With a bit of luck, I figured, the milkman would spread the word that the Wolf of Wall Street was not a man to be trifled with, that he was armed and ready—fully prepared to ward off any intruder foolish enough to come on his property—even if his bodyguards were sleeping on the job.
Whatever the case, it had been in mid-December, four months ago, when Stratton was finally shut down. Ironically, it wasn’t the states who’d lowered the boom on Stratton but the bumbling bozos at the NASD. They had revoked Stratton’s membership—citing stock manipulation and sales-practice violations. In essence, Stratton had been shunned, and from a legal standpoint it was a deathblow. Membership in the NASD was a prerequisite for selling securities across state lines; without it, you might as well be out of business. So, reluctantly, Danny closed down Stratton, and the era of the Strattonite came to a close. It had been an eight-year run. Just how it would be remembered I wasn’t quite sure, although I suspected the press wouldn’t be kind to it.
Biltmore and Monroe Parker were still going strong and still paying me a million dollars per deal, although I considered it a distinct possibility that the owners, other than Alan Lipsky, were plotting against me. Just how and why, I wasn’t quite certain, but such was the nature of plots—especially when the conspirators were your closest friends.
On a separate note, Steve Madden wasplotting against me. Our relationship had completely soured. According to Steve, it had to do with me showing up at the office stoned, to which I’d said to him, “Go fuck yourself, you self-righteous bastard! If it weren’t for me you’d still be selling shoes out of the trunk of your car!” True or not, the simple fact was that the stock was trading at thirteen dollars and it was on its way to twenty.
We had eighteen stores now, and our department-store business was booked out two seasons in advance. I could only imagine what he was thinking about me—the man who had taken eighty-five percent of his company and controlled the price of his stock for almost four years. Yet now that Stratton was out of business, I no longer had control over his stock. The price of Steve Madden Shoes was being dictated by the laws of supply and demand—rising and falling with the fortunes of the company itself, not the fortunes of any particular brokerage firm that was recommending it. The Cobbler hadto be plotting against me. Yes, it was true: I had shown up at the office a bit stoned, and that was wrong, but, still, that was merely an excuse to force me out of the company and steal my stock options. And what was my recourse if he tried doing that?
Well, I had our secret agreement, but that covered only my original shares, 1.2 million of them; my stock options were in Steve’s name, and I had nothing in writing. Would he try to steal them from me? Or would he try to steal everything—both my stock and my options? Perhaps that bald bastard had deluded himself, thinking I wouldn’t have the balls to expose our secret agreement, that by its very nature it would cause both of us too many problems if I made it public.
He was in for a rude awakening. The chances of him getting away with stealing my stock and options were less than zero—even if it meant both of us going to jail.
As a sober, lucid man, I would’ve still had these thoughts, but in my current mental state they smoldered in my mind in a most venomous way. Whether Steve was planning to fuck me or not was wholly immaterial; he would never get the chance. He was no different than Victor Wang, the Depraved fucking Chinaman. Yes, Victor had tried to fuck me too, and I’d sent him back to Chinatown.
It was now the second week of April, and I hadn’t been to Steve Madden Shoes in over a month. It was Friday afternoon, and I was home in my study, sitting behind my mahogany desk. The Duchess was already in the Hamptons, and the kids were spending the weekend with her mother. I was alone with my thoughts, ready for war.
I dialed Wigwam at his house and said, “I want you to call Madden and tell him that as escrow agent, you’re giving him notice that you plan on liquidating a hundred thousand shares immediately. It comes out to about $1.3 million, give or take a few bucks. Tell him that pursuant to the agreement he has the right to sell his shares too, in ratio with me, which means he can sell seventeen thousand of them. Whether he decides to or not is his fucking decision.”
Wigwam the Weak replied, “To get it done quickly I need his signature. What if he balks?”
I took a deep breath, trying to control my anger. “If he gives you a hard time, tell him that pursuant to the escrow agreement you’re gonna foreclose on the note and sell the stock privately. You tell him that I’ve already agreed to buy it. And you tell that bald motherfucker that that’ll give me a fifteen percent stake in the company, which means I’ll have to file a 13D with the SEC, and then everyone on Wall Street’s gonna know what a fucking cock-sucker he is for trying to fuck me. You tell that motherfucker that I’m gonna make the whole thing public and that every fucking week I’m gonna keep buying more stock in the open market, which means I’m gonna keep filing updated 13Ds. You tell that cocksucker that I’m not gonna stop buying until I own fifty-one percent of his company, and then I’m gonna throw his bony ass right the fuck out of there.” I took another deep breath. My heart was beating out of my chest. “And you tell that motherfucker if he thinks I’m bluffing, then he should climb inside a fucking bunker, because I’m about to unleash a nuclear bomb on his very fucking existence.” I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a Ziploc bag with a pound of cocaine in it.
“I’ll do whatever you say,” replied Wigwam the Weak. “I just want you to think about it for a second. You’re the smartest guy I know, but you sound a bit irrational right now. As your lawyer I strongly advise you against making this agreement pub—”
I cut my lawyer right the fuck off. “Let me fucking tell you something, Andy: You have no fucking idea how little of a shit I give about the SE fucking C and the NAS fucking D.” I opened the bag and grabbed a playing card off my desk, then dipped deep into the powder, scooping out enough cocaine to give a blue whale a heart attack. I dumped it onto the desktop. Then I bent over and stuck my face in it and started snorting. “And furthermore,” I added, my face now covered in cocaine, “I couldn’t give two shits about that Coleman motherfucker either. He’s been chasing my ass around for four fucking years, and he still ain’t got shit on me.” I shook my head a few times, to try to get hold of the rush that was rapidly overtaking me. “And there ain’t no fucking way I’m getting indicted over that agreement. It would be too anticlimactic for Coleman. He’s a man of honor, and he wants to get me on something real. That would be like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. So fuck Coleman where he breathes!”
“Understood,” said Wigwam, “but I need a favor from you.”
“What?”
“I’m running short of money,” said my shyster lawyer, pausing for effect. “You know, Danny really fucked things up for me by not cockroaching it. I’m still waiting for my brokerage license to come through. Could you help me out in the interim?”
Unbelievable! I thought. My own fucking escrow agent was holding me up for money. That toupeed motherfucker!I should kill him too! “How much you need?”
“I don’t know,” he replied weakly, “maybe a couple hundred thousand?”
“Fine!” I snapped. “I’ll give you a quarter million, now go call fucking Madden right fucking now and call me back and let me know what he said.” I slammed the phone down without saying good-bye. Then I bent over and stuck my face back in the coke.
Ten minutes later the phone rang. “What did the motherfucker say?” I asked.