A few minutes later, a heavyset man walked into the restaurant, drawing a lot of attention. He looked sixtyish, and he reeked of wealth. Elliot said to me, “That guy’s worth half a billion. But look how ugly his tie is.” With that, Elliot picked up a steak knife and walked over to the big shot, hugged him, and then sliced his tie off, in the middle of the crowded restaurant. Then he removed his own tie, which was gorgeous, and turned up the big shot’s collar, placed his tie around his neck, and made a perfect Windsor knot in less than five seconds flat, at which point the big shot hugged him and thanked him.

An hour later we were both getting laid by prostitutes, with Elliot introducing me to my first Blue Chip. And in spite of the fact that I had a terrible case of coke dick, the Blue Chip worked her oral magic on me, and I came like gangbusters—paying her $5,000 for her troubles, at which point she told me that I was very handsome and, despite the fact that she was a hooker, she was still marriage material, if I was interested.

Soon after, Elliot walked in the room and said, “Come on! Get dressed—we’re going to Atlantic City! The casino is sending us a helicopter and they’re gonna buy each of us a gold watch,” to which I said, “I only have five grand on me,” to which he replied, “I spoke to the casino, and they’re gonna set you up with a half-million-dollar credit line.”

I wondered why they were willing to advance me so much money, considering I had never gambled more than $10,000 in my entire life. But an hour later I found myself playing blackjack at Trump Castle to the tune of $10,000 a hand, as if it were no big deal. At the end of the night I walked away a quarter million richer. I was hooked.

Elliot and I began traveling around the world together; sometimes with wives, sometimes without. I made him my primary rathole, and he kicked me back millions in cash—using money he skimmed from Perry Ellis and money he’d won at casinos. He was a first-rate gambler, and he was adding no less than two million a year to his bottom line.

Then came my divorce from Denise—and then my bachelor party in honor of my upcoming union to Nadine. This would mark a turning point in the life of Elliot Lavigne. The party was in Las Vegas at the Mirage Hotel, which had just opened and was considered the place to be. A hundred Strattonites flew in, accompanied by fifty hookers and enough drugs to sedate Nevada. We rounded up another thirty hookers from the streets of Vegas and had a few more flown in from California. We brought a half dozen NYPD cops along for the ride, the very cops I had been paying off with Stratton new issues. And once there, the NYPD cops quickly hooked up with local Vegas cops, so we hired a few of them too.

The bachelor party took place on a Saturday evening. Elliot and I were downstairs, sharing a blackjack table; there was a crowd of strangers surrounding us, as well as a handful of bodyguards. He was playing five of the seven available hands; I was playing the other two. We were each betting $10,000 per hand, we were both hot, and we were both higher than kites. I was five Ludes deep and had snorted no less than an eight ball of coke; he was five Ludes deep too and had snorted enough coke to ski-jump off. I was up $700,000; he was up over $2 million. Through clenched teeth and a grinding jaw, I said, “Less call is quis and zo upzairs and chess out da fezividees.”

Of course, Elliot understood Lude-speak as well as I did, so he nodded and we headed upstairs. I was so stoned at this point that I knew I was done gambling for the evening; I made a pit stop at the cage and cashed out to the tune of $1 million. I tossed the cash into a blue Mirage knapsack and threw it over my shoulder. Elliot, though, wasn’t done gambling yet, so he left his chips at the table, under armed guard.

Upstairs, we walked down a long hallway, at the end of which was a prodigious set of double doors. On either side of the doors was a uniformed police officer, standing watch. They opened the doors, and there was the bachelor party. Elliot and I walked into the room and froze: It was the reincarnation of Sodom and Gomorrah. The rear wall was floor-to-ceiling plate glass and looked out over the Strip. The room was filled with people dancing and carrying on. The ceiling seemed to be pressing down; the floor seemed to be rising up; the smell of sex and sweat mixed with the pungent smell of premium-grade sinsemilla. Music was blasting so loud that it seemed to resonate with my very gizzard. A half dozen NYPD cops were supervising the action, making sure everyone behaved themselves.

At the back of the room, a beastly pink-sheet hooker with orange hair and the face of a bulldog was sitting on a bar stool, stark naked and covered in tattoos. Her legs were spread wide open, and a line of twenty naked Strattonites were waiting to bang her.

In that very instant I became disgusted with everything my life stood for. It was a new Stratton low. The only solution was to go downstairs to my suite and take five milligrams of Xanax, twenty milligrams of Ambien, and thirty milligrams of morphine. Then I fired up a joint and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

I woke up to Elliot Lavigne shaking my shoulders. It was early the next morning and he was calmly explaining to me how we needed to immediately leave Las Vegas, because it was too decadent. Happy to leave, I quickly packed my bags. But when I opened the safe it was empty.

Elliot yelled from the living room: “I had to borrow some money from you last night. I took a bit of a loss.”

It turned out that he lost $2 million. A week later, he, Danny, and I went to Atlantic City so he could recoup some of his losses, and he lost a million more. Over the next few years he kept losing…and losing…until finally he lost it all. How much he actually lost was still a matter of speculation, although by most accounts it was somewhere between $20 million and $40 million. Either way Elliot had busted himself out. Completely broke. He was behind on his taxes, behind in his kickbacks to me, and he was physically a wreck. He weighed no more than a hundred thirty pounds, and his skin had turned the same brownish color as his bootleg Quaaludes, which made me that much gladder I took only pharmaceutical Quaaludes. (Always looking for a silver lining.)

So it was that I now sat in my backyard in Indian Creek Island, staring out at Biscayne Bay and the skyline of Miami. Also at the table were Elliot Lavigne, Gary Deluca, and Elliot’s close friend, Arthur Wiener, who was fiftyish, balding, wealthy, and coke-addicted.

By the pool were the delectable Duchess, the emaciated Ellen, and Sonny Wiener, Arthur’s wife. By one p.m. it was ninety degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. At this particular moment, Elliot was trying to respond to a question I’d just posed to him, over what Steve Madden’s goal should be with its business with Macy’s, which seemed receptive to rolling out in-store Steve Madden shops.

“Za key za grozzing Mazzen wickly iz zoo zemand all zorz wiz Mazeez,” said a smiling Elliot Lavigne, who was five Ludes deep and sipping on an ice-cold Heineken.

I said to Gary, “I think what he’s trying to say is that we need to approach Macy’s from a position of strength and tell them that we can’t roll out in-store shops one by one. We need to do it region by region, with a goal of being in all stores across the country.”

Arthur nodded. “Well said, Jordan; that was a fine translation.” He dipped a tiny spoon into a coke vial he was holding and took a blast up his left nostril.

Elliot looked at Deluca and nodded and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, “You see, I’m not that difficult to understand.”

Just then the Jewish skeleton walked over and said to her husband, “Elliot, give me a Lude; I’m out.” Elliot shook his head no and shot her the middle finger.