Catching the Wolf of Wall Street

OCD nodded. “I have a bunch of questions about Valenoti.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “If there was a single person who helped me turn Stratton into Stratton, it was Mike Valenoti. He was the operational brain behind everything, the one who kept the place cranking away on all twelve cylinders. He was my first mentor—even before Al Abrams—and he was also the first Wall Street wizard I’d ever met. I mean, his breadth of knowledge was absolutely staggering!”

I shrugged. “But to save you time, I’ll tell you that Mike Valenoti is completely innocent in this. He was always trying to keep me on the straight and narrow, and I was constantly swearing to him that I was doing things right. In the end, though, he became so overwhelmed with the influx of business that he couldn’t see the big picture anymore. He had no idea I was breaking the law.”

OCD twisted his lips for a moment. “I appreciate your loyalty to Mike,” he said, “but it seems just a tiny bit implausible that someone as sophisticated as Mike wouldn’t know what was going on.” He flashed me a quick, disbelieving smile. “You see what I’m saying?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, what you’re saying makes total sense, Greg. But it also happens to be totally wrong.” I paused for effect. “Understand that ninty percent of Stratton’s business was completely legitimate: We didn’t steal money from clients’ accounts, we didn’t take fraudulent companies public, and, contrary to what the press might say, our clients could always sell if they wanted to.” I shrugged. “Of course, our sales practices left a lot to be desired, but whose didn’t? Prudential-Bache’s? Lehman Brothers?

“ Pru-Bache was busy ripping off grandmas and grandpas, and Lehman Brothers made them look like choirboys. In fact, it was the Lehman Brothers’ scripts that served as the blueprint for Stratton’s!” I shook my head slowly. “The fraudulent side of Stratton occurred in tiny blips, and unless you were privy to those blips, everything seemed normal. But let me get back to Lester’s office for a second.

“First, I quickly realized that George Grunfeld was completely worthless. He knew even less about the brokerage business than I did, and every word that came out of his mouth was utter nonsense. Lester, however, was a different story. He was knowledgeable enough, but he was completely devoid of charisma. He spoke in a low, squeaky drawl, and his words came out slowly, painfully, as if a turtle were speaking.

“I found it hard to keep my mind in one spot, so I just sat there, pretending to listen, sneaking peaks at Mike out of the corner of my eye. Lester had painted him out to be some kind of operations guru, but up until now he’d said only a few words. From a physical perspective, I was entirely unimpressed. He was dressed in a cheap blue suit and an even cheaper rayon shirt, and his hair was askew”—kind of like yours, Bastard, although Mike’s hair was salt-and-pepper, while yours is a plebian shade of mud brown-“although, in retrospect, I should have known an old Wall Street war dog when I saw one.”

“What’s an old Wall Street war dog?” asked the Bastard.

“It’s someone who’s worked on Wall Street for far too long and who’s been through bull markets and bear markets, someone who’s seen the dizzying excesses and the crash-and-burn stories. It’s someone who’s seen countless men go from rags to riches and then back to rags again, and then back to riches once more. He’s seen the hookers and the drugs and the ludicrous gambling, and he’s seen Wall Street go from the dark ages of fixed commissions and physical stock delivery to the modern era, where discount brokerage firms compete with Merrill Lynch and stock trades settle electronically.” I shrugged. “There are only a few true old Wall Street war dogs left in the world, because most of them have already died of either a heart attack or cirrhosis of the liver. But if you’re lucky enough to actually find one, they’re worth their weight in gold.

“And Mike Valenoti was one of this dying breed. Perhaps I should have known it the moment I laid eyes on him. I should have noticed the battle-ravaged look in his eye as he sat there listening to George’s and Lester’s inanities. He kept his chin tucked between his collarbones and his shoulders slumped over, as if he were about to fall asleep. And then there was Mike’s nose, which was a real showstopper! It was coated with red spidery veins and was the size of a sweet potato! Yet, on the flipside of that, Mike had the most intelligent brown eyes I’d ever seen. They were utterly piercing, and you could tell just by looking at them that he wasn’t missing a trick.

“Anyway, not to belabor the point, the simple fact was that Mike and I hit it off fabulously that day. We spoke exactly the same language, and it was the language of Wall Street. When he started a sentence, I finished it, and vice versa. In fact, by the time the meeting was over, I’d given Mike a full-blown sales pitch, pretending he was a customer. And, of course, it completely blew him away, as it did Lester.

“But I think what’s even more important about this day is the effect Mike had on me. Suddenly, I felt like the old Jordan again.” I shrugged. “Whatever the case, I knew I’d sounded sharper than sharp that afternoon, so it came as no surprise to me when Lester called me at home that night and told me that I should consider opening my own brokerage firm. Apparently Mike had pulled him aside after the meeting and said that he’d work for me for free-meaning for no up-front salary. All he wanted was a small percentage of the profits. In return, he would build me a first-class operations department to rival any firm on Wall Street.

“Lester, too, was willing to work for free. He would file all the necessary forms with the NASD and then accompany me to my membership interview. In return, all he wanted was a shot at representing the companies I took public. Whether or not they decided to use him wasn’t my responsibility. I just needed to make the introduction; he would do the rest.”

“What about Grunfeld?” asked OCD.

I shook my head. “George was out. In fact, it was the first thing Lester brought up. He served no useful purpose, squeaked Lester. He was a helluva nice guy, but he was deadweight. Between Mike and me we had everything we needed to run a firm.

“Anyway, I told Lester I would think about it, although, deep down, I really didn’t have any intention of going through with it. I was still gun-shy from the meat-and-seafood debacle, and I figured I’d just wait and see for a while.”

“Where are we now on the time line?” asked the Bastard.

“Early September,” I replied, “which is when things start to really heat up. First, Danny passed his broker’s test, and I called him up to my apartment for a training session. Sitting on my living-room couch, I began.

“‘Okay,’ I said to him, ‘here’s the deal: The first key to selling stock is to learn to read from a script without sounding like you’re reading from a script. You follow me?’

“ ‘Yeah,’ he said confidently, ‘and it’s no problem whatsoever.’

“‘Good,’ I shot back. ‘Just pretend you’re an actor on a stage: You raise your voice and lower your voice; you speed up and then slow down. You keep your clients interested, hanging on your every word. And don’t even think of picking up the phone until you know the answers to all potential objections. You can never sound stumped, Danny—ever!’

“He nodded confidently. ‘I got it, buddy. You don’t have to worry about Danny Porush. He can sell ice to an Eskimo and oil to an Arab!’

“ ‘I’m sure he can,’ I agreed. ‘But, remember, you have to know this script like the back of your hand. You can’t stutter; it’s the first sign of a rookie salesman, and a client will smell it right over the phone.’ I smiled at him, while Denise looked on with anticipation. I had told her what a great salesman Danny was, in spite of never actually hearing him sell before. But he had a very cocky demeanor about him, so I just knew he’d be great.

“With coffeepot in hand, Denise smiled at Danny and said, ‘You want me to go into the kitchen, so I don’t make you nervous?’

“And Danny waved her off. ‘Please, Denise, this is like shooting fish in a barrel for a guy like me!’ And Denise shrugged and said, ‘Okay, well, I’ll just stand here and listen, then.’ And Danny nodded, and I handed him a script for Arncliffe National.

“ ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘just pretend you’re pitching me over the phone, and we’ll role-play back and forth.’

“He nodded and took the script from me, then cleared his throat with a couple uhums and uhus. Finally, with great confidence, he said, ‘Hi, is Jordan there?’

“ ‘Yeah,’ I replied quickly, ‘right here. How can I help you?’

“Danny rolled his neck, like a prizefighter stepping into the ring. ‘Hi, Jordan, this is Danny Porush calling from… calling from… calling from, uh, the—uh—the—uh… the In… Investors’ Center. How… are you today?’ and then he paused and started sweating.

“Denise said, ‘I think I’ll go into the kitchen and leave you two boys alone.’ And a suddenly humble Danny replied, ‘Yeah, I, uh, think that’s a good idea, Denise. This is a bit harder than it looks,’ and then he wiped a bead of sweat off his brow.”

“Come on!” said OCD. “You’re exaggerating; he couldn’t have been that bad!”

I started laughing. “He was, Greg! In fact, he was so bad that, when he left the apartment that night, Denise said, ‘There’s no way he’s gonna make it, honey. He sounds retarded. I mean, why was he mumbling all night? Why couldn’t he just speak up like a normal person?’

“ ‘I’m not really sure,’ I answered. ‘Maybe he’s got a rare form of Tourette’s that only comes out when he sells,’ and Denise nodded in agreement.

“Anyway, I made it a point to go to work the next morning, because I wanted to witness the carnage firsthand, and that’s when something odd happened, something very unexpected. I was sitting a few feet from Danny, trying to contain my laughter. He was doing the old, ‘Hi—uh, this is, uh, Da-anny Por-ush. How, uh, are you?’ But then, after about five seconds, suddenly—snap!—he completely stopped stuttering and he started sounding totally unbelievable. Almost as good as me, in fact, but not quite.” I winked at my captors.

“He started closing accounts left and right, and two weeks later, as a sign of friendship, I asked him to take a ride into the city with me to see my accountant. October fifteenth was right around the corner, and I was still on extension for my ‘87 taxes. Of course, Danny happily agreed, and off we went. We hopped into my pearl-white Jaguar and we headed into Manhattan on a Wednesday afternoon.

“Now, mind you, up until then I thought Danny was completely normal. He dressed conservatively, he acted conservatively, and he came from a very good family. He’d grown up on the South Shore of Long Island, in the town of Lawrence, which is a very wealthy area, and his father was a big-time nephrologist. Danny referred to him as the Kidney King of Brookdale Hospital.

“However, on the home front, Denise had been hearing some very strange rumors about Danny: namely, that he and his wife, Nancy, were first cousins. Of course, I told Denise she was crazy, because there was no way Danny would withhold such a fact from me. Most of the time we spent together he was bitching about his wife, explaining how her sole mission in life was to make him as miserable as possible.

“So, I figured, why wouldn’t he confide in me that he and Nancy were first cousins? It made no sense. I mean, if it was true, it would definitely be playing a role in things. But I could never figure out a way to broach the subject with him, so I just kind of brushed the whole thing off, dismissing it as a vicious rumor.

“In any event, after I finished with my accountant, the two of us hopped back in my Jaguar and headed out of the city. We were somewhere around Ninety-fifth Street on the edge of Harlem when the insanity started. I remember Danny saying ‘Jesus Christ! Pull over! You gotta pull over.’ I pulled over and Danny jumped out of the car and went running into a dilapidated bodega with a cheap yellow sign Groceteria. He came running back out a minute later, holding a brown paper bag. He jumped back in the car with this insane smile on his face, and he said, ‘Drive! Hurry up! Head north, to One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street.’

“ ‘What the f**k is wrong with you?’ I muttered. ‘That’s Harlem, Danny!’

“ ‘It’s all good,’ he said knowingly, and he reached into the bag and pulled out a glass crack pipe and a dozen crack vials. ‘This stuff will make you into Superman. It’s my gift to you, for all you’ve done for me.’

“I shook my head and started driving. ‘You’re f**king crazy!’ I snarled. ‘I’m not smoking that shit! It’s pure evil.’

“But he waved me off. ‘You’re exaggerating,’ he said. ‘It’s only evil if you have constant access to it, and they don’t sell it in Bayside, so we’re in the clear.’

“ ‘You know, you’re a real f**king retard!’ I sputtered. ‘The chances of me smoking crack right now are less than zero. You got that, pal?’

“ ‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘I got it. Now, make a left up here and head toward Central Park.’

“ ‘This f**king guy,’ I muttered to myself, and I shook my head in disgust and made a left turn. Fifteen minutes later I was in the subbasement of a falling-apart Harlem crack den favored by toothless hookers and Haitian winos, and I was putting the glass pipe to my lips while Danny held a torch to the bowl. And as the crack sizzled like a strip of bacon, I took an enormous hit and held it in for as long as I could. An indescribable wave of euphoria overtook me. It started in the base of my aorta and shot up my spinal column and bubbled around the pleasure center of my brain with a billion synaptic explosions.

“‘Oh, Jesus,’ I muttered, ‘you—are—the—best—friend—I—ever-had, Danny!’ and I passed him the pipe.

“ ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You are too; we’re brothers to the end,’ and he reloaded the pipe with more crack.”

OCD shook his head in disbelief. “What the f**k is wrong with you? Why would you do that?”

The Witch said, “Because they’re drug addicts, Greg; they have no shame.”

“How long did you stay there for?” asked the Bastard, in the tone of the morbidly curious.

“For a very long time,” I said, nodding. “You see, the thing about crack is that once you get started, there are only two ways to stop: The first is to run out of money, and the second is to die of a heart attack. Fortunately, our binge ended with the former, not the latter. I only had about seven hundred dollars in my pocket and Danny had about five, so we pooled our money, like good socialists, and were able to keep our binge going well past midnight.”

I shrugged. “On the brighter side, though, I was able to gather some very valuable intelligence during our binge. You see, like all drugs, there are various phases of the high, and with crack they’re particularly acute. If you’d like, I’ll share them with you.”

OCD shook his head gravely. “You know, it’s a mystery to me why I’m interested in hearing about this, but since you’ve let the genie out of the bottle, you might as well get on with it.”

I flashed OCD a knowing smile. “It would be my pleasure, Greg. The first phase of a crack high is the euphoria phase. This is when you feel so incredibly wonderful that you want to just scream from the f**king hilltops: ‘I love crack! I love crack! And all of you out there who ain’t smoking this shit don’t know what you’re missing!’” I shrugged. “And if you think I’m kidding, just take a hit of it yourself and you’ll see what I mean.”

“How long does that phase last?” asked the Bastard.

I shook my head sadly. “Not long enough,” I replied. “Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes; then it’s over and you slide into phase two, which is almost as good, but not quite. It’s called the diarrhea-of-the-mouth phase, which is somewhat self-explanatory. In this case, however, the sort of drug-induced oral diarrhea spewed out differs from your garden-variety oral diarrhea that the typical sober bullshit artist slings at you.”

“What’s the difference?” asked the Witch, searching for a way to peg a bullshit artist when she saw one.

I narrowed my eyes sagely. “Well, it’s very difficult to describe meaningless drug talk to those who’ve never immersed themselves in it, but let’s just say that it consists of an endless stream of inane ramblings, which other people in the phase think are brilliant. Yet, to all those outside the phase, they sound like complete nonsense.”

OCD seemed to understand: “So it was during this phase that you did the bulk of your intelligence gathering, I assume.”

“Indeed, Greg; that’s a very logical assumption. Danny and I were sitting on a concrete floor, beneath an asbestos-laden ceiling, with our backs against a cheap plasterboard wall, which was in the process of shedding two coats of lead-based paint, while three toothless crack whores looked on in admiration, and I said to him, ‘I can’t think of a better place to ride out a crack high than this, buddy. Right?’

“ ‘No way,’ he mumbled. ‘Think I’d steer you wrong?’ And he put the pipe to his lips and took another hit.

“ ‘Let me ask you a question,’ I said. ‘You know, there are some pretty crazy rumors floating around the building about you and Nancy being first cousins. Of course, I know they’re not true and everything, but I just figured I’d let you know, so that you’d be aware that people were spreading rumors about you.’

“Suddenly he started coughing violently. ‘ Ho-bee Jesus….’ he muttered, ‘ho-bee Jesus,’ and he shook his head quickly, as if trying to gain control of the rush. After a few seconds he said, ‘It’s not a rumor, buddy, it’s true. Nancy and I are first cousins. Her father and my mother are brother and sister.’ He shrugged.

“ ‘Aren’t you worried about inbreeding?’ I asked him. ‘I mean, Jonathon seems pretty normal so far, but what about your next kid? What if he comes out deformed?’

“Danny shook his head. ‘The risk is low,’ he said confidently. ‘My father’s a doctor and he checked it out. But if I do get dealt a shitty hand, I’ll just leave the mutant on the institution steps. Either that, or I’ll lock it in the basement and lower down a bucket of chopped meat once a month.’

“Remember, I’m not the one who said this—Danny was! Besides, we were in the middle of the diarrhea-of-the-mouth phase, and even the most absurd things make sense then!”