The Wolf of Wall Street (49 page)

I stomped down the spiral staircase. The Duchess was sitting at her desk, opening mail.
Opening mail? The fucking nerve of her!
Chandler was lying on the floor next to her—holding a crayon, drawing in a coloring book. I said to my wife, in a tone laced with venom: “I’m going to Florida.”

She looked up. “So? Why should I care?”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t care if you care or not, but I’m taking Chandler with me.”

She smirked. “I don’t think so.”

My blood pressure hit peak levels. “You don’t think so? Well, go fuck yourself!” And I reached down, grabbed Chandler, and started running toward the stairs. Instantly, the Duchess popped out of her chair and started chasing me, screaming, “I’m gonna fucking kill you! Put her down! Put her down!”

Chandler started wailing and crying hysterically, and I screamed at the Duchess, “Go fuck yourself, Nadine!” I hit the stairs running. The Duchess took a flying leap and grabbed me around the thighs, desperately trying to keep me from going up the stairs.

“Stop!” she screamed. “Please, stop! It’s your daughter! Put her down!” And she kept wriggling her way up my leg, trying to get a grip on my torso. I looked at the Duchess, and at that very instant I wanted her dead. In all the years we’d been married I had never raised a hand to her—until now. I placed the sole of my sneaker firmly on her stomach, and with one mighty thrust I kicked out—and just like that I watched my wife go flying down the stairs and land on her right side with tremendous force.

I paused, astonished, bewildered, as if I had just witnessed a wildly horrific act committed by two insane people, neither of whom I knew. A few seconds later Nadine rolled onto her haunches, holding her side with both hands—wincing in pain—as if she’d broken a rib. But then her face hardened again, and she got down on her hands and knees and tried crawling up the stairs this time, still trying to stop me from taking her daughter.

I turned from her and ran up the stairs, holding Chandler close to my chest and saying, “It’s okay, baby! Daddy loves you and he’s taking you on a little trip! It’s gonna be okay.” When I reached the top of the stairs I broke out into a full run, as Chandler continued to wail uncontrollably. I ignored her. Soon the two of us would be together, alone, and everything would be okay. And as I ran to the garage I knew that one day Chandler would understand all this; she would understand why her mother had to be neutralized. Perhaps when Chandler was much older—after her mother had been taught a lesson—they could reunite and have some sort of relationship. Perhaps.

There were four cars inside the garage. The white two-door convertible Mercedes was closest, so I opened the passenger door and put Chandler into the passenger seat and slammed the door. As I ran around the back of the car, I saw one of the maids, Marissa, looking on in horror. I jumped inside the car and started it.

Then the Duchess was throwing herself against the passenger side of the car, banging on the window and screaming. I immediately hit the power-lock button. Then I saw the garage door starting to close. I looked to the right and saw Marissa’s finger on the button.
Fuck it!
I thought—and I put the car into drive, stepped on the accelerator, and drove right through the garage door, smashing it to splinters. I kept driving full speed—smashing right into a six-foot-high limestone pillar at the edge of the driveway. I looked over to Chandler. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt, but she was unharmed, thank God. She was screaming, crying hysterically.

All at once, some very disturbing thoughts began rising up my brain stem, starting with: What the fuck was I doing? Where the hell was I going? What was my daughter doing in the front seat of my car without a seat belt on? Nothing made sense. I opened the driver’s side door and stepped outside and just stood there. A second later, one of the bodyguards came running over to the car, grabbed Chandler, and ran into the house with her. That seemed like a good idea. Then the Duchess came over to me and told me that everything would be all right and that I needed to calm down. She told me she still loved me. She put her arms around me and hugged me.

And there we stood. For how long I would never know, but pretty soon I heard the wailing of a siren, and then I saw flashing lights. And then I was in handcuffs, sitting in the back of a police car, craning my neck around and trying to catch a last glimpse of the Duchess before they took me to jail.

I would spend the rest of my day being shuttled around to different jail cells—starting with the cell in the Old Brookville Police Department. Two hours later they handcuffed me once more and drove me to another police department, where I was escorted into another jail cell, although this one was bigger and full of people. I spoke to no one and no one spoke to me. There was lots of yelling and screaming and carrying on, and the place was freezing cold. I made a mental note to dress warm if Agent Coleman ever came knocking on my door with an arrest warrant. Then I heard my name being called, and a few minutes later I was in the backseat of another police car—on my way to the town of Mineola, where the state courthouse was.

I found myself in court, in front of a female judge…
Oh, shit! My goose is cooked now!
I turned to my dapper lawyer, Joe Fahmegghetti, and I said, “We’re fucked now, Joe! This woman’s gonna give me the death penalty!”

Joe smiled at me and put his arm on my shoulder. “Relax,” he said. “I’ll have you outta here in ten minutes. Just don’t say a word until I tell you to.”

After a few minutes of blah-blah-blahing, Joe bent over and whispered in my ear, “Say not guilty,” so I smiled and said, “Not guilty.”

Ten minutes later I was free—walking out of the courthouse with Joe Fahmegghetti by my side. My limo was waiting outside the courthouse at the curb. George was behind the wheel and Rocco Night was in the front passenger seat. They both climbed out, and I noticed that Rocco was carrying my trusty LV bag. George opened the limousine door without saying a word, while Rocco made his way around the back of the car. He handed me my bag and said, “All your stuff’s in here, Mr. B, plus fifty thousand dollars in cash.”

My lawyer quickly added, “There’s a Learjet waiting for you at Republic Airport. George and Rocco will take you there.”

All at once I was confused. It was the Duchess plotting against me! No two ways about it! “What the fuck are you talking about?” I sputtered. “Where are you taking me?”

“To Florida,” said my dapper attorney. “David Davidson is waiting for you at Republic right now. He’ll fly down with you to keep you company. Dave Beall will be waiting for you in Boca when you land.” My attorney sighed. “Listen, my friend, you need to get away for a few days until we can resolve this with your wife. Or else you’re gonna end up in jail again.”

Rocco added, “I spoke to Bo, and he told me to stay up here and keep an eye on Mrs. B. You can’t go home, Mr. B. She’s got an order of protection against you; you’ll get arrested if you come on the property.”

I took a deep breath and tried to figure out whom I could trust…My attorney, yes…Rocco, yes…Dave Beall, yes…the dirty Duchess—
NO!
So what was the point of going home, anyway? She hated me and I hated her, and I would probably end up killing her if I saw her, and that would put a serious damper on my travel plans with Chandler and Carter. So, yes, perhaps a few days in the sun might do me some good.

I looked at Rocco and narrowed my eyes. “Is
everything
in there?” I asked accusingly. “All my medications?”

“I packed everything,” said a weary-looking Rocco. “All the stuff from your drawers and inside your desk, plus the cash Mrs. Belfort gave us. It’s all in there.”

Fair enough, I thought. Fifty thousand dollars should last me a couple of days. And the drugs…well, there ought to be enough of them in there to get Cuba stoned for the rest of April.

CHAPTER 37

SICK AND SICKER

T
he sheer insanity of it!
We were cruising along at 39,000 feet and there were so many cocaine molecules floating in the recirculated air that when I got up to go to the bathroom, I noticed that the two pilots were wearing gas masks. Good. They seemed like nice-enough guys, and I would hate to see them fail a drug test on my account.

I was on the run now. I was a fugitive! I needed to keep moving, to
maintain.
To rest was to die. To allow my head to come down, to allow myself to crash, to allow my thoughts to focus in on what had just happened, that was certain death!

Yet…why had it happened? Why had I kicked the Duchess down the stairs? She was my wife. I loved her more than anything. And why had I thrown my daughter into the passenger seat of my Mercedes and driven through a garage door without even buckling her seat belt? She was my most prized possession on earth. Would she remember that scene on the stairs for the rest of her life? Would she always visualize her mother crawling upward, trying to save her daughter from…from…what?…The coked-out maniac?

Somewhere over North Carolina I had admitted to myself that I was a coked-out maniac. For a brief moment, I had crossed over the line. But now I was back, sane, once more. Or was I?

I needed to keep snorting. And I needed to keep dropping, dropping Ludes and Xanax and lots of Valium. I needed to keep the paranoia at bay. I needed to maintain my high at all costs;
to rest was to die…to rest was to die.

Twenty minutes later the seat-belt sign came on, serving as a clear reminder that it was time to stop snorting, time to drop Ludes and Xanax—to ensure that we’d hit the ground in a state of perfect toxic poise.

As my attorney had promised, Dave Beall was waiting on the tarmac with a black Lincoln limousine behind him. Janet at work, I figured, already hooking me up with transportation.

Standing there with his arms crossed, Dave looked bigger than a mountain. “You ready to party?” I said buoyantly. “I need to find my next ex-wife.”

“Let’s go back to my house and relax,” replied the Mountain. “Laurie flew to New York to be with Nadine. We got the whole house to ourselves. You need to get some sleep.”

Sleep? No, no, no! I thought. “I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead, you big fuck. And whose side are you on, anyway? Mine or hers?” I took a swing at him, a full right cross that landed squarely on his right biceps.

He shrugged, apparently not feeling the sting of my blow. “I’m on your side,” he said warmly. “I’m always on your side, but I don’t think there’s a war. You guys are gonna make up. Give her a few days to calm down; that’s all the woman needs.”

I gritted my teeth and shook my head menacingly, as if to say, “Never! Not in a million fucking years!”

Alas, the truth was somewhat different. I wanted my Duchess back; in fact, I wanted her back desperately. But I couldn’t let Dave know that; he might slip, say something to Laurie, who would then say something to the Duchess. Then the Duchess would know that I was miserable without her, and that would give her the upper hand.

“I hope she drops fucking dead,” I muttered. “I mean, after what she did to me, Dave? I wouldn’t take her back if she were the last cunt in the world. Now, let’s go to Solid Gold and get some strippers to give us blow jobs!”

“You’re the boss,” said Dave. “My orders are just to make sure that you don’t kill yourself.”

“Oh, really?” I snapped. “Who the fuck gave you those orders?”

“Everybody,” said my big friend, shaking his head gravely.

“Well, then,
fuck
everybody!” I sputtered, heading to the limousine. “Fuck every last one of them!”

Solid Gold—what a place! A smorgasbord of young strippers, at least two dozen of them. As we made our way toward the center stage, I got a better look at some of these young beauties, and I came to the sad conclusion that most of them had been beaten over the head with an ugly stick.

I turned to the Mountain and the Uniblinker and said, “There’re too many dogs in this place, but if we look hard enough I bet we can find a diamond in the rough.” I craned my head this way and that. “Let’s walk around a bit.”

Toward the back of the club was a VIP section. An enormous black bouncer stood before a short flight of steps cordoned off by a red velvet rope. I headed straight for him. “How ya doing!” I said, in warm tones.

The bouncer looked down at me as if I were an annoying insect that needed to be squashed. He needed a little attitude adjustment, I reasoned, so I reached down into my right sock, pulled out a stack of $10,000 in hundreds, and peeled off half and handed it to him.

With his attitude now properly adjusted, I said, “Would you bring me the five hottest girls in this place, and then clear out the VIP section for my friends and me?”

He smiled.

Five minutes later we had the entire VIP section to ourselves. There were four reasonably hot strippers standing in front of us in their birthday suits and high heels. They were all decent-looking, but none of them was marriage material. I needed a true beauty, one I could parade around Long Island to show the Duchess once and for all who was boss.

Just then the bouncer opened the velvet rope and a naked teenager made her way up the steps, in a pair of white patent-leather go-to-hell pumps. She sat down next to me on the arm of the club chair, crossed her bare legs with complete insouciance, and then leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek. She smelled of a mixture of Angel perfume and a tiny drop of her own musky aroma from dancing. She was gorgeous. She couldn’t have been a day over eighteen. She had a great mane of light-brown hair, emerald-green eyes, a tiny button nose, and a smooth jaw-line. Her body was incredible—about five-five, a pair of silicone C-cups, a gentle curve to her tummy, and legs that rivaled the Duchess’s. She had olive skin, and there wasn’t a single blemish on it.

We exchanged smiles, and her teeth were even and white. In a voice loud enough to cut through the stripper music, I said, “What’s your name?”

She leaned toward me until her lips were almost pressing against my right ear, and she said, “Blaze.”

I recoiled and looked at her with my head cocked to one side. “What kinda fucking name is Blaze? Did your mother know you were gonna be a stripper when you were born?”

She stuck her tongue out at me, so I stuck my tongue back at her. “My real name is Jennifer,” she said. “Blaze is my stage name.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s very nice to make your acquaintance, Blaze.”

“Awwww,” she said, rubbing her cheek against mine. “You’re such a little cutie!”

Little?
Why…you…
little hooker in stripper’s clothing! I oughta smash you one!
I took a deep breath and said, “What do you mean?”

That seemed to confuse her. “I mean you’re…a cutie, and you have beautiful eyes, and you’re young!” She offered me her stripper’s smile.

She had a very sweet voice, Blaze. Would Gwynne approve of her, though? In truth, it was still too early to say if this one would make a suitable mother for the children.

“Do you like Quaaludes?” I asked.

She shrugged her bare shoulders. “I never tried one. What do they make you feel like?”

Hmmm
…a novice, I thought. No patience to break her in. “How about coke? Have you tried that?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, I love coke! Do you have any?”

I nodded eagerly. “Yeah, mountains of it!”

“Well, then, follow me,” she said, grabbing my hand. “And don’t call me Blaze anymore, okay? My name is Jennie.”

I smiled at my future wife. “Okay, Jennie. Do you like kids, by the way?” I crossed my fingers.

She smiled from ear to ear. “Yeah, I love kids. I wanna have a whole bunch one day. Why?”

“No particular reason,” I said to my future wife. “I was just wondering.”

Ahhh, Jennie!
My very antidote to the backstabbing Duchess! Who even needed to go back to Old Brookville now? I could just move Chandler and Carter down to Florida. Gwynne and Janet would come too. The Duchess would have visitation rights, once a year, under court supervision. That would be fair.

Jennie and I passed away the next four hours in the manager’s office, snorting cocaine, as she gave me private lap dances and world-class blow jobs, in spite of the fact that I hadn’t been able to actually get it up yet. I was now convinced, however, that she would make a suitable mother for my children, so I said to the top of Jennie’s head, “Hold on, Jennie. Stop sucking for a second.”

She craned up her neck and offered me her stripper’s smile. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

I shook my head. “Nothing’s wrong. In fact, everything’s right. I want to introduce you to my mother. Hold on a second.” I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my parents’ house in Bayside, which had had the same phone number for thirty-five years.

A moment later came my mother’s concerned voice, to which I replied, “No, no, don’t listen to her. Everything is fine…. A restraining order? So fucking what? I have two houses; she can keep one and I can keep the other…. The children? They’ll live with me, of course. I mean, who could do a better job raising them than me? Anyway, that’s not why I called, Mom; I called to let you know that I’m asking Nadine for a divorce…. Why? Because she’s a backstabbing bitch, that’s why! Besides, I already met someone else, and she’s really nice.” I looked over at Jennie, who was fairly beaming, and I winked at her. Then I said into the phone, “Listen, Mom, I want you to speak to my future wife. She’s really sweet and beautiful and…Where am I right now? I’m in a strip club down in Miami…. Why?…No, she’s not a stripper, or at least not anymore. She’s putting all that behind her now. I’m gonna spoil her rotten.” I winked at Jennie again. “Her name is Jennie, but you can call her Blaze if you want. She won’t take offense at that; she’s a very easygoing girl. Hold on—here she is.”

I passed the cell phone to Jennie. “My mom’s name is Leah, and she’s very nice. Everyone loves her.”

Jennie shrugged and grabbed the phone. “Hello, Leah? This is Jennie. How are you?…Oh, I’m fine, thanks for asking…. Yes, he’s okay…. Uh-huh, yes, okay, hold on a second.” Jennie puther hand over the mouthpiece and said, “She said she wants to speak to you again.”

Unbelievable! I thought. That was very rude of my mother to blow off my future wife like that! I grabbed the phone and hung up on her. Then I smiled from ear to ear, lay back down on the couch, and pointed to my loins.

Jennie nodded eagerly, leaned over me, and started sucking…and grabbing…and yanking…and pulling…and then sucking some more…. Still, for the life of me I couldn’t seem to get the blood flowing. But my young Jennie was a trooper, a determined little teenager she was, not about to quit without giving it a full college try. Fifteen minutes later she finally found that special little spot, and next thing I knew I was hard as a rock—fucking her mercilessly on a cheap white cloth couch and telling her that I loved her. She told me that she loved me too, at which point we both giggled. It was a happy moment for us as we marveled at how two lost souls could fall so deeply in love so quickly—even under these circumstances.

It was amazing. Yes, in that very instant—just before I came—Jennie was everything to me. Then an instant later I wished she would vaporize into thin air. A terrible sinking feeling washed over me like a hundred-foot tidal wave. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. I visibly sagged. I was thinking of the Duchess: I missed her.

I needed to speak to her desperately. I needed for her to tell me that she still loved me and that she was still mine. I smiled sadly at Jennie and told her that I needed to speak to Dave for a second and that I’d be right back. I went out into the club, found Dave, and told him that if I didn’t leave this place right this second I might kill myself, which would put him in deep shit, since it was his responsibility to keep me alive until things settled down a bit. So we left, without saying good-bye to Jennie.

Dave and I were sitting in the back of the limo, on our way to his house in Broken Sound, a gated community in Boca Raton. The Uniblinker had fallen in love with a stripper and stayed behind—and I was now considering slitting my wrists. I felt myself crashing; the cocaine was wearing off and I was falling from an emotional cliff. I needed to speak to the Duchess. Only she could help me.

It was two in the morning. I grabbed Dave’s cell phone and dialed my home number. A woman’s voice answered, but it wasn’t the Duchess’s.

“Who’s this?” I snapped.

“It’s Donna.”

Oh, shit!
Donna Schlesinger was just the sort of catty bitch who’d eat this shit up. She was a childhood friend of Nadine’s, and she’d been jealous of her since she was old enough to understand the concept. I took a deep breath and said, “Let me speak to my wife, Donna.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

That enraged me. “Just put her on the fucking phone, Donna.”

“I told you,” snapped Donna, “she doesn’t want to talk to you.”