“And as I groaned in ecstasy, Kenny the Pervert kept one eye on the road and one hand on the steering wheel, and his other eye on the Goldfish's mouth and his other hand holding back her brown hair, so it wouldn't disturb his view.” I shrugged. “I shot my load, if I recall correctly, right in front of P.S. One Sixty-nine, where I'd attended public school.
“Anyway, I want you both to know that I felt absolutely terrible when I walked in the door that evening. I felt dirty and disgusting, and I swore to myself that I'd never cheat on Denise again. And I continued to feel guilty long after that, especially when the four of us were together.” I paused and shook my head gravely. “I think that was the most difficult part of all—that Denise and the Goldfish became good friends. But that was the way it went down; Kenny got his wish and became my right-hand man, and the four of us became inseparable.”
Just then the door swung open and in walked the Witch, dressed in black. The three of us looked at her, speechless. She sat down next to OCD and said, “What did I miss?”
Nothing but silence.
Finally OCD said, with mock formality, “Well, Jordan was just giving us some valuable insight into his relationship with Kenny Greene and the Gold—”
“And I think this is a good time to break for lunch,” reasoned the Bastard.
“Yeah, I'm famished,” I agreed.
“Hmmm,” muttered the Witch. “You'll have to fill me in, then, Joel.”
Indeed, I thought, and maybe you can convince her to blow you while you're at it—although, on second thought, she looks like a biter!
We broke for lunch.
1*Name has been changed
2*Name has been changed
CHAPTER 12
LEAPS OF LOGIC
recisely one hour later, I was back in the Bastard's dungeon, with two slices of pizza digesting in my stomach and my three captors staring at me intently. I had spent the last fifteen minutes talking about the Blockhead—explaining how he'd insinuated himself into every aspect of my life, both business and personal. He did everything for me, I told them, almost like a second wife. And although I maintained no official rank at the Investors’ Center, anyone who saw us together knew I was the boss. And Kenny was fine with that; in fact, he relished it.
There are kings and there are kingmakers, I said to my captors, and the Blockhead was definitely the latter. I explained how Kenny began spending the bulk of his day running the operations of what had now become our office within an office. We had our own section at the back of the boardroom where our staff sat. At the time, we had four connectors, three stockbrokers, and one female sales assistant, all of whom had sworn loyalty to me (at Kenny's urging).
And I was now saying, “What impressed me most about Kenny— or should I say, what baffled me most—was the never-ending stream of friends he paraded into the office. And they were all cut from exactly the same mold: in their late teens or early twenties, from reasonably good families, and reasonably well educated.”
“Interesting,” said the Bastard. “And these were his former drug clients?”
I shrugged. “For the most part, yes, although I wouldn't place too much emphasis on that. These were good kids, not derelicts. It was like the movie Risky Business, where Tom Cruise becomes ‘pimp-for-a-night’ and hooks up his high school buddies with a happy hit squad of high-class hookers. That's what Kenny did, and his friends kept right on coming.”
“And where did Victor Wang stand in all this?” asked the Witch.
Uh-oh! I thought. Victor's goose was cooked now! “Well, the Chinaman—I mean Victor—stayed out of the mix for a while. He was too busy waiting on the sidelines, observing. See, he and Kenny had this completely bizarre friendship at the time. It was a mixture of love, hate, and mutual contempt, and, depending on the moment, how they felt about each other was a complete crap-shoot. They could be best friends, mortal enemies, or anywhere in between.
“In the spring of 1988, when all this was happening, Kenny and Victor were on the outs. I would only find out later that it was because of me.”
“Why is that?” asked OCD.
“Because Victor had taken Kenny's swearing loyalty to me as a personal affront. Since they were kids, they'd always planned on going into business together, and since Victor was the brighter of the two, he was their undeclared leader. Even when Kenny had brought Victor to my meat company, it was only for him to scope things out, to see if the idea was worth stealing for him and the Blockhead—which, of course, it wasn't. But flash forward eighteen months later, and the same forces were at work when Kenny called me out of the blue wanting to be a stockbroker.
“In the beginning, he had every intention of learning what he could and then going off with Victor. But what Kenny hadn't counted on was being blown away when he heard me on the phone. Suddenly he realized that there were other people out there even sharper than his beloved Victor Wang. So he shifted loyalties; rather than trying to tap my brain for knowledge and wisdom, he took the opposite approach, throwing every last drop of himself into promoting me—and trying to turn me into a king.”
“What a sordid tale,” muttered OCD.
“Yeah, it certainly is. But, anyway, to sum up all this Victor Wang business, Kenny had tried to get him into the picture while we were still at the Investors’ Center. He'd begged Victor to swear loyalty to me, but Victor refused; he was too proud. So he pooh-poohed the whole stock-market idea and continued dealing coke.” I shrugged. “And as the months passed, I quickly grew in power, and the window slammed shut in Victor's face. In less than a year, Stratton would be Stratton, and most of Victor's friends would be working for me. The dullest would go on to make hundreds of thousands a year, the sharpest would make millions, and a select few would make tens of millions. The latter were the ones I backed in their own firms, which I used to expand my nefarious empire and keep the regulators off balance. Ultimately, Victor would come to own one of those firms—namely, Duke Securities—and the only reason I agreed to finance him was to placate the Blockhead.
“I had been entirely against it at the time, because I knew Victor for what he was: a man of perceived insults and silent grudges. He could never stay loyal to me, nor anyone else, for that matter.” I looked into the Witch's black eyes. “Make no mistake about it, Michele: Victor is, was, and always will be an insane character. He's two hundred pounds of indestructible muscle surrounded by fifty pounds of lavish fat, and he's not scared to go to fisticuffs if the need arises. In fact, he once hung my g*y butler out the fifty-third-story window of my apartment—and that was after pounding the guy's face into chopped meat!”
My captors stared at me, astonished. “Yeah, it's a little-known story. My g*y butler stole fifty thousand dollars from me, after Nadine walked in on him having a g*y orgy in our apartment.” I shrugged. “I can give you all the dirty details if you want, although violence, I assure you, played no role at Stratton. What happened with my butler was a single aberration, as well as a testament to Victor's savagery. Danny, on the other hand, is not a savage. The moment he saw Patrick bleeding, he ran into the bathroom and started vomiting.”
The Bastard held up an index finger and said, “Excuse me,” and he leaned over and whispered something in OCD's ear. Now the Witch leaned over and added her own two cents.
I made no effort to eavesdrop. After all, I was too busy lost in thought, wondering how my life had spiraled so far out of control. Perhaps if I'd followed my mother's advice and gone to medical school, maybe I would have become a cardiac surgeon like my first cousin; or maybe I would have become an orthopedist, like my other cousin; or perhaps I'd be a lawyer now, like my sainted brother, Bob. Who knew anymore? It was all so complicated.
Just then my captors broke from their huddle. “Okay,” said the Bastard, “let's move on to Danny now. When did you two finally meet?”
I thought for a moment. “In June of ‘88,” I said, “which was right around the time I decided to leave Investors’ Center. I knew the place was a total scam by then, and if I didn't leave soon my clients would get slaughtered.” I paused for a moment, considering my words. “Scam is probably too strong a word, though. I didn't think what I was doing was actually illegal.”
“You don't really expect us to believe that?” sputtered the Witch, with a disturbing twitch of her nose. I flashed her a dead smile. “Yeah, Michele, I really do, and, frankly, it shouldn't come as much of a shock to you. The Investors’ Center was a licensed brokerage firm with a compliance department, a trading department, and all the other bells and whistles. They were even members of the NASD! It wasn't like they were operating in the shadows!
“Every other month they'd take a company public, and right there on the front page of the prospectus it would say: This deal had been reviewed by the SEC.” I shrugged. “And, also, you keep forgetting how broke I was at the time. When I walked into the Investors’ Center, the only thing I was thinking about was rent money. It was driving all my decisions.” I let out an obvious sigh. “I can't explain it any better than that, although I will admit that once rent money was no longer an issue, I began to notice a few things. At first I tried to rationalize them, but with each passing month it became more and more difficult. And I felt more and more terrible inside.”
The Witch: “So why not quit if you felt so bad?”
“Well, believe it or not, Michele, that's exactly what I had in mind when I met Danny. That was actually how I met him in the first place: I was hanging out on my terrace, playing hooky from work. I was dressed in my usual garb—a white terry-cloth bathrobe— and I was pondering the direction of my life. I had a pretty decent nest egg by then, so I wasn't under any pressure. All options were open to me—all options except opening a brokerage firm, which I had already ruled out.
“It was mid-June now, and George had broached the subject with me. He'd called me into his office and said, ‘The owners of Investors’ Center are making a fortune. It's a shame to leave so much money on the table, don't you think?’
“And my answer to George was: No, I didn't think! I wanted no part of owning a brokerage firm, especially one like the Investors’ Center. My meat-and-seafood debacle was still fresh in my mind, and I knew that every business appeared lucrative from the outside looking in; it was only when you were on the inside looking out that you got the true picture. Of course, George had no idea of that, because he'd never been in business before. All he saw were dollar signs, not a single liability.”
“So you met Danny while you were on your terrace?” asked the Bastard.
“Yes, I was living on the fourth floor, and Danny was playing with his son, Jonathon, in the playground. Jonathon was two at the time, and he always stuck out to me, because he had this terrific head of platinum-blond hair. He was incredibly cute. Anyway, after a few minutes of playing the good father, Danny appeared to be getting bored, and he drifted off to the side and lit up a cigarette. Eventually we locked eyes, and I flashed him a warm, neighborly smile.
“I think what shocks me most about this day is how normal Danny looked. He had on powder-blue golf shorts and a matching short-sleeve polo shirt. It was a golfer's ensemble, I thought, or maybe it was a yachter's ensemble. It was difficult to tell. Either way, I would've never guessed he was a Jew.”
The Bastard stared at me, confused. I continued: “Anyway, as Danny and I exchanged hellos, I noticed that Jonathon had made his way to the top of the sliding pond. At first I was impressed, because it seemed like a mighty feat for a two-year-old, but then it occurred to me that I should probably say something to Danny.
“And then, suddenly, Jonathon lost his balance and I screamed, ‘Holy shit! Watch out, Danny! Your son!’ And Danny spun around just in time to watch Jonathon take this wild tumble off the sliding pond and hit the pavement like a lead balloon.” I paused and shook my head gravely. “I'll tell you the truth: At first I thought the poor kid was dead. I mean, he was just lying there, motionless, and Danny was also motionless, too astonished to move.
“Finally, though, after a few painfully long seconds, Jonathon lifted his head and started looking around, but he wasn't crying yet. That came a second later, when he locked eyes with Danny. Then he went absolutely wild—screaming at the top of his lungs and flailing his arms about and kicking his legs wildly. So I figured I'd run downstairs and give Danny a hand. It seemed like the neighborly thing to do.
“But when I reached the playground, Jonathon was crying even louder. He was in Danny's arms and literally going ballistic! I said to Danny, ‘You want me to go find your wife for you?’ And Danny recoiled in horror and said, ‘Good God! Find anybody but her! Please! You can call the cops, for all I care, and have me arrested for being a bad father, just don't call my wife, please!
“Of course I thought he was kidding at the time, so I nodded my head and smiled. But he didn't smile back, and that was because he wasn't joking. I wouldn't find out why, though, for a few more days, until Denise and I had the pleasure of going out for dinner with them and watching Nancy pull a lit cigarette out of his mouth and throw it in his face. But, not to jump ahead here: Jonathon did finally calm down, at which point Danny said to me, ‘My wife tells me she sees you hanging out on your terrace all week in a bathrobe. What do you do for a living?’
“ ‘I'm a stockbroker,’ I replied casually.
“ ‘Really?’ he said. ‘I thought you needed to work on Wall Street to be a stockbroker.’
“I shook my head no. ‘That's a total misconception. Everything is done over the phone now. You could be anywhere. I, for one, work in Great Neck, and I made over fifty grand last month.’
“‘Fifty grand!’ he said. ‘I don't believe it! I have a bunch of friends who are stockbrokers, and they're all sucking wind since the crash!’
“ ‘I only deal in small stocks,’ I said. ‘They weren't hit as hard by the crash. What kind of work do you do?’
“ ‘I'm in the ambulette business,’ he answered quickly, ‘and it's a total f**king nightmare. I have seven vans that constantly break down and seven Haitian drivers who barely show up for work. I'd torch the place, if I thought I could get away with it.’
“I nodded in understanding. Without even thinking, I said, ‘Well, if you want to make a change, I'm sure I can get you a job at my company. I'll train you myself,’ to which Danny looked me in the eye and said, ‘Pal, if you prove to me you're making fifty thousand a month, I'll be at your doorstep, six a.m. tomorrow morning, ready to shovel shit for you!’”
“When did he actually come to work for you?” asked the Bastard.
“The next morning,” I said. “True to his word, he was waiting at my door, holding a copy of The Wall Street Journal.”
“What about his ambulette business?”
I shrugged. “He never went back. He had a fifty-fifty partner, and he just handed the guy the keys and said, ‘See ya later, pal. Nice knowing you!’ and that was it. He cold-called for me for the rest of the summer and then passed his broker's test the first week of September. George, meanwhile, was becoming more and more aggressive with me about opening up our own brokerage firm. The SEC had started investigating the Investors’ Center. If word leaked out, he said, the firm would quickly collapse.
“What worried me most was that I had just convinced Lipsky and the Penguin to come work for me. The Penguin had finally thrown in the towel on the meat-and-seafood business, and Lipsky's furniture business was on the verge of bankruptcy. So, in a way, I was responsible for them now too. That was why I finally agreed to go with George to see a lawyer, because I wanted to gather intelligence.”
“Which lawyer did you see?” asked the Bastard.
“His name was Lester Morse, although Danny and I used to call him Lester Re-Morse, because everything about the guy was remorseful, or, better yet, moroseful. He was the ultimate doom-and-gloomer, almost difficult to fathom.
“I mean, every person he knew was either rotting away in jail or had lost their last dime to the SEC. And the way the Moroser told a story made you want to slit your own wrists. He would start off by saying what a great guy someone was and how he'd made a fortune in his heyday, but the story would quickly degenerate into a cautionary tale, and he would end by saying, ‘… and what the government did to him was a real travesty. He's in Allenwood now, and he won't be getting out for ten more years.’ Then he'd shake his head and move on to the next victim.”
“Interesting,” mumbled the Bastard.
“Yeah,” I said, “what's even more interesting is that one of the names he brought up was Bob Brennan, the Blue-eyed Devil himself.”
The Bastard perked up. “Oh, really! What did he say about him?”
I shrugged. “He said he was the only person to ever walk away with all the marbles—two hundred million, by Lester's account.”
“Hmmm,” muttered the Bastard. “Did he say anything else?”
“Yeah, he said that Bob was too smart to get caught. He said that he was always two steps ahead of the regulators and that he covered his tracks like an Indian. I remember being very intrigued at the time—swearing to myself that if I ever decided to go into the brokerage business, I would want to be just like Bob Brennan.
“You see, Lester didn't paint out Bob to be an archcriminal—in fact, quite the contrary. According to Lester, it was the fault of overzealous regulators, along with a two-tiered justice system that was biased against penny-stock firms. WASP firms, on the other hand, got away with murder.”
“Did you believe him?” asked the Bastard.
“For the most part, yes, although I won't deny that his words seemed a bit self-serving. I knew enough at this point to realize that penny stocks stacked the deck against the clients, although a stacked deck and blatant illegality are two different things. Meanwhile, Lester's office reminded me of the Investors’ Center. It was small and dingy and didn't reek of success. And Lester reminded me of an aging leprechaun. He was a squat five foot four, and he was completely bald on top, with thick swaths of curly gray hair over his ears.”
“So it was just the three of you at the meeting?” asked the Bastard.
“No, there were four of us. Mike Valenoti was there too.” I looked at OCD. “Mike, I'm sure, you're familiar with.”