he waddled over and put his arm on my shoulder. Then he stared at the truck and said, ‘Whaddaya think?’

“‘It's a real piece-a-shit!’ I snarled, and then I noticed a big white freezer box on the back on the truck. ‘What the fuck is that, Penguin? It looks like a coffin!’ I saw a trail of gray dry-ice smoke rising up from out of one of the corners of the box. ‘And what the fuck is that?’ I said, pointing to the smoke.

“Elliot flashed me a knowing smile, then he held up an index finger and said, ‘Here! I'll show you,’ and he went waddling over to the passenger side and opened the lid of the freezer box. ‘Check out the food,’ he chirped proudly, and he started pulling out boxes, one by one, and showing me the food. Each box was the size of an attaché case, and it had a different cut of meat in it or a different type of fish. And there was everything—filet mignon, shrimp, lobster tails, lamb chops, pork chops, veal chops, fillet of sole, salmon steaks, crab legs. He even had prepared foods, like chicken Kiev and chicken cordon bleu. I'd never seen anything like it.

“By the time he was done, we were literally surrounded by more than two dozen boxes, and I was more confused than ever. There was something bothering me, but I couldn't place my finger on it. ‘How do we get the restaurants to buy from us?’ I asked. ‘Are our prices cheaper? Do we have better food?’

“The Penguin looked at me deadpan and said, ‘Who said anything about selling to restaurants?’”

I looked at the Bastard and shook my head. With a hint of a chuckle, I said, “I think I knew everything right then and there, and all that came afterward was merely incidental. When I didn't run back upstairs and reapply to dental school, I sealed my fate.” I shrugged. “The next decade of my life—meaning, the very insanity of Stratton Oakmont—was now a foregone conclusion.”

The Bastard leaned forward in his seat, obviously intrigued. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. “Well, let's just say that, right then and there, I knew what I was getting myself involved in. I knew it was a”—I avoided using the word scam, not only because the meat-and-seafood business wasn't an outright scam but also because I didn't want my captors thinking of me as a career scam artist. Better they should view Stratton as a blip in an otherwise semi-law-abiding life—”bit of a hustle,” I said carefully. “Or maybe even more than a bit. But I figured, since the food was so good, how much harm could I cause?”

I shrugged at my own rationalization. “Anyway, it was about a twenty-minute ride to the warehouse, and on the way Elliot explained the ins and outs to me. Everything was being sold door to door, either to homes or to businesses but never to restaurants. The food wasn't priced that way. ‘We sell at retail, not wholesale,’ the Penguin informed me. And while he didn't come right out and say it, he inferred that our prices weren't cheap. ‘It's all about convenience,’ he kept chirping. ‘We deliver restaurant-quality food right to their door. And we'll even pack their freezers for them!’ He kept repeating the last part, even called himself a professional freezer packer, as if that made up for the fact that he was overcharging everyone.

“Whether it did or didn't, by the time we reached the warehouse I had a pretty good idea of what was going on at Great American Meat and Seafood: There were no territories, no brochures, no existing customers to service, no salary of any kind; it was straight commission. ‘We're cold-calling machines,’ he chirped, as we pulled into the warehouse. ‘That's why we make so much money.’

“My job interview took place inside a ramshackle office at the front of the warehouse. It lasted eight and a half seconds, at which point I was hired. I hadn't heard of the mirror test back then, so I just assumed that I'd gotten the job because I was a friend of Elliot's. I didn't know they'd hire anyone with a pulse.” I shrugged innocently. “And then came the training program, which consisted of two days in a truck with Elliot. I sat in the passenger seat, observing, as he drove around aimlessly, knocking on people's doors, trying to sell the food. The rap he used was that he was a truck driver who had an overorder on his truck, and he couldn't get back to the freezer; so he was willing to sell everything at cost, lest the food thaw out and he lose everything.

“And, to support his claim, each box had an inflated price marked on it. As he was selling, he would point to the prices and say, ‘I'll take fifteen dollars off this box, and fifteen dollars off that box…’ and then he'd smile at his customer and add, ‘Hey, I'd rather sell everything at cost than let the food thaw out, right?’”

“He was outright lying to his customers!” snapped the Witch.

I smiled inwardly. “Yes, Michele, he was outright lying to his customers. And I'll tell you that it definitely shocked me at first. It seemed totally sleazy, what he was doing. Totally slimy. But, of course, the Penguin had a rationalization for it. In fact, he had rationalizations for everything.

“We were somewhere on the South Shore of Long Island when I broached the subject with him. Elliot was behind the wheel, searching for ‘virgin territory,’ which was Penguinspeak for a neighborhood where no one had heard the pitch before. It was early afternoon, and I'd seen him do his spiel about half a dozen times so far, although he hadn't sold a box yet. I said to him, ‘I can't believe what a scam this is, Elliot. Are you sure this is even legal?’

“Elliot looked at me as if I'd just fallen off a turnip truck and said, ‘Look who's talking, you fucking hypocrite! Aren't you the guy who used to pinch the bottom of the ices cup to get extra scoops out of the barrel?’ And he expelled a gust of air. ‘This is no different, pal. Besides, people can't even get this food in the supermarket.’

“I shook my head and said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I understand that the food is great and everything, and I'm really happy about that, but it doesn't change the fact that you're a lying sack of shit!’ I paused for a moment, then added, ‘And as far as my pinching the bottom of the ices cup, I only did it because the cups were stacked upside down. So when I picked one up, it got pinched automatically.’

“ ‘Yeah, sure,’ chirped the Penguin. ‘It was all an accident. You could've stacked the cups right side up. No?’ He rolled his eyes at me. ‘Anyway, what I'm doing with the prices goes on everywhere. Seriously. Just walk into any jewelry store or electronics store and check it out yourself. Everyone does this shit.’”

I paused, letting Elliot's words hang in the air. Then I said, “There's no denying that he had a point. You see it in jewelry stores all the time: They inflate their price tags and then mark things down right in front of you so you think you're getting a good deal.” I paused again, then: “And all this business about an overorder isn't much different than all those stores you see advertising ‘ going-out-of-business sales.’ Most of them have been advertising the same going-out-of-business sale for the last ten years, and in ten more years they'll still be going out of business!”

I took a deep breath and continued: “Anyway, we spent most of the first day working middle-class neighborhoods, knocking on people's doors and ringing their bells. And the rejection was absolutely staggering. Doors were being slammed in our faces left and right, with people telling us to basically drop dead. By two o'clock, Elliot was getting negative. He started whining to me, ‘Nobody wants the food today.’” I shook my head and let out a few chuckles. “It was sad to see. I mean, the poor bastard was on the verge of tears! At the beach, everyone loved us; we were almost like celebrities there. But here we were being treated like lepers.

“Still, the Penguin somehow managed to unload twelve boxes that day, and the next day he unloaded sixteen.” I nodded slowly, still impressed at his persistence. “One thing I can tell you about the Penguin is that he's a relentless bastard. He kept waddling from door to door, knocking and knocking until his knuckles were bleeding, even as he snuffled back the tears. But he was averaging three hundred dollars a day in commission, so it was worth a few tears. I mean, that was a lot of money back then, especially to a kid who'd just dropped out of dental school. So, fuck it, I thought. In spite of knowing it was a little bit of a hustle, I figured I'd give it a whirl.”

I paused and looked at OCD. “You wanna guess what happened next?”

OCD smiled and shook his head a few times. “I could only imagine.”

“Actually,” I said, “you probably couldn't, because no one at the Great American could. You see, since price seemed to be everyone's biggest objection, I figured, why not try selling to rich people? Or, better yet, to rich people I knew. The problem was that I didn't really know any rich people—except for the father of my girlfriend from college, David Russell. But that was a sticky situation, because he and his wife had just gotten separated and I didn't know where he was living. She, I knew, was still living in the mansion up in Westchester, but I couldn't just go knocking on her door. She never really liked me, although I can't imagine why.” I looked at the Witch and said, “What's not to like, Michele, right?”

The Witch didn't speak or smile; she simply raised her thin left eyebrow high on her forehead, as if to say, “Are you fucking kidding me?” I shrugged and said, “Well, I guess she had her reasons. But, that aside, I did the next best thing and went to her next-door neighbor.” I nodded a single time, implying the righteousness of my decision. “Yes,” I said proudly, “I pulled my Toyota pickup truck right up to her neighbor's enormous front door and hopped out and started knocking. I remember it like it was yesterday. The house was an enormous white colonial with forest-green shutters; and the front door was bigger than the one that led into the Emerald City. It was painted barn red and had a thousand coats of lacquer on it. And I kept rapping on it until, finally, after a minute, a kind-looking sixtyish woman, with gray hair and granny glasses, came to the door and said, ‘Can I help you, young man?’

“I offered her a sad smile and said, ‘Maybe you can, ma'am. My name is Jordan, and I deliver meat and seafood to some of your neighbors in the area. I have an overorder on my truck today, and I can't get back to the freezer. I'm willing to sell you everything at cost.’ I flashed her my big blue puppy-dog eyes and added, ‘Is there any way you can help me out, ma'am?’

“She stared at me for a few seconds, and then, in a tone ripe with skepticism, she said, ‘Which neighbors do you deliver to?’ Without missing a beat I answered, ‘To the Russells next door.’ Suddenly it occurred to me that she might actually call over there, so I quickly added, ‘Actually, it was to Mr. Russell—to David, as he liked to be called,’ and then I compressed my lips and nodded sadly. ‘But, you know, with all that's going on over there with the divorce, they haven't been buying much meat lately.’

“The woman was very sympathetic to that, so her tone immediately softened. ‘I can only imagine,’ she said sadly. ‘It's a terrible thing, divorce.’ Then, suddenly, she perked up and asked, ‘Well, what do you have on the truck today?’ I lifted an index finger and said, ‘Hold on, I'll be right back,’ and I ran out to the truck, grabbed one of everything, and came lumbering back with a dozen boxes. I had them stacked twelve high, towering a foot over my head.

“When I reached the front door, the woman said, ‘It's freezing outside; why don't you bring those into the foyer?’ She motioned toward a gray marble foyer that was big enough to land a plane in. ‘Uh, um, thank you,’ I said, letting out a couple of obvious grunts and groans. ‘These boxes are really heavy.’ Then, as I walked past her, I added, ‘You're right about it being freezing outside; it's absolutely brutal!’ And I dropped down to my knees and let the boxes hit the gray marble floor with an exaggerated thud.” I paused and took a moment to regard my captors.

They seemed shocked more than disgusted over the wonderful string of fibs I had told this kind old woman. What they had no idea of, though, was that the greatest fibs were yet to come. Of course, I knew I shouldn't plunge into the gory details of how I had convinced this kind old woman to buy all forty boxes of meat on the truck. This wasn't the sort of thing that my captors would respect, but I just couldn't seem to stop myself. I was getting an irrational joy by flashing back to the days when I was still a budding salesman. Besides, while I was busy talking about the past, I had no time to focus on the present, which is to say, the grim reality that had become my life. So I soldiered on, with relish.

“Well, I gotta tell you,” I said with a bit of cockiness slipping out around the edges, “there are only a handful of defining moments in a young man's life, moments where something so extraordinary happens that he knows things will never be the same again.” I paused for effect. “And this was one of them. I'd hustled ices on the beach before, but that wasn't really selling; it was more about working hard and having the desire to succeed. And even my little auction at dental school wasn't really salesmanship, although it was definitely one step closer.

“But when I looked up at this kind woman's smiling face, well”—I added a hint of the supernatural to my tone—”a strange feeling washed over me, almost magical, in fact. It was as if I knew exactly what this woman needed to hear—or, better yet, exactly what I needed to say to her to convince her to buy everything.

“I opened the first box and raised my palm toward twelve beautiful filet mignons, each individually wrapped in clear plastic. ‘Black Angus filet mignons,’ I said proudly, ‘inch and a half thick. They've been flash-frozen and Cryovac-ed to near perfection; they'll last up to twelve months in your freezer, ma'am.’ I nodded proudly, shocked at how easily the bullshit was rolling off my tongue. ‘Restaurants broil these for seven minutes on each side and then serve them with béarnaise sauce.’ Then I looked her right in the eye and said with the utmost conviction, ‘They're so tender you can cut them with a plastic fork.’ Then I moved the box to the side and went on to the next one. ‘South African lobster tails,’ I declared. ‘Split them down the back, brush them with butter and garlic, and twenty minutes later you got yourself a surf and turf

“And I went on and on, spitting out a little rap about each product and then saying I had three of these on the truck or four of those on the truck. Finally, when all the boxes were open and we were literally surrounded by meat and fish, I pointed to the prices and said, ‘I'll take fifteen dollars off each box, which is my absolute cost. Believe me, you can't even get this food in the supermarket! That's how good it is.’

“After a few moments she said, ‘Well, I'd love to help you. I mean, you seem like such a nice young boy. But it's only my husband and me. I wouldn't have use for so much food.’ She thought for a second then said, ‘Besides, I hardly have any room in my freezer.’ She shrugged sadly. ‘I'm very sorry.’

“I looked up at her and nodded slowly. ‘I totally understand that, but let me say this: I happen to be a professional freezer packer, and I'm willing to bet I can shuffle things around a bit, maybe even clean things up in the process. And not only will I pack your freezer for you, but I'm also willing to walk your dog and mop your floor and mow your front lawn and paint your house’—I raised both my palms toward her—‘not that it needs it or anything, but what I'm trying to say is that I'll do whatever it takes to sell the food today.’ I compressed my lips for effect. ‘See, if my food ends up thawing out, I might lose my job, and I can't afford for that to happen. I'm trying to put myself through college.’ Suddenly a wonderful thought came bubbling up into my brain. I bit my lower lip and said, ‘Do you have grandchildren, by any chance?’

“Well, the woman fairly beamed at the question. I think I made her day, in fact. ‘Oh, yes,’ she answered with a smile. ‘I have five of them; they're very wonderful.’ I smiled and said, ‘I'm sure they're very precious. So why not throw a great big barbecue for them? It would be a terrific excuse to get the whole family together. And then you can tell everyone about this nice young boy who came by and sold you all this wonderful food! You can even give them doggie bags to bring home.’ I raised my eyebrows and nodded eagerly. ‘In fact, I'll even deliver the food to them! Just call me back, and I'll come by with my truck.’

“She mulled it over for a few seconds, then said, ‘Okay; I have an extra freezer in the garage. You can put it in there.’

“ ‘Oh, my God,’ I declared. ‘Thank you so much, ma'am. You saved my life! What would you like? I have all sorts of prepared foods too. I have chicken Kiev, chicken cordon bleu, crab thermidor, which happens to be especially delicious,’ and it also happens to be my highest markup item, I thought.

“The woman smiled at me and said, ‘I guess I'll take everything. I mean, I wouldn't want you to lose your job, right?’”

I paused and leaned back in my seat and stared at the Bastard. “And that's how simple it was. She bought the whole fucking truck from me right on the spot!” I shrugged my shoulders. “Of course, I felt a bit guilty about having lied to the woman, but the food, well, it was top-notch, not to mention the fact that I'd single-handedly inspired her to throw a family reunion. So it was all good, right?”

“Yeah, it was all good,” snarled the Bastard.

I ignored his sarcasm. “Right, it was all good. In fact, it was so good that my first week on the job I sold two hundred and forty boxes—which was more than twice the company record. And that was how it started. From there, a bizarre chain of events led me into the stock market and then to Stratton. Let me take them in order.”

The Bastard nodded a single time. “Please do.”

I nodded back. “It started with the Great American office. It was as if the entire sales force suddenly caught fire. Everyone's production doubled, some even tripled. It was as if I'd raised the bar or opened a new realm of possibility as to how much money could be made if you worked hard and sold the right way. Within a week, the manager came to me and asked if I'd help train the new salesmen. The manager was P. J. Cammarata. He kept saying, ‘You pumped up the office, Jordan. It's pumped beyond belief now…’ and blah, blah, blah. He kept going on about how the pump was everything.” I paused, shocked at how clear my memory of this was. “In retrospect, it was the only intelligent thing he ever said. See, the pump is crucial; without it, a sales force withers away and dies quicker than you can imagine.”

“So you agreed to train the salesmen?” asked the Bastard.

“Yes, but for selfish reasons. I was already planning on starting my own company; it was only a question of when. I figured I'd buy my own truck, go down to the meat market, and make the wholesale markup too. It's what I had done at the beach all those years, and it'd worked like a charm.” I shrugged. “So I began to train the salesmen and quickly realized that I had a knack for it. In fact, I was so good at it that I could take virtually any kid off the street and turn him into a meat salesman.

“A few weeks after that, P.J. asked me if I would give a sales meeting to the office, to take the pump to the next level.” I paused, thinking back for a moment. “It's rather ironic that it would be a dimwit like P.J., with his dirty jeans and tan Members Only jacket, who would instigate one of the defining moments of my life. See, above all, it's my ability to speak before the crowd-giving sales meetings to the Strattonites—that was at the heart of my success. It's what kept the pump going all those years, despite all the regulatory problems we were having.”

“The meetings?” the Bastard asked open-endedly.

“Yes, the meetings. It's what separates—or, should I say, separated—Stratton from every other brokerage firm in America. Twice a day I would stand before the boardroom and preach to the brokers. No one on Wall Street had done that before. Occasionally a brokerage firm would bring in a guest speaker—someone like an Anthony Robbins type—but it was always a one-shot deal, not as part of a program. And that's a complete waste of time, to do it once. If you want results, you have to do it every day; and if you really want results, you have to do it twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Then miracles can happen.

“But, of course, I wasn't aware of that back in my Great American days… although I will tell you that the first meeting I gave was a real eye-opener. It took place inside the warehouse, in Forest Hills, Queens. There were twenty salesmen there, most of them in their early thirties. They were all dressed in jeans and sneakers, trying to look like truck drivers. They were gathered around in a circle, and I was standing at the center. At first I started speaking slowly, talking about the quality of the food, how amazing it was, how there was nothing else like it, and how lucky our customers were to have access to it. In hindsight, I was laying the foundation for a cult, although back then I was doing it without even knowing it. And the fact that—”

OCD held up his hand. “What do you mean, ‘laying the foundation for a cult’?”

I looked at OCD and said, “Let me put it this way: At the heart of any cult—whether it's Stratton Oakmont or Great American or those crazy Branch Davidians from Waco, Texas—is the fundamental belief that, in spite of what the rest of the world might be saying about them, everyone else is crazy and they're sane. And, without exception, it always starts with a belief in the justness of their cause. With Muslim extremists it's a warped interpretation of the Koran; with the Branch Davidians it's a warped interpretation of the Bible; and at Stratton it was the boardroom itself, the great equalizer in an otherwise unfair world. In other words, it didn't matter what family you were born into or how limited your education was or how low your IQ was; once you stepped into the Stratton boardroom, all that was behind you. You became equalized; you could make as much money as the most powerful CEO in America.” I shrugged my shoulders, as if this were basic stuff.

“All cults draw their power by advancing a concept like that— that they have some sort of one-up on the world. With Great American it was having food you couldn't get in the supermarket, and with Stratton it was the promise of becoming rich, in spite of the fact that you were a high school dropout who deserved to be working the checkout line at Seven-Eleven.” I chuckled ironically. “That's why I said before, ‘Give them to me young and stupid, young and naive.’ Because they make much better cult members.

“Anyway—back to my first meeting—after a few minutes of selling the salesmen on how great the food was, the words began gushing out in torrents. Perfect strings of thoughts came pouring out of my mouth. Before I knew it, I was literally preaching, going on and on in intimate detail about things that had never even occurred to me before. Yet I still sounded like I was the world's foremost expert on them: things like the difference between winners and losers, and the power of positive thinking, and being the master of your own destiny.

“Then I started getting technical, and I plunged into the art of selling—explaining how to open and close a sale; how to modulate the speed and tone of your voice to keep people interested; and the importance of being relentless, of not taking no for an answer and knocking on doors until their knuckles bled. ‘You owe it to yourselves!’ I said to them. ‘You owe it to yourselves, you owe it to your families, and, most importantly, you owe it to the people whose doors you're knocking on, because the food is so amazing that every last person who buys from you will be eternally grateful!’

“I can't overstimate how baffled I was at my own ability to speak like this. It was completely effortless; and the gratification was instant. I could see it in the eyes of every salesman there. They loved it, and they loved me. And the longer I spoke, the more they loved me.

“Over time, I found that giving meetings filled a hole inside me. It was simply the most amazing feeling ever; you can't even begin to imagine.” I smiled sadly at the memory. “But, of course, like everything else, I became desensitized to it. Eventually, even at the height of Stratton, when I was giving meetings to a football field full of brokers, I no longer got the same rush from it. So the hole grew larger.” I paused, letting the implications of that sink in. Then I said, “So I turned to other things, like drugs and sex and living life on the edge. By the early nineties the word on Wall Street was that I had a death wish. But I never looked at it that way: I thought I was living life as it unfolded; putting one foot in front of the other and walking down a preordained path. But the path turned out to be the path to my own destruction, and it was being laid down by my own actions.”

No responses. The debriefing room was dead silent now. In fact, you could have heard a pin drop. I continued with my tale: “I still remember the looks on the salesmen's faces as if it were yesterday. But the face that sticks out most is Elliot's. He was totally mesmerized. He looked like he was getting ready to run out of the warehouse right that second and start knocking on doors. That's how much the meeting affected him, and that's how much it affected our relationship. You see, before that, we considered each other equals, but after the meeting we had a silent understanding that I would be the one calling the shots now.

“It was maybe two weeks later when I approached him with the idea of opening up our own meat-and-seafood company. ‘Why pay Great American twenty dollars a box,’ I said, ‘when we can go down to the meat market ourselves?’

“But the Penguin was so brainwashed, he actually said, ‘But what about the food? Where are we gonna get food as good as Great American's?’”

I chuckled at the memory. “Can you imagine? I mean, this guy was so brainwashed that he'd actually convinced himself that Great American's food was so good that he couldn't go door to door without it. It was almost laughable. I mean, yeah, their food was good, but it was only good; it wasn't great! The steaks were choice, not prime, and the fish was frozen, not fresh. So I had to deprogram the Penguin from the Great American cult.

“I let him down easy—sort of. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you, Penguin? The food is just average, for Chrissake! So get a fucking grip.’ Then I smiled at him warmly and said, ‘Listen, we'll find even better steaks than Great American, and we'll find fresher fish too. Then we'll hire salesmen of our own—to go door to door for us—and then we'll get rich!’

“That's how Elliot and I got into the meat-and-seafood business. And we had the perfect plan: It was almost summertime, so we would sell ices during the day and tie up all the loose ends of our business venture at night. And with the money from the beach, we'd finance our meat-and-seafood company. We even brought in another beach vendor to partner up with us, our friend Paul Burton.” I motioned to my list again. “He's on there too,” I said casually. “Paul was living with his mother at the time, in a big white house in Douglaston, Queens, and, by coincidence, the house had a big backyard, just perfect for a meat-and-seafood company. Or so we thought.

“See, despite Douglaston being a very upscale neighborhood, Paul's house was a shithole. His mother had gotten it in a divorce, about twenty years earlier, and she hadn't put a dime into it since. It was almost like a haunted house now, and the backyard was no better. It had a freestanding garage surrounded by nothing but dirt, about a half acre of it.” I smiled nostalgically. “Still, it was absolutely perfect for us. We were budding entrepreneurs, and starting out of a garage seemed very romantic. I mean, that's how Steve Jobs and Michael Dell started. Or maybe it was from out of their dorm rooms. Either way, that was how the Penguin and I financed ourselves: Billionaires of Tomorrow!

“In fact, we even went to see an accountant to make sure we hadn't missed anything!” I shrugged innocently. “And that's where the problems started. He was a referral from Elliot's father, who's a Hasidic Jew. The accountant was also a Hasidic Jew, and apparently he had as much experience with the meat-and-seafood industry as he did with eating pork chops. And after we explained our business plan to him, he smiled and said, ‘Well, it sounds like you two are going to make a fortune together. Mazel tov!’ And then, for good measure, he added, ‘You're going to be very rich young men soon; very, very rich.’

“Well, what was there to say to that? Elliot and I took his words to mean that we were in desperate need of tax write-offs. In fact, we went straight from the accountant's office right to the Palm restaurant, where we spent four hundred fifty dollars on champagne and lobster. Then we leased ourselves two sports cars: I leased a Porsche and the Penguin leased a Lincoln Continental.” I rolled my eyes at the Penguin's choice of automobile. “Then we got ourselves cell phones, despite the fact that, back then, cellular service was so ridiculously expensive that only a CEO of a Fortune Five Hundred company would dare own one.

“Still, it all made perfect sense to us: We were enterpreneurs, after all, which to our way of thinking entitled us to a few things. And with all the money we were saving by starting out in Paul's backyard, we'd earned the right to lavish ourselves with a few basic luxuries. Then came opening day, September twenty-sixth, 1985. It seemed like as good a day as any to open up a meat-and-seafood company—although Mother Nature begged to differ. Or at least that's what I surmised when Hurricane Gloria came smashing into Long Island and the eye passed right over Paul's backyard. In fact, she dumped what amounted to thirty-two inches of rain on the backyard, because it happened to be at the bottom of four converging hills. And just like that, our little meat-and-seafood company became a gigantic fucking mud pit.” I shook my head in amazement. “We were out of business before we even started.”

“You never opened?” the Bastard said skeptically. “But in the Forbes article—”

The Witch cut off the Bastard. “According to Forbes you were in business for quite some time.” She cocked her head to the side and stared at me accusingly.

OCD shook his head. “I don't think he meant literally, Michele.”

“Greg's right,” I said, trying not to make enemies with the Witch. “Although, on a separate note, I will tell you that agreeing to the Forbes interview was one the biggest mistakes of my adult life. I was only twenty-eight, though, so I was a bit naive back then.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I thought I'd get a chance to tell my side of the story, to set the record straight. Stratton had been in business for only two years, so no one had even heard of us. But the woman who interviewed me stuck a tomahawk in my back, coining me a twisted version of Robin Hood, who robs from the rich and gives to himself and his merry band of brokers.“ I grimaced at the memory. “It was a nightmare, that article. A total fucking nightmare.”

“You lose brokers over it?” asked the Bastard.

“No,” I answered quickly, “the brokers loved bad press, especially that article. In fact, the day after it hit they came to work dressed in medieval garb, and they were running around screaming, ‘We're your merry band! We're your band!’” I chuckled at the memory. “What bothered me about the article, though, was the picture of me they used. It was horrendous.”

OCD smiled devilishly. “You mean the one with you standing next to the rusty drainpipe?” He let out an ironic chuckle. The Mormon added, “Yeah, the one where you have an evil smile!”

I shook my head in disgust. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “The rusty drainpipe, as if Stratton were going down the drain. I know all about it. The Forbes photographer fucked me over with that one; first he tricked me into going up to the roof, and then he casually asked me to stand next to the drainpipe.” I rolled my eyes. “I didn't notice it at the time, because I was too busy worrying about my hair as he snapped a thousand and one pictures, waiting until he caught me at just the right moment, when I had this shit-eating grin on my face. And that was the picture they used.” I shook my head at my own naïveté. “And, of course, the article poked fun at my meat-and-seafood days—point being that I had no business being in the world of high finance, that I was a lowly meat salesman and nothing more. In fact, the title of the article was ‘Steaks, Stocks, What's the Difference?’”

I looked at the Witch and said, “But you happen to be right, Michele. As the article pointed out, we did stay in business for a while, although I wouldn't actually categorize it as being in business; it was more like playing catch-up ball or chasing your own tail.” I thought back for a moment. “After the hurricane was gone, Paul's backyard was submerged under three feet of water. We spent the next two weeks digging ourselves out of the mud; then, out of nowhere, the backyard turned into a sinkhole and everything began to collapse—starting with the garage, then the patio, and then, eventually, the house itself. We called in a geologist to see if the house was on a previously unknown fault line, but it wasn't.

“And we had other problems too. We'd bought a used freezer trailer—as old as the hills—figuring we could save a few bucks. But it was wildly inefficient and sucked enough power to electrify New Jersey. And, of course, the wiring in Paul's house couldn't handle the amperage”—I searched my memory for a moment—”and I think it was in early December when we nearly burned Paul's house down.” I shrugged innocently. “That's when his mother came marching into the backyard, with a rope tied around her waist so she wouldn't sink into the center of the earth, and she screamed, ‘Get the fuck out! And take those stupid pickup trucks with you!’”

I smiled at the memory. “But Paul's mother was a kind woman, and she gave us a full month to find a new warehouse. That seemed pretty reasonable at the time, although it turned out to be easier said than done. We had no credit history, and our balance sheet was a disaster, so all the better landlords rejected us.

“There were six of us at that point: Elliot, Paul, and me, and our three employees, starting with big Frank Bua, who at six foot five was the spitting image of the Gerber baby with a beard; then tiny George Barbella, who stood two inches above midget status and looked like the devil himself; and then we had an intractable steriod-head named Chucky Jones,^* who looked like the Norse god Thor. He was only five foot four, though, so he looked like Thor after he'd been squashed.

“Not surprisingly, each of our employees had a serious dysfunction, although, in Frank's case, it had more to do with his wife. She had a rare disease called alopecia totalis, which had caused all of her hair to fall out, even her eyebrows and eyelashes. She looked like a female Yul Brenner. George Barbella's dysfunction was that he was completely obsessed with the food, even more so than Elliot. He used to walk around complaining how our shrimps had been glazed with water, to add weight to them. ‘When my customers cook them,’ he'd moan, ‘they turn from jumbos into micros.’” I shrugged innocently. “But glazing was standard industry procedure, so it wasn't my fault. Anyway, what he really should've been concerned about was the food smelling like kerosene.”

The Bastard recoiled in his seat. “The food smelled like kerosene?”

“Sometimes,” I replied. “Paul's garage didn't have any heat, and by the time December rolled around we were nearly freezing to death. So we bought this giant kerosene heater, which looked like a torpedo on wheels. It did a fine job heating the place, although the thing burned hotter than the sun and was noisier than an F-15 on afterburners. And every so often it would misfire—belching out a thick cloud of smoke, which got on the food. Still, it was better than freezing to death.” I paused, taking a sip of water. “And then there was Chucky's dysfunction, which was, among other things, pulling his pants down in the garage and injecting himself in the ass with testosterone. But on the bright side, he had a terrific sense of humor and gave each of us nicknames: Frank Bua was the Gerber Baby; George Barbella was Tattoo, named after the midget from Fantasy Island; and Paul Burton was Cinema Head, because he had an enormous forehead, which, according to Chucky, was large enough to project a movie on.”

They already knew Elliot's nickname. I was about to offer up mine when OCD smiled and said, “Elliot was the Penguin. What was your nickname?” He narrowed his eyes shrewdly. “Let me guess: You were Napoleon, right?”

Fucking asshole! I thought. The Duchess used to call me Napoleon when she was trying to annoy me! She even made me dress up as that little bastard for Halloween once. Had OCD heard about that? I mean, was it really that obvious to everyone that I had a Napoleon complex? Or had he just guessed? Well, it didn't really matter.

I was about to tell OCD to fuck off when the Mormon saved me the trouble. “Look who's talking!” snapped the Mormon, and he started chuckling, as did the Witch and the Bastard. The unspoken message was: OCD and the Wolf of Wall Street both have Napoleon complexes! Magnum, however, hadn't laughed, refusing to mock another man's stature; after all, he was the size of two full-grown men, and to make fun of a pint-size one would have been inappropriate.

Before OCD had a chance to pull his gun on the Mormon, I said to him, “You're partially right, Greg, at least about Elliot. But his nickname wasn't just the Penguin; it was the Suicidal Penguin. See, we were already on the verge of bankruptcy by then, and Elliot was on the verge of suicide. So Chucky used to waddle around the office with his index finger to his temple and his thumb sticking up, as if he were getting ready to blow his own brains out. ‘Hi, I'm the Suicidal Penguin,’ he'd chirp, ‘and I deliver meat and seafood to local restaurants. I have an overorder on my truck and can't get back to the freezer,’ and he'd keep saying it over and over again, as he waddled around the garage, flapping his arms like a migrating penguin. ‘Help me! Help me!’ he'd chirp. ‘Hurricane Gloria pissed all over me and the kerosene heater is suffocating me and the Gerber Baby's wife looks like a space alien and Cinema Head's mother is closing down our movie theater and…’” I started chuckling. “He was really something else, Chucky, and then, one day-poof!—he was gone. Vanished like a fart in the wind. It turned out he was robbing liquor stores at night. Last I heard of him was when two NYPD detectives came by the garage, trying to ascertain his last-known whereabouts. He's probably dead by now, either that or he's doing stand-up comedy somewhere.”

“So what was your nickname?” asked the Witch, compressing her thin lips until they all but disappeared. I smiled and said, “I got off easy, Michele. Chucky called me J.P., which was short for J. P. Morgan. See, Chucky never made fun of me. He believed in me, and he loved the meetings. After each meeting he would pull me aside and say, ‘What the fuck are you doing with this business? It's beneath you. You're the sharpest guy I know, J.P….’ And he'd tell me to cut Cinema Head and the Penguin loose. ‘They're holding you back,’ he'd say. ‘You're J. P. Morgan, and they're smalltime bunko artists.’” I paused, thinking back on his advice. “He happened to be right on target with Paul; he was much too lazy to sell door to door. And he was also right about our company; going door to door with a pickup truck was a fool's errand, totally fucking ludicrous.

“But he was wrong about Elliot. The Penguin was a winner, in the truest sense of the word. No one worked harder than him, and he was completely loyal to me. We would go on to make a fortune together, although not in the meat-and-seafood business. It would be on Wall Street. First we needed to be taught a few more lessons in humility.”

I took a deep breath and said, “It was sometime in late December when we finally hit bottom. We were literally out of money, and Paul's mother was threatening to call the sheriff. All seemed lost; all options had been exhausted. And then something incredible happened, something entirely unexpected. I'd just gotten back to the garage from another torturous day in the field, when the Penguin said to me: ‘I got a strange call today from one of our meat suppliers. They asked me what terms we wanted.’ He shrugged, as if confused. ‘I didn't know what they were talking about, so I told them I'd think about it and get back to them.’

“ ‘What does terms mean?’ I asked. ‘Terms for our surrender?’ to which the Suicidal Penguin shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I'm not really sure, but what's the difference? The freezer's empty, and we don't have money to buy food. We're out of business.’”

I paused, smirking at how unsophisticated we'd once been. We hadn't the slightest idea that our suppliers would be willing to ship us food on credit. It seemed like an outlandish concept that they'd be willing to go out on a limb like that, but, as I was about to learn, it was standard operating procedure: Everyone gave credit. The business lingo was terms, which was short for terms for payment.

With a hint of mischief in my tone, I said, “Once I found out that our suppliers would be dumb enough to ship us food on credit, I quickly saw a way out. It was simple: Grow like wildfire. Take on as much credit as possible and push the payment terms as far out into the future as I could. Then buy as many pickup trucks as possible, all of them with no money down—which you could do if you were willing to pay twenty-four percent interest. But I wasn't concerned about the monthly payments, because the more trucks I had on the road, the more food I would sell and the better my cash flow would be.

“In other words, since my suppliers were giving me thirty days to pay for the food while my customers were paying me every day, as long as I kept selling more and more, my cash flow would continue to improve. Even if I weren't making a dime on a sale, I would still be generating cash, using the thirty days of float.”

The Bastard said quickly, “It's Business 101.”

Yeah, right! I thought cynically. The Bastard couldn't possibly appreciate the dark art of juggling cash flow! (He was far too honest.) Perhaps he understood the simple math of it, but there were so many devilish strategies to employ, especially in the endgame, when your creditors were circling and your balance sheet was bleeding red ink faster than a hemophiliac with a gunshot wound. It would take a month to explain all the scummy nuances to someone like the Bastard.

On the other hand, Elliot and I quickly became Jedi Masters at the art and then just as quickly we crossed over to the dark side-finding every way possible to juggle cash flow. My favorite was reverse financial extortion, during which you'd turn the tables on an angry supplier by explaining to him that the only shot he had of getting paid back was to accept a small payment on an old invoice in return for extending you more credit; that one worked like a charm. And then there was the old one-signature-check trick, where I'd give a supplier a check with either my or Elliot's signature missing, which would cause the bank to return it for improper endorsement, as opposed to insufficient funds. Of course, we were always careful to alert the bank manager about this check, lest he mistakenly try to clear it and it bounced like a kangaroo.

And there were other tricks too, but none of them was the Bastard's business. So all I said was, “Exactly; it's Business 101, Joel. Before I knew it, I had twenty-six trucks on the road, a legitimate warehouse, and a whole lot of money in the bank. Of course, my balance sheet was a total wreck, although I refused to focus on that. Instead, I relished giving sales meetings to twenty-six nitwits, most of whom were addicted to either crack or smack or were certified alcoholics.

“Still, at least I was the proud owner of a seemingly successful meat-and-seafood company. And all my friends were really impressed with me; they all thought I was a first-rate entrepreneur.” I shrugged innocently. “That's when I met Kenny Greene; he came to work for me in the meat business.”

“Really?” said OCD. “I didn't know that.”

I nodded slowly, wondering why Kenny Greene hadn't been indicted along with Danny and me. He was the third partner at Stratton, although he hadn't been associated with the firm since we'd settled our SEC case four years ago. Still, he'd been a twenty-percent partner up to that point, as had Danny (I owned the other sixty percent). He'd made tens of millions of dollars and had broken as many laws as we had. It seemed highly illogical (and also a tad unfair) that he'd escaped OCD's wrath—unless he'd been cooperating all along!

I chose to keep those thoughts to myself, and I said, “He was a referral from one of my friends from college, a guy named Jeff Honigman. He and Kenny were first cousins.” I motioned to my villains, thieves, and scoundrels list. “Jeff's on there too, although most of his dirty deeds took place after he left Stratton, when he was working for Victor Wang, at Duke Securities.” Once more, I motioned to the list. “Victor's on there too, somewhere close to the top, just above Kenny's name.” I wondered if they were aware of what a truly depraved maniac Victor Wang was. “In fact, Victor worked for me in the meat-and-seafood business too, although only for about an hour. He was too proud and too lazy to actually take a truck out and go door to door; he just showed up to listen to one of my sales meetings. And, of course, I still remember the first time I laid eyes on Victor.” I started chuckling at the memory.

The Mormon chimed in: “How could you forget, right?”

I nodded in agreement. “Right, how could anyone forget? He's basically the biggest Chinaman to ever walk the planet. He's got a chest the size of the Great Wall, slits for eyes, a brow ridge like a rock ledge, and a head that's larger than a giant panda's.” I paused, catching my breath. “You know, I don't know if all of you have seen Victor, but he's the spitting image of Oddjob, from the James Bond movie Goldfinger. Remember Oddjob? He's the one who killed people by throwing his hat at them—”

“What's your point?” said the Bastard, shaking his head.

I shrugged. “No point, really, other than that Kenny and Victor were childhood friends who dealt drugs together back in high school—both of them, I might add, being backed by Kenny's mother, Gladys. But I refuse to give you any information about Gladys; she might try to kick my ass.” I smiled ruefully. “In fact, the last time someone got under Glady's skin was at a bowling alley. I think she ended up tossing the guy for a strike. Or maybe it was in a supermarket, where she knocked out a woman in the express line. Either way, if you'd ever actually seen Gladys it wouldn't really surprise you.” I nodded my head three times, for emphasis. “There's not an ounce of fat on her, and her gut could stop an English musket ball fired at more than twenty paces. Know the type?” I raised my eyebrows.

Nothing but blank expressions, punctuated by silence. I soldiered on: “Anyway, Gladys belongs on that list too, although I assume you're not interested in her, right?” I crossed my fingers.

“Right,” the Bastard said tonelessly. “We're not interested in her. Why don't you get back to the meat business.”

I nodded, relieved. “Fair enough; but just so you know, this whole Kenny-Gladys-Victor triangle leads right back to your earlier question about where the first wave of Strattonites came from. Kenny and Victor both grew up in Jericho. Kenny was a pot dealer and Victor was a coke dealer, and Gladys was their backer.” I paused, then added, “But her motives were pure, of course. I mean, you know, she was just trying to keep the family afloat after Kenny's father died of cancer. It was all very sad.” I shrugged, hoping Gladys could somehow hear my words and would choose not to beat me up if we crossed paths. “Anyway, out of the first wave of Strattonites, about half came from Jericho and Syosset—which are sister towns—and virtually all of them had been clients of Kenny and Victor. That's how Stratton was able to grow so quick; even before we gained a reputation as a place for kids to get rich, I had dozens of them lining up at my door. And then they'd move to Bayside to join the cult.

“But let me take things in order: Kenny worked at the meat company for only one day, at which point he crashed up one of my trucks and then never called me again, or at least not until I was out of the meat business. And Victor, as I said, never worked there at all; he just showed up once to listen to one of my sales meetings and he never came back.

“In the meantime, my business was on the verge of imploding.” I shook my head slowly, preparing myself to relive the dreaded memory. “You can only play the cash-flow game for so long before it reverses itself on you. In our case, the reversal started in January of 1987. It was a ferocious winter, and sales had plunged through the floor. Cash flow, of course, had plunged with it. I gave meeting upon meeting, desperately trying to motivate the salesmen to go out and sell, but it was no use. It was too cold, and sales came to a grinding halt.

“And by the very nature of the cash-flow game, that's when the boomerang came flying back the hardest. Remember, it's Business 101, Joel. When you're growing on credit, today's bills are for things you sold thirty days ago or, in our case, sixty days ago, because we were already thirty days behind on our bills.” I paused, then corrected myself. “Actually, we were ninety days behind on most of our bills, but we were no longer doing business with those companies; they'd already cut us off, so we'd been forced to move on to more-fertile pastures—meaning, new suppliers who hadn't caught wind of the fact that we didn't pay our bills.

“But that part of the game was over now too. Word was out that we were a bad credit risk and shouldn't be shipped to unless we paid cash up front. Meanwhile, Elliot and I were still trying to keep things afloat. We'd exhausted our personal credit cards, and every day we were falling deeper and deeper into debt. We hadn't paid our truck leases, our cell-phone bills, our car leases. And our new landlord, a Syrian bastard, had an eviction order against us and was making us pay double rent until we were current.”

I shook my head slowly, still amazed at how deep a financial hole we'd dug for ourselves. Then I said, “It was right around that time, in the winter of ‘87, when I started hearing rumors about a kid from my neighborhood named Michael Falk. He'd landed a job on Wall Street straight out of college—right around the same time I was starting dental school—and he was supposedly making over a million dollars a year.” I paused for effect. “At first I didn't believe it. I mean, growing up, Michael Falk was not a sharp kid. In fact, he was more like the neighborhood loser, someone everyone else made fun of for not taking a shower. He wasn't quick or bright or well spoken or anything else, for that matter. He was just average, nothing more. So I figured it was bullshit, that there was no way he could be making that sort of money.

“Then, one day, by sheer coincidence, he came pulling up to my apartment building, driving a convertible Ferrari. Thankfully he was kind enough to condescend to me, and he explained that all the rumors were true—yes, he said matter-of-factly, he was on pace to make over $1.5 million this year, and last year he'd made almost a million. We spoke for a few more minutes, during which time I lied incessantly—explaining how well I was doing in the meat-and-seafood business, pointing to my little red Porsche as proof of that fact. He shrugged his shoulders and mentioned something about chartering a hundred-foot yacht off the Bahamas with a bunch of blond models—ironically, one of whom would become my second wife one day. And then he was off, smoothly, immaculately, and with a puff of expensive Italian exhaust fumes in my face, which at that very moment was a mixture of awe and astonishment.”

I let out a few chuckles. “Anyway, I can tell you that I had never been so affected by a single encounter in my entire life. I remember watching his Ferrari pull away and saying to myself: ‘If that guy can make a million bucks a year, then I can make fifty million a year!’” I paused, letting those words sink in. “It turned out to be an uncanny prediction, don't you think?” Then I quickly added, “Although I guess I failed to predict the other half of the equation: that I'd be facing a couple of hundred years in jail”—I locked eyes with the Witch—”as well as the eternal damnation of my soul.

“Anyway, I was living with my first wife, Denise, back then, although she wasn't actually my wife yet. We were sharing a tiny apartment in a yuppie-infested apartment building in Bayside called the Bay Club. That's where I first met Danny Porush. He was living upstairs from me, although at the time I hadn't met him yet. I'd seen him around from time to time, but we'd never really spoken.” I shrugged. “It's funny, but I remember always thinking how normal he looked, as if he were the perfect yuppie. In fact, he and his wife, Nancy, were the pictures of success and happiness. They even looked alike! But, of course, I didn't know at the time that the two of them were first cousins. And I also had no idea that Nancy's sole mission in life was to torture Danny—to make his life as miserable and as difficult as possible—and that Danny, despite his normal appearance, was completely off his rocker, spending the bulk of his day holed up in a Harlem crack den, smoking his latest business venture into cocaine-induced bankruptcy.

“But I'm jumping ahead here. I still wouldn't meet Danny for another year. Getting back to Michael Falk: It was that same afternoon when I told Denise about my little run-in with this erstwhile loser. When I was done, no words were necessary. Denise just looked at me with her big brown eyes and nodded slowly, and that was that. We both knew right then and there that my destiny was Wall Street. I was the most talented salesman in the world; she knew it and I knew it. My mistake was that I'd picked the wrong product to sell.”

“How were you able to get a job as a stockbroker?” asked the Bastard. “Your degree's in biology and you were just coming off a bankruptcy. Why would someone hire you?”

“I was able to get my foot in the door through a friend of my parents, a man named Bob Cohen. He was a mid-level manager at LF Rothschild, and he had enough clout to get me an interview. And from there I sold myself. I went out and bought myself a cheap blue suit, and then two days after that I found myself sitting on the express bus on my way to Manhattan for a job interview. Meanwhile, Denise was sitting at home waiting for a tow truck to come and repossess our Porsche—which it did—right about the same time I was getting myself hired as a stockbroker trainee at LF Rothschild.”

Then I smiled sadly and said, “And after that, my next stop was to my meat company, where I dropped the bomb on Elliot.” I paused for a moment, thinking back. “I still remember this day like it was yesterday, the bittersweetness of it, the mixed emotions I felt. As happy as I was about my future, I was sad about parting ways with Elliot. He was like a brother to me. We'd been partners since our mid-teens. We'd been through a wall of fire together-digging trucks out of the mud and knocking on doors until our knuckles bled. And now we were going our separate ways.

“The warehouse, of course, was a complete wreck. We were surrounded by broken-down trucks and empty boxes, and the freezer was a total disgrace. The door was wide open, and there wasn't a stitch of food inside. Thick layers of frost were growing out of the freezer, like fungus. It served as a grim reminder of how badly we'd mismanaged things. I remember my self-confidence being shattered.

“With a heavy heart, I said to Elliot: ‘I'm sorry I'm leaving, but this is something I gotta do. I gotta give Wall Street a shot. The money that people are making down there is staggering, Elliot. Truly staggering.’

“ ‘I know that,’ he answered quickly, ‘but I couldn't imagine sitting behind a desk all day. Everything is done over the phone. You'll be cold-calling people you never met before, trying to get them to send money. It doesn't make sense to me….’ “

I shook my head slowly. “You know, it might sound funny now, but I remember thinking the exact same thing—that it was inconceivable that someone I'd never met before would send in hundreds of thousands of dollars, based on a phone call. Not to mention the fact that I'd be calling people from all over the country. I mean, what were the chances that a complete stranger from Texas would be insane enough to send me half a million dollars of his hard-earned money without ever laying eyes on me? Yet I still had the image of Michael Falk burning on my brain. The simple fact was that kids were making fortunes on Wall Street. Wall Street was where I belonged.”

The Witch chimed in: “So Elliot didn't want to come with you?”

I shook my head. “Believe it or not, he didn't. He wanted to stay in the meat-and-seafood business and give it another shot. He figured he could make money as a one-man show, staying lean and mean.” I thought for a moment. “Don't get me wrong—it wasn't like I actually offered him a job or anything; it wasn't in my power to. But I did ask him if he'd be interested in coming down for a job interview if I could arrange it. But, again, he said no.” I shrugged sadly.

“I arrived home that evening carless, penniless, and personally bankrupt. And you know what? I couldn't have given a shit. I was a Wall Streeter now, and that was all that mattered. And the fact that my pay was only one hundred dollars a week didn't bother me a bit. I had hope—hope for the future, which is the greatest hope of all.”

I paused and spent a few moments studying the faces of my captors, wondering what they were thinking about, what they thought of me. And while it was impossible to say, I had a sneaky suspicion that they were more confused than ever. Not about my story but about what made a guy like me tick.

In any event, this morning was just a warm-up. The juicy stuff— the hookers, the drugs, the wanton lawlessness—was still a day or two away. With that thought, I looked at OCD and said, “You think we could take lunch now? It's almost one, and I'm getting kind of hungry.”

“Absolutely,” OCD said warmly. “There're some pretty good places on Reade Street. It's less than a two-minute walk.”

The Bastard nodded in agreement. “It's been a very productive morning. You've earned yourself a good lunch.”

“Indeed,” snapped the Witch. “You've afforded us a rare glimpse into the criminal's mind.”

I offered her a dead smile in return. “Well, I'm glad you feel that way, Michele, because I'm eager to please.”

1*Name has been changed

2*Name has been changed