I turned to the shift boss and said, “You gotta do something here. This—is—not—right.” And then I clenched my teeth and shook my head slowly, as if to say, “Someone's gonna pay for this when all is said and done!”
The shift boss threw his palms up in the air and shrugged. “What can I do?” he said innocently. “The lawr is the lawr.”
With frustration in my heart, I looked at Kiley and said, “Do you know why this shit happens to nobody but me?”
She shook her head nervously.
“Because I bring it on my-f**king-self. That's why! I'm a glutton for f**king punishment.” With that I turned back to the bulletproof glass and stared at the old hag suspiciously. Then I rolled my neck, like a man on the brink. “Listen,” I said logically, and I leaned forward and placed my elbows on a black Formica counter-top on my side of the glass. “I'm a sane guy, usually, so let me just give you a recap of the night's events, then you tell me if I deserve to get my cash back, okay?”
The hag shrugged.
“Fine,” I said, “I'll take that as a yes,” and then I went about telling her my tale of woe—starting with the malfunctioning helicopter and finishing with the forgotten-license debacle, while carefully omitting all references to my ankle bracelet, my spurious phone call to Patrick Mancini, Kiley's age deficiency, my interest-free loan from the federal government, and lastly (but not leastly) the fact that I was out on bail and wasn't authorized to be in Atlantic City in the first place. I said, “I think it's pretty obvious that I am who I say I am. So why don't you just cash me out and let me go in peace, okay?” I smiled my most reasonable smile at the hag. “Is that too much to ask?”
The old hag stared at me for a few seconds longer than good manners called for. Then came her toneless response, though the slits: “I'm sorry. I can't cash you out unless you show ID! It's the lawr.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I thought that's what you would say….” And those were the last words I said to the old hag that night. In fact, those were the last words I said to anyone that night, with the exception of Kiley, who turned out to be fine company for an ill-fated trip like this. Of course, I never laid so much as a finger on her, and, in retrospect, it had less to do with the statutory-rape clauses and more to do with my own sense of right and wrong. After all, the way I had chosen to pass my last summer on Meadow Lane was an embarrassment. I knew that better than anyone, but I just couldn't seem to control myself. It was as if I were determined to self-destruct—no, it was as if I needed to self-destruct.
Perhaps I was thinking that if I literally ran myself into the ground—burning through every possession I had, both physical and emotional—then I could somehow turn back the clock to a time before Stratton, before the tainted tree had sprouted. Maybe. Or maybe I had just completely lost my mind.
Either way, there were certain lines that even I couldn't cross: One had been Dave Beall, and another had been Kiley. And while the two were entirely unrelated, each in its own way had allowed me to hold on to one of my last vestiges of self-respect.
When I arrived back in Southampton the next morning, I called Kiley a cab, kissed her on the cheek, and then sent her on her way. I knew that one day I would run into Kiley again and that I would probably kick myself in the butt for not taking advantage of her that Sunday evening. After all, you don't come across girls like Kiley every day, especially in the real world, and especially if you're a guy like me, with one foot in the slammer and the other in the poorhouse.
At this particular moment, I was sitting on a club chair in my living room, staring out at the Atlantic Ocean and trying to make sense of it all. It was almost noon, and Patrick Mancini hadn't called yet, which meant that he never would. In short: I had gotten away with it.
Then the phone rang.
Oh, Jesus! I thought. I'm busted! As fast as lightning, I began racking my brain for a cover story. There had to be some explanation … I was kidnapped… I had been visiting my brother in Montclair, New Jersey, and lost my way… I was scoping out locations for my next meeting with the Chef… Yes!
The phone kept ringing.
I picked up the cordless. “Yeah?” I said, in the tone of the resigned and doomed.
“It's your attorney,” said my attorney. “Are you alone?”
With righteousness: “I swear to God I never touched that girl, Greg! You can call her yourself and ask her!” I suddenly realized that I didn't even have Kiley's phone number. In fact, I didn't even know her last name! She was just Kiley—the child.
“What are you talking about?” asked Magnum. “What girl?”
“Forget it,” I muttered. “I was just f**king around. What's going on?”
“I got a very disturbing phone call from Joel Cohen this morning.”
My mouth immediately went dry. “About what?”
“He says you may have violated your cooperation agreement. He wants to meet with you first thing tomorrow morning.”
I felt a wave of panic rising up my brain stem, accompanied by despair. If I hadn't been sitting, I would've fallen over. Remain calm, I thought. You've done nothing. Nothing! “That's impossible!” I said confidently. “Did he say how?”
“Not specifically, but I got the impression that he thinks you alerted someone to your cooperation. Any idea what he's talking about?”
Alerted. That was a strange word to use. What did it mean in this context? To alert, to let someone know that I was cooperating? Yes, my cooperation was supposed to be secret, but there were still some people who'd had to know, like my estranged wife, for one, and my parents… and George… but no one else; not even Bo had been alerted—alerted! Had I told any of my friends? No. The Blow-Job Queen? No. Any of the naughty Natashas? No, not one. I hadn't told a single soul, in fact. So I was in the clear.
Feeling very confident, I said, “No, I don't, Greg. I haven't alerted anybody. I promise you that. Joel is barking up the wrong tree here.”
“That's fine,” he said calmly. “You have nothing to worry about, then. I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding. We'll clear it up first thing tomorrow.”
“I'm sure it is,” I said quickly. “Where does he want to meet?”
“Downtown, at FBI headquarters. I won't be there, though. I have to go out of town on a deposition. But have no fear; Nick will be with you.”
“That's fine,” I said. “Nick is a good man.” And, besides, I thought, when you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Thank God.
CHAPTER 18
THE UNTHINKABLE
ith my shoulders squared, my chin held high, and the overstarched Yale-man walking beside me, I entered the debriefing room and prepared for the worst. Immediately, three things struck me as odd—starting with the fact that all four of my captors had shown up for the day's festivities, namely the Bastard, OCD, the Mormon, and, alas, the Wicked Witch of the East, whom I hadn't seen in close to a year. All four were sitting on one side of the debriefing table, waiting for the Yale-man and me to take seats across from them.
The second oddity was that everyone was dressed formally, including OCD, who seldom was. My male captors still had their suit jackets on, ties knotted to the top. Court attire. The Yale-man and I also wore suits, as did the Witch, who sported a black-on-black polyester power suit, which, like the rest of her wardrobe, was in desperate need of alterations.
And the third oddity—the most disturbing oddity of all—was that as we went about exchanging opening pleasantries, I noticed a conspicuous absence of them. The Bastard shook my hand limply and said nothing. The Mormon shook my hand firmly and said, “How's it going, guy,” using the sort of glum tone that a college coach would use before he cut a player from his team and revoked his scholarship. OCD shook my hand robustly—a bit too robustly, in fact, as if he were a kind Roman general, sending one of his soldiers into a gladiator pit filled with lions. And the Witch wouldn't even shake my hand.
Then we took seats.
“Okay,” snapped the Bastard, “let's get down to cases, then,” he calmly said, “Michele…” and he extended his hand toward her, palm upward. The Witch nodded once and handed him a thick legal file she was holding. Then she placed her tiny hands on the desktop and began twirling her thumbs at warp speed.
I felt my heart skip a beat.
With great care, the Bastard laid the file down in front of him. Then he stared at it. It was closed, held that way by a light-brown thread that was looped around a thin cardboard disc the size of a dime. And the Bastard just kept staring.
I looked over to the Yale-man, confused. He rolled his eyes and shrugged, as if to say, “It's just theatrics. It means nothing.” I nodded in understanding and looked back at the Bastard, who was still staring at the file—theatrically.
Finally, doing a near-perfect imitation of the spooky, stone-faced government agent from The Matrix named Agent Smith, the Bastard slowly unwound the light-brown thread at a perfectly even rate and in perfectly even circles. When he was finished, he slowly opened the file and stared at a document on top of the stack.
Still looking down, he said in the spooky tone of Agent Smith:
“Mr. Belfort: You've pled guilty to just about every type of securities fraud we have a law for.” True, I thought. “Stock manipulation. Sales-practice violations. Free-riding. 10B-5 violations. Currency violations”—he slowly looked up—”and, of course, money laundering.” He slid the document to my side of the conference table. “Are you familiar with this document, Mr. Belfort?”
I stared at it for a moment and heard Agent Smith say, “Why don't you have Mr. De Feis examine it for you—so there's no mistake.”
Eager to please, the Yale-man leaned over and studied the document for a moment. “It's your plea agreement,” he whispered in my ear.
No shit, Sherlock! It says it right here on top!
The Yale-man came to my rescue: “It's his plea agreement, Joel.”
“I'd like to hear Mr. Belfort say that,” snapped Agent Smith.
“It's my plea agreement,” I said tonelessly.
Agent Smith nodded once, then looked back down at the file and began staring again. After a good ten seconds, he grabbed a second document from the top of the stack and slid it over to me. Then he looked up. “And do you know what this document is, Mr. Belfort?”
I studied it for a moment. “It's my cooperation agreement.”
He nodded. “That's right. And on the bottom of page one, you'll see a sentence highlighted in yellow. Will you please read that out loud.”
“The defendant agrees to be truthful and honest at all times.”
The Yale-man seemed to be running out of patience: “What's your point, Joel? Are you saying that he hasn't been truthful and honest?”
The Bastard leaned back in his seat and smiled thinly. “Maybe, Nick.” Then he looked at me and said, “Why don't you tell us, Jordan? Have you been truthful and honest?”
“Of course I have!” I replied quickly. “Why wouldn't I be?” I looked around the room and all four of my captors were staring at me, expressionless.
The Witch: “You're saying you never tried to deceive us, not even once.”
I shook my head no, confident there was no way they could have already found out about Atlantic City. After all, it had just happened last night. Okay—two nights ago, I thought. But, either way, I had always been truthful besides that… unless—Dave Beall! The note! No! It couldn't be! Not in a million years! I pushed the thought out of my mind. Don't jump to conclusions. He would never rat me out. No upside for him. And I had protected him. Saved him. Alerted him. Alert! Alert!
“Is there something you wanna tell us?” said OCD, crossing his arms beneath his chest.
“No!” I replied forcefully. Then, not as forceful: “I mean, of course not. I just wasn't sure what you wanted me to say about… uh, honesty.” I looked at my captors one by one, my eyes settling on the Bastard. “And then, uh, truthfulness,” I felt compelled to add, although I had no idea why.
He seemed to smell blood. “Let me get more specific,” he said patiently. “Have you ever told anybody that you were cooperating?”
A knife through the heart! Must bluff it out! “Yes,” I said confidently.
“Who?”
“My parents, for one. Or two, you might say.” I smiled at my joke. “Is that a crime?”
The Bastard didn't smile. “No,” he replied, “that's not a crime. Who else?”
“Uhhh”—my mouth was going dry—”I told my wife, of course”— my lips seemed to be vibrating—”because I had to tell her. I mean, I had to tell her for a lot of reasons. She had to sign off on the forfeitures, for starters”—suddenly, a brainstorm!—”and maybe she slipped it to one of her friends, by accident.” As in Laurie Beall, if you catch my drift, who then told Dave Beall, which makes all of this one giant misunderstanding. “I mean, I don't know; I never stressed to her to keep it quiet. Maybe I should've. Is that a problem?”
The Bastard shook his head. “No. I think your wife is smart enough to know what's at stake here. Anyone else you told?”
Remain calm! “George,” I said confidently.
The Bastard looked at OCD, who said, “It's his sponsor from AA.” Then OCD shook his head back and forth, as if to say, “George is clean.”
Finally, the Yale-man stepped in. “Can we cut to the chase here, Joel? It's obvious you think Jordan told someone he was cooperating; so why don't you just tell us who it is? Then we can get to the bottom of it.”
The Bastard shrugged, ignoring the Yale-man's words with such callous indifference that it seemed he wasn't even giving him credit for going to Yale. Then he flashed me a hideous smile and said, “Have you ever passed anyone a note, Jordan?”
Good Lord! Worst fears confirmed! Can't think. Must stall for time. And deny. “You mean, have I ever passed anyone a note—ever? Like, uh, since public school or since, uh, when do you mean? Since college?”
“Since you started cooperating,” said OCD, saving me from my own nonsense.
“No,” I shot back. “Or, well, maybe, actually. I mean, I have to think about that, because it's, uh, an important question.” I paused for a moment, desperate to flee. How many FBI agents were in the building? Too many. But this might be my only chance! OCD might slap the cuffs on me at any moment, in this debriefing room. The Bastard would snap his fingers and point to my wrists and OCD would whip the cuffs out so fast my head would spin! But could they do that without a judge? Maybe. Probably. Definitely! I needed to speak to the Yale-man. But, no—if I asked for privacy they'd know I was guilty. Bad choice. Must bluff it out. Deny! Deny! Deny!
I blundered on: “Well, there was a time in New Jersey, when I was with Gaito and Brennan, if that's what you mean. After we played golf I wrote the name of a stock on a scorecard, and I passed it to Dennis. But it's on the tape. You can check it.”
“This is a waste of time,” sputtered the Witch. “We know you're lying to us. We could never use you as a witness.”
“Which means no 5K letter,” added the Bastard.
The Witch: “And according to my calculations, you're facing upward of thirty-five years.”
Now the Bastard: “But if you come clean with us right now, maybe there's a chance. Maybe.” He looked at me stone-faced. “I'll ask you one last time, and that's it. Have you—ever—passed— someone—a—note?”
The Yale-man to the rescue: “I want to speak to my client in private before this goes any further.” He grabbed my arm. “Come on; let's go outside for a second and have a talk.”
My moronic response: “No, it's all right, Nick.” I shook his arm off me. “I have nothing to hide. I haven't done anything wrong here. I swear to God. I haven't passed anyone a note, and I'm willing to take a lie-detector test.” Yes, I could pass a lie detector. Sharon Stone had done it in Basic Instinct… although she wasn't lying. But, still… they still might not know! It could be a fishing expedition! Not a shred of proof.… or.… did I take the note or did Dave take it? Not certain. But don't come clean. Can't come clean! To come clean is to die. Besides, maybe they don't even know it's Dave? If they knew for sure they would just come out and say it. They're trying to bluff a confession! No two ways about it!
The Bastard's last words: “Okay, then, so you never passed anyone a note. Fair enough,” and with that, he shrugged his shoulders and closed the file. Then he said to the Yale-man: “I'm sorry, Nick. I can't use your client as a witness; he's not credible. If he lies to us here, he'll lie in front of a jury.”
On cue, the Witch rose from her chair—only to be stopped by the booming voice of OCD, who shouted, “This is all crap!” He glowered at the Witch. “Sit down a second, Michele!” Then he glowered at me. “Listen,” he said in a tone he'd never used with me before. “I know exactly what happened. You went out for dinner with Dave Beall, and you slipped him a note saying, Don't incriminate yourself! I'm wired! Then you left the restaurant and lied to my face, telling me that you did the best you could.” He paused and shook his head, but it wasn't in disgust. He was disappointed in me. I was his star cooperator and I had let him down, perhaps even embarrassed him.
There were a few moments of silence, then he said, “I've always been straight with you, since day one, and I'm telling you right now—with no bullshit—that if you don't tell the truth about this, Joel's going to break your cooperation agreement and you're gonna spend the next thirty years in jail. And if you do come clean, he still might break it and you'll still grow old in jail.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But I've never lied to you before, and I'm not lying to you now. You have to come clean or there's no chance.”
The Yale-man nearly jumped out of his chair. “Okay!” he said, in a voice just below a scream. “I want five minutes with my client—alone! And I want it right now.” Then he softened his tone a bit. “Will everybody please wait out in the hallway while I confer with my client!”
“Of course,” said the Bastard. “Take as long as you'd like, Nick.” On the way out, OCD locked eyes with me, and he nodded slowly. Do the right thing, said his eyes. And then he was gone.