The Wolf of Wall Street (22 page)

“I don’t know why you encourage her,” muttered Todd. “Just ignore her. It’s much easier.”

The Bombshell gritted her white teeth. “Oh, go ignore yourself, you douche-a-bag-a!”

“It’s douche bag,” snapped Todd, “not
douche-a-bag-a,
you Swiss nitwit! Now shut the fuck up and don’t move. I’m almost done.”

Todd reached over to the bed and picked up a handheld metal detector—the kind used when you pass through airport security. He began sweeping it up and down the full length of the Bombshell’s body. When he reached her enormous breasts, he paused…and both of us took a moment to regard them. Well, I was never really much of a breast man, but she did happen to have an unusually fine pair of jugs.

“You see, I tell you,” said the Bombshell. “It make no sound! This is paper money, not silver. Why you think metal detector make difference, huh? You just feel like wasting money buying zdupid device, after I tell you no, dog-man!”

Todd shook his head in disgust. “The next dog-man is your last dog-man, and if you think I’m kidding then just go ahead and say it. But to answer your question, every hundred-dollar bill has a thin strip of metal in it, so I just wanted to make sure that when they were all wrapped together it wouldn’t set off the detector. Here, look.” He slid a single hundred-dollar bill from one of the stacks and held it up to the light. Sure enough, there it was: a thin metal strip, perhaps a millimeter wide, that ran from the top of the bill to the bottom.

Pleased with himself, Todd said, “Okay, genius? Don’t ever doubt me again.”

“Okay, I give you this one, Tahad, but nothing more. I will tell you that you need to treat me better, because I am nice girl and I could find other man. You big show-off in front of your friend, but me wear the pants in this family and that…”

And the Swiss Bombshell went on and on about how
Tahad
mistreated her, but I stopped listening. It was becoming painfully obvious that she alone couldn’t smuggle nearly enough cash to make a real dent in things. Unless she was willing to stick the cash in her luggage, which I considered too risky, it would take her ten roundtrips to get the full $3 million there. That would mean clearing Customs twenty times, ten on each side of the Atlantic. The fact that she was a Swiss citizen all but assured she would slip into Switzerland without incident, and the chances of her being stopped on the way out of the United States were virtually nil. In fact, unless someone had tipped off U.S. Customs, there was no chance whatsoever.

Still, to keep sticking your hand in the cookie jar over and over again seemed reckless—almost bad karma. Eventually something had to go wrong. And $3 million was just what I was starting with; if all went well, I was planning to smuggle five times that.

I said to
Tahad
and the Swiss Bombshell, “I hate to interrupt you guys from killing each other, but, if you’ll excuse me, Carolyn, I need to take a walk on the beach with your husband. I don’t think you can bring enough cash there alone, so we need to rethink things, and I’d prefer not to talk in the house.” I reached over to the bed, picked up a pair of sewing scissors, and handed them to Todd. “Here—why don’t you cut her loose and then we’ll go down to the beach.”

“Fuck her!” he said, handing his wife the scissors. “Let her uncut herself. It’ll give her something to do besides complain. That’s all she ever does, anyway—shop and complain, and maybe spread her legs once in a while.”

“Oh, you funny man, Tahad. Like you such great lover! Hah! That is big joke. Go, Jordan—you take big shot to beach so I have moment of peace. I unwrap myself.”

With skepticism, I said, “Are you sure, Carolyn?”

Todd said, “Yeah, she’s sure.” Then he looked Carolyn right in the eye and said, “When we bring this money back to the city, I’m gonna recount every dollar of it, and if there’s so much as one bill missing, I’ll slit your throat and watch you bleed to death!”

The Swiss Bombshell started screaming: “Ohhh, this is last time you make threat at me! I will flush all your medicine and replace with poison…you…you
fuck
! I will smash…” and she kept cursing at Todd in a combination of English and French, and perhaps a little bit of German, although it was hard to tell.

Todd and I exited the master bedroom through a sliding glass door that looked out over the Atlantic. In spite of the door being thick enough to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, I could still hear Carolyn screaming when we reached the back deck.

At the far end of the deck, a long wooden walkway jutted out over the dunes and led down to the sand. As we made our way over to the edge of the water I felt calm, almost serene—despite the voice inside my head that screamed, “You’re in the midst of making one of the gravest errors of your young life!” But I ignored the voice and instead focused on the warmth of the sun.

We were heading west with the dark blue Atlantic Ocean off to our left. There was a commercial fishing trawler about two hundred yards offshore, and I could see white seagulls dive-bombing in the trawler’s wake, trying to steal scraps from the day’s catch. In spite of the obvious benign nature of the vessel, it still occurred to me that there might be a government agent hiding atop the flybridge—pointing a parabolic mike at us, trying to listen to our conversation.

I took a deep breath, fought down the paranoia, and said, “It’s not gonna work with just Carolyn. It’ll take too many trips, and if she keeps going back and forth Customs will eventually flag her passport. And I can’t afford to spread the trips out over the next six months either. I have other business in the States that’s contingent on me getting the funds overseas.”

Todd nodded but said nothing. He had enough street smarts not to ask what sort of business I had or why it was so pressing. But the fact remained that I had to get my money overseas as quickly as possible. As I’d suspected, Dollar Time was in much worse shape than Kaminsky had let on; it needed an immediate cash infusion of $3 million.

If I tried to raise money through a public offering, it would take at least three months and I would be forced to do an interim audit of the company’s books. Now
that
would be a nasty picture! Christ! At the rate the company was burning cash, I was certain that the auditor would issue a going-concern opinion—meaning, they would add a footnote to the company’s financials stating that there were serious doubts the company could stay in business for another year. If that happened, NASDAQ would delist the company, which would be the kiss of death. Once off NASDAQ, Dollar Time would become a true penny stock, and all would be lost.

So my only option was to raise money through a private offering. But that was easier said than done. As formidable as Stratton was at raising money for public offerings, it was weak at raising money for private offerings. (It was an entirely different business, and Stratton wasn’t geared up for it.) In addition, I was always working on ten or fifteen deals at the same time, and each of them required some amount of private money. So I was already spread thin. To sink $3 million into Dollar Time would put a serious damper on my other investment-banking deals.

But there
was
an answer: Regulation S. Through the legal exemption of Regulation S I could use my “Patricia Mellor accounts” to buy private stock in Dollar Time, then forty days later turn around and sell it back into the United States at a huge profit. It was a far cry from having to buy stock privately—in the United States—and then wait two full years to sell it under Rule 144.

I had already run the Regulation S scenario by Roland Franks, and he assured me that he could create all the necessary paperwork to make the transaction bulletproof. All I had to do was get my money to Switzerland, and then everything would take care of itself.

I said to Todd, “Maybe I should fly it over in the Gulfstream. Last time I went through Swiss Customs they didn’t even stamp my passport. I don’t see why this time would be any different.”

Todd shook his head. “No way, I won’t let you put yourself at risk. You’ve been too good to me and my family. What I’ll do is have my mother and father carry money over too. They’re both in their early seventies, so there’s no way Customs will suspect them. They’ll slip right through on both sides without a problem. I’ll also get Rich
^*4
and Dina
^*5
to do it. That’ll be five people, three hundred thousand each. In two trips it’ll be done. Then we’ll wait a few weeks and do it again.” He paused for a few seconds, then added, “You know, I would do it myself but I think I’m on a watch list from all the drug stuff. But I know my parents are totally clean, and so are Rich and Dina.”

We walked in silence while I thought things through. In truth, Todd’s parents were perfect mules; as old as they were, they would never get stopped. But Rich and Dina were a different story. They both looked like hippies, especially Rich, who had hair down to his ass and the strung-out look of a heroin junkie. Dina also had a junkie’s look, but, being a woman, perhaps Customs would mistake her for a washed-out hag in desperate need of a makeover. “Okay,” I said confidently. “There’s no doubt your parents are a safe bet, and probably Dina as well. But Rich looks too much like a drug dealer, so let’s leave him out of this.”

Todd stopped walking, and he turned to me and said, “All I ask, buddy, is if God forbid something happens to any one of them that you take care of all the legal bills. I know you will, but I just wanted to say it up front so I wouldn’t have to bring it up later. But, trust me, nothing is gonna happen. I promise you.”

I put my arm on Todd’s shoulder and said, “All that goes without saying. If something happens, not only will I pay the legal bills but, as long as everyone keeps their mouth shut, they’ll wind up with a seven-figure cash bonus when it’s all over. Anyway, I trust you completely, Todd. I’m gonna give you the three million dollars to take back into the city, and I have no doubt it will end up in Switzerland within the week. There’re only a handful of people in the world I would put that much trust in.”

Todd nodded solemnly.

Then I added, “On a separate note, Danny has another million to give you, but he won’t have it until the middle of next week. I’ll be up in New England with Nadine on the yacht, so call Danny and make plans to hook up with him, all right?”

Todd grimaced. “I’ll do whatever you say, but I hate dealing with Danny. He’s a fucking loose cannon; he does too many Quaaludes during the day. If he shows up with a million dollars in cash and he’s all Luded out, I swear to God I’m gonna smack him in the face. This is serious shit, and I don’t wanna be dealing with a slurring idiot.”

I smiled. “Point well taken; I’ll talk to him. Anyway, I gotta get back to the house. Nadine’s aunt is in from England, and she’s coming out here with Nadine’s mother for dinner. I gotta get ready.”

Todd nodded. “No problem. Just don’t forget to tell Danny not to be fucked up when he meets me on Wednesday, okay?”

I smiled and nodded. “I won’t forget, Todd. I promise.”

Feeling satisfied, I turned toward the ocean and looked out to the edge of the horizon. The sky was a deep cobalt blue with just a sliver of magenta where the sky melted into the water. I took a deep breath…

And just like that I forgot.

CHAPTER 19

A LEAST LIKELY MULE

D
inner out! Westhampton! Or Jew-Hampton, as it was referred to by all those WASP bastards living down the road in Southampton. It was no secret that the WASPs sneered straight down their long, thin noses at the Westhamptonites, as if we were the sorts of Jews who’d just had our passports stamped at Ellis Island and were still dressed in long black coats and top hats.

Anyway, in spite of all that, I still considered Westhampton a fine place to keep a beach house. It was for the young and the wild, and, most importantly, it was full of Strattonites—the male Strattonites blowing obscene amounts of money on the female Strattonites, and the female Strattonites blowing the male Strattonites in return, in the Stratton version of a quid pro quo.

On this particular evening I was sitting at a table for four at Starr Boggs restaurant, athwart the dunes of Westhampton Beach, with two Quaaludes bathing the pleasure center of my brain. For a guy like me it was a rather minor dose, and I was in complete control. I had a terrific view of the Atlantic Ocean, which was a mere stone’s throw away. In fact, it was so close that I could hear the waves breaking upon the shore. At 8:30 p.m. there was still enough light in the sky to turn the horizon into a swirling palette of purple and pink and midnight blue. An impossibly large full moon hung just over the Atlantic.

It was the sort of glorious view that served as an indisputable testament to the wonder of Mother Nature, which stood in sharp contrast to the restaurant itself, which was a total fucking dump! White metallic picnic tables were strewn about a gray wooden deck that was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint and a serious desplintering. In fact, if you walked barefoot on the deck you were sure to end up in the emergency room at Southampton Hospital, which was the only institution in Southampton that accepted Jews, albeit reluctantly. Adding insult to injury, a hundred or so red, orange, and purple lanterns hung from thin gray wires that crisscrossed the roofless restaurant. It looked like someone had forgotten to take down last season’s Christmas lights—someone with a severe alcohol problem. And then there were tiki torches, which were strategically positioned here and there. They gave off a feeble orange glow, making the place seem that much sadder.

But none of this—with the exception of the tiki torches—was the fault of Starr, the restaurant’s tall, potbellied owner. He was a first-class chef, Starr, and his prices were more than reasonable. I had taken Mad Max here once, to provide him with a visual explanation of how my average Starr Boggs dinner bill ran $10,000. It was a concept he was having trouble grasping, since he wasn’t aware of the special reserve of red wine that Starr stocked for me, the average price being $3,000 per bottle.

Tonight the Duchess and I, along with Nadine’s mother, Suzanne, and the lovely Aunt Patricia, had already killed two bottles of Chateau Margaux, 1985, and were deep into our third—despite the fact that we hadn’t ordered appetizers yet. But given the fact that Suzanne and Aunt Patricia were both half Irish, their proclivity for all things alcoholic was to be expected.

So far, the dinner conversation had been entirely innocuous, as I carefully steered things away from the subject of international money laundering. And while I had told Nadine what was going on with her aunt Patricia, I’d couched things in a way that made it all seem perfectly legit—glossing over the finer points, like the thousand and one laws we were breaking, and focusing on how Aunt Patricia would be getting her own credit card, allowing her to live out the twilight of her life in the lap of luxury. Anyway, after a few minutes of inside-cheek-chewing and some halfhearted threats, Nadine had finally bought into it.

At this particular moment Suzanne was explaining how the AIDS virus was a U.S. government conspiracy, not much different than Roswell or the Kennedy assassination. I was trying to pay close attention, but I was distracted by the ridiculous straw hats she and Aunt Patricia had decided to wear. They were larger than Mexican sombreros, and they had pink flowers around the brim. It was plainly obvious that the two of them weren’t residents of Jew-Hampton. In fact, they looked like they were from a different planet.

And as my mother-in-law continued bashing the government, the delectable Duchess began nudging me under the table with the tip of her high heel, the unspoken message being: “Here she goes again!” I casually turned to her and gave her the hint of a wink. I couldn’t get over how quickly she’d bounced back after Chandler’s birth. Just six weeks ago she looked like she’d swallowed a basketball! Now she was back at her fighting weight—a hundred twelve pounds of solid steel—ready to smack me at the slightest provocation.

I grabbed Nadine’s hand and placed it on the table, as if to show I was speaking for both of us, and said, “When it comes to your theories about the press and how everything’s a pack of lies, I couldn’t agree with you more, Suzanne. The problem is that most people aren’t as insightful as you.” I shook my head gravely.

Patricia picked up her wineglass, took a prodigious gulp, then said, “How convenient it is to feel that way about the press, especially since you’re the one those bloody bastards keep bashing! Wouldn’t you say, my love?”

I smiled at Patricia and said, “Well, that calls for a toast!” I raised my wineglass and waited for everyone to follow suit. After a few seconds I said, “To the lovely Aunt Patricia, who was blessed with the truly remarkable talent of being able to call a horse’s ass a horse’s ass!” With that we all clinked glasses and drank five hundred dollars’ worth of wine in less than a second.

Nadine reached over to me and rubbed my cheek and said, “Oh, honey, we all know that everything they say about you is lies. So don’t you worry, sweetness!”

“Yes,” added Suzanne, “of course it’s all lies. They make it seem as if you alone are doing something wrong. It’s almost laughable when you think about. This all goes back to the Rothschilds, in the 1700s, and to J. P. Morgan and his brood, back in the 1900s. The stock market is just another puppet of the government. You can see…”

Suzanne was off again. I mean, there was no denying she was a little bit kooky—but who wasn’t? And she was smart as a whip. She was a voracious reader, and she’d single-handedly raised Nadine and her younger brother, AJ, doing one hell of a job (at least with Nadine). And the fact that her ex-husband hadn’t given her one ounce of support, financial or otherwise, made her accomplishment that much grander. She was a beautiful woman, Suzanne, with shoulder-length strawberry-blond hair and brilliant blue eyes. All in all, a good egg.

Just then Starr walked over to the table. He wore a white chef’s jacket and a towering white chef’s hat. He looked like a six-foot-four-inch Pillsbury Doughboy.

“Good evening,” said Starr in warm tones. “Happy Labor Day to all of you!”

My wife, the aspiring people-pleaser, immediately popped up out of her chair like an eager cheerleader and gave Starr a pleasant peck on the cheek. Then she began the process of introducing her family. After a few wonderful minutes of meaningless small talk, Starr began explaining the evening’s specials, starting with his world-famous pan-fried soft-shell crabs. But in less than a millisecond, I stopped listening and started thinking about Todd and Carolyn and my $3 million. How on earth were they going to get it all there without getting caught? And what about the rest of my cash? Perhaps I should have used Saurel’s courier service? But that had seemed risky, hadn’t it? I mean—to meet a complete stranger at a sordid rendezvous point and hand over that much money?

I looked over at Nadine’s mother, who, by chance, was looking at me too. She offered me the warmest of smiles, an altogether loving smile, which I returned without hesitation. I had been very good to Suzanne. In fact, since the day I’d fallen in love with Nadine, Suzanne had never wanted for anything. Nadine and I bought her a car, rented her a beautiful home on the water, and gave her $8,000 a month in spending money. In my book, Suzanne was aces. She had never been anything but supportive of our marriage, and…

…then all at once the most devilish thought occurred to me.
Hmmm
…it was really too bad that Suzanne and Patricia couldn’t carry some money over to Switzerland. I mean, really—who would ever suspect them? Look at them, in those stupid hats! What would be the chances that a Customs agent would ever stop them? Zero! It had to be! Two old ladies smuggling money? It would be the perfect crime. But I instantly regretted thinking any such thought. Christ! If Suzanne got in trouble—well, Nadine would crucify me! She might even leave me and take Chandler. That was an impossibility! I couldn’t live without them! Not in—

Nadine screamed, “Earth to Jordan! Hello, Jordan!”

I turned to her and gave her a vacant smile.

“You want the swordfish, right, baby?”

I nodded eagerly and kept smiling.

Then she added with great confidence, “And he also wants a Caesar salad with no croutons.” She leaned over and gave me a wet kiss on the cheek, then sat back down in her seat.

Starr thanked us, complimented Nadine, and then went about his business. Aunt Patricia raised her wineglass and said, “I’d like to make another toast, please.”

We all raised our glasses.

In a serious tone, she said, “This toast is to you, Jordan. Without you, none of us would be here tonight. And thanks to you, I’m moving into a larger flat, closer to my grandchildren”—I looked out the corner of my eye at the Duchess to gauge her response. She was chewing on the inside of her mouth! Oh, shit!—“and it’s big enough so they can each have their own bedroom. You’re a truly generous man, my love, and that’s something to be very proud of. To you, my love!”

We all clinked glasses, then Nadine leaned over to me and gave me a warm, wonderful kiss on the lips, which sent the better part of five pints of blood rushing to my loins.

Wow!
How wonderful my marriage was! And it was growing stronger every day! Nadine, myself, Chandler—we were a real family. Who could ask for anything more?

Two hours later I was knocking on my own front door, like Fred Flintstone after he’d been locked out by Dino, his pet dinosaur. “Come on, Nadine! Unlock the door and let me in! I’m sorry!”

From the other side of the door, the voice of my wife, dripping with disdain: “You’re sorry? Why—you—little fuck! If I open this door I’m gonna smash your face in!”

I took a deep breath…and slowly exhaled. God, I hated when she called me little! Why did she have to call me that? I wasn’t that little, for Chrissake! “Nae, I was only kidding around!
Please!
I’m not gonna let your mother carry money over to Switzerland! Now open the door and let me in!”

Nothing. No response, just footsteps.
God damn her!
What was she so mad about? It wasn’t me who’d suggested that her mother bring a couple of million dollars over to Switzerland! She’d offered! Perhaps I had led her into it, but, still, she had made the official offer!

More forcefully this time: “Nadine! Open up the fucking door and let me in! You’re overreacting!”

I heard more footsteps from inside the house, then the mail slot at waist level opened. Nadine’s voice came through the slot. “If you want to talk to me, then you can talk to me through here.”

What choice did I have? I bent down and—

SPLASH!

“Owwww, shit!” I screamed, wiping my eyeballs with the bottom of my white Ralph Lauren T-shirt. “That water’s piping hot, Nadine! What the fuck is wrong with you? You could’ve burned me!”

The disdainful Duchess: “Could’ve burned you? I’m gonna do more than that before I’m through! How the fuck could you talk my mother into doing that? You don’t think I know you manipulated her? Of course she’s gonna offer after everything you’ve done for her! You just made it so fucking simple for her, you manipulative little bastard! You and your stupid fucking sales tactics or Jedi mind tricks or whatever the fuck you call them! You’re a despicable human being!”

In spite of everything she’d said, it was the word
little
that wounded me most. “You better watch who you call little, or I’ll smash you one and—”

“Just go ahead and try! If you lift a hand to me, I’ll cut your balls off while you’re sleeping and feed them to you!”

Christ! How could such a beautiful face spew out such terrible venom—and at her own husband! The Duchess had looked like an angel tonight, not to mention that she’d been showering me with kisses all night long! But then, after Patricia had finished making her toast, I caught a glimpse of her and Suzanne from a certain angle in those ridiculous straw hats, and they reminded me of the Pigeon Sisters from the movie
The Odd Couple.
I figured, what Customs agent in his right mind would stop the Pigeon Sisters? And the fact that both of them carried British passports made the whole idea that much more plausible. So I launched a trial balloon, to see if either of them would be receptive to smuggling money for me.

My wife’s voice, through the slot: “Come down here and look me in the eye and tell me that you won’t let her do it.”

“Come down there? Yeah, right!” I said mockingly. “You want me to look you in the eye? Why? So you can throw more boiling water in my face? What do you think, I’m fucking stupid or something?”

The toneless voice of the Duchess: “I’m not gonna throw more water at you. I swear on Chandler’s eyes.”

I stood my ground.

“You know, the problem is that my mother and Aunt Patricia think this whole thing is a giant fucking game. They both hate the government and they figure it’s all for a good cause. And now that my mother has this thing in her mind, she’s not gonna stop talking about it until you let her do it. I know her like a book. She thinks it’s exciting—to walk through Customs with all that money and not get caught.”

“I won’t let her do it, Nae. I should have never brought it up in the first place. I just had too much wine. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

“You didn’t have too much wine; that’s the sad part. Even when you’re straight you’re a little devil. I don’t know why I love you so much. It’s me who’s the crazy one, not you! I really oughta have my head examined—really! I mean, dinner was twenty thousand dollars tonight! Who spends twenty thousand dollars on dinner unless it’s for a wedding or something? Nobody I know! But why would you care about that? You’ve got three million in the closet! And that’s not fucking normal either.