I stared out the restaurant’s window to avoid Bo’s blazing gaze, at which point I found myself staring right smack into the gloomy groin of East Harlem and wondering why on earth the best Italian restaurant in New York City had to pick this f**king cesspool of a neighborhood for its location. But then I reminded myself that Rao’s had been in business for over a hundred years, since the late 1800s, and Harlem was a different sort of neighborhood back then.
And the fact that Bo and I were sitting alone at a table for eight was a much bigger deal than it seemed—given the fact that a dinner reservation at Rao’s needed to be booked five years in advance. In truth, though, getting a reservation at this quaint little anachronism was all but impossible. All twelve of the restaurant’s tables were owned, “condo-style,” by a select handful of New Yorkers, who more than being rich were very well connected.
Physically, Rao’s was no great shakes. On this particular evening, the restaurant was decorated for Christmas, which had nothing to do with that fact that it was January 14. In August, it would still be decorated for Christmas. That was the way of things at Rao’s, where everything was reminiscent of a much simpler time, where food was served family-style, and Italian music played from a fifties-style jukebox in the corner. As the night progressed, Frankie Pellegrino, the restaurant’s owner, would sing for his guests, as men of respect congregated at the bar and smoked cigars and greeted one another Mafia-style, while the women stared at them adoringly, the way they did back in the good-old days, whenever those were. And the men would rise from their chairs and bow to the women each time they went to the bathroom, the way they did back in the good-old days, whenever those were.
On any given night, half the restaurant was filled with world-class athletes, A-list movie stars, and captains of industry, while the other half was filled with real-life mobsters.
Anyway, it was Bo, not I, who was the table’s well-connected owner, and true to this tiny restaurant’s star-studded list of patrons, Bo Dietl was a man whose star was seriously on the rise. Only forty years old, Bo was a legend in the making. Back in his day, in the mid 1980s, he was one of the most highly decorated cops in NYPD history—making over seven hundred arrests, in some of New York’s toughest neighborhoods, including Harlem. He had made a big name for himself cracking cases that no one else could crack, finally jumping into the national spotlight after solving one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in Harlem: the rape of a white nun by two cash-strapped crack fiends.
At first glance, though, Bo didn’t look that tough, what with his boyishly handsome face, perfectly coiffed beard, and slightly thinning light brown hair, which he wore combed straight back over his roundish skull. He wasn’t a huge guy—maybe five-ten, two hundred pounds—but he was broad in the chest and thick in the neck, the latter of which was the size of a gorilla’s. Bo was one of the sharpest dressers in town, favoring $2,000 silk suits and heavily starched white dress shirts with French cuffs and wiseguy collars. He wore a gold watch heavy enough to do wrist curls with and a diamond pinky ring the size of an ice cube.
It was no secret that much of Bo’s success when it came to cracking cases had to do with his rearing. He was born and raised in a part of Ozone Park, Queens, where he was surrounded by mobsters on one side and cops on the other. In consequence, he developed the unique ability to walk a fine line between the two—using the respect he’d garnered with local Mafia chieftains to crack cases that couldn’t be cracked through traditional means. Over time, he developed a reputation as a man who kept his contacts confidential and who used the information passed along to him only toward stamping out street crime, which seemed to get under his skin more than anything else. He was loved and respected by his friends, and he was loathed and feared by his enemies.
Never one to put up with bureaucratic bullshit, Bo retired from the NYPD at thirty-five and quickly parlayed his storied reputation (and even more storied connections) into one of the fastest-growing and most well-respected private security firms in America. It was for this very reason that two years ago I had first sought out Bo and retained his services—to build and maintain a first-class security operation within Stratton Oakmont.
More than once I had called upon Bo to scare away the occasional mid-level thug who made the mistake of trying to muscle in on Stratton’s operations. Just what Bo would say to these people I wasn’t quite sure. All I knew was that I would make one phone call to Bo, who would then “sit the person down,” at which point I would never hear from them again. (Although one time I did receive a rather nice bouquet of flowers.)
At the upper levels of the Mob there was a silent understanding, independent of Bo, that rather than trying to muscle in on Stratton’s operations, it was more profitable for the bosses to send their young bucks to work for us, so they could be properly trained. Then, after a year or so, these Mafioso plants would leave quietly—almost gentlemanly, in fact—so as not to disturb Stratton’s operations. Then they would open Mafia-backed brokerage firms at the behest of their masters.
Over the last two years, Bo had become involved with all aspects of Stratton’s security—even investigating the companies we were taking public, making sure that we weren’t getting scammed by fraudulent operators. And unlike most of his competitors, Bo Dietl and Associates wasn’t coming up with the sort of generic information any computer geek could pull off LexisNexis. No, Bo’s people were getting their fingernails dirty, uncovering things one would think impossible to uncover. And while there was no denying that his services didn’t come cheap, what you got was value for your money.
In point of fact: Bo Dietl was the best in the business.
I was still staring out the window when Bo said to me, “What’s on your mind, Bo? You’re staring out that f**king window like you’re gonna find some answers in the street.”
I paused for a brief moment, considering whether or not I should tell him that the only reason I’d considered bugging the FBI was because of the tremendous success I’d had at bugging the SEC, which was something he’d inadvertently paved the way for by introducing me to the former CIA guys who sold me the bugs behind his back. One of the bugs looked like an electrical plug, and it had been sticking in a wall outlet in the conference room for over a year, drawing power from the very outlet itself, so it never ran out of batteries. It was a wonderful little contraption!
Nevertheless, I decided now was not the time to share that little secret with Bo. I said, “It’s just that I’m dead serious about fighting this whole thing. I have no intention of rolling over and playing dead because some FBI agent is running around asking questions about me. I have too much at stake here, and there are too many people involved just to walk away from this. So now that your mind’s at ease, tell me what you found out, okay?”
Bo nodded, but before he answered me, he picked up a large glass of single-malt scotch and threw back what had to be three or four shots, as if it were no stronger than H2O. Then he puckered up his lips. “Whewwwww-boy! That’s the ticket!” Finally he plowed on: “For starters, the investigation is still in its early stages, and it’s all being driven by this guy Coleman, Special Agent Gregory Coleman. No one else in the office has any interest in it; they all think it’s a loser. And as far as the U.S. Attorney’s Office goes, they’re not interested either. The AUSA on the case is a guy named Sean O’Shea, and from what I hear, he’s a pretty decent guy, not a scumbag prosecutor.
“There’s a lawyer named Greg O’Connell who’s a good friend of mine, and he used to work with Sean O’Shea. He reached out to Sean for me, and according to Greg, Sean couldn’t give a rat’s ass about your case. You were right when you said they don’t do a lot of securities cases out there. They do more Mob-related stuff, because they cover Brooklyn. So in that respect you’re lucky. But the word on this guy Coleman is he’s very dogged. He talks about you like you’re some kinda star. He holds you in very high regard, and not in the way you want. It sounds like he’s a bit obsessed with the whole thing.”
I shook my head gravely. “Well that’s great to f**king hear! An obsessed FBI agent! Where did he come from all of a sudden? Why now? It must have something to do with the SEC settlement offer. Those bastards are double-dealing me.”
“Calm down, Bo. It’s not as bad as it seems. This has nothing to do with the SEC. It’s just that Coleman is intrigued with you. Probably more to do with all the press you’re getting than anything else, this whole Wolf of Wall Street thing.” He started shaking his head. “All those stories about the drugs and the hookers and the big spending. It’s pretty intoxicating stuff for a young FBI agent making forty grand a year. And this guy Coleman is young, in his early thirties, I think; not much older than you. So just think of the harsh reality of this guy looking at your tax return and seeing that you make more in an hour than he makes in a year. And then he sees your wife prancing across the TV screen.”
Bo shrugged. “Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that you should try keeping a low profile for a while. Maybe take an extended vacation or something, which makes perfect sense considering your SEC settlement. When is that gonna be announced?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” I replied. “Probably in a week or two.”
Bo nodded. “Well, the good news is that Coleman’s got a reputation for being a pretty straight shooter. He’s not like the agent you’re gonna meet tonight, who’s a real f**king wild man. I mean, if you had Jim Barsini on your tail—well, it would be very bad news. He’s already shot two or three people, one of them with a high-powered rifle after the perp had his hands up in the air. It was one of those things where he said, ‘FBI—bang!—Freeze! Put your hands in the air!’ You get the picture, Bo?”
Jesus Christ! I thought. My only salvation in this thing was a whacked-out FBI agent with an itchy trigger finger?
Bo plowed on: “So it ain’t all bad, Bo. This guy Coleman isn’t the sort of guy who’s gonna fabricate evidence against you and go around threatening your Strattonites with life sentences, and he’s not the sort of guy who’s gonna terrorize your wife. But—”
I cut Bo off with great concern in my voice. “What do you mean, terrorize my wife? How can he drag Nadine into this? She hasn’t done anything, except spend a lot of money.” The mere thought of Nadine getting caught up in this sent my spirits plunging to unprecedented levels.
Bo’s voice took on the tone of a psychiatrist talking a patient off the ledge of a ten-story building. “Now, calm down, Bo. Coleman’s not a harassing sort of guy. All I was trying to say is that it’s not unheard of for an agent to put pressure on a husband by going after his wife. But that doesn’t apply in your situation, because Nadine’s not involved in any of your business dealings, right?”