Текст книги "The Wolf of Wall Street "

Автор книги: Jordan Belfort

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

“Here you go, Mr. Belfort!” said Michelle, smiling. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Yes, Michelle. I have a rare condition that requires me to drink one of these every fifteen minutes. And those are doctor’s orders, Michelle, so please set your egg timer or else I might wind up in the hospital.”

She giggled. “Whatever you say, Mr. Belfort.” She started to walk away.

“Michelle!” I screamed, in a voice loud enough to cut through the wind and the rumble of the twin caterpillar engines.

Michelle turned to me, and I said, “If I fall asleep, don’t wake me up. Just keep bringing up the Bloody Marys every fifteen minutes and line them up next to me. I’ll drink them when I wake up, okay?”

She gave me the thumbs-up sign and then descended a very steep flight of stairs that led to the deck below, where the helicopter was stowed.

I looked at my watch. It was one p.m., Rome time. At this very moment, inside my stomach sac, four Ludes were dissolving. In fifteen minutes I would be tingling away; fifteen minutes after that I’d be fast asleep. How relaxing, I thought, as I downed the Bloody Mary. Then I took a few deep breaths and shut my eyes. How very relaxing!

I woke up to the feeling of raindrops, but the sky was blue. That confused me. I looked to my right, and there were eight Bloody Marys lined up, all filled to the rim. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. There was a ferocious wind howling. Then I felt more raindrops. What the fuck?I opened my eyes. Was the Duchess pouring water on me again? She was nowhere in sight, though. I was alone on the flybridge.

All of a sudden I felt the yacht dipping down in a most unsettling way until it reached a forty-five-degree angle, and then out of nowhere I heard a wild crashing sound. A moment later a thick wall of gray water came rising up over the side of the yacht, curled over the top of the flybridge, poured down—soaking me from head to toe.

What on God’s earth? The flybridge was a good thirty feet above the water and– oh, shit, oh, shit—the yacht was dipping down again. Now I was being thrown on my side, and the Bloody Marys went flying on top of me.

I sat up straight and looked over the side and– holy fucking shit!The waves had to be twenty feet high, and they were thicker than buildings. Then I lost my balance. I was flying off the mattress now onto the teak deck, and the Bloody Mary glasses followed me, shattering into a thousand pieces.

I crawled over to the side, grabbed hold of a chrome railing, and pulled myself up. I looked behind the boat and– Holy shit! TheChandler! We were towing the Chandler,a forty-two foot dive-boat, by two thick dock ropes, and it was disappearing and reappearing in the peaks and troughs of these enormous waves.

I got back on all fours and started crawling over to the stairs. The yacht felt like it was breaking apart. By the time I’d crawled down the stairway to the main deck, I’d been soaked and banged around mercilessly. I stumbled into the main salon. The entire group was sitting on the leopard-print carpet, huddled in a tight circle. They were holding hands and wearing life vests. When the Duchess saw me, she broke from the group and crawled toward me. But then all at once the boat began tipping wildly to port.

“Watch out!” I screamed, watching the Duchess roll across the carpet and smash into a wall. A moment later an antique Chinese vase went flying across the main salon and smashed into a window above her head, shattering into a thousand pieces.

Then the boat righted itself. I dropped to my hands and knees and quickly crawled over to her. “Are you all right, baby?”

She gritted her teeth at me. “ You…you fucking sea god! I’m gonna kill you if we make it off this fucking boat! We’re all about to die! What’s going on? Why are the waves so big?” She stared at me with her enormous blue eyes.

“I don’t know,” I said defensively. “I was sleeping.”

The Duchess was incredulous. “You were sleeping? How the fuck could you sleep through this? We’re about to sink! Ophelia and Dave are deathly ill. So are Ross and Bonnie…and Shelly too!”

Just then Rob came crawling over with a great smile on his face. “Is this a fucking rip or what? I always wanted to die at sea.”

The doleful Duchess: “Shut the fuck up, Rob! This is as much your fault as my husband’s. You two are complete idiots.”

“Where are the Ludes?” sputtered Rob. “I refuse to die sober.”

I nodded in agreement. “I have some in my pocket…Here,” and I reached into my shorts pocket, pulled out a handful of Ludes, and handed him four.

“Give me one of those!” snapped the Duchess. “I need to relax.”

I smiled at the Duchess. She was a good egg, my wife! “Here you go, sweetie.” I handed her a Lude.

I looked up and Ross, the brave outdoorsman, was crawling over. He looked terrified. “Oh, Jesus,” he muttered, “I’ve gotta get off this boat. I have a daughter. I…I…I can’t stop vomiting! Please, get me off this boat.”

Rob said to me, “Let’s go up to the bridge and see what’s going on.”

I looked at the Duchess. “You wait here, honey. I’ll be right back.”

“Fuck that! I’m coming with you.”

I nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

“I’ll stay down here,” said the brave outdoorsman, and he started crawling back to the group with his tail between his legs. I looked at Rob, and we both started laughing. Then the three of us began crawling toward the bridge. On the way, we passed a well-stocked bar. Rob stalled in mid-crawl and said, “I think we should do some shots of tequila.”

I looked at the Duchess. She nodded yes. I said to Rob, “Go get the bottle.” Thirty seconds later Rob came crawling back, holding a bottle of tequila. He unscrewed the top and handed it to the Duchess, who took a giant swig. What a woman!I thought. Then Rob and I took swigs.

Rob screwed the top back on and threw the bottle against a wall. It smashed into a dozen pieces. He smiled. “I always wanted to do something like that.”

The Duchess and I exchanged looks.

A short flight of stairs led from the main deck to the bridge. As we made our way up, two deckhands named Bill came barreling down, literally jumping over us. “What’s going on?” I yelled.

“The diving platform just ripped off,” screamed a Bill. “The main salon is gonna flood if we don’t secure the rear doors.” And they kept running.

The bridge was a beehive of activity. It was a small space, perhaps eight by twelve feet, and it had a very low ceiling. Captain Marc was holding on to the ship’s antique wooden steering wheel with both hands. Every few seconds he would take his right hand off the wheel and work the two throttles, trying to keep the bow pointed in the direction of the oncoming waves. John, the first mate, was standing next to him. He was grasping a metal pole with his left hand to maintain his balance. With his right he held a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Three stewardesses were sitting on a wooden bench, their arms interlocked and tears in their eyes. Through wild bursts of static I heard the radio blaring: Gale warning! This is a gale warning!

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked Captain Marc.

He shook his head gravely. “We’re fucked now! This storm is only getting worse. The waves are twenty feet and building.”

“But the sky’s still blue,” I said innocently. “I don’t get it.”

An angry Duchess said, “Who gives a flying fuck about the color of the sky? Can’t you turn us around, Marc?”

“No way,” he said. “If we try to turn we’re gonna get broadsided and tip over.”

“Can you keep us afloat?” I asked. “Or should you call Mayday?”

“We’ll make it,” he replied, “but it’s gonna get ugly. The blue skies are about to disappear. We’re heading into the belly of a Force Eight gale.”

Twenty minutes later I felt the Ludes taking hold. I whispered to Rob, “Give me some blow.” I looked at the Duchess to see if she’d busted me.

Apparently she had. She shook her head and said, “You two are off your fucking rockers, I swear.”

But it was two hours later—when the waves were thirty feet or better—that the shit really hit the fan. Captain Marc said, in the tone of the doomed: “Oh, shit, don’t tell me…” Then an instant later he screamed, “Rogue wave! Hold on!”

Rogue wave? What the fuck was that? I found out a second later when I looked out the window—and everyone on the bridge screamed at once: “Holy shit! Rogue wave!”

It had to be sixty feet high, and it was closing fast.

“Hold on!” screamed Captain Marc. With my right hand, I grabbed the Duchess around her tiny waist and pulled her close to my body. She smelled good, the Duchess, even now.

All at once the boat began dipping at an impossibly steep angle, until it was pointing almost straight down. Captain Marc jammed the throttles to full power, and the boat jerked forward and we started rising up the face of the rogue wave. Suddenly the boat seemed to stop on a dime. Then the wave began curling over the top of the bridge, and it came slamming down with the force of a thousand tons of dynamite… KABOOM!

Everything went black.

It felt like the boat was underwater for forever, but slowly, painfully, we popped back up again—listing heavily to port now at a sixty-degree angle.

“Is everyone okay?” asked Captain Marc.

I looked at the Duchess. She nodded. “We’re fine,” I said. “How about you, Rob?”

“Never better,” he muttered, “but I gotta pee like a fucking racehorse. I’m going downstairs to check on everyone.”

As Rob made his way down the stairs, one of the Bills came barreling up, screaming, “The fore-hatch just blew open! We’re going down by the bow!”

“Well, thatkinda sucks,” said the Duchess, shaking her head in resignation. “Talk about your shitty vacations.”

Captain Marc grabbed the radio transmitter and pushed the button. “Mayday,” he said urgently. “This is Captain Marc Elliot, aboard the yacht Nadine.This is a Mayday: We are fifty miles off the coast of Rome and going down by the head. We require immediate assistance. We have nineteen souls on board.” Then he bent over and started reading off some orange-diode numbers from a computer monitor, giving the Italian Coast Guard our exact coordinates.

“Go get the wish-box!” ordered the Duchess. “It’s downstairs, in our stateroom.”

I looked at her as if she were a crazy person. “What are you—”

The Duchess cut me off. “Get the wish-box,” she screamed, “right fucking now!”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, I will, I will. But I’m fucking starving to death.” I looked at Captain Marc. “Can you have the chef whip me up a sandwich?”

Captain Marc started laughing. “You know, you really are one sick bastard!” He shook his square head. “I’ll have the chef make us some sandwiches. It’s gonna be a long night.”

“You’re the best,” I said, heading for the stairs. “Can I also get some fresh fruit?” Then I ran down the stairs.

I found my guests in the main salon, in a state of panic, tied together with a dock rope. But I wasn’t the least bit worried. Soon enough, I knew, the Italian Coast Guard would be here to rescue us; in a few hours from now we’d be safe and sound, and this floating albatross would be off my neck. I asked my guests, “You guys having a fun vacation?”

No one laughed. “Are they coming to rescue us?” asked Ophelia.

I nodded. “Captain Marc just called in a Mayday. Everything’s gonna be fine, guys. I gotta go downstairs. I’ll be right back.” I headed for the stairs—but I was immediately knocked over by another massive wave and went crashing into a wall. I rolled back onto all fours and began crawling to the stairs.

Just then one of the Bills passed me, screaming, “We lost the Chandler! It snapped off!” and he kept running.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs I pulled myself up by a banister. I stumbled into my stateroom through ankle-deep water and there it was: the fucking wish-box, sitting on the bed. I grabbed it, made my way back up to the bridge, and handed it to the Duchess. She closed her eyes and started shaking the pebbles.

I said to Captain Marc, “Maybe I can fly the helicopter off the boat. I could take four people at a time.”

“Forget it,” he said. “With the seas like this it’d be a miracle if you made it up without crashing. And even if you did, it’d be impossible to land again.”

Three hours later, the engines were still running but we were making no forward motion. There were four enormous container ships surrounding us. They had heard the Mayday and were trying to shield us from the oncoming waves. It was almost dark now, and we were still waiting to be rescued. The bow was pointing downward at a steep angle. Sheets of rain pounded against the window, the waves were thirty feet plus, and the winds were fifty knots or better. But we were no longer stumbling. We had our sea legs.

Captain Marc had been on the radio for what seemed like an eternity, talking to the Coast Guard. Finally, he said to me, “Okay, there’s a helicopter hovering overhead; it’s gonna lower down a basket, so get everyone up to the flybridge. We’ll get the female guests off first, then the female crew members, then the male guests. The male crew will go last, and I’ll go after them. And tell everyone, no bags allowed. You can take only what you can carry in your pockets.”

I looked at the Duchess and smiled. “Well, there go all your new clothes!” She shrugged and said happily, “We could always buy more!” Then she grabbed me by the arm and we headed downstairs.

After I explained the program to everyone, I pulled Rob aside and said, “You got the Ludes?”

“No,” he said grimly. “They’re in your stateroom. It’s completely flooded down there, maybe three feet of water—probably more by now.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll tell you, Rob: I got a quarter million in cash down there and I couldn’t give a shit about it. But we gotta get those fucking Quaaludes. We have two hundred, and we can’t leave ’em behind. It would be a travesty.”

“Indeed,” said Rob. “I’ll get them.” Twenty seconds later he was back. “I got shocked,” he muttered. “There must be an electrical short down there; what should I do?”

I didn’t answer. I just looked him straight in the eye and pumped my fist in the air a single time, as if to say, “You can do it, soldier!”

Rob nodded and said, “If I get electrocuted, I want you to give Shelly seven thousand dollars for a breast job. She’s been driving me crazy about it since the day I met her!”

“Consider it done,” I said righteously.

Three minutes later Rob was back with the Ludes. “ God,that fucking hurt! I think I got third-degree burns on my feet!” Then he smiled and said, “But who’s better than me, right?”

I smiled knowingly. “No one, Lorusso. You rule.”

Five minutes later we were all up on the helicopter deck, and I was watching in horror as the basket swung back and forth a hundred feet in either direction. We were up there for a good thirty minutes—watching and waiting with sinking spirits—and then the sun dipped below the horizon.

Just then John came on deck, looking panic-stricken. “Everyone needs to come back downstairs,” he ordered. “The helicopter ran out of fuel and had to go back. We’re gonna have to abandon ship; we’re about to sink.”

I looked at him, astonished.

“Those are captain’s orders,” he added. “The life raft is inflated back by the stern, where the dive platform used to be. Let’s go!” He motioned with his hand.

A rubber raft? I thought. In fifty-foot waves? Get the fuck out of here!It seemed like sheer lunacy. But it was captain’s orders, so I followed dutifully, as did everyone else. We made our way to the stern, and the Bills were holding either end of a bright-orange rubber raft. The moment they placed it in the ocean it washed away.

“Okay, then!” I said with an ironic smile. “I think the rubber-raft idea is a definite loser.” I turned to the Duchess and extended my hand toward her. “Come on; let’s go talk to Captain Marc.”

I explained to Captain Marc what had happened with the raft. “God damn it!” he sputtered. “I told those kids not to put the raft in the water without tying it up first…. Shit!”He took a deep breath and regained his composure. “Okay,” he said, “I want you two to listen to me: We’re down to only one engine. If it goes, I won’t be able to steer the boat anymore, and we’re gonna get broadsided. I want you to stay up here. If the boat tips over, jump over the side and swim as far away as possible. There’s gonna be a strong down current as the boat goes under, and it will try to suck you down with it. So just keep kicking for the surface. The water’s warm enough to survive for as long as you have to. There’s an Italian naval destroyer about fifty miles from here and it’s on its way. They’re gonna try another helicopter rescue with their Special Forces people. It’s too rough for the Coast Guard.”

I nodded and said to Captain Marc, “Let me go downstairs and tell everyone.”

“No,” he ordered, “you two are staying here. We could go down any minute and I want you together.” He turned to John. “Go downstairs and explain everything to the guests.”

Two hours later the boat was barely afloat when a crackling came over the radio. Another helicopter was overhead, this one from the Italian Special Forces.

“All right,” said Captain Marc with an insane smile on his face, “here’s the deal: They’re gonna lower down one of their commandos on a winch, but first we gotta push the helicopter over the side to make room for him.”

“You’re shitting me!” I said, smiling.

“Oh, my God!” exclaimed the Duchess, putting her hand to her mouth.

“No,” replied Captain Marc, “I shit you not. Let me go get the video camera; this one needs to be saved for posterity.”

John stayed at the controls while Captain Marc and I headed up to the flight deck with both Bills and Rob. Once there, Captain Marc handed the video camera to one of the Bills and quickly undid the helicopter’s restraints. Then he pulled me in front of the helicopter and put his arm around my shoulder. “Okay,” he said, smiling, “I want you to say a few words to the studio audience.”

I looked into the video camera and said, “Hey! We’re pushing our helicopter into the Mediterranean. Isn’t this fucking great?”

Captain Marc added, “Yeah! It’s a first time in yachting history! Leave it to the owner of the yacht Nadine!”

“Yeah,” I added, “and if we should all die, I want everyone to know that it was my idea to make this ill-conceived crossing. I forced Captain Marc into it, so he should still be given a proper burial!”

That ended our broadcast. Captain Marc said, “Okay—wait until we get hit by a wave and the yacht starts tipping to the right; then we’ll all do a heave-ho at once.” And just as the yacht tipped to the right, we all pushed upward and the helicopter went flying over the side of the deck. We ran to the side and watched it sink below the surface in less than ten seconds.

Two minutes later there were seventeen of us on the flight deck, waiting to be rescued. Captain Marc and John remained on the bridge, trying to keep the yacht afloat. A hundred feet above us, a double-bladed Chinook helicopter was in a stationary hover. It was painted military-green, and it was absolutely enormous. Even from a hundred feet, the thumping of the two main rotors was deafening.

Suddenly a commando jumped out of the helicopter and began descending on a thick metal cord. He was dressed in full Special Forces regalia, wearing a black rubber wet suit with a tight-fitting hood. He had a backpack over his shoulders and what looked like a speargun dangling from one of his legs. He was swinging back and forth in a wild arc, a hundred feet in either direction. When he was thirty feet above the boat, he grabbed his speargun, aimed it, and then harpooned the boat. Ten seconds later the commando was on the deck—smiling broadly and giving us the thumbs-up sign. Apparently he was having a ball.

All eighteen of us were lifted to safety. Yet there was a bit of chaos with all this women-and-children-first business, when a panic-stricken Ross (the formerly brave outdoorsman) knocked over Ophelia and the two Bills, made a mad dash for the commando, and took a running jump at him—wrapping his arms and legs around him and refusing to let go until he was off the boat. But that was okay with Rob and me, because we now had fresh material with which to rip Ross to shreds for the rest of his natural life.

Captain Marc, however, would go down with the ship. In fact, the last thing I saw before the helicopter pulled away was the yacht’s stern, as it dipped below the water for the last time, and the crown of Captain Marc’s square head, bobbing up and down amid the waves.

The nice thing about getting rescued by Italians is that the first thing they do is feed you and make you drink red wine; then they make you dance. Yes, we partied like rock stars aboard an Italian naval destroyer with the very Italian Navy. They were a fun-loving bunch, and Rob and I took that as a signal to get Luded out of our minds. Captain Marc was safe, thank God, and had been plucked out of the water by the Coast Guard.

The last thing I remember was the captain of the destroyer and the Duchess carrying me to the infirmary. Before they put the covers over me, the captain explained how the Italian government was making a big deal over the rescue—a public-relations coup, so to speak—so he was authorized to take us anywhere in the Med; the choice was ours. He recommended the Cala di Volpe Hotel in Sardinia, which he said was one of the nicest in the world. I nodded eagerly and gave him the thumbs-up sign, and said, “Zake me zoo Zarzinia!”

I woke up in Sardinia, as the destroyer pulled into Porto Cervo. All eighteen of us stood on the main deck, watching in awe as hundreds of Sardinians waved at us. A dozen news crews, each with a video camera, were anxious to film the idiot Americans who’d been foolish enough to sail out into the middle of a Force 8 gale.

On our way off the destroyer, the Duchess and I thanked our Italian rescuers and exchanged phone numbers with them. We told them that if they were ever in the States, they should look us up. I offered them money—for their bravery and heroism—and every last one of them refused. They were an incredible bunch—first-class heroes, in the truest sense of the word.

As we made our way through the throngs of Sardinians, it occurred to me that we’d lost all our clothes. For the Duchess, it was round two. But that was fine: I was about to receive a very large check from Lloyd’s of London—which had insured the boat and helicopter. After we checked into the hotel, I took everyone shopping, guests and crew alike. All we could find was resort wear—exploding shades of pink and purple and yellow and red and gold and silver. We would be spending ten days in Sardinia looking like human peacocks.

Ten days later, the Ludes were gone and it was time to go home. It was then that I came up with the terrific idea to box up all our clothes and have them shipped back to the States, avoiding Customs. The Duchess agreed.

The next morning, a little before six, I went down to the lobby to pay the hotel bill. It was $700,000. It wasn’t as bad as it seemed, though, because the bill included a $300,000 gold bangle studded with rubies and emeralds. I’d bought it for the Duchess somewhere around the fifth day, after I’d fallen asleep in a chocolate soufflé. It was the least I could do to make amends to my chief enabler.

At the airport, we waited two hours for my private jet. Then a tiny man who worked at the private-jet terminal walked up to me and said, in heavily accented English: “Mr. Belforte,your plane crash. Seagull fly in engine, and plane go down in France. It will not come to get you.”

I was speechless. Did things like this happen to anyone else? I didn’t think so. When I informed the Duchess, she didn’t say a word. She just shook her head and walked away.

I tried to call Janet—to make new flight arrangements—but the phones were impossible to use. I decided that our best bet was to fly to England, where we could understand what the fuck people were saying. Once we got to London, I knew everything would be fine—until we were sitting in the back of a black London taxi and I noticed something odd: The streets were insanely crowded. In fact, the closer we got to Hyde Park, the more crowded it became.

I said to the pasty-faced British cabbie, “Why is it so crowded? I’ve been to London dozens of times and I’ve never seen it like this.”

“Well, governor,” said the cabbie, “we’re having our Woodstock celebration this weekend. There are over half a million people in Hyde Park. Eric Clapton’s performing, the Who, Alanis Morissette, and some others as well. It’s going to be a jolly good show, governor. I hope you have hotel reservations, because there’s scarcely a room anywhere in London.”

Hmmm…there were three things that now astonished me: The first was that this fucking cabbie kept addressing me as “governor” the second was that I happened to show up in London on the first weekend since World War II where there were no hotel rooms available in the entire city; and the third was that we all needed to go shopping for clothes again—which would be the Duchess’s third time in less than two weeks.

Rob said to me, “I can’t believe we gotta go buy clothes again. Are you still paying?”

I smiled and said, “Go fuck yourself, Rob.”

In the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel, the concierge said, “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Belfort, but we’re booked solid for the entire weekend. In fact, I don’t believe there’s a room available anywhere in London. Feel free, though, to bring your party into the bar area. It’s teatime, you know, and it would be my pleasure to offer you complimentary tea and finger sandwiches for all your guests.”

I rolled my neck, trying to maintain my composure. “Could you call some other hotels and see if there’re any rooms available?”

“Of course,” he replied. “It would be my pleasure.”

Three hours later we were still in the bar, drinking tea and munching on crumpets, when the concierge walked in with a great smile and said, “There’s been a cancellation at the Four Seasons. It happens to be the Presidential Suite, which is particularly well-suited to your tastes. The cost is eight—”

I cut him off. “I’ll take it!”

“Very well,” he said. “We have a Rolls-Royce waiting for you outside. From what I hear, the hotel has a very nice spa; perhaps a massagemight be in order after all you’ve been through.”

I nodded in agreement, and two hours later I was lying faceup on a massage table, in the Presidential Suite of the Four Seasons Hotel. The balcony looked out over Hyde Park, where the concert was now under way.

My guests were gallivanting around the streets of London, shopping for clothes; Janet was busy at work, arranging flights on the Concorde; and the luscious Duchess was in the shower, competing with Eric Clapton.

I loved my luscious Duchess. Once again she’d proven herself to me, and this time under intense pressure. She was a warrior—standing toe to toe with me, facing down death, keeping a smile on that gorgeous face of hers all the while.

It was for that very reason, in fact, why I was finding it so difficult to maintain my erection right now, as a six-foot-tall Ethiopian masseuse jerked me off. Of course, I knew it was wrong to be getting a hand job from a masseuse while my wife was singing in the shower, twenty feet away. Yet…was there really any difference between getting a hand job and jerking myself off with my own hand?

Hmmm…I held on to that comforting thought for the remainder of my hand job, and the next day I found myself back in Old Brookville, ready to resume Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional.