The Wolf of Wall Street (41 page)

I finally spotted the Duchess sitting in an armchair. She was holding Carter, trying to give him his bottle. Once more, the Duchess looked gorgeous. Somehow she had managed to lose the weight in the thirty-six hours since she’d given birth, and she was now my luscious Duchess again.
Good for me!
She had on a pair of faded Levi’s, a simple white blouse, and a pair of off-white ballet slippers. Carter was swaddled in a sky-blue blanket, and all I could see was his tiny face poking out from beneath it.

I smiled at my wife and said, “You look gorgeous, sweetie. I can’t believe your face is back to normal already. You were still bloated yesterday.”

“He won’t take his bottle,” said the maternal Duchess, ignoring my compliment. “Channy always took her bottle. Carter won’t.”

Just then a nurse walked into the room. She took Carter from the Duchess and started to give him his exit exam. I was still packing the bags when I heard the nurse say, “My, my, my, what wonderful eyelashes he has! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such beautiful ones on a baby. Wait until he unfolds a bit. He’s gonna be awfully handsome, I bet.”

The proud Duchess replied, “I know. There’s something very special about him.”

And then I heard the nurse say, “That’s strange!”

I spun on my heel and looked at the nurse. She was sitting in a chair, holding Carter—pressing a stethoscope against the left side of his chest.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” replied the nurse, “but his heart doesn’t sound right.” She seemed very nervous now, compressing her lips as she listened.

I looked over at the Duchess, and she looked like she’d just taken a bullet in her gut. She was standing, holding on to the side of the bedpost. I walked over and put my arm around her. No words were exchanged.

Finally the nurse said in a very annoyed tone: “I can’t believe no one’s picked this up. Your son has a hole in his heart! I’m certain of it. I can hear the backflow right now. It’s either a hole or some sort of defect with one of the valves. I’m sorry, but you can’t take him home yet. We need to get a pediatric cardiologist up here right now.”

I took a deep breath and nodded slowly, vacantly. Then I looked at the Duchess, who was in tears—crying silently. In that very instant we both knew our lives would never be the same again.

Fifteen minutes later we were in the lower bowels of the hospital, standing in a small room filled with advanced medical equipment—banks of computers, monitors of various shapes and sizes, IV stands, and a tiny examining table, on which Carter was now lying naked. The lights had been dimmed and a tall, thin doctor was now in charge.

“There, you see it?” said the doctor. He was pointing his left index finger at a black computer screen, which had four amoebalike swaths in the center of it, two of them red, two of them blue. Each swath was the size of a silver dollar. They were interconnected and seemed to be draining into one another in a slow, rhythmic fashion. In his right hand he was holding a small device, shaped like a microphone, and he was pressing it against Carter’s chest and moving it in slow, concentric circles. The red and blue pools were echoes of Carter’s blood as it flowed through the four chambers of his heart.

“And there,” he added. “The second hole—it’s a bit smaller, but it’s definitely there, between the atria.”

Then he turned off the echocardiogram apparatus and said, “I’m surprised your son hasn’t gone into congestive heart failure. The hole between his ventricles is large. There’s a strong likelihood he’ll need open-heart surgery in the next few days. How’s he doing with his bottle? Is he taking it?”

“Not really,” said the Duchess sadly. “Not like our daughter did.”

“Has he been sweating when he feeds?”

The Duchess shook her head. “Not that I’ve noticed. He’s just not that interested in feeding.”

The doctor nodded. “The problem is that oxygenated blood is mixing with deoxygenated blood. When he tries to feed it puts a great strain on him. Sweating during feeding is one of the first signs of congestive heart failure in an infant. However, there’s still a chance he might be okay. The holes are large, but they seem to be balancing each other out. They’re creating a pressure gradient, minimizing backflow. If it weren’t for that, he’d be exhibiting symptoms already. Only time can tell, though. If he doesn’t go into heart failure in the next ten days, he’ll probably be okay.”

“What are the chances of him going into heart failure?” I asked.

The doctor shrugged. “About fifty–fifty.”

The Duchess: “And if he does go into heart failure? Then what?”

“We’ll start by giving him diuretics to keep fluid from building up in his lungs. There are other medications too, but let’s not put the cart before the horse. But if none of the medications work, we’ll need to perform open-heart surgery to patch the hole.” The doctor smiled sympathetically. “I’m sorry to give you such bad news; we’ll just have to wait and see. You can take your son home, but watch him carefully. At the first sign of sweating or labored breathing—or even a refusal to take his bottle—call me immediately. Either way, I’ll need to see you again in a week”—
I don’t think so, pal! My next stop is Columbia-Presbyterian, with a doctor who graduated from Harvard!—
“to take another echocardiogram. Hopefully, the hole will have started to close by then.”

The Duchess and I immediately perked up. Sensing a ray of hope, I asked, “Do you mean it’s possible that the hole could close on its own?”

“Oh, yes. I must have forgotten to mention that”—
Nice detail to leave out, slime bucket!
—“but if he doesn’t have any symptoms in the first ten days, then that’s most likely what’ll happen. You see, as your son grows, his heart will also grow, and it’ll slowly envelop the hole. By his fifth birthday it should be completely closed. And even if it doesn’t close completely, it’ll be so small that it won’t give him a problem. So, again, it comes down to the first ten days. I can’t stress it enough—watch him carefully! In fact, I wouldn’t take my eyes off him for more than a few minutes.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” said a confident Duchess. “There’s gonna be at least three people watching him at all times, and one of them is gonna be a registered nurse.”

Rather than going to Westhampton, which was a good seventy miles to the east, we headed straight to Old Brookville, which was only fifteen minutes from the hospital. Once there, our families quickly joined us. Even the Duchess’s father, Tony Caridi, the world’s most lovable loser, showed up—still looking like Warren Beatty, and still looking to borrow money, I figured, once all the commotion died down.

Mad Max led the vigil, quickly turning into Sir Max—assuring the Duchess and me that everything would work out fine; then he went about making phone calls to various doctors and hospitals without losing his temper once. In fact, there would be no sign of Mad Max until the crisis resolved itself, at which point Mad Max would magically reappear—making up for lost time with vicious verbal tirades and belligerent smoking strategies. My mother was her usual self—a saintly woman who prayed Jewish prayers for Carter and offered moral support to the Duchess and me. Suzanne, the closet anarchist, chalked Carter’s holes up to a government conspiracy, which included the doctors, who, for some inexplicable reason, were in on it.

We explained to Chandler that her brother was sick, and she told us that she loved him and that she was glad we decided to bring him home from the hospital. Then she went back to playing with her blocks. Gwynne and Janet stood vigil, too, but only after they’d recovered from six hours of hysterical crying. Even Sally, my lovable chocolate brown Lab, got into the act—setting up camp at the base of Carter’s crib, leaving only for bathroom breaks and an occasional meal. However, the Duchess’s dog, Rocky, evil little bastard that he was, couldn’t have cared less about Carter. He pretended nothing was wrong and continued to annoy every person in the house—barking incessantly, peeing on the carpet, pooping on the floor, and stealing Sally’s food from her dog bowl, while she was busy sitting vigil and praying with us like a good dog.

But the biggest disappointment was the baby nurse, Ruby, who came highly recommended from one of those WASPy employment agencies that specialize in providing wealthy families with Jamaican baby nurses. The problem started when Rocco Night picked her up from the train station, and he thought he smelled alcohol on her breath. After she’d finished unpacking her bags, he took it upon himself to search her room. Fifteen minutes later she was in the backseat of his car, being led away, never to be heard from again, at least by us. The only fringe benefit was the five bottles of Jack Daniel’s that Rocco had confiscated from her, which were now in my downstairs liquor cabinet.

The replacement nurse showed up a few hours later. It was another Jamaican woman, named Erica. She turned out to be a real gem—instantly clicking with Gwynne and the rest of the crowd. So Erica joined the menagerie and stood vigil too.

By day four Carter still hadn’t shown any signs of heart failure. Meanwhile, my father and I had made dozens of inquiries as to who the world’s foremost pediatric cardiologist was. All our inquiries pointed to Dr. Edward Golenko. He was the Chief of Cardiology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Alas, there was a three-month wait for an appointment, which quickly turned into a surprise cancellation the following day, after Dr. Golenko was made aware of the $50,000 donation I was planning to make to Mount Sinai’s Pediatric Cardiology Unit. So on day five Carter was on another examining table, except this time he was surrounded by an elite team of doctors and nurses, who, after spending ten minutes marveling over his eyelashes, finally got down to business.

The Duchess and I stood silently off to the side, as the team used some sort of advanced imaging apparatus—looking much deeper into Carter’s heart and with much greater clarity than with a standard echocardiogram. Dr. Golenko was tall, thin, slightly balding, and had a very kind face. I looked around the room…and counted nine intelligent-looking adults, all in white lab coats, all peering down at my son as if he was the most precious thing on earth, which he was. Then I looked at the Duchess, who, as usual, was chewing on the inside of her mouth. She had her head cocked in an attitude of intense concentration, and I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking, which was: I had never been happier that I was rich than right now. After all, if anyone could help our son it would be these people.

After a few minutes of doctor-to-doctor medi-talk, Dr. Golenko smiled at us and said, “I have very good news for you: Your son’s going to be just fine. The holes have already started closing, and the pressure gradient has eliminated any backflow between—”

Dr. Golenko never finished, because the Duchess charged him like a bull. Everyone in the room laughed as she threw her arms around the sixty-five-year-old doctor’s neck, wrapped her legs around his waist, and started smooching him.

Dr. Golenko looked at me with a shocked expression, his face slightly redder than a beet, and he said, “I wish all my patients’ moms were like this!” And everyone laughed some more. What a wonderfully happy moment it was! Carter James Belfort was going to make it! God had placed a second hole in his heart to balance out the first, and by the time he was five, both holes would be closed, Dr. Golenko assured us.

On the limo ride home, the Duchess and I were all smiles. Carter was sitting between us in the backseat, and George and Rocco were sitting up front. The Duchess said, “The only problem is that I’m so paranoid now, I don’t know if I can treat him the way I treated Chandler. She was so big and healthy, I never thought twice about anything.”

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t worry, sweetie. In a couple a days everything will be back to normal. You’ll see.”

“I don’t know,” said the Duchess. “I’m scared to even think what might happen next.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen next. We’re over the hump now.” And for the remainder of the ride I kept my fingers, toes, hands, legs, and arms crossed.

CHAPTER 32

MORE JOY

September 1995
(Five Weeks Later)

I
t was appropriate, I thought, for the Cobbler to be sitting on his side of the desk and wearing the proud expression of a man who had the world by the balls. For the calendar year 1996, we were shooting for $50 million in revenue, and each division was hitting stride simultaneously. Our department-store business was off the charts; our private-label business was booming; our licensing of the Steve Madden name was way ahead of schedule; and our retail stores, of which there were now nine, were making money hand over fist. On Saturdays and Sundays, in fact, there were lines out the doors, and Steve was becoming a celebrity of sorts, the shoe designer of first choice to an entire generation of teenage girls.

What
wasn’t
appropriate was what he said to me next: “I think it’s time to move out the Drizzler. If we get rid of him now, we can still take his stock options from him.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Anyway, if he works for us much longer, his options are gonna vest, and then we’re fucked.”

I shook my head in amazement. The true irony was that the amount of stock options the Drizzler owned was so minuscule that it didn’t matter to anyone, except, of course, the Drizzler, who would be rocked if his stock options were to simply vanish into thin air—a victim of the fine print in his employment contract.

I said, “You can’t do that to Gary; the guy has worked his ass off for us for over a year now. I’m the first to admit he’s a royal pain in the ass sometimes, but, still, you just don’t do that to one of your employees, especially one like Gary, who’s been a hundred ten percent loyal. It’s fucking wrong, Steve. And just imagine the signal it sends to everyone else. It’s the sort of shit that destroys a company’s morale. Everyone out there takes pride in their stock options; they make them feel like owners; they feel secure about their futures.”

I took a weary breath, then added, “If we’re gonna replace him, that’s fine, but we give him what he’s due, and a little bit extra, if anything. That’s the only way to do it, Steve. Anything else is bad business.”

The Cobbler shrugged. “I don’t get it. You’re the first one to make fun of the Drizzler, so why the fuck would you care if I take his stock options?”

I shook my head in frustration. “First of all, I only make fun of him so the day passes with a few laughs. I make fun of everyone, Steve, including myself and including you. But I actually love the Drizzler; he’s a good man, and he’s loyal as hell.” I let out a great sigh. “Listen, I’m not denying that Gary might’ve outlived his usefulness, and maybe it
is
time to replace him with someone with industry experience, someone with a pedigree who can talk to Wall Street—but we can’t take away his stock options. He came to work for us when we were still shipping shoes out of the back of the factory. And as slow as he moves, he’s still done a lot of good things for the company. It’s bad karma to fuck him.”

The Cobbler sighed. “I think your loyalty is misplaced. He’d fuck us in two seconds if he had the chance. I’ve—”

Cutting off the Cobbler, I said, “No, Steve, he wouldn’t fuck us. Gary has integrity. He’s not like us. He lives by his word, and he never breaks it. If you want to fire him, that’s one thing. But you should let him keep his stock options.” I realized that by using the word
should,
I was giving Steve more power than he deserved. The problem was that, on paper, he was still the majority owner of the company; it was only through our secret agreement that I maintained control.

“Let me talk to him,” said the Cobbler, with a devilish look in his eye. “If I can convince him to go peacefully, then why should you care?” He shrugged. “I mean, if I can get his stock options back, we can divide ’em up fifty–fifty, right?”

I dropped my chin in defeat. It was 11:30 a.m., and I felt so fucking tired. Too many drugs, I thought. And life at home…well, it hadn’t been a bowl of cherries lately. The Duchess was still a wreck over Carter, and I had basically thrown in the towel on my back pain, which haunted me twenty-four hours a day now. I’d set October 15 as a tentative date to have my spine fused. That was only three weeks from now, and the very thought of it terrified me. I would be undergoing general anesthesia—going under the knife for seven hours. Who knew if I’d ever wake up? And even if I did, who was to say I wouldn’t wake up paralyzed? It was always a risk when you underwent spine surgery, although with Dr. Green I was definitely in the best hands. Either way, I was going to be out of commission for at least six months, but then my pain would be gone once and for all, and I would have my life back. Yes, the summer of 1996 would be a good one!

Of course, I had used this as a rationalization to step up my drug habit, promising both Madden and the Duchess that once my back was fixed I would push the drugs aside and become the “real Jordan” again. In fact, the only reason I wasn’t stoned right now was because I was just about to leave the office and pick up the Duchess in Old Brookville. We were heading into Manhattan for a romantic night together at the Plaza Hotel. It had been her mother’s idea—that it would be good for us to get away from all the worry that seemed to have gotten the better of us since Carter’s heart debacle. It would be an excellent chance to rebond.

“Listen, Steve,” I said, forcing a smile, “I already have enough stock options and so do you. And we can always print more for ourselves, if we get the urge.” I let out a great yawn. “Anyway, do whatever the fuck you want. I’m too tired to argue about it right now.”

“You look like shit,” said Steve. “I mean that in a loving way. I’m worried about you, and so is your wife. You gotta stop with the Ludes and coke or you’re gonna kill yourself. You’re hearing it from someone who knows. I was almost as bad as you”—he paused as if searching for the right words—“but I wasn’t as rich as you, so I couldn’t sink as deep.” He paused again. “Or perhaps I sank just as deep, but it happened a whole lot quicker. But with you it could drag on for a long time, because of all your money. Anyway, I’m begging you—you gotta stop or else it’s not gonna end well. It never does.”

“Point taken,” I said sincerely. “You have my promise that as soon as I get my back fixed I’m done for good.”

Steve nodded approvingly, but the look in his eyes so much as said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The brand-new, pearl-white, twelve-cylinder, 450-horsepower Ferrari Testarossa screamed like an F-15 on afterburners as I punched down the clutch and slapped the stick into fourth gear.
Just like that
another mile of northwestern Queens zipped by at a hundred twenty miles an hour, as I weaved in and out of traffic on the Cross Island Parkway with a joint of premium-grade sinsemilla dangling from my mouth. Our destination was the Plaza Hotel. With one finger on the wheel, I turned to a terrified Duchess and said, “Don’t you just love this car?”

“It’s a piece of shit,” she muttered, “and I’m gonna fucking kill you if you don’t put out that joint and slow down! In fact, if you don’t, I’m not gonna have sex with you tonight.”

In less than five seconds the Ferrari was doing sixty and I was putting the joint out. After all, I hadn’t had sex with the Duchess since two weeks before Carter was born, so it had been over two months. Admittedly, after seeing her on the delivery table with her pussy looking big enough to hide Jimmy Hoffa, I hadn’t been too much in the mood. And the fact that I’d been consuming an average of twelve Ludes a day, along with enough coke to send a band marching from Queens to China, hadn’t done wonders for my sex drive.

And then there was the Duchess. She had stayed true to her word: Despite Carter remaining perfectly healthy, she was still on edge. Perhaps two nights at the Plaza Hotel would do us some good. I took one eye off the road and replied, “I’ll gladly keep the speedometer below sixty, if you agree to fuck my brains out for the entire night; deal?”

The Duchess smiled. “It’s a deal, but first you gotta take me to Barneys and then to Bergdorfs. After that, I’m all yours.”

Yes, I thought, tonight was going to be a very good night. All I had to do was make it through those two overpriced torture chambers and then I’d be home free. And, of course, I’d keep it under sixty.

Barneys had been nice enough to rope off the top floor for us, and I was sitting in a leather armchair, sipping Dom Perignon, while the Duchess tried on outfit after outfit—spinning and twirling deliciously, pretending she was back in her modeling days. After her sixth spin, I caught a pleasant glimpse of her loamy loins, and thirty seconds later I was following her into the dressing room. Once inside, I attacked. In less than ten seconds I had her back against the wall and her dress hiked up above her waist and I was deep inside her. I was pounding her against the wall as we moaned and groaned, making passionate love to each other.

Two hours later, just after seven, we were walking through the revolving door of the Plaza Hotel. It was my favorite hotel in New York, despite the fact that it was owned by Donald Trump. Actually, I had a lot of respect for the Donald; after all, any man (even a billionaire) who can walk around town with that fucking hairdo and still get laid by the most gorgeous women in the world gives new meaning to the concept of being a man of power. Anyway, trailing us were two bellmen, holding a dozen or so shopping bags with $150,000 of women’s clothing inside. On the Duchess’s left wrist was a brand-new $40,000 Cartier watch studded with diamonds. So far, we’d had sex in three different department-store dressing rooms, and the night was still young.

But, alas, once inside the Plaza, things began to quickly go downhill. Standing behind the front desk was a rather pleasant-looking blonde in her early thirties. She smiled and said, “Back so soon, Mr. Belfort! Welcome! It’s good to see you again!” Cheery, cheery, cheery!

The Duchess was a few feet to the right, staring at her new watch and, thankfully, still a bit wobbly from the Lude I’d convinced her to take. I looked at the check-in blonde with panic in my eyes and started shaking my head rapidly, as if to say, “Good God, my wife is with me! Pipe the fuck down!”

With a great smile, the blonde said, “We have you staying in your usual suite, on the—”

Cutting her off: “Okay then! That’s perfect. I’ll just sign right here! Thank you!” I grabbed my room key and yanked the Duchess toward the elevator. “Come on, honey; let’s go. I need you!”

“You’re ready to do it again?” she asked, giggling.

Thank God for the Ludes! I thought. A sober Duchess would never miss a trick. In fact, she’d already be swinging. “Are you kidding me?” I replied. “I’m always ready with you!”

Just then the resident midget came scampering by, in a lime-green Plaza outfit with gold buttons running up the front and a matching green cap. “Welcome back!” croaked the midget.

I smiled and nodded and kept pulling the Duchess toward the elevator. The two bellmen were still trailing us, carrying all our shopping bags, which I had insisted we bring to the room so she could try everything on for me again.

Inside the room, I tipped each bellman one hundred dollars and swore them to secrecy. The moment they left, the Duchess and I jumped on the king-size bed and started rolling around and giggling.

And then the phone rang.

The two of us looked at the phone with sinking hearts. No one knew we were here except Janet and Nadine’s mother, who was watching Carter.
Christ!
It could only be bad news. I knew it in my very heart. I knew it in my very soul. After the third ring I said, “Maybe it’s the front desk.”

I reached over and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Jordan, it’s Suzanne. You and Nadine need to come home right now. Carter has a hundred-and-five fever; he’s not moving.”

I looked at the Duchess. She was staring at me, waiting for the news. I didn’t know what to say. Over the last six weeks she’d been as close to the edge as I’d ever seen her. This would be the crushing blow—the death of our newborn son. “We need to leave right now, sweetie. Carter’s burning up with fever; your mom said he’s not moving.”

There were no tears from my wife. She just closed her eyes tightly and compressed her lips and started nodding. It was over now. We both knew it. For whatever reason, God didn’t want this innocent child in the world. Just why, I couldn’t figure out. But right now there was no time for tears. We needed to go home and say good-bye to our son.

Tears would come later. Rivers of them.

The Ferrari hit 125 miles per hour as we crossed over the Queens–Long Island border. This time, though, the Duchess’s take on things was slightly different. “Go faster! Please! We have to get him to the hospital before it’s too late!”

I nodded and punched down the accelerator, and the Testarossa took off like a rocket. Within three seconds the needle was pegged at 140 and still climbing—we were passing cars doing seventy-five as if they were standing still. Just why we’d told Suzanne not to take Carter to the hospital I wasn’t quite sure, although it had something to do with wanting to see our son at home one last time.