But I hadhit the nail on the head, and by sheer luck I’d hit it at exactly the right moment. The stock market was just beginning to recover from the Great October Crash, and chaos capitalism still reigned supreme. The NASDAQ was coming of age and was no longer considered the redheaded stepchild of the New York Stock Exchange. Lightning-fast computers were appearing on every desk—sending ones and zeroes whizzing from coast to coast—eliminating the need to be physically located on Wall Street. It was a time of change, a time of upheaval. And as volume on the NASDAQ soared, I, coincidentally, was embarking on an intensive three-hour-a-day training program with my young Strattonites. From out of the smoldering ashes of the Great Crash, the investment-banking firm of Stratton Oakmont was born. And before any regulator knew what hit, it had ripped through America with the force of an atomic bomb.
Just then an interesting thought occurred to me, and I said to Danny, “What are those two idiots from the SEC saying today?”
“Nothing really,” he replied. “They’ve been pretty quiet, talking mostly about the cars in the parking lot, the usual shit.” He shrugged. “I’ll tell you, these guys are totally fucking clueless! It’s like they don’t even know we’re doing a deal today. They’re still looking at trading records from 1991.”
“Hmmm,” I said, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. I wasn’t all that surprised at Danny’s response. After all, I’d been bugging the conference room for over a month now and was gathering counter-intelligence against the SEC on a daily basis. And one of the first things I’d learned about securities regulators (besides them being completely devoid of personality) was that one hand had no idea what the other hand was doing. While the SEC bozos in Washington, D.C., were signing off on the Steve Madden IPO, the SEC bozos in New York were sitting in my conference room, entirely unaware of what was about to transpire.
“What’s the temperature in there?” I asked with great interest.
Danny shrugged. “High fifties, I think. They’ve got their coats on.”
“For Chrissake, Danny! Why is it so fucking warm in there? I told you—I want to freeze those bastards right back to Manhattan! What do I have to do, call a fucking refrigeration guy in here to get the job done? I mean, really, Danny, I want icicles coming out of their fucking noses! What about this don’t you understand?”
Danny smiled. “Listen, JB: We can freeze ’em out or we can burn ’em out. I can probably get one of those little kerosene heaters installed right in the ceiling, and we can make the room so hot they’ll need salt pills to stay alive. But if we make the place too uncomfortable, they might leave, and then we won’t be able to listen to them anymore.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slow. Danny was right, I thought. I smiled and said, “All right, fuck it! We’ll let the bastards die of old age. But here’s what I want to do with Madden: I want him to sign a paper saying that the stock is still ours, regardless of how high the price goes and regardless what it says in the prospectus. Also, I want Steve to put the stock certificate in escrow, so we have control over it. We’ll let Wigwam be the escrow agent. And no one has to know about this. It’ll all be among friends; omerta, buddy. So unless Steve tries to screw us, it’s all good.”
Danny nodded. “I’ll take care of it, but I don’t see how it’s gonna help us. If we ever try to break the agreement we’ll be in as much trouble as him. I mean, there’s like seventeen thousand different”—in spite of the office just being swept for bugs, Danny mouthed the words laws we’re breaking—“if Steve ratholes that much stock.”
I held up my hand and smiled warmly. “Whoa—whoa—whoa! Settle down! First of all, I had the office swept for bugs thirty minutes ago, so if it’s already bugged again they deserve to catch us. And it’s not seventeen thousand laws we’re breaking; it’s maybe three or four, or five, tops. But either way, no one ever has to know.” I shrugged and then changed my tone to one of shock. “Anyway, I’m surprised at you, Dan! Having a signed agreement helps us a lot—even if we can’t actually use it. It’s a powerful deterrent to stop him from trying to fuck us over.”
Just then Janet’s voice came over the intercom: “Your father’s heading this way.”
A snap response: “Tell him I’m in a meeting, God damn it!”
Janet snapping right back: “Fuck you! Youtell him! I’m not telling him!”
Why, the insolence! The sheer audacity! A few seconds of silence passed. Then I whined, “Oh, come on, Janet! Can’t you just tell him I’m in an important meeting or on a conference call or something, please?”
“No and no,” she replied tonelessly.
“Thanks, you’re a real gem of an assistant, let me fucking tell you! Remind me of this day two weeks from now, when it’s time for your Christmas bonus, okay?”
I paused and waited for Janet’s response. Nothing. Dead fucking silence. Unbelievable!I soldiered on. “How far away is he?”
“About fifty yards, and closing awfully fast. I can see the veins popping out of his head from here, and he’s smoking at least one…or maybe two cigarettes at the same time. He looks like a fire-breathing dragon, I swear to God.”
“Thanks for the encouragement, Janet. Can’t you at least create some sort of diversion? Maybe pull a fire alarm or something? I—” Just then Danny began rising out of his chair, as if he was attempting to leave my office. I held up my hand and said in a loud, forthright voice, “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, pal, huh?” I started jabbing my index finger in the direction of his club chair. “Now, sit the fuck back down and relax for a while.” I turned my head in the direction of the black speakerphone. “One second, Janet, don’t go anywhere.” Then I turned back to Danny. “Let me tell you something, buddy: At least fifty or sixty thousand of that Am Ex bill is yours, so you gotta put up with the abuse too. Besides, there’s strength in numbers.” I turned my head back in the direction of the speakerphone. “Janet, tell Kenny to get his ass in my office right this second. He’s gotta deal with this shit too. And come open my door. I need some noise in here.”
Kenny Greene, my other partner, was a breed apart from Danny. In fact, no two people could be more different. Danny was the smarter of the two, and, as improbable as it might seem, he was definitely the more refined. But Kenny was more driven, blessed with an insatiable appetite for knowledge and wisdom—two attributes he lacked entirely. Yes, Kenny was a dimwit.It was sad but true. And he had an incredible talent for saying the most asinine things during business meetings, especially key ones, which I no longer allowed him to attend. It was a fact that Danny relished beyond belief, and seldom did he pass up an opportunity to remind me of Kenny’s many shortfalls. So I had Kenny Greene and Andy Greene, no relation—I seemed to be surrounded by Greenes.
Just then the door swung open and the mighty roar came pouring in. It was a fucking greed storm out there, and I loved every last ounce of it. The mighty roar—yes, it was the most powerful drug of all. It was stronger than the wrath of my wife; it was stronger than my back pain; and it was stronger than those bozo regulators shivering in my conference room.
And it was even stronger than the insanity of my own father, who at this particular moment was getting ready to release a mighty roar of his own.
CHAPTER 7
SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF
In ominous tones, and with his brilliant blue eyes bulging so far out of his head that he looked like a cartoon character about to pop, Mad Max said, “If you three bastards don’t wipe those smug fucking looks off your faces, I swear to fucking God I’m gonna wipe them off for you!”
With that, he started pacing…slowly, deliberately…with his face contorted into a mask of unadulterated fury. In his right hand was a lit cigarette, probably his twentieth of the day; in his left hand was a white Styrofoam cup filled with Stolichnaya vodka, hopefully his first of the day but probably his second.