Suddenly, as if by magic, the car came to a complete stop, five inches from the deer. KGB and I sat there speechless, mouths agape, staring at the deer, which were still frozen in the headlights. In the background, Cupid was still torturing me with a duet by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross:

“And I'll give it all to you, my love, my love, my love, my endless love.”

“Jesus Christ,” I finally muttered, still staring at the deer. I shook my head slowly, as the deer stared back. They seemed annoyed. I flicked off the radio and looked over at KGB. Nice fucking hat!I thought. “God, that was close! I can't believe it!”

SMASH!

The impact from the fourth deer was so profound that the two-thousand-pound German Mercedes seemed to fly up a foot in the air and then fall back to earth in slow motion. Without even having to look, I knew the entire rear passenger side was completely totaled. And the deer, of course, was dead. I turned back to KGB and her hat.

“You all right?” I asked.

She nodded slowly, dreamily. She was too astonished to speak. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the three deer scatter into the woods. At that very moment, it hit me that they were a small family, probably out looking for food. I was certain I'd killed the mother. How sad.I told KGB to wait in the car.

Outside, it was sheer carnage. A large deer with a very gentle face was lying on its right side, motionless. I felt a shiver run down my spine. I turned up the collar of my sport coat against the cold and took a moment to regard the deer. How very odd; it still looked beautiful. There was no external damage. Its eyes were open and lifeless. Its body was completely still. Must've broken its neck.

I looked over at the Mercedes. It was completely totaled. From the rear door to the wheel well, the entire right side had buckled. It looked barely drivable. Fair enough, I thought. It was my last tainted possession. Tomorrow I would have it junked, along with KGB.

I turned back to the deer, to take a closer look. Was it dead? It didn't look dead. All at once a terrible fear came rising up my brain stem. A dead animal was the bringer of bad tidings, a sign from below. With a sinking heart, I crouched down and placed my hand on the deer's throat. I checked for a pulse, and suddenly the deer's eyes blinked! I jumped back, astonished.

Slowly, veryslowly, the deer rose up onto all fours and began shaking its head back and forth, as if it were trying to get out the cobwebs. Then it began limping away. After a few steps it started trotting—right back into the woods, to reunite with its family. I breathed a great sigh of relief.

Now there was only one last thing eating away at me.

CHAPTER 29

JUDGMENT DAY

July 5, 2003

Seventeen Months Later

he proceedings were going just the way I had thought they would. They made me want to bolt out of Judge Gleeson's courtroom to the bathroom so I could regurgitate my breakfast in private. Still, it was time to get this madness over with, to put it all behind me. I had been out on bail for far too long, and everybody in the courtroom knew it. Everybody—not only Judge Gleeson but also Magnum and the Yale-man, who were standing beside me, and Alonso and OCD, who were standing beside them. Everyone looked rather dapper on the day of my doom.

For good measure, the spectators’ section was packed to capacity, filled with friends and enemies alike. They sat behind a thick wooden balustrade with a curved top, the so-called Bar of Justice, and were as quiet as church mice. Among them were a dozen assistant United States attorneys (the friends, believe it or not), half as many journalists (the enemies, of course), a handful of complete strangers who were there simply to observe a man's sentencing (sadists, I figured), and my own beloved parents, Mad Max and Saint Leah, who were there for moral support.

We were now ten minutes into the proceedings, and Magnum was making the case to Gleeson that my fine should be much less than Danny's. Gleeson had hit him with $200 million in restitution, payable in installments of $1,000 per month. On that basis, he would fully be paid off in a little over sixteen thousand years, which would be well into the next Ice Age, when money wouldn't mean as much. Either way, I still found $200 million in restitution to be entirely outrageous. Not that I didn't deserve it, but how the hell was I supposed to pay it back? Actually, I wasn't, according to Magnum; it was symbolic more than anything. Yet he still felt compelled to make the case to Gleeson.

Gleeson cut him off and said, “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. O'Connell. Sometimes restitution isalmost a symbolic act, but not in this case. Mr. Belfort is an earner, for a lack of a better way of putting it. He's going to earn a lot of money after he gets out of jail.”

“I understand that,” said Magnum, “but the amount ordered in the Porush case was far outside…” Oh, shit!Why was Magnum picking a fight with Judge Gleeson? What was the fucking point? Just let him slam me with a symbolic fine and go light on my jail time. “… looking to negotiate,” Magnum continued. “I just don't want to agree to something that might be off by a hundred million dollars.”

There were a few moments of silence as I waited for Gleeson to explode with something like: “HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY JUDGMENT IN THIS COURTROOM! I'M HOLDING YOU IN CONTEMPT, MAGNUM!” But to my surprise, he reduced my restitution to $110 million, without seeming even a bit perturbed. Then he said, “Would you like to be heard with regard to sentence, Mr. O'Connell?”

Magnum nodded. “Yes, Your Honor”— and keep it brief! Alonso promised to make an impassioned plea on my behalf, so don't steal his thunder!-“but only some very brief remarks.” Thank God.“This is a case that we fully understand involves a serious offense, and one that is broad both in terms of the time period involved, the number of victims, and the very large amount of losses sustained by them.”

Well, thanks a lot. Magnum. What are you going to do next, bring up my penchant for hookers and drugs and midget-tossing? Move on, God damn it!

“First,” continued Magnum, “Mr. Belfort recognizes that he was motivated by selfishness and greed during this period of activity, and he saddled himself with a serious drug problem, which I think dovetailed with his guilt over the crimes in which he was engaged and his struggle to…” I tuned out; it was just too painful to listen.

Of course, I knew Magnum was doing what he hadto do; if he were to try to minimize my crimes, Gleeson wouldn't consider anything positive he had to say. Yet, in truth, the only person who could really help me in these proceedings was Alonso. Anything said by Magnum would be suspect because he was my paid mouthpiece, and anything said by me would be construed as the words of a desperate man, saying anything necessary to get myself off the hook.

“… and in Mr. Belfort's case,” concluded my paid mouthpiece, “despite the seriousness of the offenses, I genuinely believe that a lenient sentence would be appropriate.”

“Thank you,” said the judge, who was smart enough to know that Magnum would have felt leniency was appropriate for pretty much anything, short of rape or murder.

Now Gleeson looked at me. “Mr. Belfort?”

I nodded humbly and said, “Your Honor, I'd like to apologize to”- Don't do it, you ninny! Don't apologize to the world! It sounds disingenuous!—”all the people who lost money…” and I was off and running, apologizing to everyone, knowing that, despite the fact that I was truly sorry, my words rung so hollow that I was all but wasting my breath. But I couldn't seem to stop myself; my mind began double-tracking a mile a minute. On one track I was gushing out more apologies—