The Wolf of Wall Street

CHAPTER 39

SIX WAYS TO KILL AN INTERVENTIONIST

My dog needs an operation…my car broke down…my boss is an asshole…my wife’s a bigger asshole…traffic jams drive me crazy…life’s not fair…and so forth and so on…

Yes, indeed, it was drizzling something awful in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous in Southampton, Long Island. I’d been home for a week now, and as part of my recovery I’d committed to doing a Ninety-in-Ninety, which is to say: I had set a goal to attend ninety AA meetings in ninety days. And with a very nervous Duchess watching me like a hawk, I had no choice but to do it.

I quickly realized it was going to be a very long ninety days.

The moment I stepped into my first meeting, someone asked me if I’d like to be the guest speaker, to which I’d replied, “Speak in front of the group? Sure, why not!” What could be better than that? I figured.

The problems started quickly. I was offered a seat behind a rectangular table at the front of the room. The meeting’s chairperson, a kind-looking man in his early fifties, sat down beside me and made a few brief announcements. Then he motioned for me to begin.

I nodded and said, in a loud, forthright voice, “Hi, my name is Jordan, and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”

The room of thirty or so ex-drunks responded in unison: “Hi, Jordan; welcome.”

I smiled and nodded. With great confidence, I said, “I’ve been sober for thirty-seven days now and—”

I was immediately cut off. “Excuse me,” said an ex-drunk with gray hair and spidery veins on his nose. “You need to be sober ninety days to speak at this meeting.”

Why, the insolence of the old bastard! I was absolutely devastated. I felt like I’d gotten on the school bus without remembering to put my clothes on. I just sat there, in this terribly uncomfortable wooden chair, staring at the old drunk and waiting for someone to drag me off with a hook.

“No, no. Let’s not be too tough,” said the chairperson. “Since he’s already up here, why don’t we just let him speak? It’ll be a breath of fresh air to hear a newcomer.”

Impudent mumbles came bubbling up from the crowd, along with a series of insolent shrugs and contemptuous head-shakes. They looked angry. And vicious. The chairperson put his arm on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes, as if to say, “It’s okay. You can go on.”

I nodded my head nervously. “Okay,” I said to the angry ex-drunks. “I’ve been sober for thirty-seven days now and—”

I was cut off again, except this time by thunderous applause. Ahhh, how wonderful! The Wolf was receiving his first ovation, and he hadn’t even gotten going yet! Wait ’til they hear my story! I’ll bring the house down!

Slowly, the applause died down, and with renewed confidence I plowed on: “Thanks, everybody. I really appreciate the vote of confidence. My drug of choice was Quaaludes, but I did a lot of cocaine too. In fact—”

I was cut off again. “Excuse me,” said my nemesis with the spider veins, “this is an AA meeting, not an NA meeting. You can’t talk about drugs here, only alcohol.”

I looked around the room, and all heads were nodding in agreement. Oh, shit! That seemed like a dated policy. This was the nineties now. Why would someone choose to be an alcoholic yet shun drugs? It made no sense.

I was about to jump out of my chair and run for the hills, when I heard a powerful female voice yell, “How dare you, Bill! How dare you try to drive away this young boy who’s fighting for his life! You’re despicable! We’re all addicts here. Now, why don’t you just shut up and mind your own business and let the boy speak?”

The boy? Had I just been called a boy? I was almost thirty-five now, for Chrissake! I looked over at the voice, and it was coming from a very old lady wearing granny glasses. She winked at me. So I winked back.

The old drunk sputtered at Grandma, “Rules are rules, you old hag!”

I shook my head in disbelief. Why did the insanity follow me wherever I went? I hadn’t done anything wrong here, had I? I just wanted to stay sober. Yet, once again, I was at the center of an uproar. “Whatever,” I said to the chairperson. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

At the end of the day, they let me speak, although I left the meeting wanting to wring the old bastard’s neck. From there, things continued to spiral downward when I went to an NA—Narcotics Anonymous—meeting. There were only four other people in the room; three of them were visibly stoned, and the fourth had even fewer days sober than me.

I wanted to say something to the Duchess, to tell her that this whole AA thing wasn’t for me, but I knew she’d be devastated. Our relationship was growing stronger by the day. There was no more fighting or cursing or hitting or stabbing or slapping or water-throwing—nothing. We were just two normal individuals, living a normal life with Chandler and Carter and twenty-two in domestic help. We had decided to stay out in Southampton for the summer. Better to keep me isolated from the madness, we figured, at least until my sobriety took hold. The Duchess had issued warnings to all my old friends: They were no longer welcome in our house unless they were sober. Alan Chemical-tob received a personal warning from Bo, and I never heard from him again.

And my business? Well, without Quaaludes and cocaine, I no longer had the stomach for it, or at least not yet. As a sober man, problems like Steve Madden Shoes seemed easy to deal with. I’d had my lawyers file a lawsuit, while I was still in rehab, and the escrow agreement was now public. So far, I hadn’t gotten myself arrested over it, and I suspected I never would. After all, on the face of it, the agreement wasn’t illegal; it was more an issue of Steve having not disclosed it to the public—which made it his liability more than mine. Besides, Agent Coleman had faded off into the sunset long ago, hopefully never to be heard from again. Eventually, I would have to settle with the Cobbler. I had already resigned myself to that fact, and I no longer gave a shit. Even in my most depraved emotional state—just before I’d entered rehab—it wasn’t the money that had been driving me crazy but the idea of the Cobbler trying to snatch my stock and keep it for himself. And that was no longer a possibility. As part of a settlement he would be forced to sell my stock to pay me off, and that would be that. I would let my lawyers deal with it.

I had been home for a little over a week when I came home one evening from an AA meeting and found the Duchess sitting in the TV room—the very room where I had lost my twenty-gram rock six weeks ago, which the Duchess had now admitted to having flushed down the toilet.

With a great smile on my face, I said, “Hey, sweetie! What’s—”

The Duchess looked up, and I froze in horror. She was visibly shaken. Tears streamed down her face, and her nose was running. With a sinking heart, I said, “Jesus, baby! What’s wrong? What happened?” I hugged her gently.

Her body was trembling in my arms when she pointed to the TV screen and said through tears, “It’s Scott Schneiderman. He killed a police officer a few hours ago. He was trying to rob his father for coke money and he shot a policeman.” She broke down hysterically.

I felt tears streaming down my cheeks as I said, “Jesus, Nae, he was here just a month ago. I…I don’t…” I searched for something to say but quickly realized that no words could describe the magnitude of this tragedy.

So I said nothing.

A week later, on a Friday evening, the seven-thirty meeting at Our Lady of Poland Church had just begun. It was Memorial Day weekend, and I was expecting the usual sixty minutes of torture. Then, to my shock, the opening words from the meeting’s chairperson came in the form of a directive—stating that there would be no drug-drizzling allowed, not under his watch. He was creating a Drizzle-Free Zone, he explained, because the purpose of AA was to create hope and faith, not to complain about the length of the checkout line at Grand Union. Then he held up an egg timer for public inspection, and he said, “There’s nothing that you can’t say in less than two and a half minutes that I have any interest in hearing. So keep it short and sweet.” He nodded once.

I was sitting toward the back, next to a middle-aged woman who looked reasonably well kept, for an ex-drunk. She had reddish hair and a ruddy complexion. I leaned over to her and whispered, “Who is that guy?”

“That’s George. He’s sort of the unofficial leader here.”

“Really?” I said. “Of this meeting?”

“No, no,” she whispered, in a tone implying that I was seriously out of the loop, “not just here, all over the Hamptons.” She looked around conspiratorially, as if she were about to pass on a piece of top-secret information. Then, sotto voce, she said, “He owns Seafield, the drug rehab. You’ve never seen him on TV?”

I shook my head no. “I don’t watch much TV, although he does look somewhat familiar. He—ohmygod!” I was speechless. It was Fred Flintstone, the man with the enormous head who’d popped on my TV screen at three in the morning, inspiring me to throw my Remington sculpture at his face!

After the meeting ended, I waited until the crowd died down and then went up to George and said, “Hi, my name is Jordan. I just wanted you to know that I really enjoyed the meeting. It was terrific.”

He extended his hand, which was the size of a catcher’s mitt. I shook it dutifully, praying he wouldn’t rip my arm out of its socket.

“Thanks,” he said. “Are you a newcomer?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m forty-three days sober.”

“Congratulations. That’s no small accomplishment. You should be proud.” He paused and cocked his head to the side, taking a good hard look at me. “You know, you look familiar. What’d you say your name was again?”

Here we go! Those bastards in the press—there was no escaping them! Fred Flintstone had seen my picture in the paper, and now he was going to judge me. It was time for a strategic subject change. “My name’s Jordan, and I gotta tell you a funny story, George: I was in my house up the Island, in Old Brookville, and it was three in the morning…” and I proceeded to tell him how I threw my Remington sculpture at his face, to which he smiled and replied, “You and a thousand other people. Sony should pay me a dollar for every TV they sold to a drug addict who smashed their TV after my commercial.” He let out a chuckle, then added skeptically, “You live in Old Brookville? That’s a helluva nice neighborhood. You live with your parents?”

“No,” I said, smiling. “I’m married with children, but that commercial was too—”

He cut me off. “You out here for Memorial Day?”

Jesus! This wasn’t going according to plan. He had me on the defensive. “No, I have a house out here.”

Sounding surprised: “Oh, really, where?”

I took a deep breath and said, “Meadow Lane.”

He pulled his head back a few inches and narrowed his eyes. “You live on Meadow Lane? Really?”

I nodded slowly.

Fred Flintstone smirked. Apparently, the picture was growing clearer. He smiled and said, “And what did you say your last name was?”

“I didn’t. But it’s Belfort. Ring a bell?”

“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “A couple a hundred million of them. You’re that kid who started…uh…what’s it called…Strathman something or other.”

“Stratton Oakmont,” I said tonelessly.

“Yeah! That’s it. Stratton Oakmont! Holy Christ! You look like a fucking teenager! How could you have caused so much commotion?”

I shrugged. “The power of drugs, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, well, you bastards took me for a hundred large in some crazy fucking stock. I can’t even remember the name of it.”

Oh, shit! This was bad. George might take a swing at me with those catcher’s mitts of his! I would offer to pay him back right now. I would run home and get the money out of my safe. “I haven’t been involved with Stratton for a long time, but I’d still be more than happy to—”

He cut me off again. “Listen, I’m really enjoying this conversation, but I gotta get home. I’m expecting a call.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you up. I’ll come back next week; maybe we can talk then.”

“Why, you going someplace now?”

“No, why?”

He smiled. “I was going to invite you over for a cup of coffee. I live just down the block from you.”

With raised eyebrows, I said, “You’re not mad about the hundred grand?”

“Nah, what’s a hundred grand between two drunks, right? Besides, I needed the tax deduction.” He smiled and put his arm on my shoulder, and we headed for the door. He said, “I was expecting to find you in the rooms one of these days. I’ve heard some pretty wild stories about you. I’m just glad you made it here before it was too late.”

I nodded in agreement. Then George added, “Anyway, I’m only inviting you over to my house under one condition.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I wanna know the truth about whether you sank your yacht for the insurance money.” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

I smiled and said, “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way!”

And just like that I walked out of the Friday night meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with my new sponsor: George B.

George lived on South Main Street, one of the premier streets in the estate section of Southampton. It was one notch down from Meadow Lane, insofar as price was concerned, although the cheapest home on South Main would still set you back $3 million. We were sitting across from each other, on either side of a very expensive bleached-oak table, inside his French country kitchen.

I was in the middle of explaining to George how I planned to kill my interventionist Dennis Maynard, just as soon as my Ninety-in-Ninety had been completed. I had decided that George was the appropriate person to speak to about such an affair after he told me a quick story about a process server who came on his property to serve a bogus summons on him. When George refused to answer the door, the process server started nailing the summons to his hand-polished mahogany door. George went to the door and waited until the process server had the hammer in an upstroke, then he swung open the door, punched the process server’s lights out, and slammed the door shut. It had all happened so fast that the process server couldn’t describe George to the police, so no charges were filed.

“…and it’s fucking despicable,” I was saying, “that this bastard calls himself a professional. Forget the fact that he told my wife not to come visit me while I was rotting away in the loony bin! I mean, that alone is grounds to have his legs broken. But to invite her to the movies to try to coax her into bed, well, that’s grounds for death!” I shook my head in rage and let out a deep breath, happy to finally get things off my chest.

And George actually agreed with me! Yes, in his opinion my drug interventionist did deserve to die. So we spent the next few minutes debating the best ways to kill him—starting with my idea of cutting off his dick with a pair of hydraulic bolt cutters. But George didn’t think that would be painful enough, because the interventionist would go into shock before his dick hit the carpet and bleed out in a matter of seconds. So we moved on to fire—burning him to death. George liked that because it was very painful, but it worried him because of the possibility of collateral damage, since we would be burning his house down as part of the plan. Next came carbon monoxide poisoning, which we both agreed was far too painless, so we debated the pros and cons of poisoning his food, which, in the end, seemed a bit too nineteenth century. A simple botched-burglary attempt came to mind, one that turned into murder (to avoid witnesses). But then we thought about paying a crack addict five dollars to run up to the interventionist and stab him right in the gut with a rusty knife. This way, George explained, he would bleed out nice and slow, especially if the stab wound was just over his liver, which would make it that much more painful.

Then I heard the door swing open and a female voice yell, “George, whose Mercedes is that?” It was a kind, sweet voice, which happened to have a ferocious Brooklyn accent attached to it, so the words came out like: “Gawge, whoze Mihcedees is that?”

A moment later, one of the cutest ladies on the planet walked in the kitchen. As big as he was, she was tiny—maybe five feet, a hundred pounds. She had strawberry-blond hair, honey-brown eyes, tiny features, and perfect Irish Spring skin, smattered with a fair number of freckles. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, but very well preserved.

George said, “Annette, say hello to Jordan. Jordan, say hello to Annette.”

I went to shake her hand, but she moved right past it and gave me a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. She smelled clean and fresh and of some very expensive perfume, which I couldn’t quite place. Annette smiled and held me out in front of her by my shoulders, at arm’s length, as if she were inspecting me. “Well, I’ll give you one thing,” she said matter-of-factly, “you’re not the typical stray George brings home.”

We all broke up over that one, and then Annette excused herself and went about her usual business, which was making George’s life as comfortable as possible. In no time flat, there was a fresh pot of coffee on the table, as well as cakes and pastries and donuts and a bowl of freshly cut fruit. Then she offered to cook me a full-blown dinner, because she thought I looked too thin, to which I said, “You should’ve seen me forty-three days ago!”

And as we sipped our coffee, I kept going on about my interventionist. Annette was quick to jump on the bandwagon. “He sounds like a real bastard”—bahstid—“if you ask me,” said the tiny Brooklyn firecracker. “I think you got every right in the world to wanna chop his cojones off. Don’t you, Gwibbie?”

Gwibbie? That was an interesting nickname for George! I kinda liked it, although it didn’t really suit him. Perhaps Sasquatch, I thought…or maybe Goliath or Zeus.

Gwibbie nodded and said, “I think the guy deserves to die a slow, painful death, so I want to think about it overnight. We can plan it out tomorrow.”

I looked at Gwibbie and nodded in agreement. “Definitely!” I said. “This guy deserves a fiery death.”

Annette said to George, “And what are you gonna tell him tomorrow, Gwib?”

Gwib said, “Tomorrow I’m gonna tell him that I want to think about it overnight and then we can plan it out the next day.” He smiled wryly.

I smiled and shook my head. “You guys are too much! I knew you were fucking around with me.”

Annette said, “I wasn’t! I think he does deserve to have his cojones chopped off!” Now her voice took on a very knowing tone. “George does interventions all the time, and I’ve never heard of the wife being left out of it, right, Gwib?”

Gwib shrugged his enormous shoulders. “I don’t like passing judgment on other people’s methods, but it sounds like there was a certain warmth missing from your intervention. I’ve done hundreds of them, and the one thing I always make sure of is that the person being intervened on understands how much he’s loved and how everyone will be there for him if he does the right thing and gets sober. I would never keep a wife away from her husband. Ever.” He shrugged his great shoulders once more. “But all’s well that ends well, right? You’re alive and sober, which is a wonderful miracle, although I question whether or not you’re really sober.”

“What do you mean? Of course I’m sober! I have forty-three days today, and in a few hours I’ll have forty-four. I haven’t touched anything. I swear.”

“Ahhh,” said George, “you have forty-three days without drinking and drugging, but that doesn’t mean you’re actually sober. There’s a difference, right, Annette?”

Annette nodded. “Tell him about Kenton Rhodes,^*13 George.”

“The department-store guy?” I asked.

They both nodded, and George said, “Yeah, but actually it’s his idiot son, the heir to the throne. He has a house in Southampton, not far from you.”

With that, Annette plunged into the story. “Yeah, you see, I used to own a store just up the street from here, over on Windmill Lane; it was called the Stanley Blacker Boutique. Anyway, we sold all this terrific Western wear, Tony Lama boo—”

George, apparently, had no patience for drizzling even from his own wife, and he cut her right off. “Jesus Christ, Annette, what the hell does that have to do with the story? No one cares what you sold in your goddamn store or who my tenants were nineteen years ago.” He looked at me and rolled his eyes.

George took a deep breath, puffing himself up to the size of an industrial refrigerator, and then slowly let it out. “So Annette owned this store up by Windmill Lane, and she used to park her little Mercedes out in front. One day she’s inside the store waiting on a customer, and she sees through the window this other Mercedes pulling in behind her car and hitting her rear bumper. Then, a few seconds later, a man gets out with his girlfriend, and without even leaving a note he goes walking into town.”

At this point, Annette looked at me and raised her eyebrows, and she whispered, “It was Kenton Rhodes who hit me!”

George shot her a look and said, “Right, it was Kenton Rhodes. Anyway, Annette comes out of the store and sees that not only did he hit the back of her car but he also parked illegally, in a fire zone, so she calls the cops and they come and give him a ticket. Then, an hour later, he comes walking out of some restaurant, drunk as a skunk; he’s goes back to his car and looks at the parking ticket and smiles, and then he rips it up and throws it in the street.”

Annette couldn’t resist the temptation to chime in again: “Yeah, and this bahstid had this smug look on his face, so I ran outside and said, ‘Let me tell you something, buddy—not only did you hit my car and make a dent but you got the nerve to park in a fire zone and then just rip the ticket up and throw it on the floor and litter.”

George nodded gravely. “And I happened to be walking by as all this is happening, and I see Annette pointing her finger at this smug bastard and screaming at him, and then I hear him call her a bitch, or something along those lines. So I walk up to Annette and say, ‘Get in the damn store, Annette, right now!’ and Annette runs inside the store, knowing what’s coming next. Meanwhile, Kenton Rhodes is mouthing off to me something fierce, as he climbs inside his Mercedes. He slams the door shut and starts the car and hits the power-window button, and the thick tempered glass starts sliding up. Then he puts on this enormous pair of Porsche sunglasses—you know, the big ones that make you look like an insect—and he smiles at me and gives me the middle finger.”

I started laughing and shaking my head. “So what did you do?”

George rolled his fire hydrant of a neck. “What did I do? I wound up with all my might and I hit the driver’s side window so hard that it smashed into a thousand pieces. My hand landed directly on Kenton Rhodes’s left temple and knocked him unconscious, and his head fell right in his girlfriend’s lap, with those obnoxious Porsche sunglasses still on his face—except now they were all cockeyed.”

Through laughter, I said, “You get arrested?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. See, now his girlfriend was screaming at the top of her lungs: ‘OhmyGod! OhmyGod! You killed him! You’re a maniac!’ And she jumps out of the car and runs over to the police station to get a cop. A few minutes later, Kenton Rhodes is just coming to, and his girlfriend is running back with a cop, who happens to be my good friend Pete Orlando. So she runs over to the driver’s side and helps Kenton Rhodes out of the car and brushes all the glass off him, and then the two of them start barking away at Pete Orlando, demanding that he arrest me.

“Annette comes running out, screaming, ‘He ripped up a ticket, Pete, and he threw it on the floor! He’s a goddamn litterbug and he parked in a fire zone!’ to which Pete walks around the back of the car and starts shaking his head gravely. Then he turns to Kenton Rhodes and says, ‘You’re parked in a fire zone; move your car right now or I’m having it towed.’ So Kenton Rhodes starts muttering under his breath, cursing out Pete Orlando as he gets in his car and slams the door shut. Then he turns on the ignition and puts the car in gear and starts backing up a few feet, at which point Pete holds up his hand and yells, ‘Stop! Get out of the car, sir!’ So Kenton Rhodes stops the car and gets out and says, ‘What now?’ and Pete says, ‘I smell alcohol on your breath; you’re gonna have to take a sobriety test.’ And now Kenton Rhodes starts muttering at Pete: ‘You don’t know who the fuck I am!’ and all the rest of that crap—and he was still muttering curses a minute later when Pete Orlando arrested him for drunk driving and slapped the cuffs on him.”

The three of us cackled for what had to be at least a minute; it was my first sober belly laugh in almost ten years. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard. The story had a message, of course—that back then George was newly sober, which is to say he wasn’t really sober at all. He might’ve stopped drinking, but he was still acting like a drunk.

Finally, George regained his composure and said, “Anyway, you’re a smart guy, so I think you got the point.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that wanting to kill my interventionist is not the act of a sober man.”

“Exactly,” he said. “It’s okay to think about it, to talk about it, to even make jokes about it. But to actually act on it—that’s the point where the question of sobriety raises itself.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been sober for more than twenty years now, and I still go to meetings every day—not just so I won’t drink alcohol but because, for me, sobriety means a lot more than not getting drunk. When I go to meetings and I see newcomers like you, it reminds me of how close I am to the edge and how easy it would be to slip off. It serves as a daily reminder not to pick up a drink. And when I see the old-timers there, people with thirty-plus years—even more sobriety than myself—it reminds me of how wonderful this program is and how many lives it’s saved.”

I nodded in understanding and said, “I wasn’t really gonna kill my interventionist, anyway. I just needed to hear myself talk about it a bit, to vent.” I shrugged and shook my head. “I guess when you look back at it now, you must be shocked that you actually did something like that to Kenton Rhodes. With twenty years sober, now you’d just turn the other cheek at an asshole like that, right?”

George gave me a look of pure incredulity. “You fucking kidding me? It wouldn’t matter if I had a hundred years sober. I’d still knock that bastard out just the same!” And we broke down hysterically once more, and we kept laughing and laughing, all the way through that wonderful summer of 1997, my first summer of sobriety.

In fact, I kept right on laughing—as did the Duchess—as we grew closer to George and Annette, and our old friends, one by one, faded into the woodwork. In fact, by the time I was celebrating my first year of sobriety, I had lost touch with almost everyone. The Bealls were still around, as were some of Nadine’s old friends, but people like Elliot Lavigne and Danny Porush and Rob Lorusso and Todd and Carolyn Garret could no longer be in my life.

Of course, people like Wigwam, and Bonnie and Ross, and some of my other childhood friends still showed up for an occasional dinner party and whatnot—but things would never be the same. The gravy train had officially stopped running, and the drugs, which had been the glue, were no longer there to hold us together. The Wolf of Wall Street had died that night in Boca Raton, Florida, overdosing in the kitchen of Dave and Laurie Beall. And what little of the Wolf still remained was extinguished when I met George B., who set me on a path of true sobriety.

Exempt from that, of course, was Alan Lipsky, my oldest and dearest friend, who’d been there long before any of this happened, long before I’d ever had that wild notion of bringing my own version of Wall Street out to Long Island—creating chaos and insanity among an entire generation of Long Islanders. It was sometime in the fall of 1997 when Alan came to me, saying that he couldn’t take it anymore, that he was sick and tired of losing his clients’ money and that he’d rather do nothing than keep Monroe Parker open. I couldn’t have agreed more, and Monroe Parker closed shortly thereafter. A few months later Biltmore followed suit, and the era of the Strattonite finally came to a close.

It was around the same time when I finally settled my lawsuit with Steve Madden. I ended up settling for a little over $5 million, a far cry from what the stock was actually worth. Nevertheless, as part of the settlement Steve was forced to sell my stock to a mutual fund, so neither of us got the full benefit. I would always look at Steve Madden as the one that got away, although, all in all, I still made over $20 million on the deal—no paltry sum, even by my outrageous standards.

Meanwhile, the Duchess and I had settled into a quieter, more modest lifestyle, slowly reducing the menagerie to a more reasonable level, which is to say, twelve in help. The first to go were Maria and Ignacio. Next came the Roccos, whom I’d always liked but no longer considered necessary. After all, without cocaine and Quaaludes fueling my paranoia, it seemed somewhat ridiculous to have a private security force working in a crimeless neighborhood. Bo had taken the dismissal in stride, telling me that he was just happy I’d made it through this whole thing alive. And while he never actually said it, I was pretty sure he felt guilty about things, although I don’t think he was aware of how desperate my drug addiction had become. After all, the Duchess and I had done a pretty good job of hiding it, hadn’t we? Or perhaps everyone knew exactly what was going on but figured as long as the goose kept laying his golden eggs, who cared if he killed himself?

Of course, Gwynne and Janet stayed on, and the subject of them being my chief enablers (outside the Duchess) was never brought up. Sometimes it’s easier to let sleeping dogs lie. Janet was an expert at burying the past, and Gwynne being a Southerner—well, to bury the past was the Southern way. Whatever the case, I loved both of them, and I knew they both loved me. The simple fact is that drug addiction is a fucked-up disease, and the lines of good judgment become very murky in the trenches, especially when you’re living Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional.

And speaking of chief enablers, there was, of course, the luscious Duchess of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I guess she turned out all right in the end, didn’t she? She was the only one who’d stood up to me, the only one who had cared enough to put her foot down and say, “Enough is enough!”

But as the first anniversary of my sobriety came and went, I began to notice changes in her. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of that gorgeous face when she wasn’t aware I was looking, and I would see a faraway look in her eye, a sort of shell-shocked look, peppered with a hint of sadness. I often wondered what she was thinking at those moments, how many unspoken grudges she still held against me, not just for that despicable moment on the stairs but for everything—for all the cheating and philandering and falling asleep in restaurants and wild emotional swings that went hand in hand with my addiction. I asked George about that—what he thought she might be thinking and if there was anything I could do about it.

With a hint of sadness in his voice, he told me that this whole affair hadn’t played itself out yet, that it was inconceivable that Nadine and I could’ve gone through what we had and then just sweep things under the rug. In fact, in all the years he’d been sober he’d never heard of anything like this; the Duchess and I had broken new ground in terms of dysfunctional relationships. He likened Nadine to Mount Vesuvius—a dormant volcano that one day was sure to explode. Just when and with how much ferocity he wasn’t quite sure, but he recommended that the two of us go into therapy, which we didn’t. Instead, we buried the past and moved on.

Sometimes I would find the Duchess crying—sitting alone in her maternity showroom with tears streaming down her cheeks. When I’d ask her what was wrong, she would tell me that she couldn’t understand why all this had to happen. Why had I turned away from her and lost myself in drugs? Why had I treated her so badly during those years? And why was I such a good husband now? In a way, it only made it worse, she’d said, and with each act of kindness I now showed her, she felt that much more resentful that it couldn’t have been that way all those years. But then we would make love, and all would be well again, until the next time I found her crying.

Nonetheless, we still had our children, Chandler and Carter, and we found solace in them. Carter had just celebrated his third birthday. He was more gorgeous than ever now, with his platinum-blond hair and world-class eyelashes. He was a child of God, watched over since that terrible day in North Shore Hospital when they’d told us that he would grow up without his faculties. How ironic it was that since that day he hadn’t had so much as a runny nose. The hole in his heart was almost closed now, and it had never given him a day’s problems.

And what of Chandler? What of my little thumbkin, the former baby genius, who had kissed away her daddy’s boo-boo? Well, as always, she was still a daddy’s girl. Somewhere along the way she had earned the nickname “the CIA,” because she spent a good part of her day listening to everyone’s conversations and gathering intelligence. She had just turned five, and she was wise beyond her years. She was quite a little salesperson, using the subtle power of suggestion to exert her very will over me, which, admittedly, wasn’t all that difficult.

Sometimes I would look at her while she was asleep—wondering what she would remember about all this, about all the chaos and insanity that had surrounded her first four years, those all-important formative years. The Duchess and I had always tried to shield her from things, but children are notoriously keen observers. Every so often, in fact, something would trigger Channy and she would bring up what had happened on the stairs that day—and then she would tell me how happy she was that I had gone to Atlant-ica so Mommy and Daddy could be happy again. I found myself crying inwardly at those moments, but she’d change the subject just as quickly, to something entirely innocuous, as if the memory hadn’t touched her viscerally. One day I would have some explaining to do, and not just about what had happened on the stairs that day but about everything. But there was time for that—lots of time—and at this point it seemed prudent to allow her to enjoy the blissful ignorance of childhood, at least for a while longer.

At this particular moment, Channy and I were standing in the kitchen in Old Brookville, and she was pulling on my jeans and saying, “I want to go to Blockbuster to get the new Rugrats video! You promised!”

In truth, I hadn’t promised anything, but that made me respect her even more. After all, my five-year-old daughter was assuming the sale on me—making her case from a position of strength, not weakness. It was 7:30 p.m. “Okay,” I said, “let’s go right now, before Mommy gets home. Come on, thumbkin!” I extended my arms toward her and she jumped into them, wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, and giggled deliciously.

“Let’s go, Daddy! Hurry up!”

I smiled at my perfect daughter and took a deep, sober breath, relishing her very scent, which was glorious. Chandler was beautiful, inside and out, and I had no doubt that she would grow strong, one day making her mark on this world. She just had that look about her, a certain sparkle in her eye that I’d noticed the very moment she was born.

We decided to take my little Mercedes, which was her favorite, and we put the top down so we could enjoy the beautiful summer evening. It was a few days before Labor Day, and the weather was gorgeous. It was one of those clear, windless nights, and I could smell the first hints of fall. Unlike that fateful day sixteen months ago, I seat-belted my precious daughter into the front passenger seat and made it out of the driveway without smashing into anything.

As we passed through the stone pillars at the edge of the estate, I noticed a car parked outside my property. It was a gray four-door sedan, maybe an Oldsmobile. As I drove past it, a middle-aged white man with a narrow skull and short gray hair parted to the side stuck his head out the driver’s side window and said, “Excuse me, is this Cryder Lane?”

I hit the brake. Cryder Lane? I thought. What was he talking about? There was no Cryder Lane in Old Brookville or, for that matter, anywhere in Locust Valley. I looked over at Channy and felt a twinge of panic. In that very instant I wished I still had the Roccos watching over me. There was something odd and disturbing about this encounter.

I shook my head and said, “No, this is Pin Oak Court. I don’t know any Cryder Lane.” At that moment I noticed there were three other people sitting in the car, and my heart immediately took off at a gallop…Fuck—they were here to kidnap Channy!… I reached over, placed my arm across Chandler’s chest, and looked her in the eyes and said, “Hold on, sweetie!”

As I stepped on the accelerator, the rear door of the Oldsmobile swung open and a woman popped out. She smiled, then waved at me and said, “It’s okay, Jordan. We’re not here to hurt you. Please don’t pull away.” She smiled again.

I put my foot back on the brake. “What do you want?” I asked curtly.

“We’re from the FBI,” she said. She pulled a black leather billfold from her pocket and flipped it open. I looked…and, sure enough, those three ugly letters were staring me in the face: F-B-I. They were big block letters, in light blue, and there was some official-looking writing above and below them. A moment later the man with the narrow skull flashed his credentials too.

I smiled and said ironically, “I guess you guys aren’t here to borrow a cup of sugar, right?”

They both shook their heads no. Just then the other two agents emerged from the passenger side of the Oldsmobile and flashed their credentials as well. The kind-looking woman offered me a sad smile and said, “I think you should turn around and bring your daughter back inside the house. We need to talk to you.”

“No problem,” I said. “And thanks, by the way. I appreciate what you’re doing.”

The woman nodded, accepting my gratitude for having the decency to not make a scene in front of my daughter. I asked, “Where’s Agent Coleman? I’m dying to meet the guy after all these years.”

The woman smiled again. “I’m sure the feeling is mutual. He’ll be along shortly.”

I nodded in resignation. It was time to break the bad news to Chandler: There would be no Rugrats this evening. In fact, I had a sneaky suspicion there would be some other changes around the house, none of which she would be too fond of—starting with the temporary absence of Daddy.

I looked at Channy and said, “We can’t go to Blockbuster, sweetie. I have to talk to these people for a while.”

She narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Then she started screaming: “No! You promised me! You’re breaking your word! I want to go to Blockbuster! You promised me!”

As I drove back to the house she kept screaming—and then she continued to scream as we made our way into the kitchen and I passed her to Gwynne. I said to Gwynne, “Call Nadine on her cell phone; tell her the FBI is here and I’m getting arrested.”

Gwynne nodded without speaking and took Chandler upstairs. The moment Chandler was out of sight, the kind female FBI agent said, “You’re under arrest for securities fraud, money laundering, and…”

Blah, blah, blah, I thought, as she slapped the cuffs on me and recited my crimes against man and God and everyone else. Her words blew right past me, though, like a gust of wind. They were entirely meaningless to me, or at least not worth listening to. After all, I knew what I’d done and I knew that I deserved whatever was coming to me. Besides, there would be ample time to go over the arrest warrant with my lawyer.

Within minutes, there were no less than twenty FBI agents in my house—dressed in full regalia with guns, bulletproof vests, extra ammo, and whatnot. It was somewhat ironic, I thought, that they would dress this way, as if they were serving some sort of high-risk warrant.

A few minutes later, Special Agent Gregory Coleman finally reared his head. And I was shocked. He looked like a kid, no older than me. He was about my height and he had short brown hair, very dark eyes, even features, and an entirely average build.

When he saw me, he smiled. Then he extended his right hand and we shook, although it was a trifle awkward, what with my hands being cuffed and everything. He said, in a tone of respect, “I gotta tell you, you were one wily adversary. I must’ve knocked on a hundred doors and not a single person would cooperate against you.” He shook his head, still awestruck at the loyalty the Strattonites had for me. Then he added, “I thought you’d like to know that.”

I shrugged and said, “Yeah, well, the gravy train has a way of doing that to people, you know?”

He turned the corners of his mouth down and nodded. “Definitely so.”

Just then the Duchess came running in. She had tears in her eyes, yet she still looked gorgeous. Even at my very arrest, I couldn’t help but take a peek at her legs, especially since I wasn’t sure when I’d see them again.

As they led me away in handcuffs, the Duchess gave me a tiny peck on the cheek and told me not to worry. I nodded and told her that I loved her and that I always would. And then I was gone, just like that. Going where I hadn’t the slightest idea, but I figured I would end up somewhere in Manhattan and then tomorrow I would be arraigned in front of a federal judge.

In retrospect, I remember feeling somewhat relieved—that the chaos and insanity would finally be behind me. I would do my time and then walk away a sober young man—a father of two and a husband to a kindhearted woman, who stood by me through thick and thin.

Everything would be okay.