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

CHAPTER 12

LEAPS OF LOGIC

recisely one hour later, I was back in the Bastard's dungeon, with two slices of pizza digesting in my stomach and my three captors staring at me intently. I had spent the last fifteen minutes talking about the Blockhead—explaining how he'd insinuated himself into every aspect of my life, both business and personal. He did everything for me, I told them, almost like a second wife. And although I maintained no official rank at the Investors’ Center, anyone who saw us together knew I was the boss. And Kenny was fine with that; in fact, he relished it.

There are kings and there are kingmakers, I said to my captors, and the Blockhead was definitely the latter. I explained how Kenny began spending the bulk of his day running the operations of what had now become our office within an office. We had our own section at the back of the boardroom where our staff sat. At the time, we had four connectors, three stockbrokers, and one female sales assistant, all of whom had sworn loyalty to me (at Kenny's urging).

And I was now saying, “What impressed me most about Kenny— or should I say, what baffled me most—was the never-ending stream of friends he paraded into the office. And they were all cut from exactly the same mold: in their late teens or early twenties, from reasonably good families, and reasonably well educated.”

“Interesting,” said the Bastard. “And these were his former drug clients?”

I shrugged. “For the most part, yes, although I wouldn't place too much emphasis on that. These were good kids, not derelicts. It was like the movie Risky Business, where Tom Cruise becomes ‘pimp-for-a-night’ and hooks up his high school buddies with a happy hit squad of high-class hookers. That's what Kenny did, and his friends kept right on coming.”

“And where did Victor Wang stand in all this?” asked the Witch.

Uh-oh! I thought. Victor's goose was cooked now! “Well, the Chinaman—I mean Victor—stayed out of the mix for a while. He was too busy waiting on the sidelines, observing. See, he and Kenny had this completely bizarre friendship at the time. It was a mixture of love, hate, and mutual contempt, and, depending on the moment, how they felt about each other was a complete crap-shoot. They could be best friends, mortal enemies, or anywhere in between.

“In the spring of 1988, when all this was happening, Kenny and Victor were on the outs. I would only find out later that it was because of me.”

“Why is that?” asked OCD.

“Because Victor had taken Kenny's swearing loyalty to me as a personal affront. Since they were kids, they'd always planned on going into business together, and since Victor was the brighter of the two, he was their undeclared leader. Even when Kenny had brought Victor to my meat company, it was only for him to scope things out, to see if the idea was worth stealing for him and the Blockhead—which, of course, it wasn't. But flash forward eighteen months later, and the same forces were at work when Kenny called me out of the blue wanting to be a stockbroker.

“In the beginning, he had every intention of learning what he could and then going off with Victor. But what Kenny hadn't counted on was being blown away when he heard me on the phone. Suddenly he realized that there were other people out there even sharper than his beloved Victor Wang. So he shifted loyalties; rather than trying to tap my brain for knowledge and wisdom, he took the opposite approach, throwing every last drop of himself into promoting me—and trying to turn me into a king.”

“What a sordid tale,” muttered OCD.

“Yeah, it certainly is. But, anyway, to sum up all this Victor Wang business, Kenny had tried to get him into the picture while we were still at the Investors’ Center. He'd begged Victor to swear loyalty to me, but Victor refused; he was too proud. So he pooh-poohed the whole stock-market idea and continued dealing coke.” I shrugged. “And as the months passed, I quickly grew in power, and the window slammed shut in Victor's face. In less than a year, Stratton would be Stratton, and most of Victor's friends would be working for me. The dullest would go on to make hundreds of thousands a year, the sharpest would make millions, and a select few would make tens of millions. The latter were the ones I backed in their own firms, which I used to expand my nefarious empire and keep the regulators off balance. Ultimately, Victor would come to own one of those firms—namely, Duke Securities—and the only reason I agreed to finance him was to placate the Blockhead.

“I had been entirely against it at the time, because I knew Victor for what he was: a man of perceived insults and silent grudges. He could never stay loyal to me, nor anyone else, for that matter.” I looked into the Witch's black eyes. “Make no mistake about it, Michele: Victor is, was, and always will be an insane character. He's two hundred pounds of indestructible muscle surrounded by fifty pounds of lavish fat, and he's not scared to go to fisticuffs if the need arises. In fact, he once hung my gay butler out the fifty-third-story window of my apartment—and that was after pounding the guy's face into chopped meat!”

My captors stared at me, astonished. “Yeah, it's a little-known story. My gay butler stole fifty thousand dollars from me, after Nadine walked in on him having a gay orgy in our apartment.” I shrugged. “I can give you all the dirty details if you want, although violence, I assure you, played no role at Stratton. What happened with my butler was a single aberration, as well as a testament to Victor's savagery. Danny, on the other hand, is not a savage. The moment he saw Patrick bleeding, he ran into the bathroom and started vomiting.”

The Bastard held up an index finger and said, “Excuse me,” and he leaned over and whispered something in OCD's ear. Now the Witch leaned over and added her own two cents.

I made no effort to eavesdrop. After all, I was too busy lost in thought, wondering how my life had spiraled so far out of control. Perhaps if I'd followed my mother's advice and gone to medical school, maybe I would have become a cardiac surgeon like my first cousin; or maybe I would have become an orthopedist, like my other cousin; or perhaps I'd be a lawyer now, like my sainted brother, Bob. Who knew anymore? It was all so complicated.

Just then my captors broke from their huddle. “Okay,” said the Bastard, “let's move on to Danny now. When did you two finally meet?”

I thought for a moment. “In June of ‘88,” I said, “which was right around the time I decided to leave Investors’ Center. I knew the place was a total scam by then, and if I didn't leave soon my clients would get slaughtered.” I paused for a moment, considering my words. “Scam is probably too strong a word, though. I didn't think what I was doing was actually illegal.”

“You don't really expect us to believe that?” sputtered the Witch, with a disturbing twitch of her nose. I flashed her a dead smile. “Yeah, Michele, I really do, and, frankly, it shouldn't come as much of a shock to you. The Investors’ Center was a licensed brokerage firm with a compliance department, a trading department, and all the other bells and whistles. They were even members of the NASD! It wasn't like they were operating in the shadows!

“Every other month they'd take a company public, and right there on the front page of the prospectus it would say: This deal had been reviewed by the SEC.” I shrugged. “And, also, you keep forgetting how broke I was at the time. When I walked into the Investors’ Center, the only thing I was thinking about was rent money. It was driving all my decisions.” I let out an obvious sigh. “I can't explain it any better than that, although I will admit that once rent money was no longer an issue, I began to notice a few things. At first I tried to rationalize them, but with each passing month it became more and more difficult. And I felt more and more terrible inside.”

The Witch: “So why not quit if you felt so bad?”

“Well, believe it or not, Michele, that's exactly what I had in mind when I met Danny. That was actually how I met him in the first place: I was hanging out on my terrace, playing hooky from work. I was dressed in my usual garb—a white terry-cloth bathrobe— and I was pondering the direction of my life. I had a pretty decent nest egg by then, so I wasn't under any pressure. All options were open to me—all options except opening a brokerage firm, which I had already ruled out.

“It was mid-June now, and George had broached the subject with me. He'd called me into his office and said, ‘The owners of Investors’ Center are making a fortune. It's a shame to leave so much money on the table, don't you think?’

“And my answer to George was: No, I didn't think! I wanted no part of owning a brokerage firm, especially one like the Investors’ Center. My meat-and-seafood debacle was still fresh in my mind, and I knew that every business appeared lucrative from the outside looking in; it was only when you were on the inside looking out that you got the true picture. Of course, George had no idea of that, because he'd never been in business before. All he saw were dollar signs, not a single liability.”

“So you met Danny while you were on your terrace?” asked the Bastard.

“Yes, I was living on the fourth floor, and Danny was playing with his son, Jonathon, in the playground. Jonathon was two at the time, and he always stuck out to me, because he had this terrific head of platinum-blond hair. He was incredibly cute. Anyway, after a few minutes of playing the good father, Danny appeared to be getting bored, and he drifted off to the side and lit up a cigarette. Eventually we locked eyes, and I flashed him a warm, neighborly smile.

“I think what shocks me most about this day is how normal Danny looked. He had on powder-blue golf shorts and a matching short-sleeve polo shirt. It was a golfer's ensemble, I thought, or maybe it was a yachter's ensemble. It was difficult to tell. Either way, I would've never guessed he was a Jew.”

The Bastard stared at me, confused. I continued: “Anyway, as Danny and I exchanged hellos, I noticed that Jonathon had made his way to the top of the sliding pond. At first I was impressed, because it seemed like a mighty feat for a two-year-old, but then it occurred to me that I should probably say something to Danny.

“And then, suddenly, Jonathon lost his balance and I screamed, ‘Holy shit! Watch out, Danny! Your son!’ And Danny spun around just in time to watch Jonathon take this wild tumble off the sliding pond and hit the pavement like a lead balloon.” I paused and shook my head gravely. “I'll tell you the truth: At first I thought the poor kid was dead. I mean, he was just lying there, motionless, and Danny was also motionless, too astonished to move.

“Finally, though, after a few painfully long seconds, Jonathon lifted his head and started looking around, but he wasn't crying yet. That came a second later, when he locked eyes with Danny. Then he went absolutely wild—screaming at the top of his lungs and flailing his arms about and kicking his legs wildly. So I figured I'd run downstairs and give Danny a hand. It seemed like the neighborly thing to do.

“But when I reached the playground, Jonathon was crying even louder. He was in Danny's arms and literally going ballistic! I said to Danny, ‘You want me to go find your wife for you?’ And Danny recoiled in horror and said, ‘Good God! Find anybody but her! Please! You can call the cops, for all I care, and have me arrested for being a bad father, just don't call my wife, please!

“Of course I thought he was kidding at the time, so I nodded my head and smiled. But he didn't smile back, and that was because he wasn't joking. I wouldn't find out why, though, for a few more days, until Denise and I had the pleasure of going out for dinner with them and watching Nancy pull a lit cigarette out of his mouth and throw it in his face. But, not to jump ahead here: Jonathon did finally calm down, at which point Danny said to me, ‘My wife tells me she sees you hanging out on your terrace all week in a bathrobe. What do you do for a living?’

“ ‘I'm a stockbroker,’ I replied casually.

“ ‘Really?’ he said. ‘I thought you needed to work on Wall Street to be a stockbroker.’

“I shook my head no. ‘That's a total misconception. Everything is done over the phone now. You could be anywhere. I, for one, work in Great Neck, and I made over fifty grand last month.’

“‘Fifty grand!’ he said. ‘I don't believe it! I have a bunch of friends who are stockbrokers, and they're all sucking wind since the crash!’

“ ‘I only deal in small stocks,’ I said. ‘They weren't hit as hard by the crash. What kind of work do you do?’

“ ‘I'm in the ambulette business,’ he answered quickly, ‘and it's a total fucking nightmare. I have seven vans that constantly break down and seven Haitian drivers who barely show up for work. I'd torch the place, if I thought I could get away with it.’

“I nodded in understanding. Without even thinking, I said, ‘Well, if you want to make a change, I'm sure I can get you a job at my company. I'll train you myself,’ to which Danny looked me in the eye and said, ‘Pal, if you prove to me you're making fifty thousand a month, I'll be at your doorstep, six a.m. tomorrow morning, ready to shovel shit for you!’”

“When did he actually come to work for you?” asked the Bastard.

“The next morning,” I said. “True to his word, he was waiting at my door, holding a copy of The Wall Street Journal.”

“What about his ambulette business?”

I shrugged. “He never went back. He had a fifty-fifty partner, and he just handed the guy the keys and said, ‘See ya later, pal. Nice knowing you!’ and that was it. He cold-called for me for the rest of the summer and then passed his broker's test the first week of September. George, meanwhile, was becoming more and more aggressive with me about opening up our own brokerage firm. The SEC had started investigating the Investors’ Center. If word leaked out, he said, the firm would quickly collapse.

“What worried me most was that I had just convinced Lipsky and the Penguin to come work for me. The Penguin had finally thrown in the towel on the meat-and-seafood business, and Lipsky's furniture business was on the verge of bankruptcy. So, in a way, I was responsible for them now too. That was why I finally agreed to go with George to see a lawyer, because I wanted to gather intelligence.”

“Which lawyer did you see?” asked the Bastard.

“His name was Lester Morse, although Danny and I used to call him Lester Re-Morse, because everything about the guy was remorseful, or, better yet, moroseful. He was the ultimate doom-and-gloomer, almost difficult to fathom.

“I mean, every person he knew was either rotting away in jail or had lost their last dime to the SEC. And the way the Moroser told a story made you want to slit your own wrists. He would start off by saying what a great guy someone was and how he'd made a fortune in his heyday, but the story would quickly degenerate into a cautionary tale, and he would end by saying, ‘… and what the government did to him was a real travesty. He's in Allenwood now, and he won't be getting out for ten more years.’ Then he'd shake his head and move on to the next victim.”

“Interesting,” mumbled the Bastard.

“Yeah,” I said, “what's even more interesting is that one of the names he brought up was Bob Brennan, the Blue-eyed Devil himself.”

The Bastard perked up. “Oh, really! What did he say about him?”

I shrugged. “He said he was the only person to ever walk away with all the marbles—two hundred million, by Lester's account.”

“Hmmm,” muttered the Bastard. “Did he say anything else?”

“Yeah, he said that Bob was too smart to get caught. He said that he was always two steps ahead of the regulators and that he covered his tracks like an Indian. I remember being very intrigued at the time—swearing to myself that if I ever decided to go into the brokerage business, I would want to be just like Bob Brennan.

“You see, Lester didn't paint out Bob to be an archcriminal—in fact, quite the contrary. According to Lester, it was the fault of overzealous regulators, along with a two-tiered justice system that was biased against penny-stock firms. WASP firms, on the other hand, got away with murder.”

“Did you believe him?” asked the Bastard.

“For the most part, yes, although I won't deny that his words seemed a bit self-serving. I knew enough at this point to realize that penny stocks stacked the deck against the clients, although a stacked deck and blatant illegality are two different things. Meanwhile, Lester's office reminded me of the Investors’ Center. It was small and dingy and didn't reek of success. And Lester reminded me of an aging leprechaun. He was a squat five foot four, and he was completely bald on top, with thick swaths of curly gray hair over his ears.”

“So it was just the three of you at the meeting?” asked the Bastard.

“No, there were four of us. Mike Valenoti was there too.” I looked at OCD. “Mike, I'm sure, you're familiar with.”

OCD nodded. “I have a bunch of questions about Valenoti.”

“I'm not surprised,” I said. “If there was a single person who helped me turn Stratton into Stratton, it was Mike Valenoti. He was the operational brain behind everything, the one who kept the place cranking away on all twelve cylinders. He was my first mentor—even before Al Abrams—and he was also the first Wall Street wizard I'd ever met. I mean, his breadth of knowledge was absolutely staggering!”

I shrugged. “But to save you time, I'll tell you that Mike Valenoti is completely innocent in this. He was always trying to keep me on the straight and narrow, and I was constantly swearing to him that I was doing things right. In the end, though, he became so overwhelmed with the influx of business that he couldn't see the big picture anymore. He had no idea I was breaking the law.”

OCD twisted his lips for a moment. “I appreciate your loyalty to Mike,” he said, “but it seems just a tiny bit implausible that someone as sophisticated as Mike wouldn't know what was going on.” He flashed me a quick, disbelieving smile. “You see what I'm saying?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, what you're saying makes total sense, Greg. But it also happens to be totally wrong.” I paused for effect. “Understand that ninty percent of Stratton's business was completely legitimate: We didn't steal money from clients’ accounts, we didn't take fraudulent companies public, and, contrary to what the press might say, our clients could always sell if they wanted to.” I shrugged. “Of course, our sales practices left a lot to be desired, but whose didn't? Prudential-Bache's? Lehman Brothers?

“ Pru-Bache was busy ripping off grandmas and grandpas, and Lehman Brothers made them look like choirboys. In fact, it was the Lehman Brothers’ scripts that served as the blueprint for Stratton's!” I shook my head slowly. “The fraudulent side of Stratton occurred in tiny blips, and unless you were privy to those blips, everything seemed normal. But let me get back to Lester's office for a second.

“First, I quickly realized that George Grunfeld was completely worthless. He knew even less about the brokerage business than I did, and every word that came out of his mouth was utter nonsense. Lester, however, was a different story. He was knowledgeable enough, but he was completely devoid of charisma. He spoke in a low, squeaky drawl, and his words came out slowly, painfully, as if a turtle were speaking.

“I found it hard to keep my mind in one spot, so I just sat there, pretending to listen, sneaking peaks at Mike out of the corner of my eye. Lester had painted him out to be some kind of operations guru, but up until now he'd said only a few words. From a physical perspective, I was entirely unimpressed. He was dressed in a cheap blue suit and an even cheaper rayon shirt, and his hair was askew”—kind of like yours, Bastard, although Mike's hair was salt-and-pepper, while yours is a plebian shade of mud brown-“although, in retrospect, I should have known an old Wall Street war dog when I saw one.”

“What's an old Wall Street war dog?” asked the Bastard.

“It's someone who's worked on Wall Street for far too long and who's been through bull markets and bear markets, someone who's seen the dizzying excesses and the crash-and-burn stories. It's someone who's seen countless men go from rags to riches and then back to rags again, and then back to riches once more. He's seen the hookers and the drugs and the ludicrous gambling, and he's seen Wall Street go from the dark ages of fixed commissions and physical stock delivery to the modern era, where discount brokerage firms compete with Merrill Lynch and stock trades settle electronically.” I shrugged. “There are only a few true old Wall Street war dogs left in the world, because most of them have already died of either a heart attack or cirrhosis of the liver. But if you're lucky enough to actually find one, they're worth their weight in gold.

“And Mike Valenoti was one of this dying breed. Perhaps I should have known it the moment I laid eyes on him. I should have noticed the battle-ravaged look in his eye as he sat there listening to George's and Lester's inanities. He kept his chin tucked between his collarbones and his shoulders slumped over, as if he were about to fall asleep. And then there was Mike's nose, which was a real showstopper! It was coated with red spidery veins and was the size of a sweet potato! Yet, on the flipside of that, Mike had the most intelligent brown eyes I'd ever seen. They were utterly piercing, and you could tell just by looking at them that he wasn't missing a trick.

“Anyway, not to belabor the point, the simple fact was that Mike and I hit it off fabulously that day. We spoke exactly the same language, and it was the language of Wall Street. When he started a sentence, I finished it, and vice versa. In fact, by the time the meeting was over, I'd given Mike a full-blown sales pitch, pretending he was a customer. And, of course, it completely blew him away, as it did Lester.

“But I think what's even more important about this day is the effect Mike had on me. Suddenly, I felt like the old Jordan again.” I shrugged. “Whatever the case, I knew I'd sounded sharper than sharp that afternoon, so it came as no surprise to me when Lester called me at home that night and told me that I should consider opening my own brokerage firm. Apparently Mike had pulled him aside after the meeting and said that he'd work for me for free-meaning for no up-front salary. All he wanted was a small percentage of the profits. In return, he would build me a first-class operations department to rival any firm on Wall Street.

“Lester, too, was willing to work for free. He would file all the necessary forms with the NASD and then accompany me to my membership interview. In return, all he wanted was a shot at representing the companies I took public. Whether or not they decided to use him wasn't my responsibility. I just needed to make the introduction; he would do the rest.”

“What about Grunfeld?” asked OCD.

I shook my head. “George was out. In fact, it was the first thing Lester brought up. He served no useful purpose, squeaked Lester. He was a helluva nice guy, but he was deadweight. Between Mike and me we had everything we needed to run a firm.

“Anyway, I told Lester I would think about it, although, deep down, I really didn't have any intention of going through with it. I was still gun-shy from the meat-and-seafood debacle, and I figured I'd just wait and see for a while.”

“Where are we now on the time line?” asked the Bastard.

“Early September,” I replied, “which is when things start to really heat up. First, Danny passed his broker's test, and I called him up to my apartment for a training session. Sitting on my living-room couch, I began.

“‘Okay,’ I said to him, ‘here's the deal: The first key to selling stock is to learn to read from a script without sounding like you're reading from a script. You follow me?’

“ ‘Yeah,’ he said confidently, ‘and it's no problem whatsoever.’

“‘Good,’ I shot back. ‘Just pretend you're an actor on a stage: You raise your voice and lower your voice; you speed up and then slow down. You keep your clients interested, hanging on your every word. And don't even think of picking up the phone until you know the answers to all potential objections. You can never sound stumped, Danny—ever!’

“He nodded confidently. ‘I got it, buddy. You don't have to worry about Danny Porush. He can sell ice to an Eskimo and oil to an Arab!’

“ ‘I'm sure he can,’ I agreed. ‘But, remember, you have to know this script like the back of your hand. You can't stutter; it's the first sign of a rookie salesman, and a client will smell it right over the phone.’ I smiled at him, while Denise looked on with anticipation. I had told her what a great salesman Danny was, in spite of never actually hearing him sell before. But he had a very cocky demeanor about him, so I just knew he'd be great.

“With coffeepot in hand, Denise smiled at Danny and said, ‘You want me to go into the kitchen, so I don't make you nervous?’

“And Danny waved her off. ‘Please, Denise, this is like shooting fish in a barrel for a guy like me!’ And Denise shrugged and said, ‘Okay, well, I'll just stand here and listen, then.’ And Danny nodded, and I handed him a script for Arncliffe National.

“ ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘just pretend you're pitching me over the phone, and we'll role-play back and forth.’

“He nodded and took the script from me, then cleared his throat with a couple uhums and uhus. Finally, with great confidence, he said, ‘Hi, is Jordan there?’

“ ‘Yeah,’ I replied quickly, ‘right here. How can I help you?’

“Danny rolled his neck, like a prizefighter stepping into the ring. ‘Hi, Jordan, this is Danny Porush calling from… calling from… calling from, uh, the—uh—the—uh… the In… Investors’ Center. How… are you today?’ and then he paused and started sweating.

“Denise said, ‘I think I'll go into the kitchen and leave you two boys alone.’ And a suddenly humble Danny replied, ‘Yeah, I, uh, think that's a good idea, Denise. This is a bit harder than it looks,’ and then he wiped a bead of sweat off his brow.”

“Come on!” said OCD. “You're exaggerating; he couldn't have been that bad!”

I started laughing. “He was, Greg! In fact, he was so bad that, when he left the apartment that night, Denise said, ‘There's no way he's gonna make it, honey. He sounds retarded. I mean, why was he mumbling all night? Why couldn't he just speak up like a normal person?’

“ ‘I'm not really sure,’ I answered. ‘Maybe he's got a rare form of Tourette's that only comes out when he sells,’ and Denise nodded in agreement.

“Anyway, I made it a point to go to work the next morning, because I wanted to witness the carnage firsthand, and that's when something odd happened, something very unexpected. I was sitting a few feet from Danny, trying to contain my laughter. He was doing the old, ‘Hi—uh, this is, uh, Da-anny Por-ush. How, uh, are you?’ But then, after about five seconds, suddenly—snap!—he completely stopped stuttering and he started sounding totally unbelievable. Almost as good as me, in fact, but not quite.” I winked at my captors.

“He started closing accounts left and right, and two weeks later, as a sign of friendship, I asked him to take a ride into the city with me to see my accountant. October fifteenth was right around the corner, and I was still on extension for my ‘87 taxes. Of course, Danny happily agreed, and off we went. We hopped into my pearl-white Jaguar and we headed into Manhattan on a Wednesday afternoon.

“Now, mind you, up until then I thought Danny was completely normal. He dressed conservatively, he acted conservatively, and he came from a very good family. He'd grown up on the South Shore of Long Island, in the town of Lawrence, which is a very wealthy area, and his father was a big-time nephrologist. Danny referred to him as the Kidney King of Brookdale Hospital.

“However, on the home front, Denise had been hearing some very strange rumors about Danny: namely, that he and his wife, Nancy, were first cousins. Of course, I told Denise she was crazy, because there was no way Danny would withhold such a fact from me. Most of the time we spent together he was bitching about his wife, explaining how her sole mission in life was to make him as miserable as possible.

“So, I figured, why wouldn't he confide in me that he and Nancy were first cousins? It made no sense. I mean, if it was true, it would definitely be playing a role in things. But I could never figure out a way to broach the subject with him, so I just kind of brushed the whole thing off, dismissing it as a vicious rumor.

“In any event, after I finished with my accountant, the two of us hopped back in my Jaguar and headed out of the city. We were somewhere around Ninety-fifth Street on the edge of Harlem when the insanity started. I remember Danny saying ‘Jesus Christ! Pull over! You gotta pull over.’ I pulled over and Danny jumped out of the car and went running into a dilapidated bodega with a cheap yellow sign Groceteria. He came running back out a minute later, holding a brown paper bag. He jumped back in the car with this insane smile on his face, and he said, ‘Drive! Hurry up! Head north, to One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street.’

“ ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ I muttered. ‘That's Harlem, Danny!’

“ ‘It's all good,’ he said knowingly, and he reached into the bag and pulled out a glass crack pipe and a dozen crack vials. ‘This stuff will make you into Superman. It's my gift to you, for all you've done for me.’

“I shook my head and started driving. ‘You're fucking crazy!’ I snarled. ‘I'm not smoking that shit! It's pure evil.’

“But he waved me off. ‘You're exaggerating,’ he said. ‘It's only evil if you have constant access to it, and they don't sell it in Bayside, so we're in the clear.’

“ ‘You know, you're a real fucking retard!’ I sputtered. ‘The chances of me smoking crack right now are less than zero. You got that, pal?’

“ ‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘I got it. Now, make a left up here and head toward Central Park.’

“ ‘This fucking guy,’ I muttered to myself, and I shook my head in disgust and made a left turn. Fifteen minutes later I was in the subbasement of a falling-apart Harlem crack den favored by toothless hookers and Haitian winos, and I was putting the glass pipe to my lips while Danny held a torch to the bowl. And as the crack sizzled like a strip of bacon, I took an enormous hit and held it in for as long as I could. An indescribable wave of euphoria overtook me. It started in the base of my aorta and shot up my spinal column and bubbled around the pleasure center of my brain with a billion synaptic explosions.

“‘Oh, Jesus,’ I muttered, ‘you—are—the—best—friend—I—ever-had, Danny!’ and I passed him the pipe.

“ ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You are too; we're brothers to the end,’ and he reloaded the pipe with more crack.”

OCD shook his head in disbelief. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you do that?”

The Witch said, “Because they're drug addicts, Greg; they have no shame.”

“How long did you stay there for?” asked the Bastard, in the tone of the morbidly curious.

“For a very long time,” I said, nodding. “You see, the thing about crack is that once you get started, there are only two ways to stop: The first is to run out of money, and the second is to die of a heart attack. Fortunately, our binge ended with the former, not the latter. I only had about seven hundred dollars in my pocket and Danny had about five, so we pooled our money, like good socialists, and were able to keep our binge going well past midnight.”

I shrugged. “On the brighter side, though, I was able to gather some very valuable intelligence during our binge. You see, like all drugs, there are various phases of the high, and with crack they're particularly acute. If you'd like, I'll share them with you.”

OCD shook his head gravely. “You know, it's a mystery to me why I'm interested in hearing about this, but since you've let the genie out of the bottle, you might as well get on with it.”

I flashed OCD a knowing smile. “It would be my pleasure, Greg. The first phase of a crack high is the euphoria phase. This is when you feel so incredibly wonderful that you want to just scream from the fucking hilltops: ‘I love crack! I love crack! And all of you out there who ain't smoking this shit don't know what you're missing!’” I shrugged. “And if you think I'm kidding, just take a hit of it yourself and you'll see what I mean.”

“How long does that phase last?” asked the Bastard.

I shook my head sadly. “Not long enough,” I replied. “Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes; then it's over and you slide into phase two, which is almost as good, but not quite. It's called the diarrhea-of-the-mouth phase, which is somewhat self-explanatory. In this case, however, the sort of drug-induced oral diarrhea spewed out differs from your garden-variety oral diarrhea that the typical sober bullshit artist slings at you.”

“What's the difference?” asked the Witch, searching for a way to peg a bullshit artist when she saw one.

I narrowed my eyes sagely. “Well, it's very difficult to describe meaningless drug talk to those who've never immersed themselves in it, but let's just say that it consists of an endless stream of inane ramblings, which other people in the phase think are brilliant. Yet, to all those outside the phase, they sound like complete nonsense.”

OCD seemed to understand: “So it was during this phase that you did the bulk of your intelligence gathering, I assume.”

“Indeed, Greg; that's a very logical assumption. Danny and I were sitting on a concrete floor, beneath an asbestos-laden ceiling, with our backs against a cheap plasterboard wall, which was in the process of shedding two coats of lead-based paint, while three toothless crack whores looked on in admiration, and I said to him, ‘I can't think of a better place to ride out a crack high than this, buddy. Right?’

“ ‘No way,’ he mumbled. ‘Think I'd steer you wrong?’ And he put the pipe to his lips and took another hit.

“ ‘Let me ask you a question,’ I said. ‘You know, there are some pretty crazy rumors floating around the building about you and Nancy being first cousins. Of course, I know they're not true and everything, but I just figured I'd let you know, so that you'd be aware that people were spreading rumors about you.’

“Suddenly he started coughing violently. ‘ Ho-bee Jesus….’ he muttered, ‘ho-bee Jesus,’ and he shook his head quickly, as if trying to gain control of the rush. After a few seconds he said, ‘It's not a rumor, buddy, it's true. Nancy and I are first cousins. Her father and my mother are brother and sister.’ He shrugged.

“ ‘Aren't you worried about inbreeding?’ I asked him. ‘I mean, Jonathon seems pretty normal so far, but what about your next kid? What if he comes out deformed?’

“Danny shook his head. ‘The risk is low,’ he said confidently. ‘My father's a doctor and he checked it out. But if I do get dealt a shitty hand, I'll just leave the mutant on the institution steps. Either that, or I'll lock it in the basement and lower down a bucket of chopped meat once a month.’

“Remember, I'm not the one who said this—Danny was! Besides, we were in the middle of the diarrhea-of-the-mouth phase, and even the most absurd things make sense then!”

OCD and the Bastard started chuckling. “So what other intelligence did you gather?” asked the Bastard.

I nodded, eager to change the subject. “Well, I also found out that he'd snorted his last two businesses right up his nose. See, before the ambulette service there was a messenger service in Manhattan, and that's when he started smoking crack: with the bike messengers. That was the start of Danny's financial demise. Before that, he'd always been successful; now, however, he was a shell of his former self. His confidence was shattered; his bank account depleted; and his wife, never a bowl of cherries to begin with, was determined to turn his life into a living hell.

“Anyway, we didn't leave the city that night until after midnight, and it was only then that I realized that I'd forgotten to call Denise. And it was also then when I started falling off an emotional cliff, hitting bottom just as we got off the exit ramp for Bayside, and I landed right smack in the heart of the worry phase.” I paused for a moment, feeling worried just thinking about the worry phase.

I took a deep breath and said, “This is phase three: a vicious onslaught of negative thoughts washing over you like a killer tsunami. You worry about everything: mistakes of the past, problems of the present, and anything that might pop up in the future. In Danny's case, his worries had to do with money, and I knew this because, just as we pulled off the exit ramp, he said, ‘Citibank is about to foreclose on my condo and throw my family into the street. You think you can lend me ten thousand dollars? I have nowhere else to turn.’

“I took a deep breath, trying to draw power from Danny's worries, figuring that if Danny's life was in worse shape than mine, then how much did I really have to worry about? ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Do you have any Valium or Xanax to take the edge off? I'm not feeling so well.’

“He shook his head no. ‘I don't have any. But why don't you smoke the screen? There should be a little crack resin on it. It'll make you feel better.’

“I nodded and grabbed the pipe. ‘Thanks; hold the wheel while I light up. I don't wanna burn myself.’ And Danny grabbed the wheel, and that's how we made our way through Bayside: with me smoking the screen and Danny steering the car.

“On our way up in the elevator we didn't say a single word to each other. We didn't even lock eyes. We were both too embarrassed. And I remember swearing to myself that I would never speak to him again. I knew someone like Danny could not be good for me. Someone who talked about his family the way he did, someone who consumed drugs the way he did, and someone who had the fucking audacity to lead me into the depth and despair of a Harlem crack den—I knew he would only bring out the worst in me.

“Anyway, the moment I stuck my key in the lock, the door swung open and there was Denise, crying. I looked at her with panic in my eyes. My heart was literally beating out of my chest. I threw my palms up in the air and opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. That's when I entered phase four, the suicide-contemplation phase.

“There are only two known antidotes to it: The first is the massive consumption of benzodiazepines—preferably Xanax or Valium and Klonopin. The second is massive quantities of sleep, on the order of two or three days. Anything less and you still might attempt suicide. And as I stood before Denise, reeking of urine and hookers and crack and funk, she took pity on me, and she loaded me up with enough Xanax to knock out a blue whale. Then she undressed me and tucked me in. And then I passed out.”

“Jesus,” muttered OCD.

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah,” I agreed, “Jesus is right. In fact, it would take me three days to recover, which takes us to Sunday morning. That's when I entered the resurrection phase, which is the most productive phase of all. Your brain's dopamine stores have fully replenished themselves, and you're promising yourself that you've officially learned your lesson this time. You know what you did was completely foolish, and only a crazy person would do it again; and you're definitely not a crazy person!

“What makes this phase so productive is that you can look at all your worries now with an icy detachment, dismissing the imagined ones and devising strategies to deal with the real ones. It's a time of tremendous clarity, a time when a man takes stock of his life. And as long as you're not a full-blown crack addict, thinking about heading back to the crack den again, you emerge from this experience a much better man, a more focused man, and—”

“Oh, please!” sputtered the Bastard. “Save your rationalizations for the less informed! Crack doesn't make you better or more focused; it's pure evil, nothing more.”

OCD let out a single chuckle. The Witch raised an eyebrow. I said to the Bastard, “You have an excellent point there, Joel, although, in this particular case, the resurrection phase happened to be unusually productive, because I quickly realized that I had only one thing to worry about, and that was the Investors’ Center. If George was right, then I needed to make a move now, before the shit hit the fan. To sit and wait would be like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

“So the next day I pulled Kenny aside and told him that I was ready to make a move. The Investors’ Center was on the way out, I explained to him, and we needed to start setting things up now, in anticipation.”

“What about your future partner-in-crime?” asked the Witch. “Did you lend Danny the money?”

God—how I would have loved to just smack her in that mousy little head of hers! I smiled warmly at the Witch and said, “Yes, Michele, I did, and if you want to know why, the answer is, I'm not really sure. On my way to the office I had every intention of firing him. I really did. But when I saw him sitting at his desk, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. He looked nervous and embarrassed. And when we finally locked eyes, he flashed me the saddest of smiles, then he put his head back down and started dialing again. I remember staring at him—watching him bang away at the phone—and feeling utterly confused inside.

“I really wanted to fire him, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. He had a wife and kid, both of whom I knew and both of whom I cared about. And I knew how talented he was, so greed was gnawing at me too. So I decided to lend him the money and keep him in the fold. I would just keep my guard up and make sure I controlled him.

“But a few days later, on my way into the building, the doorman stopped me and handed me a certified letter. I looked at the envelope and froze: It was from the SEC. Without even opening it, I knew it was a subpoena.”

“What was it for?” asked the Bastard.

“For records,” I answered, “as well as a personal appearance. And while it didn't give a specific date, the next morning Lester Re-Morse called bright and early and said, ‘I think the Investors’ Center is going to shut its doors this week. In fact, it'll be a miracle if they make it past Wednesday.’

“ ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I snapped. ‘How can the SEC shut them down before they even investigate them?’

“‘The SEC's not shutting them down,’ he replied. ‘They're shutting themselves down. They're out of money.’

“Out of money! I thought. How the fuck could that be! ‘How on earth could they be out of money, Lester? They were making a fortune!’

“ ‘No, no,’ Lester squeaked. ‘They were making a couple a million a year at most, and they sucked it all out of the firm. The rest of Wall Street has been shorting their stocks since Wednesday, when word of the investigation leaked out. So it's only a matter of time now.’”

I looked at my captors and shrugged. “And those were the famous last words from Lester Re-Morse. Brokerage firms all over Wall Street were shorting their stocks, figuring the investigation would put them out of business. So now the whole thing was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“ ‘How long will it take to get my own firm started?’ I asked him.

“ ‘It'll take you anywhere between six and ninth months.’

“‘Six to nine months! I don't have six to nine months! I'll lose everything if it takes that long.’ Then something else occurred to me. ‘Oh, Jesus! What about our paychecks, Lester? Monday is payday!’ to which he mumbled, ‘Yeah, well, you know… let's just say that if I were you I wouldn't hold my breath. Brokers never end up getting paid when this sort of thing happens. I would just write the whole thing off.’

“I started laughing at Lester's words, because Danny was supposed to get his first paycheck on Monday. It was close to forty grand, and it would be the ultimate crushing blow for him. I knew right then that if I wanted to keep Danny in the fold I would have to carry him until I set things up. Yet Danny was only one of my problems. I had seven other people in my crew, and, as loyal as they were, they wouldn't wait six to nine months. ‘There's gotta be a quicker way, Lester. Six to nine months is a death sentence for me. I need to speak to Mike Valenoti; maybe he knows a way.’

“ ‘I already spoke to Mike,’ said Lester, ‘and he's with you. He said he'd come to my office today and sit down with you if you'd like. We can meet at twelve.’

“‘All right,’ I said. ‘I'll be there at twelve.’

“ ‘You know, come to think of it,’ said Lester, ‘you could start off as a branch of another brokerage firm. It's called an OSJ, which stands for Office of Supervisory Jurisdiction, and—’

“I cut him off. ‘Yeah, I know what an OSJ is, and they're a total nightmare. The owner constantly tries to fuck over the branch manager. I don't want to start something that's going to blow up in six months.’

“‘What you're saying is true,’ replied Lester, ‘and normally I wouldn't recommend one to you. But I happen to know a little firm that's a diamond in the rough; they have no operations to speak of, just a tiny office on Maiden Lane, a block off Wall Street. You could open a small office on Long Island and pay them a percentage. The owner happens to be a very honest guy—an altogether lovely guy, in fact. But he lost all his money in the crash, and he's on the verge of going bankrupt.’

“ ‘What's his name?’

“ ‘Jim Taormina. And the firm is Stratton Securities.’”

“And there we go,” said OCD, with a smile.

The Bastard said, “Okay, so there we have it. We're finally at the beginning—one day and five hours of cooperation later.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “well, no one will ever accuse me of not being able to tell a good story, right?” I smiled warmly at my captors. I was at the guts of the story now, and it was a milestone of sorts. The four of us had bonded in a strange yet altogether pleasant way, and I couldn't help but marvel at Magnum's wisdom. In his absence, the walls of formality had come tumbling down, replaced by a hearty familiarity and esprit de corps. In fact, I finally felt like part of Team USA!

Alas, the Witch was quick to burst my bubble. “So this is when you embarked on your life of crime,” she said. “Everything before this was simply a warm-up.”

“So what happened next?” asked the Bastard.

I shrugged and let out a great sigh. “Well, the rest of the day was utter insanity. Before I went to Lester's, I called George Grunfeld's house, but his wife told me he wasn't home. ‘He's at the office taking care of paperwork,’ she said, and by the tone of her voice I could literally hear the paper shredder whirring in the background.

“Then I called the Blockhead and told him what was going on and that he better get down to the office to take care of our ‘paperwork’ before the federales raided the place. And then I called Danny and told him the bad news, that he wouldn't be getting paid on Monday. Of course, Danny being Danny, he took the bad news in stride.

“ ‘I got bigger problems than that,’ he snarled.

“ ‘Oh, really?’ I said. ‘Like what?’

“‘Well, I'm still married to Nancy,’ he replied. ‘Isn't that enough?’

“As usual, I resisted the urge to ask him why the fuck he'd married his first cousin in the first place. But I told him not to worry, that I would cover his mortgage and expenses and whatever else he needed until I sorted things out. To that, he thanked me graciously and told me that he was with me to the bitter end. Then I hung up the phone and headed for Lester's.”

“I'm curious,” remarked the Bastard. “What kind of documents were you looking to destroy?”

“Scripts, mostly, and maybe some buy tickets and sell tickets. But, in truth, there wasn't much I could destroy that wasn't stored in two or three other places. Nevertheless, on my way to Lester's there was a plan forming in my mind. Things were becoming very clear to me. In fact, this would mark the beginning of what I would come to think of as my Great Window of Clarity. It started on the car ride to Lester's and lasted through the beginning of 1993, when I settled my case with the SEC and sold the firm to Danny for $180 million. It was a remarkable time in my life, a four-and-a-half-year period during which there was no problem too complicated for me to work through. My brain was in overdrive, it seemed. I could be going in twenty directions at the same time yet find each destination without making a single wrong turn.” I paused for a moment, considering my words.

“I'm not trying to sound cocky here; believe me, that's the last way I feel right now. I've been humbled by my own life: by my drug addiction, by my indictment, and by my”—backstabbing— “wife leaving me on the courthouse steps. But I'm just trying to paint a picture for you, a picture of what I was like back then, so you can see why everyone followed me blindly: people like Mike Valenoti and my father, and Danny and Kenny and Jim Taormina, and, ultimately, thousands of other people who would come to work at Stratton.

“It was a time when I had all the answers, when I was able to master the brokerage business in a matter of days—both the operational side and the trading side. Mike would come to call me the world's most able pupil, and many others would eventually call me just the same. And, alas, many of them belonged on a who's who list of securities felons.” I shook my head sadly. “Anyway, I would look back at this time with mixed emotions, and with a healthy dose of wonder.

“In some ways, I think it was the very clarity that led me to drugs and hookers and to everything else. I'd always suffered from insomnia, but suddenly I found it impossible to sleep more than a couple hours each night. I couldn't quiet down the thoughts that were roaring through my head. In the early nineties, I was managing the trading accounts of four different brokerage firms— Stratton, Monroe Parker, Biltmore, and a secret account I held at M. H. Meyerson, which I used to balance out the others—and I knew what each firm had in its account, right down to the share.” I paused for a moment, letting my words sink in.

“When the clarity finally faded, I found myself desperately trying to recapture it. I tried a dozen different businesses: I made movies, started a vitamin company, worked with Steve Madden Shoes; I even tried short-selling stocks—figuring I could make money attacking the industry I'd created.

“But, in the end, I couldn't recapture it. I never got back to the point where I felt like my brain was firing on all cylinders.” I shook my head sadly. “Sometimes I wonder if I ever will. I mean, I know I have a long road ahead of me and that I'll probably end up spending a considerable amount of time in jail, but after it's all said and done—after I've done my time and paid my debt to society, so to speak—I wonder if I'll ever accomplish anything extraordinary again. I wonder if I'll ever have another window of clarity.” I let out a genuinely heartfelt sigh.

After a few moments of silence, OCD finally said, “I have a sneaky suspicion you will, but I hope for your sake—and for the sake of the public at large—that you do something more positive with your next window of clarity.”

“I couldn't agree more,” said the Witch, and she narrowed her eyes at me and cocked her head to the side at a very knowing angle, as if she were studying a tiny lab specimen. “I think what bothers me most about you is how you took a God-given gift and misused it. A common thief or even a thug, for that matter, is much easier for me to stomach. But you—well, it was nothing more than greed that motivated you, greed in all its forms, for all things carnal, and for all things self-serving. It was that and an unbridled lust for power.”

There was more silence, as the Witch's words hung in the air like nerve gas. Finally the Bastard said, in the tone of the peacemaker: “Well, I think we all agree that the final chapter of your life is yet to be written, but for now we need to stay focused on the present— or the past, I should say, and, more specifically, on your meeting at Lester's office.”

Yes, I thought, you are my savior and protector, Bastard, and that speaks volumes as to the horrific status of my life. After all, you would like nothing more than to see me rotting away in a jail cell, yet there's another human being in the room who wishes me even greater harm than you do.

I nodded and said, “Right… well, by the time I reached Lester's office, my window of clarity was fully open, and I had worked things out in my mind. There were three things I needed to accomplish: First and foremost, I needed to cut a deal with Mike; second, I needed to cut a deal with Jim Taormina; and, third, I needed temporary office space to interview salesmen until my permanent space was set up.

“So when I got to Lester's office, I didn't waste a second. It was just the three of us this time—Lester, Mike, and myself—and I went right to work. ‘Just name your price and I'll pay it,’ I said to Mike. ‘All I ask is that you take the bulk of your pay as a percentage of profits, or, better yet, as a percentage of revenue. This way you'll never have to worry about me trying to fuck you over by running personal expenses through the company.’ I smiled at him, trying my best to ignore that world-class schnozolla of his. ‘I know how valuable you are, Mike, and I can't do this without you. You've forgotten more about this business than I'll ever learn. You're my linchpin, my secret weapon.’

“Mike, of course, loved that, and I knew he would. See, on Wall Street, the back-office people are the unsung heroes, the ones who keep the machinery humming, while the brokers and bankers make a fortune. They're dramatically underpaid, in my opinion, and they're wildly underappreciated. So it came as no surprise to me when Mike said, ‘I don't need a salary. Just pay me whatever you think is fair, and I'll be fine with it.’

“I had already checked this with Lester, and a first-class operations guy was worth one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, he said. So I said to Mike, ‘How's ten percent of revenue up to half a million a year?’ And that was it. Mike was mine. Then I turned to Lester and said, ‘Call Jim Taormina and get him down here. I want to cut a deal with him before the day is out. What's standard for an OSJ?’

“Lester mumbled, ‘Well… uh—’

“‘Ten percent of revenue,’ snapped Mike, ‘plus a ten-dollar ticket charge, only on the buy side, though. Sell tickets are free. But the most important thing is that I don't want him holding our money. We get to sweep the trading account once a week. He can hold a small deposit, maybe twenty-five thousand; that's it.’

“I nodded. ‘All right,’ I said to Lester. ‘Call Jim, and tell him that I'll pay fifteen percent of revenue, but with a cap of thirty thousand dollars a month; that's the most he can make off me. After that, I keep everything. You think he'll go for that?’

“‘Uh, of course he will,’ mumbled Lester. ‘He's on the verge of bankruptcy. But he's, uh, sort of a low-energy guy, Jim. I'm concerned you might scare him off

“ ‘Don't worry,’ I said. ‘I know exactly how to speak to a guy like Jim. Just get him down here and I'll do the rest,’ and, of course, I was right. And Stratton got started just like that. Lester excused himself from the conference room, and Mike spent the next few hours giving me a crash course in the brokerage business. And when Jim finally showed up, he was a complete lay-down. I cut a deal with him in less than a minute.”

“And what about your SEC subpoena?” asked the Bastard.

I chuckled. “Yeah, well, that turned out to be the biggest joke of all. In fact, by the time they got around to deposing me, Stratton had already been in business for a year! And when they did actually sue Stratton, they never tried to use what happened at the Investors’ Center as a knockout punch.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But that's the SEC for you: The right hand never knows what the left hand is doing.”

After a few moments of silence, the Bastard asked, “How much longer did the Investors’ Center stay in business?”

“About five or six minutes,” I said casually. “In fact, after I left Lester's office, I swung by the Investors’ Center, which bore an odd resemblance to what I imagined the headquarters of the Third Reich looked like as the Russians were closing in on Berlin. There were papers everywhere, and brokers were running around carrying boxes, but that was nothing compared to the next week, when our paychecks bounced. Then brokers started tearing things off the walls.”

I shrugged. “Not surprisingly, the Blockhead turned out to be very adept at this sort of thing. First, he wheeled out an industrial-size Canon copier for our future brokerage firm, and then he used a crowbar to break into the office's safe and steal all the new-account forms. There were literally thousands of them, a veritable gold mine of people who'd shown a propensity to invest in penny stocks. It was those new-account forms that served as our first lead source, when we started cold-calling two weeks later. That was how long it took to get our space together.”

“What did you use in the meantime?” asked OCD.

“I used my friend's car dealership. It was just down the road from the Investors’ Center. I stayed there for about two weeks, until I found the right space, in the town of Lake Success, Long Island. It was just east of the Queens-Long Island border, and in spite of being small, the building was clean and upscale. With a bit of cramming, I figured we could fit twenty brokers in the boardroom. That would be perfect, I thought. With twenty brokers I could make a fortune.”

OCD, with a chuckle: “Twenty brokers?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah; I guess I set my sights a bit low.”

“What was the breakdown of ownership?” asked the Bastard.

“Seventy-thirty,” I replied. “Seventy percent me, thirty percent Kenny.”

“Danny wasn't a partner?” asked the Witch.

“No, it was just the Blockhead and me. Danny bought in later, over time.”

The Witch again: “How much start-up capital did you put in?”

“About eighty thousand,” I replied quickly. “And despite my owning twice as much as Kenny, we split the investment equally: forty thousand each. That was because I was the lead horse,” I said respectfully. “So splitting the investment seemed fair. The only casualty in all this was Elliot Loewenstern, the budding Penguin. What happened at the Investors’ Center had spooked him, and he took a job in Manhattan, at Bear Stearns. He did come back, of course, right after I hit on my idea of selling five-dollar stocks to the rich.”

“And when was that?” asked the Bastard.

“About a month later,” I replied casually. “In early November.”

“What made you think of it?” asked OCD.

I cocked my head to the side and smiled. “Do you mean was there a eureka moment?”

“Yeah,” he shot back, “a eureka moment. As in, Eureka! I just figured out a way to steal a quarter billion dollars and fuck over the SEC in the process!”

Hmmm, I thought, very clever and cynical this OCD was. Alas, he also happened to be right, although I would dispute the amount of money I stole. I mean, it couldn't have possibly been a quarter billion dollars! Or could it? With a sinking heart, I said, “Yeah, well, whatever the amount was, I tell you the God's honest truth that I didn't start Stratton with bad intentions. But, like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

“Fair enough,” snapped the Bastard. “You can tell that to the judge at the appropriate time.” He flashed me his warden's smile. “But for now let's just stick to the facts.”

I nodded in resignation. “Well, it started with George Grunfeld and what he'd said to me my first day at the Investors’ Center. This whole notion about rich people not buying penny stocks had never made sense to me, so I had Danny do a little experiment for me—trying to sell penny stocks to rich people. But rich people weren't interested. So I figured maybe they were turned off because the stock was less than a dollar, so I found a six-dollar stock and had him try that. But that didn't work either, and I have to say it surprised me.

“I mean, I really thought rich people would go for that, but when I called Danny into my office, he completely disagreed. ‘Maybe if I were calling from Merrill Lynch,’ he said. ‘But not when I'm calling from Stratton Securities; there are just too many things working against me. They haven't heard of me, they haven't heard of the firm, and they haven't heard of the stock. You see what I'm saying?’

“ ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I see exactly what you're saying,’ and—boom!— just like that it hit me. I had my eureka moment. ‘Come back in here in fifteen minutes,’ I said to him, and before he was even out the door I had already picked up my pen and started writing a new cold-calling script. Fifteen minutes later, he was back in my office and I was explaining my new system. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘when we call someone for the first time, we're not gonna try to sell them anything; we're just going to introduce the firm and ask them if they'd be interested in hearing from us down the road.’ I handed him my new script. ‘Read this to me and tell me what you think.’

“He looked at the script for a second, and then started reading: ‘Hi, this is Danny Porush, calling from Stratton Securities. I know you're busy, so I'll get right to the point. You probably haven't heard of us before, because for the last ten years we've been strictly an institutional block-trading firm, dealing with banks, insurance companies, pension funds.’ Danny started laughing. ‘This is classic…’

“ ‘Just shut up and keep reading,’ I said.

“He nodded and continued on: ‘However, we've recently opened up our doors to the more substantial private investor, and what I'd like to do, sir, with your permission, is send you out some information on our firm, Stratton Securities, and then get back to you down the road, next time we're making a recommendation to one of our institutional clients. Sound fair enough?’ Danny stopped and flashed me one of his famous smiles.

“Ironically, Stratton really had been in business for ten years, and the only business they had done was trading with other brokerage firms, and since brokerage firms are considered institutions, I wasn't really lying about Stratton's business being strictly institutional.” I smiled at my own twisted logic. Then I gave up my smile and said, “I won't deny that the script was a bit misleading, but that's besides the point.

“Anyway, Danny was getting about ten leads a day, and after a week it was time to execute step two of my plan, which was to start off by selling a big stock, meaning a New York Stock Exchange stock they were familiar with. That's why I chose Eastman Kodak: because of the name recognition and also because it was a very sexy story. They were in litigation with Polaroid at the time over patent infringement, and my script focused on how Kodak was sure to trade higher once the litigation settled.

“Yet, as good as my script was, Danny wasn't all that impressed. He said, ‘Even if someone buys ten thousand dollars of Kodak, my commission is only a hundred bucks. So what's the fucking point?’

“ ‘Think of it as a means to an end,’ I replied. ‘Next week, after they've paid for their trade, we'll call them back for step two.’ And, with that, Danny shrugged and walked off, spending the next ten days opening accounts on Kodak, twelve of them in all, and each for around five thousand dollars, which was a hundred shares.

“Then I called him back into my office and explained step two, which wasn't quite what he thought it'd be. ‘You mean you don't want me to get them to dump their Kodak and buy a house stock?’ he asked.

“ ‘No,’ I said. ‘I want you to tell them that everything looks great with Kodak and that they should hold it for the long term.’ I handed him a script I'd written for a company called Ventura Entertainment.” I paused, offering my captors a wry smile. “I'm sure you're all familiar with Ventura; it was the first stock we ever recommended.”

“Yeah,” said a cynical OCD. “And it was also the most overvalued entertainment stock in the history of entertainment stocks.”

I nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, but it wasn't intentional. I just couldn't keep up with the demand.” I shrugged. “But, that aside, Ventura was only a six-dollar stock back then, a tiny start-up not even listed on NASDAQ yet. It was still trading on the Pink Sheets. In truth, it could have just as easily been a penny stock, but by sheer coincidence the company's president, a man by the name of Harvey Bibicoff, had been thinking the same thing as me— namely, that a six-dollar stock sounded more valuable than a twenty-cent stock. So when he took Ventura public, he structured it with only a million shares outstanding, as opposed to the twenty million shares a typical penny stock would have.” I looked at OCD. “You follow me, I assume.”

He nodded. “Yeah; a million shares at six dollars is the same as twenty million shares at thirty cents.”

“Exactly,” I said. “On a mathematical level they're one and the same; however, on an emotional level they're entirely different. And as Danny stood in my office, studying the script, I knew it was perfect, especially the opening, where I transitioned from big stocks to small stocks.

“ ‘Read it to me,’ I said to him. And he nodded and started reading: ‘Mr. Jones, two reasons for the call today. First, I wanted to give you a quick update on Kodak. Everything looks great there; the stock is right where we bought it, and it looks to trade higher over the short term. There's been heavy institutional interest over the last few days, so for right now we'll just sit tight.

“ ‘And the second reason for the call is that something just came across my desk this morning, and it's perhaps the best thing I've seen in the last six months. It's one of our own investment-bank deals—a company we're intimately familiar with—and the upside is much greater than Kodak. If you have sixty seconds, I'd like to share the idea with you.’ Danny looked up and said. ‘This is fucking great! Let me give it a whirl!’

“I nodded in agreement. ‘Okay, but remember: These people are rich and sophisticated, so they're not going to fall for hype and bullshit. You use logic and reason, and massive pressure. Never forget, Danny: We—do—not—work—on—callbacks! You have only one shot with these people. So stick to the script like glue.’ With that, Danny reminded me once more that he was Danny-fucking-Porush and that he could sell oil to an Arab and ice to an Eskimo! Then he nodded and walked off.”

I shrugged. “In retrospect, it's rather ironic that I was only hoping to get a slightly bigger trade from my new system—maybe a thousand shares of Ventura, versus two hundred shares—but that was what I had in mind at the time.

“But five minutes later Danny came running back in my office, literally out of breath. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he snapped. ‘The first guy bought twenty thousand shares from me! Twenty—thousand-fucking—shares! Then he apologized to me for not buying more! He said that he wasn't liquid right now, but as soon as he was, he'd buy more. Can you imagine?’

“And that was it. In that very instant, I knew. I knew that Danny's client hadn't made a distinction between sending a hundred twenty thousand dollars to Stratton Securities and sending a hundred twenty thousand to Merrill Lynch. And it was all because we'd recommended a blue-chip stock first. Meanwhile, Danny was happier than a pig in shit, because he'd just made twenty thousand in commission. But what he didn't know was that I'd just made an additional sixty thousand dollars below the bid. And that was where the real juice was!”

“Explain that,” said the Bastard.

“Okay, follow me for a second: Ventura was five bid, six offer-meaning that if a client wanted to buy it he had to pay six dollars, but if he wanted to sell it he could only get five dollars. That's why Danny's commission was a buck a share, or twenty thousand dollars. But Harvey was giving Ventura warrants that had an exercise price of two. In other words, Ventura was costing me only two dollars a share. All told, on Danny's twenty-thousand share block, I made sixty thousand below the bid, plus ten thousand above the bid, which was my half of Danny's commission. And all of that was from a single phone call, from a single lead. But that was only the beginning.

“I knew right then and there that if Ventura went up, and there were thousands of clients in the system, they would send in millions more.” I paused for a moment, considering my words. “Of course, it would turn out to be hundreds of millions more, but at the time I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I still had serious obstacles to overcome, not the least of which was that Harvey had only a million warrants to sell, and with my new system, I would eat through those in a matter of weeks. Then I would have to buy stock in the open market.

“But first things first, I thought; I had to shut down the ‘Old Stratton’ and retrain everyone. But I went to Mike first to tell him my plan. It sounded good, he thought, but I could tell that he definitely wasn't bowled over. ‘Give it a shot,’ he said casually. ‘However much business you bring in I can handle with no problem.’ And those were the famous last words of Mike Valenoti.

“A minute later I was standing in front of the boardroom, ready to give the meeting of a lifetime. I still remember this day like it was yesterday. ‘Everyone, hang up your phones!’ I said to the brokers. ‘Hang up your phones right now! I have something to say.’

“Most of them were right in the middle of calls, and they didn't hang up the phones at first. So I winked at Lipsky, and he rose from his chair and began disconnecting their calls in mid-pitch. Then Danny joined in the act, and a few seconds later the room was quiet.

“ ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Now that I have your attention, I want you to gather up your leads, your pitches, your rebuttals, your client books, and anything else on your desk that relates to being a stockbroker. I want you to gather it all up and throw it right in the fucking garbage can!’

“Of course, no one did anything at first; they were too dumbfounded to move. So Lipsky started snarling at everyone. ‘Let's go! Chop chop! It's time to clean house, like the boss says!’ And next thing I knew, Danny and the Blockhead were walking around holding trash bags, and the last vestiges of the old system were disappearing before my eyes. Within minutes, there were only twelve wooden desks, twelve old telephones, and twelve obscenely young stockbrokers, dressed in varying degrees of cheap, off-the-rack suits. And they were all staring at me wide-eyed, waiting to hear what I'd say next.

“ ‘I want everyone to listen up,’ I said, ‘because what I'm about to say is going to change your lives forever. The simple fact is that all of you are going to be rich beyond your wildest dreams.’ And I went on to explain my new system to them, pointing to Danny as proof that it worked.

“ ‘How much commission did you just gross in one trade?’ I asked him.

“‘Twenty grand!’ he shot back. ‘Twenty—fucking—grand!’

“‘Twenty fucking grand,’ I repeated, and I began pacing back and forth, like a preacher, letting my words hang in the air. Then I stopped. ‘And using my new system, Danny, how much do you think you can gross in a single month? Just a ballpark…’

“He pretended to think for a moment, playing the part perfectly. ‘At least a quarter million,’ he said confidently. ‘Anything less and I'll fall on my sword!’ And with that, the room broke out into complete pandemonium.”

I shrugged. “The rest was easy. I retrained my Strattonites, using the straight-line theory. It was something that I'd come up with at the Investors’ Center but hadn't considered crucial then, because when you're speaking to poor people it's more a question of whether or not they have money to invest; if they do, convincing them is easy. But with rich people, the rules are entirely different: They do have money to invest; it's just a question of convincing them that you're the one to invest it with. Are you smart enough? Are you sharp enough? Do you know things their local broker doesn't? Are you a Wall Street wizard, worthy of managing a rich man's money?

“That's exactly what the straight line did: It allowed a twenty-year-old kid, with a high school diploma and an IQ just above the level of Forrest Gump, to sound like a Wall Street wizard.” I paused for a moment, thinking of a way to explain the theory. “In essence, it was a system of scripts and rebuttals that allowed even the most dim-witted of stockbrokers to control a sale. It kept things moving forward, from point A to point B—from the open to the close—until a client finally said, All right, for Chrissake! Pick me up ten thousand shares! Just leave me alone!’ I know it sounds simple, but no one else had ever done this before. There were hundreds of scripts floating around Wall Street, but no one had ever organized them into a cohesive system.

“Anyway, for ten solid days I taught it to them—going back and forth, role-playing, like I'd done with Danny that night—until they knew it so well that they could recite the fucking lines in their sleep. Actually, I only spent half of each day teaching them; the other half they spent cold-calling, building a massive war chest of leads to call.

“And finally, on day ten when the leads came due, they started opening accounts on Kodak with such ease that it was literally mind-boggling. It was as if the straight line could turn even the weakest salesman into a total killer. And that emboldened me even further, and I began pounding at them even more mercilessly, promising them riches beyond their wildest dreams.

“ ‘I want you to start spending money now,’ I preached to them. ‘I want you to leverage yourselves! To back yourselves into a corner! To give yourselves no choice but to succeed! Let the consequences of failure become so dire and so unthinkable that you won't be able to stomach the thought of it.

“‘Understand this,’ I said. ‘When Pizarro came to the New World, the first thing he did was burn his fucking ships, so his crew would have no choice but to hack out an existence in the New World. And that's what I want you to do! I want you to cut off all exit ramps, all escape routes!

“ ‘After all, you owe it to the person sitting next to you to dial the phone. You owe it to every other Strattonite sitting in this room to dial the phone. That's where our power comes from: from one another, from a collective effort, from the combined energy of a room full of the most motivated people to ever hit Wall Street, a room full of winners!’”

I paused and took a moment to catch my breath. “Anyway, you all know what happened next: Seven days later they began pitching Ventura, and all hell broke loose. Blocks of tens and twenties began slinging around the boardroom like water, and money began falling out of the sky.” I shook my head slowly. “And I can't even begin to describe how quickly we grew from this point. It was as if gold had been struck, and young prospectors began showing up in Lake Success to stake their claims. At first they trickled in, then they poured in. It started from towns in Queens and Long Island and quickly spread across the country. And just like that, Stratton was born.

“Anyway, it was only a few weeks after this when I walked into my office one morning and found Jim Taormina waiting for me. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Stratton is yours,’ and he handed me a set of keys he was holding. ‘I'll sell you the place for a dollar and be your head trader. Just please take my name off the license!’

“And then Mike came in, the old Wall Street war dog, who'd thought he'd seen everything. ‘You have to stop them!’ he begged. ‘We can't handle any more business right now. We're on the verge of blowing up our clearing agent.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I've never seen anything like this, Jordan. It's absolutely incredible….’ The funny thing was that our clearing agent—meaning the company that processed our trades—couldn't handle the influx of volume and was threatening to pull the plug on us unless we slowed things down.

“And then came the Blockhead. ‘I'm underwater with commissions,’ he said, panic-stricken. ‘I can't keep track of them. Millions are pouring in, and the bank keeps calling me.’ I had put the Blockhead in charge of our finances, and he was underwater now-drowning beneath a sea of money and paperwork.

“In any event, these were all good problems, problems that were easy to handle. With Jim Taormina, I did as he asked: I bought the firm from him for a dollar and made him my head trader. With Mike, I did as he asked too: I stood before the boardroom and gave a sales meeting that turned the whole thing into a positive.

“With piss and vinegar, I said, ‘What we have here is so powerful and so effective that the rest of Wall Street can't even keep up with us!’ And, with that, my Strattonites clapped and cheered and hooted and howled. Then we spent the next two weeks just getting leads, which ultimately fueled our growth even further.

“And to help the Blockhead, I turned to my father, who was still unemployed. He was a brilliant man, a licensed CPA who'd spent the better part of his life as the CFO of various private companies. But he was in his mid-fifties now—a bit too old and way too overqualified to land a good job.

“So I recruited him—reluctantly at first, but I recruited him nonetheless. And he moved into the Blockhead's office, where the two of them had the pleasure of driving each other crazy. Mad Max quickly bared his fangs—calling the Blockhead a fucking twerp and a fucking moron and a thousand other fucking things, including, of course, a fucking blockhead. And the fact that the Blockhead was allergic to cigarette smoke was something Mad Max relished beyond belief—consuming four packs a day and exhaling thick jets of smoke right in the Blockhead's face, with the force of a Civil War cannon.

“But, that aside, you can see how I had the whole thing wired now. Between Mike and my father I had my rear flank covered, and between Danny and Kenny I had a tip of a sword that rivaled the Mossad. And I… well, let's just say that I had all the time I needed to sit back and give meetings and focus on the big picture— and to resolve the last missing piece of the puzzle, which was where to find more warrants that would provide me with cheap stock, like Ventura warrants did.”

I looked at OCD and smiled. “Care to guess who I turned to for that?”

OCD cringed. “Al Abrams,” he muttered.

“Indeed,” I said. “Mr. Al Abrams, the maddest of all Wall Streeters.” I cocked my head to the side and stared down OCD. “Correct me if I'm wrong, Greg, but I once heard a rumor that Al was writing letters to Bill Clinton about you, saying you were a rogue agent.”

OCD shook his head wearily. “He's one crazy old bird, that guy. When I arrested him, he had a hundred documents on him, some more than thirty years old!”

“Well, that sounds like Al,” I said casually. “He never liked to throw things out. He's what you call a careful criminal.”

“Not careful enough,” said the Witch. “Last time I checked, he was still behind bars.” She flashed me a devilish smile.

Yeah, I thought, but not because of you, Cruella; it was OCD who'd caught him. But I kept that thought to myself and said, “Actually, I think he's out now, probably back in Connecticut, driving his poor wife insane.” I looked at OCD. “Just out of curiosity: When you arrested him, did he have any food in his pockets? Any half-eaten Linzer tortes? He loved those.”

“Just a few crumbs,” answered OCD.

I nodded in understanding. “Yeah, he was probably saving those in case of a famine…” and I spent the next few hours explaining how Al Abrams had taught me the dark art of stock manipulation. Thrice weekly we'd meet for breakfast at the local Greek diner, where I had the pleasure of watching Al consume countless Linzer tortes, with half the torte making its way into his mouth and the other half making its way onto his cheeks and forehead; meanwhile, he would be drinking cup after cup of overcaffeinated coffee, until his hands shook.

Through it all—through all the slobbering and shaking and squeaking and squawking—he gave me the education of a lifetime. But, alas, unlike my education from Mike, this one concerned the dark side of things, the seedy underbelly of Wall Street's over-the-counter market—which was the precursor to the NASDAQ—where stocks traded by appointment, and prices were set at the self-serving whims of dark-intentioned men like Al and me.

Most troubling, I admitted, was that it wasn't long before I was teaching Al a thing or two. Within weeks, in fact, I was modernizing his rather dated stock scams—bringing my own flair and panache to them, along with the sort of brazenness that would come to characterize the Wolf of Wall Street.

By now it was a little after five, and I was finally done singing on Court Street for the day, a day that my captors considered a great success. After all, they now knew exactly how Stratton Oakmont came into existence and how—through a series of tiny coincidences and happenstances—it wound up on, of all places, Long Island.

Before I left the debriefing room, the last thing I asked the Bastard was how long he thought it would be until I actually got sentenced. Would it be three years? Four years? Perhaps even five years? The longer the better, I thought.

“Probably four or five years,” he answered. “These things have a way of dragging on sometimes.”

“That's true,” added the Witch, “and they won't be easy years. Your cooperation will be made public sometime next year, and we'll be seizing your assets accordingly.”

Now OCD chimed in, offering me a thin ray of hope: “Yeah, but you'll have a chance to start a new life. You're a young guy, and next time you'll do things right, hopefully.”

I nodded in agreement, hanging on to the words of OCD and the Bastard while ignoring those of the Witch. Unfortunately, they would all be wrong, and I would be seeing the inside of a jail cell long before that.

And I would lose everything.