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.
“You’re a real fucking bastard!” snapped the angry skeleton. “Just wait and see what happens next time you’re out. I’ll tell you to go fuck yourself too!”
I looked at Elliot, whose head was now bobbing and weaving. It was a clear sign that he was about to leave the slur phase and enter the drool phase. I said, “Hey, El: You want me to make you something to eat, so you can come down a bit?”
Elliot smiled broadly and replied, “Make me a zuld-claz cheezburzer!”
“No problem!” I said, and I rose from my chair and headed to the kitchen to make him a world-class cheeseburger. The Duchess intercepted me in the living room, wearing a sky-blue Brazilian bikini the size of kite string.
Through clenched teeth, she snapped, “I can’t take Ellen for one more second! She’s sick in the fucking head, and I don’t want her in my house anymore. She’s slurring and snorting coke, and the whole thing is fucking disgusting! You’re sober almost a month now and I don’t want you surrounded by this. It’s not good for you.”
I’d half-missed what the Duchess said. I mean—I’d heard every word, but I’d been too busy looking at her breasts, which she’d just had augmented to a small C-cup. They looked glorious. I said, “Calm down, sweetie; Ellen’s not so bad. Besides, Elliot’s one of my closest friends, so the matter’s not up for discussion,” and as the last few words escaped my lips, I knew I’d made a mistake. A split second later the Duchess took a swing at me. It was a full right cross with an open hand.
But having been sober for a month, I had catlike reflexes, and I easily dodged the blow. I said, “Cool your jets, Nadine. It’s not so easy to smack me around when I’m sober, huh?” I flashed her a devilish smile, to which she grinned broadly, and then she threw her arms around me and said, “I’m so proud of you. It’s like you’re a different person now. Even your back’s starting to feel better, right?”
“A little bit,” I replied. “It’s manageable now, but it’s still not perfect. Anyway, I think I’m really over the hump with the Quaaludes. And I love you more than ever.”
“I love you too,” she said, pouting. “I’m only mad because Elliot and Ellen are evil. He’s the worst influence on you, and if he stays here too long…well, you know what I’m talking about.” She gave me a wet kiss on the lips and then pushed the curve of her stomach against mine.
Suddenly, with three pints of blood rushing to my loins, I found the Duchess’s point of view making much more sense. I said, “I’ll tell you what: If you agree to be my sex slave for the rest of the weekend, I’ll put Elliot and Ellen up in a hotel—deal?”
The Duchess smiled broadly and rubbed me in just the right place. “You got it, sweetie. Your wish is my command; just get them outta here and I’m all yours.”
Fifteen minutes later Elliot was slobbering over his cheeseburger, while I was on the phone with Janet, asking her to book Elliot and Ellen a hotel room at a plush hotel about thirty minutes away.
Out of nowhere, with his mouth still filled with cheeseburger, Elliot popped out of his chair and dove into the pool. A few seconds later he came up for air and waved me in for an underwater race. It was something we always did—betting which of us could swim the most laps underwater. Elliot was a strong swimmer, having grown up by the ocean, so he had a slight edge on me. But given his current condition, I thought I could take him. Besides, I’d been a lifeguard back in my teens, so I was a pretty strong swimmer too.
We each swam four laps: a tie. The Duchess came over and said, “Don’t you think it’s time you two schmucks grew up? I don’t like when you play that game. It’s stupid. And one of you is gonna get hurt.” Then she added, “And where’s Elliot?”
I looked at the bottom of the pool. I squinted. What the fuck was he doing? He was lying on his side? Oh, shit! All at once the sheer gravity of things hit me like a sledgehammer, and without thinking I dove down to the bottom of the pool to get him. He wasn’t moving. I grabbed him by the hair—and with a mighty jerk of my right arm and the most powerful scissors kick I could muster, I yanked him off the bottom and headed for the surface. His body was almost weightless from the water’s buoyancy. Just as we broke through the surface, I jerked my arm over to the right and Elliot went flying out of the water and landed on the edge of the pool, on the concrete. And he was dead. Dead!
“OhmyGod!” screamed Nadine, and tears began streaming down her face. “Elliot’s dead! Save him!”
“Go call an ambulance!” I screamed. “Hurry up!”
I placed two fingertips over his carotid artery. No pulse. I grabbed his wrist and checked there. Nothing. My friend is dead, I thought.
Just then I heard a screeching sound; it was Ellen Lavigne. “Oh, God, no! Please don’t take my husband! Please! Save him, Jordan! Save him! You can’t let him die! I can’t lose my husband! I have two children! Oh, no! Not now! Please!�
�� She began sobbing uncontrollably.
I became aware of a crowd of people around me—Gary Deluca, Arthur and Sonny, Gwynne and Rocco, even the baby nurse, who had grabbed Chandler from the kiddie pool and rushed over to see what the commotion was. I saw Nadine running toward me, on her way back from calling the ambulance, and the words kept ringing in my ears—Save him! Save him! I wanted to give Elliot CPR, just like I’d been taught all those years back.
I really wanted to, but why should I? I thought. Wouldn’t it be better if Elliot just died? He had the goods on me, and one of these days Agent Coleman would get around to subpoenaing his bank records, wouldn’t he? At that very moment, as Elliot lay dead before me, I couldn’t help but marvel at how convenient his death would be. Dead men tell no tales… Those five words began overtaking my mind, begging me not to resuscitate him, to let the secrets of our nefarious dealings die along with him.
And this man had been the scourge of my life—reintroducing me to Quaaludes after years of not taking them, getting me hooked on cocaine, and then going bad on me in the rathole game, which was tantamount to stealing my money. And all of it to fuel his gambling habit…and his drug addiction…and his IRS problems. Agent Coleman was no fool, and he would exploit those weaknesses, especially the IRS problems, where he would threaten Elliot with jail time. Then Elliot would cooperate against me and spill his guts. I should just let him die, for Chrissake, because…dead men tell no tales…
But in the background everyone was screaming: “Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Suddenly it hit me: I was already trying to resuscitate him! As my conscious mind was debating things—something infinitely more powerful had already clicked inside me and was overriding my thoughts.
And at that very moment I found my mouth pressed against Elliot’s mouth, and my lungs expelling air into his lungs, and then I lifted my head and began pumping Elliot’s chest in rhythmic bursts. I stopped and took a moment to regard him.
Nothing! Shit! He was still dead! How could it be? I was doing everything right! Why wouldn’t he come back?
All at once I remembered reading an article about the Heimlich maneuver and how it had been used to save a child who’d drowned, so I flipped Elliot onto his stomach and wrapped my arms around him. I squeezed as hard as I possibly could. Snap! Crack! Crunch!…In that very instant I realized I’d broken most of his ribs. So I flipped him back over to see if he’d started breathing, and he hadn’t.
It was over. He was dead. I looked up at Nadine, and with tears in my eyes, I said, “I don’t know what to do! He won’t come back!”
And then I heard Ellen scream at the top of her lungs once more: “OhmyGod! My children! Oh, God! Please, don’t stop, Jordan! Don’t stop! You have to save my husband!”
Elliot was completely blue, the last flickers of light leaving his eyes. So I said a silent prayer and inhaled as deeply as I possibly could. With every last bit of force my lungs could muster, I shot a jet of air into him, and I felt his stomach blow up like a balloon. Then all at once the cheeseburger came up, and he vomited into my mouth. I started to gag.
I watched him take a shallow breath, then I stuck my face in the pool and washed the vomit out of my mouth. I looked back at Elliot and noticed his face looked less blue. Then he stopped breathing again. I looked at Gary and said, “Take over for me,” to which Gary extended his palms toward me and shook his head, as if to say, “No fucking way!” and he took two steps backward to reinforce his point. So I turned to Elliot’s best friend, Arthur, and asked him to do the same, and he reacted just as Gary had. So I had no choice but to do the most disgusting thing imaginable. I splashed water on Elliot’s face as the Duchess sprang into action and cleaned the vomit off the sides of Elliot’s mouth. Then I stuck my hand inside and scooped out partially digested cheeseburger meat, pushing his tongue down to clear an air passage. I put my mouth back on his mouth and began breathing for him again, while the others stood frozen in horror.
Finally I heard the sound of sirens, and a few moments later there were paramedics hovering over us. In less than three seconds they had a tube down Elliot’s throat and had started pumping oxygen into his lungs. They gently placed him on a stretcher and then carried him off to the side of the mansion, under a shady tree, and stuck an IV in his arm.
I jumped into the pool and washed the vomit out of my mouth, still gagging uncontrollably. The Duchess came running over, holding a toothbrush and toothpaste, and I began brushing my teeth right in the pool. Then I jumped out and headed over to where Elliot was lying on the stretcher. By now there were half a dozen policemen there with the paramedics. They were desperately trying to get his heart beating at a normal rate, without success. One of the paramedics stuck his hand out to me and said, “You’re a hero, sir. You saved your friend’s life.”
And just like that it hit me: I was a hero! Me! The Wolf of Wall Street! A hero! What a delicious ring those three words had! I desperately needed to hear them again, so I said, “I’m sorry, I missed what you said. Can you please repeat it?”
The paramedic smiled at me and said, “You’re a hero, in the truest sense of the word. Not many men would have done what you did. You had no training, yet you did exactly the right thing. Well done, sir. You’re a real hero.”
Oh, Jesus! I thought. This was absolutely wonderful. But I needed to hear it from the Duchess, with her loamy loins and brand-new breasts, which would now be mine for the taking, at least for the next few days, because I, her husband, was a hero, and no female can refuse the sexual advances of a hero.
I found the Duchess sitting by herself on the edge of a lounge chair, still in a state of shock. I tried to find just the right words that would inspire her to call me a hero. I decided it would be best to use reverse psychology on her—to compliment her on how calm she’d remained and then praise her for calling the ambulance. This way she would feel compelled to return the compliment.
I sat down beside her and put my arm around her. “Thank God you called the ambulance, Nae. I mean, everyone else froze in place, except for you. You’re a strong lady.” I waited patiently.
She edged closer to me and smiled sadly. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it was just instinct more than anything else. You know, you see this sort of stuff in movies, but you never think it’s gonna happen to you. You know what I mean?”
Un-fucking-believable! She didn’t call me a hero! I would just have to get more specific. “I know what you mean. You never think something like this could happen, but once it does, well, instinct just takes over. I guess that’s why I reacted the way I did.” Hello, Duchess! Get my drift, for Chrissake?
Apparently she did, because she threw her arms around me and said, “OhmyGod! You were incredible! I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean…words just can’t describe how brilliant you were! Everyone else was frozen in place and you…”
Christ! I thought. She kept gushing over me, but she refused to say the magic word!
“…and you’re…I mean…you’re a hero, honey!” There she goes! “I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of you. My husband, the hero!” She gave me the wettest kiss imaginable.
In that very instant I understood why every young child wants to be a fireman. Just then I saw them carrying Elliot away on a stretcher. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s head over to the hospital and make sure they don’t drop the ball after I worked so hard to save Elliot’s life.”
Twenty minutes later we were in the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the early prognosis was unspeakable: Elliot had suffered some brain damage. Whether or not he would be a vegetable was still unclear.
On the way to the hospital, the Duchess had called Barth. Now I followed him into the critical-care room, which bore the unmistakable odor of death. There were four doctors and two nurses, and Elliot was lying flat on his back on an examining table.
Mt. Sinai wasn’t Barth’s hospital, yet apparently his reputation preceded him. Every doctor in the room knew exactly who
he was. A tall one in a white lab coat said, “He’s in a coma, Dr. Green. He won’t breathe unassisted. His brain function is depressed, and he has seven broken ribs. We’ve given him epinephrine, but he hasn’t responded.” The doctor looked Barth straight in the eye and shook his head slowly, as if to say, “He’s not going to make it.”
Then Barth Green did the oddest thing. With complete and utter confidence, he walked right up to Elliot, grabbed him by the shoulders, put his mouth to Elliot’s ear, and in a stern voice yelled, “Elliot! Wake up right this second!” He started shaking him vigorously. “This is Dr. Barth Green, Elliot, and I’m telling you to stop screwing around and open up your eyes right now! Your wife is outside and she wants to see you!”
And just like that, in spite of the last few words about Ellen wanting to see him—which would make most men choose death—Elliot followed Barth’s instructions and opened his eyes. A moment later his brain function returned to normal. I looked around the room, and every last doctor and nurse was agape.
As was I. It was a miracle, performed by a miracle worker. I started shaking my head in admiration, and out of the corner of my eye I happened to see a large syringe filled with a clear liquid. I squinted to see what the label said. Morphine. Very interesting, I thought, that they would give morphine to a dying man.
The Wolf of Wall Street Page 36