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

CHAPTER 11

THE MAKING OF A WOLF

ell, I'm sorry to hear that,” said the Bastard sympathetically, and he leaned forward in his cheap black armchair and rested his bony elbows on the conference table. “It's always a shame when kids are involved.”

“Yeah,” I said sadly—and, yeah, right! I thought. This is what you live for, Bastard! You relish stripping a man of all his worldly possessions! What else could make a feeble life like yours worth living? “It's sad for all of us, Joel, but I do appreciate your concern.”

He nodded dutifully. OCD, however, was shaking his head suspiciously. “I don't know,” he said. “I really thought you two would stay together; I really did.”

“Yeah,” I replied glumly, “so did I. But there's just too much water under the bridge. Too many bad memories.”

It was a little after ten, and I was singing on Court Street again, albeit to a slightly smaller audience. The Witch, the Mormon, and my towering attorney, Magnum, were all conspicuously absent. The Witch, I was told, was busy with another case today, no doubt destroying some other poor schnook's life; the Mormon was busy attending to personal matters—probably still in bed with one of his Mormon wives, trying to conceive a fresh litter of Mormon babies; Magnum, on the other hand, was busy doing nothing. In fact, the only reason he wasn't here this morning—in the heinous subbasement of 26 Federal Plaza—was that he thought it would be good if I spent some “alone time” with my captors. And while his words seemed somewhat logical, they also seemed suspiciously convenient, considering I had just written him a check for a million dollars last week. (Why show up anymore when he could take the money and run?)

So it was just the three of us this morning: the Bastard, OCD, and myself.

“You're being quiet this morning,” said OCD. “If you don't want to talk about your personal life, it's okay.”

I shrugged. “What's there to say, other than that my wife must have been sleep-talking during our wedding vows?”

“You think maybe she's having an affair?”

“No, Greg! Not a chance,” I said confidently. Of course she is! I thought. She's fucking that dimwitted Brooklynite Michael Burrico. A dunce like him was an easy target for a prospecting Duchess. “She's definitely not cheating. What's going on with us cuts much deeper than that.”

He smiled warmly. “Don't take offense; I'm just trying to make sense of it all. Usually, when this sort of thing happens, there's another man waiting in the wings. But, hey, what do I know, right?”

Now the Bastard chimed in: “Like Greg, I'm also sympathetic to your plight, but the only thing you should be worried about now is your cooperation. Everything else is secondary.”

Yeah? What about my kids, asshole?

“Joel's right,” said OCD. “It's probably not a good time to be getting divorced. Maybe you and Nadine should wait a bit, until all the commotion dies down.”

“All right,” snapped the Bastard, “so let's get down to cases, then. Last time we spoke, the market had just crashed and you were out of a job. What happened next?”

What an asshole! I thought. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, I wouldn't actually say I was out of a job, because what I had at LF Rothschild wasn't really a job in the first place. I was a connector, which is the lowest of the low on Wall Street. All I did was dial the phone all day and try to get past the secretaries of wealthy business owners. It was a pride-swallowing siege—but one that I had no choice but to grin and bear. The only thing keeping me going was hope for the future.” I paused for effect. “And then came the crash.

“I still remember what it was like coming home that night on the express bus: You could've heard a pin drop. There was a certain fear in the air that I'd never experienced before. The media was sensationalizing things to the point of hysteria, predicting bank failures, massive unemployment, people jumping out of windows. It was the start of another Great Depression, they said.”

“A depression that never came,” added the Bastard, straight-A student of obvious history.

“Exactly,” I said. “It never came, although no one had any way of knowing that back then. Remember, the last time the market had crashed was in ‘29, and the depression came right on the heels of that. So it wasn't all that far-fetched to think it would happen again.” I paused for a moment. “Now, for people who'd actually grown up in the Great Depression—like my parents—the prospect was utterly terrifying, but for people like me, who'd only read about it in history books, it was simply unimaginable. So, whether you worked on Wall Street or Main Street that day, everyone was scared shitless what would happen next.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Everyone except Denise; she was as cool as a cucumber!”

“That's pretty impressive,” reasoned OCD, “considering how broke you two were.”

“Yeah,” I said quickly, “and it would have even been more impressive if she had the slightest idea the market had crashed.” I smiled ruefully.

The Bastard narrowed his eyes. “She hadn't heard it on the news?”

I shook my head slowly. “Denise never watched the news. She was more of a soap-opera girl than a news girl.” I paused for a moment, and a profound wave of sadness overtook me. Denise might have had her shortcomings, but she was still a great wife. And she was gorgeous, one of those dark-haired Italian beauties who every teenage boy fantasizes about in high school. She was a great wearer of black leather miniskirts and white cotton sweaters, the latter of which were softer than a baby's bottom.

Thinking back now, the way the two of us had cocooned ourselves in our tiny Bayside apartment had been pure magic. We had sworn eternal love for each other, certain that our love could conquer all. Yet, somehow, we'd managed to destroy that love. We allowed success and money to go to our heads. We allowed it to separate us, to eat away at us. Ultimately, it would turn her into a world-class shopaholic and me into a rip-roaring drug addict. And then came the Duchess—

“—still with us?” snapped the Bastard. “You need to take a break for a few minutes?” He offered me his sadistic warden's smile.

“No, I'm fine,” I said. “Anyway, Denise had no idea the market crashed, so the moment I walked through the door she threw her arms around me, as if I were a conquering hero. ‘Oh, my God!’ she said. ‘You're finally home! How was your first day as a stockbroker? Did you break the company record for the most stock sold?’”

OCD and the Bastard started chuckling.

I chuckled back. “Yeah—it was pretty funny, all right, except by mid-November we were down on our hands and knees, rolling up nickels, dimes, and quarters to pay for shampoo. But it wasn't until a month after the crash that I decided to throw in the towel and leave Wall Street.

“It was a Sunday morning, and Denise and I were sitting in the living room, like two zombies, looking through the help-wanted section. After a few minutes, I came across something that struck me as odd. ‘Check this out,’ I said to her. ‘There's a company advertising for stockbrokers, and they're not on Wall Street; they're on Long Island.’

“She looked at the ad and said, ‘What does PT, FT mean?’

“‘Part time, full time,’ I answered, and I found myself wondering what kind of brokerage firm hired part-time stockbrokers? I'd never heard of that before. Still, given my circumstances it seemed like a reasonable idea. So I said to her, ‘Working part-time might not be such a bad thing. Maybe I could earn a few bucks while I'm looking for something else,’ to which she nodded in agreement.

“Anyway, neither of us thought much of it at the time, and when I called the next morning, I was completely turned off. A gruff male voice answered the phone and said, ‘Investors’ Center. How can I helpya?’ and I knew right on the spot that it wasn't a switchboard operator. And the company's name sent shivers down my spine. I was used to names like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, names that resonated with Wall Street.

“I could only imagine myself saying, ‘Hi, this is Jordan Belfort, calling from the Investors’ Center in Butt-Fuck, Long Island. I'm no closer to Wall Street than you are, so why don't you send me your hard-earned money? You'll probably never see it again!’”

“Very prophetic,” snapped the Bastard.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “although the Investors’ Center wasn't in Butt-Fuck, Long Island; it was in Great Neck, Long Island, which is actually a pretty nice part of town. The company was on the second floor of a three-story office building.” I paused for a moment. “You know, I remember pulling up to the building and feeling rather impressed. I was driving Denise's old piece-a-shit Datsun, which was the only car we had at the time, and I was saying to myself, ‘Hey, this place doesn't look so bad!’ But then the moment I stepped into the boardroom my jaw dropped.

“The space was much smaller than I'd anticipated. It was maybe twenty feet square, and there wasn't a single thing about it that resonated of Wall Street. There were no computer monitors, no sales assistants, no stockbrokers pacing back and forth. There was nothing but twenty old wooden desks—all of them weathered-looking and arranged haphazardly. Only five of the desks had brokers behind them, and there was no pump whatsoever, just a low-level murmur.

“I'd worn a suit and tie to my interview, and I was the only one in the boardroom dressed that way. Everyone else was wearing jeans and sneakers, with the exception of one guy. The only problem was that his suit looked like it came straight out of a Salvation Army box. To this day, in fact, the guy still sticks out in my mind, because of his dim-witted expression. He looked lobotomized. He was in his early thirties, and he had the greasiest black hair imaginable—as if he showered in motor oil and—”

The Bastard began nodding his head again, as if to say, “Move on.”

“Well, whatever,” I said. “The manager was sitting in a small office at the front of the boardroom, and he seemed oblivious to everything. He was yapping away on his phone, talking to his wife, I recall, and saying something about their dog being sick. When he saw me, he held up an index finger, to which I nodded dutifully. Then he kept on talking.

“His name, as it turned out, was George Grunfeld, and two years prior he'd been a social-studies teacher. He was in his mid-to-late forties, and he happened to be the spitting image of Gabe Kaplan, the teacher from Welcome Back, Kotter.” I smiled at OCD. “Remember Welcome Back, Kotter, Greg?”

OCD nodded. “Yeah, with Travolta.” He looked at the Bastard. “You ever watch Welcome Back, Kotter?“

The Bastard flashed OCD a dead smile. “Yeah; up your nose with a rubber hose,” he said tonelessly.

“Ah, there you go!” I said warmly. “That's exactly what Travolta used to say to Mr. Kotter.” I smiled at my new friend, pleased that I was finally able to find some common ground with him. Alas, he refused to smile back. Instead, he stared at me, stone-faced.

I shrugged. “Well, anyway, he looked just like him, bushy everywhere—his hair, eyebrows, mustache, knuckles. It looked like someone had glued a bunch of tumbleweeds to the guy!”

OCD shook his head, amused, while the Bastard stared ominously.

“Anyway, George finally hung up the phone and came over to greet me. ‘Just pick a free desk and start dialing,’ he said after a few seconds of small talk.

“ ‘That's it?’ I said. ‘You're hiring me?’

“ ‘Yeah, why not? It's not like I'll be paying you a salary or anything. That's not a problem, is it?’ I was about to tell him that it wasn't, when one of the salesmen suddenly popped out of his chair and started pacing back and forth. George motioned toward the guy and said, ‘That's Chris Knight; he's our top salesman. He's got a helluva rap. Listen…’

“I nodded and focused my attention on Chris, who was tall and lanky and had a face longer than a thoroughbred's. He was no older than twenty, and he was dressed like he'd just strolled in from a keg party. I remember being appalled at how terrible he sounded. He was mumbling, slurring; I could hardly understand the guy! Then, out of nowhere, he started screaming into his telephone, in short rapid-fire bursts of ludicrous sales hype. ‘Jesus Christ—Bill—I guarantee it!’ he screamed. ‘I guarantee this stock is going up! You can't lose here—it's impossible! I have information-it's not even public yet—do you hear me? I don't think you do, because I have inside information!’ And then he yanked the phone away from his ear and held it out in front of his own nose and stared at the receiver with contempt. Then, after five seconds of staring, he put the phone back to his ear and started screaming again. I looked at George and said, ‘What the hell was that all about?’ and George nodded his head knowingly and said, ‘He's pretty good, isn't he?’ And I just shook my head in disbelief and said nothing. Meanwhile, Chris was still screaming, ‘Don't you understand? We can't lose here, Bill! I promise you! The stock is going to the moon! No ifs, ands, or buts! You gotta buy it now-right now!’”

I shrugged and said, “During my six months at LF Rothschild, I never heard anything so ridiculous, and I'm not just talking about all the securities laws he was violating but also his complete lack of professionalism. All this screaming and shouting and ridiculous sales hype was so Mickey Mouse-ish that no one with even the slightest bit of financial sophistication would give this guy the time of day.”

The Bastard held up his hand. “Let me get this straight,” he said skeptically. “You're saying you're not a proponent of sales hype?”

I turned the corners of my mouth down and shook my head. “No, I'm not, actually. Selling through hype is a complete waste of time. In military terms, it's like carpet bombing. It's very loud and menacing, but it's only marginally effective. At Stratton, I taught a different style of selling, which was the equivalent of dropping laser-guided smart bombs on high-priority targets.” I shrugged. “Let me take things in order and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.”

The Bastard nodded slowly.

“All right,” I said. “So as awful a salesman as Chris Knight was— or, should I say, as untrained a salesman as he was—it was what came out of his mouth next that truly shocked me. ‘Oh—come on!’ he screamed at his client. ‘The stock's only thirty cents a share. Pick up a thousand shares, that's all I'm asking! It's only a three-hundred-dollar investment; how could you go wrong?’

“With that, I turned to George and said, ‘Did he just say thirty cents a share?’ And George said, ‘Yeah. Why?’

“ ‘Well, it's just that I've never heard of stocks that cheap. I was trained at a Big Board firm—meaning we sold mostly New York Stock Exchange stocks. And even then, the stuff we did on NAS-DAQ was in the fifteen-to-twenty-dollar range.’

“Meanwhile, Chris was busy slamming down his phone in anger. Then he started muttering: ‘That motherfucker hung up on me! What a rat bastard!’ So George looks at me and says, ‘No worries, he'll get the next one. But either way, you should sit next to him for a few days, so he can show you the ropes.’

“Well, I was about to break out into outright laughter, but then George added, ‘He did make over ten grand last month. How much did you make?’

“I looked at George in disbelief, wondering how a moron like Chris Knight could make ten thousand dollars in a month; then something very odd occurred to me. ‘Wait a second,’ I said to him. ‘How the hell did he make ten thousand dollars working on three-hundred-dollar trades?’ Then I explained to George how a three-hundred-dollar trade at LF Rothschild would yield a commission of between three and six dollars—depending on how aggressive you wanted to get with the client. And sometimes the commissions were even lower than that, I added, especially on tickets of a half million or more.

“So George waved me into his office to offer me a visual explanation. He grabbed a sheet of paper off his desk and said, ‘These are the only stocks you'll be recommending here. There are six of them.’ He handed me the sheet of paper, and I took a moment to study it. ‘KBF Pollution Control?’ I muttered to myself. ‘Arncliffe National?’ I was about to say, ‘I've never heard of any of these stocks,’ when George pointed to a column of numbers and said, ‘These are the bids for the stocks,’ and I saw that they were all under a dollar. I was about to say, ‘These must be real pieces of shit if they're all under a dollar,’ when he pointed to another column of numbers and said, ‘And these are the offers. Everything in between is your commission.’”

I paused for a moment to let my words sink in. Then I smiled and said, “You might find this hard to believe, given my current level of sophistication, but back then I didn't understand the difference between the bid and the offer. I mean, I knew you sold at the bid and bought at the offer, but I'd never really considered what happened to the money in between.

“You see, with big stocks the difference between the two is small, maybe half a percent, and only occasionally do the brokers get a sliver of it; usually it's glommed up by traders. In fact, at Rothschild, the brokers would go absolutely wild when a block of stock came with a spread in it. They would call their clients and bang them over the head, because they were making double commission.

“But at the Investors’ Center, I couldn't believe my eyes. The spreads were enormous—at least fifty percent or better. I said to George, ‘How could the bid for Arncliffe National be twenty-five cents and the offer be fifty cents? My commission can't really be a quarter a share, can it ?’ to which he replied, ‘Sure, why not?’

“I said, ‘Well, let's just suppose a client purchases a quarter million dollars of Arncliffe National’—that was an average trade at LF Rothschild—‘Would my commission really be $125,000?’ I asked.

“ ‘Yeah, in theory,’ he answered, ‘but it doesn't really work that way, because no one puts that kind of money into penny stocks.’

“ ‘Why not?’ I asked.

“ ‘Well…’ he replied, not that confidently, ‘we… uh… we don't call people who have that kind of money. We call working-class people.’

“ ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Why call people who don't have money to invest in the stock market? It seems illogical.’

“ ‘Yeah, maybe so,’ he replied, ‘but rich people don't buy penny stocks.’

“ ‘Why not?’ I asked for the second time, to which he started hemming and hawing. He really had no answer other than telling me just to trust him, which I did. In retrospect, I think I was too beaten down to argue, because under normal circumstances I would have debated him until I was blue in the face. In any case, I decided to take his words as gospel and go along with the program. I took a seat next to Chris Knight and then wrote a script for a cosmetics company called Arncliffe International.”

“Why'd you choose that one?” asked OCD.

I shrugged. “It seemed like the dog with the least fleas. I mean, they had no real sales to speak of and there were something like fifty million shares outstanding. But, on the positive side, they'd just landed Macy's as a customer, which I knew would sound good in a sales pitch. That, and the president of the company had once been a vice president at Revlon, and I knew that would sound good too.

“Anyway, when I finally was done with the script, I remember feeling very impressed with it. I'd made Arncliffe National sound like IBM or at least the next Revlon, and I hadn't even lied that much. Of course, I'd omitted some material facts—meaning, information that the client really deserved to know to make a decision— but all in all I hadn't really violated any securities laws.”

The Bastard shook his head gravely. “Material omissions are violations of securities laws,” he snapped.

“Yeah, I'm aware of that now. In fact, I was aware of it then too, although I knew it would be difficult to prove. See, what's material and what's not material is somewhat subjective. Don't kid yourself— on Wall Street, material omissions are the rule rather than the exception. And that's at big firms as well as small ones.”

A few moments of silence passed.

“In any event, as fabulous as my Arncliffe script was, Chris Knight hadn't grasped the true beauty of it. ‘You're wasting your time with that,’ he said, pointing to my script. ‘You don't need a script to sell stock. You just swear to the clients that the stock is going up and they buy from you.’

“ ‘Yeah, well, thanks for sharing,’ I said, and then I picked up the phone and started dialing. I was using leads George had given me, which were actually return postcards from people who'd responded to a mass mailing. On the front of the cards was some cheesy sales hype along the lines of Make a Fortune in Penny Stocks, and on the back there were people's names and phone numbers. They seemed like total dunk shots, these leads. I mean, what better lead was there than someone who'd filled out a postcard and dropped it in the mailbox?

“So when I got my first prospect on the phone—some friendly Southerner named Jim Campbell^1*—I had reasonably high hopes. In a totally upbeat tone, I said, ‘Hey, Jim! Jordan Belfort calling from the Investors’ Center! How are you today?’

“‘Uh, I'm awe right!’ he answered. ‘How you doin’?’

“ ‘Oh, I'm great. Thanks for asking. Now, Jim, if you recall, about a week ago you mailed me a three-by-five postcard, saying you were interested in investing in penny stocks. Does that ring a bell?’ And after a few seconds of silence, Jim finally said, ‘Uh, yeah, I guess I did that. I mean, it sounds like sumthin’ I'd do!’

“I remember thinking, Good God! He was so eager! So incredibly receptive! It was mind-boggling. I maintained my composure and said, ‘Great, Jim. Now the reason for the call today is that something just came across my desk, and it's the best thing I've seen in the last six months. If you have sixty seconds, I'd like to share the idea with you. You got a minute?’ And Jim said, ‘Sure! Fire away!’ With that I rose from my chair and prepared to give Jim my shpil. I remember catching a glimpse of Chris, who was sitting in his chair, watching me, and sipping a bottle of Evian.

“Into the phone, I said, ‘Okay, Jim, now, the name of the company is Arncliffe National, and it's one of the fastest-growing companies in the cosmetics industry. All told, it's more than a thirty-billion-dollar industry, cosmetics, growing at twenty percent a year. And it's virtually recession-proof—yielding consistent growth in good times and bad. You follow me so far?’

“‘Yeah!’ said an impressed Jim. ‘I follow you.’

“ ‘Great,’ I said, and I went on about giving him some very loose facts about Arncliffe—the names of some of the products they sold, where the company was headquartered, and then, finally, I touched on the contract they'd just signed with Macy's. Then I said, ‘But as good as all that sounds, the most important thing in any company is management. Wouldn't you agree?’

“‘Yeah,’ answered Jim, ‘of course.’

“ ‘Good,’ I said shrewdly, ‘and in the case of Arncliffe National, management is blue chip all the way. The chairman of the board, a man named Clifford Seales,^2* is one of the most astute minds in the cosmetics industry. He was a former VP of Revlon, a key player over there. And, with him at the helm, Arncliffe can't go wrong.

“ ‘But the reason for the call today, Jim, is very specific: Clifford Seales is about to go down to Wall Street to tout his stock, and he's going on the heels of staggering sales growth and a major contract announcement. He'll be going to banks, insurance companies, pension funds—the institutional players. And you know what they say, Jim: Institutional money is usually smart money, and even when it's not, it's not enough to fuel the market anyway. You follow me?’

“‘Oh, yeah!’ said Jim, ‘I sure as hell do!’

“ ‘Good, Jim. Now, the stock is trading at only fifty cents a share right now, which is ridiculously cheap, considering the company's future. And the key to making money here is to position yourself now, before Seales goes to Wall Street and meets with all the fund managers and pension managers, because once he does that, it's too late.’ I paused for effect. ‘So what I'd like you to do is this, Jim: Pick up a block of one million shares of Arncliffe National’—and splat went a mouthful of water from Chris Knight's mouth. Then he started choking, and then he popped out of his chair—Evian in hand—and ran toward George's office. I shook my head in disbelief and continued with my sale, noticing for the first time that the other brokers were gathered around me. ‘It's a cash outlay of only half a million dollars,’ I said casually, ‘and it's not a question of funds today or tomorrow, Jim; you have a week to pay for the trade. But, believe me,’ I said, lowering my voice to just above a whisper, ‘if you position yourself now, before Seales comes down to Wall Street, the only problem you'll have is you didn't buy more. Sound fair enough?’”

“You asked the guy for half a million dollars?” asked OCD, chuckling.

“Yeah, I did. That's what they used to do at Rothschild, so it just sort of slipped out. But, meanwhile, as I was waiting for Jim to respond to my half-million-dollar request, George came running out of his office, with Chris Knight in tow. I heard George muttering, ‘Someone go get a tape recorder! Hurry up! Who's got a tape recorder?’ And then Jim said, ‘Uh, I'm sorry, Jordan, but I think you got the wrong guy. I work in a hat factory. I'm a machine operator. I only make thirty thousand a year.’” I paused for a moment. “Anyway, not to belabor the point, I ended up closing Jim for ten thousand shares, which was a five-thousand-dollar trade, which was one of the biggest trades in Investors’ Center history. I was about to learn that Investors’ Center was no small-time operation. They employed over three hundred brokers and had over thirty offices—all of them small, and all of them just as mismanaged as this one.

“But getting back to Jim Campbell for a second, I'd convinced him to buy the stock with the money in his IRA, which was the only real savings he had.” I paused and let out a troubled sigh. “And if you're wondering if I felt guilty about that, the answer is yes: I felt absolutely horrendous. Despicable. I knew he shouldn't be investing his IRA in a penny stock. It was much too risky. But I was so utterly broke at the time that the words rent money, rent money were playing in my head like a broken record. In the end, they drowned everything else out, including my conscience.

“Then, the moment I hung up the phone, I was instantly awash in the admiration of my peers—quashing any residual doubts. I remember George saying to me: ‘Where did you learn to sell like that, Jordan? I've never heard anything even remotely like it! It was amazing!’ Of course, I won't deny that I relished every last drop of his admiration. And, not surprisingly, the rest of the brokers were equally taken with me. They were all staring at me wide-eyed, as if I were a god. I felt like a god at that moment. The dark cloud that had followed me around since the meat business had finally evaporated. I felt like a new man, or, better yet, I felt like myself again.

“Right then and there, I knew that my financial problems were finally over, and I knew that Denise would finally have the things we'd talked about and dreamed about during the dark days. A world of infinite possibility had suddenly opened, a world filled with a thousand opportunities. And from there things moved very quickly, starting when George approached me a few weeks later, asking me to train the salesmen.

“It was almost identical to what had happened in the meat business, when the manager asked me to train the salesmen. And again, just like in the meat business, my training sessions quickly turned into motivational meetings, and the room began to pump. In addition, I went about reorganizing the office, setting up the desks classroom style and instituting a dress code, and I put an end to all this nonsense of part-time stockbrokers.

“What I was trying to do, in essence, was to make the place feel like Wall Street, to make the brokers feel like true stockbrokers. And I got resistance from no one; they all followed me blindly— both George and the salesmen—and everyone's commissions soared, especially mine. My first month, in fact, I took home a check for forty-two thousand dollars.” I paused for a moment, letting the number sink in. “And let me tell you something: It was more money than I'd had in my entire life. Straightaway, Denise and I paid off all our bills, and then we went out and bought a brand-new Jeep, a Wrangler, for thirteen thousand dollars. Then we both bought new wardrobes. I bought her her first gold watch, then a diamond tennis bracelet. And at the end of the month we still had ten thousand left over!

“The next month I made sixty thousand dollars, and I went out and bought the car of my dreams: a brand-new pearl-white Jaguar XJS.” I smiled at the memory. “It was the two-door model, the one with twelve cylinders and three hundred horsepower. The thing was a total beast. And while Denise refurnished our apartment, I was paying back all my old creditors from the meat business. And the next month I made another sixty thousand, and that was it; that was when Denise and I looked at each other in awe. We simply didn't know what to do with all the money. We had everything we needed, and money was pouring in faster than we could spend it. I remember one day in particular, when we were sitting at the edge of a long wooden dock in Douglaston, not far from where Investors’ Center was. It was the middle of March, and it was one of those warm winter days where you feel the first hints of spring in the air.

“I think I remember this day so vividly because it was one of the few times in my life when I'd been truly happy, truly at peace. It was late afternoon, we were sitting on two fold-up lounge chairs that we'd carried down with us, and we were holding hands, watching the sun set. I remember thinking that I'd never loved a person as much as I loved this woman, that I'd never thought it was even possible to love someone so purely, so completely. I didn't have a single misgiving about her, not a single second thought.

“On the other side of Little Neck Bay, I could see the edge of Bayside, where Denise and I lived, where I grew up, and just behind me was the North Shore of Long Island, where I would be moving in a few years and raising a family.” I shook my head sadly. “In a million years I would have never guessed that home wouldn't include Denise and that the mother of my children would be another woman. It would seem utterly impossible at the time.

“But what I had no way of knowing back then was that the insanity—as I'd come to call it—was right around the corner, slowly creeping up on me, without me knowing it.” I shook my head once more. “In the end, it spared no one. Not me, not Denise, not my family. Almost everyone I knew and everyone I grew up with would come to work for me soon, or at least become financially dependent on me. You understand what I'm saying?”

They both nodded, then the Bastard said, “How long after this did you meet Danny?”

I thought for a moment. “Not long; maybe three or four months. I'd seen him around the building a few times, but I'd never said more than a few words to him. Kenny, however, was about to reenter my life almost immediately. It was that very weekend, in fact, or the weekend after, when he called me out of the blue and asked if I'd train him to be a stockbroker.”

“How did he know you'd gotten in the market?” asked OCD.

“From his cousin Jeff. He was one of the few people I still kept in touch with from college. Jeff had told Kenny how well I was doing. But I was totally turned off by Kenny's call at first. I mean, the last time we'd crossed paths, the guy had crashed one of my meat trucks, then left me with a three-hundred-dollar food bill. And what vague memories I did have of him were entirely negative. There was something a bit off about him, something I couldn't put my finger on. And that was even before I met Victor Wang. Together, though, the two of them were like a complete freak show: the budding Blockhead and the Talking Panda.” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, let's just say my memories of Kenny were less than fond. I had him pegged as someone who loved to talk about rolling up his sleeves and working hard but hadn't the vaguest idea what the concept meant.”

“Why'd you hire him, then?” asked OCD, smiling.

I smiled back. “That's a damn good question, Greg… but let's just say the Kenny Greene I met in the meat-and-seafood business and the Kenny Greene I met the second time around were two different people. I mean, he was still a budding Blockhead and everything, but now, at least, he was a humble budding Blockhead. He seemed to know his place in the world. In fact, one of the first things he said on the phone was that he wanted to meet me for a cup of coffee so he could pay back the money he owed me.

“The only problem was that I didn't need the money anymore. So I was tempted just to say to him, ‘Fuck you, pal! Where were you and your damn checkbook when I needed you?’ But, of course, I didn't. Truth is, there was something about the Blockhead that I liked. I mean, even to this day I still feel a certain warmth toward him, although I have no idea why. He's like having a giant lapdog that pisses and shits all over your house, but you know he doesn't mean anything by it; he just can't control himself. Yet every morning you can be damn certain he'll be out on your front lawn, fetching your newspaper.

“Anyway, the two of us met at a little Greek diner, just down the road from Investors’ Center, and the moment we sat down Kenny handed me a check for three hundred dollars, along with an apology for having crashed my meat truck. Then he told me how his cousin Jeff was always telling him that I was the sharpest guy around and how there was nothing more in the world he wanted than to work by my side, as my right-hand man.” I shook my head and chuckled. “It's rather ironic that Kenny had more foresight in this department than I did. He was convinced I would be the next great thing on Wall Street, while I had zero aspiration in this area. I think I was just too shell-shocked from the meat business still; that, and I was so in love with Denise that I didn't want anything to change.”

OCD narrowed his eyes. “What made Kenny believe in you so much? I mean, I understand that he heard you give a sales meeting at your meat company, but it still seems like a bit of a leap of faith on his part.”

“Yeah…” I said open-endedly, “well, I actually missed one important thing. You see, I wasn't really sure if Kenny was cut out for the stock market, so rather than agreeing to train him on the spot, I told him after the meeting to come to the Investors’ Center that night, so I could give him a firsthand demonstration of being a stockbroker. And it was after hearing me on the phone for the first time that he swore loyalty to me. Does that make more sense?”

OCD nodded. I nodded back and took a moment to think back to that night. Then I started chuckling. “What's so funny?” snapped the Bastard.

I shook my head quickly. “You don't want to know,” I replied.

“Actually, I do,” he shot back.

“Well, if you insist,” I said with a smile, and I gave my neck a nice, slow roll. “Okay… so rather than just meeting me at the Investors’ Center, Kenny offered to pick me up at my apartment. When he pulled up to my building, he wasn't alone; he'd brought his girlfriend along for the ride with him.” I paused for a moment, twisting my lips at the thought of her. “Let's just say she had tits the size of NFL footballs and the lips of a goldfish. She wasn't gorgeous or anything, but she was one of the sexiest little numbers I'd ever laid eyes on.

“In any event, the two of them sat in the boardroom and watched me do my thing on the phone—and, of course, I couldn't help but ham it up a bit for the Goldfish, who was busy undressing me with her eyes as I pitched into the phone. I ended up having a pretty decent night—making around three grand—and I remember her whispering to Kenny how wet she was getting, just from listening to me. But it wasn't until the ride home that I got my first pure dose of the Goldfish and, for that matter, Kenny Greene.

“We were in Kenny's red Mustang: He was behind the wheel, I was in the passenger seat, and the Goldfish was sitting between us, on the armrest, wearing a tiny midriff T-shirt and some wildly sexy perfume. We were on the Cross Island Parkway near the exit for Bayside, when Kenny said to her: ‘Go ahead, sweetie, tell him!’

“ ‘No,’ she whined, ‘I'm too embarrassed, Kenny!’

“So Kenny said, ‘Fine, I'll tell him, then,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘She got really turned on watching you sell tonight, so she'd like to blow you. And trust me: The girl can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch! Just look at her mouth. Pucker up for him, sweetie.’

“I looked at the Goldfish, astonished, as she stared back at me with her fabulous goldfish lips puckered up into a sensuous pout. Then she started nodding her head bashfully, as if to say, ‘I'd really like to blow you, sir!’”

I paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “Now, I want you to know that I had every intention of resisting the Goldfish's charms; I mean, I loved Denise with all my heart and soul and I had never cheated on her before. But then the Goldfish began rubbing me over my jeans and sticking her NFL footballs in my face. While she had me still stunned by that, she crawled down to the little foot area in front of me and slowly unzipped my fly.” I paused and shook my head gravely. “Well, needless to say, the Goldfish overpowered me, and next thing I knew she was giving a world-class blow job as we cruised down the Cross Island Parkway.

“And as I groaned in ecstasy, Kenny the Pervert kept one eye on the road and one hand on the steering wheel, and his other eye on the Goldfish's mouth and his other hand holding back her brown hair, so it wouldn't disturb his view.” I shrugged. “I shot my load, if I recall correctly, right in front of P.S. One Sixty-nine, where I'd attended public school.

“Anyway, I want you both to know that I felt absolutely terrible when I walked in the door that evening. I felt dirty and disgusting, and I swore to myself that I'd never cheat on Denise again. And I continued to feel guilty long after that, especially when the four of us were together.” I paused and shook my head gravely. “I think that was the most difficult part of all—that Denise and the Goldfish became good friends. But that was the way it went down; Kenny got his wish and became my right-hand man, and the four of us became inseparable.”

Just then the door swung open and in walked the Witch, dressed in black. The three of us looked at her, speechless. She sat down next to OCD and said, “What did I miss?”

Nothing but silence.

Finally OCD said, with mock formality, “Well, Jordan was just giving us some valuable insight into his relationship with Kenny Greene and the Gold—”

“And I think this is a good time to break for lunch,” reasoned the Bastard.

“Yeah, I'm famished,” I agreed.

“Hmmm,” muttered the Witch. “You'll have to fill me in, then, Joel.”

Indeed, I thought, and maybe you can convince her to blow you while you're at it—although, on second thought, she looks like a biter!

We broke for lunch.

1*Name has been changed

2*Name has been changed