“Janet,” said the prudent man, “I want you to go into the bottom right-hand drawer of my desk and count out forty Ludes; then give them to Wigwam and have him fly them up here on a chopper right now. There’s a private airport a few miles from the harbor. He can land there. I don’t have time to pick him up, so have a limo waiting for—”
Janet cut me off. “I’ll have him there in two hours; don’t worry about it. Is everything okay? You sound upset.”
“Everything’s fine. I just miscalculated before I left and now I’m out. Anyway, my back’s been hurting, so I need to take the edge off.” I hung up the phone without saying good-bye, then picked it right back up and dialed Carolyn at home. The moment she answered I was on her.
“Carolyn, is—”
“OhmyGod, I must tell you what is—”
“Carolyn, don’t—”
“Going on with Tahad! He is—”
“Carolyn, don’t—”
“In jail, and he said that—”
She refused to stop talking, so I screamed: “Carrrrrrrolyn!”
That got her.
“Listen to me, Carolyn, and don’t talk. I’m sorry for yelling at you, but I don’t want you to talk from your house. Do you understand?”
“Oui,” she replied. Even now I noticed that during the heat of the moment she obviously found it soothing to speak in her own language.
“Okay,” I said calmly. “Go to the nearest pay phone and call this number: area code 401-555-1665. That’s where I am right now. Got it?”
“Yes,” she replied calmly, switching back to English. “I write it down. I call you back in few minutes. I must get change.”
“No, just use my calling-card number,” I said, just as calmly.
Five minutes later the phone rang. I picked it up and asked Carolyn to read me the number off the pay phone she was at. Then I hung up, switched to the pay phone next to me, and dialed Carolyn’s pay phone.
She immediately plunged into the details. “…so Tahad waiting in parking lot for Danny, and he finally show up in big-shot Rolls-Royce and he very stoned, swerving around shopping center, almost hitting other cars. So security guards call police because they think Danny driving drunk. He give money to Todd and he leave right away because Todd threaten to kill him for being stoned. But he leave Todd with briefcase. Then Todd saw two police cars with flashing lights and realize what is happening, so he run into video store and hide gun in video box, but police handcuff him anyway. Then police play back security video and see where he hide gun, and they find it and arrest him. Then they go to limousine and search and find money and take it.”
Holy shit! I thought. The money was the least of my problems. The main problem was that Danny was a f**king dead man! He would have to leave town and never come back. Or make some sort of financial compensation to Todd, to buy him off.
Just then it occurred to me that Todd must’ve told all this to Carolyn over the telephone. And if he was still in jail, then he must’ve used the phone from—Shit! Todd was smarter than that! Why would he risk using a phone that was almost certainly tapped—to call his own house, nonetheless?
“When did you last speak to Todd?” I asked, praying there was some explanation.
“I not speak to him. His lawyer call me and tell me this. Todd call him and tell him to get bail money, and then Todd say I must leave to Switzerland tonight, before this become problem. So I book ticket for Tahad’s parents and Dina and me. Rich will sign for Todd and I will give him bail money.”
Christ almighty! This was an awful lot to take in. At least Todd had had enough common sense not to talk on the phone. And insofar as his conversation with his lawyer went, that would be privileged. Yet the most ironic part was that in the middle of the whole thing—while he was sitting in jail—Todd was still trying to get my money overseas. I didn’t know whether to be appreciative of his unwavering commitment to my cause or angry over how reckless he was. I ran the whole thing through my mind, trying to put it all into perspective. The truth was that the police probably thought they’d stumbled onto a drug deal. Todd was the seller, which was why he had a briefcase full of cash, and whoever had been driving the Rolls-Royce was the buyer. I wondered if they had gotten Danny’s license plate? If they had, wouldn’t they have already picked him up? But on what grounds would they arrest him? In truth, they had nothing on Danny. All they had was a briefcase full of cash, nothing more. The main issue was the gun, but that could be dealt with. A good lawyer could most certainly get Todd off with probation and maybe a hefty fine. I would pay the fine—or Danny would pay the fine—and that would be that.
I said to the Bombshell, “Okay, you should go. Todd gave you all the specifics, right? You know who to go see?”
“Yes. I will see Jean Jacques Saurel. I have phone number and I know street very well. It is in shopping area.”
“All right, Carolyn; be careful. Tell the same to Todd’s parents and to Dina. And, also, call Todd’s lawyer and tell him to let Todd know that you spoke to me and that he has nothing to worry about. Tell him that everything will be taken care of. And stress the word everything, Carolyn. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, yes, I do. Don’t worry, Jordan. Tahad love you. He would never say one word, no matter what. I promise you this with all my heart. He will sooner kill himself before he hurt you.”
Those very words made me smile inwardly, even though I knew Todd was incapable of loving any soul on earth, especially himself. Yet Todd’s very persona, the persona of the Jewish Mafioso, made it highly unlikely that he would roll over on me unless he was facing many years in jail.
Having worked things out in my mind, I wished the Bombshell a bon voyage and hung up the phone. As I headed back to the yacht, the only remaining question was whether or not I should call Danny and give him the bad news. Or perhaps it would be wiser to wait until he wasn’t so stoned. Although, now that after the initial wave of panic had subsided, it wasn’t such bad news, after all. It certainly wasn’t good news, but it was more of an unexpected complication than anything else.
Still, there was no denying that those Quaaludes were going to be Danny’s downfall. He had a serious problem with them, and perhaps it was time that he sought help.
BOOK III
CHAPTER 21
FORM OVER SUBSTANCE
January 1994
In the weeks following the parking-lot debacle, it became clear that the shopping center’s surveillance cameras hadn’t gotten a clear picture of Danny’s license plate. But, according to Todd, the police were offering him a deal if he would tell them who’d been driving the Rolls-Royce. Todd, of course, had told them to eat shit and die, although I was somewhat suspicious that he was exaggerating a bit—laying a foundation for economic extortion. Either way, I had assured him that he would be taken care of, and in return he had agreed to spare Danny’s life.
With that, the rest of 1993 passed without incident—which is to say that Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional continued unabated—and came to a bountiful close with the public offering of Steve Madden Shoes. The stock had leveled off at just over $8, and between my ratholes, bridge units, and proprietary trading commissions I had made over $20 million.
Over Christmas and New Year’s, we took a two-week vacation in the Caribbean aboard the yacht Nadine. The Duchess and I partied like rock stars, and I had managed to fall asleep in just about every five-star restaurant between St. Bart’s and St. Martin. I also managed to spear myself while scuba diving on Quaaludes, but it was only a flesh wound, and other than that I had made it through the trip mostly unscathed.
But vacation was over, and it was back to business now. It was a Tuesday, the first week in January, and I was sitting in the office of Ira Lee Sorkin, Stratton Oakmont’s gray-haired, mop-topped chief outside legal counsel. Like all prominent white-collar attorneys, Ike had once worked for the bad guys—or the good guys, depending on whom you asked, which is to say that Ike had once been a regulator. In his case, he had been Section Chief of the SEC’s New York Regional Office.
At this particular moment he was leaning back in his fabulous black-leather throne, with his palms up in the air, saying, “You should be jumping for joy right now, Jordan! Two years ago the SEC sued you for twenty-two million bucks and was trying to shut down the firm; now they’re willing to settle for three million bucks and let the firm off with a slap on the wrist. It’s a complete victory. Nothing less.”
I smiled dutifully at my blowhard of a lawyer, although deep down I felt conflicted. It was an awful lot to take in my first day back from Christmas vacation. I mean, why should I be so quick to settle, when the SEC hadn’t found even one smoking gun against me? They had filed their suit more than two years ago, alleging stock manipulation and high-pressure sales tactics. But they had little evidence to support those claims, especially the stock manipulation, which was the more serious of the two.
The SEC had subpoenaed fourteen Strattonites, twelve of whom had placed their right hands on a stack of bibles and lied right through their teeth. Only two Strattonites had panicked and actually told the truth—admitting to using high-pressure sales tactics and such. And as a way of saying, “Thank you for your honesty!” the SEC had tossed them out of the securities industry. (After all, they had admitted wrongdoing under oath.) And what terrible fate had befallen the twelve who’d lied? Ah, such poetic justice! Every last one of them had walked away completely unscathed and was still working at Stratton Oakmont to this very day—smiling and dialing and ripping their clients’ eyeballs out.
Still, in spite of my wonderful string of successes at fending off the bozos, Ira Lee Sorkin, a former bozo himself, was still recommending that I settle my case and put all this behind me. But I found myself struggling with his logic, inasmuch as “putting all this behind me” didn’t just mean paying a $3 million fine and agreeing not to violate any more securities laws in the future; it also meant that I would have to accept a lifetime bar from the securities industry and leave Stratton Oakmont forever—with some additional language, I was certain, that if I were to somehow die and then figure out a way to resurrect myself, I would still be barred.
I was about to offer up my two cents when Sorkin the Great could remain silent no longer. “The long and short of it, Jordan, is that you and I made an excellent team, and we beat the SEC at their own game.” He nodded at the wisdom of his own words. “We wore the bastards out. The three million you can make back in a month, and it’s even tax-deductible. So it’s time to move on with your life. It’s time to walk off into the sunset and enjoy your wife and daughter.” And with that, Sorkin the Great smiled an enormous boiling smile and nodded some more.
I smiled noncommittally. “Do Danny or Kenny’s lawyers know about this?”
He flashed me a conspirator’s smile. “This is strictly on the Q.T., Jordan; none of the other lawyers knows anything. Legally, of course, I represent Stratton, so my loyalty is to the firm. But right now you are the firm, so my loyalty is to you. Anyway, I figured that given the circumstances of the offer, you might want a few days to think it over. But that’s all we have, my friend, a few days. Maybe a week at most.”