Tony twitched his nose two times and then went on his way, probably down the street to the local social club, where he would sip an espresso while ordering Steve’s execution.
I sat down and shook my head gravely. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Cobbler? No one calls him Tough Tony! Nobody! I mean, you’re a fucking dead man.”
“What are you talking about?” replied the clueless Cobbler. “The guy loved me, no?” Then he cocked his head to the side nervously and added, “Or am I totally off base here?”
Just then, Alfredo, the mountainous maître d’, walked over. “You have a phone call,” said Mount Alfredo. “You can take it up front by the bar. It’s quiet over there. There’s no one around.” He smiled.
Uh-oh!They were holding me responsible for my friend’s actions! This was serious Mafia stuff, impossible for a Jew like me to fully grasp the nuances of. In essence, though, by bringing the Cobbler into this restaurant I had vouched for him and would now suffer the consequences for his insolence. I smiled at Mount Alfredo and thanked him. Then I excused myself from the table and headed for the bar—or, perhaps, the meat freezer.
When I reached the phone I paused and looked around. “Hello?” I said skeptically, expecting to hear nothing but a dial tone and then feel a garrote around my neck.
“Hi, it’s me,” said Janet. “You sound weird; what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Janet. What do you want?” My tone was a bit curter than usual. Perhaps the Lude was wearing off.
“Excuse me for fucking living!” said the sensitive one.
With a sigh: “What do you want, Janet? I’m having a bad time of it here.”
“I have Victor Wang on the phone, and he said it’s urgent. I told him that you were out for lunch, but he said he would hold on until you got back. I think he’s an asshole, if you want to know my opinion.”
Who—cares—about—your—fucking—opinion—Janet!“Yeah, well, put him through,” I said, smiling at my own reflection in a smoked-glass mirror behind the bar. I didn’t even look stoned. Or maybe I wasn’tstoned. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Spanish Quaalude, examined it for a brief second, and then threw it down—dry.
I waited for the sound of the Depraved Chinaman’s panic-stricken voice. I had been shorting him into oblivion for almost a week now, and Duke Securities was up to its ears in stock. Yes, it was raining stock on Victor, and he was looking for my help, which I had every intention of giving him…sort of.
Just then came the voice of the Depraved Chinaman. He greeted me warmly and then began explaining how he owned more stock in this one particular company than there was physical stock. In fact, there were only 1.5 million shares in the entire float, and he was currently in possession of 1.6 million shares.
“…and the stock is still pouring in,” said the Talking Panda, “and I just don’t understand how that’s possible. I know Danny fucked me over, but even he’sgotta be out of stock now!” The Chinaman sounded thoroughly confused—unaware that I had a special account at Bear Stearns that allowed me to sell as much stock as my little heart desired, whether I owned it or not and whether I could borrow it or not. It was a special kind of account called a prime-brokerage account, which meant I could execute my trades through any brokerage firm in the world. There was no way the Chinaman could figure out who was selling.
“Calm down,” I said. “If you’re having capital problems, Vic, I’m here for you—a hundred percent. If you need to sell me three or four hundred thousand shares, just say the word.” That was about how much I was short right now, but I was short at higher prices, so if Victor was dumb enough to sell me the stock I would lock in a huge profit—and then turn around and reshort the stock again. Before I was done, the stock would be trading in pennies, and the Chinaman would be working on Mott Street, rolling wontons.
“Yeah,” replied the Talking Panda, “that would really help. I’m running tight on capital, and the stock is already below five dollars. I can’t afford it to drop anymore.”
“No problem, Vic. Just call Kenny Kock at Meyerson; he’ll buy fifty thousand share blocks from you every few hours.”
Victor thanked me, and then I hung up the phone and immediately dialed Kenny Kock, whose wife, Phyllis, had been the minister at my wedding. I said to Kenny, “The Depraved Chinaman is gonna be calling you every few hours to sell you fifty thousand share blocks of you know what”—I had already shared my plan with Kenny and he was well aware that I was waging a secret war against the Chinaman—“so go out and sell another fifty thousand shares now, before we actually buy any from him. And then keep selling fifty thousand share blocks every ninety minutes or so. Make the sales through blind accounts, so Victor won’t know where it’s coming from.”
“No problem,” replied Kenny Kock, who was head trader at M. H. Meyerson. I had just raised $10 million for his company in an IPO, so I had unlimited trading authority with him. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it,” I replied. “Just keep the sales small, in blocks of five or ten thousand. I want him to think it’s coming from random short-sellers.” Ahh, a lightbulb.“In fact, feel free to short as much as you want for your own account, because the stock’s going to fucking zero!”
I hung up the phone, then went downstairs to the bathroom to do a few hits of coke. There was no doubt that I deserved it after my Academy Award–winning performance with Victor. I didn’t feel a twinge of guilt over the rise and fall of Duke Securities. Over the last few months, he had fully lived up to his reputation as the Depraved Chinaman. He had been stealing Stratton brokers under the guise of them not wanting to work on Long Island anymore; he’d been selling back all the stock he owned of Stratton new issues and of course denying it; and he was openly bashing Danny, referring to him as a “bumbling buffoon” who was incapable of running Stratton.
So this was payback.
I was in and out of the bathroom in less than a minute, ingesting a quarter gram of coke in four enormous blasts. On my way back up the stairs, my heart was beating faster than a rabbit’s and my blood pressure was higher than a stroke victim’s, and I loved it. My mind was in overdrive and I had everything under control.
At the top of the stairs I found myself staring into the blimp-size chest of Mount Alfredo. “You have another phone call.”
“Really?” I said, trying to hold my jaw in one place.
“I think it’s your wife.”
Jesus! The Duchess! How does she do that? She always seems to know when I’m up to no good!Although, since I was always up to no good, the law of averages dictated that she would always be calling at the wrong time.
With my head hung low, I walked over to the bar and picked up the phone. I would just have to bluff it out. “Hello?” I said open-endedly.
“Hi, honey. Are you okay?”
Am I okay? Such a pointed question! Very sneaky, this Duchess of mine. “Yeah, I’m fine, sweetie. I’m having lunch with Steve. What’s up?”
The Duchess let out a deep sigh, then said, “I have bad news: Aunt Patricia just died.”
CHAPTER 28
IMMORTALIZING THE DEAD
Five days after Aunt Patricia’s death I was back in Switzerland, sitting in the wood-paneled living room of the Master Forger’s house. It was a cozy place, about twenty minutes outside Geneva, somewhere in the Swiss countryside. We had just finished Sunday dinner, and the Master Forger’s wife, who I’d come to think of as Mrs. Master Forger, had just loaded a beveled-glass coffee table with all sorts of fattening desserts—a fabulous array of Swiss chocolates, French pastries, rich puddings, and stinky cheeses.
I had arrived two hours ago, wanting to get right down to business, but the Master Forger and his wife had insisted on stuffing me with enough Swiss delicacies to choke a brood of Swiss mountain dogs. At this particular moment, the Forgers were sitting across from me, leaning back in a pair of leather reclining chairs. They had on matching gray sweat suits, which, to my eyes, made them look like matching Good Year blimps, but they were terrific hosts and had kind hearts to match.