The Wolf of Wall Street

CHAPTER 14

INTERNATIONAL OBSESSIONS

Three hours later I was sitting across from Jean Jacques Saurel in Le Jardin restaurant, in the lobby of Hotel Le Richemond. The table had some of the finest place settings I’d ever seen. A wonderful array of hand-polished sterling silver and an immaculate collection of bone-white china rested upon a heavily starched snow-white tablecloth. Really fancy stuff it was; must’ve cost a fortune! I thought. But, like the rest of this antique hotel, the restaurant’s decor was not to my taste. It was decidedly art deco, circa 1930, which was the last time, I assumed, the restaurant had been renovated.

Still, in spite of the less-than-stellar decor—and the fact that I was jet-lagged to the point of near exhaustion—the company happened to be excellent. Saurel had turned out to be quite a whoremaster himself, and at this particular moment he was in the middle of explaining to me the fine art of bedding Swiss Frog women, who he said were hornier than jackrabbits. In fact, they were so easy to coax into bed, he claimed, that each day he would stare out his office window and watch them walk along rue du Rhône—with their short skirts and tiny dogs—while he painted imaginary bull’s-eyes on their backs.

I found that to be a clever observation and was saddened by the fact that Danny hadn’t been present to hear it. But the topics Saurel and I were planning to discuss this evening were so horrendously illegal that you simply couldn’t have this sort of conversation in the presence of a third party—even if the third party happened to be involved in the crime. It was a patent impossibility. It was one more lesson taught to me by Al Abrams, who’d said, “Two people make a crime; three make a conspiracy.”

So here I was, alone with Saurel, but my mind was drifting back to Danny and more specifically what on earth he was doing right now. He wasn’t the sort of guy you just let out of your sight in a foreign country. Left to his own devices, it was almost certain that something bad would happen. The only saving grace was that in this particular country, there wasn’t much Danny could do, short of rape or murder, that the man seated across from me couldn’t fix with one phone call to the proper authority.

“…so most of the time,” proclaimed Saurel, “I take them to the Métropole Hotel, just across from the bank, and I fuck them there. By the way, Jordan, I must say that I find this English word of yours, fuck, to be quite satisfying. There is really no French word that gets the point across quite as well. But not to digress—the point I was trying to make is that I have made it my second profession, behind banking, of course, to bed as many Swiss women as possible.” He shrugged a gigolo’s shrug and smiled a warm Eurotrash smile. Then he took another deep pull from his cigarette.

“According to Kaminsky,” he said through exhaled smoke, “you share my love of beautiful women, yes?”

I smiled and nodded.

“Ahhh…that is very fine,” continued the Whoremaster, “very fine! But I was also told that your wife is very beautiful. How odd that is, wouldn’t you say? To have such a beautiful wife yet to still have a wandering eye? But I can relate to that, my friend. You see, my wife is also quite beautiful, yet I feel compelled to pleasure myself with any young woman who might care to have me, as long as she is up to my standards of excellence. And in this country there is no shortage of these sorts of women.” He shrugged. “But I guess this is the way of the world, the way things are supposed to be for men like us, wouldn’t you say?”

Jesus! That sounded horrific! Yet I had said those same words to myself many times—trying to rationalize my own behavior. But to be on the receiving end of it made me realize how truly ridiculous it was. “Well, Jean, there comes a time when a man has to say to himself that he’s proved his point. And that’s the point I’m at now. I love my wife and I’m done screwing around.”

Saurel narrowed his eyes sagely and nodded. “I have been to that point many times myself. And it is a fine feeling when you arrive there, is it not? It serves to remind us of what is truly important in life. After all, without a family to come home to, it would be an empty life, indeed. That is why I relish the time I spend with my family oh so much. And then, after a few days of it, I realize that I might very well slit my wrists if I were to stay around any longer.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Jordan. It is not that I don’t love my wife and child. Indeed I do. It is simply that I am French, and as a French man there is only so much of this wife-and-child business that I can reasonably be expected to swallow before I begin to resent them greatly. The point I make is that my time away from home makes me a much better husband to my wife and a much better father to my child.” Saurel picked up his cigarette from the glass ashtray and took a tremendous pull.

And I waited…and waited…but he never exhaled. Wow, that was interesting! I had never seen my father do that one either! Saurel seemed to internalize the smoke—absorbing it into his very core. All at once it occurred to me that Swiss men seemed to smoke for different reasons than American men did. It was as if in Switzerland it was all about being entitled to partake in a simple manly pleasure, while in the United States it had more to do with having the right to kill yourself with a terrible vice, in spite of all the warnings.

It was time to get down to business. “Jean,” I said warmly, “to answer your first question—on how much money I’m interested in moving to Switzerland. I think it would make sense if I started small, perhaps with five million dollars or so. Then, if things work out, I would consider bringing over a significantly larger amount—perhaps another twenty million over the next twelve months. As far as using the bank’s couriers, I appreciate the gesture, but I would just as soon use my own. I have a few friends in the United States who owe me some favors, and I’m sure that they would agree to do this for me.

“But I still have many concerns, the first of which is Kaminsky. It’s impossible for me to go forward if he has any knowledge of my relationship with your bank. In fact, if he even suspected I had one penny at your bank, it would be a complete deal breaker. I would close all my accounts and move my money elsewhere.”

Saurel seemed entirely unfazed. “You need never raise this issue again,” he said icily. “Not only will Kaminsky never know of this, but if he chooses to make any inquiries in this matter, his passport will be put on a watch list and he will be arrested by Interpol at their earliest convenience. We Swiss take our secrecy laws more seriously than you can possibly imagine. You see, Kaminsky was once an employee of our bank, so he is held to a much higher standard. I do not kid you when I say that he will wind up in jail if he discloses matters such as these—or, for that matter, sticks his nose in areas that he would be better off steering clear of. He will be locked up in a room and we will throw away the room. So let us put Kaminsky aside, once and for all. If you choose to keep him in your employ, that is your own decision. But be wary of him, because he is a babbling buffoon.”

I nodded and smiled. “I have my reasons for keeping Kaminsky where he is right now. Dollar Time is losing serious amounts of money, and if I hire a new CFO he might start to dig. So, for now, it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie. Anyway, we have more important issues to discuss than Dollar Time. If you give me your word that Kaminsky will never know about my account, then I will take you at it. I’ll never bring it up again.”

Saurel nodded. “I like the way you conduct business, Jordan. Perhaps you were European in a former life, eh?” He gave me his broadest smile yet.

“Thanks,” I said with a touch of irony. “I take that as a great compliment, Jean. But I still have some important questions to ask you, mainly in reference to that crap you guys handed me this morning about giving you my passport to open up an account. I mean—come on, Jean—that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

Saurel lit up another cigarette and took a deep drag. Through exhaled smoke, he flashed me his conspirator’s smile, and said, “Well, my friend, knowing you now for who you are, I assume you have already figured out a way around this impediment, yes?”

I nodded but said nothing.

After a few seconds of silence, Saurel realized that I was expecting him to come clean with me. “Very well, then,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Most of what was said in the bank was complete horseshit, as you Americans say. It was said for the benefit of Kaminsky and, of course, for the benefit of one another. After all, we must appear to abide by the law. The simple fact is that it would be suicide for you to have your name behind a numbered Swiss account. I would never advise you to do such a thing. However, I think it would be prudent for you to open an account with our bank—one that proudly bears your name for one and all to see. This way, if the U.S. government ever subpoenaed your phone records, you would have a plausible explanation for calling our bank. As you know, there is no law against having a Swiss account. All you would have to do is send us a small sum of money, perhaps two hundred fifty thousand dollars, which we would then invest for you in various European stocks—only the best companies, of course—and that would give you reason enough to have contact with our bank on a continuous basis.”

Not bad! I thought. Plausible deniability was obviously an international obsession among white-collar criminals. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, trying to take the pressure off my left leg, which was slowly catching fire, and I casually said, “I see your point, and I might very well do that. But just so you know what kind of man you’re dealing with, the chances of me calling your bank from my own home are less than zero. I would sooner drive myself down to a pay phone in Brazil—with a couple of thousand cruzeiros in my pocket—before I allowed your number to appear on my phone bill.

“But to answer your question, I’m planning to use a family member with a different last name than mine. She’s from my wife’s side, and she’s not even a U.S. citizen; she’s British. I’m flying to London tomorrow morning, and I can have her back here the day after tomorrow—passport in hand—ready to open an account at your bank.”

Saurel nodded once and said, “I assume you trust this woman implicitly, because if you don’t, we can provide you with people who will use their own passports. These people are entirely unsophisticated—mostly farmers and shepherds from the Isle of Mann or other tax-free havens such as that—and they are one hundred percent trustworthy. Furthermore, they will not be allowed access to your account. But I’m sure that you have already taken this woman’s trustworthiness into consideration. However, I would still suggest that you meet with a man named Roland Franks.^*3 He is a professional with matters such as these, especially in the creation of documents. He can create bills of sale, financial letters, purchase orders, brokerage confirmations, and almost anything else within reason. He is what we call a trustee. He will help you form bearer corporations, which will further insulate you from the prying eyes of your government and allow you to break up your ownership of public companies into smaller increments, to avoid filing any of the requisite forms for over five percent stock ownership. He would be invaluable to a man like you—in all aspects of your business—both foreign and domestic.”

Interesting. They had their own vertically integrated rathole service. You had to love the Swiss. Roland Franks would act as a forger—generating documents that would support a notion of plausible deniability. “I would very much like to meet this man,” I replied. “Perhaps you can arrange something for the day after tomorrow.”

Saurel nodded and said, “I will see to it. Mr. Franks will also be helpful in developing strategies, which will pave the way for you to reinvest or, for that matter, to spend as much of your overseas money as you so desire, in ways that will not be, as you say, red-flagged by your regulatory agencies.”

“For instance?” I asked open-endedly.

“Well, there are many ways—the most common of which is to issue you a Visa card or an American Express card, which will be tied directly to one of your accounts at the bank. When you make a purchase, the money will be automatically deducted from your account.” Then he smiled and said, “And from what Kaminsky tells me, you spend quite a bit of money on your credit cards. So this will be a valuable tool for you.”

“Will the card be in my name or in the name of the woman I plan on bringing to the bank?”

“It will be in your name. But I would recommend that you allow us to issue one to her as well. It would be wise to let her spend a token sum each month, if you follow my line of thinking.”

I nodded in understanding. It was plainly obvious that having Patricia spend money each month would further support the notion that the account was actually hers. But I saw a different problem—namely, that if the card was in my name, all the FBI would have to do was follow me around while I went shopping and then walk into a store after I’d made a purchase and demand to see the credit-card imprint. Then my goose would be cooked. I found it odd that Saurel would recommend a strategy that I’d shot a broad hole through so quickly. But I chose to keep that thought to myself. Instead, I said, “In spite of my lavish spending habits, I still see that as a way to spend only a modest sum. After all, Jean, the transactions we’re contemplating are in the millions. I don’t think a debit card—as we call it in the U.S.—will make much of a dent in that. Are there other ways where larger amounts can be repatriated?”

“Yes, of course. Another common strategy is to put a mortgage on your home—using your own money. In other words, you would have Mr. Franks form a bearer corporation and then move money from one of your Swiss accounts into the corporate account. Then Mr. Franks would draw up official mortgage documents, which you would sign as the mortgagee and receive the money like that. This strategy has two benefits. First, you will be charging yourself interest, which will be earned in whatever country you choose to form your overseas corporation. Nowadays, Mr. Franks prefers to use the British Virgin Islands, which tend to be very lax with their paperwork requirements. And, of course, they have no income taxes. The second benefit is in the form of a domestic tax deduction in the United States. After all, in your country, mortgage interest is tax deductible.”

I ran that one through my mind and had to admit it was clever. But this strategy seemed even riskier than the debit card. If I were to put a mortgage on my home, it would be recorded by the Town of Old Brookville, which meant all the FBI would have to do is go down to the town and request a copy of my deed—at which point they would see that an overseas company had funded the mortgage. Talk about your red flags! Apparently, this was the more difficult part of the game. Getting money into a Swiss bank account was easy, and shielding yourself from an investigation was easy too. But repatriating the money without leaving a paper trail would prove to be difficult.

“By the way,” Jean asked, “what is the name of the woman you will be bringing to the bank?”

“Her name is Patricia; Patricia Mellor.”

Saurel smiled his conspirator’s smile once more, and he said, “That is a fine name, my friend. How could a woman with such a name ever break the law, eh?”

An hour later, Saurel and I had stepped out of the hotel elevator and were walking down the fourth-floor hallway on our way to Danny’s room. Like the lobby, the hallway’s carpet had the look of the retarded monkey, and the color scheme was the same sad mixture of dog-piss yellow and regurgitation pink. But the doors were brand-spanking new. They were dark-brown walnut, and they gleamed brilliantly. An interesting dichotomy, I thought. Maybe that was what they meant by Old World charm.

When we reached Danny’s gleaming door, I said, “Listen, Jean—Danny is quite the party animal, so don’t be surprised if he’s slurring a bit. He was drinking scotch when I left him, and I think he’s still got some sleeping pills in his system from the flight over. But, whatever he sounds like, I want you to know that when he’s sober he’s sharp as a tack. In fact, he lives by the motto ‘If you go out with the boys you gotta wake up with the men.’ You understand, Jean?”

Saurel smiled broadly and replied, “Ah, but of course I do. I could not help but respect a man who lives by such a philosophy. This is the way of things in much of Europe. I would be the last man to judge another based on his desire for the carnal pleasures.”

I turned the key and opened the door, and there was Danny, lying on the hotel-room floor, flat on his back, wearing nothing at all—unless, of course, you consider naked Swiss hookers clothing. After all, he was wearing four of those. There was one sitting on his face, backward, with her tight little butt smothering his nose; there was a second mounted upon his loins, thrusting up and down. She was engaged in a ferocious kiss with the girl sitting on Danny’s face. There was a third hooker holding his ankles down in a spread-eagle position, and the fourth hooker was holding his arms down, also spread eagle. The obvious fact that two new people had entered the room hadn’t slowed them down a bit. They were still going strong—business as usual.

I turned to Jean and took a moment to regard him. His head was cocked to one side and his right hand was rubbing his chin thoughtfully, as if he were trying to make heads or tails of what each girl’s role was in this sordid scene. Then, all at once, he narrowed his eyes and began nodding his head slowly.

“Danny!” I sputtered loudly. “What the fuck are you doing, you deviant?”

Danny wriggled his right arm free and pushed the young hooker off his face. He lifted his head and tried his best to smile, but his face was nearly frozen. Apparently he had gotten his hands on some cocaine too. “Ize zgezzing zcrummed!” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“You’re getting what? I can’t understand a word you’re fucking saying.”

Danny took a deep breath, as if he were trying to muster up every last ounce of manly strength, and he snapped in a staccato beat: “I…get…ting…scru…ummed!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I muttered.

Saurel said, “Ah, I do believe the man has said that he is getting scrummed, as if he were a rugby player of some sort.” With that, Jean Jacques nodded sagely and said, “Rugby is a very popular sport in France. It appears that your friend is, indeed, being scrummed, but in a most unusual fashion, although one I entirely agree with. Go upstairs and call your wife, Jordan. I will take care of your friend. Let’s see if he is a true gentleman and will be kind enough to share the wealth.”

I nodded and then went about searching Danny’s room—finding and flushing twenty Quaaludes and three grams of coke down the toilet. Then I left him and Saurel to their own devices.

A few minutes later I found myself lying in bed, contemplating the insanity of my life, when all at once I got a desperate urge to call the Duchess. I looked at my watch: It was 9:30 p.m. I did the calculation—4:30 a.m., New York time. Could I call her that late? The Duchess loved her sleep. Before my brain could answer the question, I was already dialing the phone.

After a few rings came the voice of my wife: “Hello?”

Gingerly, apologetically: “Hi, honey, it’s me. I’m sorry I called so late, but I’m really missing you bad, and I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.”

Sweet as sugar: “Oh, I love you too, baby, but it’s not late. It’s the middle of the afternoon! You got the time change backward.”

“Really?” I said. “Hmmm…well, anyway, I’m missing you really bad. You have no idea.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” said the luscious Duchess. “Channy and I both wish you were home with us. When are you coming back, my love?”

“As soon as I can. I’m flying to London tomorrow, to see Aunt Patricia.”

“Really?” she said, slightly surprised. “Why are you going to see Aunt Patricia?”

All at once it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be talking about this on the phone—and then all at once it occurred to me that I was getting my wife’s favorite aunt involved in a money-laundering caper. So I pushed those troubling thoughts aside and said, “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I have other business in London, so I’m going to stop in on Aunt Patricia and take her out for dinner.”

“Ohhh,” answered a happy Duchess. “Well, send Aunt Patricia my regards, okay, sweetie?”

“I will, baby, I will.” I paused for a brief moment, then I said, “Honey?”

“What, sweetie?”

With a heavy heart: “I’m sorry for everything.”

“For what, honey? What are you sorry for?”

“For everything, Nae. You know what I’m talking about. Anyway, I flushed all my Ludes down the toilet, and I haven’t done one since the plane flight over.”

“Really? How does your back feel?”

“Not too good, baby; it hurts really bad. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do. The last surgery made it even worse. Now it hurts all day long, and all night too. I don’t know—maybe all the pills are making it worse or something. I’m not really sure anymore. When I get back to the States, I’ll go see that doctor in Florida.”

“It’ll work out, my love. You’ll see. Do you know how much I love you?”

“Yes,” I said, lying. “I do. And I love you back twice as much. Just watch what a great husband I’m gonna be when I get home, okay?”

“You’re already great. Now go to sleep, baby, and come home safe to me as soon as you can, okay?”

“I will, Nae. I love you tons.” I hung up the phone, lay down on the bed, and began pushing in the back of my left leg with my thumb, trying to find the spot where the pain was coming from. But I couldn’t find it. It was coming from nowhere, and everywhere. And it seemed to be moving. I took a deep breath and tried to relax myself, to will away the pain.

Without even knowing it, I found myself saying that same silent prayer—that a bolt of lightning would come down from out of a clear blue sky and electrocute my wife’s dog. Then, with my left leg still on fire, the jet lag finally got the best of me and I fell asleep.