right now? You need help; Seafield has the answers…”. My response to that was to throw a bronze sculpture through my TV screen, putting a premature end to George's commercial.
Yet I remember thinking at the time that the face on my TV was the sort I would never forget—those gruffly handsome features, those piercing brown eyes, that perfectly coiffed salt-and-pepper hair—which was why it didn't take long to recognize him when I ran into him six weeks later in Southampton, in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And now, eighteen months after that, he was much more to me than just a sponsor. In point of fact, he was like a father.
“I can't just come over with a straitjacket,” said George, with a few shakes of his enormous head. “You know, I warned you about this: Two alcoholics dating are like two dump trucks running into each other.” He shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Anyway, like I said before: You—are—not—done—with—your—wife—yet. It's too soon.”
Just then Annette chimed in, with her wonderful Brooklyn accent: “Oh, what's the harm, Gawge?A few BJs ain'tgonna kill anyone! Jordan's lonely; he needs to have a little fun!” With that, she padded her way across the gleaming terra-cotta floor and placed the coffee and consumables on the kitchen table.
“Annette,” said George, staring at her for a second too long, “he does notneed to be encouraged in this department.” Then he looked at me and said, “I'll see if I can convince Sarah to check into Seafield, but only because I think it would be good for her. In the meantime, I suggest that you don't date for a while. You should stay alone for a year and learn to be by yourself. And keep going to the high schools, giving antidrug lectures; that's the best way to spend your free time right now, being productive and not getting laid.”
I promised George that I would, and for the next four weeks I followed his advice to the letter—almost. The “almost” had to do with an occasional tryst with a young Russian gold digger—or a Natasha,as the newspapers referred to them—courtesy of a casual acquaintance of mine in the Hamptons, a local playboy type who could send a posse of naughty Natashas to all four corners of the earth at the drop of a dime.
Pretty soon, though, that got old too. In fact, by the beginning of April, I decided to close the revolving door for good, or at least for a while, and I settled into a daily regimen of boringness and tediousness, punctuated by weekend visits from the kids and nightly dinners with George and Annette.
Yes, it was boring and tedious, all right, but it also gave me a chance to find myself, to try to figure out whoJordan Belfort really was. The last decade of my life had been unspeakably complicated, and the child my parents had sent out into the world bore little resemblance to the Jordan Belfort of today. So who was I now? Was I a good man or a bad man? Was I a battle-hardened career criminal or an upstanding citizen who'd simply lost his way? Was I capable of being a loyal and loving husband, or was I a habitual whoremonger who would refuse to wear a condom until his dick fell off? And what of my drug addiction? Was the beast merely sleeping or had I kicked the habit for good?
All these questions and many more like them had been ricocheting around my skull as I passed the rest of my winter in exile. The insanity,as I had come to think of it, had penetrated every aspect of my life and had destroyed everything in its path. So this was my chance to finally sort things out, to get to the bottomof things. The only question was, how long would I have?
Not long, as it turned out, because OCD quickly broke the boredom.
It was a Monday evening when he called, and it was a disturbing call to say the least. I was sitting in my living room, on an armchair, when the cordless phone rang. I put down my AA handbook and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Hey—it's me,” said OCD. “Are you alone?”
Given the fact that it was the FBI calling, I actually looked around my own living room to make sure that I was alone. “Yeah,” I said, “I'm alone.” And I stood up and started pacing around nervously. “What's going on? How've you been?”
“Busy,” he replied. “Following up on things. Anyway, how ya holding up out there? Slept with any Ruskies lately?”
“Very funny,” I replied, with a healthy dose of nervous laughter. “I'm done with the Natashas for now. I can't take their accents. You know, da, da, da… blah, blah, blah.It gets annoying after a while.” On the advice of Magnum, I had told OCD about the naughty Natashas, lest it come out on the witness stand under cross-examination. So OCD did his own investigation, and, not surprisingly, came to the legal conclusion that there was nothing inherently against the law about getting raked over the coals by gold-digging Russians. “Anyway, what's going on?” I asked. “I haven't heard from you in a while.”
No response at first, just a few moments of sickly silence, the sort you hear when a time bomb ticks down to zero and there's a seemingly endlessdelay before the explosion. Finally he said, “Not much, really, but I need you to wire up against Dave Beall.” More silence. “I know this isn't pleasant for you, but you need to do this.”
“Why?” I snapped. “He's nobody!” And even as the words escaped my lips, I knew how ridiculous they sounded. It had nothing to do with whether or not I had committed crimes with Dave Beall (of course I had, simply because I'd committed crimes with all my friends), and it had everything to do with whom Dave Beall could lead them to.
OCD, calmly: “Who he is isn't what's important; what is important is that I know he's one of your closest friends.” He paused for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “Listen—I don't take any great pleasure in this, and, believe it or not, neither does Joel. But this is something you have to do. I want you to try to set a dinner meeting with him, okay?”
With a sinking heart: “Yeah. I mean, what fucking choice do I have, right?” I let out an obvious sigh. “When do you want me to call him?”
“There's no time like the present,” said OCD. “Can I make the call?”
I shook my head sadly. “Yeah, what's the fucking difference anymore? Where do you want me to set the meeting?”
“In a restaurant, a quiet one, somewhere on Long Island, but not in the Hamptons. It's too far for me.”
I thought for a moment. “How about Caracalla, in Syosset? It's Italian, small, quiet, good food.” I shook my head in despair. “It's as good a place as any to betray my best friend, you know?”
“Don't be so hard on yourself,” said OCD. “If the shoe were on the other foot, he would do the same thing. Trust me.”
“I do trust you,” I said, but what I didn't say was that I knew he was wrong. Dave would never betray me. “Go ahead, make the call. Let's get it over with.”
“All right, hold on a second…” Silence for a moment, then two clicks, then: “This is Special Agent Gregory Coleman of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The date is April third, 1999, and the time is eight p.m. This is a consensually recorded phone conversation between Jordan Belfort, a cooperating witness with the federal government, and David Beall.” Another moment of silence, then I heard the dull-thudded ringing of Dave's home telephone, and with each ring my spirits sank lower. The moment Dave picked it up, it occurred to me that I was no longer lower than pond scum.
Now I was lower than the mucus that feedsoff pond scum.
*Name has been changed
CHAPTER 14
A CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE
