He had intimated this concern to me via the Blockhead, who he’d been using as a puppet since junior high school. And I had explained to Victor, more than once, that I had no intention of leaving him behind, that I would make him whole no matter what—even if it meant making him money as my rathole.
But the Depraved Chinaman couldn’t be convinced of that, not for more than a few hours at a time. It was as if my words went in one ear and out the other. The simple fact was that he was a paranoid son of a bitch. He had grown up an oversize Chinaman amid a ferocious tribe of savage Jews. In consequence, he suffered from a massive inferiority complex. He now resented all savage Jews, especially me, the most savage Jew of all. To date, I had outsmarted him, outwitted him, and outmaneuvered him.
It was out of his very ego, in fact, that Victor hadn’t become a Strattonite in the early days. So he went to Judicate instead. It was his way of breaking into the inner circle, a way to save face for not making the right decision back in 1988, when the rest of his friends had sworn loyalty to me and had become the first Strattonites. In Victor’s mind, Judicate was merely a way station to insinuate himself back into the queue, so that one day I would tap him on the shoulder and say, “Vic, I want you to open up your own brokerage firm, and here’s the money and expertise to do it.”
It was what every Strattonite dreamed of and something I touched upon in all my meetings—that if you continued to work hard and stay loyal, one day I’d tap you on the shoulder and set you up in business.
And then you would get truly rich.
I had done this twice so far: once with Alan Lipsky, my oldest and most trusted friend, who now owned Monroe Parker Securities; and a second time, with Elliot Loewenstern, another long-time friend, who now owned Biltmore Securities. Elliot had been my partner back in my ice-hustling days. During the summer, the two of us would go down to the local beach and hustle Italian ices blanket-to-blanket, and make a fortune. We would scream out our sales pitch as we carried around forty-pound Styrofoam coolers, running from the cops when they chased after us. And while our friends were either goofing off or working menial jobs for $3.50 an hour, we were earning $400 a day. Each summer we would each save twenty thousand dollars and use it during the winter months to pay our way through college.
In any event, both firms—Biltmore and Monroe Parker—were doing phenomenally well, earning tens of millions a year, and they were each paying me a hidden royalty of $5 million a year just for setting them up.
It was a hefty sum, $5 million, and in truth it had little to do with setting them up. In point of fact, they paid me out of loyalty, and out of respect. And at the very crux of it, what held it all together was the fact that they still considered themselves Strattonites. And I considered them such too.
So there it was. As the Blockhead stood in front of me, still rambling on about how loyal the Chinaman would be, I knew otherwise. How could someone who harbored a deep-seated resentment toward all savage Jews ever stay loyal to the Wolf of Wall Street? He was a man of grudges, Victor, a man who held every last Strattonite in contempt.
It was clear: There was no logical reason to back the Depraved Chinaman, which led to another problem—namely, that there was no way to stop him. All I could do was delay him. And if I delayed too long, I ran the risk of him doing it without me—without my blessing, so to speak, which would set a dangerous precedent to the rest of the Strattonites, especially if he succeeded.
It was sad and ironic, I thought, how my power was nothing more than an illusion, how it would vanish quickly if I didn’t think ten steps ahead. I had no choice but to torture myself over every decision, to read infinite detail into everyone’s motives. I felt like a twisted game theorist, who spent the better part of his day lost in thought—considering all the moves and countermoves and outcomes thereof. It was emotionally taxing, my life, and after five long years it seemed to be getting the best of me. In fact, the only time my mind was quiet now was when I was either high as a kite or inside the luscious loins of the luscious Duchess.
Nevertheless, the Depraved Chinaman couldn’t be ignored. To start a brokerage firm required a minuscule amount of capital, perhaps half a million at most, which was peanuts compared to what he’d make in the first few months alone. The Blockhead himself could finance the Chinaman, if he so desired, although that would be an overt act of war—if I could ever prove it, which would be difficult.
In reality, the only thing holding Victor back was his lack of confidence—or his simple unwillingness to put his enormous Chinese ego and his tiny Chinese balls on the line. He wanted assurances, the Chinaman; he wanted direction, and emotional support, and protection against short-sellers—and, most importantly, he wanted large blocks of Stratton new issues, which were Wall Street’s hottest.
He would want all these things until he could figure them out on his own.
Then he would want no more.
That would take six months, I figured, at which point he would turn on me. He would sell back all the stock I’d given him, which would put unnecessary pressure on the Strattonites, who would be forced to buy it. Ultimately, his selling would drive the stocks down, which would lead to customer complaints and, most importantly, a boardroom full of unhappy Strattonites. He would then prey upon that unhappiness—using it to try to steal my Strattonites. He would accompany it with a false promise of a better life at Duke Securities. Yes, I thought, there was something to be said for being small and nimble, as he would be. It would be difficult to defend against such an attack. I was the lumbering giant, vulnerable at the periphery.
So the answer was to deal with the Chinaman from a position of strength. I was big, all right, and despite being vulnerable at the periphery I was tough as nails at the center. So it would be from the very center that I’d strike. I would agree to back Victor, and I would lull him into a false sense of security, then, when he least expected it, I would unleash a first strike against him of such ferocity that it would leave him destitute.
First thing first: I would ask the Chinaman to wait three months to give me enough time to unload my Judicate shares. The Chinaman would understand that and suspect nothing. Meanwhile, I would approach the Blockhead and squeeze some concessions out of him. After all, as a twenty percent partner of Stratton, he stood in the way of other Strattonites who wanted a piece of the pie.
And once I put Victor into business, I would bring him to the point where he was making decent money but not too much money. I would then advise him to trade in such a manner that would leave him subtly exposed. And there were ways to do that that only the most sophisticated traders would pick up on, ways that Victor certainly would not. I would play right into that giant Chinese ego of his—advising him to maintain large positions in his proprietary trading account. And when he least expected it, when he was at his most vulnerable point, I would turn on him with all my power and attack. I would drive the Depraved Chinaman right the f**k out of business. I would sell stock through names and places that Victor never heard of, names that could never be traced back to me, names that would leave him scratching his panda-size head. I would unleash a barrage of selling that was so fast and so furious that, before he knew what even hit him, he would be out of business—and out of my hair forever.
Of course, the Blockhead would lose some money in the process, but at the end of the day he would still be a wealthy man. I would chalk that one up to collateral damage.
I smiled at the Blockhead. “Like I said, I’ll meet with Victor out of respect to you. But I can’t do it until next week. So let’s do it in Atlantic City, when we settle up with our ratholes. I assume Victor’s going, right?”
The Blockhead nodded. “He’ll be anywhere you want him to be.”
I nodded. “Between now and then you better straighten the Chinaman’s head out. I’m not gonna be pressured into doing this before I’m good and ready. And that won’t be until after I’ve blown out of Judicate. You got it?”
He nodded proudly. “As long as he knows you’ll back him, he’ll wait as long as you want.”
As long as? What a fool the Blockhead was! Was it just my imagination or had he proved yet again how clueless he was? By uttering those very words, he confirmed what I’d already known—that the Depraved Chinaman’s allegiance was subject to.
Yes, today the Blockhead was loyal; he was still Stratton through and through. But no man can serve two masters for long, and certainly not forever. And that was what the Depraved Chinaman was: another Master. He was waiting in the wings, manipulating the Blockhead’s feeble mind as he sowed seeds of dissension within my very ranks, starting with my own junior partner.
There was a war brewing here. It was looming just over the horizon—heading for my doorstep in the not-too-distant future. And it was a war I would win.
BOOK II
CHAPTER 11
THE LAND OF RATHOLES
August 1993
(Four Months Earlier)
Where the f**k am I, for Chrissake?
Such was the first question that popped into my mind as I woke up to the unmistakable screech of landing gear being lowered from out of the enormous belly of a jumbo jetliner. Slowly regaining consciousness, I looked at the red and blue emblem on the seat back in front of me and tried to make sense of it all.
Apparently, the jumbo jetliner was a Boeing 747; my seat number was 2A, a window seat in first class, and at this particular moment, although my eyes were open, my chin was still tucked between my collarbones in sleep mode, and my head felt like it had been smacked by a pharmaceutical nightstick.
A hangover? I thought. From Quaaludes? That made no sense!
Still confused, I craned my neck and looked out the small oval window on my left and tried to get my bearings. The sun was just over the horizon—morning! An important clue! My spirits lifted. I panned my head and took in the view: rolling green mountains, a small gleaming city, a huge turquoise lake in the shape of a crescent, an enormous jet of water shooting up hundreds of feet in the air—breathtaking!
Wait a minute. What the f**k was I doing on a commercial plane? So tawdry it was! Where was my Gulfstream? How long had I been asleep? And how many Quaaludes—Oh, Christ! The Restorils!
A cloud of despair began rising up my brain stem. I had disregarded my doctor’s warning and mixed Restorils with Quaaludes, both of which were sleeping pills but from two competing classes. Taken separately, the results were predictable—six to eight hours of deep sleep. Taken together, the results were—what were the results?
I took a deep breath and fought down the negativity. Then it hit me—my plane was landing in Switzerland. Everything would end up fine! It was friendly territory! Neutral territory! Swiss territory! Full of things Swiss—velvety milk chocolate, deposed dictators, fine watches, hidden Nazi gold, numbered bank accounts, laundered money, bank secrecy laws, Swiss francs, Swiss Quaaludes! What a fabulous little country this was! And gorgeous from the air! Not a skyscraper in sight and thousands of tiny homes dotting the countryside in storybook fashion. And that geyser—unbelievable! Switzerland! They even had their own brand of Quaaludes, for Chrissake! Methasedils they were called, if memory served me correctly. I made a quick mental note to speak to the concierge about that.