“I have twelve dollars in my piggy bank. Will that help?”
I smiled and let out a tiny chuckle. “You keep that twelve dollars, honey. I'll pay them back out of my own money. But listen to me, Channy, because I'm going to make you a big promise here. Are you ready for it?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“Okay: I promise you that no matter what happens, no matter what I have to do—even if I have to walk there!—I will move to California. You have my word on it.”
Her smile lit up the room. “When are you moving?”
I smiled back. “As soon as I can, thumbkin. But you're gonna have to have some patience. But I promise I will get there.”
She smiled and nodded eagerly. “Okay, Daddy.”
“And no more crying!” I added with a smile.
“Okay,” she said, throwing her arms around me. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too,” I said quickly, and odd as it seemed, in that very instant, despite the odds being stacked so heavily against me, I knew I would accomplish my goal.
CHAPTER 27
THE BUZZWORD IS IRONY
No big deal, I thought. The blonde is probably overreacting, and even if she's not, it doesn't matter anyway. After all, markets rise and markets fall, and a savvy trader can make money in any market. My plan was foolproof:
With the quarter million dollars I still had left, I would trade the high-flying NASDAQ with Wolf-like precision and make a small fortune in the process. The NASDAQ had more than doubled over the last twelve months, and who better than the Wolf himself to take advantage of the greatest speculative bubble since 1929? It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Alas, fate had different plans.
By 9:30 a.m., the NASDAQ was down more than four percent, and two days later it was down another five. By April Fools’ Day, it had lost more than twenty percent, and the joke was on me. The dot-com bubble had finally burst, and it would continue to deflate (at an unpredictable rate) for the foreseeable future. And, yes, while it was true that a savvy trader couldmake money in any market, he couldn't do it with limited resources, lest he be wiped out with a single bad trade. So I abandoned my foolproof plan before I started it.
Meanwhile, KGB and I had gotten along fine and dandy while I “sit in jail,” as she so phrased it, but now that I was out, things had become tenuous. Of course, the sex was still great, but the conversation was minimal. By the third week in April, I was certain that we had no future together. It was plainly obvious; in fact, it was so plainly obvious that on April 17—which was KGB's birthday—I got down on one knee and proposed to her. With a sinking heart, I said:
“Will you marry me, maya lubimaya,and be my thirdlawfully wedded wife?” What I didn't say (but what I knew would be true) was: “And do you promise to torture me and drive me crazy, and to make sure that I remain the most miserable man on the planet until death do us part?”
Not being able to read my internal thoughts, she quickly answered, “Da, maya lubimaya,I will be wife,” to which I slipped a seven-carat, yellow canary diamond in a platinum setting on her slender Soviet ring finger and took a moment to regard it. Oh, it was gorgeous, all right, and it was also very familiar; in fact, it was the Duchess's old engagement ring, which I'd managed to maintain possession of during the split.
Was it bad luck? I wondered. I mean, it wasn't every day a man asked a woman to become his third wife and then slipped the ring from his last failed marriage onto her finger as a sign of his love and affection and commitment to permanence. Still, I had my reasons, not the least of which was that I hadn't been sure what to get her for her birthday. (Not to mention the fact that a birthday present would have set me back a pretty penny, and I was trying to play things close to the financial vest.)
But when I called George and tried to explain all this to him, he blew up at me. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he sputtered. “You could have sold the thing for a hundred grand, you numbskull!”
Blah, blah, blah! I thought. KGB had stuck with me through thick and thin, so I owedit to her to get married, didn't I? Besides, what about her status as the first, last, and only Miss Soviet Union in that now-defunct nation's history? That counted for something! Then George said, “Anyway, she doesn't even get along with your children, so it'll never work.”
Whatever. Worse came to worst, I would just get divorced again.
Meanwhile, the Duchess was being unusually nice. Within three weeks of the kids leaving New York, she already had them back for another visit. Moreover, she had agreed to let me have them for the entire summer. The only problem was: How could I keep them entertained in a Eurotrash-infested Manhattan apartment building while I was locked up under house arrest with an emotionally disconnected fiancée by my side who couldn't say the word the?It would be difficult. What with no front lawn to run around on or swimming pool to swim in or beach to build sand castles on, they would be bored to death. Not to mention the fact that on the island of Manhattan it would be a hundred ten degrees and a thousand percent humidity! How could the kids survive in that? They would wilt like tiny sunflowers in the Gobi Desert.
The city was no place for children—especially in the summer! Everyone knew that—especially me. All their friends would be in the Hamptons. How could I disappoint them again? I had put them through enough hell as it was. Yet it would be obscenely expensive to rent a place in the Hamptons, and I was trying to conserve funds. If only the NASDAQ hadn't crashed!
Once again, however, George had a solution. He called me from his cell phone while standing in a sand trap on the sixth tee of Shinnecock, and he said, “I got the inside scoop on a fifteen-acre estate in Southampton. The owner is some pint-size German prince who's long on title and short on cash, so he's looking to rent the place cheap.”
“What's the place look like?” asked I, the choosy beggar.
“Well, it's not Meadow Lane,” he replied, “but it's still nice. It's got a pool, a tennis court, a huge backyard. It's perfect for the kids. You've even got deer running through your backyard!”
“How much?” I asked cautiously.
“A hundred and twenty grand,” he answered. “It's a steal, considering. The place looks like a Swiss hunting lodge.”
“I can't afford it,” I said quickly, to which George even more quickly replied, “Don't worry; I'll pay the lease up front for you. You can pay me back when you're rolling again.” Then he said, “You're like a son to me, Jordan, and you could use a break right now. So take it, and don't look a gift horse in the mouth.”
At first, my masculine pride urged me to resist George's generosity, but only for a second. The place would be perfect for the kids, and George was, indeed, like a father to me. Besides, to a man as rich as he (a man as rich as Iused to be), a hundred twenty grand was nothing. At that level of wealth, money was merely a book entry on a balance sheet; you got more joy from helping people with it than watching it collect four percent in the Bridgehampton National Bank. All you wanted in return was love and respect and, of course, gratitude, all of which I already felt for George. Besides, one day I would pay him back, after I became rich again.
So I packed my bags and moved back out to the Hamptons. I felt like a fucking Ping-Pong ball! Then I received an astonishing phone call from Magnum. It was early June now, and I took the call in my new sprawling living room, which, as George had indicated, looked like a hunting lodge. Magnum said, “I thought you'd like to know that Dave Beall got indicted today for securities fraud. He was arraigned this afternoon in front of Judge Gleeson.”