Catching the Wolf of Wall Street

“I wouldn’t stop for any client,” he said warmly, “especially not you. Just hang in there a few months. I’ll get you out, buddy.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Were you able to get in touch with Nadine?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Maybe too fine, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” I said gravely. “She’s been praying for something like this to happen. It’s all the excuse she needs to bolt to California. Did she ask you how long I’d be in for?”

“No, and I didn’t bring it up, for that very reason. But I told her to accept collect calls from you, and she promised that she would.”

Well, that’s the least she could f**king do! “And what about Yulia?” I asked with a smirk. “She’s probably back with her ex-boyfriend by now.”

“I highly doubt that,” said Magnum.

“Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

“Well, if she’s anywhere, she’s probably in her psychiatrist’s office.”

“What are you talking about? What happened to her?”

“What happened to her is that she totally flipped out on me! I called her at the hotel, like you said, and when I told her you got remanded—or, should I say, got taken to jail, because she didn’t know what remanded meant—she completely lost it. She started crying hysterically on the phone, and she kept saying, ‘OhmyGods! OhmyGods!’ which, I admit, I found a bit humorous, because she kept using the plural form of God.”

“Yeah,” I said proudly, “she has a tendency to do that.” Suddenly I found KGB’s language deficiencies rather heartwarming. “What else did she say?”

“I’m not really sure, because she started speaking in Russian, a mile a minute. Anyway, she’s a very beautiful girl. I can see why they made her Miss Soviet Union.”

“Wait a second: You saw her?”

“Yeah, she showed up at my office unannounced; I guess she must have called information. Anyway, she was shaking uncontrollably. It was pretty scary, actually. Nick was about to call a doctor, but then some guy named Igor showed up and took her away. Do you know who Igor is?”

A shock! “You met Igor?” I felt a twinge of jealousy. Why did Magnum get to meet Igor before I did? Whatever. Curiosity overpowered jealousy, and I said, “What does he look like?”

“Pretty average,” replied Magnum. “Tall, thin, silver hair; about fifty or so. He’s very suspicious-looking, like a fox. He has excellent posture.”

“What do you mean, he has excellent posture?”

“I mean, he has excellent posture! The guy stands as stiff as a ramrod. He was probably in the military once.” A brief pause, then: “He probably still is, if you catch my drift.”

There were a few moments of silence as the very obviousness of Magnum’s words hung in the air. Then he said, “Anyway, he left a very cryptic message for you—something about you being under his protection now. I have no idea what he meant by that. Do you?”

Under Igor’s protection? What was that crazy Russian bastard talking about? “No,” I replied, “I have no idea. I never even met the guy!”

“Interesting,” said Magnum. “Well, Yulia left you a message too, although it was a bit less cryptic.”

I perked up: “Oh, really? What did she say?”

With a chuckle: “She say she love you and she wait as long as it take, even if it take forever.” More chuckles at KGB’s grammar. “I think she was very sincere.”

We exchanged a warm good-bye, then I hung up the phone and headed to the back of the line. There were four people ahead of me, so I had a few minutes to think. Above all, I was astonished at KGB’s loyalty. I would have never guessed it, especially after my experience with the Duchess. I had just assumed that KGB would fly the coop, because that’s what the Duchess had done. But, now that I thought about it, KGB’s attitude wasn’t so astonishing.

Few women would abandon their husbands on the courthouse steps. What the Duchess had done was unconscionable. I knew that I would think that forever. I no longer cared, though, because I was in love with someone else. Where once I had felt betrayed and heartbroken, I now felt angry and apathetic. And, in truth, I wasn’t even that angry. I just wanted my kids to remain east of the Mississippi.

The line moved quickly, and my conversation with the Duchess moved even quicker. Magnum had already given her the low-down, and I filled in the missing blanks. Interestingly enough, Magnum had played down the helicopter aspect of the debacle, focusing instead on what had happened with Dave Beall and how it set the stage for the Bastard’s revenge. I made a mental note to thank Magnum for that.

In any event, I assured the Duchess that I would be home soon-two months at the most—and, while I didn’t say it, my tone of voice so much as said, “So don’t be thinking of moving to California anytime soon, lady!”

For her part, both her words and her voice betrayed nothing. She said she was “really sorry” that I had gotten thrown in jail, yet she seemed no more or less sorry than if I had told her that I’d just lost my house keys and was forced to call a locksmith.

That aside, we decided that there was no point in saying anything to the kids. At the ages of six and four, they would be easy to fool—fool being synonymous with protect. Besides, what was the point in worrying them when I would be home so soon? Hopefully, I prayed, I would.

The Duchess promised to accept all my collect calls and not to trash-talk me to the kids. I believed her on both counts, not because I thought she felt a grain of compassion toward me but because I knew she felt it for the children. And that was fine; when you’re in a position like mine, you accept your victories without questioning motives. Then you say thank you.

When I spoke to the kids, I kept it short and sweet. I told them I was traveling on business, which they both found very exciting. Neither of them asked when I would be coming home, simply because they assumed it would be soon. At Carter’s age, the concept of time didn’t mean much. He measured things in half hours, which was the average length of a cartoon; anything beyond that was considered “long.”

Chandler, however, was another story. She was in first grade and knew how to read (not too well, thank God!), so she couldn’t be fooled for long. Eventually—within a month, perhaps—she would begin to smell a rat; then her well-deserved nickname of CIA would complicate things. She would start to investigate— eavesdropping, asking pointed questions, checking for lies, omissions, and contradictions. In essence, she would become the quintessential nosy six-year-old girl, a concerned daughter who missed her Daddy and wouldn’t stop digging until she got to the bottom of things.

With that in mind, before I hung up I told her that my travels might take me to some very faraway places—fantastic places, I said-just like those two silly Frenchmen, Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, from the movie Around the World in 80 Days. We had watched it together many times, and she had always found it fascinating, especially the different ways they’d traveled.

“It’ll be great!” I said to her. “You can watch the video with Gwynnie and see all the great places while Daddy’s visiting them. In fact, it’ll be just like we’re visiting them together!”

“You’re going to all the same places as Passepartout?” she asked wondrously.

“Absolutely, thumbkin! And I think it might take me the same amount of time it took them.”

“Eighty days?” she sputtered. “Why would it take you eighty days? They rode on an elephant, Daddy! Can’t you take an airplane?”

That little devil! She was too clever! I had to cut this conversation short. “Well, I guess I could, but that might take the fun out of it. Anyway, just watch the video with Gwynnie, and we’ll talk about it then, okay?”

“Okay,” she said happily. “I love you, Daddy.” Then she blew me a big kiss into the phone.

“I love you too,” I said warmly, and I blew her a kiss back. Then I hung up the phone, fought back the tears, and went to the end of the line and waited my turn again. Ten minutes later I was dialing Southampton.

First I heard KGB’s voice: “Alloa?” Then the recorded voice of the operator: “This is a collect call from a federal prison. If you wish to accept, please press five now; if you do not wish to accept, press nine or hang up the phone; if you wish to block calls from this number permanently, please press seven-seven now.” And then there was silence.

Oh, Jesus Christ! I thought. KGB couldn’t understand the instructions! I screamed into the phone: “Yulia! Don’t press seven-seven! I won’t be able to call you back! Don’t press seven-seven!” I turned around and looked for a friendly face. A towering black man was next in line. He was staring at me, amused. I shook my head and said, “My girlfriend’s a foreigner. She doesn’t understand the message.”

He smiled warmly, exposing a conspicuous absence of central incisors. “Happens all the time, big-man. You better hang up before she presses seven-seven. If she does you’re”—beep, beep, went the phone—”fucked.”

Just then I heard a loud click. With a sinking heart, I held up the phone and stared at it quizzically. Then I turned to the towering black man and said, “I think she pressed seven-seven.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Then you’re f**ked.”

I was about to hang up when he said, “You got another number at the house?”

I nodded. “Yeah, why?”

He motioned to the touch pad. “Call back, then; it don’t block the whole house, just that line.”

“Is it okay?” I asked nervously. “I thought it’s one call at a time.”

He shrugged. “Go call your girl. I got nothin’ but time.”

“Thanks,” I said. What a terrific guy! First Ming the Merciless and now the Towering Black Man! These people weren’t so bad, were they? Especially this guy! He was a true gentleman. I later found out he was facing twenty years for extortion.

I turned around and dialed the phone again, and this time she got it right. Her first words were: “OhmyGods! Maya lubimaya! Ya lublu tibea!”

“I love you too,” I said softly. “Are you hanging in there, honey?”

“Hanging where?” she asked, with a confused snuffle.

Jesus! I thought. In spite of everything, it was enough to make you crazy. “I mean, are you doing okay?”

“Da…”she said sadly, “I, I okay.” Then: “Oh, oh… ohmyGods… I… ohmyGods…” and she started sobbing uncontrollably. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but find comfort in her sobbing. It was as if with each sob, with each tear, and with each gooselike snort she was reaffirming her love for me. I made a mental note to count her “I love yous” each day. When they started to diminish, I would know the end was near.

Today, however, the end was definitely nowhere in sight. The moment she stopped sobbing, she said, “I don’t care how long it take, I wait for you forever. I will not go out of house until you are home.”

And, true to her word, that was exactly what she did.

As my first week behind bars came to a close, she was there every time I called Southampton. According to pod rules, you could speak as long as you wanted on each call, and sometimes we would speak for hours at a time. It was rather ironic, I thought, considering we never spoke that much when I was on the outside. Our relationship had been mostly about sex; when we weren’t hav**g s*x, we were eating or sleeping or arguing over whose history books were more accurate.

Now, however, we didn’t have such arguments. We seemed to agree on everything—mostly because we avoided all subjects even vaguely related to history, politics, economics, religion, grammar, and, of course, the moon. Instead, we spoke of simple things, like all the wonderful dinners we’d shared together… all those fires on the beach… and how we had made love to each other all day long. But, most of all, we spoke about the future—meaning, our future— and how once all this was over we would get married and live happily ever after.

And when I wasn’t speaking to KGB, I was reading book after book, playing catch-up after years of entertaining myself with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. For as long as I could remember, I had despised reading, associating it with boredom and tediousness rather than wonder and pleasure. I viewed myself as the product of a misguided education system that stressed reading “the classics,” which, for the most part, were boring and outdated. Perhaps if I had been forced to read Jaws and The Godfather instead of Moby-Dick and Ulysses, things would have turned out differently. (Always looking to place blame somewhere else.)

So I was making up for lost time now, averaging nearly a book a day, and writing three letters as well—one to KGB and one to each of the kids. Of course, I would call the kids each day to tell them that I loved them and that I would be home soon. And while I hated lying to them, I knew it was the right thing to do.

As expected, Carter was easy to deceive. We talked about whatever Disney movie he was currently obsessed with and then exchanged “I love yous.” Our conversations lasted no more than a minute, at which point he returned to the blissful ignorance of childhood.

Chandler, however, was a different story. Our average conversation would be more than fifteen minutes, and if she was especially talkative it would last for close to an hour. Just what we could talk about for so long I’m still not sure, although as the weeks dragged on I noticed her becoming more and more obsessed with Passepartout. In essence, she was using the movie to keep track of my progress, the way an adult crosses off days on a calendar.

She kept saying things like, “Passepartout did this, Daddy, and Passepartout did that, Daddy,” as if I could somehow learn from Passepartout’s mistakes and accelerate my voyage around the world. With the help of Gwynne, she had pegged January 10 as my arrival date back in the United States from Yokohama—just like Passepartout. However, if she could help me figure out a way to travel faster or simply avoid having an accident, then perhaps I could be home for Christmas.

So when I told her I was in Paris, she said, “Be careful when you take off in your hot-air balloon, Daddy! Passepartout had to climb on top of his balloon, and he almost fell off!” I promised that I would.

And when I told her I was heading to India, she said, “Be careful when you’re riding on your elephant, Daddy, because Passepartout got captured by headhunters! He had to be rescued.” And from there the subject would turn to something completely innocuous—her new friends in school, something she’d watched on TV, the toys she wanted for Christmas. Never once did she bring up John Macaluso or, for that matter, her mother. Whether this was by accident or design I wasn’t quite sure, but I could sense that she was trying to protect my feelings.

By mid-November, Alonso had finally agreed to take another shot in front of Gleeson. The only problem was that he needed to get clearance from the new chief of the criminal division, a man named Ken Breen (Ron White had switched sides too, becoming a defense lawyer). Breen was currently in trial and couldn’t be disturbed.

That made no sense to me; after all, it couldn’t take Magnum more than fifteen minutes to make a presentation to Ken Breen. Bo had secured all the necessary affidavits, and it was crystal clear that the only thing I had been guilty of was stupidity. I said to Magnum, “I don’t care how busy someone is—they always have fifteen minutes to spare for something important.” Magnum explained that it was a matter of protocol. When an AUSA goes to trial, it’s like a prizefighter stepping into the ring, and between rounds he doesn’t talk to his best friend. All he cares about is knocking out the other prizefighter.

And just like that, the possibility of being home for Thanksgiving vanished like a fart in the wind. Fortunately, I hadn’t really expected it, so I wasn’t overly disappointed. Yes, it would have been nice, of course, but it had been such a long shot that I hadn’t been foolish enough to get my hopes up.

As I quickly found out, expectations could be either your best friend or worst nightmare when you’re behind bars. A man facing twenty years hangs on to the hope of winning an appeal; when he loses his appeal he hangs on to the hope of parole; and when he gives up on that—and his life seems totally worthless and no longer worth living—he finds Jesus.

I fell into a unique category of ultrashort-timers, a detainee whose downside was measured by a matter of months. Worse came to worst, Magnum assured me, Gleeson would let me out by spring, simply out of mercy. However, if we were to file our motion just before Christmas, he couldn’t imagine John denying it. He was a sympathetic man, Magnum promised, and he would be willing to give me a second chance.

Fair enough, I thought. I would have to spend Thanksgiving in jail. I dialed Old Brookville on Tuesday morning of Thanksgiving week. The date was November 23. As always, I dialed with a smile on my face, anxious beyond words to hear the voices of my children. Alas, on the second ring, I heard: “I’m sorry, the number you have called has been disconnected. If you have reached this recording in error, please hang up and try your call again. No further information is available.”

At first I didn’t hang up the phone. I kept it pressed to my ear. I was simply too astonished to move. And while my brain desperately searched for answers, my gut didn’t have to: My children had moved to California.

Two days later, it came as no surprise when the Duchess called my parents and left her new contact information on their answering machine, and both the area code and the zip code belonged to Beverly Hills.

Without losing my temper, I wrote them down. Then I hung up the phone and headed for the back of the line. There were seven people ahead of me, so I had a few minutes to think, to figure out the precise string of curses to utter, the appropriate threats to make, and anything else a man in my position—meaning a man who had no power whatsoever over anyone or anything, including himself—could say.

I would call her a bitch and a gold digger and a… who was I kidding? If I called her any of those things, she would press seven-seven and cut off all phone communication! Not to mention the fact that she could pluck my letters out of the mailbox and cut off all written communication as well. My complete lack of power was utterly enraging! Yet what enraged me most was that, deep down, I knew she was right.

I mean, what was she to do? I was in jail and the money was running out. She had bills to pay, kids to support, and the roof over her head was on the cusp of forfeiture. And then there was John Macaluso waiting in the wings, like a knight in shining armor. He had money, a mansion, and, by sheer coincidence, he happened to be a nice guy to boot. He would support her and take care of her, and he would love her.