“How much?” I asked, taking a seat beside the Duchess and wondering how Chandler was going to ride a pony when she hadn’t even started walking yet.

“Only seventy thousand dollars!” answered a smiling Duchess. “Not bad, right?”

Well, I thought, if you’ll agree to have sex with me while I’m getting off on my Real Real, then I’ll gladly purchase this overpriced pony for you, but all I said was, “Sounds like a real fucking bargain. I didn’t even know they made ponies that expensive.” I rolled my eyes.

The Duchess assured me that they did, and then to reinforce her point she nuzzled up next to me so I could smell her perfume. “Please?” she said in an irresistible tone. “I’ll be your best friend.”

At that very moment, Janet came walking down the stairs with a great smile on her face. “Hey, everybody! What’s going on down here?”

I looked up at Janet and said, “Come downstairs and join the fucking party!” Obviously, she missed the sarcasm, and a moment later the Duchess had recruited Janet into her camp, and the two of them were now talking about how fine Chandler would look on horseback, in a cute little English riding ensemble, which the Duchess could have custom-made for God only knew how much.

Sensing an opportunity, I whispered to the Duchess that if she would come into the bathroom with me and allow me to bend her over the sink, I would be more than happy to make a special trip to Gold Coast Stables tomorrow and purchase the pony, just as soon as the eleven o’clock showing of Gilligan’s Islandwas finished, to which she whispered, “Now?” to which I nodded yes and said, “Please,” three times fast, at which point the Duchess smiled and agreed. The two of us excused ourselves for a moment.

With little fanfare, I bent her over the sink and plunged inside her without even the slightest bit of lubrication, to which she said, “OW!” and then she sneezed and coughed again. I said, “Bless you, my love!” then I pumped in and out, twelve times fast, and came inside her like a rocket. Soup to nuts, the whole thing had taken about nine seconds.

The Duchess turned her pretty little head around and said, “That’s it? You’re done?”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, rubbing my fingertips together and still feeling no tingles. “Why don’t you go upstairs and use your vibrator?”

Still bent over the sink, the Duchess said, “Why are you so anxious to get rid of me? I know you and Danny are up to something. What is it?”

“Nothing; it’s just business talk, sweetie. That’s it.”

“Fuck you!” replied an angry Duchess. “You’re lying, and I know it!” And with one swift move, she pushed off the sink with her elbows and I went flying backward and smashed into the bathroom door with a tremendous force. Then she pulled up her riding pants, sneezed, looked in the mirror for a second, fixed her hair, pushed me off to the side, and walked out.

Ten minutes later Danny and I were alone in the basement, still stone-cold sober. I shook my head gravely and said, “They’re so old they must’ve lost their potency. I think we should take another.”

We did, and thirty minutes later: nothing. Not even one fucking tingle!

“Can you imagine this shit?” said Danny. “Five hundred bucks a pill, and they’re duds! It’s criminal! Let me check the expiration date on the bottle.”

I tossed the bottle to him.

He looked at the label. “December ’81!” he exclaimed. “They’re expired!” He unscrewed the top and took out two more Lemmons. “They must’ve lost their potency. Let’s each take one more.”

Thirty minutes later we were devastated. We’d each taken three vintage Lemmons and hadn’t gotten so much as a tingle.

“Well, that’s about all she wrote!” I sputtered. “They’re officially duds.”

“Yeah,” agreed Danny. “Such is life, my friend.”

Just then, over the intercom, came the voice of Gwynne: “Mr. Belfort, it’s”— iz—“Bo Dietl on the phone.”

I picked up the receiver. “Hey, Bo, what’s going on?”

His reply startled me. “I need to speak to you right now,” he snapped, “but not on this phone. Go to a pay phone and call me at this number. You got something to write with?”

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did you speak to Bar—”

Bo cut me off: “Not on this phone, Bo. But the short answer is yes, and I have some info for you. Now go grab a pen.”

A minute later I was inside my little white Mercedes, freezing my ass off. In my haste I had forgotten to put a coat on. It was absolutely frigid outside—couldn’t have been more than five degrees—and at seven p.m. at this time of winter, it was already dark out. I started the car and headed for the front gates. I made a left turn onto Pin Oak Court, surprised to see a long row of cars parked on either side of the street. Apparently someone on my block was having a party. Wonderful! I thought. I just spent $10,000 on the worst Ludes in history, and someone is having a fucking celebration!

My destination was the pay phone at Brookville Country Club. It was only a few hundred yards up the road, and thirty seconds later I was pulling into the driveway. I parked in front of the clubhouse and walked up a half dozen red-brick steps, passing through a set of white Corinthian columns.

Inside the clubhouse were a row of pay phones against a wall. I picked one up, dialed the number Bo had given me, then punched in my credit-card number. After a few rings came the terrible news. “Listen, Bo,” said Bo, from another pay phone, “I just got a call from Barsini, and he told me you’re the target of a full-blown money-laundering investigation. Apparently this guy Coleman thinks you got twenty million bucks over in Switzerland. He has an inside source over there that’s feeding him information. Barsini wouldn’t get specific, but he made it sound like you got caught up in someone else’s deal, like you didn’t start off as the main target but now Coleman’s made you the main target. Your home phone’s probably tapped, and so is your beach house. Talk to me, Bo, what’s going on?”

I took a deep breath, trying to keep myself calm and trying to figure out what to say to Bo… but what was there to say?That I had millions of dollars in the bogus account of Patricia Mellor and that my own mother-in-law had smuggled the money there for me? Or that Todd Garret had gotten popped because Danny was dumb enough to drive his car on Ludes? What was the upside of telling him that? None that I could think of. So all I said was, “I don’t have any money in Switzerland. It must be some sort of mistake.”

“What?” asked Bo. “I couldn’t understand what you said. Say it again?”

Frustrated, I repeated: “I says, I zon’t has azy muzzy ozzer in Swizzaziz!”

Sounding incredulous, Bo said, “What are you, stoned? I can’t understand a word you’re fucking saying!” Then, suddenly, in an urgent tone, he said, “Listen to me, Jordan—don’t get behind the wheel of your car! Tell me where you are and I’ll send Rocco for you! Where are you, buddy? Talk to me!”

All at once a warm feeling came rising up my brain stem, as a pleasant tingling sensation went ricocheting through every molecule of my body. The phone receiver was still at my ear and I wanted to tell Bo to have Rocco come pick me up at the Brookville Country Club, but I couldn’t get my lips to move. It was as if my brain was sending out signals but they were being intercepted—or scrambled. I felt paralyzed. And I felt wonderful. I stared at the shiny metal face of the pay phone and cocked my head to the side, trying to find my own reflection… How pretty the phone looked!…So shiny it was!…And then all at once the phone seemed to be growing more distant…What was happening?…Where was the phone going?… Oh, shit!…I was falling backward now, tipping over like a tree that had just been chopped down…. TIMBER!…and then… BOOM!I was lying flat on my back, in a state of semiconsciousness, staring up at the clubhouse ceiling. It was one of those white Styrofoam dropped ceilings, the sort you find in an office. Pretty chintzy for a country club! I thought. These fucking WASPs were cutting corners on their own ceiling!