The Wolf of Wall Street

by Jordan Belfort

  I nodded but said nothing.

  After a few seconds of silence, Saurel realized that I was expecting him to come clean with me. “Very well, then,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Most of what was said in the bank was complete horseshit, as you Americans say. It was said for the benefit of Kaminsky and, of course, for the benefit of one another. After all, we must appear to abide by the law. The simple fact is that it would be suicide for you to have your name behind a numbered Swiss account. I would never advise you to do such a thing. However, I think it would be prudent for you to open an account with our bank—one that proudly bears your name for one and all to see. This way, if the U.S. government ever subpoenaed your phone records, you would have a plausible explanation for calling our bank. As you know, there is no law against having a Swiss account. All you would have to do is send us a small sum of money, perhaps two hundred fifty thousand dollars, which we would then invest for you in various European stocks—only the best companies, of course—and that would give you reason enough to have contact with our bank on a continuous basis.”

  Not bad! I thought. Plausible deniability was obviously an international obsession among white-collar criminals. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, trying to take the pressure off my left leg, which was slowly catching fire, and I casually said, “I see your point, and I might very well do that. But just so you know what kind of man you’re dealing with, the chances of me calling your bank from my own home are less than zero. I would sooner drive myself down to a pay phone in Brazil—with a couple of thousand cruzeiros in my pocket—before I allowed your number to appear on my phone bill.

  “But to answer your question, I’m planning to use a family member with a different last name than mine. She’s from my wife’s side, and she’s not even a U.S. citizen; she’s British. I’m flying to London tomorrow morning, and I can have her back here the day after tomorrow—passport in hand—ready to open an account at your bank.”

  Saurel nodded once and said, “I assume you trust this woman implicitly, because if you don’t, we can provide you with people who will use their own passports. These people are entirely unsophisticated—mostly farmers and shepherds from the Isle of Mann or other tax-free havens such as that—and they are one hundred percent trustworthy. Furthermore, they will not be allowed access to your account. But I’m sure that you have already taken this woman’s trustworthiness into consideration. However, I would still suggest that you meet with a man named Roland Franks.*3 He is a professional with matters such as these, especially in the creation of documents. He can create bills of sale, financial letters, purchase orders, brokerage confirmations, and almost anything else within reason. He is what we call a trustee. He will help you form bearer corporations, which will further insulate you from the prying eyes of your government and allow you to break up your ownership of public companies into smaller increments, to avoid filing any of the requisite forms for over five percent stock ownership. He would be invaluable to a man like you—in all aspects of your business—both foreign and domestic.”

  Interesting. They had their own vertically integrated rathole service. You had to love the Swiss. Roland Franks would act as a forger—generating documents that would support a notion of plausible deniability. “I would very much like to meet this man,” I replied. “Perhaps you can arrange something for the day after tomorrow.”

  Saurel nodded and said, “I will see to it. Mr. Franks will also be helpful in developing strategies, which will pave the way for you to reinvest or, for that matter, to spend as much of your overseas money as you so desire, in ways that will not be, as you say, red-flagged by your regulatory agencies.”

  “For instance?” I asked open-endedly.

  “Well, there are many ways—the most common of which is to issue you a Visa card or an American Express card, which will be tied directly to one of your accounts at the bank. When you make a purchase, the money will be automatically deducted from your account.” Then he smiled and said, “And from what Kaminsky tells me, you spend quite a bit of money on your credit cards. So this will be a valuable tool for you.”

  “Will the card be in my name or in the name of the woman I plan on bringing to the bank?”

  “It will be in your name. But I would recommend that you allow us to issue one to her as well. It would be wise to let her spend a token sum each month, if you follow my line of thinking.”

  I nodded in understanding. It was plainly obvious that having Patricia spend money each month would further support the notion that the account was actually hers. But I saw a different problem—namely, that if the card was in my name, all the FBI would have to do was follow me around while I went shopping and then walk into a store after I’d made a purchase and demand to see the credit-card imprint. Then my goose would be cooked. I found it odd that Saurel would recommend a strategy that I’d shot a broad hole through so quickly. But I chose to keep that thought to myself. Instead, I said, “In spite of my lavish spending habits, I still see that as a way to spend only a modest sum. After all, Jean, the transactions we’re contemplating are in the millions. I don’t think a debit card—as we call it in the U.S.—will make much of a dent in that. Are there other ways where larger amounts can be repatriated?”

  “Yes, of course. Another common strategy is to put a mortgage on your home—using your own money. In other words, you would have Mr. Franks form a bearer corporation and then move money from one of your Swiss accounts into the corporate account. Then Mr. Franks would draw up official mortgage documents, which you would sign as the mortgagee and receive the money like that. This strategy has two benefits. First, you will be charging yourself interest, which will be earned in whatever country you choose to form your overseas corporation. Nowadays, Mr. Franks prefers to use the British Virgin Islands, which tend to be very lax with their paperwork requirements. And, of course, they have no income taxes. The second benefit is in the form of a domestic tax deduction in the United States. After all, in your country, mortgage interest is tax deductible.”

  I ran that one through my mind and had to admit it was clever. But this strategy seemed even riskier than the debit card. If I were to put a mortgage on my home, it would be recorded by the Town of Old Brookville, which meant all the FBI would have to do is go down to the town and request a copy of my deed—at which point they would see that an overseas company had funded the mortgage. Talk about your red flags! Apparently, this was the more difficult part of the game. Getting money into a Swiss bank account was easy, and shielding yourself from an investigation was easy too. But repatriating the money without leaving a paper trail would prove to be difficult.

  “By the way,” Jean asked, “what is the name of the woman you will be bringing to the bank?”

  “Her name is Patricia; Patricia Mellor.”

  Saurel smiled his conspirator’s smile once more, and he said, “That is a fine name, my friend. How could a woman with such a name ever break the law, eh?”

  An hour later, Saurel and I had stepped out of the hotel elevator and were walking down the fourth-floor hallway on our way to Danny’s room. Like the lobby, the hallway’s carpet had the look of the retarded monkey, and the color scheme was the same sad mixture of dog-piss yellow and regurgitation pink. But the doors were brand-spanking new. They were dark-brown walnut, and they gleamed brilliantly. An interesting dichotomy, I thought. Maybe that was what they meant by Old World charm.

  When we reached Danny’s gleaming door, I said, “Listen, Jean—Danny is quite the party animal, so don’t be surprised if he’s slurring a bit. He was drinking scotch when I left him, and I think he’s still got some sleeping pills in his system from the flight over. But, whatever he sounds like, I want you to know that when he’s sober he’s sharp as a tack. In fact, he lives by the motto ‘If you go out with the boys you gotta wake up with the men.’ You understand, Jean?”

  Saurel smiled broadly and replied, “Ah, but of course I do. I could not help but respect a man who lives by such a phi
losophy. This is the way of things in much of Europe. I would be the last man to judge another based on his desire for the carnal pleasures.”

  I turned the key and opened the door, and there was Danny, lying on the hotel-room floor, flat on his back, wearing nothing at all—unless, of course, you consider naked Swiss hookers clothing. After all, he was wearing four of those. There was one sitting on his face, backward, with her tight little butt smothering his nose; there was a second mounted upon his loins, thrusting up and down. She was engaged in a ferocious kiss with the girl sitting on Danny’s face. There was a third hooker holding his ankles down in a spread-eagle position, and the fourth hooker was holding his arms down, also spread eagle. The obvious fact that two new people had entered the room hadn’t slowed them down a bit. They were still going strong—business as usual.

  I turned to Jean and took a moment to regard him. His head was cocked to one side and his right hand was rubbing his chin thoughtfully, as if he were trying to make heads or tails of what each girl’s role was in this sordid scene. Then, all at once, he narrowed his eyes and began nodding his head slowly.

  “Danny!” I sputtered loudly. “What the fuck are you doing, you deviant?”

  Danny wriggled his right arm free and pushed the young hooker off his face. He lifted his head and tried his best to smile, but his face was nearly frozen. Apparently he had gotten his hands on some cocaine too. “Ize zgezzing zcrummed!” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  “You’re getting what? I can’t understand a word you’re fucking saying.”

  Danny took a deep breath, as if he were trying to muster up every last ounce of manly strength, and he snapped in a staccato beat: “I…get…ting…scru…ummed!”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I muttered.

  Saurel said, “Ah, I do believe the man has said that he is getting scrummed, as if he were a rugby player of some sort.” With that, Jean Jacques nodded sagely and said, “Rugby is a very popular sport in France. It appears that your friend is, indeed, being scrummed, but in a most unusual fashion, although one I entirely agree with. Go upstairs and call your wife, Jordan. I will take care of your friend. Let’s see if he is a true gentleman and will be kind enough to share the wealth.”

  I nodded and then went about searching Danny’s room—finding and flushing twenty Quaaludes and three grams of coke down the toilet. Then I left him and Saurel to their own devices.

  A few minutes later I found myself lying in bed, contemplating the insanity of my life, when all at once I got a desperate urge to call the Duchess. I looked at my watch: It was 9:30 p.m. I did the calculation—4:30 a.m., New York time. Could I call her that late? The Duchess loved her sleep. Before my brain could answer the question, I was already dialing the phone.

  After a few rings came the voice of my wife: “Hello?”

  Gingerly, apologetically: “Hi, honey, it’s me. I’m sorry I called so late, but I’m really missing you bad, and I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.”

  Sweet as sugar: “Oh, I love you too, baby, but it’s not late. It’s the middle of the afternoon! You got the time change backward.”

  “Really?” I said. “Hmmm…well, anyway, I’m missing you really bad. You have no idea.”

  “Aw, that’s so sweet,” said the luscious Duchess. “Channy and I both wish you were home with us. When are you coming back, my love?”

  “As soon as I can. I’m flying to London tomorrow, to see Aunt Patricia.”

  “Really?” she said, slightly surprised. “Why are you going to see Aunt Patricia?”

  All at once it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be talking about this on the phone—and then all at once it occurred to me that I was getting my wife’s favorite aunt involved in a money-laundering caper. So I pushed those troubling thoughts aside and said, “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I have other business in London, so I’m going to stop in on Aunt Patricia and take her out for dinner.”

  “Ohhh,” answered a happy Duchess. “Well, send Aunt Patricia my regards, okay, sweetie?”

  “I will, baby, I will.” I paused for a brief moment, then I said, “Honey?”

  “What, sweetie?”

  With a heavy heart: “I’m sorry for everything.”

  “For what, honey? What are you sorry for?”

  “For everything, Nae. You know what I’m talking about. Anyway, I flushed all my Ludes down the toilet, and I haven’t done one since the plane flight over.”

  “Really? How does your back feel?”

  “Not too good, baby; it hurts really bad. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do. The last surgery made it even worse. Now it hurts all day long, and all night too. I don’t know—maybe all the pills are making it worse or something. I’m not really sure anymore. When I get back to the States, I’ll go see that doctor in Florida.”

  “It’ll work out, my love. You’ll see. Do you know how much I love you?”

  “Yes,” I said, lying. “I do. And I love you back twice as much. Just watch what a great husband I’m gonna be when I get home, okay?”

  “You’re already great. Now go to sleep, baby, and come home safe to me as soon as you can, okay?”

  “I will, Nae. I love you tons.” I hung up the phone, lay down on the bed, and began pushing in the back of my left leg with my thumb, trying to find the spot where the pain was coming from. But I couldn’t find it. It was coming from nowhere, and everywhere. And it seemed to be moving. I took a deep breath and tried to relax myself, to will away the pain.

  Without even knowing it, I found myself saying that same silent prayer—that a bolt of lightning would come down from out of a clear blue sky and electrocute my wife’s dog. Then, with my left leg still on fire, the jet lag finally got the best of me and I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE CONFESSOR

  Heathrow Airport! London! It was one of my favorite cities in the world, save the weather, the food, and the service—the former of which was the worst in Europe, the middle of which was the worst in Europe, and the latter of which was the worst in Europe too. Nevertheless, you still had to love the Brits, or, if not that, at least respect them. After all, it’s not every day that a country the size of Ohio, with a natural-resource base of a few billion pounds of dirty coal, can dominate an entire planet for more than two centuries.

  And if that wasn’t enough, then you had to be awed by the uncanny ability of a few select Brits to perpetuate the longest-running con game in the history of all mankind, namely—royalty! It was the most fabulous scam ever, and the British royals had done it just right. It was utterly mind-boggling how thirty million working-class people could come to worship a handful of incredibly average people and follow their every move with awe and wonder. Even more mind-boggling—the thirty million were actually silly enough to run around the world calling themselves “loyal subjects” and bragging about how they couldn’t imagine that Queen Elizabeth actually wiped her own ass after taking a dump!

  But in reality none of this mattered. The simple fact was that Aunt Patricia had been spawned from the very marrow of the glorious British Isles. And, to me, she was Great Britain’s most valuable natural resource.

  I would be seeing her soon, right after I cleared British Customs.

  As the wheels of the six-seat Lear 55 touched down at Heathrow, I said to Danny, in a voice loud enough to cut through the two Pratt & Whitney jet engines, “I’m a superstitious man, Danny, so I’m gonna end this flight with the same words I started it with: You’re a real demented fuck!”

  Danny shrugged and said, “From you, I’ll take that as a compliment. You’re not still mad at me for keeping a few Ludes off to the side, are you?”

  I shook my head no. “I expect that sort of shit from you. Besides, you have this wonderful effect of reminding me how truly normal I am. I can’t thank you enough for that.”

  Danny smiled and turned his palms up. “Heyyyy—what are friends for?”

/>   I smiled a dead smile back at him. “That aside, I’m assuming you don’t have any more drugs on you, right? I’d like to pass through Customs uneventfully this time.”

  “No, I’m clean—you flushed everything down the toilet.” He lifted his right hand up in the scout’s honor mode. Then he added, “I just hope you know what you’re doing with all this Nancy Reagan crap.”

  “I do,” I replied confidently, but deep down I wasn’t so sure. I had to admit that I was slightly disappointed that Danny hadn’t squirreled away a few more Ludes. My left leg was still killing me, and while my mind was dead set on staying sober, the mere thought of being able to numb out the pain with even one Quaalude—just one!—was a fabulous prospect. It had been more than two days since my last Quaalude, and I could only imagine how high I’d get.

  I took a deep breath and pushed the thought of Quaaludes back down below the surface. “Just remember your promise,” I snapped. “No hookers while we’re in England. You gotta be on your best behavior in front of my wife’s aunt. She’s a sharp lady and she’ll see right through your bullshit.”

  “Why do I even have to meet her? I trust you to look out for me. Just tell her that if something should happen to you—God forbid—she should take instructions from me. Besides, I wouldn’t mind roaming the streets of London a bit. Maybe I’ll go down to Savile Row, get a few new custom-made suits or something. Or maybe I’ll even go down to King’s Cross and check out some of the sights there!” He winked at me.

  King’s Cross was London’s infamous red-light district, where for twenty British pounds you could get a blow job from a toothless hooker with one foot in the grave and a raging case of herpes. “Funny, Danny, very funny. Just remember that you don’t have Saurel here to bail you out. Why don’t you let me hire you a bodyguard to take you around?” It was a phenomenal idea, and I was dead serious about it.

  But Danny waved me off as if I had a screw loose or something. “Stop with the overprotective crap,” he exclaimed. “I’ll be juuuust fine. Don’t you worry about your friend Danny! He’s like a cat—with nine lives!”