The Wolf of Wall Street (21 page)

“Well,” replied Roland, with a shrug of his shoulders, “that doesn’t really surprise me. Jean Jacques is a banker; his expertise lies in the marshaling of assets, not in the juggling of them. He is an excellent banker, I might add, and he will manage your account well, with the utmost discretion. But he is not well versed in the creation of documents that allow money to flow back and forth between countries without raising eyebrows. That is the function of a trustee”—a Master Forger!—“such as myself. In fact, you will find that Union Bancaire will heavily discourage the movement of money out of the account. Of course, you will always be able to do with your money as you please; they will not actually try to stop you. But do not be surprised if Jean Jacques tries to dissuade you from moving money out of the account, perhaps using the excuse that moving money raises red flags. But this is not something to be held against Jean Jacques. All Swiss bankers operate in that fashion, and it is a self-serving one, I might add. The simple fact, my friend, is that with three trillion dollars a day flowing in and out of the Swiss banking system, there is no amount of activity in your account that could possibly raise a red flag. As smart a man as you can easily see the bank’s motivation for wanting to keep their account balances as elevated as possible.

“Out of curiosity, though, what ways did Jean Jacques suggest to you? I am interested to hear the bank’s latest rhetoric in this area.” With that, Roland leaned back and interlaced his fingers over his belly.

Mirroring his body language, I slid back from the edge of the couch and said, “Well, the first way he recommended was through a debit card. That seemed fucking outlandish to me, if you’ll pardon my fucking French. I mean, running around town with a debit card tied to a foreign account leaves a paper trail a mile wide!” I shook my head and rolled my eyes, to drive my point home.

“And his second recommendation was equally ridiculous: I would use my overseas money to take out a mortgage on my own home, in the United States. Anyway, I trust that none of this will be repeated to Saurel, but I have to admit I was extremely disappointed with this part of his presentation. So tell me, Roland—what am I missing here?”

Roland smiled confidently. “There are many ways to do this, all of which leave no paper trail whatsoever. Or, to be more accurate, they leave a very wide paper trail, but it’s just the sort of trail you would like to see, the sort that supports a position of complete innocence and will stand up to the most intense scrutiny, on both sides of the Atlantic. Are you familiar with the practice of transfer pricing?”

Transfer pricing? Yes, I knew what it was, but how would—all at once a thousand nefarious strategies went flashing through my brain. The possibilities were…limitless! I smiled broadly at my Master Forger and said, “Actually, I do, Master For—I mean, Roland, and it’s a brilliant idea.”

He seemed shocked that I knew about the little-known art of transfer pricing, which was a financial shell game where you would engage a transaction, either underpaying or overpaying for a particular product, depending on which way you wanted your money to flow. The rub lied in the fact that you were actually on both sides of the transaction: You were both the buyer and the seller. Transfer pricing was used mostly as a tax dodge, a strategy employed by billion-dollar multinational corporations—whereby they would alter their internal pricing strategies when selling from one wholly owned subsidiary to another—which resulted in the
transfer
of profits from countries with heavy corporate income-tax burdens to countries with none. I had read something about it in an obscure economics magazine—an article about Honda Motors, which was overcharging its U.S. factories for automotive parts, thereby minimizing its U.S. profits. For obvious reasons, the IRS was in an uproar.

Roland said, “I am surprised you know about transfer pricing. It is not a widely known practice, especially in the United States.”

I shrugged. “I can see a thousand ways to use it, to move money back and forth without raising any eyebrows. All we have to do is form a bearer corporation and interposition it in some sort of transaction with one of my U.S. companies. Right off the top of my head I’m thinking about a company called Dollar Time. They’re sitting on a couple of million dollars of worthless clothing inventory that I couldn’t sell even for one dollar, just like the name says.

“But what we
could
do is form a bearer corporation and give it a name that sounds clothing-related, like Wholesale Clothing Inc. or something along those lines. Then I can have Dollar Time enter into a transaction with my overseas company, which would buy the worthless inventory, moving my money from Switzerland back into the United States. And the only paper trail would be a purchase order and an invoice.”

Roland nodded and said, “Yes, my friend. And I have the ability to print up all sorts of invoices and bills of sale and anything else that might be needed. I can even print brokerage confirmations and date them back as of a year ago. In other words, we can go back to last year’s newspaper and pick a stock that has gone up tremendously, then create records that indicate a certain trade was made. But I am getting ahead of myself here. It would take me many months to teach you everything.

“On a separate note, I can also make arrangements to have large amounts of cash available to you in many foreign countries, simply by forming bearer corporations and then creating documentation for purchases and sales for nonexistent commodities. At the end of the day, the profit will end up in the country of your choosing, where you may retrieve the cash. And all that will be left is an airtight paper trail that points to the legitimacy of the transaction. In fact, I have already formed two companies on your behalf. Come, my boy, and I will show you.” With that, my Master Forger raised his enormous bulk from his black leather club chair, led me to the wall of corporate books, and removed two of them. “Here,” he said. “The first is called United Overseas Investments, and the second is called Far East Ventures. They are both chartered in the British Virgin Islands, where there will be no taxes to pay and no regulation to speak of. All I need is a copy of Patricia’s passport and then I will handle the rest.”

“No problem,” I said, smiling, and I reached into my inside suit-jacket pocket and handed the copy of Patricia’s passport to my wonderful Master Forger. I would learn everything I could from this man. I would learn all the ins and outs of the Swiss banking world. I would learn how to hide all my transactions within an impenetrable web of foreign bearer corporations. And if the going ever got rough, the very paper trail I would create would be my salvation.

Yes—it all made sense now. As different as Jean Jacques Saurel and Roland Franks were, they were both men of power, and they were both men who could be trusted. And this was the land of Switzerland, the glorious land of secrets, where neither of them would have any reason to betray me.

Alas, I would be wrong about one of them.

CHAPTER 18

FU MANCHU AND THE MULE

I
t was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in Westhampton Beach, on Labor Day weekend, and we were lying in bed, making love, just like any other husband and wife—sort of. The Duchess was lying flat on her back with her arms extended over her head and her head resting upon a white silk pillow, the perfect curve of her face framed by her luxurious mane of golden blond hair. She looked like an angel sent down from heaven just for me. I was lying on top of her with my arms extended like hers, and I was holding down her hands with my hands, our fingers interlaced. A thin film of perspiration was all that separated us.

I was trying to use the full weight of my skinny body to keep her from moving. We were pretty much the same size, so we fit together like bookends. As I breathed in her glorious scent, I could feel her nipples pushing against mine, and I could feel the warmth of her luscious thighs against my thighs, and I could feel the silky smoothness of her ankles rubbing against mine.

But in spite of being soft and slender, and ten degrees hotter than a raging campfire, she was stronger than an ox! Hard as I tried, I couldn’t seem to keep her in one spot. “Stop moving!” I sputtered, with a mixture of passion and anger. “I’m almost done, Nae! Just keep your legs together!”

Now the Duchess’s voice took on the tone of a child about to throw a temper tantrum: “I’m—not—comfortable! Now—let—me—up!”

I tried kissing her on the lips, but she turned her head to the side and all I caught was a high cheekbone. I craned my head and tried catching her from a side angle, but she quickly turned her head to the other side. Now I had the other cheekbone. It was so chiseled I almost cut my lower lip.

I knew I should release her—that would be the right thing to do—but I wasn’t up for a location change right now, especially when I was so close to the Promised Land. So I tried changing tactics. In the tone of the beggar, I said, “Come on, Nae! Please don’t do this to me!” I offered her a pout. “I’ve been a perfect husband for two weeks now, so stop complaining and let me kiss you!”

As the words escaped my lips, I took great pride in the fact that they were actually true. I had been a near-perfect husband since the day I’d arrived home from Switzerland. I hadn’t slept with one prostitute—not even one!—not to mention the fact that I hadn’t even been staying out late. My drug intake was down—way down!—cut by more than half, and I’d even skipped a few days. In fact, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d entered the drool phase.

I was in the middle of one of those brief interludes where my outrageous drug addiction seemed somewhat under control. I’d had these periods before, where my uncontrollable urge to fly higher than the Concorde was greatly diminished. And during these periods even my back pain seemed less severe, and I would sleep better. But, alas, it was always temporary. Something or someone would set me off on a rampage—and then it would be worse than before.

With a bit of anger slipping out, I said, “Come on, God damn it! Hold your head still! I’m almost ready to come, and I want to kiss you while I’m coming!”

Apparently the Duchess didn’t appreciate my selfish attitude. Before I realized what was happening, she had placed her hands on my shoulders and with one swift movement of her slender arms she thrust upward—and my penis quickly disinserted itself and I was flying off the bed, heading for the bleached-wood floor.

On my way down, I caught a pleasant glimpse of the dark blue Atlantic Ocean, which I could see through a solid wall of plate glass that ran the entire length of the back of the house. The ocean was about a hundred yards away, but it looked much closer. Just before I hit the dirt I heard the Duchess say, “Oh, honey! Watch out! I didn’t mean—”

BOOM!

I took a deep breath and blinked, praying for no broken bones. “Ughhhhhhhhhhh…why’d you do that?” I groaned. I was now lying flat on my back, stark naked, with my erect penis glistening in the early-afternoon sunlight. I tilted my head up and took a moment to regard my erection…. It was still intact. That lifted my spirits a bit. Had I thrown my back out?…No, I was pretty sure I hadn’t. But I was too dazed to move a muscle.

The Duchess poked her blond head over the side of the bed and stared at me quizzically. Then she pursed those luscious lips of hers, and in a tone that a mother would normally use on a child who’d just taken an unexpected tumble in the playground, she said, “Oh, my poor little baby! Come back into bed with me, and I’ll make you feel all better!”

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I ignored her use of the word little and rolled over onto all fours and stood up. I was about to climb back on top of her when I found myself mesmerized by the incredible sight before me: not just the luscious Duchess but also the $3 million in cash she was lying upon.

Yes—it was $3 million on the nose. The big three-O!

We had just finished counting it. It was wrapped in stacks of $10,000, and each stack was about an inch thick. There were three hundred stacks, and they were spread out over the entire length of the king-size mattress—one atop the other, a foot and a half in the air. At each corner of the bed, an enormous elephant tusk rose up three feet, setting the motif for the room, which was an African safari come to Long Island!

Just then Nadine scooted over to the side of the bed, sending $70 or $80,000 onto the floor. It joined another quarter million or so that had gone flying off the bed along with me. Still, it didn’t make a dent in the picture. There was so much green on the bed it looked like the floor of the Amazon rain forest after a monsoon.

The Duchess fixed me with a warm smile. “I’m sorry, sweetie! I didn’t mean to throw you off the bed…I swear!” She shrugged innocently. “I just had this terrible cramp in my shoulder, and I guess you don’t weigh that much. Let’s go into the closet and make love there. Okay, love-bug?” She flashed me another lubricious smile, and with one athletic move she popped her naked body right out of bed and stood beside me. Then she crooked her mouth to the side and started chewing on the inside of her own cheek. It was something she did whenever she was having trouble making sense of something.

After a few seconds, she stopped chewing and said, “Are you sure this is legal, ’cause I don’t know. There’s something about it that seems…wrong.”

At this particular moment I had little desire to lie to my wife about my money-laundering activities. In fact, my only current desire was to bend her over the side of the bed and fuck her brains out! But she was my wife, which meant she had earned the right to be lied to. With the utmost conviction, I said, “I told you, Nae—I took all the cash out of the bank. You’ve seen me do it. Now, I’m not denying that Elliot hasn’t given me a few dollars here and there”—a few dollars? Try $5 million!—“but that has nothing to do with this money. All this money is strictly legit, and if the government were to come charging in here right now, I would simply show them my withdrawal slips, and that would be that.” I put my arms around her waist and pressed my body against hers and kissed her.

She giggled and pulled away. “I know you took the cash out of the bank, but it just seems illegal. I don’t know…having this much cash…well, I don’t know. It just seems weird.” She started chewing on the inside of her mouth again. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

I was slowly losing my erection, which deeply saddened me. It was time for a location change. “Just trust me, sweetie. I got it under control. Let’s go in the closet and make love. Todd and Carolyn are gonna be here in less than an hour, and I wanna make love without rushing. Please?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, then all at once she took off into a run and said over her shoulder, “I’ll race you to the closet!”

And off we went—without so much as a care in the world.

There was no denying that some very wacky Jews had fled from Lefrak City in the early 1970s.

But none of them was wackier than Todd Garret.

Todd was three years older than me, and I can still remember the first time I laid eyes on him. I had just turned ten years old, and Todd was standing in the one-car garage of the garden apartment he had moved into with his two wacky parents, Lester and Thelma. His older brother, Freddy, had recently died of a heroin overdose, the rusty needle still in his arm when they’d found him sitting on the toilet bowl, two days postmortem.

So, relatively speaking, Todd was the normal one.

Anyway, he was kicking and punching a white canvas heavy bag—wearing black kung fu pants and black kung fu slippers. Back then, in the early seventies, there weren’t karate centers in every local shopping center, so Todd Garret quickly developed a reputation as being somewhat of an oddity. But at least he was consistent: You could find him in his tiny garage, twelve hours a day, seven days a week—kicking and punching and kneeing the bag.

No one took Todd seriously until he turned seventeen. It was then that Todd found himself standing in the wrong bar somewhere in Jackson Heights, Queens. Jackson Heights was only a few miles away from Bayside, but it might just as well have been on another planet. The official language was broken English; the most common profession was unemployment; and even the grandmas carried switchblades. Anyway, inside the bar, words were exchanged between Todd and four Colombian drug dealers—at which point they attacked him. When it was all over, two of them had broken bones, all four had broken faces, and one had been stabbed with his own knife, which Todd had taken from him. After that, everyone took Todd seriously.

From there, Todd made the logical leap into big-time drug dealing, where through a combination of fear and intimidation, along with a healthy dose of street smarts, he quickly rose to the top. He was in his early twenties—making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. He spent his summers in the south of France and the Italian Riviera—and his winters on the glorious beaches of Rio de Janeiro.

All was going well for Todd until one day five years ago. He was lying on Ipanema Beach and got bitten by an unidentified tropical insect—and just like that, four months later, he found himself on the waiting list for a heart transplant. In less than a year he was down to ninety-five pounds, and his five-foot ten-inch frame looked like a skeleton’s.

After Todd spent two long years on the waiting list, a six-foot six-inch lumberjack, who apparently had two left feet and an unusually short lifeline, fell from a California redwood tree and plunged to his death. And, as they say, one man’s curse was another man’s blessing: His tissue type was a perfect match for Todd.

Three months after his heart transplant Todd was back in the gym; three months after that he was back at full strength; three months after that, Todd became the biggest Quaalude dealer in America; and three months after that, he found out that I, Jordan Belfort, the owner of the fabled investment-banking firm of Stratton Oakmont, was addicted to Quaaludes, so he reached out to me.

That was more than two years ago, and since then Todd had sold me five thousand Quaaludes and given me five thousand more—free—in exchange for all the money I was making him in Stratton new issues. But as the profits on the new issues soared into the millions, he quickly realized that he couldn’t possibly reciprocate with Quaaludes. So he began asking me if there was anything he could do for me, anything at all.

I had resisted the impulse to have him beat up every kid who had looked at me wrong since the second grade, but after the three thousandth time of him saying, “If there’s anything I could ever do for you, even if it means killing someone, you just let me know,” I finally decided to take him up on the offer. And the fact that his new wife, Carolyn, happened to be a Swiss citizen made things seem that much more natural.

At this particular moment Todd and Carolyn were standing in my master bedroom doing what they always did: arguing! At my urging, the Duchess had gone into town to do some shopping. After all, I didn’t want her to see the very insanity that was now transpiring before me.

The very insanity: Carolyn Garret was wearing nothing but white silk panties and white Tretorn tennis sneakers. She was standing less than five feet from me, with her hands clasped behind her head and her elbows cocked out to the side, as if a policeman had just screamed, “Put your hands behind your head and freeze, or I’ll shoot!” Meanwhile, her enormous Swiss breasts hung like two overfilled water balloons slapped onto her thin-boned, five-foot two-inch frame. A lusty mane of bleached-blond hair went all the way down to the crack of her ass. She had a set of terrific blue eyes, a broad forehead, and a face that was pretty enough. She was a bombshell, all right—a Swiss bombshell.

“Tahad, you are zdupid fool!” said the Swiss Bombshell, whose thick accent dripped with Swiss cheese. “You are hutting me weeth zees tape, you ahhs-zole!”
Hurting me with this tape, you asshole.

“Shut up, you French wench,” replied her loving husband, “and stay fucking still, before I slap you!” Todd was circling his wife, holding a roll of masking tape in his hand. With each complete revolution, the $300,000 of cash already taped to her stomach and thighs grew that much tighter.

“Who do you call wench, you imbecile! I have the right to smash you one for making such a comment at me. Right, Jordan?”

I nodded. “Definitely, Carolyn—you go right ahead and smash his face in. The problem is, your husband’s such a sick bastard that he’ll probably enjoy it! If you really want to piss him off, why don’t you go around town telling everyone how kind and nice he is, and how he likes to lie in bed with you on Sunday mornings and read the
Times
?”

Todd flashed me an evil smile, and I couldn’t help but wonder how a Jew from Lefrak could end up looking so much like Fu Manchu. The simple fact was that his eyes had become slightly slanted and his skin had turned slightly yellow and he had a beard and mustache that made him a dead ringer for Fu Manchu. Todd always wore black, and today was no exception. He had on a black Versace T-shirt, with an enormous black leather V on the front, and black Lycra bicycle shorts. Both the shirt and the shorts hugged his heavily muscled body like a second skin. I could see the outline of a gun, a .38 snub-nose that he always carried, bulging out from beneath his bicycle shorts over the small of his back. On his forearms was a thick coating of coarse black hair that looked like it belonged on a werewolf.