Текст книги "The Wolf of Wall Street "

Автор книги: Jordan Belfort

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 32 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

Unbelievable! I thought. How very fucking intrusive! I started muttering at the TV. “You motherfucking Fred Flintstone head—I’ll kick your fucking caveman ass from here to Timbuktu!”

Flintstone kept talking. “Remember: There’s no shame in being an alcoholic or an addict; the only shame is doing nothing about it. So call right now and take…”

I looked around the room… there!…a Remington sculpture on a green marble pedestal. It was two feet tall, made of solid brass—a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. I picked it up and ran toward the TV screen. With all the strength I could muster, I winged it at Fred Flintstone and… CRASH!

No more Fred Flintstone.

I addressed the shattered TV: “You motherfucker! I warned you! Coming into my fucking house and telling me I got a fucking problem. Look at you now, motherfucker!”

I walked back to my desk and sat down, then I dropped my bleeding nose into the pile of coke. But rather than snorting it, I simply rested my face in it, using it as a pillow.

I felt a slight twinge of guilt that my children were upstairs, but since I was such a wonderful provider all the doors were solid mahogany. There was no way anyone had heard a thing. Or that was what I’d thought until I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. A second later came the voice of the Duchess: “Oh, my God! What are you doing?”

I lifted my head, fully aware that my face was completely covered in coke, and not giving a shit. I looked at the Duchess, and she was stark naked—trying to manipulate me with the possibility of sex.

I said, “Fred Flintstone was trying to come through the TV. But don’t worry—I got him. You can go back to sleep now. It’s safe.”

She stared at me with her mouth open. She had arms crossed underneath her breasts, and I couldn’t help but stare at her nipples. What a shame the woman had turned on me.She would be difficult to replace—not impossible, but difficult.

“Your nose is gushing blood,” she said softly.

I shook my head in disgust. “Stop exaggerating, Nadine. It’s barely even bleeding, and it’s only because it’s allergy season.”

She started to cry. “I can’t stay here anymore unless you go to rehab. I love you too much to watch you kill yourself. I’ve always loved you; don’t ever forget that.” And then she left the room, closing the door behind her but not slamming it.

“Fuck you!” I screamed at the door. “I don’t got a fucking problem! I could stop anytime I want!” I took a deep breath and used my T-shirt to wipe the blood off my nose and chin. What did she think, that she could bluff me into rehab? Please! I felt another warm gush under my nose. I lifted the bottom of my T-shirt again and wiped away more blood. Christ!If I only had ether, I could make the cocaine into crack. Then I could just smoke the coke and avoid all these nasal problems. But, wait!There were other ways to make crack, weren’t there? Yes, there were homespun recipes…something having to do with baking soda. There had to be a recipe for making crack on the Internet!

Five minutes later I had my answer. I stumbled to the kitchen, grabbed the ingredients, and dropped them on the granite countertop. I filled a copper pot with water and dumped in the cocaine and baking soda, then turned the burner on high and put a cover on it. I placed a ceramic cookie jar on top of the lid.

I sat down on a stool next to the stove and rested my head on the countertop. I started feeling dizzy, so I shut my eyes and tried to relax. I was drifting…drifting… KABOOM!I nearly jumped out of my own skin as my homespun recipe exploded all over the kitchen. There was crack everywhere—on the ceiling, floor, and walls.

A minute later the Duchess came running in. “Oh, my God! What happened? What was that explosion?” She was out of breath, almost panic-stricken.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “I was baking a cake and fell asleep.”

The last thing I remember her saying was: “I’m going to my mother’s tomorrow morning.”

And the last thing I remember thinking was: The sooner the better.

CHAPTER 36

JAILS, INSTITUTIONS, AND DEATH

The next morning—which is to say, a few hours later—I woke up in my office. I felt a warm, altogether pleasant sensation under my nose and on my cheeks. Ahhh, so soothing it was…. The Duchess was still with me…cleaning me…mothering me…

I opened my eyes and…alas, it was Gwynne. She was holding a very expensive white bath towel, which she’d dampened with lukewarm water, and she was wiping off the cocaine and blood that had caked on my face.

I smiled at Gwynne, one of the only people who hadn’t betrayed me. Could she really be trusted, though? I closed my eyes and ran it through my mind…. Yes, she could. No two ways about it. She would see this through with me to the bitter end. In fact, long after the Duchess had abandoned me, Gwynne would still be there—taking care of me and helping me raise the children.

“Are you okay?” asked my favorite Southern belle.

“Yeah,” I croaked. “What are you doing here on Sunday? Don’t you have church?”

Gwynne smiled sadly. “Mrs. Belfort called me and asked me to come over today to keep an eye on the kids. Here, lift your arms up; I brought you a fresh T-shirt.”

“Thanks, Gwynne. I’m kinda hungry. Can you bring me a bowl of Froot Loops, please?”

“They’re raightthere,” she said, pointing to the green marble pedestal where the brass cowboy used to reside. “They’re nice and soggy,” she added, “just the way you like ’em!”

Talk about service! How come the Duchess couldn’t be like that? “Where’s Nadine?” I asked.

Gwynne pursed her full lips. “She’s upstairs, packing an overnight bag. She’s going to her mother’s.”

A terrible sinking feeling overtook me. It started in the pit of my stomach and spread to every cell of my body. It was as if my very heart and guts had been ripped out. I felt nauseous, ready to puke. “I’ll be right fucking back,” I sputtered, popping out of my chair and heading for the spiral staircase. I bounded up the stairs with a raging inferno burning inside me.

The master bedroom was just off the stairs. The door was locked. I started banging. “Let me in, Nadine!” No response. “It’s my bedroom too! Let me in!”

Finally, thirty seconds later, the lock clicked open; but the door didn’t follow suit. I opened the door and walked into the bedroom. On the bed was a suitcase filled with clothes, all neatly folded, but no Duchess. The suitcase was chocolate brown with the Louis Vuitton logo plastered all over it. Cost a fucking fortune… of my money!

Just then the Duchess came walking out of her Delaware-size shoe closet, carrying two shoe boxes, one under either arm. She didn’t say a word, nor did she look at me. She just walked over to the bed and placed the shoe boxes next to the suitcase, then turned on her heel and headed back to the closet.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I snapped.

She looked me in the eye with contempt. “I told you: I’m going to my mother’s. I can’t watch you kill yourself anymore. I’m done.”

I felt a surge of steam rising up my brain stem. “I hope you don’t think you’re taking the kids with you. You’re not taking my fucking kids—ever!”

“The kids can stay,” she replied calmly. “I’m going alone.”

That caught me off guard. Why would she be leaving the kids behind?…Unless it was some sort of plot. Of course. She was cagey, the Duchess. “You think I’m stupid or something? The second I fall asleep you’re gonna come back here and steal the kids.”

She looked at me with disdain and said, “I don’t even know how to respond to that.” She started walking back to the closet.

Apparently I wasn’t hurting her enough, so I said, “I don’t know where the fuck you think you’re going with all these clothes. If you leave here, you leave with the shirt on your back, you fucking gold digger.”

That one got her! She spun around and faced me. “Fuck you!” she screamed. “I’ve been the best wife to you. How dareyou call me that after all these years! I’ve given you two gorgeous children. Waited on you hand and fucking foot for six fucking years! I’ve been a loyal wife to you—always! Never cheated on you once! And look what I got in return! How many women have you fucked since we’re married? You…philandering piece of shit! Fuck you!”

I took a deep breath. “Say what you want, Nadine, but if you leave here, you leave with nothing.” My tone was calm yet menacing.

“Oh, really? What the fuck you gonna do, light my clothes on fire?”

An excellent idea! And I yanked her suitcase off the bed, stomped over to the limestone fireplace, and threw all her clothes on top of a foot of kindling wood that was already there, waiting to be ignited with the push of a button. I stared down the Duchess; she was standing stock-still, frozen in horror.

Not satisfied with her reaction, I ran to her closet and ripped dozens of sweaters and shirts and dresses and skirts and pants off some very expensive-looking hangers. I ran back to the fireplace and threw them on top of the pile.

I looked at her again. Now she had tears in her eyes. Still not good enough. I wanted to hear her apologize, to beg me to stop, so I gritted my teeth in determination and bounded over to the desk where she kept her jewelry box. I grabbed the box, walked back over to the fireplace, and opened the lid and shook out all the jewelry on top of the pile. I reached over to the wall and placed my right index finger on a small stainless-steel button, and I stared her down. Now tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Fuck you!” I screamed…and I pushed the button.

An instant later her clothes and jewelry were engulfed in flames. Without saying a word, she calmly walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her ever so gently. I turned back around and stared into the flames. Fuck her! I thought. It served her fucking right, making threats at me. Did she think I would let her walk all over me? I kept staring at the flames until I heard the sound of gravel kicking up in the driveway. I ran over to the window and saw the back of her black Range Rover peeling toward the front gate.

Good! I thought. Just as soon as the word got out that the Duchess and I were history, there would be women lining up at the door– lining up!Then we’d see who’s boss!

Now that the Duchess was out of the picture, it was time to put on a happy face and show the children how wonderful life could be without Mommy. No more time-outs for Chandler; chocolate pudding for Carter whenever he felt like it. I took them out to the swing set in the backyard and we played together—while Gwynne, Rocco Day, Erica, Maria, Ignacio, and a few other members of the menagerie supervised the action.

We played together happily for what seemed like a very long time—an eternity, in fact, during which time we laughed and giggled and carried on and looked up to the blue dome of the sky and smelled the fresh spring flowers. Having kids was the best!

Alas, an eternity turned out to be only three and a half minutes, at which point I lost interest in my two perfect children and said to Gwynne, “You take over, Gwynne. I have some paperwork I need to go over.”

A minute later I was back in my office, with a fresh pyramid of cocaine in front of me. And as a way of paying homage to Chandler’s fascination with lining up all her dolls and holding court, I lined up all my drugs on the desktop and held court too. There were twenty-two of them, mostly in vials but some in plastic Baggies. How many men could take all these drugs and not overdose? None! Only the Wolf could! The Wolf, who’d built up his very resistance through years of careful mixing and balancing, going through the painstaking process of trial and error until he got it justright.

The next morning was war.

At eight a.m. Wigwam was sitting in my living room, pissing me off. In fact, he should’ve known better than to come to my house and try to expound on the U.S. securities laws—sketching only broad, meaningless strokes. Christ, I might’ve been deficient in many areas in life, but one of them wasn’t U.S. securities laws. In fact, even after three months of basically no sleep—and even after the last seventy-two hours of complete insanity, during which time I’d consumed forty-two grams of cocaine, sixty Ludes, thirty Xanax, fifteen Valium, ten Klonopin, 270 milligrams of morphine, ninety milligrams of Ambien, and Paxil and Prozac and Percocet and Pamelor and GHB and God only knew how much alcohol—I still knew more about getting around U.S. securities laws than almost any man on the planet.

Wigwam said, “The main problem is that Steve never signed a stock power, so we can’t just send the stock certificate over to the transfer agent and get it switched to your name.”

In that very instant, as foggy as my mind was, I was still appalled at how much of an amateur my friend was. It was such a simple problem that I felt like spitting nails in his face. I took a deep breath and said, “Let me tell you something, you motherfucker. I love you like a fucking brother, but I’m gonna rip your fucking eyeballs out of your head next time you tell me what I can’t do with this escrow agreement. You come over to my fucking house looking to borrow a quarter million dollars and you’re worried about fucking stock powers? Jesus fucking Christ, Andy! We only need a stock power if we wanna sell the fucking stock, not if we want to buy the fucking stock! Don’t you get it? This is a war of attrition, a war of possession,and once we gain possession of the stock we have the upper hand.”

I softened my tone. “Listen to me: All you need to do is foreclose on the note pursuant to the escrow agreement and then you’ll have a legal obligation to sell the stock to pay the note. Then you turn around and sell the stock to me at four dollars a share, and I write you a check, for $4.8 million, which covers the purchase price of the shares. Then you write a check right back to me for the same $4.8 million, to pay off the note, and that’s that! Don’t you get it? It’s so simple!”

He nodded weakly.

“Listen,” I said calmly, “possession is nine-tenths of the law. I write you a check right now and we officially have control of the stock. Then we file a 13D this afternoon, and we make a public announcement that I intend to keep buying more stock and start a proxy fight. It’ll cause so much turmoil that it’ll force Steve’s hand. And each week I’ll keep buying more stock and we’ll keep filing updated 13Ds. It’ll be in The Wall Street Journalevery week—driving Steve crazy!”

Fifteen minutes later Wigwam was leaving my house, $250,000 richer and holding a check for $4.8 million. By this afternoon it would hit the Dow Jones newswire that I was attempting a takeover of Steve Madden Shoes. And while I really had no intention of doing so, I had no doubt that it would drive Steve crazy—and leave him little choice but to pay me fair market value for my shares. Insofar as my personal liability, I wasn’t concerned. I had thought it through, and since Steve and I hadn’t actually signed the secret agreement until a year after the underwriting, the issue of Stratton issuing a false prospectus was a moot point. The liability was more Steve’s than my own, because as CEO, hewas the one signing off on the SEC filings. I could plead ignorance—saying that I thought the filings were being done correctly. It wasn’t plausible deniability at its best, but it was plausible deniability nonetheless.

Either way, Wigwam was now out of my hair.

I went back upstairs to the royal bathroom and started snorting again. There was a pile of coke on the vanity and a thousand lights ablaze—reflecting off the mirrors and the million-dollar gray marble floor. Meanwhile, I felt terrible inside. Empty. Hollow. I missed the Duchess so much, so terribly, yet there was no way to get her back now. After all, to give in to her would be to admit defeat—to admit that I had a problem and that I needed help.

So I stuck my nose in the pile and snorted with both nostrils at once. Then I swallowed a few more Xanax and a handful of Quaaludes. The key, though, wasn’t the Ludes and Xanax. It was to keep my coke high in the very early stages—within that first wild rush where everything seems to make perfect sense and your problems seem a million miles away. It would require constant snorting—two thick lines every four or five minutes, I figured—but if I could keep myself at that very point for a week or so, then I could wait the Duchess out and watch her crawl back to me. It would require some serious drug-balancing, but the Wolf was up to the task…

…although if I fell asleep she would come for the kids and steal them. Perhaps I should just leave town with them, keep them out of her evil grasp, although Carter was a bit too small to travel with. He was still wearing a diaper and he was still very dependent on the Duchess. Of course, that would change soon, especially when he was ready for his first car and I offered him a Ferrari if he agreed to forget his mother.

So it made more sense just to leave town with Chandler and Gwynne. Chandler was wonderful company, after all, and we could travel around the world together as father and daughter. We would dress in the finest clothes and live a carefree life, while others looked on in admiration. Then, in a few years, I would come back for Carter.

Thirty minutes later I was back in the living room—conducting business with Dave Davidson, the Uniblinker. He was complaining about trading from the short side, that he was losing money as the stock went up. I couldn’t have cared less, though; I just wanted to see the Duchess, to let her know about my plan to travel around the world with Chandler.

Just then I heard the front door open. A few seconds later I saw the Duchess walk past the living room and into the children’s playroom. I was discussing trading strategies with the Uniblinker when she came walking back out, holding Chandler. My words were coming out automatically, as if on tape—and I heard the Duchess’s soft footsteps heading to the basement, to the maternity showroom. She hadn’t even acknowledged my presence, for Chrissake! She was taunting me, disrespecting me, fucking enraging me!I felt my heart beating out of my chest.

“…so you make sure that you’re around for the next deal,” I continued, as my mind double-tracked wildly. “The key is, David, that you—excuse me for a second.” I held up my index finger. “I gotta go downstairs and talk to my wife.”

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 everythingin 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.