The Wolf of Wall Street

^{CHAPTER 21} FORM OVER SUBSTANCE

January 1994

In the weeks following the parking-lot debacle, it became clear that the shopping center’s surveillance cameras hadn’t gotten a clear picture of Danny’s license plate. But, according to Todd, the police were offering him a deal if he would tell them who’d been driving the Rolls-Royce. Todd, of course, had told them to eat shit and die, although I was somewhat suspicious that he was exaggerating a bit—laying a foundation for economic extortion. Either way, I had assured him that he would be taken care of, and in return he had agreed to spare Danny’s life.

With that, the rest of 1993 passed without incident—which is to say that Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional continued unabated—and came to a bountiful close with the public offering of Steve Madden Shoes. The stock had leveled off at just over $8, and between my ratholes, bridge units, and proprietary trading commissions I had made over $20 million.

Over Christmas and New Year’s, we took a two-week vacation in the Caribbean aboard the yacht Nadine. The Duchess and I partied like rock stars, and I had managed to fall asleep in just about every five-star restaurant between St. Bart’s and St. Martin. I also managed to spear myself while scuba diving on Quaaludes, but it was only a flesh wound, and other than that I had made it through the trip mostly unscathed.

But vacation was over, and it was back to business now. It was a Tuesday, the first week in January, and I was sitting in the office of Ira Lee Sorkin, Stratton Oakmont’s gray-haired, mop-topped chief outside legal counsel. Like all prominent white-collar attorneys, Ike had once worked for the bad guys—or the good guys, depending on whom you asked, which is to say that Ike had once been a regulator. In his case, he had been Section Chief of the SEC’s New York Regional Office.

At this particular moment he was leaning back in his fabulous black-leather throne, with his palms up in the air, saying, “You should be jumping for joy right now, Jordan! Two years ago the SEC sued you for twenty-two million bucks and was trying to shut down the firm; now they’re willing to settle for three million bucks and let the firm off with a slap on the wrist. It’s a complete victory. Nothing less.”

I smiled dutifully at my blowhard of a lawyer, although deep down I felt conflicted. It was an awful lot to take in my first day back from Christmas vacation. I mean, why should I be so quick to settle, when the SEC hadn’t found even one smoking gun against me? They had filed their suit more than two years ago, alleging stock manipulation and high-pressure sales tactics. But they had little evidence to support those claims, especially the stock manipulation, which was the more serious of the two.

The SEC had subpoenaed fourteen Strattonites, twelve of whom had placed their right hands on a stack of bibles and lied right through their teeth. Only two Strattonites had panicked and actually told the truth—admitting to using high-pressure sales tactics and such. And as a way of saying, “Thank you for your honesty!” the SEC had tossed them out of the securities industry. (After all, they had admitted wrongdoing under oath.) And what terrible fate had befallen the twelve who’d lied? Ah, such poetic justice! Every last one of them had walked away completely unscathed and was still working at Stratton Oakmont to this very day—smiling and dialing and ripping their clients’ eyeballs out.

Still, in spite of my wonderful string of successes at fending off the bozos, Ira Lee Sorkin, a former bozo himself, was still recommending that I settle my case and put all this behind me. But I found myself struggling with his logic, inasmuch as “putting all this behind me” didn’t just mean paying a $3 million fine and agreeing not to violate any more securities laws in the future; it also meant that I would have to accept a lifetime bar from the securities industry and leave Stratton Oakmont forever—with some additional language, I was certain, that if I were to somehow die and then figure out a way to resurrect myself, I would still be barred.

I was about to offer up my two cents when Sorkin the Great could remain silent no longer. “The long and short of it, Jordan, is that you and I made an excellent team, and we beat the SEC at their own game.” He nodded at the wisdom of his own words. “We wore the bastards out. The three million you can make back in a month, and it’s even tax-deductible. So it’s time to move on with your life. It’s time to walk off into the sunset and enjoy your wife and daughter.” And with that, Sorkin the Great smiled an enormous boiling smile and nodded some more.

I smiled noncommittally. “Do Danny or Kenny’s lawyers know about this?”

He flashed me a conspirator’s smile. “This is strictly on the Q.T., Jordan; none of the other lawyers knows anything. Legally, of course, I represent Stratton, so my loyalty is to the firm. But right now you are the firm, so my loyalty is to you. Anyway, I figured that given the circumstances of the offer, you might want a few days to think it over. But that’s all we have, my friend, a few days. Maybe a week at most.”

When we were first sued, we had each retained separate legal counsel to avoid potential conflicts. At the time I had considered it a serious waste of money; now I was glad we had. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I’m sure their offer isn’t going away anytime soon, Ike. Like you said, we wore them out. In fact, I don’t think there’s anyone left at the SEC who even knows anything about my case.” I was tempted to explain to him why I was so certain of that (my bug in the conference room), but I decided not to.

Ike the Spike threw his hands in the air and rolled his eyes up in his head. “Why do you wanna look a gift horse in the mouth, huh? The SEC’s New York office has had huge turnover in the last six months, and morale is low. But that’s only by coincidence, and it won’t last forever. I’m talking to you like a friend now, Jordan, not your lawyer. You gotta settle this case once and for all, before a new set of investigators steps in and takes another crack at it. Eventually one of them might find something; then all bets are off.”

I nodded slowly and said, “It was smart of you to keep this between us. If news leaks out before I have a chance to address the troops, they might panic. But I’ll tell you that the thought of taking a lifetime bar doesn’t exactly thrill me, Ike. I mean—to never set foot in the boardroom again! I don’t even know what to say about that. That boardroom is my lifeblood. It’s my sanity, and it’s also my insanity. It’s like the good, the bad, and the ugly all rolled up into one.

“Anyway, the real problem isn’t gonna be with me; it’s gonna be with Kenny. How am I gonna convince him to take a lifetime bar when Danny’s staying behind? Kenny listens to me, but I’m not sure he’ll listen if I tell him to walk away while Danny’s allowed to stay. Kenny’s making ten million dollars a year; he may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s still smart enough to know that he’s never gonna make this kinda money again.”

Ike shrugged and said, “So let Kenny stay behind and have Danny take the bar. The SEC couldn’t care less which of them stays and which of them goes. As long as you’re gone, they’re happy. All they want is to make a nice fat press release saying the Wolf of Wall Street is out of their hair, and then they’ll be at peace. Would it be easier to convince Danny to leave?”

“That’s not an option, Ike. Kenny’s a fucking moron. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy and everything, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s incapable of running the firm. Tell me how this would play out if we agreed to settle.”

Ike paused, as if to gather his thoughts. After a few seconds he said, “Assuming you can convince Kenny, then both of you would sell your stock to Danny and then sign court orders permanently barring you from the brokerage business. The money for your fines can come directly out of the firm, so you won’t have to take a dime out of your pocket. They’ll want an independent auditor to come down to the firm and do a review and then make some recommendations. But that’ll be no big deal; I can handle that with your compliance department. And that’s it, my friend. It’s very straightforward.”

Ike added, “But I think you’re putting too much stock in Danny. He’s definitely sharper than Kenny, but he’s stoned half the time. I know you enjoy your partying too, but you’re always in good shape during business hours. Besides, for better or worse, there’s only one Jordan Belfort in the world. And the regulators know that too—especially Marty Kupperberg, who’s running the New York office right now. That’s why he wants you out. He might despise everything you stand for, but he still respects what you’ve accomplished. In fact, I’ll tell you a funny story: A couple of months ago, I was down at an SEC conference in Florida, and Richard Walker—who’s the number-two man down in Washington right now—was saying that they need a whole new set of securities laws to deal with someone like Jordan Belfort. It got quite a chuckle from the audience, and he really hadn’t said it in that derogatory a fashion, if you know what I mean.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah, Ike, I’m real proud of that; real proud, indeed! In fact, why don’t you go call my mother and tell her what Richard Walker said? I’m sure she’ll be very thrilled at the awesome respect her son inspires among the nation’s top securities cop. Believe it or not, Ike, there was a time not that long ago when I was a nice Jewish boy from a nice Jewish family. Seriously. I was the kid who used to shovel driveways after snowstorms to make extra money. It’s hard to imagine that less than five years ago I was able to walk into a restaurant without people looking at me funny.”

I began shaking my head in amazement. “I mean—Jesus!—how the fuck did I let this whole thing spiral so far out of control? This wasn’t what I intended when I started Stratton! I swear to God, Ike!” With that, I rose from my chair and stared out the plate-glass window at the Empire State Building. It wasn’t all that long ago when I’d first gone to Wall Street as a stockbroker trainee, was it? I had taken the express bus—the express bus!—and had only had seven dollars left in my pocket. Seven fucking dollars! I could still remember the feeling of looking at all those other people and wondering if they felt as bitter as I did about having to take a bus to Manhattan to eke out a living. I remembered feeling bad for the older people—that they had to sit on those hard plastic seats and smell the diesel fumes. I remembered swearing I would never let myself end up that way, that somehow I would become rich and live life on my own terms.

I remembered getting off the bus and staring up at all those skyscrapers and feeling intimidated at the very power of the city, even though I had grown up just a few miles outside Manhattan.

I turned and faced Ike, and with nostalgia in my voice I said, “You know, Ike, I never wanted it to end up this way. I tell you the truth: I had good intentions when I started Stratton. I know that doesn’t mean a lot right now, but, still…that really was the case five years ago.” I shook my head once more and said, “I guess the road to hell is paved with good intentions, just like they say. I’ll tell you a funny story, though: Do you remember my first wife, Denise?”

Ike nodded. “She was a kind, beautiful lady, as is Nadine.”

“Yes. She was kind and beautiful, and she still is. In the beginning, when I started Stratton, she had this classic line. She said, ‘Jordan, why can’t you get a normal job making a million dollars a year?’ I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but now I know what she was talking about. You know, Stratton’s like a cult, Ike; that’s where the real power is. All those kids look to me for every little thing. That was what was driving Denise crazy. In a way, they deified me and tried turning me into something I wasn’t. I know that now, but back then it wasn’t so clear. I found the power intoxicating. Impossible to refuse.

“Anyway, I always swore to myself that if it ever came down to it, I would fall on my sword and sacrifice myself for the sake of the troops.” I shrugged my shoulders and smiled weakly. “Of course I always knew that was somewhat of a romantic notion, but that was how I’d always envisioned it.

“So I feel like if I throw in the towel right now and take the money and run, then I’m fucking over everyone; I’m leaving the brokers high and dry. I mean, the easiest thing for me would be to do what you said: take a lifetime bar and go off into the sunset with my wife and daughter. God knows I have enough money for ten lifetimes. But then I’d be fucking over all those kids. And I swore to every last one of them that I’d fight this thing to the bitter end. So how do I just pick up now and hightail it out of town—just because the SEC is giving me an exit ramp? I’m the captain of the ship, Ike, and the captain is supposed to be the last one off the boat, no?”

Ike shook his head. “Absolutely not,” he replied emphatically. “You can’t compare your SEC case to an adventure at sea. The simple fact is that by taking the bar you ensure the survival of Stratton. No matter how effective we are at foiling the SEC’s investigation, we can’t delay this thing forever. There’s a trial date in less than six months, and you’re not gonna find a jury of your peers very sympathetic to your cause. And there’re thousands of jobs at stake, as well as countless families who depend on Stratton for their financial existence. By taking the bar you secure everybody’s future, including your own.”

I took a moment to consider Ike’s wisdom, which was only partially true. In point of fact, the SEC’s offer wasn’t really that much of a surprise to me. After all, Al Abrams had predicted it. It had been at one of our countless breakfast meetings at the Seville Diner. Al said, “If you play your cards right, you’ll wear the SEC down until there’s no one left in the office who knows anything about your case. The turnover there is mind-boggling, especially when they get caught up in an investigation that’s not going well.

“But never forget,” he added, “that just because they settle, it doesn’t mean it’s over. There’s nothing to stop them from coming right back at you with a new case the day after you settle the old one. So you need to get it in writing that there’re no new cases pending. And even then there’s still the NASD to contend with…and then the individual states…and then, God forbid, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI…although chances are they would’ve already gotten involved if they were planning to.”

With the wisdom of Al Abrams still in my mind, I asked Ike, “How do we know the SEC isn’t planning on coming right back at us with another lawsuit?”

“I’ll have it worked into the agreement,” Ike replied. “The settlement will cover all acts up to the present. But remember—if Danny goes off the reservation again, there’s nothing to stop them from bringing a new case going forward.”

I nodded slowly, still unconvinced. “And what about the NASD…or the states…or, God forbid, the FBI?”

Sorkin the Great leaned back in his throne and crossed his arms once more, and he said, “There’s no guarantee on that. I’m not gonna mislead you. It would be nice if we could get something like that in writing, but it doesn’t work that way. If you want my opinion, though, I’ll tell you that I think the chances are very slim that any other regulator will pick the case up. Remember, the last thing any regulator wants is to get involved with a losing case. It’s a career killer. You saw what happened to all the lawyers the SEC assigned to the Stratton case: Every last one of them left the office in shame, and I can assure you that none of them got generous offers in the private sector. Most SEC lawyers are just there to gather experience and develop a track record. After they’ve made a name for themselves, they move on to the private sector, where they can make some real money.

“Now, exempt from that is the U.S. Attorney’s Office. They’d have a lot more luck with the Stratton investigation than the SEC had. Funny things start to happen when criminal subpoenas are floating around. All those stockbrokers who were subpoenaed down to the SEC and supported you so admirably…well, they probably would’ve jumped ship if those same subpoenas had come from a grand jury.

“But that being said, I don’t think the U.S. Attorney has any interest in your case. Stratton’s out on Long Island, which is the Eastern District. And the Eastern District isn’t particularly active with securities cases, unlike the Southern District, in Manhattan, which is very active. So that’s my best guess, my friend. I think if you settle this thing right now and walk away, you can live your life happily ever after.”

I took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “So be it,” I said. “It’s time for peace with honor. And what happens if I go near the boardroom? Does the FBI show up at my door and arrest me for violating a court order?”

“No, no,” answered Ike, waving the back of his hand in the air. “I think you’re making more of this than it really is. In fact, theoretically, you could keep an office on the same floor, in the same building, as Stratton. For that matter, you could stand out in the hallway with Danny all day long and offer him your opinion on every little move he makes. I’m not encouraging you to do that or anything, but it wouldn’t be illegal. You just can’t force Danny to listen to you, and you can’t spend half your day inside the boardroom. But if you wanted to drop in and visit once in a while, there would be nothing wrong with that.”

All at once I found myself taken aback. Could it really be as easy as that? If the SEC were to bar me, could I really stay that much involved with the firm? If I could, and I could somehow make that known to all the Strattonites, then they wouldn’t feel like I’d abandoned them! Sensing daylight, I asked, “And how much could I sell my stock to Danny for?”

“Anything you want,” replied Ike the Spike, seeming to have no idea what my devilish mind was conjuring up. “That’s between you and Danny; the SEC couldn’t care less.”

Hmmmm! Very interesting, I thought, with the righteous number of $200 million bubbling up into my brain. “Well, I guess I could come to a meeting of the minds with Danny. He’s always been pretty reasonable when it comes to money. Although I don’t think I’ll keep an office on the same floor as Stratton. Perhaps I should take one a few buildings over. Whaddaya think, Ike?”

“I think that sounds like a good idea,” replied Ike the Spike.

I smiled at my wonderful lawyer and went for broke: “I have only one more question, although I think I already know the answer. If I’m barred from the securities business, then theoretically I’m just like any other investor. I mean, I’m not barred from investing for my own account and I’m not barred from owning stakes in companies going public, right?”

Ike smiled broadly. “Of course not! You can buy stocks, you can sell stocks, you can own stakes in companies going public, you can do anything you want. You just can’t run a brokerage firm.”

“I could even buy Stratton new issues now, couldn’t I? I mean, if I’m no longer a registered stockbroker, then that restriction no longer applies to me, right?” I said a silent prayer to the Almighty.

“Believe it or not,” replied Ike the Spike, “the answer is yes. You would be able to buy as many shares of Stratton new issues as Danny would offer you. That’s the long and short of it.”

Hmmm…perhaps this could work out pretty well! In essence, I could become my own rathole, and not only at Stratton but at Biltmore and Monroe Parker too! “All right, Ike, I think I can convince Kenny to take a lifetime bar. He’s been trying to convince me to help his friend Victor get into the brokerage business, and if I agree to, it’ll probably seal the deal. But I need you to keep this quiet for a few days. If word of this gets out, all bets are off.”

Sorkin the Great shrugged his beefy shoulders once more and then threw his palms up in the air and winked. No words were necessary.

Having grown up in Queens, I’d had the distinct pleasure of traveling on the Long Island Expressway, the LIE, a good twenty thousand times, and for some inexplicable reason this godforsaken highway seemed to be under perpetual construction. In fact, the section my limousine was traveling on right now—where the eastern portion of Queens meets the western portion of Long Island—had been under construction since I was five years old, and it didn’t seem to be getting any closer to completion. A company had secured some sort of permanent construction contract, and they were either the most incompetent road pavers in the history of the universe or the savviest businessmen to ever walk the planet.

Whatever the case, the fact that I was less than three nautical miles from Stratton Oakmont hadn’t the slightest bearing on when I might actually arrive there. So I settled back deep in my seat and did the usual: focused on George’s wonderful bald spot and let it soothe me. I wonder what George would do if he ever lost his job? In fact, it wasn’t only George who would be affected if I botched this thing but the rest of the menagerie too. If I were forced to cut back my expenses as a result of Danny not being able to keep Stratton in business, it would affect many people.

What would become of the Strattonites? For Chrissake, every last one of them would have to dramatically cut back their lifestyles or face immediate financial ruin. They would have to start living like the rest of the world—as if money meant something and you couldn’t just go out and buy whatever the hell you wanted whenever the hell you pleased. What an unbearable thought!

From my perspective, the smart thing to do would be to walk away from this thing—clean. Yes, the prudent man wouldn’t sell the firm to Danny for an exorbitant price…or take an office across the street…or run things from behind the scenes. It would be another case of the Wolf of Wall Street acting like Winnie the Pooh and sticking his head in the honeypot once too often. Look what had happened with Denise and Nadine: I had cheated on Denise dozens of times until…Fuck it. Why torture myself with that thought?

Anyway, there was no doubt that if I walked away, I wouldn’t be risking what I already had. I wouldn’t feel compelled to offer my advice, my guidance, nor would I even go near the boardroom to show any moral support for the troops. I wouldn’t have any clandestine meetings with Danny or, for that matter, the owners of Biltmore and Monroe Parker. I would simply fade off into the sunset with Nadine and Chandler, just the way Ike had advised me to.

But how could I walk around Long Island knowing that I’d deserted the ship and left everybody hanging out to dry? Not to mention the fact that my plan with Kenny centered around my agreeing to finance Victor Wang, to assist him in opening Duke Securities. And if Victor found out I was no longer behind Stratton, he would turn on Danny faster than lightning.

In truth, the only way to do this was to let everyone know that I still had an ax to grind at Stratton and that any attack on Danny was an attack on me. Then everyone would stay loyal, except, of course, Victor, who I would deal with on my terms, at the time of my own choosing—long before he was strong enough to wage war. The Depraved Chinaman could be controlled, so long as Biltmore and Monroe Parker stayed loyal and so long as Danny kept his head glued on straight and didn’t try spreading his wings too fast.

Danny spreading his wings too fast: Yes, it was an important variable not to be discounted. After all, there was no doubt that eventually he’d want to run things according to his own instincts. It would be an insult to him if I tried holding on to the reins of power any longer than necessary. Perhaps there should be some sort of transition period that we verbally agreed to—a period of six to nine months, where he would follow my directives without question. Then, after that, I would slowly let him assume full control.

And the same would apply to Biltmore and Monroe Parker. They, too, would take orders from me, but only for a short period of time; then they would be on their own. In fact, their loyalty was so great that they would probably still make me just as much money, even if I didn’t lift a finger. There was no doubt that would be the case with Alan; his loyalty was unquestioned, based on lifelong friendship. And Brian, his partner, owned only forty-nine percent of Monroe Parker—having agreed to that as a precondition to me coming up with the original financing. So it was Alan who called the shots there. And in the case of Biltmore, it was Elliot who owned the extra percentage point. And while he wasn’t quite as loyal as Alan, he was still loyal enough.

Anyway, my holdings were so vast that Stratton represented only one aspect of my financial dealings. There was Steve Madden Shoes; there was Roland Franks and Saurel; and there were a dozen other companies that I currently owned stakes in that were preparing to go public. Of course, Dollar Time was still a complete disaster, but the worst of it was over.

Having worked things out in my mind, I said to George, “Why don’t you get off the highway and take local streets. I need to get back to the office.”

The mute nodded two times, obviously hating my guts.

I ignored his insolence and said, “Also, stick around after you drop me off. I’m gonna have lunch at Tenjin today. All right?”

Again the mute nodded, not uttering a single word.

Go figure! The fucking guy won’t say a goddamn word to me, and here I am worrying what his life would be like without Stratton. Perhaps I was completely off the mark. Perhaps I owed nothing to the thousands of people who depended on Stratton Oakmont for their very livelihoods. Perhaps they would all turn on me in a New York second—and tell me to go fuck myself—if they no longer thought that I could help them. Perhaps…perhaps…perhaps…

How ironic it was that with all this internal debating I had missed one very important point: If I no longer had to worry about getting stoned inside the boardroom, there would be nothing to stop me from doing Quaaludes all day long. Without realizing it, I was setting the stage for some very dark times ahead. After all, the only thing holding me back now would be my own good judgment, which had a funny way of deserting me…especially when it came to blondes and drugs.

^{CHAPTER 22} LUNCHTIME IN THE ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE

Every time the restaurant door opened, a handful of Strattonites came marching in to Tenjin, causing three Japanese sushi chefs and half a dozen pint-size waitresses to drop whatever they were doing and scream out, “Gongbongwa! Gongbongwa! Gongbongwa!” which was Japanese for good afternoon. Then they offered the Strattonites deep formal bows and changed their tone to a dramatic high-pitched squeal: “Yo-say-no-sah-no-seh! Yo-say-nosah-no-seh! Yo-say-no-sah-no-seh!” which meant God only knew what.

The chefs ran over to greet the new arrivals, grabbing them by the wrists and inspecting their gleaming gold wristwatches. In heavily accented English, they would interrogate them: “How much watch cost? Where you buy? What car you drive to restaurant? Ferrari? Mercedes? Porsche? What kind golf club you use? Where you play at? How long for tee time? What your handicap?”

Meanwhile, the waitresses, who dressed in salmon-pink kimonos with lime-green rucksacks on their backs, rubbed the backs of their hands against the fine Italian wool of all those custom-made Gilberto suit jackets, nodding their heads approvingly, and making cooing sounds: “Ohhhhhhh…ahhhhhhhh…nice-a-fabric…so-a-soft!”

But then, as if by silent cue, they all stopped at precisely the same moment and returned to whatever it was they’d been doing. In the case of the sushi chefs, it meant rolling and folding and slicing and dicing. In the case of the waitresses, it meant serving oversize vats of Premium sake and Kirin beer to the young and the thirsty, and enormous wooden sailboats filled with overpriced sushi and sashimi to the rich and the hungry.

And just when you thought it was safe, the door swung open once more, and the madness repeated itself, as the wildly animated staff of Tenjin came swooping down on the next group of Strattonites and bathed them in Japanese pomp and circumstance, as well as heaping doses of what I was certain was unadulterated Japanese bullshit.

Welcome to lunch hour—Stratton style!

At this very moment, the alternative universe was exerting its full force on this tiny corner of planet earth. Dozens of sports cars and stretch limousines blocked traffic outside the restaurant, while inside the restaurant young Strattonites carried on their time-honored tradition of acting like packs of untamed wolves. Of the restaurant’s forty tables, only two were occupied by non-Strattonites, or civilians, as we called them. Perhaps they had inadvertently stumbled upon Tenjin while searching for a quiet place to enjoy a nice relaxing meal. Whatever the case, there was no doubt they had been entirely unaware of the bizarre fate about to befall them. After all, as lunch progressed, the drugs would start kicking in.

Yes, the clock had just struck one and some of the Strattonites were already getting off. It wasn’t hard to tell which of them were Luded out; they were the ones standing on the tabletops, slurring and drooling and reciting war stories. Fortunately, the sales assistants were required to stay in the boardroom—manning the phones and catching up on paperwork—so everyone still had their clothes on and nobody was rutting away in the bathrooms or under the tables.

I was sitting in a private alcove at the rear of the restaurant, watching this very madness unfold while pretending to listen to the ramblings of Kenny Greene, the blockheaded moron, who was spewing out his own version of unadulterated bullshit. Meanwhile, Victor Wang, the Depraved Chinaman, was nodding his panda-size head at everything his moronic friend was saying, although I was certain he knew Kenny was a moron too and was only pretending to agree with him.

The Blockhead was saying, “…is the exact reason why you stand to make so much money here, JB. I mean, Victor is the sharpest guy I know.” He reached over and patted the Depraved Chinaman on his enormous back. “Next to you, of course, but that goes without saying.”

I smiled a bogus smile and said, “Well, gee, Kenny, thanks for the vote of confidence!”

Victor chuckled at his friend’s idiocy, then flashed me one of his hideous smiles, causing his eyes to become so narrow they all but disappeared.

Kenny, however, had never really mastered the concept of irony. In consequence, he had taken my offering of thanks at face value and was now beaming with great pride. “Anyway, the way I figure it, it’s only gonna take four hundred thousand or so in start-up capital to really get this thing off the ground. If you want, you can give it to me in cash and I’ll filter it to Victor through my mother”—his mother?—“and you don’t have to even worry about it leaving a bad paper trail”—a bad paper trail?—“because my mother and Victor own some real estate together, so they can justify it like that. Then we’ll need a few key stockbrokers to help get the pump going and, most importantly, a big allocation of the next new issue. The way I figure it is…”

I quickly tuned out. Kenny was bursting at the seams with excitement, and every word that escaped his lips was utter nonsense.

Neither Victor nor Kenny was aware of the SEC’s settlement offer. I wouldn’t let them in on that for a few more days, not until both of them had gotten themselves so wet in the pants over the fabulous future of Duke Securities that Stratton Oakmont would seem all but expendable. Only then would I tell them.

Just then I caught a glimpse of Victor out of the corner of my eye, and I took a moment to regard him. Just looking at the Depraved Chinaman on an empty stomach made me want to eat him! Why this massive Chinaman looked so succulent had always baffled me, although it probably had most to do with his skin, which was smoother than a newborn baby’s. And beneath that velvety soft skin were a dozen layers of lavish Chinese fat, which would be perfect for cooking; and beneath that were a dozen more layers of indestructible Chinese muscle, which would be perfect for eating; and on the very surface of it all, he sported the most delicious Chinese tint, which was the exact color of fresh tupelo honey.

The end result was that every time I laid eyes on Victor Wang, I envisioned him as a suckling pig, and I felt like shoving an apple in his mouth and sticking a skewer up his ass and throwing him on a rotisserie and basting him in sweet and sour sauce and then inviting some friends over to eat him—luau style!

“…and Victor will always stay loyal,” continued the Blockhead, “and you stand to make more money off Duke Securities than off Biltmore and Monroe Parker combined.”

I shrugged my shoulders, then said, “Perhaps, Kenny, but that’s not my primary concern here. Don’t get me wrong—I’m planning on making a lot of money. I mean, after all, why shouldn’t all of us make a lot? But what’s most important to me here, what I’m really trying to accomplish, is to secure your and Victor’s futures. If I can do that and make a few extra million a year at the same time, then I’ll consider the whole thing a huge success.” I paused for a few moments to let my bullshit sink in and tried getting a quick read on how they were taking my sudden change of heart.

So far so good, I thought. “Anyway, we have our SEC trial coming up in less than six months, and who knows how it’ll end up? As good as things look, there may come a point when it might make sense to settle the case. And if that day comes, I want to make sure everybody has their exit visas stamped and ready. Believe it or not, I’ve actually wanted to get Duke up and running for a while now, but the issue of my Judicate stock has been hanging over my head. I still can’t sell it for two more weeks, so everything we do has to be kept secret for now. I can’t overestimate the importance of that. Understood?”

Victor nodded his panda head in understanding, and said, “I won’t breathe a word to anybody. And as far as my Judicate stock goes, I don’t even care about it. We all stand to make so much money on Duke that if I never get to sell a share I don’t even give a shit.”

At this point, Kenny chimed in: “You see, JB—I told you! Victor’s head is in the right spot; he’s completely with the program.” Once more, he reached over and patted the Chinaman’s enormous back.

Victor then said, “I also want you to know that I swear complete loyalty to you. Just tell me what stocks you want me to buy and I’ll buy the shit out of them. You’ll never see a share back until you ask for it.”

I smiled and said, “That’s why I’m agreeing to this, Victor, because I trust you and I know you’ll do the right thing. And, of course, because I think you’re a sharp guy and you’ll make a big success of it.” And words are cheap, I thought. In fact, all this goodwill on Victor’s part was complete crap, and I was willing to bet my very life on it. The Chinaman was incapable of being loyal to anybody or anything, especially himself, who he would inadvertently fuck over to feed his own warped ego.

According to plan, Danny showed up fifteen minutes after we sat down, which I had calculated as the appropriate amount of time for Kenny to relish his moment of glory without Danny being there to rain on his parade. After all, he deeply resented Danny for having taken over his slot as my number one. Skipping over Kenny was something I’d felt bad about, but it was something I’d had to do. Still, it was a shame he had to take the fall with Victor, especially since I was certain that Kenny believed every word he said to me—about Victor staying loyal, and all the rest of that jargon. But Kenny’s weakness was that he still looked at Victor through the eyes of a teenager. He still worshipped him as a successful coke dealer, while he was merely a successful pot dealer, which was one step down on the drug-dealing food chain.

Anyway, I had already had my sit-down with Danny when I got back to Stratton after my meeting with Ike—explaining my plan to him in intimate detail, holding back very little. When I was finished, his response had been the expected one.

“In my mind,” he’d said, “you’ll always own Stratton, and sixty cents of every dollar will always be yours. And that’s whether you take an office down the street or you decide to sail your yacht around the world.”

Now, an hour later, he had arrived at Tenjin, and he immediately poured himself a large cup of sake. Then he refilled all three of our cups and held up his own, as if to make a toast. Danny said, “To friendship and loyalty, and to getting scrummed by Blue Chips tonight.”

“Here, here!” I exclaimed, and the four of us clinked our white porcelain cups together. Then we downed the warm fiery brew.

I said to Kenny and Victor, “Listen, I haven’t really spoken to Danny about what’s going on with Duke”—a lie—“so let me give him the quick rundown and bring him up to speed, okay?”

Victor and Kenny nodded, and I quickly plunged into the details. When I got to the subject of where Duke should be located, I turned to Victor and said, “I’ll give you a couple of options: The first is to go to New Jersey, just over the George Washington Bridge, and open the firm there. Your best bet would be Fort Lee, or maybe Hackensack. Either way, you’ll have no trouble recruiting there. You’ll be able to pull kids from all over North Jersey and then some reverse commuters, kids living in Manhattan who are sick of working there. The second option would be to go into Manhattan itself; but that’s a double-edged sword. On one side, there’re a million kids there, so you won’t have any trouble recruiting, but on the other side you’re gonna find it hard to build loyalty there.

“One of the keys to Stratton is that we’re the only game in town. I mean, just look at this restaurant, for example.” I motioned with my head to all the tables. “All you see here are Strattonites. So what you have, Victor, is a self-contained society”—I resisted the urge to use the word cult, which was more appropriate—“where they don’t get to hear the alternative point of view. If you open an office in Manhattan, your guys are gonna be having lunch with stockbrokers from a thousand different firms. It might not seem too important right now, but, trust me, in the future it will be important, especially if you start getting bad press or if your stocks start crashing. Then you’ll be very happy that you’re in a place where nobody’s whispering negative things in your brokers’ ears. Anyway, that being said, I’ll still let it be your call.”

Victor nodded his panda head slowly, deliberately, as if he were weighing the pros and cons. I found this to be almost laughable, insofar as the chances of Victor agreeing to go to New Jersey were slim and nil, and as the saying went, slim had already left town. Victor’s giant ego would never allow him to pick New Jersey. After all, the state didn’t resonate with wealth and success and, most importantly, a place for players. No, Victor would want to open his firm right in the heart of Wall Street, whether it made sense or not. And that was fine with me. It would make it that much easier to destroy him when the time came.

I had given the same speech to the owners of Biltmore and Monroe Parker, all of whom had originally wanted to open their firms in Manhattan. That was why Monroe Parker was tucked away in upstate New York and why Florida-based Biltmore had chosen to keep its office off Boca Raton’s Maggot Mile, which was a name the press had given to the section of South Florida where all the brokerage firms were located.

In the end, it all came down to brainwashing, which had two distinct aspects to it. The first aspect was to keep saying the same thing over and over to a captive audience. The second aspect was to make sure you were the only one saying anything. There could be no competing viewpoints. Of course, it made things much easier if what you were saying was exactly what your subjects wanted to hear, which at Stratton Oakmont had been the case. Twice a day, every day, I had stood before the boardroom and told them that if they listened to me and did exactly as I said, they would have more money than they had ever dreamed possible and there would be gorgeous young girls throwing themselves at their very feet. And that was exactly what had happened.

After a good ten seconds of silence, Victor replied, “I see your point, but I think I can do really well in Manhattan. There’re so many kids there that I can’t imagine not filling the place up in two seconds flat.”

The Blockhead then added, “And I bet Victor could give some kick-ass motivational meetings. So everyone’s gonna love working for him. Anyway, I can help Victor with that. I’ve kept little notes on all your meetings, so I can go through them with Victor and we can…”

Oh, Christ! I quickly tuned out and began staring at the giant panda, trying to imagine what could possibly be going on inside that warped brain of his. He was actually a pretty smart guy, and he did have his uses. In fact, three years ago he had performed quite a service for me….

It was just after I’d left Denise. Nadine hadn’t officially moved in yet, so with no woman around, I decided to hire a full-time butler. But I wanted a gay butler, just like the one I’d seen on the show Dynasty—or was it Dallas? Anyway, the point was that I wanted a gay butler to call my own, and being as rich as I was, I figured I deserved it.

So Janet went on a quest to find me a gay butler, which, of course, she quickly did. His name was Patrick the Butler, and he was so gay that he had flames shooting out of his asshole. Patrick seemed like a pretty okay guy to me, in spite of being a bit tipsy once in a while, but I wasn’t home that much, so I really had no idea what he was like.

When the Duchess moved in, she quickly assumed control over the household, and she started noticing a few things—like that Patrick the Butler was a rip-roaring alcoholic who went through sexual partners at a ferocious clip, or so he’d confided in the Duchess after his fudge-packing tongue had been lubricated by Valium and alcohol and God only knew what else.

It wasn’t long after that that the shit hit the fan. Patrick the Butler made the sad mistake of assuming that the Duchess would be joining me at my parents’ house for Passover dinner, so he decided to host a gay orgy for twenty-one of his friends, who formed a human daisy chain around my living room and then played naked Twister in my bedroom. Yes, it was quite a sight the Duchess (who was twenty-three at the time) had the pleasure of walking in to: all those homosexuals pressed together—butt to nut—rutting away like barnyard animals in our tiny Manhattan love nest, on the fifty-third floor of Olympic Towers.

It was from out the window of that very floor, in fact, that Victor ended up hanging Patrick the Butler, after it came to light that Patrick and his posse had stolen $50,000 in cash from my sock drawer. In Victor’s defense, though, he hung Patrick out the window only after he’d asked him repeated times to return the stolen goods. Of course, his requests were punctuated by right crosses and left hooks, which had the effect of breaking Patrick’s nose, rupturing the capillaries in both his eyes, and cracking three or four of his ribs. You would’ve thought Patrick would come clean and return the stolen money, wouldn’t you?

Well, he didn’t. In fact, Danny and I were there to witness Victor’s act of savagery. It was Danny, more than anyone, who’d been talking tough—up until Victor threw the first punch and Patrick’s face exploded into raw hamburger meat, at which time Danny ran to the bathroom and began vomiting.

After a while it seemed that Victor was getting a bit carried away and was on the verge of dropping Patrick out the window. So I kindly asked Victor to pull him back in, a request that seemed to deeply sadden Victor but that he followed nonetheless. When Danny emerged from the bathroom, looking worried and green, I explained to him that I had called the cops and they were coming to arrest Patrick the Butler. Danny was absolutely stunned that I would have the audacity to call the police after being the architect of Patrick’s assault. But, again, I explained that when the police arrived I would tell them exactly what had happened, which was what I did. And to ensure that the two young policeman fully got my meaning, I gave each of them a thousand dollars in cash, at which point they nodded, removed their nightsticks from their NYPD utility belts, and began beating the shit out of Patrick the Butler all over again.

Just then my favorite waiter, Massa, came over to take our order. I smiled and said, “So tell me, Massa, what’s good—”

But Massa cut me right off and asked, “Why you take limo today? Where Ferrari? Don Johnson, right? You like Don Johnson?” to which the two waitresses exclaimed, “Ohhhh, he Don Johnson…he Don Johnson!”

I smiled at my Japanese admirers, who were referring to my white Ferrari Testarossa, which was the exact car that Don Johnson had driven when he played Sonny Crockett in Miami Vice. It was just one more example of me playing out my adolescent fantasies. Miami Vice had been one of my favorite shows growing up, so I had bought a white Testarossa the moment I made my first million. I was slightly embarrassed by their Don Johnson reference, so I waved the back of my hand in the air and shook my head, then I said, “So what’s on the menu to—”

But Massa cut me off once more. “You James Bond too! Have Aston Martin, like Bond. He have toys in car…oil…nails!” to which the waitresses exclaimed, “Ohhh, he James Bond! He kiss-kiss bang-bang! Kiss-kiss bang-bang!”

We all broke up over that one. Massa was referring to one of the most retarded blunders I’d ever made. It happened almost a year ago, after I’d rung the register to the tune of $20 million on a new issue. I was sitting in my office with Danny, and the Ludes were just kicking in, at which point I got a bug up my ass to start spending money. I called my exotic-car dealer and bought Danny a black Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible, for $200,000, and then I bought myself a racing-green Aston Martin Virage, for $250,000. But that hadn’t done the trick, and I still felt like I needed to spend more money. So my exotic-car dealer offered to turn my Aston Martin into a true James Bond car—complete with an oil slick, a radar jammer, a license plate that slid back to reveal a blinding strobe light that would stop pursuers, as well as a naildrop box that, with a flip of a switch, would litter the road with spikes or nails or tiny land mines, if I could find an arms dealer to sell them to me. The cost: $100,000. Anyway, I went for the full monty, which had the effect of drawing so much power from the car’s battery that the car hadn’t worked right ever since. In fact, every time I took the car out for a drive, it would conk out on me. Now it just sat in my garage, looking nice.

I said to Massa, “Thanks for the compliment, but we’re in the middle of discussing business, my friend.” Massa bowed dutifully, recited the specials, and took our lunch order. Then he bowed again and left.

I said to Victor, “Anyway, let’s get back to the issue of financing. I’m not comfortable with Kenny’s mother being the one to write you the check. I don’t care if the two of you are doing business together, unrelated or not. It’s a red flag, so don’t do it. I’ll give you the four hundred thousand in cash, but I don’t want any money flowing to you from Gladys. What about your own parents? Could you give the money to them and have them write you a check?”

“My parents aren’t like that,” replied Victor, in a rare moment of humility. “They’re simple people and they wouldn’t understand. But I can work something out with some overseas accounts that I have access to in the Orient.”

Danny and I exchanged covert looks. The fucking Chinaman was already talking about overseas accounts before he’d even opened the doors to his own brokerage firm? What a depraved maniac he was! There was a certain logical progression to committing crimes, and the sort of crimes Victor was referring to came at the end of things, after you’d made your money, not before. I said to Victor, “That raises a different set of flags, but they’re just as red. Let me think about it for a day or two, and I’ll come up with some way to get you the money. Maybe I’ll have one of my ratholes lend it to you. Not themselves but through a third party. I’ll figure it out, so don’t worry about it.”

Victor nodded. “Whatever you say, but if you need any access to my overseas accounts just let me know, okay?”

I smiled a dead smile at him, then laid the trap: “All right, I’ll let you know if I do, but I don’t really dabble with that sort of stuff. Anyway, the final thing I want to talk about is how you should manage Duke’s trading account. There are two different ways to do it: You can trade from either the long side or the short side. And both ways have their pluses and minuses. I’m not gonna go into complete detail right now, but I’ll give you the long and short of it.” I paused and smiled at my own pun, which had been entirely unintended. “Anyway, if you trade from the long side, you’ll make a lot more money than if you trade from the short side. When I say trading long, I mean you’ll be holding large blocks of stock in Duke’s trading account; you can then move the price up and make money on what you’re holding. Conversely, if you’re short and the stock goes up, then you’re gonna lose money. And during the first year all your stocks should be going up, so you need to stay heavily long if you want to make a lot of money. I mean, if you really wanna ring the register. Now, I won’t deny that it takes a little bit of balls to do that—I mean, it can be a little nerve-racking sometimes—because your brokers won’t always be able to buy all the stock you’re holding. So your cash has a tendency to get tied up in inventory.

“But as long as you have enough guts and, for that matter, enough confidence to see it through, then when the slow period is over you’ll make a bloody fortune on the way up. You follow what I’m saying, Victor? It’s not a strategy for the weak; it’s a strategy for the strong, and for those with foresight.” With that I raised my eyebrows high on my forehead and threw my palms up in the air, as if to say, “Are we on the same page here?” Then I waited to see if the Blockhead would pick up on the fact that I’d just given Victor the worst trading advice in the history of Wall Street. The truth was that trading long was a recipe for disaster. By holding stock in the firm’s trading account, you were risking everything. Cash was king on Wall Street, and if your trading account was tied up in stock you were vulnerable to attack. In a way, it was no different than any other business. Even a plumber who overstocked his inventory would find himself running low on cash. And when his bills came due—meaning rent, telephone, payroll—he couldn’t offer to pay his creditors with plumbing supplies. No, cash was king in any business, and especially in this business, where your very inventory could become worthless overnight.

The proper way to trade was from the short side, which kept you flush in cash. While it was true that you would lose money as the prices of the stocks went up, it was the equivalent of paying an insurance premium. The way I had managed the Stratton trading account, I allowed the firm to take consistent losses in the day-to-day trading, which ensured that the firm would maintain a cash-rich position and be poised to ring the register on new-issue day. In essence I lost a million dollars a month by trading short but ensured that I could make ten million a month being in the IPO business. To me, it was so obvious that I couldn’t imagine anybody trading any other way.

The question was would the Blockhead and the Chinaman pick up on it—or would Victor’s ego feed right into the very insanity of trading long? Even Danny, who was sharp as a tack, had never fully grasped this concept, or perhaps he had but was such a born risk-taker that he was willing to put the health of the firm on the line to make a few extra million a year. It was impossible to say.

Right on cue, Danny chimed in and said to me, “I’ll tell you the truth: In the beginning I was always nervous when you held major long positions, but over time…I mean…to see all the extra money being made”—he started shaking his head, as if to reinforce his very bullshit—“well…it’s incredible. But it definitely takes balls.”

Kenny, the moron: “Yeah, we’ve made a fortune trading that way. That’s definitely the way to do it, Vic.”

How ironic, I thought. After all these years Kenny still hadn’t the foggiest notion of how I’d managed to keep Stratton at the pinnacle of financial health, in spite of all its problems. I had never traded long—not even once! Except, of course, on new-issue day, when I would let the firm go heavily long for a few carefully chosen minutes, as the price of the units was flying up. But I always knew there was a massive wave of buy tickets coming in at any moment.

Victor said, “I have no problem living with risk in my life. It’s what separates the men from the boys. As long as I know the stock is going up, I’d put my last dime into it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?” With that, the panda smiled, and once more his eyes disappeared.

I nodded at the Chinaman. “That’s about the size of it, Vic. Besides, if you ever find yourself in a bad position, I’ll always be there to support you until you get back on your feet. Just look at me as your insurance policy.”

We raised our glasses for another toast.

An hour later I was walking through the boardroom with mixed emotions. So far everything was going according to plan, but what of my own future? What was to become of the Wolf of Wall Street? In the end, this whole experience—this wild ride of mine—would become a distant memory, something I would tell Chandler about. I would tell her how, once upon a time, her daddy had been a true player on Wall Street, how he’d owned one of the largest brokerage firms in history, and how all these young kids—kids who called themselves Strattonites—ran around Long Island, spending obscene amounts of money on all sorts of meaningless things.

Yes, Channy, the Strattonites looked up to your daddy, and they called him King. And for that brief time, right around when you were born, your daddy was, indeed, like a king, and he and Mommy lived just like a king and queen, treated like royalty wherever they went. And now your daddy is…who the hell is he? Well, perhaps Daddy could show you some of his press clippings, perhaps that would explain things…or…well, perhaps not. Anyway, everything they say about your daddy is lies, Channy. All lies! The press always lies; you know that, Chandler, right? Just go ask your nana, Suzanne; she’ll tell you! Oh, wait, I forgot, you haven’t seen your nana in a while; she’s in jail with Aunt Patricia, for money laundering. Oops!

What a dark premonition that was! Jesus! I took a deep breath and pushed it aside. I was thirty-one years old and already on the road to becoming a has-been. A cautionary tale! Was it even possible to be a has-been at such a young age? Perhaps I was no different than one of those child actors who grows up to be ugly and gawky. What was that redhead’s name from The Partridge Family? Danny Bona-douche-bag or something? But wasn’t it better to be a has-been than a never-was? It was hard to say, because there was another side to that coin, namely, that once you got used to something it was hard to live without it. I had been able to live without the benefit of the mighty roar for the first twenty-six years of my life, hadn’t I? But now…well, how could I possibly live without it after it had become so much a part of me?

I took a deep breath and steeled myself. I needed to focus on the kids—the Strattonites! They were the ticket! I had a plan and I would stick to it: the slow phaseout; keeping myself behind the scenes; keeping the troops calm; keeping peace among the brokerage firms; and keeping the Depraved Chinaman at bay.

As I approached Janet’s desk, I noticed she had the grim expression on her face that spelled trouble. Her eyes were open a bit wider than usual and her lips were slightly parted. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, and the moment we locked eyes she rose from her chair and headed directly for me. I wondered whether she had somehow caught wind of what was going on with the SEC. The only people who knew were Danny, Ike, and myself, but Wall Street was a funny place like that, and news had a way of traveling remarkably fast. In fact, there was an old Wall Street saying that went: “Good news travels fast, but bad news travels instantly.”

She compressed her lips. “I got a call from Visual Image, and they said they need to speak to you right away. They said it was absolutely urgent they talk to you this afternoon.”

“Who the fuck is Visual Image? I’ve never even heard of them!”

“Yes you have; they’re the ones who did your wedding video, remember? You flew them down to Anguilla; there were two of them, a man and a woman. She had blond hair and he had brown. She was dressed—”

I cut Janet off. “Yeah, yeah, I remember now. I don’t need a full-blown description.” I shook my head in amazement at Janet’s memory for detail. If I hadn’t cut her off she would have told me what color panty hose the girl wore. “Who was it that called: the guy or the girl?”

“The guy. And he sounded nervous. He said that if he didn’t speak to you in the next few hours, it would be a problem.”

A problem? What the fuck? That made no sense! What could my wedding videographer possibly need to speak to me about that was so urgent? Could it be something that happened at my wedding? I took a moment to search my memory… Well, it would be highly unlikely, in spite of the fact that I had received a warning from the tiny Caribbean island of Anguilla. I had flown down three hundred of my closest friends (friends?) for an all-expenses-paid vacation at one of the finest hotels in the world: the Malliouhana. It cost me over a million dollars, and at the end of the week the island’s president informed me that the only reason everyone wasn’t under arrest for drug possession was because I’d given the island so much business that they felt turning a blind eye was the least they could do. But he further assured me that everyone who’d attended would be on a watch list and that if they ever decided to come back to Anguilla they had best leave their drugs behind. That was three years ago though, so this couldn’t have anything to do with that—or could it?

I said to Janet, “Get the guy on the phone. I’ll take it in my office.” I turned and started to walk away, then over my shoulder I said, “By the way, what’s his name?”

“Steve. Steve Burstein.”

A few seconds later the phone on my desk beeped. I exchanged quick hellos with Steve Burstein, the president of Visual Image, a small mom-and-pop operation somewhere on the South Shore of Long Island.

Steve said in a concerned tone: “Um… well… I don’t know quite how to say this to you… I mean… you were really good to my wife and me. You… you treated us like guests at your own wedding. You and Nadine couldn’t have been any nicer to us. And it was really the nicest wedding I’ve ever been to and—”

I interrupted him. “Listen, Steve, I appreciate the fact that you enjoyed my wedding, but I’m kind of busy right now. Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on.”

“Well,” he replied, “there were two FBI agents in here today and they asked me for a copy of your wedding video.”

And just like that, I knew my life would never be the same again.

^{CHAPTER 23} WALKING A FINE LINE

Nine days after I’d received that poisonous phone call from Visual Image, I was sitting in world-famous Rao’s restaurant in East Harlem, engaged in a heated debate with legendary private investigator Richard Bo Dietl, known simply to his friends as Bo.

Although we were at a table for eight, there would be only one other person joining us this evening, namely, Special Agent Jim Barsini† of the FBI, who was a casual friend of Bo’s and, hopefully, would soon be a casual friend of mine too. Bo had arranged this meeting, and Barsini was due to arrive in fifteen minutes.

At this particular moment, Bo was doing the talking and I was doing the listening, or, more accurately, Bo was lecturing and I was listening and grimacing. The topic was an inspired notion I’d had to try to bug the FBI, which, according to Bo, was one of the most outlandish things he’d ever heard.

Bo was saying, “…and that’s simply not the way you go about things, Bo.” Bo had this odd habit of calling his friends Bo, which I found confusing sometimes, particularly when I was Luded out. Thankfully, I was able to follow him just fine tonight, because I was sober as a judge, which seemed like the appropriate state to be in when meeting an FBI agent for the first time, especially one who I was hoping to befriend—and then subsequently gather intelligence from.

Nevertheless, I did have four Ludes in my pocket, which at this very moment were burning a hole in my gray slacks, and in the inside pocket of my navy-blue sport jacket I had an eight ball of coke, which was calling my name in a most seductive tone. But, no, I was determined to stay strong—at least until after Agent Barsini went back to wherever it was FBI agents went back to after they ate dinner, which was probably home. Originally I had planned to eat light, so as not to interfere with my upcoming high, but right now the smell of roasted garlic and home-cooked tomato sauce was bathing my olfactory nerve in a most delicious way.

“Listen, Bo,” continued Bo, “getting information out of the FBI isn’t difficult in a case like this. In fact, I already got some for you. But listen to me—before I tell you anything—there are certain protocols you gotta follow here or else you’re gonna get your ass caught in a sling. The first is that you don’t go around planting bugs in their fucking offices.” He started shaking his head in amazement. It was something he’d been doing a lot of since we sat down fifteen minutes ago. “The second is that you don’t try bribing their secretaries—or anyone else, for that matter.” With that, he shook his head some more. “And you don’t follow their agents around, trying to find shit out about their personal lives.” This time he shook his head quickly and began rolling his eyes up in his head, the way a person does after they’ve just heard something that defies logic in such a dramatic way that they have to shake off the effect.

I stared out the restaurant’s window to avoid Bo’s blazing gaze, at which point I found myself staring right smack into the gloomy groin of East Harlem and wondering why on earth the best Italian restaurant in New York City had to pick this fucking cesspool of a neighborhood for its location. But then I reminded myself that Rao’s had been in business for over a hundred years, since the late 1800s, and Harlem was a different sort of neighborhood back then.

And the fact that Bo and I were sitting alone at a table for eight was a much bigger deal than it seemed—given the fact that a dinner reservation at Rao’s needed to be booked five years in advance. In truth, though, getting a reservation at this quaint little anachronism was all but impossible. All twelve of the restaurant’s tables were owned, “condo-style,” by a select handful of New Yorkers, who more than being rich were very well connected.

Physically, Rao’s was no great shakes. On this particular evening, the restaurant was decorated for Christmas, which had nothing to do with that fact that it was January 14. In August, it would still be decorated for Christmas. That was the way of things at Rao’s, where everything was reminiscent of a much simpler time, where food was served family-style, and Italian music played from a fifties-style jukebox in the corner. As the night progressed, Frankie Pellegrino, the restaurant’s owner, would sing for his guests, as men of respect congregated at the bar and smoked cigars and greeted one another Mafia-style, while the women stared at them adoringly, the way they did back in the good-old days, whenever those were. And the men would rise from their chairs and bow to the women each time they went to the bathroom, the way they did back in the good-old days, whenever those were.

On any given night, half the restaurant was filled with world-class athletes, A-list movie stars, and captains of industry, while the other half was filled with real-life mobsters.

Anyway, it was Bo, not I, who was the table’s well-connected owner, and true to this tiny restaurant’s star-studded list of patrons, Bo Dietl was a man whose star was seriously on the rise. Only forty years old, Bo was a legend in the making. Back in his day, in the mid 1980s, he was one of the most highly decorated cops in NYPD history—making over seven hundred arrests, in some of New York’s toughest neighborhoods, including Harlem. He had made a big name for himself cracking cases that no one else could crack, finally jumping into the national spotlight after solving one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in Harlem: the rape of a white nun by two cash-strapped crack fiends.

At first glance, though, Bo didn’t look that tough, what with his boyishly handsome face, perfectly coiffed beard, and slightly thinning light brown hair, which he wore combed straight back over his roundish skull. He wasn’t a huge guy—maybe five-ten, two hundred pounds—but he was broad in the chest and thick in the neck, the latter of which was the size of a gorilla’s. Bo was one of the sharpest dressers in town, favoring $2,000 silk suits and heavily starched white dress shirts with French cuffs and wiseguy collars. He wore a gold watch heavy enough to do wrist curls with and a diamond pinky ring the size of an ice cube.

It was no secret that much of Bo’s success when it came to cracking cases had to do with his rearing. He was born and raised in a part of Ozone Park, Queens, where he was surrounded by mobsters on one side and cops on the other. In consequence, he developed the unique ability to walk a fine line between the two—using the respect he’d garnered with local Mafia chieftains to crack cases that couldn’t be cracked through traditional means. Over time, he developed a reputation as a man who kept his contacts confidential and who used the information passed along to him only toward stamping out street crime, which seemed to get under his skin more than anything else. He was loved and respected by his friends, and he was loathed and feared by his enemies.

Never one to put up with bureaucratic bullshit, Bo retired from the NYPD at thirty-five and quickly parlayed his storied reputation (and even more storied connections) into one of the fastest-growing and most well-respected private security firms in America. It was for this very reason that two years ago I had first sought out Bo and retained his services—to build and maintain a first-class security operation within Stratton Oakmont.

More than once I had called upon Bo to scare away the occasional mid-level thug who made the mistake of trying to muscle in on Stratton’s operations. Just what Bo would say to these people I wasn’t quite sure. All I knew was that I would make one phone call to Bo, who would then “sit the person down,” at which point I would never hear from them again. (Although one time I did receive a rather nice bouquet of flowers.)

At the upper levels of the Mob there was a silent understanding, independent of Bo, that rather than trying to muscle in on Stratton’s operations, it was more profitable for the bosses to send their young bucks to work for us, so they could be properly trained. Then, after a year or so, these Mafioso plants would leave quietly—almost gentlemanly, in fact—so as not to disturb Stratton’s operations. Then they would open Mafia-backed brokerage firms at the behest of their masters.

Over the last two years, Bo had become involved with all aspects of Stratton’s security—even investigating the companies we were taking public, making sure that we weren’t getting scammed by fraudulent operators. And unlike most of his competitors, Bo Dietl and Associates wasn’t coming up with the sort of generic information any computer geek could pull off LexisNexis. No, Bo’s people were getting their fingernails dirty, uncovering things one would think impossible to uncover. And while there was no denying that his services didn’t come cheap, what you got was value for your money.

In point of fact: Bo Dietl was the best in the business.

I was still staring out the window when Bo said to me, “What’s on your mind, Bo? You’re staring out that fucking window like you’re gonna find some answers in the street.”

I paused for a brief moment, considering whether or not I should tell him that the only reason I’d considered bugging the FBI was because of the tremendous success I’d had at bugging the SEC, which was something he’d inadvertently paved the way for by introducing me to the former CIA guys who sold me the bugs behind his back. One of the bugs looked like an electrical plug, and it had been sticking in a wall outlet in the conference room for over a year, drawing power from the very outlet itself, so it never ran out of batteries. It was a wonderful little contraption!

Nevertheless, I decided now was not the time to share that little secret with Bo. I said, “It’s just that I’m dead serious about fighting this whole thing. I have no intention of rolling over and playing dead because some FBI agent is running around asking questions about me. I have too much at stake here, and there are too many people involved just to walk away from this. So now that your mind’s at ease, tell me what you found out, okay?”

Bo nodded, but before he answered me, he picked up a large glass of single-malt scotch and threw back what had to be three or four shots, as if it were no stronger than H₂O. Then he puckered up his lips. “Whewwwww-boy! That’s the ticket!” Finally he plowed on: “For starters, the investigation is still in its early stages, and it’s all being driven by this guy Coleman, Special Agent Gregory Coleman. No one else in the office has any interest in it; they all think it’s a loser. And as far as the U.S. Attorney’s Office goes, they’re not interested either. The AUSA on the case is a guy named Sean O’Shea, and from what I hear, he’s a pretty decent guy, not a scumbag prosecutor.

“There’s a lawyer named Greg O’Connell who’s a good friend of mine, and he used to work with Sean O’Shea. He reached out to Sean for me, and according to Greg, Sean couldn’t give a rat’s ass about your case. You were right when you said they don’t do a lot of securities cases out there. They do more Mob-related stuff, because they cover Brooklyn. So in that respect you’re lucky. But the word on this guy Coleman is he’s very dogged. He talks about you like you’re some kinda star. He holds you in very high regard, and not in the way you want. It sounds like he’s a bit obsessed with the whole thing.”

I shook my head gravely. “Well that’s great to fucking hear! An obsessed FBI agent! Where did he come from all of a sudden? Why now? It must have something to do with the SEC settlement offer. Those bastards are double-dealing me.”

“Calm down, Bo. It’s not as bad as it seems. This has nothing to do with the SEC. It’s just that Coleman is intrigued with you. Probably more to do with all the press you’re getting than anything else, this whole Wolf of Wall Street thing.” He started shaking his head. “All those stories about the drugs and the hookers and the big spending. It’s pretty intoxicating stuff for a young FBI agent making forty grand a year. And this guy Coleman is young, in his early thirties, I think; not much older than you. So just think of the harsh reality of this guy looking at your tax return and seeing that you make more in an hour than he makes in a year. And then he sees your wife prancing across the TV screen.”

Bo shrugged. “Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that you should try keeping a low profile for a while. Maybe take an extended vacation or something, which makes perfect sense considering your SEC settlement. When is that gonna be announced?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” I replied. “Probably in a week or two.”

Bo nodded. “Well, the good news is that Coleman’s got a reputation for being a pretty straight shooter. He’s not like the agent you’re gonna meet tonight, who’s a real fucking wild man. I mean, if you had Jim Barsini on your tail—well, it would be very bad news. He’s already shot two or three people, one of them with a high-powered rifle after the perp had his hands up in the air. It was one of those things where he said, ‘FBI—bang!—Freeze! Put your hands in the air!’ You get the picture, Bo?”

Jesus Christ! I thought. My only salvation in this thing was a whacked-out FBI agent with an itchy trigger finger?

Bo plowed on: “So it ain’t all bad, Bo. This guy Coleman isn’t the sort of guy who’s gonna fabricate evidence against you and go around threatening your Strattonites with life sentences, and he’s not the sort of guy who’s gonna terrorize your wife. But—”

I cut Bo off with great concern in my voice. “What do you mean, terrorize my wife? How can he drag Nadine into this? She hasn’t done anything, except spend a lot of money.” The mere thought of Nadine getting caught up in this sent my spirits plunging to unprecedented levels.

Bo’s voice took on the tone of a psychiatrist talking a patient off the ledge of a ten-story building. “Now, calm down, Bo. Coleman’s not a harassing sort of guy. All I was trying to say is that it’s not unheard of for an agent to put pressure on a husband by going after his wife. But that doesn’t apply in your situation, because Nadine’s not involved in any of your business dealings, right?”

“Of course not!” I replied with great certainty, and then I quickly rifled through my business dealings to see if what I’d just said was true. I came to the sad conclusion that it wasn’t. “The truth is I’ve done a couple a trades in her name, but nothing so bad. I’d say her liability is pretty much zero. But I’d never let it come to that, Bo. I’d sooner plead guilty and let them put me away for twenty years than let them indict my wife.”

Bo nodded slowly and replied, “As would any real man. But my point is that they know that too, and they might view that as a point of weakness. Again, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. The investigation is in its very early stages, more a fishing expedition than anything else right now. If you’re lucky, Coleman will stumble onto something else…an unrelated case…and he’ll lose interest in you. Just be careful, Bo, and you’ll be fine.”

I nodded. “You can count on it.”

“Good. Well, Barsini should be here in a second, so let’s go over a few ground rules. First, don’t bring up your case. It’s not that kinda meeting. It’s just a bunch of friends shooting the shit. No talk of investigations or anything like that. You start by developing a casual friendship with him. Remember, we’re not trying to get this guy to give you info he’s not supposed to give you.” He shook his head for emphasis. “The truth is that if Coleman really has a bug up his ass for you, there’s nothing Barsini can do. It’s only if Coleman doesn’t have anything on you and he’s just being a prick—then Barsini could say, ‘Hey, I know the guy and he’s not so bad, so why don’t you cut him a break?’ Remember, Bo, the last thing you want to be accused of is trying to corrupt an FBI agent. They’ll throw you in jail for a long time for that.”

Then Bo raised his eyebrows, and added, “But, on the flip side, there’s some information that we can get from Barsini. See, the truth is that there are some things that Coleman might want you to know, and he can use Barsini as a conduit for that. Who knows? You might actually strike up a friendship with Barsini. He’s a pretty good guy, actually. He’s a crazy bastard but, then again, which of us isn’t, right?”

I nodded in agreement. “Well, I’m not the judgmental type, Bo. I hate judgmental people. I think they’re the worst sort, don’t you?”

Bo smirked. “Right. I figured you’d feel that way. Trust me when I tell you that Barsini is not your typical FBI type. He’s a former SEAL—or maybe Marine Force Recon—I’m not sure which. But one thing you should know about Barsini is that he’s an avid scuba diver, so you two have that in common. Maybe you could invite him on your yacht or something, especially if this whole Coleman thing turns out to be no big deal. Having a friend in the FBI is never a bad thing.”

I smiled at Bo and resisted the urge to jump across the table and plant a wet kiss on his lips. Bo was a true warrior, an asset so valuable that it couldn’t be calculated. How much was I paying him, between Stratton and personal? Over half a million a year, maybe more. And he was worth every penny. I asked, “What’s this guy know about me? Does he know I’m under investigation?”

Bo shook his head. “Absolutely not. I told him very little about you. Just that you were a good client of mine as well as a good friend. And both of those statements are true—which is why I’m doing this, Bo, out of friendship.”

In lockstep, I replied, “And don’t think I don’t appreciate it, Bo. I won’t forget—”

Bo cut me off. “Here he is now.” He gestured toward the window, to a fortyish man entering the restaurant. He was about six-two, two-twenty, and was sporting an extreme crew cut. He had gruff, handsome features, piercing brown eyes, and an incredibly square jaw. In fact, he looked like he belonged on a recruiting poster for a right-wing paramilitary group.

“Big Bo!” exclaimed the world’s least likely FBI agent. “Myyyyyy man! What the fuck are you up to, and where the fuck did you find this restaurant? I mean—Jesus Christ, Bo—I could get some target practice in this neck of the woods!” He cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows, as if to imply the very logic of his observation. Then he added, “But, hey, that’s not my concern. I only shoot bank robbers, right?” That last insane comment was directed at me, accompanied by a warm smile, to which Special Agent Barsini then added, “And you must be Jordan. Well it’s nice to meet you, bud! Bo told me you got a kick-ass boat—or ship, actually—and he said you like to scuba dive. Let me shake your hand.” He extended his hand to me. I quickly reached for it and was surprised to find that his hand was nearly twice the size of my own. After nearly pulling my arm out of my shoulder socket, he finally released me from his clutches and we all sat down.

I was about to continue the subject of scuba diving, but I never got the chance. Special Agent Madman was immediately off on a rant. “I’ll tell you,” he said with piss and vinegar, “this neighborhood’s a real fucking cesspool.” He shook his head in disgust and leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, which had the effect of exposing the enormous revolver on his waist.

“Well, Bo,” said Bo to Barsini, “you got no argument from me in that department. Know how many people I locked up when I worked this neighborhood? You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Half of them were the same fucking people over again! I remember this one guy, he was the size of a fucking gorilla. He snuck up behind me with a garbage-can lid and smashed me over the top of the head, nearly turning my lights out. Then he went after my partner, and he knocked him out cold.”

I raised my eyebrows and said, “So what happened to the guy? Did you catch him?”

“Yeah, of course I did,” replied Bo, almost insulted. “He didn’t knock me out cold; he only fazed me. I came to while he was still whaling on my partner, and I took the lid from him and pounded him over the head for a few minutes. But he had one of those extra-thick skulls, like a fucking coconut.” Bo shrugged, then finished his story with: “He lived.”

“Well that’s a damn fucking shame,” replied the federal agent. “You’re too soft, Bo. I woulda ripped out the guy’s trachea and fed it to him. You know, there’s a way to do that without even getting a drop a blood on your hands. It’s all in the snap of the wrist. It makes a sort of popping sound, like”—the federal agent pressed the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth and compressed his cheeks and then released—“POP!”

Just then the restaurant’s owner, Frank Pellegrino—also known as Frankie No, because he was always saying no to people who asked him for a table—came over to introduce himself to Agent Barsini. Frank was dressed so smartly, and matched so perfectly, and was so freshly pressed, that I would’ve sworn he’d just emerged from a dry cleaner. He wore a dark-blue three-piece suit with thick chalk-gray pinstripes. From out of his left breast pocket a white hanky debouched perfectly, flawlessly, brilliantly, in the sort of way only a man like Frankie could pull off. He looked rich and sixtyish, trim and handsome, and he had a unique gift of being able to make every last person at Rao’s feel like they were a guest in his own home.

“You must be Jim Barsini,” Frank Pellegrino said warmly. He extended his hand. “Bo told me all about you. Welcome to Rao’s, Jim.”

With that, Barsini popped out of his chair and began pulling Frank’s arm out of its socket. I watched in fascination as Frank’s perfectly coiffed grayish hair stayed stock-still while the rest of him shook like a rag doll.

“Jesus, Bo,” said Frank to the real Bo, “this guy’s got a handshake like a grizzly bear! He reminds me of…” and with that, Frank Pellegrino began expounding on one of his many tales of men with no necks.

I immediately tuned out, smiling every so often, while I quickly settled on the primary task at hand, which was: What could I possibly say, do, or, for that matter, give to Special Agent Barsini to entice him to tell Special Agent Coleman to leave me the fuck alone? The easiest thing to do, of course, would be to simply bribe Barsini. He didn’t seem like a guy of such high moral standing, did he? Although perhaps this whole soldier-of-fortune thing would make him incorruptible, as if taking money for greed’s sake would somehow dishonor him. How much did they pay an FBI agent? I wondered. Fifty grand a year? How much scuba diving could a man do on that? Not a lot. Besides, there was scuba diving and then there was scuba diving. I’d be willing to pay a pretty penny to have a guardian angel within the FBI, wouldn’t I?

For that matter, what would I be willing to pay Agent Coleman to lose my number forever? A million? Certainly! Two million? Of course! Two million was chump change in the face of a federal indictment and the possibility of financial ruin!

Eh, who was I kidding? These thoughts were all pie in the sky. In fact, a place like Rao’s served as a clear reminder that the government could never be trusted for the long term. It was only three or four decades ago when mobsters did whatever they wanted: They paid off the police force; they paid off politicians; they paid off judges; for Chrissake, they even paid off schoolteachers! But then came the Kennedys, who were mobsters themselves, and they viewed the Mob as competition. So they reneged on all the deals—all those wonderful quid pro quos—and… well, the rest was history.

“…so that was the way he settled it back then,” said Frankie No, finally completing his yarn. “Although he didn’t actually kidnap the chef; he just held him hostage for a while.”

With that, everyone, including me, starting laughing hysterically, in spite of the fact that I’d missed ninety percent of what he’d said. But at Rao’s, missing a story was merely incidental. After all, you kept hearing the same handful of stories over and over again.

^{CHAPTER 24} PASSING THE TORCH

George Campbell, my tongueless chauffeur, had just brought the limousine to a smooth, gentle stop at the side entrance to Stratton Oakmont, when he literally knocked me out of my seat by breaking his self-imposed vow of silence and asking, “Wha’s gonna happen now, Mr. Belfort?”

Well, well, well! I thought. It’s about time the old devil broke down and said a few words to me! And while his question might have seemed a bit vague, he had actually hit the nail right on the head. After all, in a little more than seven hours, at four p.m., I would be standing before the boardroom, giving a farewell speech to an army of extremely worried Strattonites, all of whom, like George, had to be questioning what the future had in store for them, financially and otherwise.

I had no doubt that in the days to come there would be many questions burning in the minds of my Strattonites. Questions like:

What would happen now that Danny was running the show? Would they still have desks in six months? And if they did, would they be treated fairly? Or would he favor his old friends and a few of the key brokers he dropped Ludes with? And what fate awaited the brokers who’d been friendlier with Kenny than with Danny? Would they be punished for that friendship? Or, if not punished, treated like second-class citizens? Was it possible for Broker Disneyland to endure? Or would Stratton slowly devolve into a run-of-the-mill brokerage firm, no better or worse than anyplace else?

I chose not to share any of those thoughts with George, and all I said was, “You have nothing to worry about, George. Whatever happens, you’ll always be taken care of. Janet and I will get an office close by, and there’s a thousand things Nadine and I need you for.” I smiled broadly and made my tone very upbeat. “Just think, one day you’ll be chauffeuring Nadine and me to Chandler’s wedding. Can you imagine?”

George nodded and smiled broadly, revealing his world-class choppers, and he humbly replied, “I like my job very much, Mr. Belfort. You’re the best boss I ever have. Mrs. Belfort too. Everybody love you two. It’s sad you gotta leave here. It won’t be the same no more. Danny ain’t like you. He don’t treat people good. People gonna leave.”

I was too baffled over the first half of George’s statement to even focus on the second half. Had he actually said he liked his job? And that he loved me? Well, admittedly, the whole love thing was a figure of speech, but there was no denying that George had just said he loved his job and respected me as a boss. It seemed ironic after everything I’d put him through: the hookers… the drugs… the midnight rides through Central Park with strippers… the gym bags full of cash that I’d had him pick up from Elliot Lavigne.

Yet, on the other hand, I had never disrespected him, had I? Even in my darkest and most decadent hours, I’d always made an effort to be respectful to George. While it was true that I’d had some very bizarre thoughts about him, I had never shared them with another living soul, except, of course, the Duchess, who was my wife, which made her exempt. And even then, it was all in good fun. I was not a prejudiced man. In fact, what Jew in their right mind could be? We were the most persecuted people on earth.

All at once I found myself feeling bad that I had ever questioned George’s loyalty. He was a good man. A decent man. Who was I to read a thousand and one things into everything he said or, for that matter, didn’t say?

With a warm smile, I said, “Truth is, George, no one can predict the future, certainly not myself. Who’s to say what becomes of Stratton Oakmont? I guess only time will tell.

“Anyway, I remember when you first came to work for me, you used to try to open the limo door for me. You’d run around the side and try to beat me to it.” I chuckled at the memory. “It used to drive you crazy. Anyway, the reason I never let you open the door for me was because I respected you too much to just sit in the back of the limo and pretend like I had a broken arm or something. I always thought of it as an insult to you.”

Then I added, “But since today’s my last day, why don’t you open up the door for me, just once, and make believe you’re a real fucking limo driver! Pretend like you’re working for a fat-ass WASP. You can escort me into the boardroom. In fact, you might actually get a kick out of Danny’s morning meeting. He should be giving it right now.”

“…and the study sampled more than ten thousand men,” said Danny over the loudspeaker, “following their sexual habits for more than five years. I think you’re gonna be absolutely shocked when I tell you some of the findings.” With that, he pursed his lips, nodded his head, and began pacing back and forth, as if to say, “Prepare to hear the truly depraved nature of the male animal.”

Jesus Christ! I thought. I’m not even gone yet and he’s already running amok! I turned to George and took a moment to gauge his reaction, but he didn’t seem that shocked. He had his head tipped to the side and a look on his face that so much as said, “I can’t wait to find out how this whole thing relates to stocks!”

“You see,” continued Danny, wearing a gray pinstripe suit and phony WASP glasses, “what the study found is that ten percent of the entire male population are stone-cold faggots.” And here he paused to let the full implication of his words sink in.

Here comes another lawsuit! I looked around the room… and I saw a lot of confused looks, as if everyone was trying to make heads or tails of what he was saying. There were a few isolated snickers but no outright laughter.

Apparently, Danny wasn’t pleased with the crowd’s response—or lack thereof—so he plowed on with relish: “I say again,” continued the man the SEC considered the lesser of two evils, “the study found that ten percent of the male population takes it up the ass! Yes, ten percent are fudge-packers! It’s a huge number! Huge! All those men taking it up the Hershey Highway! Sucking cock! And—”

Danny was forced to give up his rant as the boardroom quickly degenerated into a state of pandemonium. The Strattonites began hooting and howling and clapping and cheering. Half the room was now standing; many were exchanging high-fives. But toward the front, in the section where the sales assistants were concentrated, no one was standing. All I could see were a bunch of long blond manes tilted at extreme angles, as the young females leaned over in their chairs and whispered in one another’s ears, shaking their heads in amazement.

Just then George said in a confused tone, “I don’ understand. What’s this gotta do with the stock market? Why’s he talkin’ ’bout gay people?”

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “It’s complicated, George, although there really is no reason other than that he’s trying to create a common enemy, kind of like Hitler did in the thirties.” And it’s only by sheer coincidence, I thought, that he’s not bashing black people right now. That very thought inspired me to add, “Anyway, you don’t have to listen to this shit. Why don’t you come back at the end of the day, around four-thirty, okay?”

George nodded and walked away, more nervous than ever, no doubt.

As I stood there, watching the morning riot, I couldn’t help but wonder why Danny always distilled his meetings down to sex. Obviously, he was looking for a few cheap laughs, but there were other ways to get them, ways that didn’t interfere with getting the hidden message across. The hidden message being that, in spite of everything, Stratton Oakmont was a legitimate brokerage firm trying to make its clients money—and the only reason it wasn’t making its clients money was because of an evil conspiracy of short-sellers, who plagued the markets, like locusts, spreading vicious rumors about Stratton Oakmont and any other honest brokerage firm that stood in their way. And, of course, also embedded in that message was the fact that one day, in the not-so-distant future, the fundamental value of all these companies would come shining through, and the stocks would come roaring back, rising up like a phoenix amid the ashes, at which time all Stratton’s clients would make a fortune.

I had explained this to Danny on numerous occasions, how deep down all human beings (save a handful of sociopaths) were possessed with a subconscious desire to do the right thing. That was why a subliminal message was supposed to be embedded within each meeting—that when they smiled and dialed and ripped people’s eyeballs out, they were fulfilling not only their own hedonistic desires of wealth and peer recognition but also their subconscious desire to do the right thing. Then and only then could you motivate them to achieve goals they had never dreamed themselves capable of.

Just then, Danny extended his arms out to the side, and slowly the room began to quiet down. He said, “Okay, now here’s the truly interesting part, or, should I say, the disturbing part. See, if ten percent of all men are closet homosexuals, and there are one thousand men sitting in this room, that means that camping out within our midst are one hundred homos, looking to butt-fuck us every time we turn our backs!”

All at once heads began turning suspiciously. Even the little blond sales assistants were looking around—casting suspicious gazes from their heavily made-up orbital sockets. There was a low-level murmur in the room, which I couldn’t quite make out. But the message was clear: “Find ’em and lynch ’em!”

I watched with great anticipation as a thousand necks craned this way and that…accusatory glances were thrown around the room by the hundreds…young, toned arms extended in all directions, each one with a pointed finger on the end of it. Then came some random screaming of names:

“Teskowitz† is a homo!”

“O’Reilly’s† a fucking queer! Stand up, O’Reilly!”

“What about Irv and Scott?”† two Strattonites screamed in unison.

“Yeah, Scott and Irv! Scott blew Irv!”

But after a minute of finger-pointing and some not-so-baseless accusations against Scott and Irv, no one had come clean. So Danny lifted his arms once more and asked for quiet. “Listen,” he said accusingly, “I know who some of you are, and there are two ways we can do this: the easy way or the hard way. Now, look: Everybody knows Scott blew Irv, and you didn’t see Scott losing his job over it, did you?”

From somewhere in the boardroom came the defensive voice of Scott: “I didn’t blow Irv! It’s just—”

Danny cut him off with a booming voice over the loudspeakers: “Enough, Scott, enough! The more you deny it, the more guilty you seem. So drop it! I just feel sorry for your wife and kids to have to be shamed by you like that.” Danny shook his head in disgust and then turned away from Scott. “Anyway,” continued Stratton’s new CEO, “that heinous act had more to do with power than sex. And Irv has now proved to us that he’s a true man of power—getting one of the junior brokers to blow him. So the whole act is exempt, and Scott is forgiven.

“Now that I’ve shown you how tolerant I am of that sort of behavior, isn’t there one true man among you who has the balls—and, for that matter, the common fucking decency—to stand up and show themselves?”

Out of nowhere, a young Strattonite with a weak chin and an even weaker sense of judgment stood up and said in a loud, forthright voice, “I’m gay, and I’m proud of it!” And the boardroom went wild. In a matter of seconds, objects were flying in his direction like lethal projectiles. Then came hisses and catcalls, and then screams:

“You fucking homo! Get the fuck out of here!”

“Tar and feather the cocksucker!”

“Watch your drinks! He’s gonna try to date-rape you!”

Well, I thought, this morning’s meeting was officially over, called early on account of insanity. And what, if anything, had this meeting accomplished? I wasn’t quite sure, other than it painted a truly grim picture of what was in store for Stratton Oakmont—starting tomorrow.

Why should I be surprised?

An hour later I was sitting behind my desk and using those five words to console myself, as I listened to Mad Max go ballistic on Danny and me over my buyout agreement, which had been the brainchild of my accountant, Dennis Gaito, nicknamed the Chef due to his love of cooking the books. In short, the agreement called for Stratton to pay me $1 million a month for fifteen years, with most of it being paid under the terms of a noncompete agreement, meaning I was agreeing not to compete with Stratton in the brokerage business.

Nevertheless, in spite of the agreement raising a few eyebrows, it wasn’t actually illegal (on the face of it), and I had been successfully able to bully the firm’s lawyers into approving it although the collective wisdom was that while the agreement was legal, it didn’t quite pass the smell test.

At this particular moment there was a fourth person sitting in my office, namely Wigwam, who so far hadn’t really said much. But that was no surprise. After all, Wigwam had spent the better part of his youth eating dinner at my house, so he was acutely aware of Mad Max’s capabilities.

Mad Max was saying, “…and you two morons are gonna get your tits caught in a wringer over this one. A hundred-eighty-million-dollar buyout? It’s like pissing right in the SEC’s face. I mean—Jesus fucking Christ! When are you two gonna learn?”

I shrugged. “Calm down, Dad. It’s not as bad as it seems. It’s a bitter pill I’m being forced to swallow, and the hundred eighty million serves as lubrication.”

With a bit too much glee, Danny added, “Max, you and I are going to be working together for a long time, so why don’t we just chalk this one up to experience, eh? After all, it’s your own son who’s getting the money! What could be so bad?”

Mad Max spun on his heel and stared Danny down. He took a world-class pull from his cigarette and puckered his lips into a tiny O. With a mighty exhale, he focused the smoke stream into a tight laser beam a half inch in diameter, and he projected it at Danny’s smiling face with the force of a Civil War cannon. Then, with Danny still enveloped in his smoke cloud, he said, “Let me tell you something, Porush. Just because my son is leaving tomorrow, that doesn’t mean I’m gonna show you any newfound respect. Respect has to be earned, and if this morning’s meeting is any indication, maybe I should just go to the fucking unemployment office right now. Do you know how many laws you broke with that cockamamy routine of yours? I’m just waiting for a phone call from that fat bastard, Dominic Barbara. That’s who that young fruitcake is gonna call with this shit.”

Then he turned to me and said, “And why did you fashion this buyout agreement as a noncompete? How can you compete if you’re already barred?” He took another pull from his cigarette. “It’s you and that bastard Gaito who cooked up this crooked scheme. It’s a fucking travesty, and I refuse to be a part of it.” With that, Mad Max headed for the door.

“Two things, Dad, before you go,” I said, holding up my hand.

With a hiss: “What?”

“First, the firm’s lawyers all approved the agreement. And the only reason it’s a hundred eighty million is because the noncompete has to be written off over fifteen years so we don’t lose the full tax benefit. Stratton’s paying me a million dollars a month, so fifteen years at a million a month is one hundred eighty million dollars.”

“Spare me the quick math,” he snapped. “I’m unimpressed. And as far as the tax code goes, I’m well aware of it, as well as your and Gaito’s blatant disregard for it. So don’t try snowing me, Mister Man. Anything else?”

Casually, I added, “We need to move tonight’s dinner to six o’clock. Nadine wants to bring Chandler along so you and Mom can see her.” I crossed my fingers and waited for the name Chandler to work its happy magic on Mad Max, whose face immediately began to soften at the mention of his only grandchild.

With a great smile and a slight British accent, Sir Max said, “Ohhh, what a wonderful surprise! Your mother will be thrilled to see Chandler. Well, righty-o, then! I’ll call Mom and tell her the good news.” Sir Max exited the office with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step.

I looked at Danny and Wigwam and shrugged. “There are certain key words that calm him down, and Chandler’s the most surefire of all. Anyway, you gotta learn them if you don’t want him to have a heart attack right in the office.”

“Your father’s a good man,” said Danny, “and nothing’s gonna change for him around here. I look at him like my own father, and he can say and do whatever he wants until he’s ready to retire.”

I smiled, appreciative of Danny’s loyalty.

“But more important than your father,” he continued, “I’m already having problems with Duke Securities. In spite of Victor being in business for only three days, he’s already spreading rumors that Stratton’s on the way out and that Duke is the next great thing. He hasn’t tried stealing any brokers yet, but that’s coming next, I’m sure. That fat fuck is too lazy to train his own brokers.”

I looked at Wigwam. “What do you have to say about all this?”

“I don’t think Victor’s much of a threat,” replied Wigwam. “Duke is small; they have nothing to offer anyone. They don’t have any deals of their own or any capital to speak of, and they don’t have a track record. I think Victor just has a big mouth he can’t control.”

I smiled at Wigwam, who had just confirmed what I already knew—that he was not a wartime consigliere and would be of little help to Danny in matters like these. In warm tones, I said, “You’re mistaken, buddy. You got the whole thing backward. See, if Victor’s smart, he’ll realize he has everything to offer his new recruits. His greatest power is actually in his size—or lack of size, I should say. The truth is that at Stratton it’s difficult for the cream to rise to the top; there’re so many people in the way. So unless you know someone in management, you could be the sharpest guy in the world and you’re still gonna be blocked from advancing, or at least advancing quickly.

“But at Duke, that doesn’t exist. Any sharp guy can walk in there and write his own ticket. That’s the reality. It’s one of the advantages a small company has over a big company, and not just in this industry, in any industry. On the other hand, we have stability on our side and we have a track record. People don’t worry about getting their paychecks on payday, and they know there’s always another new issue around the corner. Victor’s gonna try to undermine those things, which is why he’s spreading the sorts of rumors he is right now.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Anyway, I’ll address that in this afternoon’s meeting, and it’s something you, Danny, need to start reinforcing during your own meetings, if you can get past all the homo-bashing shit. A lot of this is gonna be a war of propaganda—although three months from now it’ll be a moot point and Victor’ll be licking his wounds.” I smiled confidently. “So, what else?”

“Some of the smaller firms are taking potshots at us,” said Wigwam, in his usual glum tone. “Trying to steal a few deals, a broker here and there. I’m sure it’ll pass.”

“It’ll pass only if you make it pass,” I snapped. “Let word leak out that we’re gonna sue any Stratton spin-off that tries stealing brokers. Our new policy is gonna be a heart for an eye.” I looked at Danny and said, “Anybody else receive a grand-jury subpoena?”

Danny shook his head no. “Not that I’m aware of, at least not in the boardroom. So far it’s just me, you, and Kenny. I don’t think anyone in the boardroom knows there’s an investigation.”

“Well,” I said, losing confidence daily, “there’s still a good shot the whole thing is a fishing expedition. I should know something soon. I’m just waiting on Bo.”

After a few moments of silence, Wigwam said, “By the way, Madden signed the escrow agreement and gave me back the stock certificate, so you can stop worrying about that.”

Danny said, “I told you Steve’s head is in the right place.”

I resisted the urge to tell Danny that, as of late, Steve had been bashing him at unprecedented levels, saying Danny was incapable of running Stratton and I should focus more of my attention on helping him, Steve, build Steve Madden Shoes, which was showing greater potential than ever. Sales were growing at fifty percent a month—a month!—and they were still accelerating. But from an operational perspective, Steve was in way over his head, with manufacturing and distribution lagging far behind sales. In consequence, the company was getting a bad reputation with the department stores for delivering its shoes late. At Steve’s urging, I’d been seriously considering moving my office to Woodside, Queens, where Steve Madden Shoes kept its corporate headquarters. Once there, I would share an office with Steve, and he would focus on the creative side and I would focus on the business side.

But all I said was, “I’m not saying Steve’s head is in the wrong place. But now that we have the stock, it’ll make it that much easier for him to do the right thing. Money makes people do strange things, Danny. Just have patience; you’ll find out soon enough.”

At one p.m. I called Janet in for a pep talk. Over the last few days she had been looking very upset. Today she seemed on the verge of tears.

“Listen,” I said in a tone a father would use with a daughter, “there’s a lot to be thankful for, sweetie. I’m not saying you don’t have grounds to be upset, but you have to look at this as a new beginning, not an end. We’re still young. Maybe we’ll take it easy for a few months, but after that it’ll be full steam ahead.” I smiled warmly. “Anyway, for now we’ll work out of the house, which is perfect, because I consider you a part of my family.”

Janet began snuffling back tears. “I know. It’s… it’s just that I was here since the beginning, and I watched you build this from nothing. It was like watching a miracle happen. It was the first time I ever felt”—loved? I thought—“I don’t know. When you walked me down… like a father would… I…” and with that, Janet broke down, crying hysterically.

Oh, Jesus! I thought. What had I done wrong? My goal had been to console her, and now she was crying. I needed to call the Duchess! She was an expert at this sort of thing. Perhaps she could rush down here and take Janet home, although that would take too long.

Having no choice, I walked over to Janet and hugged her gently. With great tenderness, I said, “There’s nothing wrong with crying, but don’t forget that there’s a lot to look forward to. Ultimately, Stratton’s gonna fold, Janet; it’s only a question of when; but since we’re leaving now, we’ll always be remembered as a success.” I smiled and made my tone more upbeat. “Anyway, Nadine and I are having dinner tonight with my parents, and we’re bringing Channy along. I want you to come too, okay?”

Janet smiled—smiled at the thought of seeing Chandler—and I couldn’t help but wonder what that said about the state of our own lives, when only the purity and innocence of an infant could bring us peace.

I was fifteen minutes into my farewell speech when it dawned on me that I was giving the eulogy at my own funeral. But on the brighter side, I also had the unique opportunity of witnessing the reactions of all those attending my burial.

And just look at them sitting there, hanging on my every word! So many rapt expressions…so many eager eyes…so many well-formed torsos leaning forward in their seats. Look at those wildly adoring stares from the sales assistants with their lusty blond manes and their delectably plunging necklines and, of course, their incredibly loamy loins. Perhaps I should be planting subliminal suggestions deep inside their minds—that every last one of them should burn with the insatiable desire to blow me and then swallow every last drop of my very manhood, for the rest of their natural lives.

Christ, what a fucking pervert I was! Even now, in the middle of my own farewell speech, my mind was double-tracking wildly. My lips were moving up and down, as I went about the process of thanking the Strattonites for five years of undying loyalty and admiration, yet I still found myself questioning whether or not I should’ve banged more of the sales assistants. What did that say about me? Did it make me weak? Or was it only natural to want to bang them all? After all, what was the point of having the power if you didn’t use it to get laid? In truth, I hadn’t exploited that aspect of the power as much as I could have, or at least not to the extent Danny had! Would I come to regret that one day? Or maybe I’d done the right thing? The mature thing! The responsible thing!

All these bizarre thoughts were roaring through my head with the ferocity of an F-5 tornado, while self-serving words of wisdom gushed out of my mouth in torrents, without the slightest bit of conscious effort. And then I realized that my mind wasn’t actually double-tracking (which it always did), but it was triple-tracking, which was truly fucking bizarre.

On track three there was an internal monologue, questioning the decadent nature of track two, which was focusing on the pros and cons of getting blown by the sales assistants. Meanwhile, track one was humming along uninterrupted, as my words to the Strattonites came tumbling from my lips like tiny pearls of self-serving wisdom, and the words were coming from…where? Perhaps from the part of the brain that works independently of conscious direction… or maybe the words were pouring out from sheer force of habit. After all, I’d given how many meetings over the last five years?… Two a day for five years… So with three hundred working days in a year, it translated into 1,500 working days, times two meetings per day, which equaled 3,000 meetings in total, minus whatever meetings Danny had given, which were probably ten percent of the total, subtracted from the gross number of 3,000 meetings, and the number 2,700 came into my mind just like that, but the tiny pearls of self-serving wisdom had continued tumbling from my lips as I did the math…

…and when I snapped back into the moment, I found myself explaining how the investment-banking firm of Stratton Oakmont was sure to survive—sure to survive!—because it was bigger than any one person and bigger than any one thing. And then I felt the urge to steal a line from FDR—who in spite of having been a Democrat, still seemed like a reasonably okay guy, although I’d recently been informed that his wife was a dyke—and I began explaining to the Strattonites how there was nothing to fear but fear itself.

It was at this point that I felt compelled to reemphasize how Danny was more than capable of running the firm, especially with someone as sharp as Wigwam at his side. But, alas, I still found myself looking at a thousand rolled eyeballs and an equal number of gravely shaking heads.

So now I felt it necessary to cross over the line of good judgment. “Listen, everyone: The fact that I’m being barred from the securities industry doesn’t stop me from giving Danny advice. I mean—really! Not only is it legal for me to give Danny advice, but I can also give advice to Andy Greene, Steve Sanders, the owners of Biltmore and Monroe Parker, and, for that matter, to anyone else in this boardroom who’s interested in hearing it. And just so you know, Danny and I have a tradition of eating breakfast and lunch together, and it’s a tradition we have no intention of breaking just because of some ridiculous settlement I was forced to make with the SEC—a settlement that I made only because I knew that it would ensure Stratton’s survival for the next hundred years!”

And with that came thunderous applause. I looked around the room. Ahhhh, such adoration! Such love for the Wolf of Wall Street! Until I locked eyes with Mad Max, who seemed to be blowing steam out of his fucking ears. What was he so fucking concerned about, anyway? Everybody else was eating this shit up! How come he couldn’t simply join in the cheer? I resisted the urge to draw the obvious conclusion that my father was reacting differently because he was the only person in the boardroom who actually gave a shit about me and he was somewhat concerned at watching his son jump off a regulatory cliff.

For the sake of Mad Max, I added, “Now, of course, this will only be advice, and by the very definition of the word it means that my suggestions don’t have to be followed!” to which Danny screamed from the side of the boardroom: “Yes, that’s true, but why on earth would anyone in their right mind not follow JB’s advice?”

Once again, thunderous applause! It spread through the boardroom like the Ebola virus, and soon the entire room was on its feet, giving the wounded Wolf his third standing ovation of the afternoon. I held up my hand for quiet, and I caught a pleasant glimpse of Carrie Chodosh, one of Stratton’s few female brokers, who also happened to be one of my favorites.

Carrie was in her mid-thirties, which at Stratton made her a virtual antique. Nevertheless, she was still a looker. She’d been one of Stratton’s first brokers—coming to me when she was flat broke, on the balls of her perfect ass. At the time, she was three months behind on her rent, and her Mercedes was being chased by a repo truck. You see, Carrie was another in a long line of beautiful women who had made the sad mistake of marrying the wrong man. After a ten-year marriage, her ex-husband refused to pay her a dime in child support.

It was a perfect segue, I thought, into Duke Securities and then into broaching the possibility of an FBI investigation. Yes, better to allude to the FBI now, to almost predict an investigation, as if the Wolf had seen it coming all along and had already prepared himself to fend off the attack.

Once more I held up my hand for quiet. “Listen, everyone—I’m not gonna lie to you here. Settling with the SEC was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made. But I knew that Stratton would endure no matter what. See, what makes Stratton so special, what makes it so unstoppable, is that it’s not just a place where people come to work. And it’s not just a business looking to turn a profit. Stratton is an idea! And by the very nature of being an idea it can’t be contained, nor can it be quashed by a two-year investigation at the hands of a bunch of bozo regulators, who froze to death in our conference room and thought nothing of spending millions of taxpayer dollars to embark on one of the biggest witch hunts since the Salem witch trials!

“The very idea of Stratton is that it doesn’t matter what family you were born into, or what schools you went to, or whether or not you were voted most likely to succeed in your high-school yearbook. The idea of Stratton is that when you come here and step into the boardroom for the first time, you start your life anew. The very moment you walk through the door and pledge your loyalty to the firm, you become part of the family, and you become a Strattonite.”

I took a deep breath and pointed in Carrie’s direction. “Now, everybody here knows Carrie Chodosh, right?”

The boardroom responded with hooting and howling and catcalling.

I raised my hand and smiled. “Okay, that was very nice. In case any of you weren’t aware of it, Carrie was one of Stratton’s first brokers, one of the original eight. And when we think of Carrie, we think of her the way she is today—a beautiful woman who drives a brand-new Mercedes; who lives in the finest condo complex on Long Island; who wears three-thousand-dollar Chanel suits and six-thousand-dollar Dolce and Gabbana dresses; who spends her winters vacationing in the Bahamas and her summers in the Hamptons; you know her as someone who has a bank account with God only knows how much in it”—probably nothing, if I had to guess, since that was the Stratton way—“and, of course, everyone knows Carrie as one of the highest-paid female executives on Long Island, on pace to make over $1.5 million this year!”

Then I told them the state of Carrie’s life when she came to Stratton and right on cue, the lovely Carrie responded in a loud, forthright voice: “I’ll always love you, Jordan!” at which point the boardroom went wild once more, and I received my fourth standing ovation.

I bowed my head in thanks, then after a good thirty seconds I asked for quiet. As the last of the Strattonites retook their seats, I said, “Understand that Carrie’s back was to the wall; she had a small child to worry about and a mountain of bills crashing down on her. She couldn’t allow herself to fail! Her son, Scott, who happens to be an incredible kid, will soon be attending one of the finest colleges in the country. And thanks to his mother, he won’t have to graduate owing a couple a hundred grand in student loans and then be forced to—” Oh, shit! Carrie was crying! I’d done it again! The second time in one day I’d brought a woman to tears! Where was the Duchess?

Carrie was crying so loudly that three sales assistants had surrounded her. I needed to hit my final points quickly and then end this farewell speech before someone else started crying. “Okay,” I said. “We all love Carrie, and we don’t want to see her cry.”

Carrie held up her hand and said, through gooselike snorts, “I’m—I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” I replied, wondering what the appropriate response was to a crying female Strattonite during a farewell speech. Did such a protocol even exist? “The point I was trying to make was that if you think the opportunity for quick advancement doesn’t exist anymore—that because Stratton is so big and so well-managed that your path to the top is somehow blocked—well, in the history of Stratton there’s never been a riper time for someone to rise through the ranks and go straight to the top. And that, my friends, is a fact!

“The simple fact is, now that I’m leaving, there’s a huge void Danny needs to fill. And where’s he gonna fill it from? From the outside? From somewhere on Wall Street? No, of course not! Stratton promotes from within. It always has! So whether you just walked in the door, or if you’ve been here for a few months and just passed your Series Seven, or if you’ve been here for a year and just made your first million, then today is your lucky day. As Stratton continues to grow, there’ll be other regulatory hurdles. And just like the SEC… we’ll overcome those too. Who knows? Maybe the next time it’ll be the NASD… or the states… or maybe even the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Who can say for sure? After all, virtually every big Wall Street firm goes through that once. But all you need to know is that at the end of the day Stratton will endure and that from out of adversity comes opportunity. Maybe next time it’ll be Danny who’s standing up here, and he’ll be passing the torch to one of you.”

I paused to let my words sink in, and then began my close. “So good luck, everyone, and continued success. I ask you for only one favor: that you follow Danny the way you followed me. Pledge your loyalty to him the way you did to me. As of this very moment, Danny is in charge. Good luck, Danny, and Godspeed! I know you’ll take things to a new level.” And with that, I lifted the mike in the air in salute to Danny and received the standing ovation of a lifetime.

After the mob finally settled down, I was presented with a going-away card. It was three feet by six feet, and on one side, in big red block letters, it read, To the World’s Greatest Boss! On either side were handwritten notes—brief accolades from each of my Strattonites—thanking me for changing their lives so dramatically.

Later, after I went inside my office and closed the door for the last time, I couldn’t help but wonder if they would still be thanking me five years from now.

CHAPTER 25 REAL REALS

How many reruns of Gilligan’s Island can one man watch before he decides to stick a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger?

It was a frigid Wednesday morning, and in spite of it being eleven a.m., I was still lying in bed, watching television. Forced retirement, I thought—it ain’t no fucking picnic.

I’d been watching a considerable amount of TV over the last four weeks—too much, according to the doleful Duchess—and, as of late, I had become obsessed with Gilligan’s Island.

There was a reason for that: While watching Gilligan’s Island reruns, I made the shocking discovery that I was not the only Wolf of Wall Street. Much to my chagrin, there was someone sharing this not-so-honorable distinction with me, and he happened to be a bumbling old WASP who’d been unlucky enough to get himself shipwrecked on Gilligan’s Island. His name was Thurston Howell III, and, alas, he truly was an idiot WASP. In typical WASP fashion he’d married a female of his species, an atrocious pineapple blond named Lovey, who was almost as great an idiot as he but not quite. Lovey felt it necessary to wear wool pantsuits, sequined ball gowns, and a full face of makeup, despite the fact that Gilligan’s Island was somewhere in the South Pacific, at least five hundred miles from the nearest shipping lane where she would ever be seen by anyone. But WASPs are notorious overdressers.

I found myself wondering if it was only by sheer coincidence that the original Wolf of Wall Street was a bumbling moron or if my nickname was meant to be a slight—comparing Jordan Belfort to an old WASP bastard with an IQ of sixty-five and a penchant for bed-wetting. Perhaps, I thought glumly, perhaps.

It was all very sad, and very depressing too. On a brighter note, I had been spending a great deal of time with Chandler, who had just started talking. It was crystal clear now that my early suspicions had been confirmed, and my daughter was a certifiable genius. I found myself resisting the urge to regard my daughter from a physical perspective—knowing full well that I could and would cherish every last molecule of her no matter how she looked. But the fact remained that she was absolutely gorgeous and looking more and more like her mother with each passing day. Likewise, I found myself falling more deeply in love with her as I watched her personality unfold. She was a daddy’s girl, and seldom a day went by when I didn’t spend at least three or four hours with her, teaching her new words.

There were powerful feelings blossoming inside me, feelings I was entirely unfamiliar with. For better or worse, I came to the realization that I had never loved another human being unconditionally—including my wives and my parents. It was only now, since Chandler, that I finally understood the true meaning of the word love. For the first time, I understood why my parents had felt my pain—literally suffering alongside me—especially during my teenage years, when I’d seemed determined to waste my gifts. I finally understood where my mother’s tears had come from, and I now knew that, I, too, would shed those very tears if my daughter were to end up doing what I had done. I felt guilty over all the pain I had caused my parents, knowing that it must have cut to their very cores. It was about unconditional love, wasn’t it? It was the purest love of all, and up until now I had only been on the receiving end of it.

None of this diminished my feelings for the Duchess. Instead, it made me wonder if I could ever get to such a place with her, to that very level of comfort and trust where I could let my guard down and love her unconditionally. Perhaps if we had another child together, I thought. Or perhaps if we grew old together—truly old—and we both passed that point where the physical body dictates so much. Maybe then I would finally trust her.

As the days passed, I found myself looking to Chandler for a sense of peace, for a sense of stability, and for a sense of purpose in my life. The thought of going to jail and being separated from her was something that rested at the base of my skull like a deadweight, which would not be lifted until Agent Coleman had finished his investigation and found nothing. Only then would I rest easy. I was still waiting to hear back from Bo as to what intelligence he’d gathered from Special Agent Barsini, but he was having trouble nailing Barsini down.

And then there was the Duchess. Things had been going remarkably well with her. In fact, now that I had extra time on my hands, I was finding it much easier to hide my mushrooming drug habit from her. I had this wonderful program worked out where I would wake up at five in the morning, two hours before her, and drop my morning Ludes in peace. Then I would go through all four phases of my high—tingle, slur, drool, loss of consciousness—before she’d even wake up. Upon awakening, I would watch a few episodes of Gilligan’s Island or I Dream of Jeannie, then spend an hour or so playing with Chandler. At noon, I would meet Danny for lunch at Tenjin, where we could be seen by all the Strattonites.

After the market closed, Danny and I would meet again, at which point we would drop Ludes together. This would be my second high of the day. I’d usually arrive home around sevenish—after I was well past the drool phase—and have dinner with the Duchess and Chandler. And while I was certain the Duchess knew what I was up to, she seemed to be turning a blind eye to things—thankful, perhaps, that I was at least making an effort not to drool in her presence, which, above all things, enraged her.

Just then, I heard the phone beep. “Are you awake yet?” asked Janet’s obnoxious voice over the intercom.

“It’s eleven o’clock, Janet. Of course I’m awake!”

“Well, you haven’t surfaced yet, so how am I supposed to know?”

Unbelievable! She still showed me no respect, even now that she worked out of my house. It was as if she and the Duchess were constantly ganging up on me, poking fun at me. Oh, they pretended it was all in jest, all out of love, but it was all very raw.

And what grounds did those two women have for making fun of me? Seriously! In spite of the fact that I was barred from the securities industry, I’d still managed to earn $4 million in the month of February; and, this month, although it was only March 3, I’d already made another million. So it wasn’t like I was some worthless sea slug, just lying in bed all day, doing nothing.

And what the fuck did the two of them do all day, huh? Janet spent most of her day doting on Chandler and bullshitting with Gwynne. Nadine spent her days riding those stupid horses of hers, then walking around the house dressed in an English riding ensemble of light-green stretch riding pants, a matching cotton turtleneck, and gleaming black leather riding boots that rose up to her kneecaps, as she sneezed and wheezed and coughed and itched from her intractable horse allergies. The only person in the house who truly understood me was Chandler, and maybe Gwynne, the latter of whom would serve me breakfast in bed and offer me Quaaludes for my back pain.

I said to Janet, “Well, I’m awake, so cool your fucking jets. I’m watching the Financial News Network.”

Janet, the skeptic: “Oh, really? Me too. What’s the guy saying?”

“Fuck off, Janet. What do you want?”

“Alan Chemtob is on the phone; he says it’s important.”

Alan Chemtob, aka Alan Chemical-tob, my trusted Quaalude dealer, was a real pain in the ass. It wasn’t enough just to pay this societal leech fifty dollars a Quaalude and let him be on his way. Oh, no! This particular drug dealer wanted to be liked or loved or whatever the fuck he wanted. I mean, this fat bastard gave new meaning to the phrase your friendly neighborhood drug dealer. Still, he did happen to have the best Ludes in town: a relative statement in the world of Quaalude addiction, with the best Ludes coming from those countries where legitimate drug companies were still allowed to manufacture them.

Yes, it was a sad story. As was the case with most recreational drugs, Quaaludes had once been legal in the United States but were subsequently outlawed after it came to the DEA’s attention that, for every legitimate prescription being written, there were a hundred bogus ones. Now there were only two countries in the world manufacturing Quaaludes: Spain and Germany. And, in both those countries, controls were so strict it was nearly impossible to get any meaningful supply…

…which was why my heart started beating like a rabbit’s when I picked up the phone and Alan Chemical-tob said, “You won’t believe this, Jordan, but I found a retired pharmacist who has twenty real Lemmons that’ve been locked inside his safe for almost fifteen years. I’ve been trying to pry them out of him for five years, but he’d never let them go. Now he’s gotta pay his kid’s college tuition, and he’s willing to sell them for five hundred dollars a pill, so I thought you might be inter—”

“Of course I’m interested!” I resisted the urge to call him a fucking moron for even questioning my interest. After all, there were Quaaludes and there were Quaaludes. Each company’s brand was of a slightly different formulation and, likewise, a slightly different potency. And no one had ever gotten it more right than the geniuses over at Lemmon Pharmaceuticals, which had marketed its Quaaludes under the brand name Lemmon 714. Lemmons, as they were called, were legendary, not only for their strength but for their ability to turn Catholic-school virgins into blow-job queens. In consequence, they had earned the nickname leg openers. “I’ll take ’em all!” I snapped. “In fact, tell the guy if he’ll sell me forty I’ll give him a thousand bucks a pill, and if he’ll sell me a hundred I’ll make it fifteen hundred. That’s a hundred fifty thousand dollars, Alan.” Good God, I thought, the Wolf was a rich man! Real Lemmons! Palladins were considered real Ludes, because they were manufactured by a legitimate drug company in Spain, so if Palladins were Reals, then Lemmons were…Real Reals!

Chemical-tob replied, “He only has twenty.”

“Shit! Are you sure? You’re not glomming any for yourself, are you?”

“Of course not,” replied Chemical-tob. “I consider you a friend, and I would never do that to a friend, right?”

What a fucking loser, I thought. But my response was slightly different: “I couldn’t agree with you more, my friend. When can you be here?”

“The guy won’t be home ’til four. I can be in Old Brookville around five.” Then he added, “But make sure you don’t eat.”

“Oh, please, Chemical-tob! I resent the fact that you’d even suggest that.” With that, I bid him safe passage. Then I hung up the phone and rolled around on my $12,000 white silk comforter like a kid who’d just won a shopping spree at FAO Schwarz.

I went to the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet and took out a box labeled Fleet Enema. I ripped it open, then pulled my boxers down to my kneecaps and rammed the bottle’s pointed nozzle up my asshole with such ferocity that I felt it scrape the top of my sigmoid colon. Three minutes later, the entire contents of my lower digestive tract came pouring out. Deep down I was pretty sure that this wouldn’t increase the intensity of my high, but, nonetheless, it still seemed like a prudent measure. Then I stuck my finger down my throat and vomited up the last of this morning’s breakfast.

Yes, I thought, I had done what any sensible man would do under such extraordinary circumstances, perhaps with the exception of giving myself the enema before I’d made myself vomit. But I had washed my hands thoroughly with scalding hot water, so I redeemed myself for that tiny faux pax.

Then I called Danny and urged him to do the same, which, of course, he did.

At five p.m., Danny and I were playing pool in my basement, waiting impatiently for Alan Chemical-tob. The game was eight ball, and Danny had been kicking my ass for almost thirty minutes. As the balls clicked and clacked, Danny bashed the Chinaman: “I’m a hundred percent sure the stock is coming from the Chinaman. No one else has that much.”

The stock Danny was referring to was Stratton’s most recent new issue, M. H. Meyerson. The problem was that as part of my quid pro quo with Kenny, I had agreed to give Victor large blocks of it. Of course, the stock had been given with the explicit instructions that he wasn’t to sell it back—and, of course, Victor had completely disregarded those instructions and was now selling back every share. The truly frustrating part was that by the very nature of the NASDAQ stock market, it was impossible to prove this transgression. It was all supposition.

Nevertheless, by process of elimination it wasn’t too difficult to put two and two together: The Chinaman was fucking us. “Why do you seem so surprised?” I asked cynically. “The Chinaman’s a depraved maniac. He’d sell the stock back even if he didn’t have to, just to spite us. Anyway, now you see why I told you to stay short an extra hundred thousand shares. He’s sold all he can sell, and you’re still in perfect shape.”

Danny nodded glumly.

I smiled and said, “Don’t worry, buddy. How much of that other stock have you sold him so far?”

“About a million shares.”

“Good. When you get to a million-five, I’m gonna turn the Chinaman’s lights out, and—”

I was interrupted by the doorbell. Danny and I turned to each other and froze in place, our mouths agape. A few moments later, Alan Chemical-tob came thumping down the basement stairs and started in with the personal crap, asking, “How’s Chandler doing?”

Oh, Jesus! I thought. Why couldn’t he just be like any other drug dealer and hang out on street corners and sell drugs to schoolchildren? Why did he feel the need to be liked? “Oh, she’s doing great,” I replied warmly, and can you hand over the fucking Lemmons? “How are Marsha and the kids?”

“Oh, Marsha’s Marsha,” he replied, grinding his jaw like the true coke fiend that he was, “but the kids are doing fine.” He did some more jaw-grinding. “You know, I’d really love to open up an account for the kids, if that’s okay. Maybe a college fund or something?”

“Yeah, sure.” Just hand over the Ludes, you fat fuck! “Call Danny’s assistant and she’ll take care of it, right, Dan?”

“Absolutely,” replied Danny through clenched teeth. On his face was a look that said, “Hand over the fucking Lemmons or suffer the consequences!”

Fifteen minutes later, Alan finally handed over the Ludes. I took one out and examined it. It was perfectly round, just larger than a dime, and it had the thickness of a Honey Nut Cheerio. It was snow-white… very clean-looking… and had a magnificent sheen, which served as visible reminder that in spite of it resembling a Bayer aspirin, it was the furthest thing from it. On one side of the pill, the brand name, Lemmon 714, was etched in thick grooves. On the other side was a thin line that ran the full diameter of the pill. Around the pill’s circumference were the trademark beveled edges.

Chemical-tob said, “They’re the real deal, Jordan. Whatever you do, don’t take more than one. They’re not like the Palladins; they’re much stronger.”

I assured him I wouldn’t… and, ten minutes later, Danny and I were well on the road to paradise. Each of us had swallowed one Real Real, and we were now in my basement gym, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The gym was packed with state-of-tha-art Cybex equipment and enough dumbbells and barbells and benches and squat racks to impress Arnold Schwarzenegger. Danny was walking on a motorized treadmill at a brisk pace; I was on the StairMaster, climbing, as if Agent Coleman were chasing me.

I said to Danny, “Nothing kicks in a Quaalude better than exercise, right?”

“Absa-fuckin-lutely!” exclaimed Danny. “It’s all in the metabolism; the faster, the better.” He reached over and picked up a white porcelain sake cup. “And this is genius, by the way. Drinking hot sake after consuming a real Lemmon is inspirational. Like pouring gasoline on a raging fire.”

I grabbed my own sake cup and reached over to clink cups with Danny. Danny tried too, but the two pieces of equipment were six feet apart, and we found ourselves just out of reach.

“Nice try,” said Danny, giggling.

“At least I get an A for effort!” I giggled back.

The two giggling idiots toasted each other in the air and downed the sake.

Just then the door swung open, and there she was: the Duchess of Bay Ridge, in her lime-green riding ensemble. She took one aggressive step forward and struck a pose, with her head cocked to one side and her arms folded beneath her breasts and her legs crossed at the ankles and her back slightly arched. Then she narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and she said, “What are you two retards doing?”

Christ! An unexpected complication! “I thought you were going out with Hope tonight?” I asked accusingly.

“Ahhh… ahhh… chooo!” sneezed my aspiring horseback rider, giving up her pose. “My allergies were so bad I had… had… ahhhh chooo!” sneezed the Duchess once more. “I had to cancel on Hope.”

“Bless you, young Duchess!” said Danny, using my wife’s pet name.

The Duchess’s reply: “Call me Duchess again, Danny, and I’ll pour that fucking sake over your head.” Then, to me: “Come inside, I want to talk to you about something.” With that, she spun on her heel and headed to the other side of the basement, to a wraparound couch. It was just across from the indoor racquetball court, which had recently been converted into a clothing showroom in support of her latest aspiration: maternity designer.

Danny and I followed dutifully. I whispered in his ear: “You feel anything yet?”

“Nothing,” he whispered back.

The Duchess said, “I was speaking to Heather Gold today, and she thinks it’s the perfect time to get Chandler started horseback riding. So I want to buy her a pony.” She nodded a single time, to emphasize her point. “Anyway, they have one there that’s so cute, and it’s not too expensive either.”

“How much?” I asked, taking a seat beside the Duchess and wondering how Chandler was going to ride a pony when she hadn’t even started walking yet.

“Only seventy thousand dollars!” answered a smiling Duchess. “Not bad, right?”

Well, I thought, if you’ll agree to have sex with me while I’m getting off on my Real Real, then I’ll gladly purchase this overpriced pony for you, but all I said was, “Sounds like a real fucking bargain. I didn’t even know they made ponies that expensive.” I rolled my eyes.

The Duchess assured me that they did, and then to reinforce her point she nuzzled up next to me so I could smell her perfume. “Please?” she said in an irresistible tone. “I’ll be your best friend.”

At that very moment, Janet came walking down the stairs with a great smile on her face. “Hey, everybody! What’s going on down here?”

I looked up at Janet and said, “Come downstairs and join the fucking party!” Obviously, she missed the sarcasm, and a moment later the Duchess had recruited Janet into her camp, and the two of them were now talking about how fine Chandler would look on horseback, in a cute little English riding ensemble, which the Duchess could have custom-made for God only knew how much.

Sensing an opportunity, I whispered to the Duchess that if she would come into the bathroom with me and allow me to bend her over the sink, I would be more than happy to make a special trip to Gold Coast Stables tomorrow and purchase the pony, just as soon as the eleven o’clock showing of Gilligan’s Island was finished, to which she whispered, “Now?” to which I nodded yes and said, “Please,” three times fast, at which point the Duchess smiled and agreed. The two of us excused ourselves for a moment.

With little fanfare, I bent her over the sink and plunged inside her without even the slightest bit of lubrication, to which she said, “OW!” and then she sneezed and coughed again. I said, “Bless you, my love!” then I pumped in and out, twelve times fast, and came inside her like a rocket. Soup to nuts, the whole thing had taken about nine seconds.

The Duchess turned her pretty little head around and said, “That’s it? You’re done?”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, rubbing my fingertips together and still feeling no tingles. “Why don’t you go upstairs and use your vibrator?”

Still bent over the sink, the Duchess said, “Why are you so anxious to get rid of me? I know you and Danny are up to something. What is it?”

“Nothing; it’s just business talk, sweetie. That’s it.”

“Fuck you!” replied an angry Duchess. “You’re lying, and I know it!” And with one swift move, she pushed off the sink with her elbows and I went flying backward and smashed into the bathroom door with a tremendous force. Then she pulled up her riding pants, sneezed, looked in the mirror for a second, fixed her hair, pushed me off to the side, and walked out.

Ten minutes later Danny and I were alone in the basement, still stone-cold sober. I shook my head gravely and said, “They’re so old they must’ve lost their potency. I think we should take another.”

We did, and thirty minutes later: nothing. Not even one fucking tingle!

“Can you imagine this shit?” said Danny. “Five hundred bucks a pill, and they’re duds! It’s criminal! Let me check the expiration date on the bottle.”

I tossed the bottle to him.

He looked at the label. “December ’81!” he exclaimed. “They’re expired!” He unscrewed the top and took out two more Lemmons. “They must’ve lost their potency. Let’s each take one more.”

Thirty minutes later we were devastated. We’d each taken three vintage Lemmons and hadn’t gotten so much as a tingle.

“Well, that’s about all she wrote!” I sputtered. “They’re officially duds.”

“Yeah,” agreed Danny. “Such is life, my friend.”

Just then, over the intercom, came the voice of Gwynne: “Mr. Belfort, it’s”—iz—“Bo Dietl on the phone.”

I picked up the receiver. “Hey, Bo, what’s going on?”

His reply startled me. “I need to speak to you right now,” he snapped, “but not on this phone. Go to a pay phone and call me at this number. You got something to write with?”

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did you speak to Bar—”

Bo cut me off: “Not on this phone, Bo. But the short answer is yes, and I have some info for you. Now go grab a pen.”

A minute later I was inside my little white Mercedes, freezing my ass off. In my haste I had forgotten to put a coat on. It was absolutely frigid outside—couldn’t have been more than five degrees—and at seven p.m. at this time of winter, it was already dark out. I started the car and headed for the front gates. I made a left turn onto Pin Oak Court, surprised to see a long row of cars parked on either side of the street. Apparently someone on my block was having a party. Wonderful! I thought. I just spent $10,000 on the worst Ludes in history, and someone is having a fucking celebration!

My destination was the pay phone at Brookville Country Club. It was only a few hundred yards up the road, and thirty seconds later I was pulling into the driveway. I parked in front of the clubhouse and walked up a half dozen red-brick steps, passing through a set of white Corinthian columns.

Inside the clubhouse were a row of pay phones against a wall. I picked one up, dialed the number Bo had given me, then punched in my credit-card number. After a few rings came the terrible news. “Listen, Bo,” said Bo, from another pay phone, “I just got a call from Barsini, and he told me you’re the target of a full-blown money-laundering investigation. Apparently this guy Coleman thinks you got twenty million bucks over in Switzerland. He has an inside source over there that’s feeding him information. Barsini wouldn’t get specific, but he made it sound like you got caught up in someone else’s deal, like you didn’t start off as the main target but now Coleman’s made you the main target. Your home phone’s probably tapped, and so is your beach house. Talk to me, Bo, what’s going on?”

I took a deep breath, trying to keep myself calm and trying to figure out what to say to Bo… but what was there to say? That I had millions of dollars in the bogus account of Patricia Mellor and that my own mother-in-law had smuggled the money there for me? Or that Todd Garret had gotten popped because Danny was dumb enough to drive his car on Ludes? What was the upside of telling him that? None that I could think of. So all I said was, “I don’t have any money in Switzerland. It must be some sort of mistake.”

“What?” asked Bo. “I couldn’t understand what you said. Say it again?”

Frustrated, I repeated: “I says, I zon’t has azy muzzy ozzer in Swizzaziz!”

Sounding incredulous, Bo said, “What are you, stoned? I can’t understand a word you’re fucking saying!” Then, suddenly, in an urgent tone, he said, “Listen to me, Jordan—don’t get behind the wheel of your car! Tell me where you are and I’ll send Rocco for you! Where are you, buddy? Talk to me!”

All at once a warm feeling came rising up my brain stem, as a pleasant tingling sensation went ricocheting through every molecule of my body. The phone receiver was still at my ear and I wanted to tell Bo to have Rocco come pick me up at the Brookville Country Club, but I couldn’t get my lips to move. It was as if my brain was sending out signals but they were being intercepted—or scrambled. I felt paralyzed. And I felt wonderful. I stared at the shiny metal face of the pay phone and cocked my head to the side, trying to find my own reflection… How pretty the phone looked!… So shiny it was!… And then all at once the phone seemed to be growing more distant… What was happening?… Where was the phone going?… Oh, shit!… I was falling backward now, tipping over like a tree that had just been chopped down…. TIMBER!… and then… BOOM! I was lying flat on my back, in a state of semiconsciousness, staring up at the clubhouse ceiling. It was one of those white Styrofoam dropped ceilings, the sort you find in an office. Pretty chintzy for a country club! I thought. These fucking WASPs were cutting corners on their own ceiling!

I took a deep breath and checked for broken bones. Everything seemed to be in working order. The Real Reals had protected me from harm. It had taken almost ninety minutes for these little fuckers to kick in, but once they had… WOW! I had gone straight past the tingle phase and right into the drool phase. Actually, I had discovered a new phase, somewhere between the drool phase and a state of unconsciousness. It was the… what was it? I needed a name for this phase. It was the cerebral palsy phase! Yes! My brain would no longer send clear signals to my musculoskeletal system. What a wonderful new phase! My brain was sharp as a tack, but I had no control of my body. Too good! Too good!

With a great deal of effort, I craned my neck and saw the receiver still swinging back and forth on its shiny metallic cord. I thought I could hear Bo’s voice screaming, “Tell me where you are and I’ll send Rocco!” although it was probably my imagination playing tricks on me. Fuck it! I thought. What was the point of trying to get back on the phone, anyway? I had officially lost the power of speech.

After five minutes on the floor, it hit me that Danny must be in the same condition. Oh, Jesus! The Duchess must be flipping out right now—wondering where I’d gone! I needed to get home. It was only a couple hundred yards to the estate, literally a straight shot. I could make the drive, couldn’t I? Or perhaps I should walk home. But, no, it was too cold for that. I would probably die of frostbite.

I rolled onto all fours and tried standing up, but it was no use. Every time I lifted my hands off the carpet I tipped over to the side. I would have to crawl back to the car. But what was so bad about that? Chandler crawled, and she seemed to be fine with it.

When I reached the front door I propped myself onto my knees and grabbed the doorknob. I pulled open the door and crawled outside. There was my car… ten stairs down. Try as I might, my brain refused to let me crawl down the stairs, scared at the very possibility of what might happen. So I lay down flat on my stomach and tucked my hands beneath my chest and turned myself into a human barrel and began rolling down the stairs… slow at first… in complete control… and then… oh, shit!… There I go!… Faster… faster… b-boom… b-boom… b-boom…and I hit the asphalt parking lot with a mighty thud.

But, again, the Real Reals protected me from harm, and thirty seconds later I was sitting behind the steering wheel with the ignition on and the car in drive and my chin resting on the steering wheel. Hunched over the way I was, with my eyes barely peering over the dashboard, I looked like one of those blue-haired old ladies who drive in the left lane of the highway, doing twenty.

I pulled out of the parking lot, doing one mile an hour and saying a silent prayer to God. Apparently, He was a kind and loving God, just like the textbooks say, because a minute later I was parked in front of my house, home in one piece. Victory! I thanked the Lord for being the Lord, and after a great deal of effort, I crawled my way into the kitchen, at which point I found myself staring up at the beautiful face of the Duchess…. Uh-oh! I was in for it now!… How angry was she? It was impossible to say.

And then all at once I realized that she wasn’t angry. In fact, she was crying hysterically. Next thing I knew, she had crouched down, and she was giving me warm kisses all over my face and on the top of my head, as she tried speaking through her tears. “Oh, thank God you’re home safe, sweetie! I thought I lost you! I… I”—she couldn’t seem to get the words out—“I love you so much. I thought you crashed the car. Bo called here and said he was speaking to you on the phone and you passed out. And then I went downstairs and Danny was crawling around on his hands and knees, banging into the walls. Here, let me help you up, sweetie.” She picked me up, led me over to the kitchen table, and placed me on a chair. A second later my head hit the table.

“You have to stop doing this,” she begged. “You’re gonna kill yourself, baby. I… I can’t lose you. Please, look at your daughter; she loves you. You’re gonna die if you keep this up.”

I looked over at Chandler, and my daughter and I locked eyes, and she smiled. “Dada!” she said. “Hi, Dada!”

I smiled at my daughter and was about to slur back, I love you, when suddenly I felt two powerful sets of arms pulling me out of my seat and dragging me up the stairs.

Rocco Night said, “Mr. Belfort, you gotta get into bed and go to sleep right now. Everything’s gonna be all right.”

Rocco Day added, “Don’t worry, Mr. B. We’ll take care of everything.”

What in the hell were they talking about? I wanted to ask them but I couldn’t get the words out. A minute later I was alone in bed, still fully dressed but with the covers pulled over my head and the room lights out. I took a deep breath, trying to make sense of it all. It was ironic that the Duchess had been so nice to me, yet she had called the bodyguards to come take me upstairs, as if I were a naughty child. Well, fuck it! I thought. The royal bedchamber was very comfortable, and I would enjoy the rest of the cerebral palsy phase just like this, floating amid the Chinese silk.

Just then, the bedroom lights came on. A moment later someone pulled down my glorious white silk comforter and I found myself squinting into an extremely bright flashlight.

“Mr. Belfort,” said an unfamiliar voice, “are you awake, sir?”

Sir?…Who the fuck is calling me sir?… After a few seconds, my eyes adjusted to the light and I found out. It was a policeman—two of them, actually—from the Old Brookville Police Department. They were dressed in full regalia—guns, handcuffs, shiny badges, the whole nine yards. One of them was big and fat with a droopy mustache; the other was short and wiry, with the ruddy skin of a teenager.

All at once I felt a terrible dark cloud descending on me. Something was very wrong here. Agent Coleman had sure worked fast! I was already getting arrested, and the investigation had barely begun! What happened to the wheels of justice grinding slowly? And why would Agent Coleman use the Old Brookville police to arrest me? They were like toy cops, for Chrissake, and their police station was like Mayberry RFD. Was this the way people got arrested for money laundering?

“Mr. Belfort,” said the policeman, “were you driving your car?”

Uh-oh! Stoned as I was, my brain began sending emergency signals to my voice box—instructing it to clam up. “I zon’t zo what zor zalkin azout,” I said.

Apparently that response didn’t go over too well, and next thing I knew I was being escorted down my spiral staircase with my hands cuffed behind my back. When I reached the front door, the fat policeman said, “You had seven different car accidents, Mr. Belfort: six of them were right here on Pin Oak Court, and the other was a head-on collision on Chicken Valley Road. That driver is on her way to the hospital right now with a broken arm. You’re under arrest, Mr. Belfort, for driving under the influence, reckless endangerment, and leaving the scene of an accident.” With that, he read me my rights. When he got to the part about not being able to afford an attorney, he and his partner began snickering.

But what were they talking about? I wasn’t in any accident, much less seven accidents. God had answered my prayer and protected me from harm! They had the wrong person! A case of mistaken identity, I thought…

…until I saw my little Mercedes, at which point my jaw dropped. The car was totaled out, from front to back. The passenger side, which I was now looking at, was completely smashed in, and the rear wheel was bent inward at an extreme angle. The front of the car looked like an accordion, and the rear fender was hanging on the ground. All at once I felt dizzy… my knees buckled… and next thing I knew… bam!… I was on the ground again, looking up at the night sky.

The two policemen bent over me. The fat one said in a concerned tone, “Mr. Belfort, what are you on, sir? Tell us what you’re on so we can help you.”

Well, I thought, if you’d be kind enough to go upstairs into my medicine cabinet, you’ll find a plastic Baggie with two grams of cocaine in it. Please bring it to me and allow me to do a few blasts so I can even out, or else you’ll be carrying me into the police station like an infant! But my better judgment prevailed, and all I said was: “You zot za zong zy!” You got the wrong guy.

The two policemen looked at each other and shrugged. They lifted me up by my armpits and walked me to the police car.

Just then the Duchess came running out, screaming in her Brooklyn accent, “Where the fuck do you think you’re taking my husband? He’s been home with me all night! If you guys don’t let him go you’ll both be working in Toys ’R’ Us next week!”

I turned and looked at the Duchess. She was flanked by a Rocco on either side. The two policemen stopped dead in their tracks. The fat policeman said, “Mrs. Belfort, we know who your husband is, and we have several witnesses that he was driving his car. I suggest you call one of his lawyers. I’m sure he has many of them.” With that, the policemen resumed walking me to their police car.

“Don’t worry,” screamed the Duchess, as I was being placed in the police car’s rear seat. “Bo said he’ll take care of it, sweetie! I love you!”

And as the police car pulled off the estate, all I could think of was how much I loved the Duchess and, for that matter, how much she loved me. I thought about how she’d cried when she thought she’d lost me, and how she stood up for me as the policemen were taking me away in handcuffs. Perhaps now, once and for all, she had finally proved herself to me. Perhaps now, once and for all, I could rest easy—knowing that she would be there for me in good times and bad. Yes, I thought, the Duchess truly loved me.

It was a short ride to the Old Brookville Police Station, which looked more like a quaint private home than anything else. It was white, with green shutters. It looked rather soothing, in fact. It would be a fine place, I thought, to sleep off a bad Quaalude high.

Inside were two jail cells, and pretty soon I found myself sitting in one of them. Actually, I wasn’t sitting; I was lying on the floor with my cheek against the concrete. I vaguely remembered being processed—fingerprinted, photographed, and, in my case, videotaped—to bear witness to the extreme state of my intoxication.

“Mr. Belfort,” said the police officer with his belly hanging over his gun belt like a roll of salami, “we need you to give us a urine sample.”

I sat up—all at once realizing that I was no longer stoned. The true beauty of the Real Reals had come shining through once more, and I was now completely sober. I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know what you guys think you’re doing, but unless I get a phone call right now you’re gonna be in some deep shit.”

That seemed to stun the bastard, and he said, “Well, I see whatever you were on finally wore off. I’ll be happy to let you out of your cell, without handcuffs, if you promise not to run.”

I nodded. He opened the cell door and gestured to a telephone on a small wooden desk. I dialed my lawyer’s home number—resisting the urge to draw any conclusions as to why I knew my lawyer’s home phone number by heart.

Five minutes later I was peeing in a cup, wondering why Joe Fahmegghetti, my lawyer, had told me not to worry about testing positive for drugs.

I was back inside my jail, sitting on the floor, when the policeman said, “Well, Mr. Belfort, in case you’re wondering, you tested positive for cocaine, methaqualone, benzodiazepines, amphetamines, MDMA, opiates, and marijuana. In fact, the only thing you’re not showing is hallucinogens. What’s wrong, you don’t like those?”

I offered him a dead smile and said, “Let me tell you something, Mr. Police Officer. As far as this whole driving thing is concerned, you got the wrong fucking guy, and as far as the drug test is concerned, I don’t give a shit what it says. I have a bad back, and everything I take is prescribed by a doctor. So fuck off!”

He stared at me in disbelief. Then he looked at his watch and shrugged. “Well, either way it’s too late for night court, so we’re gonna have to take you to Central Booking in Nassau County. I don’t think you’ve ever been there, have you?”

I resisted the urge to tell the fat bastard to go fuck himself again, and I turned away and shut my eyes. Nassau County lockup was a real hellhole, but what could I do? I looked up at the wall clock: It was just before eleven. Christ! I would be spending the night in jail. What a fucking bummer!

Once more I closed my eyes and tried to drift off to sleep. Then I heard my name being called. I stood up and looked through the bars—and I saw a rather bizarre sight. There was an old bald man in pin-striped pajamas staring at me.

“Are you Jordan Belfort?” he asked, annoyed.

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m Judge Stevens. I’m a friend of a friend. Consider this your arraignment. I assume you’re willing to waive your right to counsel, right?” He winked.

“Yeah,” I replied eagerly.

“Okay, I’ll take that as a plea of not guilty to whatever it is you’re being charged with. I’m releasing you on your own recognizance. Call Joe to find out when your court date is.” With that, he smiled, wheeled about, and left the police station.

A few minutes later I found Joe Fahmegghetti waiting for me out front. Even at this time of night, he was dressed like a starched dandy, in an immaculate navy suit and striped tie. His salt-and-pepper hair was perfectly coiffed. I smiled at him and then held up one finger, as if to say, “Hold on a sec!” Then I peeked back into the police station and said to the fat policeman, “Excuse me!”

He looked up. “Yes?”

I shot him the middle finger and said, “You can take Central Booking and shove it up your ass!”

On the car ride home I said to my lawyer, “I’m in deep shit with that urine test, Joe. I tested positive for everything.”

My lawyer shrugged. “Whaddaya worried about? You think I’d steer you wrong? They didn’t actually catch you in the car, now, did they? So how can they prove those drugs were in your system while you were driving? Who’s to say you didn’t walk in the door and take a few Ludes and snort a little coke? And it’s not illegal to have drugs in your system; it’s only illegal to possess them. In fact, I’m willing to bet I’ll get the whole arrest thrown out on the grounds that Nadine never gave the police permission to come on the property in the first place. You’ll just have to pay for the damage to the other car—they’re only charging you with one accident, because there were no witnesses to the others—and then you’ll have to pay some hush money to the woman whose arm you broke. The whole thing won’t run you more than a hundred thousand.” He shrugged, as if to say, “Chump change!”

I nodded my head. “Where’d you find that crazy old judge? What a lifesaver he was!”

“You don’t wanna know,” replied my lawyer, rolling his eyes. “Let’s just say he’s a friend of a friend.”

The remainder of the ride was spent in silence. As we pulled onto the estate, Joe said, “Your wife is in bed, pretty shaken up. So go easy on her. She’s been crying for hours, but I think she’s pretty much calmed down now. Anyway, Bo was here with her most of the night, and he was a big help. He left about fifteen minutes ago.”

I nodded again, without speaking.

Joe added, “Just remember, Jordan: A broken arm is one thing, but no one can fix a dead body. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, Joe, but it’s a moot point. I’m done with all that shit. Done for good.” And we shook hands, and that was that.

Upstairs in the master bedroom, I found the Duchess lying in bed. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then quickly undressed and climbed into bed with her. We stared up at the white silk canopy, our naked bodies touching at the shoulders and the hips. I grabbed her hand and held it in mine.

In a soft voice, I said, “I don’t remember anything, Nae. I blacked out. I think that I—”

She cut me off. “Shhh, don’t talk, baby. Just lie here and relax.” She gripped my hand tighter, and we lay there silently for what seemed like a very long time.

I squeezed her hand. “I’m done, Nae. I swear. And this time I’m dead serious about it. I mean, if this isn’t a sign from God, then I don’t know what is.” I leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek. “But I gotta do something about my back pain. I can’t live this way anymore. It’s unbearable. And it’s feeding into things.” I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. “I want to go to Florida and see Dr. Green. He has a back clinic down there, and they have a really high cure rate. But whatever happens, I promise you I’m done with drugs once and for all. I know Quaaludes aren’t the answer; I know it’ll end in disaster.”

The Duchess rolled onto her side to face me, and she put her arm across my chest and hugged me gently. Then she told me that she loved me. I kissed her on the top of her blond head and took a deep breath to relish her scent. Then I told her that I loved her back and that I was sorry. I promised her that nothing like this would ever happen again.

I would be right about that.

Worse would.

^{CHAPTER 26} DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

Two mornings later, I woke up to a phone call from licensed Florida real estate broker Kathy Green, wife of world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Barth Green. I had enlisted Kathy to find the Duchess and me a place to live while I was going through the four-week outpatient program at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

“You and Nadine will just adore Indian Creek Island,” said a kindhearted Kathy. “It’s one of the quietest places to live in all Miami. It’s so serene and so uneventful. They even have their own police force—so given how security-conscious you and Nadine are, it’s another plus.”

Quiet and uneventful? Well, I was looking to get away from it all, wasn’t I? So how much harm could I create in four short weeks, especially in a place as boring and peaceful as Indian Creek Island? A place where I’d be insulated from the pressures of a cold, cruel world, namely: Quaaludes, cocaine, crack, pot, Xanax, Valium, Ambien, speed, morphine, and, of course, Special Agent Gregory Coleman.

I said, “Well, Kathy, it sounds like just what the doctor ordered, especially the part about the place being peaceful. What’s the house like?”

“The house is absolutely breathtaking. It’s a white Mediterranean mansion with a red tile roof, and there’s a boat slip big enough for an eighty-foot yacht…” Kathy’s voice trailed off for a moment. “…which, I guess, wouldn’t quite fit the Nadine, but perhaps you can buy a boat while you’re down here, right? I’m sure Barth could help you with that.” The sheer logic of her wacky suggestion oozed over the phone line with each of her words. “Anyway, the backyard is fabulous; it has an Olympic-size swimming pool, a cabana, a wet bar, a gas barbecue, and a six-person Jacuzzi overlooking the bay. It’s absolutely perfect for entertaining. And the best part is that the owner’s willing to sell the house, completely furnished, for only $5.5 million. It’s quite a bargain.”

Wait a second! Who said anything about wanting to buy a house? I was only going to be in Florida for four weeks! And why would I consider getting another boat when I despised the one I already had? I said, “To tell you the truth, Kathy, I’m not looking to buy a house right now, at least not in Florida. You think the owner would consider renting it for a month?”

“No,” said a glum Kathy Green, whose hopes and dreams of a six percent real estate commission on a $5.5-million sale had just evaporated right before her big blue eyes. “It’s only listed for sale.”

“Hmmm,” I replied, not quite convinced of that fact. “Why don’t you offer the guy a hundred grand for the month and see what he says?”

On April Fool’s Day, I was moving in and the owner was moving out—skipping and humming, no doubt, all the way to a five-star hotel in South Beach for the month. That aside, April Fool’s Day was the perfect move-in date, given my discovery that Indian Creek Island was a sanctuary for a little-known endangered species called the Old Blue-haired WASP, which, as Kathy had previously indicated, was about as lively a species as the sea slug.

On the brighter side, in between my car accident and the back clinic I’d managed to jet into Switzerland and meet with Saurel and the Master Forger. My goal was to find out how the FBI had become aware of my Swiss accounts. To my surprise, though, everything seemed to be in order. The U.S. government had made no inquiries—and both Saurel and the Master Forger assured me they would be the first to know if it had.

Indian Creek Island was only a fifteen-minute car ride to the back clinic. And there was no was shortage of cars; the Duchess had seen to that—shipping down a brand-new Mercedes for me and a Range Rover for herself. Gwynne had come to Miami too, to look after my needs, and she also needed a car. So I bought her a new Lexus, from a local Miami car dealer.

Of course, Rocco had to come too. He was like a part of the family, wasn’t he? And Rocco also needed a car, so Richard Bronson, one of the owners of Biltmore, saved me the headache of buying yet another one and loaned me his red convertible Ferrari for the month. So now everyone was covered.

With lots of cars to choose from, my decision to rent a sixty-foot motor yacht to get myself back and forth to the clinic became ridiculous. It was $20,000 per week for four smelly diesel engines, a well-appointed cabin I would never set foot in, and a flybridge without a canopy, which resulted in a third-degree sunburn on my shoulders and neck. The boat came complete with an old white-haired captain, who shuttled me back and forth to the clinic at an average cruising speed of five knots.

At this particular moment we were on the Intracoastal Waterway, cruising north on our way back to Indian Creek Island from the clinic. It was a Saturday, a little before noon, and we’d been chugging along for almost an hour now. I was sitting atop the flybridge with Dollar Time’s Chief Operating Officer, Gary Deluca, who bore a striking resemblance to President Grover Cleveland. Gary was bald, broad, grim-faced, square-jawed, and extremely hairy, especially on his torso. Right now we both had our shirts off and were basking in the sun. I had been sober for almost a month, which was a miracle unto itself.

Early this morning Deluca had accompanied me on my morning boat ride down to the clinic. It was a way for him to get some uninterrupted face time, and our conversation had quickly turned into a mutual bitching session over Dollar Time, whose future, we agreed, was hopeless.

But none of Dollar Time’s woes were of Deluca’s making. He had come after the fact—part of a workout team—and over the last six months he’d proven himself to be a first-class operations guy. I had already convinced him to move up to New York and become Chief Operating Officer of Steve Madden Shoes, which was in desperate need of someone with his operational expertise.

We had discussed all that earlier this morning, on the trip south. Now, on the trip north, we were discussing something I found infinitely more troubling, namely, his thoughts on Gary Kaminsky, Dollar Time’s CFO—the same CFO who’d introduced me to Jean Jacques Saurel and the Master Forger almost a year ago.

“Anyway,” Deluca was saying, from behind a pair of wraparound sunglasses, “there’s something strange about him that I can’t put my finger on. It’s like he’s got a different agenda that has nothing to do with Dollar Time. Like the place is a front for him. I mean, a guy his age should be flipping out over the company going down the tubes, yet he couldn’t seem to care less. He spends half his day trying to explain to me how we could divert our profits to Switzerland—which makes me wanna rip his fucking toupee off, considering we don’t have any profits to divert.” Gary shrugged. “Anyway, sooner or later I’ll figure out what that bastard’s up to.”

I nodded slowly, realizing that my initial instincts about Kaminsky had been right on target. The Wolf had been very shrewd not to allow that toupeed bastard to worm his way into my overseas dealings. Still, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that Kaminsky hadn’t smelled a rat, so I figured I’d launch a trial balloon in Deluca’s direction. “I definitely agree with you. He’s totally obsessed with the whole Swiss-banking thing. In fact, he actually pitched it to me.” I paused, as if to search my memory. “Maybe a year ago, I think. Anyway, I went over there with him to check it out, but it seemed like more trouble than it was worth, so I took a pass. He ever mention anything to you?”

“No, but I know he’s still got a bunch of clients over there. He’s pretty tight-lipped about it, although he’s on the phone to Switzerland all day long. I always make it a point to check the phone bill, and I’m telling you, he must make half a dozen overseas calls a day.” Deluca shook his head gravely. “Whatever he’s doing, it better be on the up and up—because if it’s not, and his phone is tapped, he’s gonna find himself in some deep shit.”

I turned the corners of my mouth down and shrugged, as if to say, “Well, that’s his problem, not mine!” But the truth was that if he were in constant contact with Saurel and the Master Forger, I would find it troubling. I said casually, “Just for curiosity’s sake, why don’t you pull the phone records and see if he keeps calling the same numbers over and over again. If he is, make some blind phone calls and see who he’s speaking to. I’d be curious to find out, okay?”

“No problem. As soon we get back to the house I’ll jump in the car and take a quick ride over to the office.”

“Don’t be ridiculous; the phone records will still be there on Monday.” I smiled to reinforce my lack of concern. “Anyway, Elliot Lavigne should be at my house by now, and I really want you to meet him. He’ll be a huge help to you in restructuring Steve Madden’s operations.”

“Isn’t he kind of wacky?” asked Deluca.

“Kind of? The guy’s a complete fucking loon, Gary! But he happens to be one of the sharpest guys in the apparel industry—maybe the sharpest guy. You just gotta catch him at the right time—when he’s not slurring, snorting, tripping, or paying a hooker ten grand to squat over a glass table and take a shit over him while he’s jerking off.”

I’d first laid eyes on Elliot Lavigne four years ago, while I was vacationing in the Bahamas with Kenny Greene. I was lying by the pool at the Crystal Palace Hotel and Casino when Kenny came running up to me. I remember him screaming something like: “Hurry up! You gotta go into the casino right now and check this guy out! He’s up over a million dollars, and he’s not much older than you.”

In spite of being skeptical over Kenny’s version of things, I popped out of my lounge chair and headed for the casino. On the way, I asked, “What’s the guy do for a living?”

“I asked one of the casino people,” replied the Blockhead, whose use of the English language didn’t include words like dealer, pit boss, or croupier, “and they said he’s the president of some big Garment Center company.”

Two minutes later I was staring at this young Garmento, in a state of utter disbelief. In retrospect, it’s hard to say what bowled me over more: the sight of dashing young Elliot—who was not only betting $10,000 a hand but had the whole blackjack table to himself and was playing all seven hands at once, which is to say he was risking $70,000 on every deal—or the sight of his wife, Ellen, who appeared to be no more than thirty-five yet had already acquired a look that I had never seen before, namely, the look of the supremely rich and the supremely starved.

I was blown away. So I stared at these two anomalies for a good fifteen minutes. They seemed like an awkward couple. He was on the short side, very good-looking, with bushy, shoulder-length brown hair and a sense of style that was so fabulous he could walk around in a diaper and bow tie and you would swear it was the latest thing.

She, on the other hand, was short and had a thin face, thin nose, collapsed cheeks, bleached-blond hair, tan leathery skin, eyes that were too close together, and a body that was emaciated to near perfection. I figured she must have one of the world’s great personalities—a loving, supportive wife of the highest order. After all, why else would this handsome young guy who gambled with the poise and panache of 007 be attracted to her?

I was slightly off the mark.

The next day Elliot and I happened to meet by the pool. We moved right past the normal pleasantries and plunged into what each of us did for a living, how much we were making, and how we’d arrived at this point in our lives.

Elliot, as it turned out, was the President of Perry Ellis, one of the Garment District’s premier menswear companies. He didn’t actually own the company; it was a division of Salant, a public company that traded on the New York Stock Exchange. So, in essence, Elliot was a salaried employee. When he told me his salary I nearly fell off my lounge chair: It was only $1 million a year, plus a small bonus of a few hundred grand, based on profitability. It was a paltry sum, in my book—especially with his penchant for high-stakes gambling. In point of fact, he seemed to be gambling two years’ salary each time he sat down at the blackjack table! I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or contemptuous. I chose impressed.

Yet, he had hinted at an additional source of income with Perry Ellis—a perk, so to speak, associated with the manufacturing of dress shirts, which was being done overseas, in the Orient. And while he hadn’t gotten specific, I quickly read between the lines: He was skimming cash from the factories. Still, even if he were skimming $3 or $4 million a year, it was only a fraction of what I was making.

Before departing, we exchanged phone numbers and promised that we would hook up back in the States. The subject of drugs never came up.

We met for lunch a week later, at a trendy Garment District hangout. Five minutes after we sat down, Elliot reached into his inside suit pocket and pulled out a small plastic Baggie filled with cocaine. He dipped a Perry Ellis collar stay inside; in one fluid motion he brought it to his nose and took a blast. Then he repeated the process once more, and then once more, and then once more again. Yet he had done it so fluidly—and with such nonchalance—that not a single soul in the restaurant noticed.

Then he offered me the Baggie. I declined, saying, “Are you crazy? It’s the middle of the day!” to which he replied, “Just shut up and do it,” to which I replied, “Sure, why not!”

A minute later I was feeling wonderful, and four minutes after that I was feeling miserable, grinding my teeth uncontrollably and in desperate need of a Valium. Elliot took pity on me. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out two brown-speckled Quaaludes, and said, “Here, take these; they’re bootlegs, so they have Valium in them.”

“Do Ludes now?” I asked incredulously. “In the middle of the day?”

“Yeah,” he snapped, “why not? You’re the boss. Who’s gonna say anything?” and he pulled out a couple more Ludes and swallowed the pills with a smile. Then he stood up and started doing jumping jacks in the middle of the restaurant to hasten the process of getting off. I took my own Ludes, since he seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

A few minutes later, a heavyset man walked into the restaurant, drawing a lot of attention. He looked sixtyish, and he reeked of wealth. Elliot said to me, “That guy’s worth half a billion. But look how ugly his tie is.” With that, Elliot picked up a steak knife and walked over to the big shot, hugged him, and then sliced his tie off, in the middle of the crowded restaurant. Then he removed his own tie, which was gorgeous, and turned up the big shot’s collar, placed his tie around his neck, and made a perfect Windsor knot in less than five seconds flat, at which point the big shot hugged him and thanked him.

An hour later we were both getting laid by prostitutes, with Elliot introducing me to my first Blue Chip. And in spite of the fact that I had a terrible case of coke dick, the Blue Chip worked her oral magic on me, and I came like gangbusters—paying her $5,000 for her troubles, at which point she told me that I was very handsome and, despite the fact that she was a hooker, she was still marriage material, if I was interested.

Soon after, Elliot walked in the room and said, “Come on! Get dressed—we’re going to Atlantic City! The casino is sending us a helicopter and they’re gonna buy each of us a gold watch,” to which I said, “I only have five grand on me,” to which he replied, “I spoke to the casino, and they’re gonna set you up with a half-million-dollar credit line.”

I wondered why they were willing to advance me so much money, considering I had never gambled more than $10,000 in my entire life. But an hour later I found myself playing blackjack at Trump Castle to the tune of $10,000 a hand, as if it were no big deal. At the end of the night I walked away a quarter million richer. I was hooked.

Elliot and I began traveling around the world together; sometimes with wives, sometimes without. I made him my primary rathole, and he kicked me back millions in cash—using money he skimmed from Perry Ellis and money he’d won at casinos. He was a first-rate gambler, and he was adding no less than two million a year to his bottom line.

Then came my divorce from Denise—and then my bachelor party in honor of my upcoming union to Nadine. This would mark a turning point in the life of Elliot Lavigne. The party was in Las Vegas at the Mirage Hotel, which had just opened and was considered the place to be. A hundred Strattonites flew in, accompanied by fifty hookers and enough drugs to sedate Nevada. We rounded up another thirty hookers from the streets of Vegas and had a few more flown in from California. We brought a half dozen NYPD cops along for the ride, the very cops I had been paying off with Stratton new issues. And once there, the NYPD cops quickly hooked up with local Vegas cops, so we hired a few of them too.

The bachelor party took place on a Saturday evening. Elliot and I were downstairs, sharing a blackjack table; there was a crowd of strangers surrounding us, as well as a handful of bodyguards. He was playing five of the seven available hands; I was playing the other two. We were each betting $10,000 per hand, we were both hot, and we were both higher than kites. I was five Ludes deep and had snorted no less than an eight ball of coke; he was five Ludes deep too and had snorted enough coke to ski-jump off. I was up $700,000; he was up over $2 million. Through clenched teeth and a grinding jaw, I said, “Less call is quis and zo upzairs and chess out da fezividees.”

Of course, Elliot understood Lude-speak as well as I did, so he nodded and we headed upstairs. I was so stoned at this point that I knew I was done gambling for the evening; I made a pit stop at the cage and cashed out to the tune of $1 million. I tossed the cash into a blue Mirage knapsack and threw it over my shoulder. Elliot, though, wasn’t done gambling yet, so he left his chips at the table, under armed guard.

Upstairs, we walked down a long hallway, at the end of which was a prodigious set of double doors. On either side of the doors was a uniformed police officer, standing watch. They opened the doors, and there was the bachelor party. Elliot and I walked into the room and froze: It was the reincarnation of Sodom and Gomorrah. The rear wall was floor-to-ceiling plate glass and looked out over the Strip. The room was filled with people dancing and carrying on. The ceiling seemed to be pressing down; the floor seemed to be rising up; the smell of sex and sweat mixed with the pungent smell of premium-grade sinsemilla. Music was blasting so loud that it seemed to resonate with my very gizzard. A half dozen NYPD cops were supervising the action, making sure everyone behaved themselves.

At the back of the room, a beastly pink-sheet hooker with orange hair and the face of a bulldog was sitting on a bar stool, stark naked and covered in tattoos. Her legs were spread wide open, and a line of twenty naked Strattonites were waiting to bang her.

In that very instant I became disgusted with everything my life stood for. It was a new Stratton low. The only solution was to go downstairs to my suite and take five milligrams of Xanax, twenty milligrams of Ambien, and thirty milligrams of morphine. Then I fired up a joint and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

I woke up to Elliot Lavigne shaking my shoulders. It was early the next morning and he was calmly explaining to me how we needed to immediately leave Las Vegas, because it was too decadent. Happy to leave, I quickly packed my bags. But when I opened the safe it was empty.

Elliot yelled from the living room: “I had to borrow some money from you last night. I took a bit of a loss.”

It turned out that he lost $2 million. A week later, he, Danny, and I went to Atlantic City so he could recoup some of his losses, and he lost a million more. Over the next few years he kept losing…and losing…until finally he lost it all. How much he actually lost was still a matter of speculation, although by most accounts it was somewhere between $20 million and $40 million. Either way Elliot had busted himself out. Completely broke. He was behind on his taxes, behind in his kickbacks to me, and he was physically a wreck. He weighed no more than a hundred thirty pounds, and his skin had turned the same brownish color as his bootleg Quaaludes, which made me that much gladder I took only pharmaceutical Quaaludes. (Always looking for a silver lining.)

So it was that I now sat in my backyard in Indian Creek Island, staring out at Biscayne Bay and the skyline of Miami. Also at the table were Elliot Lavigne, Gary Deluca, and Elliot’s close friend, Arthur Wiener, who was fiftyish, balding, wealthy, and coke-addicted.

By the pool were the delectable Duchess, the emaciated Ellen, and Sonny Wiener, Arthur’s wife. By one p.m. it was ninety degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. At this particular moment, Elliot was trying to respond to a question I’d just posed to him, over what Steve Madden’s goal should be with its business with Macy’s, which seemed receptive to rolling out in-store Steve Madden shops.

“Za key za grozzing Mazzen wickly iz zoo zemand all zorz wiz Mazeez,” said a smiling Elliot Lavigne, who was five Ludes deep and sipping on an ice-cold Heineken.

I said to Gary, “I think what he’s trying to say is that we need to approach Macy’s from a position of strength and tell them that we can’t roll out in-store shops one by one. We need to do it region by region, with a goal of being in all stores across the country.”

Arthur nodded. “Well said, Jordan; that was a fine translation.” He dipped a tiny spoon into a coke vial he was holding and took a blast up his left nostril.

Elliot looked at Deluca and nodded and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, “You see, I’m not that difficult to understand.”

Just then the Jewish skeleton walked over and said to her husband, “Elliot, give me a Lude; I’m out.” Elliot shook his head no and shot her the middle finger.

“You’re a real fucking bastard!” snapped the angry skeleton. “Just wait and see what happens next time you’re out. I’ll tell you to go fuck yourself too!”

I looked at Elliot, whose head was now bobbing and weaving. It was a clear sign that he was about to leave the slur phase and enter the drool phase. I said, “Hey, El: You want me to make you something to eat, so you can come down a bit?”

Elliot smiled broadly and replied, “Make me a zuld-claz cheezburzer!”

“No problem!” I said, and I rose from my chair and headed to the kitchen to make him a world-class cheeseburger. The Duchess intercepted me in the living room, wearing a sky-blue Brazilian bikini the size of kite string.

Through clenched teeth, she snapped, “I can’t take Ellen for one more second! She’s sick in the fucking head, and I don’t want her in my house anymore. She’s slurring and snorting coke, and the whole thing is fucking disgusting! You’re sober almost a month now and I don’t want you surrounded by this. It’s not good for you.”

I’d half-missed what the Duchess said. I mean—I’d heard every word, but I’d been too busy looking at her breasts, which she’d just had augmented to a small C-cup. They looked glorious. I said, “Calm down, sweetie; Ellen’s not so bad. Besides, Elliot’s one of my closest friends, so the matter’s not up for discussion,” and as the last few words escaped my lips, I knew I’d made a mistake. A split second later the Duchess took a swing at me. It was a full right cross with an open hand.

But having been sober for a month, I had catlike reflexes, and I easily dodged the blow. I said, “Cool your jets, Nadine. It’s not so easy to smack me around when I’m sober, huh?” I flashed her a devilish smile, to which she grinned broadly, and then she threw her arms around me and said, “I’m so proud of you. It’s like you’re a different person now. Even your back’s starting to feel better, right?”

“A little bit,” I replied. “It’s manageable now, but it’s still not perfect. Anyway, I think I’m really over the hump with the Quaaludes. And I love you more than ever.”

“I love you too,” she said, pouting. “I’m only mad because Elliot and Ellen are evil. He’s the worst influence on you, and if he stays here too long… well, you know what I’m talking about.” She gave me a wet kiss on the lips and then pushed the curve of her stomach against mine.

Suddenly, with three pints of blood rushing to my loins, I found the Duchess’s point of view making much more sense. I said, “I’ll tell you what: If you agree to be my sex slave for the rest of the weekend, I’ll put Elliot and Ellen up in a hotel—deal?”

The Duchess smiled broadly and rubbed me in just the right place. “You got it, sweetie. Your wish is my command; just get them outta here and I’m all yours.”

Fifteen minutes later Elliot was slobbering over his cheeseburger, while I was on the phone with Janet, asking her to book Elliot and Ellen a hotel room at a plush hotel about thirty minutes away.

Out of nowhere, with his mouth still filled with cheeseburger, Elliot popped out of his chair and dove into the pool. A few seconds later he came up for air and waved me in for an underwater race. It was something we always did—betting which of us could swim the most laps underwater. Elliot was a strong swimmer, having grown up by the ocean, so he had a slight edge on me. But given his current condition, I thought I could take him. Besides, I’d been a lifeguard back in my teens, so I was a pretty strong swimmer too.

We each swam four laps: a tie. The Duchess came over and said, “Don’t you think it’s time you two schmucks grew up? I don’t like when you play that game. It’s stupid. And one of you is gonna get hurt.” Then she added, “And where’s Elliot?”

I looked at the bottom of the pool. I squinted. What the fuck was he doing? He was lying on his side? Oh, shit! All at once the sheer gravity of things hit me like a sledgehammer, and without thinking I dove down to the bottom of the pool to get him. He wasn’t moving. I grabbed him by the hair—and with a mighty jerk of my right arm and the most powerful scissors kick I could muster, I yanked him off the bottom and headed for the surface. His body was almost weightless from the water’s buoyancy. Just as we broke through the surface, I jerked my arm over to the right and Elliot went flying out of the water and landed on the edge of the pool, on the concrete. And he was dead. Dead!

“OhmyGod!” screamed Nadine, and tears began streaming down her face. “Elliot’s dead! Save him!”

“Go call an ambulance!” I screamed. “Hurry up!”

I placed two fingertips over his carotid artery. No pulse. I grabbed his wrist and checked there. Nothing. My friend is dead, I thought.

Just then I heard a screeching sound; it was Ellen Lavigne. “Oh, God, no! Please don’t take my husband! Please! Save him, Jordan! Save him! You can’t let him die! I can’t lose my husband! I have two children! Oh, no! Not now! Please!” She began sobbing uncontrollably.

I became aware of a crowd of people around me—Gary Deluca, Arthur and Sonny, Gwynne and Rocco, even the baby nurse, who had grabbed Chandler from the kiddie pool and rushed over to see what the commotion was. I saw Nadine running toward me, on her way back from calling the ambulance, and the words kept ringing in my ears—Save him! Save him! I wanted to give Elliot CPR, just like I’d been taught all those years back.

I really wanted to, but why should I? I thought. Wouldn’t it be better if Elliot just died? He had the goods on me, and one of these days Agent Coleman would get around to subpoenaing his bank records, wouldn’t he? At that very moment, as Elliot lay dead before me, I couldn’t help but marvel at how convenient his death would be. Dead men tell no tales… Those five words began overtaking my mind, begging me not to resuscitate him, to let the secrets of our nefarious dealings die along with him.

And this man had been the scourge of my life—reintroducing me to Quaaludes after years of not taking them, getting me hooked on cocaine, and then going bad on me in the rathole game, which was tantamount to stealing my money. And all of it to fuel his gambling habit… and his drug addiction… and his IRS problems. Agent Coleman was no fool, and he would exploit those weaknesses, especially the IRS problems, where he would threaten Elliot with jail time. Then Elliot would cooperate against me and spill his guts. I should just let him die, for Chrissake, because… dead men tell no tales…

But in the background everyone was screaming: “Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Suddenly it hit me: I was already trying to resuscitate him! As my conscious mind was debating things—something infinitely more powerful had already clicked inside me and was overriding my thoughts.

And at that very moment I found my mouth pressed against Elliot’s mouth, and my lungs expelling air into his lungs, and then I lifted my head and began pumping Elliot’s chest in rhythmic bursts. I stopped and took a moment to regard him.

Nothing! Shit! He was still dead! How could it be? I was doing everything right! Why wouldn’t he come back?

All at once I remembered reading an article about the Heimlich maneuver and how it had been used to save a child who’d drowned, so I flipped Elliot onto his stomach and wrapped my arms around him. I squeezed as hard as I possibly could. Snap! Crack! Crunch!… In that very instant I realized I’d broken most of his ribs. So I flipped him back over to see if he’d started breathing, and he hadn’t.

It was over. He was dead. I looked up at Nadine, and with tears in my eyes, I said, “I don’t know what to do! He won’t come back!”

And then I heard Ellen scream at the top of her lungs once more: “OhmyGod! My children! Oh, God! Please, don’t stop, Jordan! Don’t stop! You have to save my husband!”

Elliot was completely blue, the last flickers of light leaving his eyes. So I said a silent prayer and inhaled as deeply as I possibly could. With every last bit of force my lungs could muster, I shot a jet of air into him, and I felt his stomach blow up like a balloon. Then all at once the cheeseburger came up, and he vomited into my mouth. I started to gag.

I watched him take a shallow breath, then I stuck my face in the pool and washed the vomit out of my mouth. I looked back at Elliot and noticed his face looked less blue. Then he stopped breathing again. I looked at Gary and said, “Take over for me,” to which Gary extended his palms toward me and shook his head, as if to say, “No fucking way!” and he took two steps backward to reinforce his point. So I turned to Elliot’s best friend, Arthur, and asked him to do the same, and he reacted just as Gary had. So I had no choice but to do the most disgusting thing imaginable. I splashed water on Elliot’s face as the Duchess sprang into action and cleaned the vomit off the sides of Elliot’s mouth. Then I stuck my hand inside and scooped out partially digested cheeseburger meat, pushing his tongue down to clear an air passage. I put my mouth back on his mouth and began breathing for him again, while the others stood frozen in horror.

Finally I heard the sound of sirens, and a few moments later there were paramedics hovering over us. In less than three seconds they had a tube down Elliot’s throat and had started pumping oxygen into his lungs. They gently placed him on a stretcher and then carried him off to the side of the mansion, under a shady tree, and stuck an IV in his arm.

I jumped into the pool and washed the vomit out of my mouth, still gagging uncontrollably. The Duchess came running over, holding a toothbrush and toothpaste, and I began brushing my teeth right in the pool. Then I jumped out and headed over to where Elliot was lying on the stretcher. By now there were half a dozen policemen there with the paramedics. They were desperately trying to get his heart beating at a normal rate, without success. One of the paramedics stuck his hand out to me and said, “You’re a hero, sir. You saved your friend’s life.”

And just like that it hit me: I was a hero! Me! The Wolf of Wall Street! A hero! What a delicious ring those three words had! I desperately needed to hear them again, so I said, “I’m sorry, I missed what you said. Can you please repeat it?”

The paramedic smiled at me and said, “You’re a hero, in the truest sense of the word. Not many men would have done what you did. You had no training, yet you did exactly the right thing. Well done, sir. You’re a real hero.”

Oh, Jesus! I thought. This was absolutely wonderful. But I needed to hear it from the Duchess, with her loamy loins and brand-new breasts, which would now be mine for the taking, at least for the next few days, because I, her husband, was a hero, and no female can refuse the sexual advances of a hero.

I found the Duchess sitting by herself on the edge of a lounge chair, still in a state of shock. I tried to find just the right words that would inspire her to call me a hero. I decided it would be best to use reverse psychology on her—to compliment her on how calm she’d remained and then praise her for calling the ambulance. This way she would feel compelled to return the compliment.

I sat down beside her and put my arm around her. “Thank God you called the ambulance, Nae. I mean, everyone else froze in place, except for you. You’re a strong lady.” I waited patiently.

She edged closer to me and smiled sadly. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it was just instinct more than anything else. You know, you see this sort of stuff in movies, but you never think it’s gonna happen to you. You know what I mean?”

Un-fucking-believable! She didn’t call me a hero! I would just have to get more specific. “I know what you mean. You never think something like this could happen, but once it does, well, instinct just takes over. I guess that’s why I reacted the way I did.” Hello, Duchess! Get my drift, for Chrissake?

Apparently she did, because she threw her arms around me and said, “OhmyGod! You were incredible! I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean…words just can’t describe how brilliant you were! Everyone else was frozen in place and you…”

Christ! I thought. She kept gushing over me, but she refused to say the magic word!

“…and you’re… I mean… you’re a hero, honey!” There she goes! “I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of you. My husband, the hero!” She gave me the wettest kiss imaginable.

In that very instant I understood why every young child wants to be a fireman. Just then I saw them carrying Elliot away on a stretcher. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s head over to the hospital and make sure they don’t drop the ball after I worked so hard to save Elliot’s life.”

Twenty minutes later we were in the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the early prognosis was unspeakable: Elliot had suffered some brain damage. Whether or not he would be a vegetable was still unclear.

On the way to the hospital, the Duchess had called Barth. Now I followed him into the critical-care room, which bore the unmistakable odor of death. There were four doctors and two nurses, and Elliot was lying flat on his back on an examining table.

Mt. Sinai wasn’t Barth’s hospital, yet apparently his reputation preceded him. Every doctor in the room knew exactly who he was. A tall one in a white lab coat said, “He’s in a coma, Dr. Green. He won’t breathe unassisted. His brain function is depressed, and he has seven broken ribs. We’ve given him epinephrine, but he hasn’t responded.” The doctor looked Barth straight in the eye and shook his head slowly, as if to say, “He’s not going to make it.”

Then Barth Green did the oddest thing. With complete and utter confidence, he walked right up to Elliot, grabbed him by the shoulders, put his mouth to Elliot’s ear, and in a stern voice yelled, “Elliot! Wake up right this second!” He started shaking him vigorously. “This is Dr. Barth Green, Elliot, and I’m telling you to stop screwing around and open up your eyes right now! Your wife is outside and she wants to see you!”

And just like that, in spite of the last few words about Ellen wanting to see him—which would make most men choose death—Elliot followed Barth’s instructions and opened his eyes. A moment later his brain function returned to normal. I looked around the room, and every last doctor and nurse was agape.

As was I. It was a miracle, performed by a miracle worker. I started shaking my head in admiration, and out of the corner of my eye I happened to see a large syringe filled with a clear liquid. I squinted to see what the label said. Morphine. Very interesting, I thought, that they would give morphine to a dying man.

All at once I was overtaken by this terrible urge to snatch the needle of morphine and inject myself in the ass. Just why, I wasn’t sure. I had been sober for almost a month now, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. I looked around the room and everyone was hovering over Elliot, still in awe over this remarkable turn of events. I edged over to the metal tray, casually snatched the needle, and stuck it in my shorts pocket.

A moment later I felt my pocket growing warm… and then warmer… Oh, sweet Jesus! The morphine was burning a hole in my pocket! I needed to inject myself right this instant! I said to Barth, “That’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen, Barth. I’m gonna go outside and tell everyone the good news.”

When I informed the group in the waiting room that Elliot had made a miraculous recovery, Ellen began crying tears of joy and she threw her arms around me. I pushed her away and told her that I was in desperate need of a bathroom. As I started walking away, the Duchess grabbed me by the arm and said, “Are you okay, honey? You don’t seem right.”

I smiled at my wife and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. I just have to go to the bathroom.”

The moment I turned the corner I took off like a world-class sprinter. I swung the bathroom door open, went inside one of the stalls, locked it, and then took out the syringe and pulled down my shorts and arched my back, so my ass was perched in the air. I was just about to plunge in the needle when disaster struck.

The needle was missing the plunger.

It was one of those newfangled safety needles, which couldn’t be injected without first being put into a plunging mechanism. All I had was a worthless cartridge of morphine with a needle on the end of it. I was devastated. I took a moment to regard this needle. A lightbulb!

I pulled up my shorts and ran to the gift shop and purchased a lollipop, then ran back to the bathroom. I plunged the needle into my ass. Then I took the stick of the lollipop and pushed down on the center of the syringe until every last drop of morphine was injected. All at once I felt a keg of gunpowder exploding inside me, rocking me to my very core.

Oh, Christ! I thought. I must’ve hit a vein, because the high was overtaking me at an incredible rate. And just like that, I was down on my knees and my mouth was bone-dry, and my innards felt like they’d just been submerged in a hot bubble bath, and my eyes felt like hot coals, and my ears were ringing like the Liberty Bell, and my anal sphincter felt tighter than a drum, and I loved it.

And here I sat, the hero, on the bathroom floor, with my shorts pulled down below my knees and the needle still sticking in my ass. But then it occurred to me that the Duchess might be worried about me.

A minute later I was in the hallway, on my way back to the Duchess, when I heard an old Jewish woman say, “Excuse me, sir!”

I turned to her. She smiled nervously and pointed her index finger at my shorts. Then she said, “Your tushie! Look at your tushie!”

I had been walking down the hallway with a needle sticking out of my ass, like a wounded bull that had just been darted by a matador. I smiled at the kind woman and thanked her, then removed the needle from my ass, threw it in a garbage can, and headed back to the waiting room.

When the Duchess saw me she smiled. But then the room began to grow dark and…Oh, shit!

I woke up in the waiting room, sitting on a plastic chair. Standing over me was a middle-aged doctor in green surgical scrubs. In his right hand he was holding smelling salts. The Duchess was standing next to him, and she was no longer smiling. The doctor said, “Your breathing is depressed, Mr. Belfort. Have you taken any narcotics?”

“No,” I said, forcing a weak smile for the Duchess. “I guess being a hero is very stressful, right, honey?” Then I passed out again.

I woke up in the back of a Lincoln limousine as it pulled into Indian Creek Island, where nothing exciting ever happens. My first thought was that I needed to snort some cocaine to even out. That had been my problem all along. To inject morphine without a balancing agent was a fool’s errand. I made a mental note to never try that again and then thanked God that Elliot had brought coke with him. I would snatch it from his room and deduct it from the $2 million he owed me.

Five minutes later, the guesthouse looked like a dozen CIA agents had spent three hours searching for stolen microfilm. There were clothes strewn about everywhere, and every piece of furniture had been tipped over on its side. And still no cocaine! Fuck! Where was it? I kept searching—searching for over an hour, in fact, until finally it hit me: It was that rat fuck, Arthur Wiener! He’d stolen his best friend’s cocaine!

Feeling empty and alone, I went upstairs to my sprawling master bedroom and cursed Arthur Wiener until I fell into a dreamless sleep.

^{CHAPTER 27} ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

June 1994

It seemed only appropriate that the offices of Steve Madden Shoes would be shaped like a shoe box. Actually, there were two shoe boxes: the one in the rear, which was thirty by sixty feet and housed a tiny factory, consisting of a handful of antiquated shoe-making machines manned by a dozen or so Spanish-speaking employees, all of whom shared a single green card and none of whom paid a dollar in taxes; and the shoe box in front, which was of similar size and housed the company’s office staff, most of whom were girls in their late teens or early twenties, and all of whom sported the sort of multicolored hair and visible body piercings that so much as said, “Yes, I’ve also had my clit pierced, as well as both my nipples!”

And while these young female space cadets pranced around the office, teetering atop six-inch platform shoes—all bearing the Steve Madden label—there was hip-hop music blasting and cannabis incense burning and a dozen telephones ringing and countless new shoe styles in the designing and a smattering of traditionally garbed religious leaders performing ritual cleansings, and somehow it all seemed to work. The only thing missing was an authentic witch doctor performing voodoo, although I was certain that would come next.

Anyway, at the front of the aforementioned front shoe box was an even smaller shoe box—this one perhaps ten by twenty feet—which was where Steve, aka, the Cobbler, kept his office. And for the last four weeks, since mid-May, it was where I’d kept my office too. The Cobbler and I sat on opposite sides of a black Formica desk, which, like everything else in this place, was covered in shoes.

At this particular moment I was wondering why every teenage girl in America was going crazy over these shoes that, to me, were hideous-looking. Whatever the case, there was no denying that we were a product-driven company. There were shoes everywhere, especially in Steve’s office, where they were scattered about the floor, hanging from the ceiling, and piled upon cheap folding tables and white Formica shelves, which made them seem that much uglier.

And there were more shoes on the windowsill behind Steve, piled so high I could barely see out that gloomy window into the gloomy parking lot, which, admittedly, was well suited to this gloomy part of Queens, namely, the gloomy groin of Woodside. We were about two miles east of Manhattan, where a man of my “somewhat” refined tastes was much better suited.

Nevertheless, money was money, and for some inexplicable reason this tiny company was on the verge of making boatloads of it. So this was where Janet and I would hang our hats for the foreseeable future. She was just down the hall, in a private office. And, yes, she, too, was surrounded by shoes.

It was Monday morning, and the Cobbler and I were sitting in our shoe-infested office, sipping coffee. Accompanying us was Gary Deluca, who, as of today, was the company’s new Operations Manager, replacing no one in particular, because up until now the company had been running on autopilot. Also in the room was John Basile, the company’s longtime Production Manager, who doubled as the company’s Head of Sales.

It was rather ironic, I thought, but dressed the way we were you would have never guessed that we were in the process of building the world’s largest women’s shoe company. We were a ragtag lot—I was dressed like a golf pro; Steve was dressed like a bum; Gary was dressed like a conservative businessman; and John Basile, a mid-thirties chubster, with a bulbous nose, bald skull, and thick, fleshy features, was dressed like a pizza delivery boy, wearing faded blue jeans and a baggy T-shirt. I absolutely adored John. He was a true talent, and despite being Catholic, he was blessed with a true Protestant work ethic—whatever that meant—and he was a true seer of the big picture.

But, alas, he was also a world-class spitter, which meant that whenever he was excited—or simply trying to make a point—you’d best be wearing a raincoat or be at least thirty degrees in either direction of his mouth. And, typically, his saliva was accompanied by exaggerated hand gestures, most of which had to do with the Cobbler being a fucking pussy for not wanting to place large-enough orders with the factories.

Right now he was in the midst of making that very point. “I mean, how the fuck are we gonna grow this company, Steve, if you won’t let me place orders for the fucking shoes? Come on, Jordan, you know what I’m talking about! How the fuck can I build”—Shit! The Spitter’s Bs were his most deadly consonant, and he just got me in the forehead!—“relationships with the department stores when I don’t have product to deliver?” The Spitter paused and looked at me quizzically, wondering why I had just put my head in my hands and seemed to be smelling my own palms.

I rose from my chair and walked behind Steve, in search of spit protection, and said, “The truth is I see both your points. It’s no different than the brokerage business: Steve wants to play things conservative and not hold a lot of shoes in inventory, and you want to step up to the plate and swing for the fences so you have product to sell. I got it. And the answer is—you’re both right and both wrong, depending on if the shoes sell through or not. If they do, you’re a genius, and we’ll make a ton of money, but if you’re wrong—and they don’t sell through—we’re fucked, and we’re sitting on a worthless pile of shit that we can’t sell to anyone.”

“That’s not true,” argued the Spitter. “We can always dump the shoes to Marshall’s or TJ Maxx or one of the other closeout chains.”

Steve swiveled his chair around and said to me, “John’s not giving you the whole picture. Yeah, we can sell all the shoes we want to people like Marshall’s and TJ Maxx; but then we destroy our business with the department stores and specialty shops.” Now Steve looked the Spitter directly in the eye and said, “We need to protect the brand, John. You just don’t get it.”

The Spitter said, “Of course I get it. But we also have to grow the brand, and we can’t grow the brand if our customers go to the department stores and can’t find our shoes.” Now the Spitter narrowed his eyes in contempt and stared the Cobbler down. “And if I leave this up to you,” spat the Spitter, “we’ll be a mom-and-pop operation forever. Fucking pikers, nothing more.” He turned directly toward me, so I braced myself. “I’ll tell ya, Jordan”—his spitball missed me by ten degrees—“thank God you’re here, because this guy is such a fucking pussy, and I’m sick of pussyfooting around. We got the hottest shoes in the country, and I can’t fill the fucking orders because this guy won’t let me manufacture product. I’ll tell you, it’s a Greek fucking tragedy, nothing less.”

Steve said, “John, do you know how many companies have gone out of business by operating the way you want? We need to err on the side of caution ’til we have more company-owned stores; then we can take our markdowns in-house, without bastardizing the brand. There’s no way you can convince me otherwise.”

The Spitter reluctantly took his seat. I had to admit I was more than impressed with Steve’s performance, not just today but over the last four weeks. Yes, Steve was a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing too. Despite his outward appearance, he was a born leader—blessed with all the natural gifts, especially the ability to inspire loyalty among his employees. In fact, like at Stratton, everyone at Steve Madden prided themselves on being part of a cult. The Cobbler’s biggest problem, though, was his refusal to delegate authority—hence, his nickname, the Cobbler. There was a part of Steve that was still a little old-fashioned shoemaker, which, in truth, was both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. The company was doing only $5 million right now, so he could still get away with it. But that was about to change. It had been only a year ago that the company was doing a million. We were shooting for $20 million next year.

This was where I’d been focusing my attention over the last four weeks. Hiring Gary Deluca was only the first step. My goal was for the company to stand on its own two feet, without either of us. So Steve and I needed to build a first-class design team and operational staff. But too much too fast would be a recipe for disaster. Besides, first we needed to gain control of the operations, which were a complete disaster.

I turned to Gary and said, “I know it’s your first day, but I’m interested to hear what you think. Give me your opinion, and be honest, whether you agree with Steve or not.”

With that, the Spitter and the Cobbler both turned to our company’s new Director of Operations. He said, “Well, I see both your points”—ahhh, well done, very diplomatic—“but my take on this is more from an operational perspective than anything else. In fact, much of this, I would say, is a question of gross margin—after markdowns, of course—and how it relates to the number of times a year we plan on turning our inventory.” Gary nodded his head, impressed with his own sagacity. “There are complex issues here relating to shipping modalities, inasmuch as how and where we plan to take delivery of our goods—how many hubs and spokes, so to speak. Of course, I’ll need to do an in-depth analysis of our true cost of goods sold, including duty and freight, which shouldn’t be overlooked. I intend to do that right away and then put together a detailed spreadsheet, which we can review at the next board meeting, which should be sometime in…”

Oh, Jesus H. Christ! He was drizzling on us! I had no tolerance for operational people and all the meaningless bullshit they seemed to hold so dear. Details! Details! I looked at Steve. He was even less tolerant than me in these matters, and he was now visibly sagging. His chin was just above his collarbone and his mouth was agape.

“…which more than anything else,” continued the Drizzler, “is a function of the efficiency of our pick, pack, and ship operation. The key there is—”

Just then the Spitter rose from his seat and cut the Drizzler off. “What the fuck are you talking about?” spat the Spitter. “I just wanna sell some fucking shoes! I couldn’t give two fucks about how you get them to the stores! And I don’t need any fucking spreadsheet to tell me that if I’m making shoes for twelve bucks and selling them for thirty bucks then I’m making fucking money! Jesus!” Now the Spitter headed directly toward me with two giant steps. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Steve smirking.

The Spitter said, “Jordan, you gotta make a decision here. You’re the only one Steve will listen to.” He paused and wiped a gob of drool off his round chin. “I want to grow this company for you, but my hands are being tied behind my—”

“All right!” I said, cutting off the Spitter. I turned to the Drizzler and said, “Go ask Janet to get Elliot Lavigne on the phone. He’s in the Hamptons.” I turned to Steve and said, “I want Elliot’s take on this before we make a decision. I know there’s an answer to this, and if anyone has it it’s Elliot.” And, besides, I thought, while we’re waiting for Janet to put him through, I’ll have a chance to tell my heroic story again.

Alas, I never got the chance. The Drizzler was back in less than twenty seconds, and a moment later the phone beeped. “Hey, buddy, how ya doing?” said Elliot Lavigne through the speakerphone.

“I’m good,” replied his hero. “But, more important, how are you doing, and how are your ribs feeling?”

“I’m recovering,” replied Elliot, who’d been sober for almost six weeks now, which was a world record for him. “Hopefully, I’ll be back to work in a few weeks. What’s going on?”

I quickly plunged into the details, careful not to tell him whose opinion stood where—so as not to prejudice his decision. Ironically, it made no difference. By the time I was done, he already knew. “The truth is,” said the sober Elliot, “this whole idea of not being able to sell your brand to discounters is more hype than reality. Every major brand blows out their dead inventory through the discount chains. It’s a must. Walk into any TJ Maxx or any Marshall’s and you’ll see all the big labels—Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and Perry Ellis too. You can’t exist without the discounters, unless you have your own outlet stores, which is still premature for you guys. But you have to be careful when you deal with them. You sell them in blips, because if the department stores know you’re there on a consistent basis, you’re gonna have problems.”

“Anyway,” continued the recuperating Garmento, “John’s right for the most part; you can’t grow unless you have product to sell. See, the department stores will never take you seriously unless they know you can deliver the goods. And as hot as you guys are right now—and I know you’re hot—the buyers won’t step up to the plate unless they’re convinced you can deliver the shoes, and right now your reputation is that you can’t. You gotta get your act together on that quick. I know it’s one of the reasons why you hired Gary, and it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

I looked at Gary to see if he was beaming, but he wasn’t. His face was still set in stone, impassive. They were a weird bunch, these operations guys; they were steady Eddies, hitting singles all day long but never swinging for the fences. The thought of being one was enough to make me want to fall on my own sword.

Elliot plowed on: “Anyway, assuming you get your operations in order, John is still only half right. Steve has to consider the bigger picture here, which is to protect the brand. Don’t kid yourselves, guys—at the end of the day, the brand is everything. If you fuck that up you’re done. I can give you a dozen examples of brands that were red-hot once and then fucked up their name by selling to the discounters. Now you find their labels in a flea market.” Elliot paused, letting his words sink in.

I looked at Steve and he was slumped over in his chair—the mere thought of the name Steve Madden—his own name!—being synonymous with the words flea and market had literally knocked the wind out of him. I looked at the Spitter; he was leaning forward in his seat, as if he were preparing to jump through the phone line to strangle Elliot. Then I looked at Gary, who was still impassive.

Elliot went on: “Your ultimate goal should be to license the Steve Madden name. Then you can sit back and collect royalties. The first thing should be belts and handbags, then move to sportswear and denim and sunglasses, and then everything else…your last stop being fragrance, where you can really hit it out of the park. And you’ll never get there if John has his way in everything. No offense, John, but it’s just the nature of the beast. You’re thinking in terms of today, when you’re red-hot. Eventually you’ll cool down, though, and when you least expect it something won’t sell through, and you’ll wind up knee-deep in some retarded-looking shoe that no one outside a trailer park will wear. Then you’ll be forced to go to the dark side and put the shoes where they don’t belong.”

At this point Steve interrupted. “That’s exactly my point, Elliot. If I let John have his way, we’ll end up with a warehouse full of shoes and no money in the bank. I’m not gonna be the next Sam and Libby.”

Elliot laughed. “It’s simple. Without knowing everything about your business, I’m willing to bet that the bulk of your volume comes from a handful of shoes—three or four of them, probably—and they’re not the ridiculous-looking ones with the nine-inch heels and the metal spikes and zippers. Those shoes are what you guys create your mystique with—that you’re young and hip and all that shit. But the reality is you probably sell hardly any of those facockta shoes, except maybe to some of the freaks down in Greenwich Village and in your own office. What you’re really making your money on are your basic shoes—the staples, like the Mary Lou and the Marilyn, right?”

I looked at Steve and the Spitter, both of whom had their heads cocked to the side and their lips pursed and their eyes wide open. After a few seconds of silence, Elliot said, “I’ll take that lack of response as a yes?”

Steve said, “You’re right, Elliot. We don’t sell too many of the crazy shoes, but those are the ones we’re known for.”

“That’s exactly the way it should be,” said Elliot, who six weeks ago couldn’t tie two words together without drooling. “It’s no different than those wild couture outfits you see on the runways in Milan. No one really buys that crap, but that’s what creates the image. So the answer is to only step up to the plate with the conservative items—and only in the hottest colors. I’m talking about the shoes you know you’re going to blow out, the ones you sell season after season. But under no circumstance do you risk serious money on a funky shoe, even if you guys are personally in love with it—and even if it’s getting good reads in your test markets. Always err on the side of caution with anything that’s not a proven winner. If something really takes off and you’re short inventory, it’ll make it that much hotter. Since you guys manufacture in Mexico, you can still beat the competition on the reorder.

“And on the rare occasions when you swing for the fences and you’re wrong—then you dump your shoes to the discounters and take your loss right away. Your first loss is your best loss in this business. The last thing you want is a warehouse full of dead inventory. You also need to start partnering with the department stores. Let them know you’ll stand behind your shoes, that if they don’t sell you’ll give them markdown money. Then they can put your shoes on sale and still maintain their margins. Do that, and you’ll find the department stores closing out your garbage for you.

“On a separate note, you should be rolling out Steve Madden stores as fast as possible. You guys are manufacturers, so you get the wholesale markup and the retail markup. And it’s also the best way to move your dead inventory—putting things on sale in your own stores. Then you don’t risk fucking up the brand. And that’s the answer,” said Elliot Lavigne. “You guys are heading for the stars. Just follow that program and you can’t lose.”

I looked around the room, and everyone nodded.

And why wouldn’t they? Who could argue with such logic? It was sad, I thought, that a guy as sharp as Elliot would throw his life away to drugs. Seriously. There was nothing sadder than wasted talent, was there? Oh, Elliot was sober now, but I had no doubt that as soon as his ribs were healed and he was back in the swing of things, his addiction would come roaring back. That was the problem with someone like Elliot, who refused to accept the fact that drugs had gotten the best of them.

Anyway, I had enough on my own plate to keep five people occupied. I was still in the process of crushing Victor Wang; I still had to deal with Danny, who was running amok at Stratton; I still had issues with Gary Kaminsky, who, as it turned out, spent half his day on the phone with Saurel, in Switzerland; and I still had Special Agent Gregory Coleman running around with subpoenas. So to focus on Elliot’s sobriety was a waste of my time.

I had pressing issues to discuss with Steve over lunch, and then I had to catch a helicopter out to the Hamptons to see the Duchess and Chandler. Under those circumstances, I would have to say that the appropriate dosage of methaqualone should be small, perhaps 250 milligrams, or one Lude, taken now, thirty minutes before lunch, which would give me just the right buzz to enjoy my pasta while allowing me to escape detection at the hands of the Cobbler, who’d been sober for almost five years. A killjoy.

Then I would snort a few lines of coke just before I got behind the helicopter’s controls. After all, I always flew best when I was on my down from Ludes but still crawling out of my own skin in a state of coke-induced paranoia.

Lunch on a single Lude! An innocuous buzz while dining in the armpit of Corona, Queens. Like most formerly Italian neighborhoods, there was still one Mafioso stronghold that remained, and in each stronghold there was always one Italian restaurant that was owned by the local “man of most respect.” And, without fail, it had the best Italian food for miles around. In Harlem, it was Rao’s. In Corona, it was Park Side Restaurant.

Unlike Rao’s, Park Side was a large, high-volume operation. It was decorated beautifully with a couple of tons of burled walnut, smoked mirrors, carved glass, flowering plants, and perfectly trimmed ferns. The bar was a Mob scene (literally!), and the food was to die for (literally!).

Park Side was owned by Tony Federici, a true man of respect. Not surprisingly, he was a reputed this and a reputed that—but in my book he was nothing more than the best host in the five boroughs of New York City. Typically, you could find Tony walking around his restaurant in a chef’s apron, holding a jug of homemade Chianti in one hand and a tray of roasted peppers in the other.

The Cobbler and I were sitting at a table in the fabulous garden section. At this particular moment we were talking about him replacing Elliot as my primary rathole.

“Fundamentally, I have no problem with it,” I was saying to the greedy Cobbler, who had become obsessed with the rathole game, “but I have two concerns. The first is how the fuck are you gonna kick me back all the cash without leaving a paper trail? It’s a lot of fucking money, Cobbler. And my second concern is that you’re already Monroe Parker’s rathole, and I don’t want to be stepping on their toes.” I shook my head for effect. “A rathole is a very personal thing, so I’d first have to clear it with Alan and Brian.”

The Cobbler nodded. “I understand what you’re saying, and as far as kicking back the cash goes, it won’t be a problem. I can do it through our Steve Madden stock. Whenever I sell stock I’m holding for you, I’ll just overpay you on it. On paper I owe you over four million dollars, so I have a legitimate reason to be writing you checks. And at the end of the day, the numbers will be so big, nobody’s gonna be able to keep track of it anyway, right?”

Not such a bad idea, I thought, especially if we drew up some sort of consulting agreement where Steve would pay me money each year for helping him run Steve Madden Shoes. But the fact that Steve was ratholing 1.5 million shares of Steve Madden stock for me raised a more troubling issue—namely, that Steve owned hardly any stock in his own company. It was something that needed to be rectified now, lest it create problems down the road when Steve realized that I was making tens of millions and he was making only millions. So I smiled and said, “We’ll work something out with the rathole. I think using the Madden stock is a pretty good idea, at least to start, but it leads to a more important subject, which is your lack of ownership in the company. We need to get you more stock before things really start to crank. You have only three hundred thousand shares, right?”

Steve nodded. “And a few thousand stock options; that’s about it.”

“Okay, well, as your general scheming partner, I strongly advise you to grant yourself a million stock options at a fifty percent discount to the current market. It’s the righteous thing to do, especially since you and I are gonna be splitting them fifty–fifty, which is the most righteous part of all. We’ll keep them in your name so NASDAQ won’t flip a lid, and when it comes time to sell, you’ll just kick me back along with everything else.”

The Master Cobbler smiled and extended his hand toward me. “I can’t thank you enough, JB. I never said anything, but it’s definitely been bothering me a bit. I knew that when the time came, though, we would work it out.” Then he rose from his chair, as did I, and we exchanged a Mafia-style hug, which in this restaurant didn’t elicit a shrug from a single patron.

As we both retook our seats, Steve said, “But why don’t we make it a million-five, instead? Seven-fifty for each of us.”

“No,” I said, with a pleasant tingle in my ten fingertips, “I don’t like working with odd numbers. It’s bad luck. Let’s just round it off to two million. Besides, it’ll be easier to keep track of—a million options for each of us.”

“Done!” agreed the Cobbler. “And since you’re the company’s largest shareholder, we should bypass the hassle of a board meeting. It’s all strictly legitimate, right?”

“Well,” I replied, scratching my chin thoughtfully, “as your general scheming partner, I strongly advise you to refrain from using this word legitimate, except under the most dire circumstances. But since you already let the genie out of the bottle, I’ll go out on a limb here and give this transaction a hearty two thumbs-up. Besides, this is something we must do, so it’s not our fault. We’ll chalk it up to a sense of fair play.”

“I agree,” said the happy Cobbler. “It’s beyond our control. There are strange forces at work here that are far more powerful than a humble Cobbler or a not-so-humble Wolf of Wall Street.”

“I like the way you think, Cobbler. Call the lawyers when you get back to the office and tell them to backdate the minutes from the last board meeting. If they give you a hard time, tell them to call me.”

“No problem,” said the Cobbler, who had just increased his stake by four hundred percent. Then he lowered his voice and changed his tone to one of a conspirator. “Listen—if you want, you don’t even have to tell Danny about this.” He smiled devilishly. “If he asks me, I’ll tell him they’re all mine.”

Christ! What a fucking backstabber this guy was! Could he possibly think this made me respect him more? But I kept that thought to myself. “I’ll tell you the truth,” I said, “I’m not happy with the way Danny’s running things right now. He’s like the Spitter when it comes to holding inventory. When I left Stratton, the firm was short a couple million dollars of stock. Now it’s basically flat. It’s a real fucking shame.” I shook my head gravely. “Anyway, Stratton’s making more money now than ever, which is what happens when you trade long. But now Danny’s vulnerable.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Whatever. I’m done worrying about it. Regardless, I still can’t cut him out.”

Steve shrugged. “Don’t take what I said the wrong way”—Oh, really? How else am I supposed to take it, you fucking backstabber!—“but it’s just that you and I are gonna spend the next five years building this company. You know, Brian and Alan aren’t thrilled with Danny either. And neither are Loewenstern and Bronson. At least that’s what I hear through the grapevine. You’re gonna have to let those guys go their separate ways eventually. They’ll always be loyal to you, but they want to do their own deals, away from Danny.”

Just then I saw Tony Federici heading our way, wearing his white chef’s ensemble and carrying a jug of Chianti. So I rose to greet him. “Hey, Tony, how are you?” Kill anyone lately? I thought.

I motioned to Steve and said, “Tony, I’d like you to meet a very close friend of mine: This is Steve Madden. We’re partners in a shoe company over in Woodside.”

Steve immediately rose from his chair, and with a hearty smile he said, “Hey, Tough Tony! Tony Corona! I’ve heard of you! I mean, I grew up out on Long Island, but even there everyone’s heard of Tough Tony! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” With that, Steve extended his hand to his newfound friend, Tough Tony Corona, who despised that nickname immensely.

Well, there are many ways to go, I figured, and this was one of them. Perhaps Tony would be kind and allow Steve the honor of keeping his testicles attached to his body, so he could be buried with them.

I watched the Master Cobbler’s bony, pale hand hover suspensefully in the air, waiting to be grasped by a return hand, which was nowhere in sight. Then I looked at Tony’s face. He seemed to be smiling, although this particular smile was one a sadistic warden would offer a death-row inmate as he asked, “What would you like for your last meal?”

Finally, Tony did extend his hand, albeit limply. “Yeah, nice to meet ya,” said a toneless Tony. His dark brown eyes were like two death rays.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Tough Tony,” said the increasingly dead Cobbler. “I’ve heard only the best things about this restaurant, and I plan on coming here a lot. If I call for a reservation, I’ll just tell them I’m a friend of Tough Tony Corona! Okay?”

“Okay, then!” I said with a nervous smile. “I think we’d better get back to business, Steve.” Then I turned to Tony and said, “Thanks for coming over to say hello. It was good seeing you, as always.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head, as if to say, “Don’t mind my friend; he has Tourette’s syndrome.”

Tony twitched his nose two times and then went on his way, probably down the street to the local social club, where he would sip an espresso while ordering Steve’s execution.

I sat down and shook my head gravely. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Cobbler? No one calls him Tough Tony! Nobody! I mean, you’re a fucking dead man.”

“What are you talking about?” replied the clueless Cobbler. “The guy loved me, no?” Then he cocked his head to the side nervously and added, “Or am I totally off base here?”

Just then, Alfredo, the mountainous maître d’, walked over. “You have a phone call,” said Mount Alfredo. “You can take it up front by the bar. It’s quiet over there. There’s no one around.” He smiled.

Uh-oh! They were holding me responsible for my friend’s actions! This was serious Mafia stuff, impossible for a Jew like me to fully grasp the nuances of. In essence, though, by bringing the Cobbler into this restaurant I had vouched for him and would now suffer the consequences for his insolence. I smiled at Mount Alfredo and thanked him. Then I excused myself from the table and headed for the bar—or, perhaps, the meat freezer.

When I reached the phone I paused and looked around. “Hello?” I said skeptically, expecting to hear nothing but a dial tone and then feel a garrote around my neck.

“Hi, it’s me,” said Janet. “You sound weird; what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Janet. What do you want?” My tone was a bit curter than usual. Perhaps the Lude was wearing off.

“Excuse me for fucking living!” said the sensitive one.

With a sigh: “What do you want, Janet? I’m having a bad time of it here.”

“I have Victor Wang on the phone, and he said it’s urgent. I told him that you were out for lunch, but he said he would hold on until you got back. I think he’s an asshole, if you want to know my opinion.”

Who—cares—about—your—fucking—opinion—Janet! “Yeah, well, put him through,” I said, smiling at my own reflection in a smoked-glass mirror behind the bar. I didn’t even look stoned. Or maybe I wasn’t stoned. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Spanish Quaalude, examined it for a brief second, and then threw it down—dry.

I waited for the sound of the Depraved Chinaman’s panic-stricken voice. I had been shorting him into oblivion for almost a week now, and Duke Securities was up to its ears in stock. Yes, it was raining stock on Victor, and he was looking for my help, which I had every intention of giving him…sort of.

Just then came the voice of the Depraved Chinaman. He greeted me warmly and then began explaining how he owned more stock in this one particular company than there was physical stock. In fact, there were only 1.5 million shares in the entire float, and he was currently in possession of 1.6 million shares.

“…and the stock is still pouring in,” said the Talking Panda, “and I just don’t understand how that’s possible. I know Danny fucked me over, but even he’s gotta be out of stock now!” The Chinaman sounded thoroughly confused—unaware that I had a special account at Bear Stearns that allowed me to sell as much stock as my little heart desired, whether I owned it or not and whether I could borrow it or not. It was a special kind of account called a prime-brokerage account, which meant I could execute my trades through any brokerage firm in the world. There was no way the Chinaman could figure out who was selling.

“Calm down,” I said. “If you’re having capital problems, Vic, I’m here for you—a hundred percent. If you need to sell me three or four hundred thousand shares, just say the word.” That was about how much I was short right now, but I was short at higher prices, so if Victor was dumb enough to sell me the stock I would lock in a huge profit—and then turn around and reshort the stock again. Before I was done, the stock would be trading in pennies, and the Chinaman would be working on Mott Street, rolling wontons.

“Yeah,” replied the Talking Panda, “that would really help. I’m running tight on capital, and the stock is already below five dollars. I can’t afford it to drop anymore.”

“No problem, Vic. Just call Kenny Kock at Meyerson; he’ll buy fifty thousand share blocks from you every few hours.”

Victor thanked me, and then I hung up the phone and immediately dialed Kenny Kock, whose wife, Phyllis, had been the minister at my wedding. I said to Kenny, “The Depraved Chinaman is gonna be calling you every few hours to sell you fifty thousand share blocks of you know what”—I had already shared my plan with Kenny and he was well aware that I was waging a secret war against the Chinaman—“so go out and sell another fifty thousand shares now, before we actually buy any from him. And then keep selling fifty thousand share blocks every ninety minutes or so. Make the sales through blind accounts, so Victor won’t know where it’s coming from.”

“No problem,” replied Kenny Kock, who was head trader at M. H. Meyerson. I had just raised $10 million for his company in an IPO, so I had unlimited trading authority with him. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s it,” I replied. “Just keep the sales small, in blocks of five or ten thousand. I want him to think it’s coming from random short-sellers.” Ahh, a lightbulb. “In fact, feel free to short as much as you want for your own account, because the stock’s going to fucking zero!”

I hung up the phone, then went downstairs to the bathroom to do a few hits of coke. There was no doubt that I deserved it after my Academy Award–winning performance with Victor. I didn’t feel a twinge of guilt over the rise and fall of Duke Securities. Over the last few months, he had fully lived up to his reputation as the Depraved Chinaman. He had been stealing Stratton brokers under the guise of them not wanting to work on Long Island anymore; he’d been selling back all the stock he owned of Stratton new issues and of course denying it; and he was openly bashing Danny, referring to him as a “bumbling buffoon” who was incapable of running Stratton.

So this was payback.

I was in and out of the bathroom in less than a minute, ingesting a quarter gram of coke in four enormous blasts. On my way back up the stairs, my heart was beating faster than a rabbit’s and my blood pressure was higher than a stroke victim’s, and I loved it. My mind was in overdrive and I had everything under control.

At the top of the stairs I found myself staring into the blimp-size chest of Mount Alfredo. “You have another phone call.”

“Really?” I said, trying to hold my jaw in one place.

“I think it’s your wife.”

Jesus! The Duchess! How does she do that? She always seems to know when I’m up to no good! Although, since I was always up to no good, the law of averages dictated that she would always be calling at the wrong time.

With my head hung low, I walked over to the bar and picked up the phone. I would just have to bluff it out. “Hello?” I said open-endedly.

“Hi, honey. Are you okay?”

Am I okay? Such a pointed question! Very sneaky, this Duchess of mine. “Yeah, I’m fine, sweetie. I’m having lunch with Steve. What’s up?”

The Duchess let out a deep sigh, then said, “I have bad news: Aunt Patricia just died.”

^{CHAPTER 28} IMMORTALIZING THE DEAD

Five days after Aunt Patricia’s death I was back in Switzerland, sitting in the wood-paneled living room of the Master Forger’s house. It was a cozy place, about twenty minutes outside Geneva, somewhere in the Swiss countryside. We had just finished Sunday dinner, and the Master Forger’s wife, who I’d come to think of as Mrs. Master Forger, had just loaded a beveled-glass coffee table with all sorts of fattening desserts—a fabulous array of Swiss chocolates, French pastries, rich puddings, and stinky cheeses.

I had arrived two hours ago, wanting to get right down to business, but the Master Forger and his wife had insisted on stuffing me with enough Swiss delicacies to choke a brood of Swiss mountain dogs. At this particular moment, the Forgers were sitting across from me, leaning back in a pair of leather reclining chairs. They had on matching gray sweat suits, which, to my eyes, made them look like matching Good Year blimps, but they were terrific hosts and had kind hearts to match.

Since Patricia’s stroke and subsequent passing, Roland and I had had only one brief phone conversation—from a pay phone at the Gold Coast Equestrian Center, as opposed to the Brookville Country Club, which seemed to be cursed. He had told me not to worry, that he would take care of it. But he had refused to get specific over the phone, which, given the nature of our dealings, was understandable.

Such was the reason I had flown to Switzerland last night—to sit down with him face-to-face and get to the bottom of things.

This time, however, I was smart.

Rather than taking a commercial flight and running the risk of getting arrested for stewardess-groping, I had flown over on a private jet, a plush Gulfstream III. Danny had flown over too, and he was waiting for me at the hotel, which is to say there was a ninety percent shot that he was getting scrummed by four Swiss hookers.

So here I was, with a smile on my face and frustration in my heart, as I watched Roland and his wife devour the dessert table.

Finally I ran out of patience, and said with great kindness, “You know, you guys are truly wonderful hosts. I can’t begin to thank you enough. But, unfortunately, I have to catch a flight back to the States, so if it’s okay, Roland, can we get down to business now?” I raised my eyebrows and smiled bashfully.

The Master Forger smiled broadly. “Of course, my friend.” He turned to his wife. “Why don’t you start preparing dinner, my darling?”

Dinner? I thought. Sweet Jesus!

She nodded eagerly and excused herself, at which point Roland reached over to the coffee table and grabbed two more chocolate-covered strawberries, numbers twenty-one and twenty-two, if memory served me correctly.

I took a deep breath and said, “In light of Patricia’s death, Roland, my biggest concern is how to get the money out of the UBP accounts. And, then, after that, what name do I use going forward? You know, one of the things that made me feel comfortable was being able to use Patricia’s name. I really trusted her. And I loved her too. Who would’ve thought she’d pass away so fast?” I shook my head and let out a deep sigh.

The Master Forger shrugged and said, “Patricia’s death is sad, of course, but there is no need to worry. The money has been moved to two other banks, neither of which has ever laid eyes on Patricia Mellor. All necessary documents have been created, and each of them bears Patricia’s original signature, or what would certainly pass for it. The documents have been backdated to the appropriate dates, of course, before her death. Your money is safe, my friend. Nothing has changed.”

“But whose name is it in?”

“Patricia Mellor’s, of course. There is no finer nominee than a dead person, my friend. No one at either of the new banks has seen Patricia Mellor, and the money is in the accounts of your bearer corporations, to which you hold the certificates.” The Master Forger shrugged, as if to say, “None of this is a big deal in the world of master forgery.” Then he said, “The only reason I moved the money out of Union Banc is because Saurel has fallen out of favor there. Better safe than sorry, I figured.”

Master Forger! Master Forger! He had turned out to be everything I’d hoped for. Yes, the Master Forger was worth his considerable weight in gold, or close to it. Still, he had managed to turn death into… life! And that was just how Aunt Patricia would have wanted it. Her name would live on forever in the seedy underbelly of the Swiss banking system. In essence, the Master Forger had immortalized her. Dying the way she had… so fast… she had never gotten the chance to say good-bye. Oh, but I’d be willing to bet that one of her final thoughts was a tiny worry that her unexpected passing would cause her favorite nephew-in-law a problem.

The Master Forger leaned forward and picked up two more chocolate-covered strawberries, numbers twenty-three and twenty-four, and started chomping. I said, “You know, Roland, I was very fond of Saurel when I first met him, but I’m having second thoughts now. He speaks to Kaminsky all the time, and it makes me uncomfortable. I’d just as soon not do any more business with Union Banc, if that’s okay with you.”

“I will always abide by your decisions,” replied the Master Forger, “and in this case I think your decision is a wise one. But, either way, you need not worry about Jean Jacques Saurel. In spite of him being French, he still lives in Switzerland, and the United States government has no power over him. He will not betray you.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I replied, “but it’s not a matter of trust. I just don’t like people knowing my business, especially a guy like Kaminsky.” I smiled, trying to make light of the whole thing. “Anyway, I’ve been trying to reach Saurel for over a week now, but his office says he’s away on business.”

The Master Forger nodded. “Yes, he is in the United States, I believe. Seeing clients.”

“Really? I had no idea.” For some odd reason, I found that troubling, although I couldn’t have explained why.

Matter-of-factly, Roland said, “Yes, he has many clients there. I know a few, but not most of them.”

I nodded, dismissing my premonition as nothing more than worthless paranoia. Fifteen minutes later I was standing outside his front door, holding a doggie bag of Swiss delicacies. The Master Forger and I exchanged a warm hug. “Au revoir!” I said, which was French for until I return.

In retrospect, good-bye would have been much more appropriate.

I finally walked through the door of our Westhampton Beach house on Friday morning, a little after ten. All I wanted was to go upstairs and hold Chandler in my arms and then make love to the Duchess and go to sleep. But I never got the chance. I was home for less than thirty seconds when the phone rang.

It was Gary Deluca. “I’m really sorry to bother you,” said the Drizzler, “but I’ve been trying to reach you for over a day. I thought you’d want to know that Gary Kaminsky got indicted yesterday morning. He’s sitting in a Miami jail, being held without bail.”

“Really?” I replied casually. I was in that state of extreme weariness where you can’t fully fathom the consequences of what you’re hearing, or at least not immediately. “What did he get indicted for?”

“Money laundering,” Deluca said tonelessly. “Does the name Jean Jacques Saurel ring a bell?”

That one got me—woke me right the fuck up! “Maybe…I think I met him when I was in Switzerland that time. Why?”

“Because he got indicted too,” said the Bearer of Bad News. “He’s sitting in jail with Kaminsky; he’s also being held without bail.”

^{CHAPTER 29} DESPERATE MEASURES

As I sat in my kitchen, plowing through the indictment, I found the whole thing mind-boggling. How many Swiss bankers were there? There had to be at least ten thousand of them in Geneva alone, and I had to choose the one who’d been dumb enough to get himself arrested on U.S. soil. What were the chances of that? Even more ironic was that he’d gotten himself indicted on a completely unrelated charge, something having to do with laundering drug money through offshore boat racing.

Meanwhile, it didn’t take the Duchess long to realize that something was terribly wrong, simply because I hadn’t pounced on her the moment I’d walked through the door. But without even trying, I knew I couldn’t get it up. I had resisted letting the word impotent enter my thoughts, because it had so many negative connotations to a true man of power, which I still considered myself to be, in spite of falling victim to the reckless behavior of my Swiss banker. So I preferred to think of myself as being a limp dick or a spaghetti dick, which was far more palatable than the heinous I word.

Either way, my penis had sought refuge inside my lower abdomen—shrinking to the size of a number-two pencil eraser—so I told the Duchess that I was sick and jet-lagged.

Later that evening I went into my bedroom closet and picked out my jail outfit. I chose a pair of faded Levi’s, a simple gray T-shirt with long sleeves (just in case it got cold inside the jail cell), and some old beat-up Reebok sneakers, which would reduce the chances of any seven-foot black men named Bubba or Jamal taking them from me. I had seen this happen in the movies, and they always took your sneakers before they raped you.

On Monday morning I decided not to go to the office—figuring it was more dignified to get arrested in the comfort of my own home rather than in the gloomy groin of Woodside, Queens. No, I would not allow them to arrest me at Steve Madden Shoes, where the Cobbler would view it as a perfect opportunity to fuck me out of stock options. The Maddenites would have to read about it on the front page of The New York Times, like the rest of the Free World. I would not give them the pleasure of seeing me taken away in handcuffs; that pleasure I would reserve for the Duchess.

Then something very odd happened—namely, nothing. There were no subpoenas issued, no unannounced visits from Agent Coleman, and no FBI raids at Stratton Oakmont. By Wednesday afternoon I found myself wondering what the fuck was going on. I’d been hiding out in Westhampton since Friday, pretending to be sick with a horrible case of diarrhea, which was basically true. Still, it now appeared that I was hiding for no good reason—perhaps I wasn’t on the verge of being arrested!

By Thursday, the silence was overpowering and I decided to risk a phone call to Gregory O’Connell, the lawyer whom Bo had recommended. He seemed like the perfect person to gather intelligence from, since he had been the one who reached out to the Eastern District and spoke to Sean O’Shea six months ago.

Obviously, I wouldn’t come clean with Greg O’Connell. After all, he was a lawyer, and no lawyer could be fully trusted, especially a criminal one, who couldn’t legally represent you if he became aware that you were actually guilty. It was an outlandish concept, of course, and everyone knew that defense lawyers made their livings defending the guilty. But part of the game was an unspoken understanding between a crook and his lawyer, wherein the crook would swear innocence to his lawyer and the lawyer would help the crook mold his bullshit story into a criminal defense that was consistent with the loose ends of his bullshit story.

So when I spoke to Greg O’Connell I lied through my teeth, explaining how I’d gotten caught up in someone else’s problem. I told him that my wife’s family in Britain shared the same banker as some corrupt offshore boat-racers, which was, of course, a complete coincidence. As I went about running this first version of my bullshit story to my future lawyer—telling him all about the lovely Aunt Patricia, still alive and kicking, because I felt it made my case stronger—I started seeing thin rays of hope.

My story was entirely believable, I thought, until Gregory O’Connell said in a somewhat skeptical tone: “Where did a sixty-five-year-old retired schoolteacher come up with the three million in cash to get the account started?”

Hmmm… a slight hole in my story; probably not a good sign, I thought. Nothing to do but play dumb. “How am I supposed to know?” I asked matter-of-factly. Yes, my tone had been just right. The Wolf could be a cool character when he had to be, even now, under the most dire circumstances. “Listen, Greg, Patricia—may she rest in peace—was always going on about how her ex-husband was the first test pilot for the Harrier jump jet. I bet the KGB would have paid a bloody fortune for some hard intel on that project; so maybe he was taking cash from the KGB? As I recall, it was pretty cutting-edge stuff back then. Very hush-hush.” Christ! What the fuck was I rambling about?

“Well, I’ll make a few calls and get a quick heads-up,” said my kind attorney. “I’m just confused about one thing, Jordan. Can you clarify whether your aunt Patricia is alive or dead? You just said she should rest in peace, but a couple of minutes ago you told me she lived in London. It would be helpful if I knew which of the two was accurate.”

I had clearly dropped the ball on that one. I would have to be more careful in the future about Patricia’s life status. No choice now but to bluff it out: “Well, that depends on which one bodes better for my situation. What makes my case stronger: life or death?”

“Welllllllllllllll, it would be nice if she could come forward and say the money was hers, or, if not that, at least sign an affidavit attesting to that fact. So I would have to say that it would be better if she were alive.”

“Then she’s very much alive!” I shot back confidently, thinking of the Master Forger and his ability to create all sorts of fine documents. “But she likes her privacy, so you’re gonna have to settle for an affidavit. I think she’s in seclusion for a while, anyway.”

Nothing but silence now. After a good ten seconds my lawyer finally said, “Okay, then! I think I’ve got a pretty clear picture here. I’ll be back to you in a few hours.”

An hour later I did receive a call back from Greg O’Connell, who said, “There’s nothing new going on with your case. In fact, Sean O’Shea is leaving the office in a couple a weeks—joining the ranks of us humble defense attorneys—so he was unusually forthcoming with me. He said your whole case is still being driven by this Coleman character. No one in the U.S. Attorney’s Office is interested in it. And as far as this Swiss banker goes, there’s nothing going on with him in relation to your case, at least not now.” He then spent a few more minutes assuring me that I was pretty much in the clear.

Upon hanging up, I dropped those first two hedge words, pretty and much, and held on to the last three, in the clear, like a dog with a bone. I still needed to speak to the Master Forger, though, to gauge the full extent of the damage. If he were sitting in a U.S. jail, like Saurel—or if he were in a Swiss jail, pending extradition to the United States—then I was still in deep shit. But if he wasn’t—if he was in the clear too, still able to practice the little-known art of master forgery—then perhaps everything might work out for me.

I called the Master Forger from a pay phone at Starr Boggs restaurant. With bated breath, I listened to the troubling story of how the Swiss police had raided his office and seized boxes full of records. Yes, he was wanted for questioning in the United States, but, no, he was not officially under indictment, at least not to his knowledge. He assured me that under no circumstances would the Swiss government turn him over to the United States, although he could no longer safely travel outside Switzerland, lest he be picked up by Interpol on an international arrest warrant.

Finally, the subject turned to the Patricia Mellor accounts, and the Master Forger said, “Some of the records were seized, but not because they were specifically targeted; they were just scooped up with all the others. But have no fear, my friend, there is nothing in my records indicating that the money doesn’t belong to Patricia Mellor. However, since she is no longer alive I would suggest that you stop doing business in those accounts until this whole thing blows over.”

“That goes without saying,” I replied, hanging on to the two words blow and over, “but my main concern isn’t so much having access to the money. What I’m really worried about is Saurel cooperating with the U.S. government and saying that the accounts are mine. That would cause me a big problem, Roland. Perhaps if there were some documents that showed the money was clearly Patricia’s, it would make a big difference.”

The Master Forger replied, “But those documents already exist, my friend. Perhaps if you could give me a list of what documents might help you and what dates Patricia signed them on, I would be able to dig them out of my files for you.”

Master Forger! Master Forger! He was still with me. “I understand, Roland, and I’ll let you know if I need anything. But for right now, I guess it just makes the most sense to sit back and wait and hope for the best.”

The Master Forger said, “As usual, we are in agreement. But until this investigation runs its course, you should steer clear of Switzerland. Remember, though, that I am always with you, my friend, and I will do everything in my power to protect you and your family.”

As I hung up the phone, I knew my fortunes would rise and fall with Saurel. Yet I also knew that I had to get on with my life. I had to take a deep breath and suck it up. I had to get back to work, and I had to start making love to the Duchess again. I had to stop jumping out of my skin every time the phone rang or there was an unexpected knock at the front door.

And that was what I did. I reimmersed myself in the very insanity of things. I plunged into the building of Steve Madden Shoes and kept advising my brokerage firms from behind the scenes. I did my best to be a loyal husband to the Duchess and a good father to Chandler, in spite of my drug addiction. And as the months passed, my drug habit continued to escalate.

As always, I was quick to rationalize it, though—to remind myself that I was young and rich, with a gorgeous wife and a perfect baby daughter. Everyone wanted a life like mine, didn’t they? What better life was there than Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional?

Either way, by mid-October, there were no repercussions from Saurel’s arrest, and I breathed a final sigh of relief. Obviously, he had chosen not to cooperate and the Wolf of Wall Street had dodged another bullet. Chandler had taken her first steps and was now doing the Frankenstein walk—sticking her arms out in front of her, keeping her knees locked, and walking around stiffly. And, of course, the baby genius was talking up a storm. By her first birthday, in fact, she had been speaking full sentences—an astonishing achievement for an infant—and I had no doubt that she was well on the road to a Nobel Prize or at least a Fields Medal for advanced mathematics.

Meanwhile, Steve Madden Shoes and Stratton Oakmont were on divergent paths—with Steve Madden growing by leaps and bounds and Stratton Oakmont falling victim to ill-conceived trading strategies and a new wave of regulatory pressure, both of which Danny had brought upon himself. The latter was a result of Danny’s refusal to abide by one of the terms of the SEC settlement—namely, for Stratton to hire an independent auditor of the SEC’s choosing, who would review the firm’s business practices and then make recommendations. One of these recommendations was for the firm to install a taping system to capture the Strattonites’ phone conversations with their clients. Danny refused to comply, and the SEC ran into federal court and secured an injunction ordering the firm to install the taping system.

Danny finally capitulated—lest he be thrown in jail for contempt of court—but now Stratton had an injunction against it, which meant all fifty states had the right to suspend Stratton’s license, which, of course, they slowly began doing. It was hard to imagine that after everything Stratton had survived, its demise would be tied to the refusal to install a taping system, which, in the end, hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference. Within days Strattonites had figured out how to circumvent the system—saying only compliant things over Stratton’s phone lines and then picking up their cell phones when they felt like going to the dark side. But the handwriting was now on the wall: Stratton’s days were numbered.

The owners of Biltmore and Monroe Parker expressed their mutual desire to go their separate ways, to no longer do business with Stratton. Of course, it was done with the utmost respect, and they each offered to pay me a $1 million tribute on each new issue they took public. It amounted to somewhere around $12 million a year, so I gladly accepted. I was also receiving a million dollars a month from Stratton, pursuant to my noncompete agreement, as well as another four or five million every few months as I cashed out of large blocks of inside stock (144 stock) in the companies Stratton was taking public.

Still, I considered it a mere drop in the bucket compared to what I could make with Steve Madden Shoes, which seemed to be on a rocket ship to the stars. It reminded me of the early days of Stratton… those heady days… those glory days… in the late eighties and early nineties, when the first wave of Strattonites had taken to the phones and the insanity that had come to define my life had yet to take hold. So Stratton was my past, and Steve Madden was my future.

At this particular moment I was sitting across from Steve, who was leaning back in his seat defensively as the Spitter shot spit streams at him. Every so often, Steve would give me a look that so much as said, “The Spitter is relentless when it comes to ordering boots, especially since the boot season is almost over!”

The Drizzler was also in the room, and he was drizzling on us at every opportunity. Right now, though, the Spitter had center stage. “What’s the big fucking deal about ordering these boots?” spat the Spitter. Because this morning’s debate involved a word beginning with the letter B, he was doing an inordinate amount of spitting. In fact, each time the Spitter uttered the word boot, I could see the Cobbler cringe visibly. And now he turned his wrath on me. “Listen, JB, this boot”—oh, Jesus!—“is so fucking hot there’s no way we can lose. You gotta trust me on this. I’m telling you, not a single pair will get marked down.”

I shook my head in disagreement. “No more boots, John. We’re done with fucking boots. And it’s got nothing to do with whether or not they’ll get marked down. It’s about running our business with a certain discipline. We’re going in eighteen different directions at the same time, and we need to stick to our business plan. We’ve got three new stores opening; we’re rolling out dozens of in-store shops; we’re about to pull the trigger on the unbranded business. There’s only so much cash to go around. We gotta stay lean and mean right now; no huge risks this late in the season, especially with some leopard-skin fucking boot.”

The Drizzler took this opening to do some more drizzling. “I agree with you, and that’s exactly why it makes so much sense to move our shipping department down to Flor—”

The Spitter cut the Drizzler right off, using a word with a double-P, the Spitter’s second-deadliest consonant. “That’s fucking preposterous!” spat the Spitter. “That whole fucking concept! I have no time for this shit. I gotta get some fucking shoes made or else we’ll be out of fucking business!” With that, the Spitter walked out of the office and slammed the door behind him.

Just then the phone beeped. “Todd Garret’s on line one.”

I rolled my eyes at Steve, then I said, “Tell him I’m in a meeting, Janet. I’ll call him back.”

Janet, the insolent one: “Obviously I told him you’re in a meeting, but he said it’s urgent. He needs to speak to you right now.”

I shook my head in disgust and let out a great sigh. What could be so important with Todd Garret—unless, of course, he had managed to get his hands on some Real Reals! I picked up the phone and said in a friendly yet somewhat annoyed tone, “Hey, Todd, what’s going on, buddy?”

“Well,” replied Todd, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but some guy named Agent Coleman just left my house and told me that Carolyn is about to get thrown in jail.”

With a sinking heart: “For what? What did Carolyn do?”

I felt the world crash down on me when Todd said, “Did you know that your Swiss banker is in jail and he’s cooperating against you?”

I clenched my ass cheeks for all they were worth and said, “I’ll be there in an hour.”

Like its owner, Todd’s two-bedroom apartment was mean-looking. From top to bottom, the whole place was black, not an ounce of color anywhere. We were sitting in the living room, which was completely devoid of plant life. All I could see was black leather and chrome.

Todd was sitting across from me, as Carolyn paced back and forth on a black shag carpet, teetering atop some very high heels. Todd said to me, “It goes without saying that Carolyn and I will never cooperate against you, so don’t even worry about that.” He looked up at the pacing Swiss Bombshell and said, “Right, Carolyn?”

Carolyn nodded nervously and kept on pacing. Apparently Todd found that annoying. “Will you stop pacing!” he snarled. “You’re driving me fucking crazy. I’m gonna smack you if you don’t sit down!”

“Oh, fahak you, Tahad!” croaked the Bombshell. “This no laughing business. I have two kids, in case you forget. It is all because of that stupid pistol you carry.”

Even now, on the day of my doom, these two maniacs were determined to kill each other. “Will you two please stop?” I said, forcing a smile. “I don’t understand what Todd’s gun charge has to do with Saurel getting indicted.”

“Don’t listen to her,” muttered Todd. “She’s a fucking idiot. What she’s trying to say is that Coleman found out what happened in the shopping center, and now he’s telling the Queens District Attorney not to plea-bargain my case. A few months ago they were offering me probation, and now they’re telling me I gotta do three years unless I cooperate with the FBI. Personally, I couldn’t give a shit about that, and if I gotta go to jail I gotta go to jail. The problem is my idiot wife, who decided to strike up a friendship with your Swiss banker instead of just dropping off the money and not saying a word like she was supposed to. But, nooooo, she couldn’t resist having lunch with the fuck and then exchanging phone numbers with him. For all I know she probably fucked him.”

“You know,” said a rather guilty-looking Bombshell, in her white patent leather go-to-hell pumps, “you got nerves upon nerves, dog-man! Who be you to throw stones in my direction? You don’t think I know what you do with that steel-cage dancer from Rio?” With that, the Swiss Bombshell looked me directly in the eye and said, “Do you believes this jealous man? Will you please tell Tahad that Jean Jacques not like that? He is old banker, not ladies’ man. Right, Jordan?” And she stared at me with blazing blue eyes and a clenched jaw.

An old banker? Jean Jacques? Jesus Christ—what a tragic turn of events! Had the Swiss Bombshell fucked my Swiss banker? Unreal! If she had just dropped off the money like she was supposed to, then Saurel wouldn’t have even known who she was! But, no, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, and, as a result, Coleman was now connecting all the dots—figuring out that Todd’s arrest in the Bay Terrace Shopping Center had nothing to do with a drug deal but with the smuggled millions of dollars to Switzerland.

“Well,” I said innocently, “I wouldn’t exactly characterize Saurel as an old man, but he’s not the sort of guy who’d have an affair with another man’s wife. I mean, he’s married himself, and he never really struck me as being that way.”

Apparently they both took that as a victory. Carolyn blurted out, “You see, dog-man, he is not like that. He is—”

But Todd cut her right off: “So why the fuck did you say he’s an old man, then, you lying sack of shit? Why lie if you have nothing to hide, huh? Why, I…”

As Todd and Carolyn went about ripping each other’s lungs out, I tuned out and wondered if there was any way out of this mess. It was time for desperate measures; it was time to call my trusted accountant Dennis Gaito, aka the Chef. I would offer him my humblest apology for having done all this behind his back. No, I had never actually told the Chef that I had accounts in Switzerland. There was no choice now but to come clean and seek his counsel.

“…and what will we do for money now?” asked the Swiss Bombshell. “This Agent Coleman watch you like bird now”—Did she mean hawk?—“so you can no more sell your drugs. We will starve now for sure!” With that, the soon-to-be starving Swiss Bombshell—along with her $40,000 Patek Philippe watch, her $25,000 diamond-and-ruby necklace, and her $5,000 clothing ensemble—sat down in a black leather chair. Then she put her head in her hands and began to shake her head back and forth.

How very ironic that, at the end of the day, it was the Swiss Bombshell, with her bastardized English and gigantic boobs, who’d finally cut through all the bullshit and distilled things down to their very essence—it all came down to buying their silence. And that was fine with me; in fact, I had a sneaky suspicion it was fine with them too. After all, the two of them now had a pair of first-class tickets on the gravy train, and they would be good for many years to come. And if somewhere along the line the heat in the kitchen grew too hot, they could always apply for exit visas downtown, at the New York Field Office of the FBI, where Agent Coleman would be waiting for them with open arms and a smile.

That evening, in my basement in Old Brookville, Long Island, I was sitting on the wraparound couch with the Chef, playing a little-known game called Can You Top This Bullshit Story. The rules of the game were simple: The contestant spewing out the bullshit would try to make his story as airtight as possible, while the person listening to the bullshit would try to poke holes in it. In order to achieve victory, one of the contestants had to come up with a bullshit story that was so airtight that the other contestant couldn’t poke a hole in it. And since the Chef and I were Jedi Masters of unadulterated bullshit, it was pretty obvious that if one of us could stump the other, then we could also stump Agent Coleman.

The Chef was boldly handsome, sort of like a trimmed-down version of Mr. Clean. He was in his early fifties and had been cooking the books since I was in grade school. I looked at him as an elder statesman of sorts, the lucid voice of reason. He was a man’s man, the Chef, with an infectious smile and a million watts of social charisma. He was a guy who lived for world-class golf courses, Cuban cigars, fine wines, and enlightened conversation, especially when it had to do with fucking over the IRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which seemed to be his life’s foremost mission.

I had already come clean with him this evening, baring my very soul and apologizing profusely for having done all this behind his back. I started bullshitting him even then, before the game had officially started, explaining that I hadn’t brought him into my Swiss affair because it might’ve put him at risk. Thankfully, he’d made no effort to poke any holes in my feeble bullshit story. Instead, he’d responded with a warm smile and a shrug.

As I told him my tale of woe, I found my spirits sinking lower and lower. But the Chef remained impassive. When I was done, he shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Eh, I’ve heard worse.”

“Oh, really?” I replied. “How the fuck could that be possible?”

The Chef waved his hand dismissively and added, “I’ve been in much tighter spots than this.”

I’d been greatly relieved by those words, although I was pretty sure he was just trying to ease my worried mind. Anyway, we had started playing the game and now, after a half hour, we’d been through three evolutions of unadulterated bullshit. So far, there was no clear winner. But with each round our stories grew tighter and cleverer and, of course, more difficult to poke holes in. We were still hung up on two basic issues: First, how had Patricia come up with the initial $3 million to fund the account? And, second, if the money was really Patricia’s, then why hadn’t her heirs been contacted? Patricia was survived by two daughters, both of whom were in their mid-thirties. In the absence of a contraindicating will, they were the rightful heirs.

The Chef said, “I think the real problem is the outgoing currency violation. Let’s assume this guy Saurel has spilled his guts, which means the feds are gonna take the position that the money made it over to Switzerland on a bunch of different dates. So what we need is a document that counteracts that—that says you gave all the money to Patricia while she was still in the United States. We need an affidavit from someone who physically witnessed you handing the money to Patricia in the U.S. Then, if the government wants to say different, we hold our piece of paper and say, ‘Here ya go, buddy! We got our own eyewitness too!’”

As an afterthought, he added, “But I still don’t like this business with the will. It smells bad. It’s a shame Patricia’s not alive. It would be nice if we could parade her downtown and have her say a few choice words to the feds, and, you know—bada-beep bada-bop bada-boop—that would be that.”

I shrugged. “Well, I can’t raise Patricia from the dead, but I bet I could get Nadine’s mother to sign an affidavit saying that she witnessed me handing the money to Patricia in the United States. Suzanne hates the government, and I’ve been really good to her over the last four years. She really has nothing to lose, right?”

The Chef nodded. “Well that would be a very good thing, if she would agree to do it.”

“She’ll do it,” I said confidently, trying to guess what temperature water the Duchess would be pouring over my head tonight. “I’ll talk to Suzanne tomorrow. I just need to run it by the Duchess first. But, assuming I get it taken care of, there’s still the issue of the will. It does sound kinda hokey that she wouldn’t leave any money to her kids…” All at once a fabulous idea came bubbling into my brain. “What if we were to actually contact her kids and get them involved? What if we had them fly over to Switzerland and claim the money? It would be like hitting lotto to them! I could have Roland draw up a new will, saying the money I’d loaned Patricia was to come back to me but all the profits were to go to her children. I mean, if the kids went and declared the money in Britain, then how could the U.S. government make a case that the money was mine?”

“Ahhhhh,” said a smiling Chef, “now you’re thinking! In fact, you just won the game. If we can pull this whole thing together, I think you’re in the clear. And I’ve got a sister firm in London that can do the actual returns, so we’ll have control of things the whole way through. You’ll get your original investment back, the kids’ll get a five-million-dollar windfall, and we can move on with our lives!”

I smiled and said, “This guy Coleman is gonna flip his fucking lid when he finds out Patricia’s kids went over and claimed the money. I bet you he’s already tasting blood on his lips.”

“Indeed,” said the Chef.

Fifteen minutes later I found the soon-to-be-doleful Duchess upstairs in the master bedroom. She was sitting at her desk, thumbing through a catalog, and by the looks of her she wasn’t just in the market for clothes. She looked absolutely gorgeous. Her hair was brushed out to perfection, and she was dressed in a tiny white silk chemise of such fine material that it covered her body like a morning mist. She had on a pair of white open-toe pumps with a spiked heel and sexy ankle strap. And that was all she wore. She had dimmed the lights, and there were a dozen candles burning, giving off a mellow orange glow.

When she saw me, she ran over to shower me with kisses. “You look so beautiful,” I said, after a good thirty seconds of kissing and Duchess-sniffing. “I mean, you always look beautiful, but you look especially beautiful tonight. You’re beyond words.”

“Well, thank you!” said the luscious Duchess in a playful tone. “I’m glad you still think so, because I just took my temperature and I’m ovulating. I hope you’re ready, because you’re in big trouble tonight, mister!”

Hmmm… there were two sides to this coin. On the one side, how mad could an ovulating woman get at her husband? I mean, the Duchess really wanted another child, so she might shake off the bad news in the name of procreation. But on the flipside, she might get so angry she would throw on her bathrobe and go to fisticuffs. And with all those wet kisses she’d just showered on me, a tsunami of blood had gone rushing to my loins.

I dropped down to my knees and began sniffing the tops of her thighs, like a Pomeranian in heat. I said, “I need to talk to you about something.”

She giggled. “Let’s go over to the bed and talk there.”

I took a moment to run that through my mind, and the bed seemed pretty safe. In truth, the Duchess wasn’t any stronger than me; she was just an expert at using leverage, and the bed would minimize that.

On the bed, I maneuvered myself on top of her and I clasped my hands behind her neck and kissed her deeply, breathing in every last molecule of her. In that very instant I loved her so much that it seemed almost impossible.

She ran her fingers through my hair, pushing it back with gentle strokes. She said, “What’s wrong, baby? Why was Dennis here tonight?”

The high road or the low road, I wondered, looking at her legs. And then it hit me: Why tell her anything? Yes! I would buy her mother off! What an inspired notion! The Wolf strikes again! Suzanne needed a new car, so I would take her tomorrow to buy one and then spring the idea of the phony affidavit on her during idle conversation. “Hey, Suzanne, you look really great in this new convertible, and, by the way, can you just sign your name here, right at the bottom, where it says signature?…Oh, what does I swear under penalty of perjury mean? Well, it’s just legal jargon, so don’t even waste your time reading it. Just sign it, and if you happened to get indicted we can discuss it then.” Then I would swear Suzanne to secrecy and pray that she’d keep her mouth shut to the Duchess.

I smiled at the delectable Duchess and said, “It was nothing important. Dennis is taking over as auditor for Steve Madden, so we were going through some numbers. Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is that I want this baby as much as you do. You’re the greatest mother in the whole world, Nae, and you’re the greatest wife too. I’m lucky to have you.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” said the Duchess, in a syrupy voice. “I love you too. Make love to me right now, honey.”

And I did.