Текст книги "Catch the Wolf of Wall Street"

Автор книги: Jordan Belfort

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CHAPTER 14

A CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE

n a way, David Michael Beall came to represent everything that could have been righteous and pure about Stratton Oakmont. Born in the ultrahick town of Burtonsville, Maryland, where sports like horseshoes and cow-tipping were the favorite pastimes, he had grown up dirt-poor and without the benefit of a father. It was the sort of do-it-yourself childhood in which a deep cut was stitched up by your own mother, using a heated sewing needle and thread.

Intellectually, Dave was neither overly bright nor overly dumb; he was average. And he wasn't much of a salesman; he was too honest and forthright, speaking with the sort of slow Southern drawl that couldn't convince anybody to do something they didn't want to do in the first place.

Like most kids from Burtonsville, he didn't grow up with a burning desire to be rich—that would come later—but what he did grow up with was a clear understanding that the world was filled with few chiefs and many Indians and that he was an Indian, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Normally, a six-foot-two-inch country bumpkin like Dave Beall would never go to college; instead, he would take a job at the local garage, doing oil changes and tune-ups, and then pass his weekends trying to get into the skintight jeans of the local Mary Joe Something-or-other. But as luck would have it, Dave was blessed with two wonderful things—speed and strength—which together earned him a full ride to the University of Maryland on a wrestling scholarship.

Along the way, he met a beautiful blond Jewess named Laurie Elovitch, who was half his size and his complete opposite. Laurie was from Long Island, and she came from a very wealthy and politically connected family, so after she and Dave graduated, they moved up to Long Island to be near them. It was understood that a guy like Dave—whom you would normally find sitting on a bale of hay, wearing denim overalls and no shirt—would be a fish out of water in cutthroat Long Island. Everyone assumed that Laurie's father, Larry, would help Dave find his way, that he would use his political connections to get Dave a decent job (perhaps in the parks department or in sanitation).

But again, fate would intervene in the life of Dave Beall—when, in November of 1988, Laurie stumbled upon a help-wanted ad in the New York Timesand Dave became one of the first young Americans to answer the Stratton call-to-arms. Like many young bucks who came after him, he drove to his interview in a piece-a-shit car, wearing a piece-a-shit suit, which, in his case, was so tattered that his future mother-in-law had to use masking tape to stop it from coming apart at the seams.

Nevertheless, he passed the mirror test without incident and then went through the training program and learned how to sell– or, in Stratton terms, he learned to become a killer. Twice a day, as I stood before the boardroom and did my thing, he also came to believe that greed was good, that clients should either buy or die, and that a life of wealth and ostentation was the only true path to happiness.

And– voilà!—six months later, Dave Beall was driving a convertible Porsche, dressing in $2,000 suits, and speaking with the unbridled cocksureness of a world-class stockbroker.

However, it was through his marriage to Laurie that his fate would ultimately be sealed; Laurie would strike up the closest of friendships with the Duchess—thereby thrusting Dave and I into a very unlikely one. We were an odd couple, for sure, yet, as my drug addiction spiraled out of control, Dave became the perfect companion for me. After all, he never had much to say in the first place, and now I was too stoned most of the time to understand him anyway. So we watched movies together, the same ones over and over again—James Bond, mostly, and original episodes of Star Trek—while we holed up in my basement, with the shades drawn and the lights dimmed, and I consumed enough drugs to knock out a family of grizzly bears.

Of course, Dave loved his drugs too, but not nearly as much. (Who did, save Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones?) Either way, he was always sober enough to keep an eye on me, which was the Duchess's order. Her own patience had already run out, so she put Dave in charge of making sure I didn't kill myself before she figured out a way to get me into rehab.

Eventually, she did, but not before I didtry to kill myself.

And as I had stood in Dave's kitchen two years ago, distraught and desperate, chewing on a hundred tablets of morphine, he wrestled me to the ground and stuck his fingers in my mouth and scooped the pills out. Then he called an ambulance and saved my life.

Four weeks later, when I emerged from rehab and arrived in Southampton with my marriage in tatters, it was Dave and Laurie who came out to the beach and did what they could to help us pick up the pieces. While I was well aware that that was something only the Duchess and I could do, it was a gesture I would never forget.

Yet even more telling was how Dave and Laurie acted after my indictment: While most of my friends ran for cover, Dave stood by me, and while most of the Duchess's friends jumped on the dump-your-husbandbandwagon, Laurie tried to convince her to stay.

It was for all those reasons that, as I now sat with Dave in Caracalla restaurant, I felt like the world's biggest louse. I wore dark-blue Levi's, which concealed OCD's devilish little Nagra, and beneath my black cotton sweater was OCD's ultrasensitive microphone, which was rising up my sternum and coming to rest just to the right of my breaking heart.

Although it would be just the two of us this evening, we were sitting at a table for four, set for four, with a starchy-white tablecloth, bone-white china, and gleaming silverware. Dave was sitting just to my left, less than two feet away—so close, I thought, that OCD's microphone would pick up the sound of his breathing. He wore a navy sport jacket over a white T-shirt—typical dress for Dave Beall—and on his large, handsome face he wore the most innocent of expressions: a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

After a few minutes of small talk, he handed me a stack of papers. “You mind taking a look at these?” he asked. “I'm thinking about going into the currency-trading business. People are making a fortune in it.”

“Sure,” I replied—and Jesus Christ!I thought. How terribly simple this is going to be! This so-called currency-trading business was the latest scam floating around, and I had no doubt that I could get Dave to incriminate himself in under a minute. Still, this had nothing to do with what OCD and the Bastard were interested in; rather, they wanted to know about the brokerage firm Dave had worked for after Stratton closed. Whatever the case, it would be just as easy to get Dave to spill the beans about that.

So I spent a few moments pretending to look at his papers, which had words like yenand deutsche markplastered on them as I snuck peeks around the restaurant out of the corner of my eye. Caracalla was a small place, with maybe fifteen or twenty tables. At eight p.m. on a Wednesday, only a few of them were occupied. It was mostly middle-aged couples, none of whom had any idea of the utter deceit that was transpiring just a few yards away. OCD and the Mormon were waiting for me in the parking lot of a local movie theater, so it was just Dave and me… . the man who'd saved my life… the only friend who'd stood by me.…Our children were friends… our wives were friends… we were friends!… How could I do this?

I couldn't.

Without even thinking, I put down the papers, excused myself from the table, and headed for the bathroom. On the way, I stopped at a waiters’ station and snatched a pen. Inside the bathroom, concealed by a stall, I grabbed a paper towel out of a dispenser, leaned it on the wall, and in big block letters I wrote: DON'T INCRIMINATE YOURSELF! I'M WIRED!

I looked at the note for a second, my heart beating out of my chest. If OCD and the Bastard found out about this, I would be dead meat. They would break my cooperation right on the spot, and I'd be sentenced without a 5K letter. Thirty fucking years!I thought. I did the calculations: I would be sixty-six years old! I took a deep breath and tried to steel myself. There was no way OCD could ever find out. I was certain of it.

Emboldened by that thought, I exited the bathroom and headed back to the table, my eyes darting around the restaurant, like a jackrabbit's. No one looked suspicious. The coast was clear; there were no government agents.

The moment I reached the table, I placed my left hand on Dave's shoulder and put my right forefinger to my lips, in the sign that says: “Shhh!” In my left hand was the note, folded in half. I removed my hand from his shoulder, unfolded the note with my fingers, and then placed it on the table in front of him.

As I sat down, I watched his blue eyes literally pop out of his beefy skull, like hat pegs, as he read the note to himself. Then he looked at me, dumbfounded. I looked back, stone-faced. Then I nodded slowly. He nodded back.

“Anyway,” I said, “as far as the currency-trading business goes, I think it's a good thing, but you need to be careful. There's a lot of cash floating around there—at least that's what I hear; everyone's taking kickbacks. I mean, it was one thing when you and I did it, but it's different when there're strangers involved.” I lowered my voice for effect. “Let me ask you a question,” I whispered. “You never deposited any of the cash I gave you, did you?”

He looked at me wide-eyed. “I don't know what you're talking about. I'm broke right now.”

“I understand that,” I whispered, “but I'm not talking about right now.I'm talking about two years ago.I'm worried about the quarter million I gave you. What did you do with the cash?”

A bead of sweat began running down his thick brow. “I think you were stoned back then, big guy! I'm broke right now….”

And that was how the evening went down.

An hour later, when I handed OCD the tape, I felt a slight twinge of guilt, but only a slight twinge. After all, if OCD were to find out about this, he would understand. Ohhh, he would still have no choice but to throw me in jail for the next thirty years; but he wouldn't take my betrayal personally. He would agree that there's only so low a man can stoop before he's no longer a man, and, tonight I had reached that point, and, yes, tonight I had acted like a man.

On my way back to Southampton, I realized that I had found something very important this evening, something that I had lost many years ago, on that very first day I had walked into the Investors’ Center and saw the spreads.

My self-respect.

CHAPTER 15

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF KARMA

t was karma,I thought.

After all, what other explanation could there possibly be that, within three days of slipping Dave Beall the note, the Duchess called me to reconcile? Actually, it wasn't a. fullreconciliation, but it was a major step in the right direction.

“So,” said my luscious Duchess, walking arm in arm with me along the water's edge, “if you buy me a house in the Hamptons, I think it'll be really good for us. We'd get rid of the Old Brookville house and see each other all the time again. Who knowswhat'll happen from there, right?”

I nodded and smiled warmly as we walked in silence for a few moments. We were walking west, toward the setting sun, and in spite of it being April, it was still warm enough at five o'clock that our matching blue windbreakers were all we needed to protect us against the salty breeze.

“Anyway,” continued the Duchess, “I was really mad at you for a while. I never really got over what happened on the stairs. I mean, I thoughtI did, but I just kind of buried it under the rug, along with a lot of other things.” She paused for a moment, squeezing my arm tighter. “But I'm as much to blame as you for that. You see, all those years I thought I was helping you, I was actually killing you.” She shook her head sadly. “But how was I to know? I was so codependent at the time, I didn't know which way was up anymore.”

“Yeah,” I said softly, “you're right; but only about the last part. What happened with the drugs wasn't your fault; it wasn't really anyone's fault; it just kind of happened. It slowly, insidiously crept up on us.”

She nodded but said nothing. I soldiered on, in an upbeat tone: “Anyway, I was a drug addict and you were a codependent, and together we made a mess of things. But at least we made it out alive, right?”

“Yeah– barely,”she said. “I've had to work really hard on myself over the last six months. You know, codependency is a terrible disease, Jordan”—she shook her head gravely—”a terrible, terribledisease, and I was about as classically codependent as you can get.”

“Yeah,” I said solemnly—and what a fucking joke! I thought. Codependency, shmodependency… blah, blah, blah! The whole thing was fucking laughable. Yes, the Duchess had been codependent, but to actually seek out a self-help group that had the audacity to call itself Codependents Anonymous?Still, when the Duchess had first started talking about it, I wanted to have an open mind. In fact, I even asked George if he'd ever heard of such a group, and, surprisingly, he told me he had. Yes, they existed, he said, but no one took them seriously. It was a man-haters club more than anything, a place where they turned meek women into pit bulls. In short, he concluded, they were dangerous.

But that was the Duchess: always aspiring to be perfect at something,and this was her latest gig—to be perfectly codependent. So I had no choice but to go along with it, to pretend that codependency was the latest rage. On the plus side, though, anything that motivated her to put away her prospecting shovel was fine with me.

Just then I felt a playful nudge. “What are you thinking about? I see those wheels of yours turning.”

“Nothing,” I replied. “I was just thinking how much I still love you.”

“Well, I love you too,” she said. “I'll alwayslove you.”

Shit!The second half of her statement was not encouraging! After all, by saying that she would alwayslove me, she was inferring that her love was not of a wifely nature, which is to say of a spread-your-legs nature. Instead, it was of a you're-the-father-of-my-children nature or a we-share-history-together nature, both of which were unacceptable to me. I wanted wifelylove. I wanted lustylove. I wanted the sort of love that we used to share—before I'd been dumb enough to get myself indicted! Still, this was a beginning, a starting point from which I could maneuver her accordingly. “Well,” I said confidently, “as long as we still love each other we can work the rest out, right?”

She nodded slowly. “Over time, yeah, but we need to become friends first. We were never really friends, Jordan. In the beginning, all we did was have sex; I mean, we hardly came up for air, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said gravely—and what the fuck was wrong with that? I thought. Those were the best times of my life, for Chrissake! All those lazy afternoons we made love in the closet, all those nights on the beach, the way we did it doggie-style in the back of the limousine, that time in the movie theater, during Interview with the Vampire,while that old couple one row up rolled their eyes. Who could ask for anything more?

“Yeah is right,” added the Duchess. “We were like two sex maniacs!” Suddenly she stopped and turned to me. Her back was to the ocean now, her blond hair shimmering brilliantly in the afternoon sunlight. She looked like an angel, myangel! “So what do you think, honey? Will you buy me the house?” She puckered up her lips into an irresistible pout.

“I'm not against it,” I replied quickly, debating whether or not to nail her with a kiss, “but with everything that's going on right now, don't you think it would make more sense for you to move in here?” I motioned toward the dunes. “Let's give it a shot and see what happens, Nae! If it doesn't work, I'll buy you the house in two seconds flat.”

She shook her head sadly. “I can't do that yet; I'm not ready.” Then, nervously, she added, “Is it the money? Is the government hassling you?”

I shook my head. “No, I can still spend what I want, as long as it's reasonable.”

“Well, what does Greg say?”

I smiled. “Greg who? Greg my lawyer or the otherGreg?”

“Greg your lawyer!”

I smiled again. “He doesn't say much, Nae. He's trying to negotiate the best deal he can, that's about it. But the good news is that he thinks”– thinks!—“we can keep the houses for a while, at least until I get sentenced, and that won't be for another four years or so. So we have some time.”

Not letting go: “Where does that leave me? Will you buy me the house or not? It's only a million dollars, Jordan. It's a lot less than Old Brookville, so I'm sure the government will be happy with that, no?”

I shrugged. “One would think, although I would still have to get it approved.” Just then something odd occurred to me. “You already found a house, Nae?”

She shrugged innocently. “No, well… not really. I mean, I didsee something that would be perfect for the kids and me”—then, as an afterthought—”and maybe perfect for you too one day!” She smiled eagerly. “So what do you think, honey? Will you buy it for me?”

I smiled back, thinking how wonderful it would be to live with the Duchess and with the kidsagain! No more Jewish blow-job queens and Russian Natashas; how wonderful that would be! “I think we should go look at the house right now,” I said, smiling, but what I didn'tsay was: “Before I actually buy it for you, Duchess, I'm gonna make damn sure you're not playing me like a fiddle!”

“She's playing you like a fiddle,” snapped my longtime private investigator, Richard “Bo” Dietl, sitting across from me at a table for two at Caracalla. “I'm certain of it, Bo.”

“Maybe so,” I replied, “but I need to know for sure. You know, I was just starting to get over her when she called, and now she's got me back on the hook again.” I paused, and shook my head angrily. “But this is it, Bo; if she fucks me over thistime, I'm done for good.”

“That's fair enough,” Bo said skeptically, “but I still think it's bad karma, this planatationof yours. And it ain't so legal either.”

I shrugged noncommittally, amazed at how well I understood Bo-speak, which required that you not only disregard Bo's odd habit of calling everyone around him Bo (in spite of his own nickname being Bo) but that you also disregard the ending atation,when he chose to add it onto an unsuspecting noun. So a plancould be a planatation,and lunchwould be lunchatation.Still, Bo was smarter than a whip, and he happened to be the best private investigator in the business.

“I'm not too worried about the bad-karma part,” I replied casually, “because I've done some damngood things lately.” I smiled knowingly, resisting the urge to explain to Bo that the reason I'd chosen Caracalla was because I'd created so much good karma last time I was here (by slipping Dave Beall the note) that I was certain it would offset any bad karma I might create with my latest plan, which was: to bug the Duchess's Codependents Anonymous meeting. “So I'm pretty much bursting at the seams with good karma, Bo.”

“That's fair enough,” he said, “but I still can't bug the roomatationfor you. If we get caught, they'll throw us both in jail for that.”

I shrugged again and then took a moment to regard Bo.

As always, he was dressed impeccably, with his two-hundred-pound, five-foot-ten-inch frame swathed in a $2,000 gray pinstripe suit with a size-fifty chest, a crisp white dress shirt with an eighteen-inch neck, and a solid gray crepe de chine necktie, knotted flawlessly in the Windsor style. On his left hand he wore a diamond pinky ring that looked heavy enough to do wrist curls with, and, along with the rest of him—that gorilla-size neck, those broadly handsome features, his perfectly coiffed grayish beard, that slightly thinning head of hair—it gave off the regal whiff of a classy mobster.

Of course, Bo was not a mobster; he had simply grown up around them, raised in that section of Ozone Park, Queens, where an Irish-Italian kid like Bo had only two possible career paths: to become a cop or a mobster. So Bo became a cop—rising quickly through the ranks of the NYPD and earning his gold shield at a remarkably young age. He then retired young and used his connections, on both sides of the law, to build his company, Bo Dietl and Associates, into America's most well-respected private-security firm.

Over the years, Bo had been a tremendous asset to me—doing everything from protecting my family to investigating the companies I took public to scaring away the occasional low-level mobster who'd made the mistake of trying to muscle his way into Stratton's business. Right now, however, Bo had no idea that I was cooperating; perhaps he suspected it, I thought, but he was too professional to ask. Besides, when it came down to it, Bo was my friend, and, like any friend, he didn't want to put me in a position where I had to lie to him.

“I understand what you're saying,” I said to Bo, “but I'm not asking you to bug the room.”

He shrugged. “So what are you asking me to do, then: hide in the fucking closet?”

I smiled warmly. “No, no, no; I would never ask you to do anything so sneaky and underhanded. What I want you to do is wire up one of your female operatives and have her infiltrate the meeting.” I winked. “As long as the bug is on her, it's legal in this state, right?”

Bo stared at me, astonished. I continued: “Anyway, I'm pretty sure that a recorded conversation with one side consenting is perfectly legal.” I chose not to tell him why I was so sure. “So as long as we keep the bug on her, we're in the clear!” I gave my eyebrows two quick up and downs. “It's a pretty good plan, don't you think, Bo?”

“Jesus,” muttered Bo. “You—are—one—twisted—fuck, my friend!”

I shrugged. “I'll take that as a compliment from a guy like you. Anyway, I can only imagine what these women say in these meetings. I mean, think about it: We'll be like two flies on the wall. If nothing else, it'll be the laugh of the century!”

Bo, the caveman: “What the fuck does this codependent shit mean anyway? It sounds like a boatload of crap to me.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I bet you some of those women could benefit from some time in a mental ward. You know what I'm saying, Bo?”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying, but this is the Duchess's latest trip: She's an aspiring codependent, and there's nothing I can do about it. Anyway, will you do this for me, Bo? Will you ride this out with me to the bitter end?”

“Yeah,” he answered unenthusiastically. “I'll ride it out with you, Bo. But if your wifeatationever finds out about this, she's gonna crucify you!”

I dismissed his concern with a flap of the back of my hand in the air. “Don't even worry about that, Bo. I'mnot gonna tell her and you'renot gonna tell her, so how the hell is she ever gonna find out?”

Just then a tall, thin waiter came over with our drinks. He wore a red waiter's bolero, a black bow tie, and no expression. He handed Bo a snifter of Jack Daniel's, and me a Coke. Bo looked up at the waiter and said, “Bring me another one of these drinkatations,Bo, will ya?”

The waiter stared at Bo, confused. Bo pressed on: “What's wrong, Bo?”

I said to the waiter, “He'd like another one, please.”

The waiter nodded and walked off.

Bo shook his head in disgust. “Fucking guy,” he muttered. “He don't barely speak English and they got him serving us lunchatation.It's a fucking travesty.” With that, Bo lifted his glass. “Any ways, I hope you get the answer you're looking for, Bo, because my experience with these things is that a woman's secret thoughts are never pretty.”

“What a crazy bunch of women!” muttered Debbie Starling. ^*

It was two nights later when one of Bo's favorite operatives, Debbie Starling, muttered those very words into a Long Island pay phone, just a few blocks from the Duchess's Codependents Anonymous meeting. Bo and I were on the conference call. “I've never heard anything like it!” she added. “I mean, I don't know how to even describe it to you guys. It was like, uh…” There were a few moments of silence, as I sat on the edge of my seat, and Bo, I assumed, sat on the edge of his own seat. He was working late this Wednesday evening, still in his office, waiting for Debbie's postmeeting debriefing.

I had never met Debbie, but, according to Bo, she was perfect for the job. In her mid-forties now, she had spent most of her career camped out on a park bench, looking sexy and vulnerable, waiting for a would-be mugger to approach. When he did, she would lure him close and then slap the cuffs on him. Then she would blow a whistle—at which point half a dozen of New York's finest would emerge from the shadows and beat the shit out of the guy. Then they would arrest him.

Still, this wasn't what impressed Bo about Debbie, especially when it came to this operation. In fact, it had more to do with Debbie being in the drama club back in her college days, where she'd earned rave reviews from the critics. She was perfect, Bo had said. She was a born actress, who could infiltrate the man-haters club faster than the Duchess could say codependency!So he wired her up and sent her behind enemy lines.

Finally, the aspiring actress spoke: “You know, maybe I could explain it to you guys this way: You ever see the movie Jerry Maguire?”

“Yeah,” we replied in unison.

“Okay, well, remember that scene in Renee Zellweger's living room, where all the divorced women are sitting around, bitching and moaning, calling men the enemy?”

“Yeah,” we said again.

“Well, it was like that—but on steroids!”

We all broke up over that one, but after a few seconds I found myself wanting to jump through the phone. Bo regained his composure and said, “All right, Debbie, so what went down in Fantasyland tonight?”

“Well,” said Debbie, “it seems like Jordan's wife is the ringleader over there. Does that surprise you, Jordan?”

“No, not at all,” I said. “That's how she is. Whatever she's hot for at the moment, she plunges into headfirst. Today she's an aspiring codependent; tomorrow she could be an aspiring astronaut; there's no rhyme or reason, no telling. But I love her anyway.”

“Well, she's very beautiful,” noted Debbie.

No shit! I thought. Why else do you think I'm in love with her– because of her fucking personality? Christ, she's enough to drive any five men crazy! “Thanks,” I said, “but that's not why I love her, Debbie. Beauty is only skin-deep”—while ugliness cuts straight to the bone, I thought. “It's her personality I love: her feistiness, her quick wit, the way she gives me a run for my money,” and the way she used to blow me while I was driving my Ferrari on the LIE during rush hour, as truckers honked in appreciation. “Looks have nothing to do with it, nothing at all.”

There were a few moments of silence, while my bullshit hung in the air like Los Angeles smog. Finally Bo said, “All right, so what's the verdict, Debbie: Does she love him or not?”

“Yes, she loves him,” said Debbie– my spirits soared!—“but she also hates him”– my spirits plunged!Debbie paused for a moment. “More than anything, I think she's just confused.”

“Confused about what?” I asked.

“Yeah,” added Bo. “What the fuck does shehave to be so confused about? She ain't the one who got indicted! It's un-fucking-believable, these women.”

Debbie, with patience: “Are you finished, Bo?”

“Yeah, I'm finished,” he muttered. “So what's the story with the house?”

I immediately perked up. “Yeah, did she bring up East Hampton?”

“Not directly,” said Debbie– shit!I thought—”although she did say that she wanted to move out of Old Brookville.”

I perked up again. “Oh, really? Did she say why?”

“Yes; she said your name is in the paper all the time, and she's embarrassed”– my spirits plunged!“She says people are looking at her funny, especially at your daughter's school. She just wants to get away from it all and take the kids with her.”

“Well, that doesn't sound too promising,” I said softly.

“No it doesn't,” agreed Bo. “I think it's time you stop this housitationhunt. You know, Bo?”

“I wouldn't jump the gun,” countered Debbie. “See, right after she said that, then she started saying that she still loved you. She even said that she missed being with you.”

“Well, that's great!” I said.

“Well, don't jump the gun there either,” warned Debbie. “A second later she said she hoped you'd die in a fire, or something along those lines. That way she'd be rid of you for good.”

“Can you imagine?” snapped Bo. “You can't trust these females for a second! You turn your back and they stick the knife in!”

Debbie, losing patience: “You're not being constructive here, Bo.” A short pause, then, “Listen, Jordan: Like I said, she's very confused right now. Maybe you should give her some space for a while, just give her some time to sort things out. Then maybe she'll come back to you. Either way, you have one thing going for you, Jordan.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“She hates her father even more than she hates you.”

“Well, that's comforting,” I said. “He abandoned her when she was three.”

“So where does this leave us?” Bo asked Debbie. “Can you give us an opinion on this thing?”

“I'm not really comfortable doing that,” Debbie said. “Maybe if I go back next week I can find out more. I'm sure she doesn't suspect anything. I was welcomed into the group with open arms. I think they were just happy to drag someone else into their misery.”

“This might take a long time, Bo,” said Bo.

“I don't havea long time,” I shot back. “My wife is not gonna stop pressuring me with this; I know her.” And I was running out of time for other reasons as well, reasons that I couldn't share with Bo and Debbie. Next month I would be going before the judge to enter my guilty plea, and, as part of that, I would have to put together a detailed financial statement. Of course, all this would be done in secret; nothing would be announced until next year, aftermy cooperation became public. But, still, the best time to sell the Old Brookville house would be now, beforeI completed a financial statement.