“Anyway,” continued the recuperating Garmento, “John’s right for the most part; you can’t grow unless you have product to sell. See, the department stores will never take you seriously unless they know you can deliver the goods. And as hot as you guys are right now—and I know you’re hot—the buyers won’t step up to the plate unless they’re convinced you can deliver the shoes, and right now your reputation is that you can’t. You gotta get your act together on that quick. I know it’s one of the reasons why you hired Gary, and it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

I looked at Gary to see if he was beaming, but he wasn’t. His face was still set in stone, impassive. They were a weird bunch, these operations guys; they were steady Eddies, hitting singles all day long but never swinging for the fences. The thought of being one was enough to make me want to fall on my own sword.

Elliot plowed on: “Anyway, assuming you get your operations in order, John is still only half right. Steve has to consider the bigger picture here, which is to protect the brand. Don’t kid yourselves, guys—at the end of the day, the brand is everything. If you fuck that up you’re done. I can give you a dozen examples of brands that were red-hot once and then fucked up their name by selling to the discounters. Now you find their labels in a flea market.” Elliot paused, letting his words sink in.

I looked at Steve and he was slumped over in his chair—the mere thought of the name Steve Madden—his own name!—being synonymous with the words fleaand markethad literally knocked the wind out of him. I looked at the Spitter; he was leaning forward in his seat, as if he were preparing to jump through the phone line to strangle Elliot. Then I looked at Gary, who was still impassive.

Elliot went on: “Your ultimate goal should be to license the Steve Madden name. Then you can sit back and collect royalties. The first thing should be belts and handbags, then move to sportswear and denim and sunglasses, and then everything else…your last stop being fragrance, where you can really hit it out of the park. And you’ll never get there if John has his way in everything. No offense, John, but it’s just the nature of the beast. You’re thinking in terms of today, when you’re red-hot. Eventually you’ll cool down, though, and when you least expect it something won’t sell through, and you’ll wind up knee-deep in some retarded-looking shoe that no one outside a trailer park will wear. Then you’ll be forced to go to the dark side and put the shoes where they don’t belong.”

At this point Steve interrupted. “That’s exactly my point, Elliot. If I let John have his way, we’ll end up with a warehouse full of shoes and no money in the bank. I’m not gonna be the next Sam and Libby.”

Elliot laughed. “It’s simple. Without knowing everything about your business, I’m willing to bet that the bulk of your volume comes from a handful of shoes—three or four of them, probably—and they’re not the ridiculous-looking ones with the nine-inch heels and the metal spikes and zippers. Those shoes are what you guys create your mystique with—that you’re young and hip and all that shit. But the reality is you probably sell hardly any of those facocktashoes, except maybe to some of the freaks down in Greenwich Village and in your own office. What you’re really making your money on are your basic shoes—the staples, like the Mary Lou and the Marilyn, right?”

I looked at Steve and the Spitter, both of whom had their heads cocked to the side and their lips pursed and their eyes wide open. After a few seconds of silence, Elliot said, “I’ll take that lack of response as a yes?”

Steve said, “You’re right, Elliot. We don’t sell too many of the crazy shoes, but those are the ones we’re known for.”

“That’s exactly the way it should be,” said Elliot, who six weeks ago couldn’t tie two words together without drooling. “It’s no different than those wild couture outfits you see on the runways in Milan. No one really buys that crap, but that’s what creates the image. So the answer is to only step up to the plate with the conservative items—and only in the hottest colors. I’m talking about the shoes you know you’re going to blow out, the ones you sell season after season. But under no circumstance do you risk serious money on a funky shoe, even if you guys are personally in love with it—and even if it’s getting good reads in your test markets. Always err on the side of caution with anything that’s not a proven winner. If something really takes off and you’re short inventory, it’ll make it that much hotter. Since you guys manufacture in Mexico, you can still beat the competition on the reorder.

“And on the rare occasions when you swing for the fences and you’re wrong—then you dump your shoes to the discounters and take your loss right away. Your first loss is your best loss in this business. The last thing you want is a warehouse full of dead inventory. You also need to start partnering with the department stores. Let them know you’ll stand behind your shoes, that if they don’tsell you’ll give them markdown money. Then they can put your shoes on sale and still maintain their margins. Do that, and you’ll find the department stores closing out your garbage for you.

“On a separate note, you should be rolling out Steve Madden stores as fast as possible. You guys are manufacturers, so you get the wholesale markup andthe retail markup. And it’s also the best way to move your dead inventory—putting things on sale in your own stores. Then you don’t risk fucking up the brand. And that’s the answer,” said Elliot Lavigne. “You guys are heading for the stars. Just follow that program and you can’t lose.”

I looked around the room, and everyone nodded.

And why wouldn’t they? Who could argue with such logic? It was sad, I thought, that a guy as sharp as Elliot would throw his life away to drugs. Seriously. There was nothing sadder than wasted talent, was there? Oh, Elliot was sober now, but I had no doubt that as soon as his ribs were healed and he was back in the swing of things, his addiction would come roaring back. That was the problem with someone like Elliot, who refused to accept the fact that drugs had gotten the best of them.

Anyway, I had enough on my own plate to keep five people occupied. I was still in the process of crushing Victor Wang; I still had to deal with Danny, who was running amok at Stratton; I still had issues with Gary Kaminsky, who, as it turned out, spent half his day on the phone with Saurel, in Switzerland; and I still had Special Agent Gregory Coleman running around with subpoenas. So to focus on Elliot’s sobriety was a waste of my time.

I had pressing issues to discuss with Steve over lunch, and then I had to catch a helicopter out to the Hamptons to see the Duchess and Chandler. Under those circumstances, I would have to say that the appropriate dosage of methaqualone should be small, perhaps 250 milligrams, or one Lude, taken now, thirty minutes before lunch, which would give me just the right buzz to enjoy my pasta while allowing me to escape detection at the hands of the Cobbler, who’d been sober for almost five years. A killjoy.

Then I would snort a few lines of coke just before I got behind the helicopter’s controls. After all, I always flew best when I was on my down from Ludes but still crawling out of my own skin in a state of coke-induced paranoia.

Lunch on a single Lude! An innocuous buzz while dining in the armpit of Corona, Queens. Like most formerly Italian neighborhoods, there was still one Mafioso stronghold that remained, and in each stronghold there was always one Italian restaurant that was owned by the local “man of most respect.” And, without fail, it had the best Italian food for miles around. In Harlem, it was Rao’s. In Corona, it was Park Side Restaurant.

Unlike Rao’s, Park Side was a large, high-volume operation. It was decorated beautifully with a couple of tons of burled walnut, smoked mirrors, carved glass, flowering plants, and perfectly trimmed ferns. The bar was a Mob scene (literally!), and the food was to die for (literally!).