“Yeah,” I said unenthusiastically. “I'm actually looking forward to them.”

Alonso said, “Just behave yourself for a few months and we can go back in front of Gleeson and make a motion to have you taken off house arrest. I think that's the safest bet for all of us.”

I compressed my lips and nodded humbly, but silently I was thinking: Alonso is the fucking best, and may the Bastard burn in fucking hell, with a pitchfork up his ass! “Thank you,” I said meekly.

“No problem,” said Alonso. Then he looked at Magnum and said, “I'd just as soon not bring up the Dave Beall issue today. We'll set up another hearing for that.”

Magnum nodded, and then looked down at me and said, “Dan has been nice enough to reduce the obstruction-of-justice charge to lying to a federal officer.”

Alonso, sarcastically: “You can thank your lawyers for that one. They've been pounding me so hard over the last few days— especially you, Nick—that I just didn't want to hear their voices anymore.”

“Just doing my job,” said the Yale-man.

I smiled at Magnum and the Yale-man. I said to Alonso, “I appreciate it, but, above all, I know my kids will appreciate it one day.”

Alonso nodded in understanding. “All right, well, let's go inside and get it over with.” He took one step, then stopped dead in his tracks. He turned to us and said, “I sincerely hope Gleeson doesn't ask too many questions today, ‘cause, for the life of me, I haven't the slightest idea what really happened here. This whole thing got dumped on my lap at the last second, and I really hate to go to court not knowing all the details. I mean, why the fuck would you go to Atlantic City in the first place? You were under house arrest, for Chrissake!”

I nodded sheepishly. “Well, I think I was just—”

Alonso cut me off with a raised hand. “No, don't tell me. I'd rather not know. There's no upside in it.” He shook his head. “Anyway, for a smart guy you do some pretty stupid things, you know?”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I've heard that before.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not surprised. Come on, let's go.”

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” bellowed a kind-looking middle-aged woman wearing a nondescript maroon pantsuit. “The United States Court for the Eastern District of New York is now in session,” she continued, in a surprisingly deep voice. “All rise for the presiding judge, the Honorable John Gleeson.”

Like a magician, Judge Gleeson, in black robes, emerged from behind a wood-paneled door that led from his chambers into the courtroom. Without saying a word, he calmly walked up a short flight of stairs and took a seat behind a vast wooden desk that sat upon a wooden stage fit for the Phantom of the Opera himself.

To the judge's left, a court reporter took her seat in anticipation of memorializing the day's proceedings. Behind her stood a very stocky man, who was wearing a loose-fitting blue sport jacket with a giant bulge under his left armpit. He was just standing there, his arms crossed beneath his massive chest, waiting for someone to fuck with the judge. Then he would strike with the speed of a cobra.

The rest of us—including my pretrial services officer, Patrick Mancini, who at six-three, two-thirty could have played tight end for the Rams—were all standing behind the defense table. That was a good sign, I figured, because there was no one standing behind the prosecutor's table. (We're all on the same side here!) In fact, even the audience's sole spectator, a young black woman in her early twenties, whom I'd pegged as an aspiring lawyer or a reporter, looked to be on my side. She was sitting in the spectator section, holding a spiral notebook and a pen.

Magnum put his hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me into my seat. Now the kind woman who'd announced the judge's presence began muttering something to the court reporter, something about the entire United States of America being against me, Jordan Belfort. I had never really looked at it that way before, even at my sentencing, which had occurred in secret, inside Judge Gleeson's chambers.

Judge Gleeson looked rather nice, actually. Even in those flowing black robes, I could still tell that he had a kind heart. He struck me as the sort of guy who would carve a Thanksgiving turkey for his family. He was very young for a federal judge, no older than forty-five, and he had a reputation for brilliance. Hopefully he was in a good mood.

Suddenly Magnum motioned for me to stand, so I did.

“Okay,” Judge Gleeson said softly. “Now, what's going on here?”

Alonso said, “If it pleases the court, Your Honor, I'd like to speak.”

Judge Gleeson nodded.

“Thank you,” said Alonso. “Okay, Your Honor, well, we've come to an agreement with the defendant's counsel on this matter, as well as with Mr. Mancini. The agreement consists of tightening the defendant's house-arrest restrictions to very onerous terms. The defendant will only be able to travel to work and back, and he must be home by six p.m., without exception. And on weekends, he will be on twenty-four-hour lockdown.” With that Alonso nodded once, pleased with my new conditions.

“Oh, really?”snapped Judge Gleeson. “Well, I have questions.”

And that was it; it was over before it started.

Gleeson had questions and Alonso didn't have answers, because he had just taken over the case. And even if he did haveanswers, it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because, as Magnum had said, this was justthe sort of thing to raise Gleeson's ire—the very brazenness of it!

Suddenly I realized that Alonso was babbling something about a helicopter… a bag of cash… then an unidentified female (and, obviously, every last soul in the courtroom, especially Gleeson, knew exactly what kind of female this was), and then he started saying, “… but I really don't know all the facts here, Your Honor, because I just—”

Gleeson cut him off in a menacing voice: “Are you telling me that you've come into my courtroom unprepared, that you don't know the first thing about this case?”

I snuck a peek at Alonso, who looked like he'd just taken a bullet. The way I figured it, he had two options: The first was to blame it all on the Bastard, and the second was just to say that he was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again. Alonso said, “I'm very sorry, Your Honor, it won't happen again.”

Now it was Mancini's turn. “Mr. Mancini?” said the angry judge.

Pat fumbled through some notes and began spewing out random facts, then a few contradictions, and he ended by saying, “… uh, but in spite of all that, I still think Mr. Belfort can be trusted to live up to his new release conditions.” He shrugged, as if to say, “But that's just one man's opinion. Don't hold me to it.”

Gleeson didn't berate him. In fact, he didn't say a single word to him; he just stared at Mancini for a few seconds too long, his eyes emitting what appeared to be an incredible shrinking ray, and I watched in fascination as Mancini, the tight end, seemed to grow smaller and smaller, until he was a midget.

Satisfied with that, Gleeson turned off his shrinking ray and then looked at his old buddy Magnum. “Does the defense counsel have anything to add here?”

Magnum stood up to his full height and said, in a very confident tone, “Yes, Your Honor…” and then he went about giving a highly accurate account of what happened. His words came out smoothly, confidently, and altogether logically—which was a total fucking disaster for me, because this was not one of those situations where the truth shall set you free,especially when Magnum got to the part about the helicopter malfunction being the primary cause of me not getting back before curfew. That was when Gleeson pounced.

“So, what you're saying, Counselor, is that your client's excuse is that he thought he'd get away with it?”

“Uh, not exactly,” said Magnum—and Jesus Christ!I thought. How the fuck could a judge who'd never broken a single law in his entire life sift through all the bullshit so quickly? What were the chances?