The Wolf of Wall Street

CHAPTER 20

A CHINK IN THE ARMOR

The doleful Duchess had been half right and half wrong.

Yes, she’d been right about her mother insisting on playing a small role in “this fabulous adventure of mine,” as she and Patricia had come to refer to my international money-laundering scheme. In fact, there had been no talking her out of it. But in both our defenses (Suzanne’s and mine), it was a rather sexy notion, wasn’t it? To stuff an obscene amount of money—$900,000, to be exact—into an oversize pocketbook and then throw it over your shoulder and walk straight through Customs without getting caught? Yes, yes, it was very sexy, indeed!

But, no, no, the Duchess had been wrong to worry herself sick over it. The simple fact was that Suzanne had breached the gauntlet on both sides of the Atlantic without a raised eyebrow—delivering the cash to Jean Jacques Saurel with a wink and a smile. Now she was safely back in England, where she would be spending the rest of September with Aunt Patricia, as the two of them basked in the glory of getting away with breaking a dozen or so laws.

So the Duchess had forgiven me and we were lovers once more—currently taking an end-of-summer vacation in the harbor town of Newport, Rhode Island. Joining us were my oldest friend, Alan Lipsky, and his soon to be ex-wife, Doreen.

At this particular moment it was just Alan and I, and we were walking along a wooden dock on our way to the yacht Nadine. We were shoulder to shoulder, but Alan’s shoulder was a good six inches above mine. He was big and broad, Alan, with a barrel of a chest and a big thick neck. His face was handsome, in a Mafia hit man sort of way, with big, thick features and big, bushy eyebrows. Even now, dressed in a pair of light-blue Bermuda shorts, a tan V-neck T-shirt, and tan boating moccasins, he looked menacing.

Up ahead, I could see the Nadine towering above all the other yachts, its unusual tan color making it stand out that much more. As I drank up the glorious view, I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth I had bought the fucking thing. My crooked accountant, Dennis Gaito, had begged me not to—reciting the age-old axiom: “The two happiest days for a boat owner are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells his boat!” Dennis was as sharp as a whip, so I hesitated—until the Duchess told me that buying a yacht was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, which left me no choice but to immediately write a check.

So now I owned the yacht Nadine, which was 167 feet of floating heartache. The problem was that the boat was old, originally built for famed designer Coco Chanel back in the early 1960s. In consequence, the thing was noisy as hell and constantly breaking down. Like most yachts of that era, there was enough teakwood adorning the three massive decks to keep the crew of twelve on their hands and knees, with varnish brushes, from morning until night. Every moment I was on the boat it reeked of varnish, which made me nauseous.

Ironically, when the yacht was built it was only 120 feet long. But then the previous owner, Bernie Little, decided to extend it to make room for a helicopter. And Bernie—well, Bernie was the cunning sort of bastard who knew a sucker when he saw one. He quickly convinced me to buy the yacht after I’d chartered it a few times, using my love for Captain Marc to seal the deal (he gave me Captain Marc with the boat). Shortly thereafter, Captain Marc convinced me to build a jet-powered seaplane from scratch—his theory being that the two of us were avid scuba divers and we could fly the seaplane to uncharted waters and find fish that had never been hunted before. He’d said, “The fish will be so stupid we’ll be able to pet them before we spear them!” It was a rather sexy prospect, I’d thought, so I gave him the green light to build it. The budget was $500,000, which quickly turned into a million.

But when we tried craning the seaplane onto the upper deck, we realized that the deck wasn’t big enough. What with the Bell Jet helicopter, the six Kawasaki Jet Skis, the two Honda motorcycles, the fiberglass diving board and water slide—all of which were already on the top deck—there would no room for the helicopter to take off and land without colliding with the seaplane. I was in so deep with all this crap that I had no choice but to put the boat back in the shipyard and have it extended once more, for a cost of $700,000.

So the front had been pulled forward; the back had been pushed back; the yacht now looked like a 167-foot rubber band on the verge of snapping.

I said to Alan, “I’ll tell you, I really love this boat. I’m glad I bought it.”

Alan nodded in agreement. “She’s a beauty!”

Captain Marc was waiting for me on the dock, looking as square as one of those Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots that Alan and I used to play with as kids. He was dressed in a white collared T-shirt and white boating shorts, both of which bore the Nadine logo—two gold-colored eagle’s feathers bent around a royal-blue capital N.

Captain Marc said, “You got a bunch of phone calls, boss. One from Danny, who sounded higher than a kite, and then three more calls from a girl named Carolyn, with a heavy French accent. She said you need to call her right away, as soon as you get back to the boat.”

Immediately my heart began thumping inside my chest. Christ! Danny was supposed to meet Todd this morning and give him the million dollars! Shit! All at once a thousand thoughts went flashing through my brain. Had something gone wrong? Had they somehow gotten caught? Were they both in jail? No, that was impossible, unless they were being followed. But why would someone be following them? Or maybe Danny had showed up stoned and Todd had knocked him out and Carolyn was calling to apologize. No, that was ridiculous! Todd would call himself, wouldn’t he? Fuck! I had forgotten to tell Danny not to show up stoned!

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. Maybe it was all just a coincidence. I smiled at Captain Marc and said, “Did Danny say anything?”

Captain Marc shrugged. “It was kinda hard to understand him, but he said to tell you that everything was cool.”

Alan said, “Is everything okay? You need me to do anything?”

“No, no,” I replied, breathing a sigh of relief. Alan, of course, having grown up in Bayside, knew Todd as well as I did. Still, I hadn’t told Alan what was going on. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him; there simply had been no reason to tell him. The only thing he was aware of was that I was going to need his brokerage firm, Monroe Parker, to buy a few million shares of Dollar Time from an unaffiliated overseas seller, which, perhaps, he assumed was me. But he had never asked (it would have been a serious breach of protocol). I calmly said, “I’m sure it’s nothing. I just gotta make a couple of phone calls. I’ll be downstairs in my bedroom.” With that I took a small hop off the edge of the wooden dock and landed on the yacht, which was tied alongside it, lengthwise. Then I went downstairs to the master suite and picked up the satellite phone and dialed Danny’s cell phone.

The phone rang three times. “Haaawoaaa?” muttered Danny, sounding like Elmer Fudd.

I looked at my watch: It was eleven-thirty. Unbelievable! He was stoned at eleven-thirty in the morning on a Wednesday, a workday! “Danny, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you so stoned at the office?”

“No, no, no! I zake off zaday”—take off today—“because I met Tazz”—Todd—“but doze you worry! It all go perfect! Iz done! Clean, no marks!”

Well, at least my worst fears were unfounded. “Who’s minding the store, Danny?”

“I leave Blockhead and Wigwam there. Iz fine! Mad Max there too.”

“Was Todd pissed at you, Danny?”

“Uh-huh,” he muttered. “He crazy bastard, zat lumberjack! He pull out gun and point it at me and tell me I lucky I your friend. He shouldn’t carry gun. Iz against the law!”

He pulled out a gun? In plain sight? That made no sense! Todd might be crazy, but he wasn’t reckless! “I don’t understand, Danny. He pulled out a gun in the street?”

“No, no! I give him briefcase in back of limo. We meet in Bay Terrace Zopping Zenter”—Shopping Center—“in za parking lot. It all go fine. I stay for only a second, then I drive away.”

Christ almighty! What a scene that must’ve been! Todd in a black stretch Lincoln limousine, Danny in a black Rolls-Royce convertible, side by side in the Bay Terrace Shopping Center, where the next-nicest car was bound to be a Pontiac!

Once more I asked, “Are you sure everything went okay?”

“Yes, I sure!” he said indignantly, to which I slammed the phone down right in his ear, not so much because I was pissed at him but because I was the ultimate hypocrite—finding it annoying to speak to a stoned fool when I was sober.

I was about to pick up the phone and dial Carolyn when the phone started ringing. I took a moment to regard the phone, and at that very moment I felt like Mad Max, my pulse quickening with each terrible ring. But rather than answering it, I simply cocked my head to the side and stared at it with contempt.

On the fourth ring someone picked it up. I waited…and prayed. A moment later I heard a menacing little beep and then the voice of Tanji, Captain Marc’s sexy girlfriend, saying, “It’s Carolyn Garret for you, Mr. Belfort, on line two.”

I paused for a brief moment to gather my thoughts and then picked up the handset. “Hey, Carolyn, what’s going on? Is everything all right?”

“Oh, shit—thanks God I finally find you! Jordan, Todd is in jail and—”

I cut her off immediately. “Carolyn, don’t say another word. I’m going to a pay phone and I’ll call you right back. Are you home?”

“Yes, I home. I wait right here for your call.”

“All right; don’t move. Everything will be fine, Carolyn. I promise you.”

I hung up the phone and sat down on the edge of the bed, in a state of disbelief. My mind was racing in a thousand different directions. I felt an odd feeling that I had never felt before. Todd was in jail. In fucking jail! How could it have happened? Would he talk?…No, of course not! If anyone lived by the code of omerta it was Todd Garret! Besides, how many years did he really have to live? He had a fucking lumberjack’s heart beating inside him, for Chrissake! He was always saying how he was living on borrowed time, wasn’t he? Perhaps a trial could be delayed until he was already dead. Immediately I regretted thinking any such thought, although I had to admit there was truth to it.

I took a deep breath—and tried to collect myself. Then I rose from the bed and made a quick beeline for the pay phone.

As I was walking down the dock it occurred to me that I had only five Quaaludes in my possession, which, given the current circumstances, was an entirely unacceptable number. I wasn’t supposed to head back to Long Island for three more days, and my back had really been killing me…sort of. Besides, I’d been an angel for over a month now, and that was long enough.

The moment I reached the phone I picked it up and dialed Janet. As I punched in my calling-card number, I wondered if it would somehow make the call more traceable or, for that matter, more buggable. After a few seconds, though, I dismissed the thought as ridiculous. Using a calling card didn’t make it any easier for the FBI to tap my phone conversation; it was the same as using quarters. Still, it was the thought of a careful, prudent man, so I commended myself for thinking it.

“Janet,” said the prudent man, “I want you to go into the bottom right-hand drawer of my desk and count out forty Ludes; then give them to Wigwam and have him fly them up here on a chopper right now. There’s a private airport a few miles from the harbor. He can land there. I don’t have time to pick him up, so have a limo waiting for—”

Janet cut me off. “I’ll have him there in two hours; don’t worry about it. Is everything okay? You sound upset.”

“Everything’s fine. I just miscalculated before I left and now I’m out. Anyway, my back’s been hurting, so I need to take the edge off.” I hung up the phone without saying good-bye, then picked it right back up and dialed Carolyn at home. The moment she answered I was on her.

“Carolyn, is—”

“OhmyGod, I must tell you what is—”

“Carolyn, don’t—”

“Going on with Tahad! He is—”

“Carolyn, don’t—”

“In jail, and he said that—”

She refused to stop talking, so I screamed: “Carrrrrrrolyn!”

That got her.

“Listen to me, Carolyn, and don’t talk. I’m sorry for yelling at you, but I don’t want you to talk from your house. Do you understand?”

“Oui,” she replied. Even now I noticed that during the heat of the moment she obviously found it soothing to speak in her own language.

“Okay,” I said calmly. “Go to the nearest pay phone and call this number: area code 401-555-1665. That’s where I am right now. Got it?”

“Yes,” she replied calmly, switching back to English. “I write it down. I call you back in few minutes. I must get change.”

“No, just use my calling-card number,” I said, just as calmly.

Five minutes later the phone rang. I picked it up and asked Carolyn to read me the number off the pay phone she was at. Then I hung up, switched to the pay phone next to me, and dialed Carolyn’s pay phone.

She immediately plunged into the details. “…so Tahad waiting in parking lot for Danny, and he finally show up in big-shot Rolls-Royce and he very stoned, swerving around shopping center, almost hitting other cars. So security guards call police because they think Danny driving drunk. He give money to Todd and he leave right away because Todd threaten to kill him for being stoned. But he leave Todd with briefcase. Then Todd saw two police cars with flashing lights and realize what is happening, so he run into video store and hide gun in video box, but police handcuff him anyway. Then police play back security video and see where he hide gun, and they find it and arrest him. Then they go to limousine and search and find money and take it.”

Holy shit! I thought. The money was the least of my problems. The main problem was that Danny was a fucking dead man! He would have to leave town and never come back. Or make some sort of financial compensation to Todd, to buy him off.

Just then it occurred to me that Todd must’ve told all this to Carolyn over the telephone. And if he was still in jail, then he must’ve used the phone from—Shit! Todd was smarter than that! Why would he risk using a phone that was almost certainly tapped—to call his own house, nonetheless?

“When did you last speak to Todd?” I asked, praying there was some explanation.

“I not speak to him. His lawyer call me and tell me this. Todd call him and tell him to get bail money, and then Todd say I must leave to Switzerland tonight, before this become problem. So I book ticket for Tahad’s parents and Dina and me. Rich will sign for Todd and I will give him bail money.”

Christ almighty! This was an awful lot to take in. At least Todd had had enough common sense not to talk on the phone. And insofar as his conversation with his lawyer went, that would be privileged. Yet the most ironic part was that in the middle of the whole thing—while he was sitting in jail—Todd was still trying to get my money overseas. I didn’t know whether to be appreciative of his unwavering commitment to my cause or angry over how reckless he was. I ran the whole thing through my mind, trying to put it all into perspective. The truth was that the police probably thought they’d stumbled onto a drug deal. Todd was the seller, which was why he had a briefcase full of cash, and whoever had been driving the Rolls-Royce was the buyer. I wondered if they had gotten Danny’s license plate? If they had, wouldn’t they have already picked him up? But on what grounds would they arrest him? In truth, they had nothing on Danny. All they had was a briefcase full of cash, nothing more. The main issue was the gun, but that could be dealt with. A good lawyer could most certainly get Todd off with probation and maybe a hefty fine. I would pay the fine—or Danny would pay the fine—and that would be that.

I said to the Bombshell, “Okay, you should go. Todd gave you all the specifics, right? You know who to go see?”

“Yes. I will see Jean Jacques Saurel. I have phone number and I know street very well. It is in shopping area.”

“All right, Carolyn; be careful. Tell the same to Todd’s parents and to Dina. And, also, call Todd’s lawyer and tell him to let Todd know that you spoke to me and that he has nothing to worry about. Tell him that everything will be taken care of. And stress the word everything, Carolyn. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, yes, I do. Don’t worry, Jordan. Tahad love you. He would never say one word, no matter what. I promise you this with all my heart. He will sooner kill himself before he hurt you.”

Those very words made me smile inwardly, even though I knew Todd was incapable of loving any soul on earth, especially himself. Yet Todd’s very persona, the persona of the Jewish Mafioso, made it highly unlikely that he would roll over on me unless he was facing many years in jail.

Having worked things out in my mind, I wished the Bombshell a bon voyage and hung up the phone. As I headed back to the yacht, the only remaining question was whether or not I should call Danny and give him the bad news. Or perhaps it would be wiser to wait until he wasn’t so stoned. Although, now that after the initial wave of panic had subsided, it wasn’t such bad news, after all. It certainly wasn’t good news, but it was more of an unexpected complication than anything else.

Still, there was no denying that those Quaaludes were going to be Danny’s downfall. He had a serious problem with them, and perhaps it was time that he sought help.